Aliyah

True to her word, Kionah was waiting in the kitchen. Her hair was loose, still wet. She’d changed into a rough-spun dress the colour of ripe apricots and her hands were cupped around a mug of softly-steaming tea.

…Pretty, Aliyah thought warily, but in a different way now. All that softness hiding knives.

The table held only the bowl of oranges and a fresh teapot and cups now, and the weapon had been cleared away. Shasta was frying eggs on the stovetop. Aliyah edged into the room and sat down, eyes roving over the cupboard and the coolbox and the lamp shining softly overhead. No immediate signs of danger. The kitchen looked so cosy for something that nestled over a den of—smugglers? Thieves? Assorted people, but criminals all the same.

“Kionah,” Shasta said, cracking a third egg into the pan. “I recall you saying that Aliyah here is in fact, not your mysterious benefactor.”

“Yes,” Kionah said, taking a slow sip of her tea. “Mysterious benefactor was a princess. She’s dead now.”

“I really cannot tell if you are being serious,” Shasta said without turning around. He flipped one of the eggs over. On the other side of the kitchen, a shining brass contraption dinged, and the starchy scent of freshly-cooked rice wafted over.

“I am completely serious. Alhena of Shadowsong took a liking to me on her last summer’s leave and offered me a contract. Aliyah, would you like some tea?”

“Yes, thank you. Um, but—” She hesitated. “Wait, but what—how? With Alhena? I had always heard she served as a, what’s the word, a diplomat? No offense meant, but…if you lived down here and err…robbed people, then how did you even get to her?”

Kionah shot her an arch look as she reached for the teapot and poured her a cupful. “Oh, I got to her the usual way, with a backless dress and a false smile. Even diplomats frequent houses of grey repute.” She snickered into her own mug. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about her as the beloved Penumbral Harpist, but—”

“I thought you’d left the Lily House?” Shasta broke in.

“Mm, I returned for a short while after certain circumstances made it so. Maia—anyhow. There was a function of sorts. A smile and fluted drink in each hand,” Kionah said, clicking her fingers. “That easy, or—that unlucky, in retrospect. Perhaps she was just looking for anyone with a half-pretty face and a working pair of ears. Though I like to think that my skill with the knife charmed her.”

Skill with the knife indeed, Aliyah thought, remembering that flash of shortsword in the faery tunnels. If she pictured a knife in Kionah’s hand, sleek blade twirling through quick fingers—yeah, she could understand the appeal. Maybe the former princess had anticipated needing the help, or maybe she’d had a thing for danger. Aliyah didn’t exactly relate, but she did understand.

“Unlucky?” Shasta asked, bringing the eggs over to the table. “For her, you mean? Why is this so-called princess dead?” He dipped away to fetch plates, cutlery, the pot of rice from the cooking contraption in the corner.

“Executed for treason.”

Shasta frowned, his brow furrowing as he slid the plates in front of them. “You’ve lost me. Start from the beginning.”

Kionah sighed and began speaking of how she had been asked to accompany Alhena back to Shadowsong in exchange for several handsome sums, of being told to ingratiate herself into the court and to keep an ear out for particular news about the Magicians.

Aliyah’s attention lapsed as Shasta served her a portion of rice, flecked with finely-chopped herbs and pieces of some other, unidentifiable grain. The egg was noticeably larger than those back in Shadowsong, cooked such that the yolk was still half-liquid. She devoured the meal, listening with half her attention on how Kionah described the Magicians and their politics between hasty bites of the food. Was this Glister cuisine, then? It wasn’t half-bad.

“And the thing is,” Kionah said, “the Magician prince was bad news. A new participant in court with a lot of power and frankly, quite awful ideas. Their battle strategy shifted to one of preemptive strike. Alhena did not wish to risk them draining half the castle dry to root out what they would consider invaders. Eventually, she found out about the gemstone mining and assumed—needless to say she was right—that the Hive would retaliate if disturbed.”

“Not like our Glister friends, I’m guessing.”

“No, no alliance at all. Neither party knew the other existed.”

He whistled softly under his breath. “Didn’t know the old kingdoms held with such crazy ideas. And Aliyah, was it? Where do you come in?”

“I, uh. My mentor—” And at that, she choked up. Ships spiraling out of the sky, she thought as the words stuck in her throat—ships trailing tails of black smoke, and red sails burning. “—my mentor. He, uh, arranged things so that I’d go with Kionah.”

Kionah shot her what was probably a pitying look. “Yes. I would hardly have survived, otherwise.”

