A Fistful of Water: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #3

Year 534, New Calendar - I - part 2

I hate the city.

It’s full dark, and respectable people should be tending their families for the night or heading to bed, but many still fill the streets made eerie by the purple light of the feylanterns.

Tuelzi readily steps through the crowd, as unperturbed as she was in the face of the angry mob and the out-of-control mage only few stone ago. I’d stay closer to the edge, but she took my elbow in hers before we left the main street leading from the gate closest to the castle. She let go when we reached the tenement where William lived, went up to his apartment, and gave him the king’s summons. But after his wife gave us water and a bite of bread and we left, she took it back up.

“You doubt my defense?”

I blink at her, bewildered about whatever she was trying to say. “What?”

“I…” Her gaze goes distant, and she frowns only slightly, as if concentrating. “I can defend. You.” With her free hand, she indicates the crowd around us.

We’re still in the northwest—the good part—of the city, but the streets are already dirt rather than cobblestones. Saf isn’t a safe city by any stretch of the imagination, and Lallie’s somewhere to the south, where the gangs rule. “I’d feel a bit better if you had a weapon.”

Tuelzi gives me a long sidelong look and trips, but she catches herself before I have to play counterweight to keep my feet.

I give her a pointed look-over, from her gauzy top that’s too indecent to be termed a blouse to the wide, loose skirt that doesn’t look meant to be kept on. The only thing that even approaches decent are her boots, which are high and soft in the Plainskin style. “You don’t have room for anything in that.”

A smile softens Tuelzi’s expression, making her look younger, prettier—and she isn’t old or ugly to begin with. Her brown eyes glint with mischief. “Bet?”

“You want to make a bet that you have a weapon on you?” Best make sure I understand her meaning.

She inclines her head in affirmation. “Quen?”

I splutter before I can help it, too many years as a maid making a silver piece equal to weeks of pay.

Before I can temper my reaction, she waves dismissively. “Five cess?”

Copper pieces are more affordable, yes. I eye her. I’ll lose the bet, but I want to know how she could possibly have anything under that gauze. “Three pieces.”

She nods once, stretches her shoulders, runs her hands down her sides and thighs…and hands me a stiletto. I automatically accept it, staring. Where did that come from?

While I’m distracted with that, she pulls out two more from somewhere, and I look back at her in time to see her pull out a cord from around her waist. “Where do you put all this?”

She shrugs and indicates her ‘blouse’—or rather, her bust, which the ‘blouse’ barely covers. “Distracting.”

I blink. “Your blouse is intentionally distracting?”

Tuelzi drops her smirk before I can read any more than sly humor in it. “Useful.”

As useful as making everyone think she speaks worse mountaineer than she actually does?

I’d ask, but you don’t air a person’s secrets in public. The corner of the street we turn onto has stars painted on the building. Gang territory. A chill run downs my spine. “Do you know which gang this is?”