"I suggest you eat, before you continue to make us look suspicious and I lose my chance to meet her," my dinner companion said.
"Meet who?" I whispered as I sat down. Begrudgingly I took a look at the plate in front of me. My mouth watered and I decided to go against my earlier judgement and take a bite. It was pretty good for a mountain of cheap warehouse district food.
"You look like you don't get food that often," the man commented with a smirk, ignoring my question.
I grimaced. "Not lately, I suppose."
By lately I mean not since Thanantholl.
Which was before the incident in the Sangolins.
Which was before my imprisonment in the Winter lands.
Which was before rescuing Schula and collapsing a wing of Icehold...
I was quicker to take a second bite this time, holding back the urge to shove it in faster, and watched the show. I wasn't going to admit it to a stranger, but he wasn't wrong in saying I could use more meat on my bones.
The wordweaver was making his way around the room, distracting patrons. I saw several cards slip into places they shouldn't be while eyes were elsewhere, mostly by the gambling house's game masters. No wonder they invited the wordweaver here, he must be great for business.
Tonight's tale was an old one, and one that every child in the city will have heard ten times over by the time they could tie their own slippers. Ugvar the terrible, a bandit raider that terrorized the sands and wielded an entire coconut palm as his club. He stood taller than the palace and had teeth made of jagged stone. That is, until the first Sultana slayed him and established Sulls.
I was surprised that the wordweaver would choose such a childish story for a place that catered exclusively to adults, but my dinner companion seemed to be engrossed in it so I stayed quiet and listened.
Tonight I tried to observe Kinza in a more studied manner. He didn't seem out of the ordinary. I didn't feel anything off of him like I did with the fae creatures. So how did he know what I was? And why did he taunt me to find him?
"Tell me something," Jaf said, bringing my attention away from the room for a moment. "Are you here at this table on purpose?"
My eyes darted to the lightly carved symbol on the table and back to Jaf. He nodded once and spooned another serving of orange peppers onto his plate.
"You had me wondering there for a minute," he said, his grin back in place. "You don't seem to know what you're doing."
"I sort of don't," I admitted. "The wordweaver left me a note and a token, and I ended up here."
Jaf looked at me, a spoon pausing halfway from his dish to his mouth. "You were... invited?"
"I suppose?" My brow furrowed. "You weren't?"
"No one is invited to see her, you have to go to her and hope she's willing to see you." He set his spoon down with a thud and gasped. "Do you have the coin?"
I stiffened. "Coin?"
"The coin you're granted by one of her followers that will allow you to see her!" he hissed. "You do, don't you? I'll pay you for it, whatever you want. Gold? My father has an iron hand on the spice trade in the plains, I can pay you anything."
The desperation in his voice was plain, and I backed away from him. I thought about moving to the next seat over, just to get away.
"No," I said. "This is the only lead I have, and I've been looking for a long time now."
His shoulders slumped and his mouth was set in a grim line. "I had to try. All I can do now his hope they grant me a coin too."
I took a big bite of spiced goat and studied Jaf's face. I swallowed and cleared my throat softly.
"How long have you been trying to get this coin?" I asked.
One corner of his mouth turned up in a slanted smile, his eyes not me but on Kinza as he made his way around the room and to the story's climax. "Three moons or so. But I will keep trying as long as it takes."
I nodded. It sounded like he had an important mission, but so did I. I f I could find the witches, maybe we could keep the evil things of the Wyldes from leaking into the human lands, and that would be best for everyone involved.
I had a better feeling for Jaf now that we had talked some. He didn't seem to have bad intentions, and I hoped whatever he was looking for he would get soon. I felt like I could trust him, just a little. And with that trust came hunger. I was fulling willing to eat the food he had offered, but I still wondered how we were going to eat it all.
At least I didn't have to wonder for long.
About two bites into a bowl of sweet rice, I watched Kinza finish his story and poof, disappear just as he had the night before.
I glanced at Jaf, but in stead of watching where Kinza had been, he was intently watching a small side door that I had thought was a closet.
"What are you-"
"Shh," he insisted.
Sensing that whatever I was waiting on was about to happen, I quietly went back to my rice and waited. A few heartbeats into watching the door, it opened.
A man in plain clothes came over. Nothing special to look at. Plain features, average height. He wouldn't have registered to even watch if it weren't for the fact that he was making a straight line for our table.
"Ah! My friends. Jaf, I see you're trying again, eh?" The stranger smiled and sat down to my right, across from Jaf. "Let us eat and talk."
