Page 10 of Shardless

“For the last time, Jay. I don’t have to pay. Meals are included in my rent. That was part of my agreement with Laurel.” Taly frowned, flicking the questionable piece of vegetable matter at the disgruntled cook. “And also, my water’s out again. Can I have the key to the shower down here?”

“No. People who don’t pay, don’t shower.” He didn’t wait for her reply as he trudged back through the open doorway that led to the kitchen.

Raising herself up slightly, Taly shouted at his retreating form, “It’s called rent, you jackass! I pay you rent!”

Jay waved his hand dismissively, all the while grumbling something about shardless that didn’t know their place.

Taly leaned back on the stool and studied the bowl in front of her. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon when she had gotten lucky with some basilisk meat at the Swap. Needless to say, she was starting to get a little hungry.

Maybe it tasted better than it looked?Crossing her arms and eyeing the bowl dubiously, she leaned forward and sniffed.

Nope. Rancid. It was like Jay was trying to give her food poisoning. Which, if she really thought about it, probably wasn’t too far off from the truth.

It was clear by now that she would probably have better luck foraging the woods outside of town for her breakfast than she would trying to convince the surly cook to give her something decent to eat. With a sigh, she left the untouched bowl where it was and exited the bar to continue on about her day.

Most people Taly passed in the street tried to pretend they didn’t see her, but every now and then, someone would smile in her direction—other shardless mostly, but some lowborn fey as well. Every time someone managed to catch her eye, she would give them a polite nod in reply.

To her right, a shop door abruptly closed. Then several more in quick succession. Conversations quieted, dropping to an uneasy hum.

Refusing to look behind her, Taly kept walking. There was only one thing that could inspire that much fear in people with nothing to hide. And as the street began to empty… she could hear it now. The faint clink of metal, drawing closer.

Ducking into a darkened alley, she pressed herself against the wall, willing her heart to settle as she watched the group of Sanctifiers pass by. Their shiny black chainmail glinted in the morning light, and each warrior had an enchanted ax strapped to his back. A retinue of Gate Watchers followed closely behind. Beneath the crimson cloaks draped across their shoulders, the unlucky few that had been assigned to babysit the group of mage hunters wore scaled leather armor. Each carried a rapier, the weapon that most shadow mages tended to favor.

A glimmer caught her eye in the alleyway behind her—a subtle twist in the way the morning light reflected off a stack of crates. That could onlymean one thing.

Pulling her pistol, Taly pointed it at the ripple of water magic. “I won’t miss. So, I suggest you take that two-bit water glamour and go rob somebody else.”

A low snigger echoed down the alley as the thief continued to creep towards her.

Taly fired off a shot at where she assumed the pickpocket’s feet to be. The boy yelped loudly as he fell out of the unraveling water glamour, and a stack of nearby crates toppled over on top of him. Blood streaked the ground. She had grazed his ankle.

Taly’s eyes flicked to the street and back. If this had been a normal pistol with a normal firing mechanism based solely on fire crystals, the shot would’ve been loud enough to draw the attention of the people passing by. But this wasn’t a normal pistol. No—Skye had made her this pistol for her birthday last year, and that arrogant highborn had somehow figured out a way to incorporate an air crystal into the firing mechanism. The gun had almost zero kickback, and the sound barely carried over the sharp clang of metal against metal coming from the sparring ring just around the corner.

“That’ll be your only warning shot,” Taly said evenly. The boy’s eyes widened as she leveled the barrel of her pistol at his face. He looked too clean to be a common Swap rat. That meant he was probably just some local lowborn kid out trying to cause trouble. The wound on his ankle was already healing—not as fast a highborn fey could mend himself, and certainly not as fast as a shadow mage, but the skin had already managed to repair itself so that only a small red welt remained.

Talycocked her pistol, readying her next shot.

But the boy was already scrambling backward, wrapping his magic around him as he tried to blend back into the shadows. While she couldn’t easily kill him, she could still make him hurt.

Taly smiled when she heard frantic footsteps careening down the alleyway in the opposite direction.

Re-holstering her pistol, she hid in the alley for a moment longer, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that the Sanctifiers were nowhere in sight. To her knowledge, there were no more time mages left in any of the worlds; they had disappeared along with their High Lady. But that didn’t stop the Sanctorum from findingsuspects. Fortune-tellers whose predictions were just a little too accurate. The random lowborn that did just a little too well at a carnival shell game. The Sanctorum was always looking under rocks and listening for rumors, always guarding against the possibility that the long-dead scourge might somehow resurrect.

Taly often found herself wondering what would happen if they ever found an actual time mage, how much blood would be shed once those old fears were given new life.

Too many lives had already been sacrificed to that cause.

Counting to three, then checking to make sure that the street was still clear, Taly casually stepped out of the alley and continued on her way.

The Swap was just ahead now. The old great house that quartered the bustling marketplace had started out its life as a minor baron’s mansion sometime before the Schism. In the aftermath of the great disaster, it had been used as a hospitaland then as a halfway house before it was finally condemned almost a century later. Any hint of luxury or extravagance had already been stripped away and sold well before Sarina decided to refurbish the structure and turn it into a market. The roof still had a few gaping holes and children still dared each other to venture into sections of the upper floors that were “haunted,” but somehow this decrepit monument had become the center of trade for their little community.

As she approached, a cacophony of voices echoed from beyond the gaping, door-less entry. Shardless, lowborn fey, and even a few highborn nobles all swarmed into the front hall of the crumbling estate.

Weaving in and out of the sea of bodies, Taly pushed her way to the back of the building. To her right, she could see that Yoru’s new assistant had received a fresh batch of wands. Beneath the wooden exterior, each wand was inlaid with crystal circuitry and programmed to execute a simple enchantment. When the young shadow mage flicked a small switch located at the base of the handle, a gale of fire shot out of the tip of the poplar wand in his hand, singeing a few innocent passers-by and earning him some angry shouts.

Then to her left, an air mage had set up shop. The woman looked young, but most fey looked young regardless of their age.Highborn,Taly thought. If the arched brows and sharp cheekbones didn’t give that away, the amount of magic she was throwing around certainly did. The mage levitated a few feet off the ground, and a group of people had gathered around her, applauding as she lifted several small childreninto the air.

Finally arriving at the back of the main room, Taly turned and made her way down a side hallway. It was still early in the day for most backroom vendors, but she knew Josiah had most likely set up shop hours ago. While he might not have been the most above-board contact, the old trader had a knack for finding things. Like shadow mages that adhered to moreflexiblecrafting policies.

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