Aliyah

The scent of old leather and hot, peppery tea hit her in the face, capped off with a fine mist of astringent smoke. Whispers, all around, the clinking of cups, a fleeting glance or two. Kionah forged her way through the low-lit room and Aliyah trailed in her wake. The curtains of Whistle House were heavy and velvet, emerald green and firmly shut; she spotted silvery runes darting over the fabric. They picked their way past low tea-tables, many of them occupied by groups of foray-men deep in hushed conversation.

Figures reclined and smoked on cigar divans lining the walls. She wrinkled her nose, eyes watering slightly as they passed through a particularly thick cloud of bitter smoke. And though this smoke was grey and not blue, some shared aspect of its scent made the image of Magician Cardainne flash through her mind. It was chased by a ghost-impression of soft panic under golden lights. The memory of the vast waiting hall, nothing like this. Nothing like this at all.

They were most of the way down the hall when someone—a tall, red-haired young woman—arose from her seat of cushions and strode over to them, lilac skirts swishing conspicuously.

“Kion! Is that you? I am so glad to see you; Sabine said you died!”

Kionah turned her head just slightly before glancing away, cool and stiff. “Yes. I am clearly dead. This is a knife-spirit piloting my corpse.” She started to walk faster.

“Oh, come off it,” the red-haired girl huffed, adjusting her stride. “Where’ve you been?”

“Away.”

“What is away supposed to mean? Coast, continent? A little clue would be nice.”

“I’m here to speak to Shasta. Not you.” Kionah reached the door at the back of the tea hall and rapped at it sharply. Runes surfaced on the weathered wood and bounced off her fingertips before sinking back into quiescence. She stepped back, crossed her arms, and waited.

The girl scowled as her eyes flitted over to Aliyah. “Oh, and who’s this?”

“Travel companion.”

“Care to introduce us?”

“No.”

“What’re in those packs of yours?”

“Go ask Ianis.”

“Oh come on, Kion, I just—”

Kionah twitched visibly. “Stop calling me that.”

The door swung open and outwards, almost hitting Aliyah in the shoulder. She took a stumbling step back and stared at the man who emerged.

The top of his head brushed up against the door frame. He was handsome, in a rough-cut sort of way: old scars, silvered with age, criss-crossed the bronzed skin of his arms and shoulders. The little gold hoops hooked through his ears reminded her of Jackal—and wasn’t that an unfortunate paper chain of memories to dwell upon at the moment. She tore her thoughts away from her slow-rising distress as he spoke.

“What pair of cats have decided to argue on my doorstep today?”

“Hello,” Kionah said with no vocal inflection whatsoever.

The man blinked. “Kionah?” he asked, with an astonished lilt at the end.

“No, I am a figment of your imagination. You are hallucinating,” Kionah snapped. “Of course it’s me, dipshit. Let me through.”

“Good to see that no one has harmed your tongue,” he said. “What happened? And who is this?” he asked, glancing at Aliyah.

“Aliyah, meet Shasta. Shasta—Aliyah. Tell you about the rest of it upstairs,” Kionah said. “Could you ask Maia to kindly piss off?”

The girl—Maia—flushed almost as red as her hair, crossing her arms under her chest. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Kion. I just wanted a friendly chat, ask you how you’ve been, and you treat me like this? Unbelievable!”

“Yes,” Kionah said. “That’s right, it’s despicably rude of me. Almost as rude as when I walked in on you and Rhoswen fucking on my couch.”

“Enough,” Shasta cut in. “No fights under my roof. Kionah, Miss Wickteseret—both of you, take your business with each other elsewhere.”

Maia glowered and gave a little toss of her head. “Are you kicking me out? The Twilight Mermaid won’t send another liaison.”

“Your paltry little sisterhood would hardly be a loss,” Aliyah heard Kionah mutter, just on the edge of hearing.

“No. I am not kicking you out.” Shasta paused and sighed, scratching the back of his head with one hand. “But don’t go making trouble. I will send you two the cleaning fee if you choose to stab one another within these walls. Run on up ahead, Kionah. And your companion—Aliyah, yes?—you too.”

