Before he can get in a follow-up question, the stableman rattles out, “Well, you’ve got him under control,” pushes past, and all but bolts off.
Eugene looks to the messenger. “What was that about?”
But the messenger only shrugs and bows. “No clue. Good day to you, sir.”
“Huh.” Eugene waits until the messenger’s gone and, as far as he can tell, no one’s close enough to eavesdrop, then asks under his breath, “Was that guy bothering you?”
Max shakes his head, though he does blow a puff of air in the direction the stableman went.
“Then what gives? Should we be concerned?”
The stallion just tosses his head again and keeps pawing the ground.
Eugene leans on the door, glancing around. The stableman’s long gone. “Yeah, this whole place is weird. That’s the second time someone acted like they’re hiding something from me.” Then he holds up the stableman’s embroidered hanky. Generally he’s tried to leave picking pockets behind, but desperate times, desperate measures. After all, Maximus has a very particular set of skills, scent tracking among them. “Want to find out what?”
It takes a bit of maneuvering. First Eugene takes Max for “a walk” around the stables just to look for the old man, but when the trail leads out toward the palace gate, Eugene has to shift tactics. He approaches a stable hand mucking out a stall. “Excuse me. Do you know who’s in charge of saddling up my friend here? The princess will probably want to go for a ride when she returns.”
It’s a blatant lie, but it gets Eugene what he wants when the young woman sets aside her shovel and peers around. “Should be Master Sulian, sir, but he said he had to run an errand. I can see to your mount.”
The man’s name is Sulian, then, and heisthe stable master. This all comes in handy when Eugene rides Max through the gates and politely declines a guard escort by claiming he’s meeting Master Sulian in the city below—he just went on ahead, didn’t you see him?
Max’s nose takes them down into the city proper, which, from what Eugene can tell, isalsocalled Astera, because somehow they thought giving a city and a nation-state the same name wouldn’t be confusing at all. Once they’re out of sight of the palace walls, Eugene dismounts and lets Max lead him on foot, winding through an imports market with everything from overseas textiles to bushels of rice and dried beans.
It’s distinctly bizarre to wander around a placeliterallyout of a storybook.The Tales of Flynnigan Riderdescribes how the rooftops are shaped almost like squashed bells, and he can see the flare and curve of the timbers around him; in the book,the districts are laid out like starbursts around central plazas, and as they move through the vendors’ stalls, Eugene finds narrow streets branching out from the marketplace.
But the book didn’t say anything about the structure in the middle of the plaza. He can’t tell if it’s just a statue or a long-inactive fountain; a marble figure in robes stands atop a pedestal, its arms outstretched, with dull bronze stars heaped in its open palms. A dry basin rings the pedestal, rimed over in dead leaves and the faint accumulated crud of disuse.
In the book, the streets sparkled. The stone walls shimmered like pearls. The shingles glowed like sea glass in the sun. The palace lives up to that, but down here—well, Eugene knows better than to expect a fairy tale, but he can almost see the ghost of that splendor. As Max takes them away from the market and down a lane, they pass cracked cobblestones, mildew creeping up plaster, missing shingles. More and more storefronts are boarded up; more and more glances are swiftly averted, passersby hurrying along. Even in Eugene’s orphanage days, he remembers idly kicking a barrel at the greengrocer’s while Solena chitchatted with the clerk. Here, the only place people linger is in the long line for a clinic.
It feels like a hole worn into the tip of a sock, too small to put a toe through but impossible to ignore. Something’s gone stale in Astera, and for too long.
Max finally comes to a stop at another abandoned shop in a deserted alleyway, sniffing before he gives a decisive whicker. A signpost sits barren over a barred door, the front windowmostly papered over. Frowning, Eugene steps closer to peer at the entrance—and is abruptly yanked back by the collar.
He finds himself, unfortunately not for the first time in his life, inundated with the hot oaty dank of horse breath as Max hauls him around the corner of the building and then across the alley. A month ago this might have inspired more protest; now Eugene obliges, if for no other reason than the payoff from following Max’s instincts tends to be worth the slime left on his shirt collar.
A quiet clank and rattle sounds from the derelict shop.
Sure enough, when Eugene ventures a look…he sees Master Sulian’s silver braid stark against the man’s retreating back as he hurries away from the seemingly abandoned shop front.
This is officially moving from the “weird” to “deeply suspicious” column.
Once Sulian’s rounded a corner, Eugene steps out—
Only for Max’s teeth to clamp down on his collar once more.
“He’s gone,” Eugene hisses. Max lets out a whuff of dissent and drags him back.
Another figure, cloaked and hooded, enters the alleyway from the other end. Eugene goes very still. There’s a familiar rhythm to their gait, a well-worn walking stick gliding along in time with their right leg; he remembers the thump of it on the orphanage floorboards every morning before the smell of porridge flooded the room. Even beneath the hood, he recognizes the glimpse of a pale narrow face and short-cropped steel-gray hair.
Solena Vald reaches the abandoned storefront, then casts a furtive look around. Eugene and Max flatten themselves to the wall out of sight.
The clank and rattle sounds again. When Eugene dares to peer around the corner…Solena’s gone.
Max doesn’t stop him this time, so Eugene knows the coast is clear as he darts to the window and peers through a gap between papers. There’s no sign of Solena inside, or anyone at all besides at least five generations of spiders competing for cobweb real estate. Dust covers every square inch, from empty tabletops and scattered chairs to what appears to be the store’s original sign propped against a counter. If he squints, Eugene can just make out letters on it…H,E,R,B…
Herbert & Fitz.
For the second time in the last hour, he goes completely still.
