Page 55 of Sonnets and Serpents
“Seriously?” No sooner had he voiced the protest than the Cast yanked him forward.
At the same moment, it collared Eliza, sending them both plowing into people on the street. Silas waved off the irritated shouts, catching up to the princess while she was still offering bowing apologies to the people around her.
“Silas, look!” Eliza grabbed his arm, pointing with her other hand.
All he saw was a man gathering stoneware from a striped rug and loading it into a small cart.
“He must be done for the day,” he said. “What’s so—”
“That’s the stall where I bought the Cast!”
Now she had his attention. “That’s the Stone Caster?”
“No, that’s what I’m saying! I recognize the rug, but she isn’t here. That man is stealing her things!”
With a frown, Silas hurried toward the stall, Eliza beating him to it.
“Stop!” she shouted in Pravish, planting herself on the rug, blocking the man from the next statue he’d been about to grab. “This isn’t yours!”
“Senen, notsizen,” Silas corrected in Loegrian. “He’s a singular ‘you,’ not a plural.”
“Why is there a plural ‘you’?” Eliza hissed. “Whywould thereeverbe a plural‘you’?”
“Who are you?” the man demanded, demonstrating a correct usage of the plural.
Switching between Loegrian and Pravish so often gave Silas a headache. He didn’t stumble on the transitions, since he spoke both fluently, but the effect on his mind was undeniable. Splitting it in two. He was meant to be immersed in a new life in Pravusat, but speaking Loegrian dragged his old life through inpatches, made it impossible to keep his focus in one place while his tongue was divided.
Silas straightened his posture, towering over the man and looking down with cold eyes. “Where is the Stone Caster who owns this stall?”
“I claimed it first!” the man said, making a grab for the next statue. Eliza slapped his hand away, and the man pulled back, cradling red knuckles. “She’s gone! I had nothing to do with it.”
“Gone where?” Silas pressed.
“Kuveti took her. Look, we can split the raw stone, but I get the statues!”
“Why was she arrested?”
“I don’t know! Sold bad Casts, maybe. But good statues. You can’t have them.” After feinting one way, he snatched another statue before Eliza could intercept him, then placed it with care in his cart.
“She will come back,” Eliza said fiercely.
Despite her Loegrian accent, the words were clear enough, and the man shook his head. “Not from the kuveti. You want to waste good limestone? Foreigner with no sense. Get out of my way.”
Before she could get shoved aside, Silas drew her off the rug, ignoring her protests.
“Most people don’t return from a kuveti arrest,” he said quietly. “Not unless they’re rich enough to bribe their way out.”
“Then we have to help her!” The copper flecks in Eliza’s eyes caught the sun, sparks ready to start a fire.
“It’s not our problem.”
Eliza gaped like he’d revealed himself as an Affiliate all over again. She turned to watch the man greedily loading stoneware into his cart.
“What is wrong with this place?” she asked softly, and somehow, the gentleness of her tone pierced more than if she’d shouted. “No one cares about the holes in their wall. No onecares about the beggars. No one cares about innocent people getting arrested. No one ... cares.”
“As if Loegrians are so compassionate,” Silas said bitterly.
She opened her mouth, her eyes sparking again, but then her gaze dropped to the scar on his neck. They looked at each other in silence.