They clattered up the stairs as Shasta stayed back, leaning down to say something to Maia. Aliyah turned back to Kionah, who was scowling fiercely.

“We have a…history,” Kionah said, catching her questioning glance. “She’s an illusionist, though not a very creative one. Second in command to her silly little posse, much as it shocks me. Also my…well, let’s say, she is a bygone companion.”

“I…see,” Aliyah said, and nothing more. It did not seem wise to add further comment to the situation.

“In here,” Kionah said, opening one of two doors at the landing.

She wandered in after Kionah, down a short hallway. The sound of something four-legged pattering heavily up the hallway—and then a blur of powder-blue fur and dark feather and bright scale was twining around their legs.

Aliyah yelped. Whatever it was, it was about the height of a small goat and a few hands longer. The impression of a long, wagging tail brushed against her knee.

Kionah reached down and patted the creature on its sleek, pointed head. “Aww, you missed me,” she cooed, sounding as fond as Aliyah had ever heard her sound.

“What the—what is that? Some kind of dog?”

“This is just Mutt. I do believe he is a chimera of some sort. Shasta found him as a puppy, going through the trash. He doesn’t bite.”

‘Mutt’ certainly did look like a mutt. Parts of his ears and snout were vaguely rodent-like, but he also had soft front paws, like a cat’s—perhaps sheathed claws, too? Aliyah couldn’t tell—and a crest of feathers around his neck and the tip of his tail. Not to mention, scattered patches of iridescent scales and carnivorous-looking teeth visible in his mouth. The conglomeration of animal parts was offset by a pair of large, dewy eyes. His tongue lolled out as he panted in what was probably a cheerful manner. Aliyah edged away from him as he sniffed at the back of her knee.

“Uh…he’s…he certainly looks unusual. But perfectly friendly, I’m sure.”

“Not fond of animals? We can hole up in the kitchen, then—he’s trained, won’t follow us in there. And I’m dying for a hot drink.”

Kionah pushed on a nearby door. The kitchen was tiled entirely in glossy white and cool blue, each square slab painted with intricate patterns, motifs of flower and willow leaf. The sink was piled high with dirtied plates. A dining area had been set up in the middle of the room: four wooden chairs with saffron-coloured blankets draped over the backs, a matching rectangular table holding some half-full cups, a bowl of oranges, and a—

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A weapon.

Time seemed to slow as Aliyah stared at the thing on the table. Dark and sleek and pointed in places, with sleek casing around the barrel and a holder for spellfire projectiles. It sat there, solid and gleaming and ugly, next to the cheery bowl of oranges and the cracked ceramic teacups. A basketful of long, pointed capsules sat next to it—projectiles to be loaded, each of them brass-plated and almost as long as her forearm, shining under the warm lamplight.

This didn’t feel real. This looked like a kitschy old grandmother’s kitchen, like someone’s cosy apartment. It was like seeing a corpse in a flower field. Her senses screeched danger.

She wrapped the sequence for vasodilation tightly around her fist. “Kionah,” she said. “What is that—”

Shasta stepped into the kitchen, blocking the doorway. “Kionah? Why’re you in here?”

Aliyah shrieked, and took a step back. Her arm jerked up, fingers splayed out in a half-warding gesture.

Kionah’s gaze snapped over, locked on to the movement. “No, no, calm down,” she said. “Aliyah, please, it’s—”

“What is that thing doing in here?” she demanded.

She wasn’t a fool. The weapon that lay on the kitchen table wasn’t just an item of dueling or of self-defense. It was for puncturing shields, walls, bodies. A memory unspooled in her mind, a little fuzzy with age, but still lucid enough to picture: Zahir flipping through the pages of a dusty book and pointing out the line drawings of various weapons within.

“This one is a flintlock,” he’d said. “No need to worry about them unless you have a particularly old-fashioned assassin after you. Anyone with a half-decent shield can deflect bullets. But on the other end of the scale—” And here, he flipped to a different portion of the book, marked by a tattered scrap of ribbon. “People do invent the most ingenious things. Worse than curses, some of them. I think, and hope, that you will never encounter one of these. Not much you can do if the victim is hit head on. But here, these are the steps that we tend to try anyway…”

At the time, she hadn’t understood. She had thought it was just Zahir being Zahir, happy to pass on knowledge from another esoteric, if morbid, corner of his book collection. She had buried the silhouettes of those incomprehensible designs into the loam of bygone memory. They resurfaced now, shivery and twitching. Icy fingers of fear gripped her throat, lungs, stomach.

