Picking your targets was a science; everything depended on the fall and hang of a coat and the nervous twitch of a person’s hands and face as they were approached by strangers. And that was exactly the kind of feature Mira looked for around the town just east of the marketplace she’d spent their money in.
She didn’t want a repeat of the other night; in fact, Mira would have spent the majority of their funds to avoid anything like that happening again for the rest of her life, though she knew that the scent of liquor would be haunting her far more than just in her memories of Elnoire.
The position of the sun gave her plenty of leeway in the shadows, her coat dark enough in the shade to conceal her from most prying eyes. Even in her hiding, some glanced at her as though she were a bright pastel paint drop on a monochrome easel. A breakfast sandwich in a dessert case. Mira wasn’t a stranger to how out of place she was with her jacket, the way the merchant stared at her earlier at the mere mention of coins. She didn’t belong here—that much she knew. She belonged behind a counter, taking money from people instead of giving it away, providing baked goods for a pay in return.
So she kept her sights for those kinds of people, the ones who stuck out like sore thumbs by appearance alone, foreigners who startled at the sight of Elnoirans in the alleys or shuffled through the roads with layers upon layers of quilts and jackets to keep them warm at night.
And Mira found that the ones deemed outsiders like her were far more willing to accept help from someone who was just like them. At least, in their eyes; Mira was just as trustworthy as a fox, but she was well versed in trading masks. Who would have thought that helping her father run a bakery was just several years of training to be fluent in the language of deception?
It would have upset her father greatly to know that his daughter’s training to sell goods was being used to steal, but what Benji didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Even if it did pain Mira a little bit to snatch money from unaware pockets.
One foreigner she cornered in the square, a nervous young man in his late teens or early twenties—certainly no older than her brother—hadn’t taken to her attitude well though and engaged in conversation with a tremor in his voice that made it feel like he was waiting to be scolded for being in the wrong part of town. Or, like he was waiting for his parents to yank him away to safety like a child might do.
He was a head and a half taller than Mira, but had not a single shred of confidence. Instead, he wore a nervous crouch that made him small and mouse-like. His dark brown hair lay in bedraggled strands over the tops of his eyes, gleaming black in the sun. There were some boyish features in his face that sold the image of youth, which would explain his jumpy attitude.
And yet, despite the childish air he gave off, everything about the young man registered to Mira as high-class. He wore a long, deep maroon parka made of velvet on the exterior, the edges of it trimmed in light bronze. The popped collar shielded the nape of his neck like a fan and, between the bronze buttons, was a gold stitching that reminded Mira of a serpent, its flat head resting just at the top of the collar.
Beneath the trim of his coat were black pants, neatly pressed and shining in the sun with brown, military-style boots that engulfed his shins.
Mira could hear Magic weeping at the sight of the jacket alone. A single roll of velvet, he’d told her once, would cost him and his mother their house. For someone to get their hands on apparel like this meant one of two things: either they themselves were rich, or they knew someone who was.
Either way, this was money and Mira considered him lucky that it was her she stumbled upon and not a more rugged thief.
“I’m only interested in giving you directions,” she said, leaning against a lamp post in the shade. They’d been at this conversation for nearly ten minutes. Mira didn’t need him running away, not when he was carrying perfectly good money on him. “You’re lucky no one has beaten you for that coat of yours.”
The boy yanked his jacket tighter around his waist. “I don’t care much for the jacket itself,” he replied, wide, brown eyes flirting side to side. “They could take it if they want. So can you.”
“I’m not interested in your coat. I have one already. I’m just here to offer you help. You look like you could use it.”
“What’s the catch?” asked the boy, shuffling back a little as Mira approached. He was right to be wary of her, but to make her life easier, Mira wished he’d trust her if only for a brief second.
“No catch. Just assistance. Besides, you think anyone else here”—she pantomimed dramatically to the overcrowded alleyways in the vicinity—“is gonna step outside their boundaries and help you?”
“I suppose not …”
“That's what I thought. Where are you trying to get to?”
“Well, the hope was that the capital city’s train station was bringing me to Sombrail. But I got flustered at the station and didn’t get the right train. So, now I’m here.”
