Page 17 of The Shadow Path
There was a stall selling comic book T-shirts and another selling vegetables. There were fishmongers with scales on the backs of their hands, and a thin fae woman sat under a tent surrounded by a stack of books, some of which appeared to be reading themselves.
Once again, Carys was overtaken by the ordinary strangeness of everything in front of her eyes.
“Looks like most of the more… interesting stalls have closed up for the day.” Duncan fell into step beside her. “You happy, Cadell?”
“I’ll be happy when we get to King Dafydd’s estate.” His eyes scanned the street in front of them, sweeping back and forth as a red fire glowed at his throat. “Surely you feel it, human. Even though you’re mundane.”
“Mundane,” Laura said. “My all-time favorite word. Cadell, you do know how to make a girl feel special.”
“I was talking about the blacksmith. There is nothing mundane about you.” Cadell’s eyes never stopped scanning, and he stepped in front of a short rocky-skinned vendor who walked toward Carys, holding a bright paper flower. “No,” the dragon growled.
“Rude.” The small troll backed away and disappeared behind a table draped in brightly dyed wool.
“There’s no need to be hostile,” Carys said. “He was just offering me a flower.”
“Nothing in this market is offered freely,” Dru said. “The dragon is right. He probably smelled your coffee and was going to try to pickpocket you.”
Duncan looked at Carys. “You didn’t.”
“Listen, I have heard your warnings about introducing geographic anachronisms,” Carys said. “But whatever crazy things are about to happen to me, I am not facing them without coffee again.” She put her hand on the contraband in her inside pocket, the prize she’d been hiding from Cadell. “I have enough instant to last me and Laura for a week. Don’t test me.”
“I knew you were my best friend for a reason.” Laura grasped Carys’s hand again.
“Do you see the bridge?” Dru pointed to a steeply arched stone bridge that crossed the river. “That’s our way across the Cye Bourne.”
They climbed stone stairs and walked up and over the bridge, stopping at the peak of the arch to survey what they had just passed over.
Duncan smiled at her. “London looks a little different here, doesn’t it?”
Carys smiled and nodded. “Yeah. A little bit.”
Instead of skyscrapers and townhomes, the London of the Shadowlands was a flat city of wooden buildings and thatched roofs. Two- and three-story buildings hugged the banks of a massive, wide river that twisted and flowed slowly toward the sea.
“The Cye Bourne is only one of the rivers that flows into Great Tamis.” Dru leaned on the edge of the bridge and looked into the distance. “There it is, Carys Morgan. The oldest god of Anglia.”
Flowing steadily through the middle of the city, the Tamis River slugged along, bordered by thick reeds and rock walls that shored up embankments on either side.
There were wide pathways and markets like the one they’d just passed through, and in the distance, poking its head fromthe low wooden buildings, stood a great stone tower that overlooked the heart of London.
Carys looked down at the slow-moving Cye Bourne as fishermen in wide, flat boats threw out nets and poled slowly downstream. Small fae creatures with bright wings fluttered from one side of the river to the other, and otters played in the thick green verge.
“We should keep walking,” Cadell said. “We’re starting to attract attention.”
Dru pulled a black cloak up and over his head. “Come then. Just on the other side of the bridge, there’s a fork in the road.”
As they crossed over the bridge and saw the wide green embankment, a few market stalls selling morning snacks to passersby, Carys saw that Dru hadn’t been joking.
She nearly laughed out loud.
Past the bridge there was an intersection of two paths, one that led into a dense forest and another that led farther along the river on the other side of the Cye.
And at the juncture, there was a large stall selling brass cutlery.
Forks. There were forks in the road. Someone had a sense of humor.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Duncan growled. “He didn’t.”
“Who didn’t?”
