Page 54 of The Book That Held Her Heart

Carlotte stamped on the floor. “It’s solid! Let’s go and see what else we can touch! Maybe they’ll have food…”

“We can’t just lose ourselves in all this.” Livira waved her free hand at the dampness. “Yolanda and Leetar will never find us.”

Carlotte shrugged. “That creepy girl can take care of herself. She’ll be invisible in this stuff in any case. And Leetar…I’m sorry, I know you like her, and she’s Meelan’s sister and everything, but yawn. Even her family weren’t rich enough to buy her a personality. I mean—” She broke off, noticing how Livira was looking at her. “They’re standing right behind me, aren’t they?”

Livira was sorely tempted to say yes. “Yes.”

Carlotte spun round to face the empty mist. “Oh, you bitch!”

“Even if I didn’t like her, and I do a bit, and even if she was boring, which she might be, we can’t just aband— Stop it. They aren’t standing behind me.”

Carlotte continued to stare wide-eyed at the mist over Livira’s shoulder for a few more moments, then gave it up. “All right, we can wait a little while. But not long. I haven’t eaten in years, and I’m hungry!”

Livira retreated to the portal, wondering if she should go back and where it might take her. A sudden thought hit her. “You didn’t let go of Leetar’s hand, did you?”

“No!” Carlotte looked shocked. Livira couldn’t tell if it was fake shock or the real thing. “It did get kind of rough in there though!”

“It did?” Livira had been stepping into the light one instant, stumbling from the portal the next.

“It did.”

The sound of people approaching forestalled any further discussion. Male voices, raised in heated debate, both loud and strangely muffled.

“We should move,” Carlotte said. “Quickly.”

“Why?” Livira had come to find her book, which might prove difficult without speaking to anyone or even being seen.

“Do you know what the local punishment for witchcraft is?” Carlotte asked. “In my city they just threw them off the plateau, and I always said that was stupid because if they really were witches, they might be able to fly.”

“I don’t see—”

Carlotte thrust a pointing finger towards the glowing portal.

“We should move.”

Ten yards proved sufficient, even with her vision extending not much further than the reach of her arm, to tell Livira she was in a city. She stumbled over a kerb, stepped in a wet gutter, and slipped in something nameless. They passed a doorway then a window holding a span of remarkably flat glass, and then another doorway between windows of a more familiar sort through which warm light spilled. She smelled ale, and the chant of a rowdy song challenged the fog.

“In here!” Carlotte reached for the door. “Maybe they have food!”

Much as she shared Carlotte’s desire to plunge into some warm place and be fed, they had no money, no idea where they were, and no plan. “Not here. Somewhere quiet.”

Carlotte looked ready to argue, but behind them the approaching men seemed to have missed the existence of the portal entirely and were still at their heels. Two tall figures loomed through the glowing mist.

“Quickly!” Livira pushed Carlotte onwards.

They passed two more shops. From one hanging sign Livira read,Markam Makram’s Fine Folios. “Bookshops?” She glimpsed the answer through the window of the next: well-stacked shelves inviting inspection.

“This way?” Carlotte paused at a corner and turned to face the side street. “We might find a meal more easily somewhere less educational.”

Livira glanced back. The pursuit, if it had been a pursuit, seemed to have ended. The men might have been diverted into the tavern. She peered down the street Carlotte had chosen, and after a moment of indecision, nodded. “This way.”

If you love someone, let them go. Except when that would be really stupid, like in a crowd and they’re two and you’re their mother.

Uncommon Sense, by Margery Taylor

Chapter 25

Arpix

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