Mira wiggled the ring on her index finger, spinning it in incomplete circles. She stood beside him waving to the direction in which she came and far, far north. “You have a few options depending on what you’re willing to spend.”
“I’ll take whatever is easiest,” replied the stranger.
Yes, Mira thought, rummaging around in his coat pocket, and the least expensive. “If your concern is time, you can just go north from here—past the main square and beyond the old residential streets gets you to the station. But, if you have the time to spare, you can make your way west towards Chrome and simply take the station from there.”
“Train, then,” the man mumbled absently, twisting his mouth into a grimace. “I’m already late as it is. I’m not looking to get my head ripped off.”
Mira chuckled, glancing at the man from the corner of her eye as she slipped his coin purse into her pocket, replacing it with a stone. He gazed back at her with an expression so straight that she realized he was being serious and stopped. “Right. Well, just take the main roads, then. Straying off the path will get you in touch with the rougher thieves and criminals of this town.”
“Message received.”
Mira took her fair share of the money before making the second swap and patting him on the shoulder. “Good luck. Don’t get murdered.”
Strangely, the boy shuddered. Then he chuckled, as if to fix a misstep and brushed his hair back with a free hand, shaking his head. “That’s the goal every day.”
She watched him go, silently counting her earnings as she made her way through town to look for her next target. Based on what she could feel of the money, Mira counted roughly sixty-seven zirca. She could almost hear her brother scoffing at the exchange.
It’s scary, Magic had said to her once, how easily you caught on.
You’re a decent teacher, she’d replied, but it isn’t just the technicalities that make the difference, Mags. You have to know your target, too. A hanging coat tells me nothing about who they are as a person. But, someone who’s eager to ask for directions? Someone who doesn’t know where they’re going because they’re too busy looking at everything else? That’s money.
Interesting train of thought.
Which is why I’m the crafty one. Let me talk to them and handle the rest. I got this.
Her feet dragged her through parts of town that, once populated and healthy, were abandoned for as long as she could remember. There was never a time where her father wasn’t reminding her of how much better they had it in Chrome simply because they didn’t deal with the violence and the overcrowding that Elnoire did.
The two had their obvious differences, but staring at the town from where she stood, Elnoire and Chrome didn’t feel different from one another. Both were raggedy, run-down towns forgotten about by the Droidell State that suffered from lack of care. The only difference was that Elnoirans had no shame in doing whatever they could to receive that attention again.
Known as the “Misty Village,” Elnoire thrived off its glitzy nightlife, flashy pubs and gaudy shops. People lived in excess, throwing their money at anything to satisfy their desires. Men and women alike commonly put on promiscuous shows wearing nothing but skin and glitter, spinning circles around the dreams of libertine customers. Even after the town was drained to nothing by the Droidell State’s economic crisis, Elnoirans remained eternally dedicated to the craft with extravagant brothels and pubs that puffed smoke and fog seductively through the streets from evening well into the next morning.
Elnoire’s sleazy endeavors was how it made its money and it made Mira’s skin crawl.
Time dragged and brought her through the streets with it. She marked the hours by the number of train whistles reverberating through the town—there were at least eight. Paired with the position of the sun, which was in and out of sight from the clouds, it was somewhere in the early afternoon. The streets were flooded with people; the marketplace was bustling and the rest of the Elnoirans were huddled in their alleyways. Some looked at her sideways from beneath their bundles of blankets and clothes and travelers wandered the roads with varying degrees of certainty. Mira took copious advantage of the latter to fill her own pockets with zirca coins, the weight of them more heart wrenching than she wanted it to be.
The glares from eyes in the shadows, tracking her movements, taking in the sight of her, neatly dressed in a long heavy jacket, made it all the more anxiety inducing.
You’re far better than that, Bella, came a voice in her head, sounding like her father, chiding her for her methods.
I know, she bit back silently each time she slid a hand into a woman’s coat, a man’s pocket, slipping money into her own. I know.
Mira’s gaze fell to her wandering feet, confidence bleeding out of her the farther she walked, replaced with a sudden cold chill. It was so much easier to take her pick of the lot later in the day—and a lot less terrifying with her brother hiding in plain sight at a distance, watching, supporting. Mira knew how to handle herself, knew how to fight, how to handle people like she did back home. But it felt harder here, surrounded by unrelenting gazes.
