Chapter Six

It was two days before she could take advantage of her newfound freedom.

The problem wasn’t leaving the shop, now she knew how she was trapped. Nor was it remaining unseen, once she was on the streets. Most inhabitants seemed to mind their own business, as far as she could tell, although that might well have something to do with the fact she was being escorted by a sorcerer who’d clearly been trafficking in very dangerous magics. The problem wa was making sure she could get out and then back again without Avitus returning to discover she was missing, or that she hadn’t done her work for the day. She had done her duties as slowly as possible, in hopes of convincing him she couldn’t work any faster, but she had her doubts about how long she could sustain the deception. Avitus had been an apprentice himself at one point, she was sure, and most apprentices had to clean up after their masters. He’d have a very good idea of precisely how long it would take to clear up the mess.

Unless he was lazy, Anastasia thought. And that’s why he was kicked out.

She shook her head. She’d been lazy. She knew that now. Avitus was not. He might be a dark wizard, performing magics most magicians shunned, but he wasn’t lazy. She had seen him working hard, focusing his entire being on arts so dark even watching him cast the spells repelled her. It was galling to realise he had a virtue she lacked, but … she put the thought aside as she bided her time, waiting for a chance. It came sooner than she’d expected. Avitus never left the shop in the morning unless he’d been summoned, and when that happened he was rarely home until late evening. Anastasia watched him go, then hurried back to his bedroom to collect the fetish and her money pouch. It was time to see what she could see.

Her body stank … probably. There were no showers in the shop, just a washbasin that had seen better days. Avitus didn’t seem to care about the stench and hadn’t bothered to teach her any heating spells, forcing her to heat the water over the fire if she wanted a wash. There was no soap either … she gritted her teeth as she pulled a dark cloak, stolen from a corpse, over her clothing and headed for the door. She wouldn’t stand out. A third of the people she’d seen on the streets wore similar cloaks, the remainder either flamboyant or slaves. As long as she got home before Avitus, it was unlikely he’d notice she’d left. Or so she told herself.

The decking shifted underneath her as she walked across the sea of vessels and up onto a balcony. She’d hoped to see land in the distance, but the horizon was nothing but sea as far as the eye could see. A handful of vessels could be seen making their way to and from the free state, their sails billowing in the wind … she felt a twinge of frustration that she’d never bothered to study the stars. She’d been told sailors could place their location by observing the night sky … she couldn’t. The air was chilly, but that was meaningless. She could be anywhere from the Northern Sea to the Great Ocean, a region too vast for her mind to comprehend. She needed to find out where she was, and quickly.

She walked carefully towards the shops, making a mental note of every twist and turn. If she got lost … she shuddered, even as part of her wondered if it wouldn’t be for the best. She couldn’t go back after dark, not after Avitus returned to find her missing. She didn’t think he had any more of her blood, and she’d used her own fetish to search for others, but it was impossible to be sure. If he could track her down …

The shops managed to be both surprisingly large and cramped, selling everything from food and drink to magical supplies and goods from all over the Allied Lands. The customers moved from shop to shop, keeping their voices down … she shivered, inwardly, as she saw a handful of men who were clearly pirates, their hands resting on their blades as they haggled with the shopkeepers. They weren’t selling goods, but slaves … a handful of young men and women, their faces blank and their hands bound behind their backs. Anastasia’s stomach churned. If she made one false move, she could end up just like them. Or worse.

She swallowed hard as she stepped into a bookshop. The walls were lined with wooden shelves, groaning under the weight of countless cheap paperbacks. Some had very lurid covers, suggesting they were blue books; others had nothing beyond a note of the title and author, if that. The printing press had a great deal to answer for, she thought as she spotted a book with a very lurid cover indeed. She’d seen a maid with a similar book, only a year ago. The poor girl had been dismissed for having it in her possession. She picked it up and glanced at the back cover. It was about a serving wrench who fell in love with the prince …

“A very popular book,” a dry voice said. Anastasia tried not to jump. “The story is nonsense, of course, but very popular.”

Anastasia turned, slowly. An elderly man stood behind her, wearing a suit that made him look like a dispossessed nobleman. His hair was white, his eyes bright with intelligence … she knew, on a level that couldn’t be denied, that he was of noble blood. She wanted to tell him who she was, and ask for help, but the curse wouldn’t let her. He didn’t look like a magician or someone else who might be able to realise the problem, if he was inclined to try. He was on the free state. It was unlikely he had any moral qualms about his neighbours.