He settled right in, taking a plate and piling it with whatever he wanted. Jaf was giving him an almost irreverent look as he watched.
"Now," the jovial stranger said. "You two are both here to see her, yes?"
"Yes," Jaf answered.
"Yes," I said after a pause.
The man looked over at me with that smile that reminded me of Jaf and made me wonder if Jaf picked it up from his quest to talk to these people.
"You are the one who already has a token, yes?" He took a bite from the same sweet rice I was eating a moment ago and looked down at his spoon. "Oh, this is good tonight."
I fidgeted with the brass piece under the table. I slipped the coin from my pocket and slid it onto the table for him to see. The strange man nodded and he glanced at the coin before looking into my eyes beneath my hood. His gaze was intense enough that I wondered if he could see me in this dim light under my cloak, and if he could, what was he? Because human couldn't be the answer.
"Hmm, she is very eager to speak to you. It has been a long time since she has sought someone out," he smiled. "A long time."
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but the man raised his hands in the air and clapped twice.
A young girl, definitely too young to be attending to anyone in a gambling house after nightfall, trotted to our table.
"Hello, sister," she giggled. "Come with me."
"I'm not anyone's sister." I frowned, but let her pull me up from my seat. "Where are we going?"
She giggled again, but gave me no answer. She tugged me to go through the gambling house to the back entrance. I followed easily enough, but kept an ear turned to the table I had just left.
"So Jaf, you're here again," the stranger said. "I come with news for you and this time..."
I stopped, and looked back at the table. The words had cut off, but there they were talking. It was as though something was preventing my ears from working as elven ears should.
"Come on, sister." The girl tugged my hand again and urged us forward. "We have to be quick."
I gave a last glance to Jaf and the strange man. As the man looked my way and winked, a shiver ran down my back before I was pulled away and they were both out of sight.
I turned my focus instead down to the girl, who was now taking me out the door and into the night air.
I thought we would be stopping out here, or at least nearby, but when the girl continued to tug at my hand I felt a small surge of panic at leaving the location that Schula and Nassir would be able to find me at.
"Puko!" I called, not too loud but hopefully loud enough to be heard over the roof and at the entrance to the gambling house.
My heart melted as a mass of black feathers popped over the dome of the building and watched me.
Relieved that at least someone would know what I was doing, I concentrated on the girl.
"This way, quickly," she sang softly. She twisted and turned around buildings, taking us to parts of Sulls that not only had I never been to before, I wasn't even familiar with it.
Our path was a whirlwind of turns that I would never be able to replicate again. We ran for a long time, and while I didn't expect to tire so easily I was unnerved at the young girl who was keeping pace with a half elven adult. My eyes flicked around our surroundings and I tried to drink it all in.
I thought I had stepped into some questionable neighborhoods before, but this was like no other. The crumbling clay domes and the secretive stares from doorways were not unfamiliar to me, but my jaw dropped when I saw a glowing witch mark carved on a doorstep.
I blinked, and thought I had imagined it, but then I saw another mark. This time it was something I had never seen before. They were subtle, but my eyes picked them up easily, even in the dark.
Doorways were covered in thin but secretive curtains. Awnings made sure every window and archway was concealed in shadows. Whatever this place was that the girl was weaving me through was old and quiet. My heart beat with a thrilling thought, one that hadn't occurred to me before now.
The witches may have left the lands, but there was still magic in Sulls.
A grin spread across my face as the girl slowed down, urging me up a set of stairs that wound outside a dome and brought us to a small door at the top. It was chipped and faded, but clearly written on under the brass door knocker was a simple message.
'The truth sleeps here'
The girl pulled a key from around her neck and unlocked the door. She turned to me and held out her palm. "Token please!"
I couldn't have pulled it out fast enough. I shoved it in her hand and she gave me a toothy grin as she pushed open the door behind her, moving to allow me through.
My lips parted in awe as I took in the room. It was far more elegant than a witch's hut, or at least than any I had seen. Silks and tapestries clung to the walls like a colorful second skin. The air was dense with a sweet smoke, but it didn't make me cough. There was little furniture in the room, but what there was seemed to be covered in pillows. There was a desk, a bed, a wide lounging chair, and a tub for bathing.
Possibly the most surprising thing yet, was the fact that three copies of the little girl were standing around the room, ready to attend to a woman who was sleeping.
I turned to the girl in the door behind me, and she was coming inside, closing the door behind her.
"Welcome," the girl said. "The Oracle has been waiting for you."