The scent of spice and tar returned—along with a tug at her arm.
“Watch where you’re going!”
She whirled on her heel, sliding in the earth which had grown damp at her feet. It squelched beneath her as she registered the face of an older woman, snow white hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. Wrinkles decorated her dark olive skin in creases around her lips and eyes, worn thin from smiling. Her clothes were raggedy and large, wrinkles creased so deep into the fabrics that a shadow loomed beneath them, disrupting the single shade of olive green with darker splotches. The faintest shade of gold stained the whites of her eyes.
Of course.
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Of course she had to deal with the intoxicated messes of this shit town—karma as payment for her survival, she supposed. Then again, maybe it was better that way. Magic couldn’t talk to people—let alone inebriated people and Mira had far more social experience than her brother than she was willing to admit, particularly with drunks or other people influenced by the hold of a drug. Taking this burden from him was one she was generally okay with accepting, especially if that meant getting them their money faster.
But standing in the repeated plumes of smoke the woman puffed from her lips, the fumes pumping in rapid succession, Mira found herself envious of her brother’s social intolerance. “I would’ve appreciated you warning me ahead of time,” she said, voice level. “I don’t enjoy being tugged at.”
“I did,” replied the woman lazily, waving the joint delicately propped between her fingers back and forth before taking another drag. “Twice, actually. You weren’t paying attention.”
Mira blinked, dumbfounded. “Oh. My bad.”
“So fond of your surroundings that you got lost in them?”
“Oh, hell no—no offense.”
A wry smile curled on the lady’s mouth, gold lining the inner parts of her lips, staining the ridges of her gums. It was then that Mira recognized the spice—obrin leaves. A scarlet colored herb with gold veins commonly ground as a spice to use in more tropically based dishes due to its very slight heat.
Or, when smoked, to calm people down. “Trust me, girl. There’s none taken.”
“What are you out here for, then?” Mira asked, leaning against a wood porch. “Neighborly stroll? Reminiscing?”
“Neither,” the woman said. “Business.”
Mira raised a brow. What kind of business could one have in Elnoire that didn’t involve pickpockets or robbery or murder?
“A good friend of mine asked me to check by the eastern border every now and again,” the woman continued, reading the confusion in Mira’s face. “It seems I caught you at the right time. You shouldn’t go further than here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because the fog is thicker here than it is in the rest of the town.”
Mira squinted. The woman had to be exaggerating from the high. Surely if there was that much fog, then there was rain on the way, and that should have encased the entire town and then some. A chuckle of disbelief almost left her lips before a quick look at her surroundings shocked her into silence.
The woman was right. A sheet of thick, light gray mist, tinged with hints of aqua and lavender settled over the eastern portion of town like a blanket—Mira could hardly see a few feet ahead of her, let alone through it. Translucent tendrils of smoke flattened against an invisible barrier, curling backwards, unable to breach the rest of the town. It was as though someone had taken a glass bowl and shoved the fog inside, colors growing in opacity once they’d reached the end of their leash, receding back in a calm wave. Moisture lay heavy on her skin, damp and unsettling; acutely aware of the humidity and the water, Mira rubbed at her hands and face, desperate to rid herself of it. If there were houses nearby, she couldn’t see them. “What goes beyond it?”
“The fog? Cabins. No one lives there, though, for fear of the beast.”
Mira’s head was spinning. “What beast?”
The woman stared at her, curiosity flickering in her white and green eyes as she scanned Mira’s face with an intensity that bore into her bones. It lasted no more than a few seconds; she took another drag of obrin leaves and puffed rings into the air. “You haven’t heard? The Beast of the Maidenwoods. People can hear it screaming this close to the forest. It was why they left.”
Mira stilled, standing a bit straighter against the railing.
Beast. Not “creature” or “animal.”
Beast.
A monster.
For a moment, Mira’s heart fluttered and hammered against her chest. Beast. She’s just been there no more than a few hours ago, maybe less than. She recalled the shrieking that echoed in the woods at dawn, the howls that floated to the edge of the forest-town line. Was that what the woman was talking about? Mira thought the noises were nothing less than nature running its course, but what if there was more to it?
