Page 49 of Turncloak

“Rules are rules, and—”

“Doing things by the book doesn’t necessarily mean doing them right.” The gold lanterns on either side of the open windows flared into wilder, hotter flames, as though responding to the emotions of the powerful Wielder in the bed. “Especially when the very people who wrote the rules are corrupt.”

“Did everyone know about Dematus except me?”

“Who said anything about Dematus?”

“Karvas, then.”

Nissa raked a hand through her oily hair. “There is something crooked about the new captain. I don’t think you were transferred off the Bloodmoons because you were too close to it. I think you were transferred because you’re too good at your job.”

“Maybe so, but—”

“Hells,” Nissa all but spat. “If Tiernan was trapped in a deadly undercover assignment with no one on the outside left to believe him, wouldn’t you want me to help you extract him? What do you care most about? What is lawful, or what is right?”

“As a future Grand Arbiter, I have to say what is lawful.” Auria dipped her chin, feeling anything but proud of her answer.

“Fuck you, Auria.”

The pure vitriol in Nissa’s voice stung Auria like acid. She fought the urge to cry afresh—it would only piss Nissa off more. “We are never going to be able to bring down the Bloodmoons with the likes of Karvas and Dematus at the helm. To make a real difference in this city, this country, I need to rise through the ranks, effect change on a higher level. And to do that, I have to be flawless.”

Nissa shook her head, disgusted. “It could be decades before you earn the Highcloak—if you ever do. Are you suggesting we just let Saffron rot until then?”

“I’m not suggesting we do anything. You can and should help her. But I’ve been ordered to stay away from the Bloodmoons, and that’s what I plan to do.”

“Fair enough.” Nissa slumped back against her pillows, curling her fingers around a phantom achullah. “Tiernan died a coward, and you always were made for each other.”

Auria blinked, stunned by the depths to which her rival would stoop in the name of landing a blow. “Saints, you’re a vicious little cunt.”

Nissa laughed, then, a bitter, rolling thing. “Wow. The great Auria Marriosan, swearing like a sailor?” She closed her eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to look at Auria any longer. “Fetch me Jebat, will you? I need someone with a spine to know the truth about Saffron Killoran.”

25

• • • •

Vari Merkt

If Saffron never saw another boat again for as long as she lived, it would be too soon.

Seasickness was too meager a word for what was happening to her insides. She’d been fine on the riverboat sailing up to Port Ouran all those weeks ago, but crossing Assassin’s Bay in a small catamaran was another matter entirely. She’d retched over the edge for the better part of an hour, dry-heaving when her stomach had finally emptied, and even now, her feet firmly planted on dry land, her head was dizzy and her legs were made of mist.

Mersina rose up beyond the port like a lump of glittering coal. Built mostly from mahogany and basalt, the most notable part of the architecture was what it lacked: spires and obelisks and purple domes. There was no religion here, no Saints or Augurs or old gods. It was a city-state, technically, though state was perhaps an overly generous description.

The northern harbor was crammed with ships of all heights and hues—gleaming white, night black, bloodred, rusted brown, and the precise deep blue of the Sleepless Sea. Mersina was where most pirates docked after their raidings and smugglings, refueling magic wells in raucous pleasurehouses, tying themselves to whipping posts in the streets to turn their new magic into liquid gold, stuffing their bank vaults with all the treasure they could not risk sinking.

Saffron wore her scarlet cloak instead of her shabby black one, believing it would be better to masquerade as predator rather than prey, determined not to mark herself as an easy victim. But while the border control officials in Aredan had been skittish at the sight of her, few in Assassin’s Bay seemed remotely interested.

The cobbled ground swaying and canting beneath her, Saffron gripped her wand tighter and set off toward the heart of the city. She’d memorized the route to the wand market—the Vari Merkt—back in Aredan, not wanting to mark herself as a tourist. The moment she got lost in a place like Mersina—a vicious labyrinth of black stone and blacker hearts—was the moment she became vulnerable.

The very walls of the city smelled metallic, bloodied, and the cracks between buildings seemed malevolent, as though they would greatly enjoy devouring their victims whole. Every body that passed hers, every cloak that skimmed her own, made her tighten. She witnessed no fewer than fourteen pickpocketings and two murders. It was deeply frightening and oddly invigorating.

Half an hour later, despite a few wrong turns, Saffron found the Vari Merkt.

Rather than sprawling around a leafy central plaza, like Vallin’s Cherrymarket, the Vari Merkt clung to the shadows like a vampiric fog. There were countless black markets in Mersina—it was rarer to find a legitimate one—but it was the Vari Merkt Saffron wanted, because it had a reputation for flogging untested and possibly cursed wands to criminals who’d been blacklisted by the International Guild of Wandmakers. The only way to identify it was by a crimson line of cobbles painted down the center of the street in the shape of a wand.

Saffron’s heart leapt when she saw the distinctive red stripe, swiftly followed by a pitted feeling in her stomach as a cruel-glared man without a cloak eyed her up like a piece of meat. She hurried farther down the street, away from his ravenous stare.

The market stalls were a hodgepodge of low folding tables and spread blankets, the most elaborate of which benefited from pale, ragged canvas tents and awnings overhead. Every table and blanket was covered with wands. Some in boxes, some loose. Some so ragged and rotten that they surely could not be functional, some so ancient and unusual that they should be tucked away safely in a museum.