Something in my gut churns. Disgusting. I almost go over to do something about it when he abruptly leaves, and the children continue their songs and dances.
Past that, I find the place that smells like cloves and spilled wine and onion-musty sweat—the kind of tavern where minor officials go to pretend they are major. I stand with my back to the flaked post by the entry and crane my ears.
“…humans,” one is saying, “are leaking roofs. We help one, ignore a few drops, and we will have puddles next. Puddles become marsh. Puddles…” he slurs, “turn into…er—fuck.Marshesdestroy homes.”
His companion sighs in the long-suffering style of a man who only came out not to be alone. “Apt description, Ferl. But you’re being too harsh.”
“And you? You will clap when the king parades one of those things as his wife? His last one was bad enough. What next, will you take a human bride? Give more of those fuckingPeredhelsrunning around the streets, just like the last consort? Who will want to reproduce with those monsters if the king already killed his?”
Surely they aren’t referring to Arlet. Arion had other wives?
“Shut your wrinkly lips. I would gladly marry one of them. I don’t wish to let my line die with me like you. Besides, humans aren’t half as grotesque as the corner crier said,” the still-sober one responds. “Mereena’s tavern only has three girls available as it is, and I don’t like sharing a cunt with every lonely man in the city. We need the fresh blood. At least the humans aren’t awful to look at—I heard there’s a place where they’ve been testing compatibility with soldiersout in the deep forest. Some of the men were bragging about it a few months ago.”
My jaw aches as I file the information away. This city could make a saint grind his teeth to dust.
At the alley mouth, a drunk tailor’s apprentice pisses against a wall and mumbles out the words of a song. “He saw her pretty as the sun, and then from her to the marshes he did run. The hag carved a smile upon his face, to win his beloved’s heart with borrowed grace. But love runs deeper than the skin…”
He forgets the lyrics, it seems, shakes off a bit of his drunken stupor, staggers, catches the post near me with a hand, and blinks up into my hood as I approach. His pupils pin to the shadow of my face and slide away. He’s learned not to hold a stranger’s gaze.
I consider leaving. But something about his words…
A hag,I think, humming. Could that be Neryth? I don’t have the best track record with getting women to use their magic to fix me, but I screw up my courage and straighten my back, feeling my cleaver’s handle dig into my spine.
“What old hag?” I ask.
He squints, working the name loose from his ale-addled tongue. “Liked my song? Give me a coin,you poor bastard.Can’t drink for free!”
I don’t move a muscle. “Is the story real?”
The man, caught off guard by my tone, glances from side to side. “Of course it’s real. Why would I see-ng a song about?—”
“Who is the hag?” I repeat.
“Ner…Neryth.”
At last. I feel like I can fly.
“The mirror-needle. Cheated reflections so well that the court thought the mirrors were lying. She’s got glamour good enough to make an ass look like a thoroughbred. The High Beautifier took offense. They demoted her.” He lets out a sputtering, drunken cough that has him half doubled over. “If you want a face the palace can’t smell, you go to her. If you want a face that flatters, you go to anyone else.”
“Where?”
“Salt End.” He waves his hand vaguely toward the city’s lowquarter, the part that tips back out toward brine and river. “Old glass row. But I would stay away from there. No one lives there after the last raids—’s bad luck, if you ask me.”
I nod once. He takes it as permission to forget the conversation. Two steps later, he is singing about needle pricks and fresh fabric. It occurs to me that the song has a double meaning when he starts to describe the thrust of the needle.
Fuck, am I really about to trust such a man?
As if in response, the Fuegorra aches in a dull, stupid way behind my sternum. It’s not as if Arlet is nearby, but the feeling in my skin is a reminder of her. My hand lifts, then drops.
I push back in the direction the man pointed, past the other pubs overflowing with men and more men.
Voices pour out into the night, coming from those who have no real home to return to. Rumors drape themselves on me like cloaks.
“—five nights?—”
“—collar set with green stones, to match her gown?—”
“—humans bring plague, and pity, and petitions?—”