Growing up, Magic always found crowds annoying to deal with.

During the summer, when children were outside and ripped more of their shirts by snagging them on loose wires or nails from getting too close to fences and porches, or tore holds in their jeans from sliding across a hard dirt path, his house used to be overrun with other frantic mothers fretting about the rips they hadn’t the skills to repair. It made the house noisy and loud and the walls seemed to vibrate disapprovingly from the chatter. Magic often shut himself in his room just to distance himself from the congregation one floor down so he could hear himself think.

Now, here, in the streets of Elnoire, he was doing the exact same thing in a crowded marketplace that made his skin crawl with the unwanted attention. Just walking in the stuffy streets, made warmer from the noon sun and clusters of bodies, caused his chest to tighten and he did what he could to keep his focus, again, on Mira who walked several paces ahead of him. She glanced over her shoulder several times as if to make sure Magic was following and he resisted the urge to ask her to slow down each time she did. But, as if she could sense his discomfort from her glances, she made small pauses before squeezing past people, forcing the space larger for Magic to weave through without issue.

For a town ravished by economic downturn for several years, the marketplace was bustling, and it was less a marketplace, Magic realized, than it was a trading center. He saw a person put up furs poached from foxes in exchange for a bar of grains, another handing over a mortar and pestle with a tiny bag of nuts and spices set beside it for a scroll with an ink bottle. Elnoirans weren’t selling goods for zirca coins, but bartering for goods they already owned.

Which meant that the money in his pocket was safe for now unless Mira found a way to force his hand, which she invariably always did.

Mira stopped in front of a quaint little stand and Magic lingered against the adjacent one, legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. Sprawled along the length of the table were spices, herbs and tiny grain bars held together with what Magic thought was tree sap. It was a pitiful display, but he couldn’t deny that the scent of the leaves and edible food made his stomach rumble. He pushed his arms into it to muffle the noise.

His sister rapped her knuckles along the countertop and snagged the attention of an old man a few feet away from his work. He turned, an unfinished necklace made of blue and black beads dangling from two of his fingers as he stood behind the table. “Orisola! Assit vi?”

Mira blinked. She turned to look at Magic, her brows raised in a silent question, like she expected him to have the answer. But he was just as lost; he’d never heard those words before, though they sounded vaguely familiar. It was on the tip of his tongue, too, which irritated him to no end.

Then, noticing the confusion on their faces, the man laughed heartily and clapped his hand with the unfinished jewelry against his chest. “Ah, my bad. I mistook you for a regular who comes around this time of day. Small woman. Similar face.”

“That so?” asked Mira, leaning forward into the table, her finger twirling around a thin vine in a pot. “You get a lot of regulars around this time?”

“Sa. Place is packed at noon. People try to get what they can before the chill comes in. Free-for-all out here, but people are smart about what they bring to the table.”

“What do people bring to the table?”

The man grinned, wrinkles creasing his skin to make him look about the age he sounded: a man no older than sixty with calm blue eyes, a protruding gut and warm, olive skin. There were three sun spots on his face in an arc above his right eye, a tiny scar opposite them near the other hidden by the wrinkles of crows feet. But his mannerisms and way of speech reminded Magic a lot of Mira’s father: jovial, loud, and always looking for a way to tease. “Anything they can find that’s of good use. People tend to collect coffee grinds they find from the trash bins up north and bring them here to me. In exchange, I give them their pick of the lot.” He spread his arms wide. “They get their pick of two.”

Mira tapped her chin. “Do you get to buy some of your selling materials?”

“Not often,” replied the man, scratching behind his head. “Never really have the money to do so.”

“I know the feeling,” muttered Magic. In the bustle of the market crowd, his words went completely unnoticed and Mira carried on her conversation as if he wasn’t standing near her.

“What would the value of a coin or two be worth to you?”

Magic watched the man pause, set the unfinished necklace down and lean forward on his elbows. There was something ravenous in the merchant’s eyes, like he’d come across gold. And he might, if he was willing to part with the majority of his goods. “Say more, child.”

“What would seventy-five zirca mean to you?” Mira asked.

“Seventy-five? What would you offer seventy-five zirca for?”

“A bundle of everything on the table.”

“Mira,” Magic interjected. “Watch your price.”

