Page 34 of Sonnets and Serpents
“Light isn’t the problem,apta. It’s the exponential rise of violence at night. Most of the slave trafficking doesn’t happen at high noon.”
She reared back. “There’s ... there’sslaveryhere?”
“It’s actually a Cronese trade invading on Pravish territory. Regardless, no, we’re not going out in the city at night.”
“Well, if you intend to sleep the full morning, there’s hardly any day to split!”
“Alternating days it is.” Silas snapped his journal closed.
He was concerned with how Eliza would react once they found proof Lord Henry had gone down with the shipwreck, which was still the most logical conclusion.
Or maybe the bigger concern was that she would never acceptproof of any kind, that she would rather continue a hopeless search indefinitely than face a dismal reality.
Either way, a problem for tomorrow.
“I need to change,” he said, gesturing for her to turn away.
She gave a disappointed glance at her own clothing. Silas rolled his eyes. She could have bought better clothes in the market, but, instead, she’d performed wild negotiations for magic. A mixed sense of priorities was entirely her own fault.
“I’ll wait outside,” the princess said, ducking from the room.
He pulled on fresh clothes, then packed his bag. When he met her in the hallway, he found her fighting a war with her hair, an agitated general offering commands her troops clearly did not follow.
“Staydown,” she ordered, trying to flatten a line of wispy hair with her palm while holding sections of a braid between the fingers of her opposite hand.
Silas raised an eyebrow. “You don’t experience much humidity at the castle, do you?”
Maggie had always complained about the humidity in southern Loegria and what it did to her hair, especially when Silas’s hair remained indifferent to it. She’d cried jealously whenever readying for a big event.
Eliza surrendered the battle with a huff. She finished her braid, pinned it in place, and threw her hands up with clear dismissal.
“Cover it with a scarf,” he suggested. “That’s what most Pravish women do.”
“I can’t afford a scarf,” she muttered.
“Not my problem.”
With a glare, she jerked her chin at the door. “Let’s go. Henry’s life may hang in the balance, but I wouldn’t want you to lose your very importantlivelihood.”
Eliza determined to stay silent for the day. She had no reason to make small talk with a shapeshifter. Yet they hadn’t even reached their destination before she found herself saying, “I’ve never seen a building like this.”
She and Silas had climbed several flights of stairs in the Yamakaz, and she looked up from the landing at a dome, sunlight sparkling through the windows. The inside curve of the ceiling displayed colored murals with physical depth—sculpting and painting hand in hand.
Silas flicked his gaze toward the dome but kept walking, following a curved line of doors. “That’s because it was built by Stone Casters.”
Of course it was.
He went on, unprompted, like a tutor in lecture mode. “Most of the advancements in Pravusat are courtesy of its freedom for magic. The few scholars who bother dedicating any interest toward Loegria theorize that the island is a full age behind the rest of the world, trapped in a state without enlightenment. Unless we see a major revolution, the schism will only grow.”
“I experienced the attempted Caster revolution,” Eliza returned hotly. “All it did was hurt.”
It hurt still. The cursed sliver in her soul that never quite faded from her awareness, the quiet fear that, at any moment, she’d realize she wasn’t acting as she should. Wasn’t acting asherself.
“Change always hurts, Highness. It’s growing pains.”
He waved her to a halt in front of a door, then pulled a set of metal picks from his belt and crouched to begin working them in the lock.
Eliza gasped. “Your livelihood isthievery?”