Shasta drummed his fingers over the tabletop. “So, Aliyah, what do you do? Not of our ilk, yet you came all this way. Curious.”

“It wasn’t like she knew,” Kionah said before she could answer. “And she’s a Healer.”

She froze, and denial sprang up onto her tongue mere heartbeats later. “No, I’m not. I’m definitely not.”

Shasta blinked, leaned back, sipped his tea. “Well, which is it?”

“I’m not one,” Aliyah said. “Really. I wasn’t even a real apprentice. I can’t do anything impressive.”

“Healers aren’t that impressive by nature,” Shasta said dryly.

“Shasta, you don’t understand,” Kionah broke in, shaking her head. “Shadowsong’s Healers are different, not just jumped-up apothecaries. The stories are true—mostly. They don’t just do herbs and poultices and the occasional wake-up spell; they can heal things—really heal. They move flesh, make illnesses disappear in an instant. Though, they only cater to the royals and the highborns. I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself.”

“Now that’s a little more interesting,” Shasta said, raising a brow. “Kionah, are you sure that didn’t hit your head on the way in?”

Kionah lifted her chin and bristled visibly. “What about that is so unbelievable to you?”

“Oy, I might not be an Academy brat, but I still have common sense.” He tapped the side of his head. “If these so-called Healers in your mysterious kingdom have learned these storytale abilities, then what’s stopping any harebrained scholar from doing the same? We’d have hordes of them running around by now, little brats slinging spells for blood clots and heart-stops. Goddess knows the territory would be a bigger beast than it is now.”

“Look, no one knows, okay? Shadowsong does have a Library, though—a huge one, a proper one by all accounts. Or more likely, it’s the Magicians; they certainly have a tight grip on the kingdom.”

Aliyah felt sick. Library. Magicians. Neither of those words brought good memories to mind.

“Well, Aliyah?” Kionah continued. “Did Saar-Salai ever use a spell on you to unlock your Healing powers? Ancient ancestral artefact, maybe?”

“No,” she said, and felt herself tremble ever-so-slightly. “No, the only thing I did to learn was read books and practice and almost die in the Higher Library and—I’ve already told you this. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ah,” Kionah said quietly. “I apologise.”

Aliyah reached for her lukewarm tea and gulped it down, barely tasting it. “I’m not a real Healer, and I don’t know any more than you do.”

“What can you do?” Shasta asked.

“Nothing, right now, except keep myself together.”

“We’ve been through a lot on our way here,” Kionah said. “Got attacked by faeries. I had to lend her some extra magic.”

“You lent her magic,” Shasta said, shooting Kionah an incomprehensible look. “Really?”

Kionah scowled. “It was an emergency.”

“Curious,” Shasta said. “I am very interested to see what you can do once you’ve recovered, Aliyah. So, Kionah. What did you get out of it in the end?”

“I got tortured,” she scowled. “Oh, and I got away with the equivalent of ten thousand Glister coppers, but all in all, it wasn’t worth it.”

“You’re looking remarkably well for someone who’s been tortured,” Shasta mused.

“Healers,” Kionah said by way of explanation. She scraped up the remaining rice on her plate. “Felt like I was going to die, swear on the old man’s grave.”

“Well now I’m really curious,” he mused. “You said you lent Aliyah some magic?”

Kionah looked up suspiciously, halfway through shoveling the last spoonful into her mouth. “…Yes? And?”

“Could you lend her a little more? Just enough for the sake of a demonstration.”

“Hell no,” said Kionah. “I’m dead on my feet. I’m planning to—hm. Pass out first, wake at dawn, grab coffee, check up on my old haunts. Ugh, and I really need some new lenses. If you’re so curious, you do it yourself.”

“Consider it if I offer to pay for the coffee?”

“No.”

“Hm,” he said, glancing back over. “So, Aliyah. How much magic would you need to perform a little miracle?”

“You haven’t even asked me if I’d agree,” Aliyah said, clenching her jaw. “I’m not some wind-up toy.”

Shasta winced and scratched at his chin. “Sorry about that; the way Kionah’s described it though, it does sound fascinating. Do understand, this is new magic to me. Some high claims indeed. So I’m skeptical. I would compensate you a small sum for a demonstration, if that would suit you.”

“Just the loaned magic is fine,” Aliyah said as her attention drifted to the itch on her arm. “…I’ve been meaning to try something, anyway.”

“Of course,” Shasta said, holding out his hand. “Say so when it’s enough.”

She reached out, laid her palm over his, and braced herself as the magic started to flow.

