Page 56 of Sonnets and Serpents
The man finished loading up his cart and hurried away with a spring in his step, leaving an empty rug behind. The skeleton of a stall.
“Come on,” Silas muttered. “We can ask—”
“I want to know why she was arrested.” Eliza straightened, lifting her head. “That man said it might have been for a bad Cast.Wehave a Cast from her. It is our problem.”
She was trying to manipulate him again.
“Yvette read our Cast,” said Silas. “She would have seen anything wrong with it. You just want to help.”
Eliza stared him down. “And what’s so wrong with that?”
After a moment, Silas groaned, throwing his hands up. “What do you suggest, Highness? Do you have a royal treasury stash to bribe the kuveti?”
“I can write to Aria. She’ll send—”
“Loegria’s in turmoil, and you want your sister’s focus to be on relief for a single foreign stranger? By the time she could arrange and send anything, it would be weeks.”
Eliza bit her lip, looking down at the empty rug.
“What if the kuveti have Henry?” she whispered at last.
Silas frowned.
“They arrestedme. What if the reason we haven’t been able to find Henry is because he’s in prison?”
“You have a royal ransom. Why would they target him?”
“Maybe it wasn’t Henry.” She met his eyes again, her face pale. “Maybe someone would pay for the capture of the magic stealer with him.”
It was a possibility. A strong one. Silas cursed to himself, rubbing his face. Perhaps he could ask Iyal Afshin ...
Ask him what? The kuveti hated the university for having its own guard force rather than using their services. Even if they were willing to negotiate with the dean, the prices would be enormous. University funding was stretched thin already, and Silas didn’t even have an official research budget.
“I need to think,” he said.
Silas led Eliza to a tailor’s stall, hung with brightly colored shirts and sashes.
“Pick two outfits,” he told her.
She looked at him like he’d dropped his senses somewhere along the path. “Is this part of your thinking process?”
“Don’t question my process.” He smirked. But when she continued looking suspicious, he rolled his eyes. “If we’re going anywhere near the kuveti, you can’t look like a Loegrian. They’re on the hunt for a princess-shaped one, if you remember.”
Her hesitation melted to eagerness, and she took a step toward the stall.
Then she halted.
“I don’t have any money left,” she admitted, clearly trying to make the statement casual. Her forced shrug fooled no one. “Maybe I can borrow something from Yvette.”
“‘Pick two outfits,’ I said. That’s whatIcan afford.”
She looked up at him, and the wide smile growing on her face tugged at his heart in a discomforting way. Without another protest, she scurried over to admire the options. None of them were fit for a princess, at least by Loegrian standards, but she gushed over the bright colors and told the merchant they were all beautiful.
Silas moved to stand just behind her. “If you’re calling aninanimate object beautiful, it’smuhetsem.Tatli alis only for people.”
“Why are there two words for that?” Eliza laughed, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Pravish makes no sense!”
In the muggy heat, strands of her brown hair stuck to her forehead and neck, and beads of sweat glistened along her hairline. Somehow, she looked radiant despite that. It was her beaming smile. For as fiery as she got in her irritation, she showed the same amount of enthusiasm in her joy.
