Chapter Text
Three days earlier.
The rooms at the Raha Den were curiously shaped — only one wall was actually a part of the building; the rest were tent walls of taut canvas. Trying to appear nonchalant, Laudna surveyed each corner thoughtfully, trying to decide which would be the most likely place to sleep. If Imogen didn’t invite her to come back to her bed, that is. She might. But she should be prepared to spend another night on the floor, just in case. One was already occupied by a potted cactus, so that ruled that out. She should probably take one of the corners with a real wall, just to lessen the chances of rolling over when she woke in the morning and under the edge of the canvas tarp, straight off the wooden platform floor. That would surely be a rude awakening for whoever was below them.
Imogen sat down on the edge of one of the beds and began loosening her bootlaces. Fearne tested the springiness of the mattress on the other, seeming satisfied with it. Orym rolled up one of the window flaps in the canvas wall to look out. Laudna caught the side of her lower lip between her teeth and chewed on it. It was going to become obvious soon that she wasn’t doing anything except standing beside the door with like an increasingly awkward umbrella stand. She envied the potted cactus; it looked like it belonged in the room. Imogen was pulling off one boot now and starting on the other, with no suggestion of where she wanted Laudna to go.
On board the Silver Sun they had dragged one of the narrow cots from one sleeping cabin to the next, pushing two of them together into one big bed with the unspoken understanding that they wouldn’t have to sleep apart. They had spent too many nights alone before meeting each other.
But there had been one more, in the end. After Laudna’s hands had betrayed them both, Imogen had said she was going to bed and had gone back to their cabin alone, and shut the door behind her. Laudna had lingered outside it for a time, wondering if Imogen would call her in to let her apologize. But she had not, and after a while the slice of light beneath the door had disappeared, so Laudna had gone into the empty room and lain amid the dust bunnies where the cot had been. It was more than she deserved; she ought to have been lying dashed upon the rocks on the valley floor after breaking Imogen’s trust like that.
She wondered if it would attract too much attention to go to Ashton in the next room and ask for her bedroll from the memory hole. Probably. He’d want to know why she wanted it and then she’d have to explain all about how she’d broken Imogen’s special rock and now Imogen was mad at her and hadn’t yet indicated whether it was all right for her to sleep in their bed again and then Ashton might offer to share and then it might become a routine and Imogen would think she didn’t want to come back and then they’d never share a bed again. In the city the night was still too warm for the ruse of wanting an extra blanket.
Imogen was undoing her suspenders now. Laudna waited. She would have welcomed even an exasperated query of, “You just gonna stand there all night?” just to open the topic of conversation, but Imogen said nothing. All right. Nothing else for it, then.
She went to the corner opposite the cactus. Not wanting to impose on Imogen but not wanting to make it appear that she was pointedly not imposing on Imogen and thereby accusing her of finding her an imposition, she tried to project an air of contentment as she took off the loose-woven linen scarf she’d been wearing for protection from the scorching sun of the Hellcatch Valley and spread it out on the floor. It looked pathetic as a bed, but she’d had worse.
Sitting down on it, she unbuckled her belts and set them aside with her scissors and her belt pouch and her spool of red string, laid Pâté and Sashimi down on a corner of the bed, and took out her rock chisel to let her hair down. Like she did every night before going to bed. This was a perfectly normal thing to be doing.
“What are you doing down there?”
Laudna jumped. Fearne, sitting on the other bed in her peach-colored satin nightgown, was looking at her with an expression of curiosity? Concern? The hoof pick she was using to clean the dust and gravel from her feet before bed hovered in her hand like a question mark, punctuating her statement. Orym, straightening up from his bedtime stretches, was watching her too.
“Me?” she asked, “I’m just getting ready for bed.”
“Okay . . .” Fearne’s round doe eyes flicked to Imogen before returning to Laudna. “Do you want to sleep over here? There’s room for three.”
“Or I could go share with Ash, if you want,” Orym ventured, cautiously measuring the pressure of the storm that was clearly starting to gather on Imogen’s face with his eyes.
