Page 59 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“Robbin’ you.” The child winced and reached up to try to share the load with both arms. “Thought you were drunk.”

It took Clovis a few moments to understand what that meant. “I’ve never been drunk.”

She looked around. The mist concealed everything save the glow of the portal. She lowered the child to the ground, then pulled her in the direction of the shimmering circle. “Have you touched this?”

“Have I touched the wall?” The human girl eyed her with less fear than a canith three times her height and nine times her weight should inspire. “You sure you’re not drunk? You were asleep in the gutter. And you’ve got no money.”

Clovis’s hand went to the hilt of her sword in sudden panic and relaxed a little on finding she still had it. “You can’t see this?” She set her fingers to the middle of the circle of shimmering light set into the wall.

“I can see it,” the girl said.

“You don’t find it odd?”

“Why would I find a brick odd?” The girl frowned, tried to pull free, then stared up at Clovis. “Maybe you ate fligar mushrooms? ’Cos you’re acting really weird.”

“What city is this?”

“Like that.”

“What city?” Clovis shook the girl.

“New Kraff! New Kraff!” the girl shouted. “Stop hurting me!”

Clovis released her grip and the ragged child scampered away to be lost with the others in the mist. Clovis stood, considering the portal. It seemed that just as the Exchange and its doorways often played games with perception, going so far as to translate both languages and appearances to meet expectations, it also disguised its exits, at least to those in the places they led to. Children were inquisitive in the same way that locusts were hungry. The only way a band of street urchins would not have investigated the portal was if they had been unable to see it.

Muffled sounds reached her. Knowing herself to be in a human city, Clovis resisted the impulse to draw her sword. Cutting a child in half would likely not recommend her to the locals. And it would disappointArpix too. She inspected the bitemark in her finger and snorted. The girl had spirit.

She moved cautiously along the paved street, sniffing the damp air. A great number of scents laced the mist. Many of them made her stomach rumble, others variously intrigued or repelled. None were familiar. As a whole, the city smelled neither good nor bad. It was something complex and new. Therefore dangerous.

She sniffed for traces of the others. Her brothers would be fine, but Arpix…despite his wisdom Arpix was an innocent in many ways. She felt that their ignorance complemented each other, his expertise lying where she lacked the most, and hers where his was absent.

The road sloped. Clovis chose “up.” She passed several doors and shuttered windows. Thirty yards on, an adult human passed her in the street, little more than a darker blot in the enfolding grey, paying no heed to her height. Twenty more yards took her to a crossroads. Another long inhale brought more confusion, and the faintest rumour of something known. She twisted her head this way and that, sniffing.

“Hey!” A figure swerved to avoid her. “Watch where you’re going.”

Clovis stared at the retreating shape until the fog swallowed it, too shocked to take offence, and in truth the near collision had been her fault. “A canith…”

The humans’ indifference to her hadn’t been due to the Exchange’s illusions. The small girl and the passing adult shared the city with canith. Clovis put her surprise aside for later and sniffed again. “Arpix?” It was possible. It was also possible that the intensity of her desire to find him was playing tricks on her.

With nothing else to suggest a direction, Clovis followed her nose. The sniff of Arpix was probably a figment of imagination, but that made it no more likely to be the wrong choice.

The path she took led her higher. The mist thinned. Sunlight set the remnants glowing. The city, built of stone and brick, rose around her, impressing her with its architecture. The streets began to fill, or perhaps the citizens had been there all along, concealed under a grey blanket.

“…mercenary…”

“A striking one!”

Clovis turned towards the speaker who had raised his voice for her benefit. He was one of three canith in a doorway, all male, all of them in uniform, all with the projectile weapons Arpix called ’sticks slung across their backs, and sabres at their hips.

“Come to join the potentate’s liberation?”

“No feast’s complete without rats waiting in the wings.”

“She’ll get her crumbs, that one. Look at the evil eye she’s giving us!”

All three of them smirked and elbowed each other, as if the idea that Clovis might be a danger had never occurred to them.

Clovis walked on. Another sniff confirmed her suspicion. Arpix had been this way. For the first time Clovis found herself grateful that he’d been unable to have a decent wash for five years. She picked up her pace, weaving her way up a more crowded street.

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