Silverweaver

One

"Oh, come on, Taran—it's one measly ghost. What's the worst that can happen?"

Taran avoided meeting my eyes, turning his scowl instead on the book of matches pinched between his fingers. "I'm not getting mixed up in your hunting," he said, then picked a match to strike and dropped it into the gas lamp on the rickety table between us.

The lamp illuminated the dreary break room he'd corralled me into, sending shadows skittering up its bare walls. Calling it a "room" was a bit generous, to be fair, because I stood elbow-to-elbow with stock shelves and an overburdened garment rack, the latter of which had some rich ponce's greatcoat hanging from its hooks. It belonged to Taran's boss, no doubt. Saints knew my brother wasn't rolling in silvermarks from part-time work as an old-city guide.

"I'm not getting you 'mixed up' in anything," I said. "It's a single night of working together on one of your tours, just to see how you like it."

"This is my job, Anya." He folded his arms and leveled me with the look—the one he'd inherited from our mother. It sent his brows crawling up his forehead to an upswept widow's peak of dingy dark hair. Not that I'd point out it could use a washing. He'd have a fit—as if medical students didn't forget to feed themselves without reminding. "If something goes wrong, my boss will—"

"I'm a professional. Whatever happens, I can handle it, all right? And, look, if a ghost shows up on your 'low-season discount special,' think about the tips you'll get."

Taran's lips pressed into a thin line, but his eyes darted from me to the open break room door, then back to me. He was going to say yes; I could feel it. No one recognized performative indecision better than a ghost hunter.

But his next words weren't the emphatic agreement I'd hoped for.

"I've heard stories, all right? About hunters who come up to businesses and ask to do this exact thing, then stir up a whole host of trouble." He picked at the midnight-blue cuffs of his coat, the uniform of Ilia's most prestigious university. "I never thought you were one of them."

My hackles rose, shoulders jumping to my ears. "Hey. I'm not some two-bit fraud. I can't believe you'd—"

Taran turned away, striding across the room to close the office's iron-fitted double doors.

He could have shut them without moving—wrenched them off their hinges, even. So could I. Metalweaving ran in our family, and we were a proud bunch for it—artisans, merchants, architects. Taran took after our mother and studied medicine. Enough iron ran through blood for metalweavers to manipulate it with ease, placing us among Ilia's finest trauma medics, but I suspected Taran was headed for surgery. That'd make our parents proudest. Prouder than I had made them, at least, though that wouldn't take much.

Apparently, it's a disappointment when one of your seven kids runs off to become a ghost hunter.

That was how my mother framed it, of course, but I never went anywhere. I had completed an apprenticeship with an Ilian hunter, struck out on my own when my contract was through, and paid most months' rent without scrounging for low-level jobs.

Besides, I dropped out of medical school ten years ago. My mother should have forgiven me by now, and one would think Taran had no reason to care, since he was nine at the time. Alas, that wasn't the case.

"I'm under no obligation to put myself at risk to support your lifestyle," Taran said once the second latch clicked, words taken straight from my mother's mouth.

They thought ghosthunting was a dangerous waste of potential. Maybe it was, but I did it for the love of it, something they'd never understand.

I had one issue with my work: seasonality. Ghosts liked the summer months—only the Saints knew why—and stayed away from Ilia's spiritual epicenters the rest of the year. The only credible winter work came with the rings. They won the big contracts every hunter wanted, ones that paid a stipend to keep them on retainer for protecting the old buildings in the city center.

And that protection was necessary. Unlike their gentle counterparts, malignant spirits had no compunctions about showing up in the colder months. When they did, ghost hunters had to act quickly or risk horrific consequences. It wouldn't surprise me if Taran had read last month's headlines. A spirit went dark-side on the fringes of the old city, killing three people before the hunters showed up.

There was a reason those contracts took a lot of clout to get. Alas, clout was the one thing I didn't have.

"We aren't talking about the same thing," I said, pushing the words through grit teeth. "The hunters you're on about are the scum of the industry. They stir up malignant spirits or try to get benign spirits to go dark-side. Then, when they banish them across the veil, they charge a protection fee. You lose your ghost, and you get robbed blind. That's not me, all right? I'd come back home with my tail between my legs long before I started provoking spirits for cash."

And if hard times ever forced professional dishonesty on me, I'd never expect Taran to enable it. Tour guiding paid his school bills. Just because I didn't want to follow in our mother's footsteps didn't mean I wasn't proud of him and his choices.

Moreover, I'd never put him—and the people on his tour—in danger just to make a mark.

"Somehow, I doubt that," he muttered, fiddling with his neckerchief. "All right, fine. Let's hear your plan." As if he could smell my incredulity from across the room, he added, "My lab fees are piling up. I could ask Mom for money, but—well. You know how that is. I've seen some of the other guides walk away with massive tips after taking ghost hunters on their tours—"

"So, you want in." I cracked my knuckles, unable to stifle my tiger's smile.

Taran's sigh was so dramatic it ruffled the sweep of hair on his forehead. "I want to know what it's going to cost me."

"Nothing." I made the sign of the Saints over the lapel of my leather coat, a tatty brown thing that had nothing in common with Taran's fancy blues. "Hunter's honor. I find a sleeping spirit. I nudge it awake. The dullards on your tour get to ask it the same set of questions they all ask ghosts—when did you die? Why are you here?—and I put it back to sleep again. Easy as falling off a log, and we'll walk away with a week's worth of silvermarks for an evening's work." I flicked my plait over my shoulder, a dark whip which rested halfway down my back. "Come on. What have you got to lose?"

"My job. My self-respect," Taran muttered. He scrubbed a hand down his face. "All right. I need those marks. But if you tell Mom about this—"

I snorted. As if I'd ever. "I don't have a death wish."

His twisting mouth betrayed how unsavory he found the deal, but I didn't rise to the bait, holding out a fist for him to clasp.

"All right, Yaya," he said, using my old nickname from his nursery days. I hadn't heard it in years. "Don't make me regret this." He wrapped his hand around my fist and squeezed.

Yes. Taran was far too much of a stick-in-the-mud to go back on his word. "I'll see you tomorrow at the old church. Sundown. Tell your clients it'll be the best midwinter's tour of their lives."

The doors opened with a sweep of my hand, and I strode through them, past the lobby, and out into the frosty Ilian morning.

✧✧✧

Want to read more? Silverweaver  is a 28k Sapphic Gaslamp Fantasy novella available across all major publishing platforms as of 10/19/2023. Check it out at the link in my profile or search the title at your online retailer of choice.