“Oh, no,” Laudna replied, aiming for insouciant in tone but landing closer to frantic, “I’m quite comfortable here.”
Imogen got up with a sigh that had too much of her voice in it not to sound annoyed and went to the basin to wash up. Laudna tried to occupy herself in making her dolls ready for bed, drawing a fold of the scarf over them and tucking them in, but her ears tingled under their gold cuffs. In her effort not to make things awkward she’d only made them more awkward.
She curled up in the corner to demonstrate how fine she was sleeping there. One of her shoulders snitched on her with an accusatory pop as she settled her bones against the floor, but no one said anything, and presently the others put out the lamps and went to bed as well. She listened to the rhythm of breath as one by one each of theirs smoothed out into the evenness of sleep, first Fearne’s, then Orym’s, then finally, Imogen’s.
But not Laudna’s. She lay awake, listening to the festive hum of the bazaar outside, and wondering what she would do if Imogen never forgave her. Perhaps it was time for her to leave. Bassuras seemed like the sort of city she could disappear into and never be found. She was good at not being found. The alternative was to stay, slowly withering away under the silence of her resentment, until they became strangers to each other. She weighed the pain of severing her heart from Imogen’s in one swift, agonizing cut against the slow and bitter sickness of love rotting into indifference. Neither option seemed bearable.
Finally, unable to lie still and afraid of waking the others with the clatter of her restless bones against the wooden floor, she got up as quietly as she could and went out, retrieving her chisel and her belts and her string and scissors. She considered taking Pâté and Sashimi along for company, but they looked so sweet together that she didn’t want to disturb them. (At least they wouldn’t be lonely tonight.)
The caravanserai marketplace still bustled with activity. Vendors of food and trinkets shouted their wares from beneath canvas awnings lit by strings of hanging lanterns while travelers meandered between them in twos and threes, or collected at stalls to share drinks and gossip. The scents of frying bread and roasting meat, grease and spices drifted against her face as she moved through the market with no particular goal other than to find somewhere to hide her thoughts from herself.
A familiar jade-stone hand waved her over to an open-air tavern under a roof of stretched canvas on tent poles hung with red and purple flags, faded from the long sun of many days. “Hey, spooky girl. Couldn’t sleep?” Ashton greeted her as she dropped her body into the chair opposite them at a wooden table, “I get it, this city can be a lot.”
“Imogen’s mad at me,” Laudna blurted out. The confession landed on the stained tabletop between them with the gracefulness of a dead fish, and about as unexpectedly.
“Okay,” replied Ashton, with a careful levelness, “hold that thought. If we’re gonna have this conversation we need some reinforcements.” He went to the bar and returned with two more earthenware cups to accompany the one already on the table. Laudna dragged one over to herself and picked it up without asking what was inside, taking a sip of something that bit the inside of her throat. “I thought there was something weird between the two of you,” Ashton said, plunking himself down opposite her again, “There was a vibe. Now, I don’t need to know the details. Whatever happened, it’s not for me to know, but—”
“I broke her rock,” Laudna confessed in a doleful quaver. A teardrop slithered opaquely over her cheek like a snail and landed with a heavy plop in her drink.
“Oh, shit,” he said, “she really liked that rock.”
“Not just her rock,” she clarified, “I broke her trust. It meant . . . so much to her and I pr—promised not to harm it . . . and then I did.” She hadn’t meant to cry. Not even last night lying amid the dust bunnies had she cried. But she was crying now, with her horrible black, oozy tears.
“This is more than I bargained for tonight,” Ashton muttered to himself, and then to her, “Was it an accident?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Does she know it was an accident?”
“I don’t . . . maybe?” Laudna paused, snuffling murkily. Did Imogen know it was an accident? She had tried to apologize, but Imogen’s refusal to accept it could mean that she suspected her of having selfish, deceitful intentions. The idea that Imogen thought her capable of being such a bad person immediately made her feel like one. “I’m a bad friend,” she sighed gustily.
“No, you’re not a bad friend. You’re a good friend who did a bad thing.”
