The busy market's rich food smells were delicious and its curiosities enchanting. Keeping up my fast pace, I strode past silk tents striped in contrasting colors. Canary-yellow stood next to kingfisher-blue, the one further along in robin-red. Their silk breathed with the humid air stirred by movement and the whirring fans subtly positioned about the marketplace.
As much as I wanted to drift between the stalls and purchase harlequin balls of yarn for Aunt Ellena, I was on a mission. The sleeve of my peacoat was soft beneath my fingers as I pulled it back to reveal my watch and check the time. A burst of relief settled my anxiety. I had exactly two hours before I needed to head home for the evening.
I'd rushed as fast as I could through the errands for Beckah and everyone else so I could have a little bit of me-time at the gardening center. The hectic day also served as a distraction because I'd still been wrapped up in Varen Crowther. I'd had my own freaking virginal-erotica experience last night, and as I'd driven along narrow country roads and long straight highways my traitorous mind kept replaying the orgasm-war over and over again, setting my heart to skitter and my skin to flush. I'd blasted streams of crisp air from the car's vents to cool my godsdamned lust-heated body.
Varen had taken me by surprise this morning when he'd walked into the clearing. Fear had chewed at my nerves as I contemplated whether he'd caught me out and discovered what I'd been up to—collecting kills and feeding the krekenns. But with his casual attitude, it seemed as if he'd innocently come across my tracks pressed into the wet earth.
When he'd looked away, glancing at the forest's understory dripping with rain, I'd greedily roamed his impressive physique. I imagined he'd run long and far. Miles and miles and miles before he'd even break a sweat. His rain-soaked hair flopped about, and as he lifted his forearm to push the wet locks from his eyes, his t-shirt had ridden up and I'd been gifted a sneaky peek at the hard lines of his abdominal muscles, contracting with his breath. The swirls of flamed tattoos dipped into a dusting of dark hair that arrowed right down freaking there. He was as gorgeous and downright sinful as the athletic male model spread across the center of a glossy sporting magazine I'd ogled while waiting for the shop assistant to produce Beckah's bundle of wedding books.
When Varen asked me to go out on a date I wasn't standing in a miserable forest drizzling with a misty rain that chilled my skin and bones. His hopeful question had flowed through me and warmed my soul, transporting me to another season where I stood beneath the dappled shadow of a tree laden with bright green leaves, the golden sun beating down at the height of summer.
Sharp-edged agony expanded through my chest when I thought back to how I'd hurt him when I'd declined his invite to a date. But there was nothing else I could do. I'd spoken the truth when I'd said I was too busy. I had less than two weeks before the forerunners of Cernesse would illuminate the night sky in a kaleidoscope of colors, and there was much to do before that moment.
The reedy melody floating from a stilt walker playing a Pan Flute snapped me from my thoughts on the heir to House Crowther and his crestfallen expression.
I stepped back to allow the market performer to stride by in his patchwork trousers, a long ratty tail coat swaying behind him, his auburn beard as long as his battered top hat. Fellow artists followed closely—a porcupine snuffled at giggling children, its long black and white quills poking behind, while a hare with velvet ears juggled long thin bones. A ladybird sprung into a pirouette, her gauzy, black-dotted wings flowing about her graceful figure clothed in a red leotard.
There were several entrances to the Market and I headed to the northern side with its wide archway and insides carved into a birch forest with tall grasses and insects flitting across the curved ceiling. The aromatic scent of cardamom and turmeric was left behind as I entered perfumed clouds of oil and earth. Artists swept paint-cloying bristles across canvas; old-fashioned pottery wheels were spun by feet pushing pedals; and sounds rippled around me from splashing water and fingers squelching clay.
The crowd grew thicker near the corridor to the restrooms situated next to the northern entrance. Shoulders and handbags knocked into me as I edged around milling shoppers talking with family and friends, a few jiggling baby buggies with sleepy toddlers and babies. The dark magic inside my chest vibrated with excitement. The bloodhound was eager to hunt through the crowd for mortals with a trace of other about them.
I soothed it with a mental caress, dimmer light falling upon me as I entered the restroom's corridor. Weaving between those coming and going, I passed the Ladies and Gents and Family restrooms and carried on a little further and around the corner, where the passageway grew considerably gloomier. The luminescent rods overhead hummed with white light, and shadows crawled along the wall's skirting boards.