“Kionah,” Shasta said. There was a note of irritation in his voice, and the vaguely annoyed expression he’d held earlier was back. “I thought you’d have the courtesy to not drag unsuspecting little greenhorns into my home.”

“I didn’t think it’d be a problem,” Kionah snapped, putting a hand to her forehead. “I was just going to ask to crash for a night, borrow your shower and your stovetop. But of-fucking-course you had to leave the ridiculous shit lying around.”

“It was from a meeting,” he said, arching an eyebrow—an eyebrow bisected by a thin, white scar. All of a sudden, the other scars over his skin swam into focus. Slashing scars, the type inflicted by swords and other sharp blades. Too many scars for a—what had Kionah said earlier?

“You’re not a courier, are you,” Aliyah said slowly, not really a question at all.

He blinked, looking almost affronted. “Of course I’m a courier.”

“Don’t—don’t lie to me,” Aliyah said. She couldn’t quite tame the quiver in her voice. She whipped her gaze over to Kionah. “None of this is normal. What’s really going on?”

Kionah sighed. “He’s a friend. Who happens to be a…I suppose you would call it a ‘gunrunner’.”

Shasta sniffed. “Actually, my ship’s busted at the moment. I’ve since diversified.”

“Oh? Into what?” Kionah asked.

“I’d rather not discuss that in front of present company.”

“No? Then why leave ten pounds of hollow-point bullshit in front of all the guests?” Kionah snapped.

“I didn’t realise you’d be visiting,” he said tetchily. “Trust you to disappear off the face of the map and then show up without so much as a calling card. And that old thing—well, it’s not mine. Like I said: a meeting. Just holding onto it for a friend. You know how it is.”

Aliyah swallowed. They were so casual about it. The menacing figures on the streets, the muscled doorkeeper at the entrance—it made much more sense now. She turned her gaze to Kionah. “If he’s a gunrunner, then what are you? Are you—” Spymaster, survivor, her mind offered. A memory of Princess Alhena’s body bleeding out into the salt. “Are you an assassin?”

“No,” Kionah said flatly. “Absolutely not.”

Shasta smirked, then. “You going tell her, or shall I?”

Kionah shrugged, an artful little toss of the shoulder. “I am not a murderer. I got rich ladies drunk and robbed them afterwards. Very ethical, very lucrative.”

“Don’t sugar-coat it, sweetheart.” Shasta laughed, teeth flashing. “You were a cut-purse and a whore.”

Kionah scoffed without heat. “Shut it, scum-brains. You have less dignity than your mother has teeth.”

He frowned. “You sleep with married women for money.”

“And you do it for free.”

“If you’re quite finished trying to one-up me in front of your little friend here—”

“You are being deliberately insufferable.”

“Me? Insufferable?” His frown deepened into a scowl. “Have you any idea how much of a thorn in my side Miss Wickteseret has been for the last, oh, entire year or so, always asking after where you are? As if you would have had the decency to tell me your destination.”

“Decency?” Kionah bristled. “As if I owe you knowledge of my whereabouts. Besides, I was leaving in a hurry.”

“That desperate to get away from her, eh? Can’t say I blame you.”

“Oh, so you’re going there, are you?” Kionah asked, narrowing her eyes.

Aliyah felt that the conversation was quickly getting away from her, unspooling into a tangle of loose threads. “Excuse me,” she broke in, voice faltering as they both turned to look at her. “But what’s really going on? This isn’t a teahouse, is it?”

“Well,” Shasta began.

“Of course it’s a teahouse,” Kionah said, crossing her arms. “It serves tea. It’s sometimes a meeting place, a drop-off point and suchlike. But you’ve nothing to fear from us, I promise. Aren’t you tired? I am. I want a soft bed and a hot meal, and this is the only free place we’re going to get in the whole damn city.”

