stiffened her upper back, arms close to her sides.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and didn’t hesitate to make a beeline for the exit, the hardwood floor shining brightly in the morning sun.
“Mistress Crymson!”
Why, God? Why couldn’t you have just sent the plague?
She turned to face the voice, one that belonged to the inn’s owner, a squeak of a man with whom she had cut a deal many months ago. “It’s Priestess Crymson,” she said, holding his gaze long enough to make the moment uncomfortable. “You’re up early. What do you need?” Her left foot, clad in a buckskin slipper, tapped the floor beneath her dress.
He ducked his head. “Apologies, Priestess Crymson. Just reminding you that your rent is, ah, past due. I’ve held off for a few days, but, uh - ”
“I know, Nest. You will have your payment, as you always do. Standing price, I assume?”
“Of course.” Nest smiled, lips pressed together as if ashamed of his teeth, which Crymson knew from experience were covered with a thin film.
“At any rate,” she said, “I have an appointment, and as you so kindly reminded me, it is rude to be late for such things . . .”
Nest bowed from the waist, one hand on a nearby table to steady himself. His hair, lank and combed back from his forehead, fell over his eyes, and he almost tumbled forward when he removed his hand from the table to sweep it back.
Don’t laugh, keep it in. “Good day, Nest.” She turned and made her way to the door, aristocratic nose held at an angle. Not that anybody noticed her composure. Aside from a few drunks at the bar, deep in their cups from last night, the place was empty. Her foot hit the street, and behind her Nest screeched, “Quit slobbering on my bar, you fool!”
She put a hand over her eyes, sunrays illuminating the copious amount of dust particles filling the air. Dradenhurst had once been green, trees lining the city walks and grass as far as the eye could see. But it had become a retreat of sorts for the mercenaries who guarded Prolifia’s borders, and their feet had stamped it clear of color, grinding the grass to dust while they cut the trees to make homes for the expanding population. After a few years, the dust from the passing mercenaries had grown stifling, and cobblestones were laid, but the irritant still managed to drift through the more loosely constructed parts of the city, where it clogged her nose and made her eyes water.
A pale-yellow carriage passed, its bearded owner stealing a furtive peep at Crymson before snatching closed the blue drapes. Spurred by the sight, she began down the street toward the Count’s house, tracing a path through the dust.
Dradenhurst: a city of opportunity. The shops of her childhood, with their alleys through which a young street rat could run, were gone, replaced by tall, narrow buildings constructed nearly atop one another, the better to take advantage of the untaxed sky. She walked past them, on the lookout for the smallest gap between the shops, years spent leaping fences and narrowly escaping lead-footed pursuers fresh in her mind, her long-limbed frame a whisper away from being dragged before a magistrate. While the city had not provided a happy childhood, it still provided a modicum of comfort, and it was still her city.
She took a huge breath and coughed, the dust dancing a belligerent jig in her lungs. Shopkeepers stood outside their doors beneath pitched black canopies, wares held at the ready for potential buyers. “Mutton! Mutton and mushrooms!” cried a well-endowed, older woman, her brown hair threaded with silver. To her left, an open-vested man held aloft a sword, “Imported from the Maldaran Empire! This beauty has seen seven wars and never once failed its wielder!”
“Oh yeah?” called a voice in the crowd, “then how’d you come to have it?”
The people around the voice, mainly mercenaries on their day off, laughed. Crymson continued her walk to the Count’s manor, passing open shops with their gorgeous goods placed on wooden shelves, their cheaper, replicated cousins ready to be grabbed from beneath the counters and avowed as originals.
She caught sight of a golden necklace, thicker than was the current fashion and pieced together in a way that looked almost pleated. It lay on a blue-draped table outside of a shop: The Wandering Jeweler. She picked it up and said to the man behind the table, “Not doing much wandering