Laudna took an unsteady gulp of her drink, which hadn’t gotten any smoother. “What’s the difference?”
“A bad friend wouldn’t be so broken up about it.” Ashton turned his cup around in his hands, clinking the rings on his fingers against the glazed clay. “Have you done anything to make it up to her?”
“I said I was sorry,” she offered feebly, “and I did try to mend the rock, but the pieces wouldn’t go back together.”
“There was something weird about that rock. Feywild magic. I don’t fuck around with that shit.”
Laudna let her head sink between her shoulders and stared darkly into the foam of her drink. “I should have thrown myself overboard.”
“No . . .”
“Smashed all my bones on the rocks.”
“I don’t—”
“Broken myself like I broke her heart.”
“I don’t think that would have made anyone feel better. But you might be onto something with that rock thing. I think maybe we need to figure out some kind of rock-based apology.”
“I said I should have . . .”
“No, without the bone smashing. An apology that actually speaks to what happened.”
She looked up at Ashton through the blear of ink in her eyes. The lantern light reflecting off the purple spikes of their crystal hair called to mind the glow of the purple crystal in her hands before it had broken. “Should I . . . do you think I need to get her a new rock?”
He seemed relieved to see her fumbling towards a solution. “A new rock might not be a bad idea. Do you think that would help? If we found a new rock for Imogen?”
She looked around doubtfully at the surrounding bazaar. The old one had meant so much to her; it seemed unlikely she would find a worthy replacement at a street market in this seedy city. But surely she’d be able to find something that Imogen would like. She should try, anyway.
“Well, finish your drink, then we’ll take a look around and—”
“I’m going to look around,” she decided simultaneously, rising so abruptly that Ashton had to put his hand on the fullest of the cups to prevent it from sloshing over as her hip jostled the table.
“Wait, wait,” they said, looking with regret over the three mugs of varying fullness, “All right, I’ll catch up with you.” As she moved away from the table Ashton leaned back in their chair to look up at her seriously. “Don’t go too far,” the genasi advised, “This city, it’s not a great place to be at night. Or at any other time, really, but you definitely don’t want to get lost out there at night.” Laudna nodded. “And you might want to . . .” Ashton gestured vaguely to his face, then waved her on her way, “You know what, leave it. It’s a look. Might keep you safe from pickpockets.”
Cheered by a renewed sense of purpose, Laudna ambled along the rows of tightly-packed market stalls, tents, and carts. There must be something here deserving of Imogen. A paisley-patterned scarf? No, she already had a pretty yellow one that she loved. A necklace of cats-eye glass beads? No, Laudna had never seen her wear any other jewelry than the friendship bracelet she and Fearne had made. (Was she wearing it still? Possibly. She had no reason to be mad at Fearne, after all.) A soothing tea blend? Maybe — it could help her sleep, but it might remind her too much of how they had perused the tea selections in the Jrusar market together, in happier times. She might think Laudna was being manipulative, purposefully calling to mind that memory.
Moving on, she came to a cart displaying a variety of rough-cut stones and crystals of many colors, wrapped with beads and wires to make jewelry, dangling from the wooden overhead signfront on leather thongs, or spread out on a silk scarf before the proprietor, a katari woman with the tall ears and spotted fur of of a serval.
“Is this one looking for something in particular?” the merchant purred invitingly, “I have crystals for a variety of needs. Jade, to bring you luck; amethyst, to ward off poisons; pink tourmaline, to help you find . . . romance?” She looked up at Laudna, and an expression of doubt — and caution — fluttered her whiskers momentarily. The black stripes patterning the katari’s face suddenly reminded her of the streaks of ichor drying on her own.
“Do any of these cure nightmares?” Laudna asked, quickly scrubbing at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I need a magical crystal that can cure nightmares.”
“My crystals are the remedy to all manner of ailments!” the merchant insisted, “nightmares included. I have,” with one claw she touched a polished clear grey pebble, “smokey quartz, to ground your energy and promote peaceful sleep, or,” she held up a bracelet of white stones veined with blue, “howlite, to calm your aura and banish negativity.”
