A sprinkle of wide-eyed people bow at the waist as he passes, their gazes strictly averted.
Cainon makes for a large building packed between two much smaller ones, a wooden sign hanging from its thatched awning:
“Keep her out while I secure our rooms. This is no place for a lady,” he bellows over my head, glancing at me before swinging the door wide, spilling the smell of sweat and smoke and the lilting tune of a lone fiddle that’s snipped off the moment he slams the door shut behind him.
Rage boils my blood.
I charge forward, clutch the doorknob, twist, pull—
A large, weather-beaten hand slams against the wood.
Frowning, I whip around, but Gun just holds my fervid stare with a narrowed look that hits like a sledgehammer.
“He’s got my sack.”
“It’ll be safewith our High Master.”
I huff out a joyless laugh and slide down the wall until I’m crouched. Head tipped back, I stare across the courtyard. “I don’t believe in that word,” I mutter, watching people go about their evening business.
None of them seem to notice they’re in the presence of the child-survivor—an invisibility I’ve chased my whole life. Hard to appreciate with my mind so tangled up in the fact that Cainon has all my vulnerabilities lumped over his shoulder.
“If I move off this door and sit on that bench right there so I can smoke my pipe,” Gun drones, pointing to the bench bolted to the wall beside me, “are you going to shove your way in the door like a bull and announce yourself to a group of drunken cane growers?”
“I can’t move that fast.”
“Don’t believe you.”
Chuffing, I drop the rest of the way to the ground, landing hard on my ass, and stretch my legs in front of me as a show of good faith.
Wind stirs, filling the busy courtyard with a swirl of the sweet steam pouring from a giant chimney across the way. It sticks to my skin and sugarcoats my lips as I watch a circle of kids play knucklebones—their eyes carefree and chests full of laughter.
Gun pushes off the door and strides past, lumps himself on the bench, and pulls a leather pouch from his side satchel. “Anything special in that sack?” he asks, tamping something sage green into his pipe. He sparks a match, ignites the contents, and puffs on the end while I think of my diamond pickaxe, the talon, Rhordyn’s pillow slip ...
Special—noxious—inflammatory.
Mine.
“You could say that.”
He grunts, takes another puff, and blows out a thick cloud of white.
Again, the bones scatter, followed by hoots and howls as one of the kids beats at his chest with victorious fists.
Gun sits forward, elbows on his knees. “What’s that boy munching on?”
“Which one?”
“Ourone.”
I follow his gaze, finding Zane crouched in the shadowed awning of a house on the opposite side of the courtyard—cheeks full, fist clenched around a stick staked through the middle of a big, red apple.
My lips almost curl into a smile. “Toffee apple.”
“I didn’t give him any coin …”
Shit.“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