The man’s mouth shifted to one side in deep thought, his wizened blue eyes looking from Mira to Magic, then back again. Eventually, his attention went to the display he had along the counter and based on how slowly he dragged his hands along the edge, Magic thought that maybe that amount of money was all it would take for someone of this man’s stature to get rid of what he had.

If there was anything Magic learned from counting out money from his mother’s jar at home, it was that those with nothing longed for more. He recognized the flicker of desire in the merchant’s eyes, knew that their bid wasn’t enough, and still his stomach dropped like a rock in a large puddle when the man said, “One twenty-five.”

“Ninety-five,” Mira insisted. “That’s straight down the middle for the both of us. I can offer you that but no more.”

The merchant hummed a tune to himself. Magic could tell it was taking most if not all of his restraint to ask for more. He’d seen his mother do something similar when a customer had offered a measly amount when they could have easily given more. “Would you drop one hundred instead?”

Mira’s fingers wiggled with consideration. Magic made a small whistle—a few heads turned to look at him and he shrunk into himself—shaking his head as his sister glanced up at him. She pursed her lips, clearly dissatisfied, but she could take her complaints elsewhere. They agreed on not spending a good chunk of their money. He intended to keep it that way.

“Ninety-five only,” she said after a quick roll of her eyes. “For the grains and the spices. And if you truly want my business and the coins, you’ll consider them.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The merchant sprawled his fingers across the wooden table like two sets of talons. He huffed and then nodded, waving for Mira to hand over the money. Magic reached into his pocket, ignoring his sister’s triumphant looking smile as he plucked the coins from the pouch and reluctantly handed them over.

The exchange happened fast; the man, well versed in packing objects into tiny bags, snagged the requested foods from the table and stuffed them all together in a pouch, tying it closed with a tiny piece of yarn. “Where must you folks come from,” asked the merchant, “to be carrying around this kind of coin?”

“Secrets,” Mira replied, handing the supplies to Magic. He silently stuffed them into his pockets as his sister went on. “You do what you can in a place like this.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Good head on those shoulders of yours. Will do you good if you plan on sticking around.”

“Only good when she thinks through her plans first,” Magic said and, though Mira scowled in his direction, she didn’t say anything to refute the claim. “And not long. Just trying to get what we need and leave.”

The merchant reached to pat Magic on the arm. He sidestepped away and the man, in an awkward pause, lowered his hand back down at his side. “Smart man. Get out while you can. The rest of us don’t have that luxury like you folk.”

“You folk?” echoed Mira.

The man squinted, a furrow creasing the space between his brows as if the question had genuinely shocked him. “Are you not well off? With the offer, I imagined—”

“Hush!” hissed a voice behind Magic; he flinched and stumbled towards his sister as another merchant, a small, stout looking woman, put a single finger against her lips. “Lower your chatter, Theo! They’re here.”

The older man—Theo—nodded solemnly and motioned for Magic and Mira to crouch a little. The two of them exchanged confused glances but obeyed anyway, huddling into themselves.

“Cover your faces,” Theo advised, patting Mira on the shoulder a few times. “Turn away.”

Mira looked down at the floor, occupying herself with some of the plant leaves on the table while Magic peered over her head. In the distance, by the furthest stands, were a group of people that walked in a pack. Three men and two women paraded through the market, their faces melting into shadow from beneath the torn tarps. Sporadic rays of light reflected off of their velvet coats that, from a distance, looked like they were recently obtained and Magic felt a twinge of jealousy. Self-consciously, he held his own clothes tighter around his waist as the posse maneuvered through the crowd in a uniform group, not a single person out of step with each other.

Theo yanked on Magic’s jacket, pulling him forward with such force that he almost knocked his forehead into Mira’s temple. “Get down.”

Magic swatted the merchant’s arm away and shuffled back. “Do not. Touch me,” he hissed, straightening out his coat, though he followed the instructions the shopkeeper gave him. “What’s wrong with that group?”

Theo sighed heavily and shook his head with a tired expression on his face that made him look like he’d aged several years in a moment’s notice. “The better question would be what isn’t wrong with that group. They’re a herd of trouble, that lot. Devilish uptown kids with fancy jackets that just like to start trouble with folks. The regular I mistook you for? She complains about them quite a lot because of all the havoc they cause.”

“What kind of havoc?” Mira asked.

“All sorts. Broken stands, smashed fruit. Picking fights with people after they’ve had themselves a drink or two. I hear they’re not afraid to pull their punches. Folks with an ego twice the size of the chip on their shoulders.”