Beast. Fear tingled in her limbs, an electric shock and she felt childish. The woman was speaking of a ghost story, a fairytale, something beyond the ordinary. Or, so Mira thought. She’d heard the evidence that gave the concern life. But beneath that was apprehension, intrigue, and, even further than that, thrill.
She kept her face straight as the stranger dropped the joint, smothered it with her foot. “I can’t say I’m familiar with it.”
“Strange. I thought you would’ve known about this considering those eyes of yours.”
She wasn’t sure if the woman was insulting her heritage or simply making an observation, but the statement made Mira bristle slightly. “What do my eyes have anything to do with this? Aside from that”—she motioned towards the dense fog—“I can see just fine.”
“Yes,” mused the woman, humming as she tilted her head, “you can. You should also be running back. Doesn’t do you much good standing around here, less you want trouble.”
Little did the woman know that getting into trouble was one of Mira’s specialties. And it wasn’t one she planned on getting rid of anytime soon. Not when there was a mystery nagging at her. Mira shook her head and slowly walked away from the house she was leaning against. “Trust me, you won’t catch me around here. For compensation.”
She held out a few of the coins she’d stolen throughout the day, feeling a slight pressure in her chest at the idea of letting go of her cash. But it felt right, rewarding the woman’s patience and simultaneously apologizing for the trouble. At least Elnoire hadn’t wiped her clean of all her manners.
The woman shook her head. “No payment needed. Now run along. I got some other warnings to hand out.”
Mira didn’t push it, only nodded her head, placed the coins back into the lining of her jacket and went on her way through the backstreets, rolling her neck, cracking her knuckles. The alleyways looked clearer, an aspect she hadn’t quite noticed until she’d seen Elnoire’s eastern side drowned in fog. She’d always thought these roads to be muddled and dull, but even the dirt on the ground or the bricks on the walls of houses seemed full of life, dotted with splashes of color—albeit from blood, chunks of fur and the occasional stain on the dirt that suggested something had spilled on it.
She strolled through, passing broken crates, dumpsters, old couches mangled to death with their springs exposed. The cluster of cats further down the alley came readily into sight and, beside the trash, a figure, moving a handful of berries towards a kitten’s mouth. A figure she undoubtedly recognized.
And one Mira didn’t think she would see until she got back.
“Magic?”
Sure enough, there was her brother, leaning against a dumpster with his hand gently stroking one of the cats’ heads—a tiny, orange tabby that was mewling excessively for attention. Magic looked up, green and hazel eyes wide and magnified in the lenses of his glasses, which he pushed further up his nose.
Fucking hypocrite, she thought. “What are you doing?”
Magic blinked. “Looking for you,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“I told you to go by the boxes,” Mira said. “You could’ve waited for me there.”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Magic stared at her for a moment, then turned his attention to the kitten nuzzling its head against his palm. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. So I stuck around.”
It took her a moment to understand what he meant, but when understanding finally reached her, Mira paused. He’d followed her—at least up until she ran into the elderly woman on the eastern side. “You tailed me?”
“I wanted to make sure no one got one over on you. Y’know, like the other day.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning her shoulder against a building. “That night was a misstep.”
“A really bad misstep.”
“I still don’t think you needed to follow me around. It’s the afternoon and the sun is out. I find it hard to believe that people would be bold enough to make a move like that when there’s light outside.”
Magic shook his head, indignant. “I’m glad you think that way. But I don’t trust them. And I would rather see you safe from a distance than wander into the alleyway with scrapes from a scuffle.”
“I appreciate your concern, Mags, but I’m old enough to handle myself.”
Magic raised a brow. The stare of judgment. “You sure?”
“Older than you.”
“That is … completely irrelevant.”
“To you maybe.”
He rolled his eyes, absentmindedly snagging the kitten by the scruff to hold it in his palm, tucked against his chest. Mira could hear the cat’s noises from where she stood across from him on the other side of the dumpster as it curled and squirmed into submission, belly exposed, paws extended. “Survival only cares about whether or not you can defend yourself,” she said, leaning against the metal container, making a mental note to somehow wash her jacket free of the grime later.
