For as long as it had taken me to decide to break out of my prison and hop the manor walls the first time, it was almost insulting how easy it had been to do it a second time.
Honestly, what were the guards for if I could climb up to the roof and jump down without being seen? Besides the first few moments I had crouched in the darkness at the base of the wall, I had not even bothered with trying to be stealthy.
The cuffed boots that I had decided were mine regardless of their origin made the thorny walk down the hillside much less painful than it would have been without them. Crossing the river had not been the feat that it had been before either. I didn’t want to take my boots off and I did not have the strength to try and walk across the water and maintain my glamor at the same time. I was excited, almost as much as I had been on my first trip to the city, but my aura had been barely strong enough to change my face.
Even if I had gone the way I had the first time, dozens of people surrounded the collection of tents that lay on the other side. Men, women, and children, just like Sorceress Ulet had said. Letting them see me walking across water did not seem like a good way to remain inconspicuous.
I couldn’t walk to the bridge somewhere in the distance on my left. Two of the guards would be waiting for me. Going forward was not an option and I would die before I went back up to the manor.
For once in my life, instead of doing something wrong, I went right.
The cool air coming off the river passed through the thin fabric of the dress I had stolen out of Anna’s closet easily. After being wrapped in bandages and blankets for so long, it felt good on my skin. The last time I had been outside of the manor had not been nearly as pleasant and I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.
Go home. You are going to get caught. They will give you nine more punishments. Nine more, for each of them. Mother Azza will come for you nine more times.
“Shut up,” I said to myself. I started walking faster and the walking gave way to running. “That is a tomorrow problem.”
If I would have stopped, those terribly honest thoughts would have caught up to me. They didn’t because by going right, I found that there was a bridge that was nearly identical to the one that led up to the manor. There was only one difference. When I walked over its stones and crossed into Erosette, there were no guards to stop me.
The street around the outer edge of the city was nowhere near as crowded as it had been on Dreamtongue’s night. It felt so strange passing by people that had no idea who had just walked by them. A boy and girl that were young enough for me to think of them that way were so caught up in whatever they were talking about that they nearly ran right into me. Not long after, a normal looking man nodded his head and gave me a small smile as we passed. I watched a group of red cloaked girls walk away from me down a side street. All of them were wearing sandals and I was reminded of how bad I wanted to get Anna a pair of them.
No one I walked by knew I possessed The Well and none of them knew I was forbidden from being there.
It made me feel. . .something. What that something was, I could not name, but there was a strange sense of something like pride that my glamor was working as well as it was.
I bet I could walk right by Arthur and he wouldn’t even know it. I thought with a smile as the range of tents came back into my view.
There was a giant roaming the streets of Erosette and his name was Arthur Lao. Not a single soul that walked by, looked at, or looked near him could keep their eyes away. He was at least a head taller than the two men standing outside the tent closest to him and nearly as wide as the both of them combined.
Deciding to test my glamor, I approached him as if I was just another citizen of Erosette who was out on a nighttime stroll.
A group of kids, none of them could have possibly been older than five or six, all walked together and crowded around the tall man. Their clothes were dirty and I saw more than one of them with bandages somewhere on their body. They were the refugees that Ulet had talked about, the ones who had been cast off from their homes by a single sorcerer.
“The man, Atrean, let him be.” A sweet faced woman called from where she sat inside a tent. Her shirt was open and she cradled something to her chest with her arms. It was a baby, the first I had ever seen through my own eyes. I realized that she was feeding it. Right there in front of me was a mother and a child that was probably only weeks old.
They should be in a home, with a fireplace and somewhere comfortable to sit, not in a fucking tent. I thought, as something dark and angry twisted to life within my stomach.
My eyes lingered too long and the woman noticed me looking at her. She gave me a small smile and a little wave with nothing but pleasantness on her face.
I waved back, not understanding why I felt like crying.