“Oh, it’s not my aura that needs calming. It’s my friend’s.”
“This one is sure? Your aura seems very . . .” the katari’s yellow eyes moved from Laudna’s bony fingers tangling twitchily in a lock of her hair, to the flaking streaks of ink on her bloodless cheeks, to the restless stare of her overlarge eyes (was she looking maniacal again? she felt a bit frantic, which she’d been told expressed on her face as maniacal), “. . . disturbed.”
“Well, there’s the ghost of an angry dead woman in there. Very long story.” She swatted the issue away with a backwards flick of her hand. “But I’m not concerned about my aura. I need a magic rock that can change someone’s dreams.”
“Dreams?” asked a nearby market shopper, leaning casually against the crystal cart, “It sounds like you’re looking for something . . . fey.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Laudna, happy to finally have gotten through to someone, “Yes, that’s it exactly! I need a fey rock.”
“Well, you’re not going to find that here. These are all great, though,” the stranger quickly reassured the crystal merchant, whose ears had curved back to the sides of her head. “You need to come to the Dusk Market.”
“Is that somewhere in Bassuras? I’ve only just arrived in town, I — I don’t really know my way around yet.”
“No worries, I can take you there.”
Carefully, Laudna turned her face to the friendly voice. She wished she hadn’t left her scarf behind, because she had a feeling that the invitation would be rescinded as soon as her escort saw her up close. But the stranger, an elf whose short, tousled brown hair and long ears poking through it gave them a puckish appearance, only smiled up at her winsomely. The red-gold shine of their armor, in plates that took the subtle shape of overlapping leaves, reminded her of the woods surrounding Imogen’s hometown in the autumn they’d spent there together, before they’d had to leave. “I’m Dusk, by the way. No relation to the market.” They offered her a companionable elbow and Laudna cautiously slipped her hand into it. She waited for Dusk to flinch away from the touch of her cold hand, but the elf covered her fingers with her own.
“I’m Laudna.” She waved a somewhat sheepish goodbye to the crystal merchant, who curled her spotted lip over one pointed fang as they turned away from the cart.
“Cool name! So what brings you to Bassuras?” Dusk asked as she led her along narrow, dusty streets to another part of town, beneath lines of tired-looking banners and even more tired-looking laundry.
“Oh . . . my friends and I are here to meet up with an acquaintance.” It wasn’t a lie. They had been briefly acquainted with Armand Treshi at the masked ball in Jrusar.
“Is this the person you’re trying to find a magic rock for?”
“Oh, no. That’s a different friend.”
They had arrived at an unassuming arch built of scrap metal in a part of the city she didn’t recognize. The only remarkable thing about it was a faded lanyard of purple and blue cord knotted around one of the rusted metal supports, from which dangled a small silver charm in the shape of a crescent moon. On the other side she could see a courtyard with an octagonal fountain, bone dry, and the threadbare remains of an old rug bunched up by one wall. Nothing else.
“This is the place?” Laudna asked, not so much incredulous as curious. She wondered if anyone would mind if she took the rug. No one else seemed to be using it, and it would make a slightly better bed than her linen scarf if she cleaned and patched it up a bit.
“This is the place! C’mon.”
They stepped through the arch. Looking around, Laudna found herself in . . . Bassuras.
Bassuras, but more. The dust-colored streets of the outer city were now vibrant with color and noise and life — laughter and chatter in languages familiar and foreign to her, the irregular braying of animals, the skirling of a reed instrument, the swirl of a dancer’s silks, a fog of mingled wood smoke, animal musk, burning sugar, and a honeyed, floral fragrance she couldn’t identify. What had been an empty courtyard was now a market square even livelier than the one outside the Raha Den. Carts and wagons of varying shapes and sizes were arranged in a circle around the fountain, hitched to horses, hitched to mechanical crawlers, even a little one hitched to a pygmy goat. Around them crowded droves of people of even more varied shapes and sizes — people with feathers, or goat legs like Fearne’s, or hair like leaves, or wings like dragonflies. The fountain burbled with water that reflected a rainbow of hues from strings of little paper lanterns hanging overhead. They looked like the kind she used to see at Winter’s Crest, but they twinkled erratically as though they were full of fireflies.