Magic muttered something unkind under his breath before lightly tossing the cat back onto the top of the dumpster. The animal gave a small hiss—out of annoyance, Mira figured, based on the bristling of its fur and sharp angle of its tail that made Magic take a few steps back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three large, white petals, gnawing on them while he said, “I needed something to do.”
Mira beamed. “I have a couple of ideas we could do to solve that problem. There's something I—”
“Before you say anything else,” Magic interrupted, “can we at least remember how well your last idea worked out?”
“This is different. It’s not about money making. There’s something I want to look into.” She would be lying if the woman’s words hadn’t both terrified and intrigued her. It was an excitement she hadn’t felt in a while. Thievery was a buzz in comparison to this: pure, unadulterated thrill. Myths and fairytales always seemed one step away from reality to hold any weight. The Beast of the Maidenwoods was an ocean of information just waiting to be explored and Mira was ready to dive head first.
Magic eyed her in silence, holding her gaze. When he found the words, he rolled his wrist to conjure them aloud. “What kind of something?”
“You like to read little fables. Know anything about a beast?”
“There’s plenty in Circadian mythology. You’ll have to be more specific—”
“The Beast of the Maidenwoods.”
Magic stilled. If there was one thing her brother wasn't, it was subtle. Mira watched her brother’s hand gently float in the direction of the cat he’d put back on the dumpster before he recoiled, probably remembering the hostility it spat in his direction. He fidgeted with the legs of his glasses, his grip knuckle-white on them. All that emerged in the silence was a whisper, his whisper. “What?”
“The Beast of the Mai—” Mira didn’t get to finish, not before Magic snagged her by the jacket sleeve and pressed his forearm against her mouth, effectively shushing her with his own coat sleeve.
“Stop. Talking,” he murmured, the ever present flatness to his tone broken only by the faint waver in his vowels. “Stop. And when I step back, please tell me that this isn’t the information you’re going to look for.”
Mira pushed his arms away, flexed her own to straighten out her jacket, wrinkled from Magic’s hold. With a slight glare in his direction, she swept at her shoulders and upper arm, flattening the creases. “What’s so wrong with asking around?”
“Because it's dangerous, simple as that. Leave it alone, Mirabellis.”
“And what happens if I don’t?”
“Then you will damn us both.” He began pacing the length of the alley in a way that made Mira dizzy, in and out of the shadows, quick turns on the balls of his feet. The splaying of his oversized coat reminded her a lot of a trickster’s cape in books she read growing up, but the image of it disappeared when he paused and tapped his head lightly against a nearby house. Now, Magic was no trickster, just the same anxious boy she knew growing up. “I would rather not talk about it.”
“Fine. Can I run a different idea by you then on our way back to the crates?”
Magic gave a curt nod and followed in quiet footfalls behind her. “Is this idea better or worse than your previous one?”
“Better, I think.”
“Then shoot.”
“Y’know how we spent some of our money for the food?” she asked, squeezing through the old, musty boxes they called home.
“Yeah,” Magic said, nestling into his tarp tent as though he were readying for bed despite the approaching evening hours. “What about it?”
“How would you feel spending that money tomorrow while I make up the funds in pickpocketing?”
Mira was lucky they’d gotten to the safety of their own shelter—and that Magic had begun to settle under his tent. From the way he was staring at her, pupils wide and jaw open, she may as well have slapped him. “Why?”
“Because you know what these winters are like. Money isn’t of any use if it’s collecting dust, and look at how easy it was today.”
“I don’t want to be with the crowd, Mira—”
“And you won’t. I’ll make sure of it. But if it would make you feel the slightest bit better, it’s something we can work out the specifics and plan for tomorrow. Does that work?”
His hands instinctively went to his pockets the way they always did when he was nervous; Mira knew he was fidgeting with something and there was a glaze in his green and hazel eyes that suggested he was lost in his own head. Either from his own thoughts or his own fear—or both—Mira wasn’t sure and she would manage that problem when their day started anew.
And by the time night dawned on them and they’d constructed the bare blueprints of a plan for what their individualized excursions would look like, Mira went to sleep that night with curiosity picking at her bones like a vulture, pecking away at the curious fable of the mist.