Making my way past the fire alarm and large red extinguishers fixed to the chipped wall, I hurried toward the cleaners' utility closet—rather fitting I'd always thought. Here, the air faintly trembled and tickled my skin like the fibers of a feather duster. But when I opened the door to the small room, the slight hint of power grew to a tremble that jarred through my toes and feet, coursing along my legs and spine to the tips of my fingers. At the back of the room, long-handled mops and brooms leaned against an exposed brick wall.
Cool brick scuffed my knuckles as I rapped three times. A sudden flare of green light scored like fire from the floor, up in a straight line, across, and downward again, revealing a doorway no one could see unless they had truesight. Its ghostly image wavered like a warped reflection on a brackish pond. I pushed the flat of my palm against the phantom door and it opened silently. I stepped onto a landing that had been hewn into ancient stone eons ago.
Dark magic blustered like whistling wind through a canyon, ruffling my ponytail and rippling my sundress, making my heartbeat crest faster—the feral power of a Horned God.
The door swung shut and its green light pulsed—once, twice—then vanished in a wink, and all that remained was simple brick and mortar.
Hefting the handbag's shoulder strap a bit higher up and readjusting my grip on the two other bags, I stepped down the damp flight of steps. Soft lavender light flickered against the scarred stone from lamps, glowing not with flames or manmade light but the otherworldly Pix, small biting creatures that resembled beetles with a vicious stinger that glowed purple. Small swarms of them were trapped in round glass and their filmy light led my way down, down, down.
The hollow sound of my plastic shoes clapping upon the steps echoed down the narrow chamber, along with scratching on stone, as rats scurried about in the darkness beyond.
At the next landing was a tall imposing door three times my height. Its paintwork had faded over the centuries and the pattern in strokes of blues and yellows and reds had become unrecognizable. The bloodhound shivered with exhilaration like a puppy wagging its tail, excited to greet an old friend. Though the door was heavy it opened easily. As it swished inward, a silver bell rang —tink, tink, tink—announcing my arrival.
As I stepped inside and shut the door, stale air enveloped me and pinched my nostrils. I glanced upward, grinning to see the shop's wooden sign and its silver lettering: PURVEYOR of RARITIES.
The dust motes floating in the trembling air sparkled like iridescent aether. The Horned God's immense power was mostly concealed in this tomb of gruesome wonders and it raked along my body, its fierceness washing goosebumps over my skin. I sipped at it, letting it slide down my throat with a gulp of oxygen while the magic inside me howled.
Florin's emporium was draped in opulent colors. Honeyed candlelight flickered and fat beads rolled down beeswax columns. Rich metals glinted, and swathes of fabrics lined the walls and the floor in luxurious rugs. Antiquities from both the mortal world and our own lined freestanding wooden units or were grouped on tables. There were fossils too and shrunken heads of otherworldly creatures that bobbed in urine-yellow liquid. And shelves with glass jars, rows and rows of them, containing all sorts of weird and wonderful items, some so rare our world of Houses had no idea they even existed.
I walked between macabre statues of Horned Gods and mysterious carvings with Ukkenskrit writing. They sat beneath ribbons of mottled bones that hung from the ceiling, along with rainbow-hued leaves, strips of strangely webbed bark, and dried innards that dangled like sausages at a butchery. A gigantic silvery-misty feather, from a Stormbird that lived in the pockets and spaces in between our world, fluttered like an apparition.
Anxiety rose in my chest like icy water. I had come here with a purpose—to discover if the Horned God had obtained wyrmblood. My fingers tightened around the rope handle of my beach bag as I sent a prayer to Mother Skalki. Soon, when Cernesse's forerunners streaked across the sky, the Invitees to the Witches Ball would learn of its secret location. But I didn't need an invite, I just needed the last piece of the spell so my aunt would be free of that malicious thing haunting her. Yet, I couldn't outright ask the Horned God for it, like I truly wanted. I had to seem casual in my approach.
The massive doorway to Florin's office was open.