“The cover does draw the eye,” Anastasia managed. “Do you have any maps?”

The shopkeeper’s eyes gleamed. “Maps are expensive, young lady.”

Of course, Anastasia thought, bitterly. Maps weren’t renowned for accuracy – and tended to be state secrets when they were. An accurate map would be expensive …

She reached for her pouch and produced a coin. “I need a look at a map,” she said, holding out the money. “Will this be enough?”

“If you don’t want to buy it, yes,” the shopkeeper said. “That’ll buy you five minutes to study the map.”

“Ten,” Anastasia said, automatically. “And you help me understand it.”

“Five minutes,” the shopkeeper said. “Take it or leave it.”

Anastasia sighed. “Show me the map.”

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The shopkeeper took the coin, muttered a quick spell to check it was real, then led her to a table and produced a rolled-up map. Anastasia leaned forward as he unfurled the paper, her eyes flickering over the chart. She was no expect, but she did have a vague idea of the outline of the continents and it should be enough to let her orientate herself even if the map wasn’t detailed enough to be really useful. The northern continent was easily recognisable, a handful of kingdoms outlined on the paper; the southern continent was nothing more than an outline, with no hint of the political developments that had followed the end of the Necromantic Wars. A handful of notes mentioned necromancers who’d been feared in their day, but now dead and gone …

She scowled. “Where are we?”

“The free state isn’t shown on any map,” the shopkeeper said. “The kings and princes pretend we don’t exist, while they send agents to purchase goods and services from our stores.”

He tapped the map. “We’re here.”

Anastasia sucked in her breath. The free state was several miles to the north of Zangaria – and the Free City of Beneficence. The gulf between them didn’t look very wide on the map, but there was no sense of scale. It could be tens or hundreds of miles … her heart sank as she mentally traced the route south, back to Rockfall. It really was at least a thousand miles, perhaps longer … perhaps much longer. A magician could teleport her there in an instant, if she could pay for it … what would it cost, she asked herself, if she couldn’t tell the magician her name? She wasn’t even sure how she could get to Beneficence. She was a good swimmer – her parents had insisted on that, when she’d been a child – but she had no idea if she could swim all the way to the city. It was unlikely. She wasn’t even sure which way to swim!

She told herself, firmly, that she knew where she was – and where she was going. She was getting somewhere, even if it didn’t feel that way. And that meant …

The shopkeeper rolled up the map. “That was five minutes,” he said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes,” Anastasia said, throwing caution to the winds. “How do I get to Beneficence from here?”

“There’s no regular ship,” the shopkeeper said. If he thought it was an odd question, he didn’t show it. “You’d need to go to the docks and find a ship heading into open waters, then see where her captain is going. We’re not exactly on the main shipping routes out here.”

Anastasia nodded, curtly. The bookshop was strange, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, but very little was any help to her. She glanced around, looking for a magic textbook, then sighed and left the shop. The shopkeeper made no attempt to stop her. If he thought she was a runaway slave, would he try? Or would he mind his own business? The locals didn’t seem to care much about what their neighbours were doing. If they were as illegal a settlement as Avitus had implied, minding their own business and turning a blind eye was the only way to survive.

She walked through the rest of the shops, mentally cataloguing everything on offer, from gunpowder and firearms to slaves and other supplies. One slave looked like a fighter, a sword on his back and a collar around his neck – the magics on the collar giving her the willies – marking him as a slave … she briefly entertained the idea of purchasing him, of offering him his freedom in exchange for his help, before realising it would be worse than useless. The bidding was already underway, the price climbing so rapidly the slave was already out of her budget. She shook her head and kept walking, heading down to the docks. No one tried to bar her way.

Her heart sank as she reached the edge of the free state. The docks were poorly organised, to the point she wasn’t sure there was any port authority at all. She’d never visited a dock before – Rockfall was landlocked – but these docks were just chaotic, captains screaming at each other as they fought for docking space, their crews streaming off their ships and heading straight for the nearest bar. Behind them, a handful of slave workers – their collars gleaming around their necks – carried goods off the ships and straight to the shops. One tripped under the weight he was carrying, falling into a gash in the decking and into the water below. The watchers roared with laughter. They made no attempt to save his life, just the cargo. Anastasia hoped to hell the poor man could swim.

