Page 16 of City of Stone and Silence

“You’re getting to that age. Kids start to think with what’s between their legs instead of what’s in their head. It’s natural, but it doesn’t make it less of a pain to watch.” Grandma looks up, finally, wiping her quill on a rag and setting it aside. “Pretty girl like you needs to have a care.”

“Yes, Grandma,” I manage, still blushing furiously, because what else can I say to that?

“I suppose you’re better equipped to deal with that than most, aren’t you?”

I take a deep breath, but say nothing.

“Well.” She gets up, the pops in her joints audible. Her robe is embroidered cloth, a pretty gift from some long-ago patient, now threadbare and patched at the knees and elbows. “If you’re done flirting for the day, we have work to do.”

The streets around Grandma’s hospital are full of her friends and associates, built up over the course of a long career. Talk to a shopkeeper or stallholder anywhere in the neighborhood, and you’ll hear a story about someone she helped—a son, a niece, an aunt, or a cousin. Braggi of Braggi’s Salt Fish owes her more than most, and the nature of his business means he has a lot of cellar space he’s happy to offer us.

He greets us out front, the shop dark and shuttered for the evening. A single lamp burns on the desk, and Braggi guides us to the heavily bolted door in the back corner. He’s a big man, the only iceling I’ve ever met, with an inch or so of shockingly yellow hair. He speaks Imperial with a thick accent, and when he drinks he belts out mournful, rhythmic songs that nobody else understands.

The lamp illuminates a long staircase, descending into a windowless cellar smelling strongly of fish. Braggi hands the light to Grandma and stands aside, looking nervous.

“You’ll be all right?” he says. “I don’t know about these people.”

“I’ve got Tori for a bodyguard,” Grandma snaps. “She’ll protect my virtue.” She stomps down the stairs, light held high.

I give Braggi an apologetic bow. “She’s running late.”

“Don’t make excuses for me, girl!” Grandma’s voice drifts out of the dark. “I’m a cantankerous old ass!”

“That, too,” I tell Braggi, who gives me a worried smile as I hurry down after her.

It’s chilly in the cellar, and the walls are stacked high with casks. Three people are sitting against the far wall, a young man and woman huddled together under a blanket, and another woman slightly apart. The two women look similar enough to be sisters; the younger is in her late teens, the older at least twenty. Grandma looks all three over with a sour expression, the lamplight turning her face into a mask of shadows.

“You’re her? Grandma Tadeka?” The young man gets to his feet. He’s well dressed, handsome, maybe sixteen. “I’m honored to meet you. My name is—”

“No names. I don’t want to know, not yet.” Grandma glares at him. “How’d you know to come looking for me?”

“M—” He’d been about to start with a name, pauses at Grandma’s expression, and nods at the older sister. “My fiancée’s sister told me that you might be able to help us.”

“And how did you find that out?” Grandma says.

“I met a man in a tavern.” The older sister matches her gaze, and my estimation of her rises a notch; not many could. She remains huddled against the casks, wrapped in a wool blanket. “Paid him too much money.”

“Don’t suppose you caught his name,” Grandma says sourly.

“I didn’t want to know,” the older sister says.

Grandma’s lip quirks. She turns to me, and I take a deep breath.

Like I said, I don’t like looking into people’s minds. But it doesn’t take much to see if someone’s lying. Most people, at least, light up with yellow mistrust and acrid deceit, and I can’t help but pick up on it. Right now, the older sister is radiating suspicion, a feeling like cloth brushed over the back of my neck, but I don’t sense that she’s being deceptive. I nod to Grandma, and she raises an eyebrow and turns back to the couple.

“Are you going to help us?” the younger sister says. She’s prettier, with big, dark eyes and fine features.

“That depends, dearie,” Grandma says, and I flinch, because Grandma only says “dearie” to people who’ve annoyed her.

“On what?”

“On whether you answer my questions.” She looks across the three of them. “What are your Wells?”

All three seem taken aback. The younger sister and the boy look at each other, but it’s the older sister who moves first, silently opening her palm. With a crackle, a dancing Myrkai flame appears, throwing Grandma’s enormous shadow against the wall.

These three sought out Grandma for the same reason I did, the reason that first drove me to sneak out of the comfortable house up in the Second Ward and venture back into the lower districts I’d so recently escaped. While it’s well-known that she runs a charity hospital and sanctuary for the mad, rumor insists there’s more to it than that. Grandma Tadeka, they say, has a secret shelter for fugitive mage-bloods.

To be born as a mage-blood commoner in Kahnzoka is to face a set of awful fates. The luckiest, able-bodied men who rank as touched or talents, are sent to the Invincible Legions to serve the Emperor. In between assignments, they might be forced to stud for noble women wanting to strengthen their house bloodlines. The prospect of girls in the same situation is much worse, forced to bear noblemen’s children until their bodies give out. Magical power runs in the blood, and the Empire’s elite are loathe to see it wasted on the lowborn.