One the children tugged on Arthur’s pants leg. It may have been Atrean or it may not have been, I couldn’t be sure, all I could see was it was a girl.
“So big? Why?” She asked Arthur.
A little boy with one arm hanging limply in a cloth sling stepped out from the group next. “Are you a giant?”
Arthur laughed and knelt down. “No, I was little like you once. Giants are big when they are born, I think.”
“Can I?” The little boy asked, holding his free arm up like he was flexing his muscles.
“Come, Atrean. Time for bed.” The sweet faced woman called out again.
The little boy looked over at her quickly enough that I was certain he was the one she was calling for.
Arthur pulled something out of his pocket and put it in Atrean’s palm. “Take care of your Ma. Buy her something sweet and you’ll get big and strong in no time.”
I passed by them then, walking around the group of kids like I had somewhere to be.
What an idiot! He didn’t even notice me. It was nearly impossible for me to not break out into an excited run despite the fact that he was the only reason I was in the city in the first place. Anna is a good coach.
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As if he could hear my thoughts and had waited until the most ironic moment to dispel my arrogance, Arthur walked up beside me and nudged me with his elbow. “You trying to stand me up or what?”
“How did you know! I specifically made myself look the least like myself as I could.” I snapped, stopping in my tracks.
“I could pick you out of a crowd if I was blind,” He nudged me again. “Come on, you need to eat before we go to Seven Columns.”
I didn’t move. “I don’t believe you. My hair is black, I’m wearing a red dress, I changed my lips and gave myself a tan. Something had to give me away.”
When I had looked at myself in the mirror on my way out of the manor, I had looked nothing like myself. I had looked pretty. How had he been able to recognize me so easily?
Arthur tapped his finger against the sienna colored stone that hung from my neck. “You did all that and forgot about this.”
Fuck. The fucking choker.
I covered it with my hands, suddenly having a reason to panic. “What if somebody sees it and knows what it is?”
Arthur started walking. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Unless it has to do with points or drinking, you’ll be lucky if anyone notices you at all.”
“Are you sure?” I asked him. Part of me thought I should try and glamor the choker itself, turn the gold to silver and the stone blue. With my aura as weak as it was however, I risked breaking my hold on everything else. The more I thought about the fact that I was wearing a glamor, the harder it would be for me to maintain it. Some precept I had never met from some memory I had viewed had taught me that.
The first step to making a successful glamor is to forget that anything has changed at all. I tried to repeat the lesson in my mind. The words weren’t exactly right, but I knew what they meant.
“As the sun shines,” Arthur assured me. He gave my hand a little tug and pulled me into motion. “I’d never put you in danger.”
My worry lingered for longer than I wished it would have, but I followed him anyway. He led us towards the heart of Erosette, away from the river and the tents. His legs were much longer than mine, but he walked slowly so we could stay side by side. One or two turns later, I was well and truly lost. Even if it meant my punishments would be removed from where they hung around my neck, I didn’t think I could find my way back to the bridge I had come in on.
“How do you know where we are going?” I asked, my eyes darting from building to building and down every street we passed.
“I’ve been coming down here a lot at night lately. There’s not a lot for me to do when everybody goes to sleep and I don’t,” He answered, turning us down an alleyway. “There is always something going on here.”
“You are still unable to sleep?” I had recently spent several nights staring at the ceiling and waiting for morning to come. There was little pleasure in it. I could not imagine how it felt for him after doing it for months.
“I can, the little guy just has to come out of me, but I’ve gotten used to it. Hell, that’s how I got to be buddies with the guards. If I had been asleep the whole time, the captain would have never given me the time of day.” Arthur said, leading us out of the dark alley and onto a street crowded with people.
The largest mass of them were crowded around the front of a tall wooden building that stood out against its neighbors from the difference of material alone. A swinging sign hung just above one of the large windows and several people hit it with their hands as they passed under it.
“The Seven Columns,” I read aloud. A second piece of wood that looked like it could be removed and swapped out was tacked beneath the painted name of the place. “Points tournament. Five dyme entry. No sorceresses. No fighting.”