Striding toward it, I dug out the brown paper bag from my handbag. The smell of freshly baked croissants wafted through the air making my stomach grouch. Holding up the bag, I jiggled it, and the sound of crinkling paper came as the croissants shifted about. "I brought your favorite, Florin!" My friend's favorite snack was a flaky, buttery pastry stuffed with roadkill.
My footing faltered when I heard a strained groan and saw the Horned God's walking cane lying in the open doorway. I forgot about my aunt and the only concern rushing through my veins was for my friend. My voice rose to a shrill note. "Florin?"
The paper bag and my handbags thudded against the floor as I dropped them, running into the office.
Florin was splayed awkwardly on the ground, massaging his knee with talons curving around the joint. Beneath the thin wisps of cold smoke wavering from his face, his features were creased with pain. I knelt down beside him, running my hands over his long human leg ending in a cleaved hoof. "What happened?"
"I'm alright, little thief. It's just my knee, that's all," he replied, trying to make out it was nothing. But the pain tightening his voice gave him away.
I huffed, rocking back to my heels. It was more than that. This was the third time in two months that he'd toppled over.
He winced as he carefully levered himself upright, me rising with him and supporting his weight as much as I could as he moved over to gingerly sit down in a large wooden chair. His knee-length feathered tunic in inky emerald settled about his enormous frame.
Florin was a strange morphing between goat and man and a touch of beastly elemental. A wide flat nose sat above thick lips, a chin, and a jawline that was man, but the upper portion of his face was goatlike with broad planes and black fur.
As I scurried past, the fire burning in the large hearth kissed my exposed skin with warmth. Everything in Florin's office was oversized, and I rose on my tippy-toes, stretching over the writing desk with quills and inkwells and a ledger splayed open, to dig around in a wooden bowl. I nudged through the silver coins and black-green pennies, raw gems, a few doubloons and tiny fingerbones, and finally found a chunky stone.
I hurried back to kneel beside him.
He fixed blood-red eyes on mine, the pupils horizontal. He raised his chin in silent acquiescence, the motion tipping his enormous ram horns back and casting curled shadows on the wall behind him. The long ears, with smoke twirling from the tips, twitched as I placed my hand on his leathery arm, a deep black with blue undertones and sparsely coated with patches of downy fur that traveled down his spine and over his shoulders
The dark magic inside me howled and quivered, almost seeming to dance on its paws as if it was tugging at a leash, desperate to be released. Its excitement buzzed beneath my skin every single time I stole the Horned God's pain.
Instinctively my entire body locked tight as I braced myself.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I let the bloodhound go.
My magic surged forward, racing beneath my skin and through my fingertips to barrel into Florin. The bloodhound snarled and sank its fangs into Florin's ailment, wrestling and whining as it dragged it into my body. The moment it did, harsh, grinding pain crashed into me like a crack of my head against rock.
A jarring jolt of violence chattered my teeth.
A wicked punch to the lungs and I lost my breath.
Savage and ancient and depthless.
Mind-decimating and all-consuming.
However this time it was different. Something had shifted within me after Jurgana.
This time it wasn't pure pain the bloodhound brought with it, but tiny tendrils of Florin's power clinging to the writhing flow of agony. Its wildness brushed along my senses and filled the empty spaces. Craving sang sweetly through my blood as pain quaked my bones, whispering to me to steal it. Wield it.
But it wasn't mine to take.
I gritted my teeth and ignored the strange sensation.
I had no idea how long we sat together—one minute, one hour, one day. The torment snapping through my body eased enough that I could finally draw a breath that didn't slash at my throat with thin blades. What Florin experienced was as bad as my aunt's. Had been, I reminded myself, as Mrysst had healed everyone after Jurgana's onslaught, including my aunt.
The dimness behind my eyelids lightened and I pried open an eye to peer at the golden strands of magic tangling with smokey threads, burning from Florin's figure. The stone in my hand heated and jostled within my fingertips. When I finally drained him dry, the stone burst into a cloud of rubble and dust and covered my fingertips in a dirty powder.
Loosening a sigh, I straightened my aching body, stretching stiff limbs and rotating my shoulder. Wiggling my fingers I brushed the film of dust from them.
The Horned God slowly bent his leg and extended it once more. "Ah, much better. My thanks, little thief."