Near the arch a Pachydan in a tasseled hat was playing a reedy, bagpipe-like instrument, using his elephantine trunk in place of the blowpipe. Next to him, a man with skin so dark and wrinkled it looked like tree bark was keeping time on a drum with his sticklike fingers, and on his other side, a woman with jewel-like, faceted eyes and fingers jointed like the legs of an insect plucked dexterously upon an oud. Beside them a hand-painted sign read, in gold lettering,
“Come one, come all to the Dusk Market!
Open only when the Moon is right.
Your wildest dreams and moon-mad fancies,
All for sale here!”
The piper winked in greeting as they went in. Laudna stopped and looked about herself in surprise, her anxiousness forgotten. Glancing behind them, she could still see the grimy alley they had come through. “Where are we?” she asked.
Dusk laughed. She had a friendly-sounding laugh, not cruel or teasing. “Right where we were a minute ago! We’re in the same place, just a step sliiightly to the left. We’re in the Feywild now.”
“Oh!” Laudna exclaimed, “I know someone from here! Well, not here, here, but from the Feywild.”
“Oh, hey! Anyone I would know?” Dusk maneuvered her away from the entrance to make way for a tall man with a winged frog on his shoulder to pass by.
“Her name is Fearne,” Laudna explained, “Fearne Calloway. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Apparently her family is a big deal around here.”
“Mmm,” Dusk replied, with an air of apology, “Sorry, can’t say I have. You wanna get a drink?”
“Oh . . .” Laudna twisted her fingers together, looking with regret at the panoply of curiosities around her and breathing in the carnival fragrance. She dearly wanted to see everything there was to see, but she had a mission to complete. “I ought to find what I came here for. I . . . promised my friend back at the Raha Den I wouldn’t go far, he’ll be wondering where I went.”
Dusk waved an airy hand. “Not a problem! Time passes a little different here, you’ll be back before anyone even knows you’re gone.”
“Oh, that’s right! The soup!”
“You want soup? We can probably find that around here . . .”
“No, my other friend — Fearne, I mentioned her — she says that time in the Feywild is a weird soup.”
Dusk smiled. “Your friend sounds like a character. I’d love to hear more about her. C’mon, let’s get that drink.”
The elf in autumn armor led her by the hand between the market stalls, moving lithely through the crowd past a rabbit-eared girl selling an assortment of strange and lovely fruit out of a cart, a many-eyed woman on a blanket proffering an array of odds and ends with her many arms, and a tiny, mousy fellow only a few feet high herding an assortment of crawling clockwork figurines. They arrived at an open-air tavern beneath a blue canvas tent fringed with strings of gold beads, not unlike the one where she had met Ashton earlier in the evening and maybe even, as well as Laudna could judge the distance they had walked, in the same place? Dusk flipped a silver coin to the proprietor, a monkey in a striped vest and boater hat hanging upside down by the tail over the bar counter, who caught it with a jaunty salute and set about mixing drinks with all four of his hands.
“You can pay for things in coin here?” Laudna asked in surprise, accepting the glass Dusk presented to her, something pink and frothy as a little girl’s favorite dress, completed by a curly straw.
“Yeah, some things. But usually only in silver. Some things . . . it depends on what you’re trying to buy. You might have to trade something else. Hey — cheers!” She followed Laudna’s glass with her own to clink them together. “To new friends!”
The drink was much nicer than the one she’d shared with Ashton, berry-sweet with a warm, buttery finish. Owing to the novelty of the straw, she’d lowered the level by about half before she realized it. Laudna rocked herself contentedly on her feet while she drank the other half, letting the eddying rhythms of music and unfamiliar languages swirl around her. She wished Imogen could have seen all of this. She would have loved to peruse these market stalls with her, whispering together over the treasures they would find. Briefly she considered going back to the caravanserai wake her up, but suppose she couldn’t find her way back? (And suppose Imogen didn’t want to come with her?) It would be rude to introduce another person to the outing, anyway, she counseled herself, after Dusk had been so kind to her. And she wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise of the gift she had to find for Imogen. She should enjoy the night as it was.