It felt odd. Not unpleasant, but odd. If Kionah’s magic was floral light and honey-plain, then Shasta’s was like a red-gold layer of cast-off leaves encasing a fluid core of salted water. It flowed sluggishly up her arm; there was no prickle, no discomfort. The magic felt less cultivated, less potent overall—far more dissonant. But enough.

“That’s all I need,” she said, flexing her fingers as she pulled away. She raised her right arm and rolled the sleeve up so that the faery-mark was visible. “Watch here.”

She used the magic to outline a patch over her skin, bordering the mark with a small margin to spare. Applied numbing. Then, she stripped the skin down to the hypodermis. The extraneous cells burst and shriveled. They sloughed aside to almost nothing, revealing not-quite raw flesh beneath.

Shasta jerked back as if stung; Kionah gave a little half-scream before leaning closer to look at the wound. Shasta stared for a moment, before following suit.

It did look rather unpleasant, she admitted to herself. But at least she had determined that the faery-mark didn’t go more than skin deep. She bit her lip in concentration and healed it; capillaries reconnected and fresh cells budded in seamlessly, so as to not leave a scar. Blood-bone-slurry headache nudged at her temples; this was detail work, at which she’d never been highly proficient. But the area was small enough, and she pulled through. The skin healed over clean and smooth, as if it had not been touched at all—

But wait. What the—

The faery-mark was fading back into existence, grey lines darkening into black, settling back to exactly where it had been before. She scanned through the cells of her skin, sending a fine dragnet of magic through the area, hunting for any change in biochemical composition, any inky pigment that she could purge. But no—it was just embedded magic, and most of it undetectable at that.

Aliyah swore under her breath. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“Ah,” Kionah said. “Impressive. And unfortunate.”

“Interesting,” Shasta said, staring at her arm. “Though it could be an illusion.”

“Oh knock it off,” Kionah said. “I cut my hand open and she fixed it. It’s real.”

“So you say. Aliyah, would you object if I nick my hand a little to experience this for myself?”

Aliyah blinked down at the faery-mark, which was once again beginning to itch. She wondered if pouring more numbness towards it was wise, whether it would help at all.

“Sure,” she said, discreetly brushing small scatterings of dead skin onto the floor. “Why not? Please make it a small one, though.”

Shasta held up a finger and furrowed his brow in concentration; silver spell-fire licked up the side of one finger and hardened into the shape of a blade. The glow faded, and suddenly there was what looked like a real knife in his grasp. He drew the conjured blade over the back of his hand and opened a shallow cut without so much as a wince of discomfort.

“Here,” he said.

She pressed her fingers to the side of the cut and sealed it shut. That burnt through the rest of the magic she’d borrowed from him, and a little of Kionah’s too. Oh, well. She was too busy feeling sullen about the faery-mark to care.

Shasta took his hand back and ran a fingertip over where the scratch used to be, as if expecting the skin to reopen. Then he dug a circular cut-out of thickened glass from his pocket, about the size of his palm. The edge was etched with engravings—runes? Or runes in a different language?—that seemed to squirm and wriggle the harder she tried to focus on them. He held the makeshift lens up to his eye and peered at the spot on his palm. He frowned, then whistled, soft and slow.

“Told you so,” Kionah said, leaning back and crossing her arms.

Shasta frowned, touched the back of his hand once more, and looked up. “Aliyah,” he said slowly, “I’d like to offer you a job.”

Aliyah simply stared as she turned his words over in her head. This…part-teahouse proprietor, part-gunrunner, he was asking her to help him? Join him?

“…Excuse me?” she asked, mouth going dry.

“A job,” Shasta repeated. “I would buy your loyalty.”

“What?” she asked, letting her disbelief bleed into her tone. The hard-edged silhouette of the weapon on the kitchen table blazed to the forefront of her mind. “No? You don’t even know if I’m capable of anything useful. I’m not going to join your—your drug den, or smuggling ring, or whatever it is.”

“Not join. Assist.”

“That’s the same thing. Look, I—I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you do, what you’re planning—”

“Give it consideration, Aliyah. Do you have other ties in the city?” he asked, with a far-too-knowing look on his face. “I didn’t think so. We don’t get much by way of Shadowsong.”

“Hold on just a second,” Kionah interrupted. “You don’t get first dibs the moment you change your mind.”

“Dear Kion, you’ve known me for long enough. Why would you tell me the truth and not expect me to offer?”

“I was hoping that we could work together and—”

Work together? Aliyah noted with a spike of alarm.