Worry still coursed through me as I tucked a lock of hair that had escaped my ponytail behind an ear. "Florin, we've talked about this before. You need to give me something that will alert me to your distress."
His blood-red eyes narrowed. "And what would you do?"
"Make you a cup of tea?" I grinned.
He snorted. "You're terrible at making tea."
"I am not..." I began to protest and then glanced sidelong at the orange flames caressing the bottom of a blackened pot hanging above the fire. My nose scrunched at the septic fumes billowing from the pot and the putrid things tumbling around in the simmering green water—chunks of rats and mice, spiders and flies. "Well, perhaps not your kind of tea. It's a bit gross really," I amended.
Pushing upward to stand, wincing at the pins and needles stabbing my feet, I picked up his heavy cane, hefting its weight in my hands. Its length was formed from adamere and silver twisted together much like a rope, and it was almost as tall as I was. My fingers couldn't even spread around the girth of the handle, carved into the likeness of a beautiful woman with a forked tongue.
Before he could clamp his talons around the cane, I pulled it out of reach. "I want some kind of signal, Florin." My steely look said that I wasn't going to be denied.
His gaze narrowed further until all that was revealed through the thick fan of eyelashes were his strange goat pupils. "I'm not going to win am I?"
A smile twitched on my lips. "Against me? No."
He heaved a weary sigh and nodded in agreement. I handed him the walking cane and he used it to rise. I stepped back, my head craning as I gazed up, up, up. Florin towered over me like a giant, smoke spilling from his tall figure like smoldering coals in a hearth.
His awkward movement ruffled the feathers in his tunic as he hobbled over to a cabinet with many tiny drawers. Pulling open a drawer set within the Qing apothecary cabinet, he retrieved a stone. Simple and ordinary. Flat and round. Much like a key the Head of Houses possessed to open up mysterious and magical places like their tithe prisons and treasure troves. The Horned God breathed onto it and expelled an amber vapor that washed over the stone, its smell reminding me of nutmeg and ginger. The stone glowed crimson before returning to its normal hue of black. He leaned over and pressed the stone into my hand. "Will this make you feel better, little thief?"
I frowned, staring downward, feeling the weight of the stone, warmed by his breath, resting in my palm. "What will it do?"
"It'll glow if I am hurt or have a need for you."
I tucked it into my peacoat's pocket. "Yes, I feel much better now, thank you," I replied, flashing a smile up at him.
Florin merely stared down the length of his flat, wide nose, exasperated.
Swiveling around on my heel I went back into his shop, retrieving my discarded bags and carrying them back into his office to dump them upon his worn work table. Unbuttoning my peacoat I hung it over an impala horn on the back of his office door, grabbed a small footstool, and arranged it in front of the table.
The footstool creaked beneath me as I stepped up to lean over the table and reach for a cleaver with a seriously sharp edge and a gouged chopping block. Pulling out the squashed remains of a raccoon from my beach bag, I began hacking it up with large strikes that whacked through the office.
Florin had seated himself down at his writing desk and was pouring over the ledger and the scratchy handwriting detailing items sold and purchased. I spoke to him as I drove the cleaver down in a series of quick strikes. "Why don't you apologize to the Horned God you insulted and ask for forgiveness?" The injury that plagued Florin wasn't from an accident, he'd been cursed by one of his brethren. Even being a Horned God didn't necessarily mean he could will the pain away. Over the age, it had worsened to the point he now used a walking cane, and despite trying all sorts of healing spells, it never erased the pain. Until a few months after I'd stolen into his shop and we'd met. Like the mortal myth of the mouse and the lion with a thorn in its paw, I'd temporarily eased his agony by pulling out his pain with a mysterious skill I'd just discovered about myself.
Florin grunted, not looking up from his ledger. "She was rude."
"I'm sure you were worse to her," I retorted.
He glanced sideways, stilling, black liquid dripping from the quill's nip into the inkwell. "She was trying to buy the stormbird's feather at a steal."
Twisting around, I braced a fist on my hip while waving the cleaver at him. "And I'm sure you were asking for too much." If anyone should know, it was me. The exorbitant prices Florin set meant the debt I owed him was almost unpayable.
"She was trying to rip me off," he growled, this time pouting a little.