“She must be really special to you,” Dusk commented. Laudna startled. Had she been speaking out loud? “That friend you’re trying to find a gift for,” the elf clarified.
“Oh! Yes. She is. Very special.” Before she could dwell long on the unspoken volumes of meaning in that phrase, special to you, Dusk continued.
“And this is . . . Fearne?”
“Oh, no. Her name is Imogen. She’s . . .” she looked down into the pink foam fizzing at the bottom of her glass, unable to find words to convey the everything that Imogen was beyond, “. . . very special.”
Dusk nudged her lightly with her hip. “Well look at you, Miss Popularity! You’re gonna have to tell me about all your friends so I can tell who’s who. You want another one?”
Laudna nodded, and Dusk exchanged her empty glass for a full one from the upside-down bartender. Had she promised to introduce Dusk to her friends? She must have. They’d all love to meet her, she was sure. Dusk was so nice.
Afterwards they made their way through the fey market. Dusk followed Laudna gamely as she darted from one curiosity to the next. Madame Lunabella: Fortunes Revealed, or Exchanged read a sign outside a tent through which a flicker of lights glimmered dimly. A flash of purple on a cart caught Laudna’s eye, but it was only a jewel-bright bunch of grapes being sold by the rabbit-eared young woman, Penelope Grey’s Herbery and Fine Fruits, alongside punnets of shiny, beadlike berries and apples that were frosty white beneath a sheen of candied glaze. And there, in that hanging cage? No, it was the amethyst carapace of a large beetle, not a stone. Witter’s Critters!! proclaimed a sign over a collection of small wooden cages through which a menagerie of creatures — gemstone beetles, a cackling imp, iridescent-winged pixies, even a very tiny dragon — watched them pass with baleful and mournful eyes.
Dusk bought a pair of oversized sunglasses and a comb that could turn the wearer’s hair any color, which they used to change their hair to a red-gold ombré to match their armor. She warned Laudna away from a stand displaying an array of beautiful jewelry, strings of pearls and glittering gems in delicate filigree, whispering to her that it was all englamoured with a temporary enchantment and would revert to its components of spiderwebs and dew the minute its unwary buyer wore it out of the Feywild. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see here,” she advised, “The Feywild can be tricky.”
Laudna hadn’t realized how lonely she had been, after Imogen’s long reticence towards her, until she had the attention of an eager ear. Dusk listened attentively as she spoke with affection about all of her friends — Orym’s steadiness, Fearne’s whimsical charms, Chetney’s hidden softness under his cantankerous exterior, FCG’s earnest optimism, Ashton’s biting sense of humor . . . and Imogen, brilliant, talented, capable Imogen. Soon she noticed she was doing most of the talking. She ought not to be hoarding the conversation like that, it was quite rude of her, but once she started talking it became a little hard to stop. Maybe it was the festival atmosphere. Maybe it was the three drinks of dubious origin (two of them fey) she had thrumming through her sluggish bloodstream. Maybe it was simply that Dusk seemed so interested in everything she had to say.
She stopped before a blanket unrolled in front of a wagon and exclaimed in delight. On it sat the old woman of the many arms she’d seen before. Six arms and two folded legs, for a total of eight limbs in all, and a smart brocaded waistcoat over a lace-cuffed blouse with a jeweled brooch at her neck. She also had eight eyes, in rows of two going up her forehead, and was accordingly wearing an impressive set of spectacles with eight lenses.
The blanket before her displayed a variety of miscellaneous oddments, with no particular theme. A tarnished old thimble, a cracked and dirty hand mirror, an old comb with missing teeth, a frayed purple ribbon, a cloudy glass bottle, a pair of worn, grimy leather boots, and a withered cat’s paw with six toes hanging on a silver chain, among others. Laudna loved it all immediately.
“Hello there, little dead girl,” the many-armed woman greeted her with a smile, peering up at her with dark, glassy eyes through her many spectacles, “Can I interest you in any useful trinkets?”