“Hey now,” Shasta interrupted. “If you were hoping to lay claim to your companion and use her as a proxy to bargain for aid, you’re sorely mistaken. What do you have to offer her? You’ve barely more than a hundred crests to your name; you said so yourself. Think that’ll last you very long?” He sighed and shook his head, the very picture of mock-remorse. “Aliyah, it seems to me that Kionah is working under the delusion that she owns you and your particular skill-set.”

Kionah bared her teeth in the approximation of a smile. “Shut it.” She turned to Aliyah. “He’s all talk. Money alone won’t buy you safety.”

“Money and a few forayers might,” Shasta said. “We have real protection at hand if we need it. Kionah, though…” He made a half-playful gesture, tilting his hand back and forth.

Kionah snarled something uncomplimentary-sounding under her breath.

Aliyah froze, heart pounding with alarm as she glanced between the two. They didn’t sound aggressive, exactly, but there was something about this that she didn’t like. She looked past the kindness shown, the food and magic given, the synchronous physical attractiveness acting as a social cushioning, of sorts.

Shasta was a criminal, and a fairly prolific one from the looks of it. Kionah, for all of her help and the proffered honey-soft magic Aliyah had taken from her, was a criminal too. And there was something else, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something akin to having her fate tossed back and forth like a tarnished copper off the street. Something like…banter over the churning uncertainty of her future.

Ah, yes—the tone of bartering for fruit at the market. Cardainne and Giltyrzar and Soltani. People with more power than her making decisions that could ruin her life.

It was the court all over again—she had to get away. It crashed into her with absolute certainty: the knowledge that she had to get out. She had to leave. Run. Hide. Now.

Right now.

“No,” she said. Panic climbed up her ribcage like it was a ladder, squeezing her lungs tight with each breath. “I’m not just going sit here and let you intimidate me.”

She stood up and shoved her chair back. The legs screeched against the tile.

Shasta stood up and grabbed her by the arm. “Whoa, easy there—”

Strong fingers tightened around her wrist. Her adrenaline spiked, and she vasodilated blindly. It was weak and sloppy magic, but it was enough. She jerked out of his loosening grip and bolted out of the kitchen.

Kionah yelled something—she didn’t bother to parse what.

She stumbled out of Shasta’s quarters and down the stairs, darted down into the main room of the teahouse, scrambling helter-skelter around groups of lounging figures—some turned to stare, though none moved to stop her—and burst out into the street.

Invisible hands squeezed around her throat. Her alveoli were crushing inwards. The beginnings of a headache thrummed at her temples.

She took off in a random direction, wheezing at the rising stitch of subcostal pain in her side. She sent an aborted burst of magic to fix it, before realising that she didn’t have much extra to spare. Running dry, like before. No Kionah to help her now. She ran up a set of back-alley stairs, around several corners, blundered through a dying patch of garden.

There were no real thoughts now, no time to think; her head hurt and all she knew was that she had to get away—

She was vaguely aware of the fact that it had been a long while since she’d had a panic attack this bad. If she could only pause for a moment, then maybe she could fix things, slow her breathing, flush her synapses free of fear-chemicals. But no—it never worked out like that, beyond a certain point. She couldn’t really think beyond a blurry awareness that bad things were happening, that all was not as it should be.

By the time she came to her senses, she was completely and utterly lost. This was some kind of abandoned alleyway, no different to the rest of them. She waited, elbow propped against a wall, shivering and panting for breath. Her head felt heavy and sore; spellcaster’s headache, and too much of it. Her skin was numb all over, as if she had retreated a layer deeper into her body, ancillary neurons holding on by a thread. Slowly, she tried to retrace her steps, still thinking mostly-wordless thoughts. Anything coherent was something along the lines of, I’ve really gone and screwed it up this time.

“Heya,” someone said. “You lost, miss?”

She whipped her head around, heart rate jolting once more.

A girl slouched comfortably against the alley wall behind her, dressed in a lumpy jacket and patchy trousers. She tipped her cap, eyes glinting like chips of flint from beneath the brim. Was this just some passer-by? Aliyah hadn’t heard her arrive.

“You look awfully lost,” the girl said. “Be needing some help?”

“I’m fine,” Aliyah said automatically.

The girl kicked off the wall. “You sure, miss? Cause those clothes of yours look awfully nice. Merchant-like, yeah? You ain’t from around these parts, are you?”

Something clicked in the back of her mind—the chime of an alarm—seconds before the girl’s mouth broke into a too-sharp grin.

Aliyah turned and ran.

