Page 46 of Daughter of No Worlds

My heartbeat quickened in my chest, and my fingers tightened of their own accord.

“Is it amazing?” I murmured, the words slipping from my lips without my permission.

“Oh, no. It’s horrible,” Max replied. “You’ll love it.”

He drew the final line of the Stratagram, and the world snapped into a thousand pieces.

I was expecting it this time, but when we landed in the Capital, I still found myself clutching Max’s arm much harder than I had when we left. I staggered against his shoulder as the ground seemed to rise up and slam against me. For a few horrible seconds, my senses smeared together in shades of grey. They returned one-by-one. Sound came first.

Specifically, the sound of Max snickering at me.

I released my grip.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” I shot back, too quickly.

We stood in the corner of a bustling cobblestone square. Buildings lined narrow streets, packed together like mosaics. Decorations adorned even the smallest ones, stone lions peering over door frames or delicately carved vines creeping across windowsills. And the people…There were peopleeverywhere.People in all styles of dress, wearing anything from torn up work clothes to floating chiffon gowns. People of every color, every age, all so densely packed that their shoulders brushed each other. If the crowd bothered anyone, no one showed it.

I raised my eyes further to see the Palace looming over it all — those knifelike peaks more striking than ever from down here, slicing into the faint mist of the hazy coastal sky. Just beyond it, the dual Towers lifted all the way into the clouds in two ethereal columns of gold and silver.

My lips opened, but I had momentarily lost my grasp on my new language. Words dissolved somewhere between my awe at the scale of it all and the panic that rose in my chest at themuchness.I had never been so close to so many people at once. Ever.

“I know,” Max grumbled, reading my face. “That’s why I don’t come here. That, and, in a city of a few hundred thousand people, it’s only a matter of time until you run into someone you don’t want to talk to.”

His eyes lingered off somewhere in the crowd, and I wondered if he had already found one such person. There were probably alotof people that Max didn’t want to talk to.

“I’m not made for this. Let’s get out of here. Ascended, I don’t remember this square beingthisbad.”

He started off through the crowd. As we moved through the sea of people, I smoothly slid my arm through his. I had done this for purely practical purpose, but the startled look he gave me was just sodelightfulthat I pushed a little closer just because I wanted to see how he’d react. It was possibly the first time I had seen an expression on his face that went beyond either deadpan grumpiness or cocky satisfaction.

“What?” I smiled at him. “If I become lost, I will never be found again.”

To my disappointment, that startled expression melted away as quickly as it had appeared. He merely narrowed his eyes and said, “Sometimes you’re unintentionally poetic.”

“Nothing unintentional,” I replied, coolly.

Untrue, but he didn’t have to know that.

The crowd let up somewhat as we skirted along the edge of the square and glided down a side street, so narrow that we disappeared into the shadow of the buildings on either side. The buildings changed as we walked, growing slightly less pristine and slightly less straight. The type of people we passed evolved, too — those elegant gowns were fewer and fewer, replaced by men in sloppy clothes leaning over easels or women in bright colors tending to potted flowers. One man that we passed wore a long, emerald green coat that nearly touched the ground, and a parrot the exact same shade of green — aparrot!— perched on his shoulder.

At that, I whipped my head around to look at Max, my face splitting into a grin. “Did yousee—”

“It’s not the strangest thing you’ll witness in this city today.” A little, amused smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.

He extracted his arm from mine. I was a little surprised at how much I missed it as my hands dropped to dangle awkwardly at my sides.

“Here.” Max turned to a little storefront. At first glance, it looked closed. Dusty drapes covered the wide glass windows, the sign above them empty. Still, he didn’t so much as hesitate as he opened the door, letting me go first.

The heels of my boots echoed on the dim wooden floor, the sound bouncing up to caress the rafters that cut across the tall ceiling. Light streamed through large, dirty windows, catching the dust that hung in the air like mist.

The space was large and mostly empty. At first, I thought it was unoccupied. That is, until my gaze fell to the far corner, where all of that emptiness and cool shadow gave way to a splash of warmth. Ostentatious couches and armchairs sat at haphazard angles, spattered with patches of color. In between them stood a long, dirty wooden table, which was covered with glittering metal pieces. Scattered throughout all of this furniture were various canvases and sculptures — faces and hands and eyes that stared blankly back at us.

And there, among all of this, were two figures. One of them, a short woman in a loose, paint-spattered white top and plain trousers, turned to us as we entered. Her eyes fell to me first, and she looked as if she were about to tell me where to go — nowhere good. Then, Max wandered in beside me and her expression brightened. “Max! I’ve been wondering where you’ve been. Was starting to think I’d be better off selling off everything I’ve saved for you.”

“Fun things, or work things?”

As Max and I approached the living area, it grew harder and harder to pry my eyes off the sculptures that surrounded us. They were grotesque and beautiful. One consisted of dozens of gnarled, bodiless hands all reaching to some unseen point. A few of the less disturbing ones reminded me of some of the figures lining the shelves of Max’s house.

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