Aliyah hesitated. She did want to rest. They had been walking all night, and the pack weighed heavily on her shoulders. “…Okay,” she said. “Okay. Please take that…thing…away, though.”

“You want me to let you stay here for free?” Shasta broke in indignantly. “I need that room. Got a client coming tomorrow with casings and—”

“Let us crash for one night. You owe me that, at least,” Kionah said. “Or have you forgotten the time with the box of bone-knives and the—”

“Alright, alright!” He said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Take the damn guest room. Don’t blame me if your squeamish friend can’t sleep. Speaking of which, why is she here?”

“I’m—” Aliyah began, not fully sure of what to say.

“Shower first,” Kionah interrupted. “I’m sick to death of refreshening spells.”

“Refreshenings? What king did you ransom to buy those?”

“I’ll tell you the whole sordid tale, in exchange for…lunch? Is it lunch yet? I do believe we skipped breakfast.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Shasta said, shaking his head. “Alright. Run along, then.”

Kionah nudged her out of the room and down the hall. Shasta’s pet mutt-creature trotted into the guest room after them.

“Shoo,” Kionah said, waving her hand.

Mutt flopped onto the carpet and whined.

“Oh, suit yourself, you insolent creature.” She peered through an adjacent door. “Hmm. I’ll use the shower first, but I won’t be long. And I’ll leave some hot water for you. Calm down and unpack. Give Mutt some attention or something.”

“Okay,” Aliyah said numbly. She sat on the edge of one of the beds and dropped her pack at her feet as Kionah shut the door and the shower began to hiss. Mutt trotted over, tail wagging. Hesitantly, she petted the top of his short-furred head.

Life as a castle maid hadn’t had much in the way of animal interaction. She thought of Rana’s rats, of the caged songbirds at market, of the occasional necropsy. Distantly, she heard Kionah humming through the wall.

Mutt butted his head against her stilled hand once more, and she obliged with a tentative scratch. There had been pets in the crowd on their way here, back up above, hadn’t there? They’d walked past a cart laden high with goldfish at some point. Glister unnerved her—ancient and new in equal parts, bursting to the seams with colour and yet, she still saw patches of normality here and there. Shasta’s chimera-pet was a bit like that: odd in that it formed something alien from recognisable parts. At least he was friendly. She doubted the city would be so.

She withdrew her hand to scratch at the faery-mark on her arm. Stark, even lines, like it had been painted on with a straight-tipped brush. Rana had shown her a new brush kit, once. She had let her try out all of the coloured inks and—

No. She did not want to remember that right now.

The skin around the lines itched, but she dared not try to fix it. Still running on borrowed magic. She reached down to pet Mutt again.

Kionah emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in two enormous white towels and a small cloud of citrus-scented steam. Her glasses perched at the end of her nose, lenses somehow not fogged-up. Mutt leapt to his feet and went to circle her legs.

“Yours now,” she said. “I’ll be in the kitchen by the time you’re done.”

Aliyah grabbed a fresh set of clothes, each item tightly rolled up—how had Kionah packed them so quickly and so well?—and went into the bathroom. She locked the door behind her, tested the handle—once, twice. Satisfied, she twisted the hot tap and checked the water spray with the palm of her hand; it was already heated. Far too hot, actually; was Kionah partial to parboiling herself? She winced and nudged the cold tap with her finger before stripping off her spellfire-charred clothing.

The ragged arrow-hole left in her shirt was not large—only as wide as the first joint of her thumb—but it made her shiver to look at. The hole burnt through her right sleeve, well…that one stirred up a fresh mixture of anger and fear. But slightly more anger than fear, on account of the constant, dull itching.

She stepped into the cubicle and tried to half-heartedly scrub the mark off her arm with a dollop of lemon-scented soap. It didn’t work, of course. But the hot spray did melt away some of the ache in her muscles. She lathered up her hair, relaxed into the soft glide of suds over her hands. Presently, the water started to run cold. She dried herself off with a towel far larger than any she had washed or mended back in Shadowsong and dressed herself in the fresh clothing, an exact copy of her traveling outfit. Coin pouch, nausea-keys—accounted for.

She realised, with an unpleasant jolt, that they were the only real remnants of Shadowsong she had left.