AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I really liked holding you tonight,” I say with my eyes to the floor because letting those words escape was vulnerable enough. “Can I stay here?”
“My door’s been open since the day we arrived,” Wyatt says.
He leads me to the farthest corner of the library where a sleeping bag is hidden behind a waist-high bookcase with tomes organized by color, like a rainbow of literature. All the colors vanish as he switches off the light. We’re both wet, so we strip down to our underwear, and I change into one of Wyatt’s dry shirts; he got me in his clothes like he wanted. We share the one pillow with our lips a breath apart and hold each other as phoenix song plays outside like nature’s greatest playlist. Except I’m too wired to think about sleeping.
Today, I went back in time so I can save lives, and tonight, I changed mine.
Forty-Nine
Forevermore
MARIBELLE
It’s late when Roxana gets us to Saffron Square in Brooklyn. Tala sends her away since she’ll be vulnerable in the market.
We go down into the abandoned train station where seven years ago construction was halted after wild basilisks kept swallowing workers whole and chewing the steel tracks between their fangs. I remember Mama saying how much she didn’t envy the celestials contracted with killing the basilisks, and how outraged the Save the Serpent activists were.
I had no idea there was a whole underground market operating here. It’s always a strange feeling when visitors know your city better than you do, but Tala has done business here before.
There’s graffiti all over the walls: a celestial telekinetically strangling a basilisk with the train tracks; green blood dripping from a slit palm and forming a girl and her serpentine shadow; a subway entrance shaped like a snake’s mouth with SHED spelled in fangs; and the biggest piece is of a basilisk with windows trailing down three flights of steps like a train that’s delivering us straight to the market.
“Welcome to the Shed,” Tala says as she puts on her mask, its beak still broken from our fight, and she passes shoppers with her shoulders high.
Glowing lanterns hang above the twenty or so booths, though it’s mercifully still dark enough that people don’t seem to be recognizing me. It’s close to one in the morning and there are easily a hundred people down here. How many are here to save the world and how many want to keep ruining it? I’ve smelled worse in my life, but the way someone has gone heavy on incense to cover the worst of humans is still horrible.
On the flight over, we reviewed which four ingredients we need, and Tala has already begun haggling with vendors. I admire a candleholder that’s shaped like a crystal skull as Tala trades one of her tranquilizers for saliva from a hibernating shadow-star hydra.
We need the shedding of a blood-plumed basilisk, and we can’t think of anyone better to ask than the man who has contacts that make his eyes look like slits and tattooed arms that are supposed to make him look scaly; it’s not impossible that he’s a specter, but personally, I think he’s overcompensating. On the shelves behind him are snake eyes, some as large as apples, in glass jars; jewelry made of fangs; and hideous snakeskin shoes that thankfully went out of fashion years ago. Tala points to what looks like a belt made of rubies on the third shelf. She trades the last gem-grenades in her bag for the dead skin.
Surrounded by all these herbs and chemicals and essences, I’m impressed with how good alchemists are at understanding the properties of ingredients to create effective potions. Anyone can brew if told what to throw inside a cauldron, but discovering everything yourself is a true skill. It must’ve been awful growing up with Luna as a mother, but if it meant that Sera learned the craft at a much faster rate, then I’ll make sure her childhood effort wasn’t in vain by using this shadow-star hydra saliva and blood-plumed basilisk shedding and everything else against Luna and her army.
We ask around for the soil that Sera named cumulus powder. One woman thinks we’d have an easier time finding fresh str
awberries growing in a December snowfall. But a man who has seen better days directs us to a woman named Gemma toward the end of the line.
The booth has lanterns hidden behind the purple curtains, making it glow like a sunset. The vendor looks to be about Mama’s age, and she’s wearing a black veiled dress as if she’s returned from a fancy funeral.
“Are you Gemma?” Tala asks.
She nods as she counts her cash. “What do you need?”
“Soil from a high mountain. Maybe from Aconcagua or Everest.”
Gemma looks at us for the first time and grins. “What do a Halo Knight and a wanted Spell Walker need with soil of that nature? Putting together a potion?”
“That’s none of your concern,” I say.
“No, but I can’t help but be nosy when people come looking for rare items. That soil is often used for purging creature toxins, though it’s hard to get your hands on some without those blasted hydras biting them off,” Gemma says. “It’ll cost more than cash.”
Tala reaches into her bag. “I created bladed stars that explode in lightning.”
Gemma laughs. “Young lady, I applaud your innovation, but that doesn’t interest me. What else do you have?” She looks between us, but the only item of potential interest I’m carrying is the oblivion dagger. And I’m not trading a surefire way to kill June for the chance to make a potion to disempower her. Gemma’s eyes land on Tala again. “I’ll take your jacket.”
“No,” Tala says. “Take my crossbow instead.”
“Once again, your weapons do not excite me. I’m well protected already.” Gemma’s eyes suddenly burn like an eclipse. My psychic sense triggers as two extra arms punch out of Gemma’s sides, reach behind her, and pull out two wands from underneath a blanket. “Now, a Halo Knight’s jacket is a collector’s item that several clients of mine would take an interest in.”
“This jacket was given to me by my parents, who were murdered weeks ago.”