I had been so caught up reading that I hadn’t noticed Arthur duck into a stall that was barely tall enough for him to fit without stooping.
“What is a dyme?” I stepped into the stall and ran straight into his back.
“Hey there, Ugi. Three, like usual?” The man behind the counter asked, evidently friendly enough with Arthur to call him by his nickname.
“Six, I’m not alone,” Arthur smiled. He brought something out of his pocket and held up for me to see. A thin coin gleamed in the lantern light of the stall. It was as big around as my palm and made out of some sort of bright red metal. “This is a dyme. It’s what people use as money around here. You didn’t know that?”
“I’ve never really needed money.” I muttered, feeling my cheeks beginning to burn from embarrassment. Why did it feel so bad to admit to him that I didn’t know something? I had no reason to be embarrassed, he knew I had been locked in a room for most of my life.
Arthur extended the dyme to the man behind the counter in exchange for whatever he had bought.
“No, no, no. It’s on me tonight. Enjoy your date,” The man waived, refusing the money. “Besides, you’ve spent so much here the last few weeks, you’ve earned it.”
Date? We aren’t on a date!
“Oh man, thanks! I’ll be back tomorrow,” Arthur said as we left. He handed me three wooden skewers that were wrapped all the way around with some kind of bread. These are for you.”
“What are they?” I asked, giving one of them a tentative sniff. It’s scent was warm, heavy, and just a little sweet. My stomach groaned in desire at the smell of it.
Arthur shrugged and spoke through a full mouth. “They have some weird name for it, but the best I can tell it’s just fried meat wrapped in bread. Kind of like a corndog. It’s good, try it.”
Whatever they were, Arthur and I finished them before we ever made it inside Seven Columns. Several people exchanged greetings with him as we slipped through the small gaps in the crowd. Just before we crossed through the door, he grabbed my hand and pressed the big red dyme into my palm.
“Here, that’s worth ten. The entry fee is five, so you should have enough for a couple of drinks between your matches,” He smiled back at me as we went inside. “The captain is gonna ask you if you are a sorceress. Tell him you aren’t and try not to do anything magical. Got it?”
“I thought you just brought me to watch, I didn’t know I was going to compete in the tournament,” I said, excitement coming over me so strong I felt like I would float off the ground. “But I can’t take this. You need it to get in.”
Arthur laughed and shook the pocket of his pants with his hand. The sound of metal clinking against metal met my ears over the constant hum of chatter that Seven columns was filled with. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty. Winning these things pays pretty well.”
Following the tall man through the crowd was easy despite the overwhelming amount of faces and voices we passed by. We approached an older man sitting at a small wooden table. Some sort of list, a coin purse, an open bottle of what I assumed to be alcohol, and a knife whose tip was sunk into the wood littered the top of it.
“Back again I see, aren’t you supposed to be watching the girl?” The man grunted when he saw Arthur. He had a muscular jaw and black hair that was salted with white. Every part of him looked strong and his posture told me that he was one who knew how to use his strength.
“Hey, captain. Springer and Woolie said they had it handled.” Arthur said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and giving the man a smaller dyme than the one he had given me.
The captain let out a humorous grunt. “Drunk and asleep. I’d bet you two bags of dust that’s all they have a handle on. Who’ve you brought with you?”
“Oh, uhm, this is-” Arthur began.
Fuck! I hadn’t given him a name. Uh. Autumn. No! That was my name. Uhh. . .Arthur! No, that was his name. I remembered the mother who had been feeding her baby in the tent. What had her son’s name been? Tree? Atree? Trean?
“Trea,” I said, stepping up to the table and handing over my own dyme. “I’m Trea and we are not on a date.”
The captain took my dyme and dropped it in the coin purse.
Then, without warning, he ripped the knife from where it lay on the table and stabbed it wildly straight towards the middle of my forehead.