Page 79 of Immortal Longings
For the first time in five years, Calla steps into San’s coliseum marketplace, and she hasn’t missed it at all. The stench of fish hits her first: salt-soaked, laid out in rows by the entrance with their guts scooped out. She adjusts her mask over her nose when she enters, both to hide her face from the coliseum’s surveillance cameras and to protect her nostrils from the pungent scent.
High noon. Though the clouds are thick, the marketplace is awash with light, and Calla almost has trouble opening her eyes fully. She’s not used to unobstructed daytime actually reaching the ground, each of her steps made cleanly and not in guesswork. It’s strange to be seeing where her feet should go instead of listening to the beating pulse of the city, stepping where it tells her, trusting its growths and dips.
Calla pauses. She checks her wristband. No pings yet, but she doesn’t know whether that’s by chance or if August decided to pause them when she asked to meet.
“A treat?”
The voice is startlingly close, and Calla twitches, looking over her shoulder. There’s an old woman standing far too close for Calla’s liking, but before she can reach for a weapon, her eyes flicker to the woman’s arms. Visibly bare—no wristband, no weapon, no tattoo. Calla relaxes. The woman, with her sleeves rolled to her elbows and fingers covered in flour, reaches out and grasps Calla’s wrist, likely taking the lack of resistance to be a good sign.
“We have a dozen good treats back here, anything to your liking,” the woman goes on, hauling her in front of the stall. It’s not enough to set Calla there: the woman takes her by the shoulders and leans her close to the offerings too. “Plenty of flat cakes, glutinous rice cakes—”
“Yes, yes, I’ll take some,” Calla cuts in, nodding at the rectangular jelly cake in front of the woman. She can’t remember the last time she had one. It was far too low-class for the Palace of Heavens. The provinces are filled with these cheap treats, rolled out on a cart in the middle of the village square, an elderly shopkeeper dicing the cake into neat rectangular helpings with a piece of string. They can’t be cut with a knife. The blade would move in every which direction, gliding through the gelatinous blob until some pieces are as large as rock and others are mere speckles. They require something a little rough.
The woman hurries behind the stall and pulls the string taut. Her hands are steady as she cuts a perfect four-by-four, sliding each piece away from the others as they wobble and glimmer under the lightbulb hanging from the top of the stall. While she’s wrapping one in tissue paper, Calla digs into her pocket for a handful of coins and passes them over just as the woman is offering the cake.
Calla takes the cake. The woman, meanwhile, has frozen.
“Are…” Calla looks at the coins in her fingers. “Are you all right? Is this not a sufficient amount? I have more, hold on—”
She drops her coins in the hand the woman already has outstretched and digs back into her pocket. The woman finally breaks from her daze, shaking alock of white hair out of her face before gasping, “No, no, this is sufficient. This is more than sufficient.”
Oh. Is it?Prices at the market have really nose-dived. Calla is hardly carrying around much cash in her pocket to begin with.
And yet, as the woman stares at the coins in her hand, she begins to tear up.
“Well, don’tcry,” Calla chides, shifting on her feet. “If you cry, I’ll have to empty my whole pocket on you, and what good will you be for the next customer, sobbing all over their cake?”
The woman’s next inhale is a sudden guffaw, and she wipes at her eyes. Behind her, a boy hurries by wearing a pair of thick gloves, handling some squirming animal, but he pays them no mind and carries on, cutting a path through the other stalls. Another child walks through seconds later, wires and screens tangled in their arms, but like the first boy, as long as the market’s affairs have nothing to do with them, even when there’s a sobbing shopkeeper, they keep moving without another glance.
“Forgive me,” the woman sniffs. “This stall is closing tomorrow, so we’ll be without means soon.”
Calla blinks. “Closing?” she echoes. Her eyes trace the row of stalls, the iron carvers and gadget builders and dumpling makers. “Why?”
Another sniff. At the very least, the woman is no longer crying. “It’s—I won’t bother you with the details, but the council has brought in new rules. Higher fees and different regulations. They’re trying to drive us out, I’ve no doubt. They want to clean up the market, get the odd businesses out and bring in the people they know. But who will accuse them of doing so?”
I will,Calla thinks immediately.Don’t worry. I will.
A suddenbangsounds from the next stall over, and Calla turns sharply. It’s only a rack that has collapsed, but her gaze catches on a figure standing nearby. An unfamiliar face, but a familiar set of black eyes with a cold, even stare. Prince August, causing a commotion and waiting for Calla to take note of him. Withoutconfirming that she has indeed recognized who he is, August turns on his heel and begins to walk away.
Calla curses under her breath and takes a big bite of the jelly cake she has purchased. Then, wiping her hand clean, she scoops out the rest of the coins from her pocket and sets them on the stall table.
“Take them, you need this more than I do.” Then: “Don’t you dare cry. Suck those tears back in right now.”
The woman can only nod, making a valiant effort to follow instructions. Calla offers a salute, merging back into the crowd to follow August. She has to shake her head at the other stall hawkers waving their hands for her attention, though she falters every few steps, wondering if they all have the same story. Hundreds and hundreds set up shop here at the rise of dawn, then pack away only when it seems the crowds have filtered thin. It will never be entirely empty in the marketplace, only empty enough when sleep deprivation isn’t worth a sale. Hundreds here, at the mercy of whatever decision the palace feels like making. Thousands more, scattered in the buildings of San-Er.
Calla lifts her head. The palace’s turrets rise higher than anything else in San, looming over the stalls like some foreboding watchtower. Gold-plated tiles and polished wooden whorls interrupt the walls of the coliseum, making the Palace of Union look like some miracle growing out of the ugliest crevasses. There’s movement, on the nearest balcony. Someone—Galipei, most likely—lurks in the throne room, keeping an eye on August.
Calla comes to a stop beside her cousin, who is examining a display of newspapers. The selection is sparse. Paper has been trickling out of fashion ever since televisions grew more affordable, and even those who can’t afford a television would rather stand outside a barbershop to catch the reels.
“So,” August begins. His eyes dart to her rapidly, then back to the papers. Slowly, he retrieves one and feigns reading. “This better be good.”
A cloud clears in the sky, letting down a brighter sunray. Calla visibly winces, buying time by glancing up and holding a hand over her face.
“I need your help,” she says. There’s no use beating around the bush when August knows she wants something. “I think there might be another way to go through with our plan.”
August spins on his heel. In one sharp and precise turn, he is facing her, the newspaper rustling in his hands.
“I beg your pardon?”