“Oh yes, very!” she replied, “I mean, yes. You are. Interesting me in them.” She crouched down for a closer look.
The old woman chuckled with a sound like bare, scraping branches. Her hair was white, drawn up behind her head in a bun except for a few bristling tufts that stuck out behind her ears. “They’re all quite interesting, and useful too, I assure you, even to one such as yourself. No two alike! See this thimble, here?” One of her hands rolled the thimble in its gloved palm. “Worn by a fairy princess while she sewed her wedding trousseau. If you put it under your pillow, you’ll dream of your one true love.”
“Oh . . .” Laudna put the tip of her finger regretfully in her mouth, “I’m not sure I have one of those.”
The many eyes squinted at her in sympathy. “Poor thing,” she tutted, “wouldn’t you like to find out for sure?”
Laudna hesitated. It would be a comfort, to be loved again by Imogen in her dreams and know that perhaps one day she would be forgiven and they would be friends again . . . but so much more an anguish if she dreamed of no one. She shook her head.
“Perhaps this, then?” Another of the hands lifted the hand mirror, holding it with the glass facing away from her. “They say those who dare to look into the glass are shown a vision of themselves at the moment of their own death. But you, dear . . .” the eight eyes searched Laudna’s face, with its funeral shroud complexion, “I’ll let you have a peek for free, just because I’m curious.” Unable to resist, Laudna leaned in closer, and the old woman’s wrist gave one swift twist, turning the cracked glass to her face and then away just as quickly.
Laudna sat back on her heels. “I’m not sure it’s working. It — my reflection — I looked exactly the same.”
“Hmm,” said the old woman, glancing at it briefly before laying it down again on the blanket.
It wasn’t exactly the truth. Her face had looked the same to her as it ever did, ageless and unchanging, but she had glimpsed a sky turbulent with red. The red of Imogen’s nightmares. The restless hands picked up the scrap of purple satin ribbon, but Laudna tilted herself in close, putting her face within whispering distance. “I’m actually looking for something in particular,” she explained.
“Oh?” inquired the woman, unruffled by her closeness, “Tell me of your desires.”
“I need a rock,” she said carefully, “a shard of the Gnarlrock. Have you heard of it?”
The eight eyes stared wide-open at her from behind eight spectacles as the old woman leaned back in surprise. “Where did you hear about that?” she hissed.
“Do you have one?”
“No, I’ve nothing of that sort here.” Five of her hands fidgeted with her wares, while the sixth curled over the brooch at her throat.
“Do you know anyone who might? I need to find one. As soon — as soon as possible. I can’t go back home without it.”
The button-black eyes twitched askance, then back to Laudna. “Not now,” she replied in a furtive undertone, “Come back later, when the market’s done. We’ll talk then.” When Laudna hesitated, she offered one of her many hands to shake. Through her gloves her fingers clutched hers like the mandibles of a spider.
Laudna got to her feet, less steadily than she meant to, earning herself a cheerful “whoopsie-daisy!” from the old woman, whose countenance resumed its smile. A few arms reached up to steady her as she teetered. She looked around. A pair of sisters, their faces hidden behind fox-faced masks somewhat like the one she had worn to the ball in Jrusar, passed by arm in arm with their fox tails brushing the dusty ground behind them. A large bird with feathers that shimmered like black opal beneath the colored lights perched on top of the rusted metal arch, a string of englamoured pearls clutched in its beak. The dancer in silks spun amid a whirl of veils, weaving herself in time to the weaving melody of the music, and as Laudna watched, a little mesmerized, it seemed that her head and limbs and body seemed to move without regard to one another, so that her head twisted and her arms twitched on their own puppet strings as she turned ceaselessly around and around. Then she blinked, and the illusion was gone.
Disoriented, she rubbed her eyes and tried to peer through the confusion of noise and color wheeling about her to find her friend. The edges of everything had begun to run together like a watercolor painting, and none of the voices around her nor the languages they were speaking sounded familiar anymore. She couldn’t see Dusk anywhere.