Footsteps thumped close behind. Aliyah didn’t dare turn her head to see how close—which was just as well, because someone jumped out to block the way ahead.

The alley was too narrow for her to dodge; the ambusher lunged and tackled her down. She screamed as she hit the ground, jarring her shoulder—fingers closed around her wrists, wrenching them behind her back.

“Got ‘er!” the ambusher crowed.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins; more weight bore down on her arms as one of the ambusher’s hands left her wrists to delve into her pocket—from within came the sizzle of flesh. The ambusher screamed, whipping his hand back out—he’d touched Zahir’s warded keys. The weight on her back and arms faltered, and she twisted out from under the ambusher so hard she almost pulled a muscle.

The ambusher swore and grabbed for her again as she scrambled to her feet. She screamed reflexively and kneed him in the groin—and made it to her feet this time, to a litany of curses. Different hands snagged into the back of her shirt—the girl, caught up to her now. She managed a weak vasodilation, just barely. The hands slackened, and she closed her hand into a fist—thumb on the outside, just like in the diagrams—and struck blindly. Hand hit flesh; the girl screamed. She didn’t pay it any mind—she was already running away.

===

Eventually, she made it out of the alleys, bursting into a main thoroughfare host to a milling crowd. She panted for breath, barely registering she was safe for several moments. Then she followed the crowd, because where else would she go? Thankfully, she didn’t spot any armoured criminal-mercenaries here; the people were just ordinary people, going about with their work-bags and grocery baskets. Peddlers shouted from corners, but with none of the pomp and gaudy pageantry of the market merchants back up on the surface. She wandered through the crowd, shaking all the while, sure that she must stick out like a day-old bruise—but few people so much as glanced at her. She made it halfway down the street before turning off into some sort of garden-park.

Flickering paper lanterns hung from drooping branches. Lush, dark grass blanketed the grounds. A wooden bench sat off to the side of the path, empty and inviting. It was as good a sanctuary as she was going to get. She sat, put her head in her hands, tried to think and forget at the same time.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Safe now. Mostly.

What had come over her? She blinked back inexplicable tears. It wasn’t even the encounter in the alley that gouged lines of trepidation into her insides: it was what had gotten her there in the first place.

It had started because of Shasta’s hand around her wrist, of course. But it was more than that: it was the feeling of drowning in new air, an irrational fear of the city and its heaving seas of strangers. It was the lingering stress of recounting her tale to Kionah and thus, remembering it fully. Shadowsong had never felt like home to her, but at least she could pretend, back then. It was not home, she reminded herself. She had precious little to miss. Perhaps that was part of why she’d agreed to Zahir’s plan at all. So thoughtless. She almost hated him, for being right about the Magicians.

And now, she was adrift. Everything hurt, in a distant sort of way.

Was it because she missed Rana? Perhaps that was the reason she felt like her heart was being crushed into pieces; sweet, clever Rana, who she had wasted too much of her life being jealous of—whether pining over her or simply her extensive list of admirable qualities, she still wasn’t sure. Or was it simply the loss of what she knew? The safe and the familiar; castle walls, lessons in Zahir’s tower, a chat at the end of the day?

She shied away from that train of thought and shivered, suddenly aware of the cooling sheen of sweat over her skin, and how light her attire was. Where could she go, now? Certainly not back to the teahouse, even if she remembered the way back. Think, Aliyah. She still had the nausea-keys in one pocket and a pouch of money in the other. Though it was not the local currency, it was minted from decent metal; surely it could buy her a night of rest at an inn.

Intent resolved, she picked herself up off the bench and wandered further through the park, passing wilted flowerbeds and dried-up fountains, until she came to another larger street once more. She needed to rest. Her head still pounded with the vestiges of overextension and her feet ached; hadn’t they been walking since dawn? It was hard to tell what hour it was now, in the gloom of Glister-beneath.

Weaving her way anxiously through crowds, she spotted a familiar-enough sign. It depicted a bed and fireplace, and the words ‘Plum Dove Inn’ had been etched into a corner like an afterthought.

She stepped into the cramped vestibule and bought herself a room for the night. The sour-looking innkeeper raised an eyebrow at the Songian crown that she offered, but he bit it on the corner and took it anyway, without giving her any change. She had the distinct impression that she had overpaid severely—a crown was not a small amount, or at least it hadn’t been back in Shadowsong—but there was no point in arguing it now, was there? It wasn’t like she knew where to find a money changer here. And she was tired. She was so very, very tired.

The room was bland and safe. She locked the door behind her, climbed into the bed, and slept.