She kept walking, gritting her teeth as she saw the ever-shifting row of ships at the edge of the floating structure. Some looked more rotten than others, to the point no one went near them; others looked as if they could be disconnected at any moment, taken back to sea the moment the owners bored of the free state. She saw a handful of men who were clearly not pirates or exiles or slaves … her blood ran cold as she recalled the bookstore owner’s words, a grim reminder that agents from all over the world came to the free state, to get what they couldn’t get anywhere else. The Admiral purchased reanimated slaves … she wondered, suddenly, if the kings and princes of the Allied Lands did the same. Or worse. Slavery was technically illegal, but there were plenty of ways to enslave someone without making it obvious. Or at least actionable. Were there any agents from her homeland in the crowd? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

And they probably wouldn’t recognise me either, Anastasia thought, bitterly. She no longer looked like any of her portraits. Even if I could tell them who I was, why would they believe me?

A voice bellowed across the docks, a captain recruiting crew for a voyage in search of glory and treasure. Anastasia guessed that meant piracy, a cruise to see what vessels they could find and raid before returning to sell their ill-gotten gains and pleasure themselves before setting out again. The pirate captain didn’t look like a romantic figure of myth, but a monster … her lips quirked, dryly, as she noted he did look better than Avitus. Healthier, certainly. A small line was already forming on the gangplank, a handful of cutthroats who looked willing and able to do anything their captain asked of them, no matter how vile. She turned away, her mind churning. If she joined the crew …

I’d have to go as a magician, she told herself. She didn’t know how to sail, and she’d seen enough over the last few days to know how pirates treated people who were young, female and apparently defenceless. The mundane horrors were almost worse than the dark magics she’d seen back at the shop. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll be trapped.

The thought mocked her as she kept walking, slipping in and out of bars and shops that purchased goods from sailors and then sold them onwards for a sizable mark-up. She did know how to listen, but she heard nothing of a ship heading to Beneficence, nothing she could use to find passage to the free city. Her ignorance was a curse, driving a grim awareness that making a mistake or trusting the wrong person could easily get her killed. She kicked herself, mentally, for not paying more attention to her lessons. If she knew more magic, and how to use it …

You know a little, she told herself. Avitus had taught her some tricks, even if she didn’t have the power reserves to make them work for long. It’ll have to be enough.

She turned, passing a line of young women with disturbingly old eyes, and made her way back to the shops. She had to act fast. There was no way to know when Avitus would realise she’d found the fetish, and if he hid it better – or cursed it – she’d be doomed. The sooner she left, the better. She entered one shop and made a purchase, stowing it in her cloak before slipping into the next and purchasing a handful of other supplies. It cost her most of her money, but she had no choice. She felt uneasy as she made her way back to the shop, wondering if she was walking straight to her own execution. Avitus was a creature of habit, but if he’d come home early …

The shop was deserted when she entered. She sagged in relief, then staggered into the workshop to conceal her purchases under her blankets. Avitus had never shown any interest in changing her bed, thankfully … she groaned, inwardly, as she recalled just how much Patsy – Circe – had seen of her over the years. She hadn’t had any privacy at all, her every move watched by a pair of seemingly-harmless eyes. Circe would have the same problem now … no, she wouldn’t. She had more than enough power to intimidate any maid, to force her to keep her mouth firmly shut … she would, of course, be very aware of the danger a curious maid could pose to her plans. She’d taken advantage of it herself.

Avitus returned an hour later, his skeletal face as expressionless as always. Anastasia watched him, trying not to look nervous. She’d kept the fetish this time – she had no idea if she could get into his bedroom after dark and take it without waking him – and if he spotted it was missing she would have to run and hope to hell she could get out before it was too late. He ate his gruel with no appearance of enjoyment – Anastasia had learnt enough about the human body, over the last week, to wonder if he no longer had taste buds – and then went to his bedroom. She braced herself as she cleared up, but nothing happened. He hadn’t noticed a thing.

She reached for her makeshift fetish and swept the lower floor. There was no hint of any other presence, but her. Avitus’s fetish was securely under her shirt, it’s aura buried in her own. She wasn’t sure it was wise to let it touch her bare skin, but it was the only way to hide it. As long as he didn’t try to undress her … the thought made her queasy as she slipped into the workroom, mentally cataloguing the supplies she needed. Circe was the only person who’d seen her naked for the last two years and that had ended very badly indeed. If she had been a little more careful …

It won’t happen again, she promised herself, keeping one eye on the clock. The pirate ship was due to leave at midnight, although she had no idea if the captain would stick to the planned schedule. He might have to cope with a half-drunk crew if he tried. If I get home, it really will not happen again.