Magic shuddered, anxious embers prickling on his skin and settling in his palms that made him long to pick and scratch at it. He couldn’t help a second nervous look back in the direction of the rogues, their noise and chatter now obvious in the hushed murmur of the once bustling market.

“You see a couple of ‘em come through in pairs at least to do all sorts of things. But those folk are young. They don’t look like they’d cause too much trouble, but best not take the risk. Up now.” Theo’s words were accompanied by a frantic kind of waving and Magic obliged, nudging Mira with his elbow to signal her to do the same. “They’ve gone further down that way.”

“And what happens,” Magic said, in a whisper that greatly embarrassed him to even speak, “if you run into them?”

Theo shrugged. “From what I hear? Nothing good. Steer clear of them on your way out, kiddos. On with you. Remember: heads down.”

Magic nodded, a dull tone in his ears drowning out much of his sister’s hushed speech—something along the lines of “Thank you” with a brief mention of what he assumed was appreciation. He wasn’t paying much attention; it was hard to with the ringing in his ears and the uncomfortable floppiness of his feet that made him clumsy on his way through the square. Something was pulling him by the jacket sleeve, but it was a dull sensation compared to the pounding of his head, the merchant’s words a vicious skipping record.

A herd of trouble, that lot.

I hear they’re not afraid to pull their punches.

They needed to leave, hide away in the alley for the rest of the day like hermits. If people like that had no qualms about starting fights with the bottom-of-the-barrel folks, what would they do to people like them, outsiders who didn’t belong here?

Heavy pressure slapped down on his shoulders and he flinched.

“Mags!” Mira was shaking him back and forth so hard his glasses were sliding down his nose. “Heavens, Magic, say something!”

Overwhelmed by the ache in his skull and the rough push and pull of his shoulders, Magic squirmed away from her, bumping his shoulder into a corner of bricks. A second observation and quick double take, though, revealed it to be an old, weathered house. He dragged his fingers down it for some form of a distraction, the roughness of it soothing against his hands.

And yet, despite the barest semblance of comfort, all Magic could force out of his mouth was, “We have to leave.”

Mira sighed, giving a single nod, breeze ruffling the bottom of her coat. “That’s the plan. But you froze up on me back there like something jumped from a corner and spooked you.”

“Got a little …” He pantomimed useless with his hands, searching desperately for the word. Wouldn’t that be nice? Being able to find the right words for every situation? When his thought process failed him, Magic started again. “It was crowded. And I don’t like the idea of running into trouble. It wasn’t much.”

His sister raised a brow. “That’s all?” she asked.

“That’s all,” he said.

Mira made a small noise in her throat that sounded a bit like approval, then glanced once at the market and waved for him to walk into the alley. He slipped into the shadows easily and began running in his head the mental image of the backstreets to get back to their makeshift shelter.

It had taken him a few strides into the dark before he realized that there wasn’t a second set of footsteps following him. Mira was still standing by the mouth of the alleyway, eyes trained in the direction of the market before her head turned to look further north.

“Mira,” Magic said, wiping his hands along his coat. “Let’s go.”

“You go. There’s something I want to do first.”

What else could there possibly be for her to do? They’d already gone to the market, and Magic wasn’t about to let her wander the streets of Elnoire when the possibility of getting themselves into something bigger than they initially bargained for was high. He groaned. “Mira—”

“We spent money, didn’t we?” Now she looked into the alleyway, her face swathed in shadow from the noon sun, her hair a ring of fire around her face. “And, we made a pact to get some money back every day.”

“Are you saying that because you want to give us funds? Or because you can’t help yourself from barging right into chaos?”

Mira shrugged. “What’s the difference? Whether it’s one or the other, I still want to stick around here for a bit longer. I know how to find our shelter. It’s daytime, Mags. It’ll be fine. You wouldn’t want me hovering over you, would you?”

He frowned. The worst part about it all was that Magic didn’t want to admit that she was right. He looked away, finding that a better answer than outright agreement.

“That’s what I thought,” said his sister. “Don’t do the same to me. I’ll come back by the evening. Trust me.”

Trusting his sister was the semantic equivalent of trusting a ball not to roll down a hill—especially once her interest was piqued. There was no stopping her momentum until it crashed, and when she disappeared from the mouth of the alley, the last bits of her purple coat fluttering behind her, Magic prayed silently that she wouldn’t come back with trouble on her tail.