Page 42 of City of Stone and Silence

Of course. I give him a sidelong glance. I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted so badly to read someone’s feelings.

We begin our circuit, hardly able to hear one another over the babble of voices and the cries of the hawkers. I take him for fried honey-dough—obviously—and lemonade from old Kaga, who makes it sweet enough to hurt your teeth. From there we circle around to the rows of stalls selling pretty bits of jewelry. I have jewelry at home, of course, with real gold and silver and precious stones, but somehow it never looks as entrancing as the glitter of these paste-and-glass baubles in the half light of the lanterns. Garo is getting into the spirit of things, and by the time we reach the end of the row he’s arguing excitedly whether the purple earrings are better or worse than the little china porpoise.

Either of us could buy out the whole stall in our other lives. Tonight, neither of us can afford a thing. We debate, and laugh, and keep moving.

There’s a puppet theater on the east side of the market, the play just starting as we arrive. It’s a court drama, the latest to come down the hill, re-staging the rumors and intrigues of the Imperial household in miniature in a way that combines entertainment and political gossip. The puppets are finely articulated figures, painted to resemble court fashion, controlled via dozens of individual strings by a hidden puppeteer. Garo is laughing immediately, but I find the things unsettling. That dream …

The crowd is engaged, though, partisans of various factions cheering whenever their heroes appear. By convention, the Emperor himself is never depicted in these shows, appearing as a booming voice from offstage, but everyone else is fair game: his uncles, siblings, and court functionaries like the Chief Eunuch all have their fans. Not keeping up with the gossip, I find myself a bit lost, but I have to appreciate the puppeteers’ skill. The little marionettes look nearly alive.

“He’s not as bad as all that,” Garo says in my ear, as the crowd roars with laughter.

“Who?”

“Videka. The Emperor’s uncle.” He nods at one of the puppets, a fat old man with a shiny bald head.

“You know him?”

“We’ve met. He’s a friend of my father’s.” Garo shrugs. “He can be a bit of an oaf, but he’s against the war, and he has some good ideas about improving things for the people.”

“So why won’t the Emperor listen to him?”

“The Emperor only listens to the Council of State,” Garo says, his expression darkening. “And the Council of State is packed with Kuon Naga’s sycophants. My father says…” He catches my eye. “Sorry. It’s not important.”

The play ends, and amid the applause and the sound of coins landing in the puppeteers’ open trunk I consider Garo in a new light. The figures of the Imperial court are larger than life for everyone in Kahnzoka, their exploits told and retold through gossip and rumor, which fascinate my neighbors in the Second Ward just as much as the crowds in the Eleventh. I’ve never met anyone who actually set foot in that rarified circle of power, who might know these shimmering creatures as actual human beings.

Part of me—the part that has carefully cultivated Grandma as a possible escape route, the part that the rest feels guilty about—is thinking that there must be some way to use him, something better than changing sheets.

“Is something wrong?” Garo says.

“Just thinking.” From farther down the market, there’s a crackle of sparks and a flash of green light. Garo blinks in surprise, and I grin. “Come on. This should be fun.”

I grab his hand, before I can think about it, and pull him after me. I wouldn’t have thought twice about doing the same to Kosura, but after a few steps my mind catches up with the situation. He’s closed his fingers around mine—which means he must not object—

All of a sudden my heart is beating very fast. I’m trying to keep my palm from sweating by sheer force of will.

We come to a halt amidst the crowd in front of the pyromancer. She’s standing on a box, a lithe young woman in a tight, gaudy costume slashed to show a barely acceptable amount of skin. Her movements are smooth and graceful, a kind of dance in place punctuated by dramatic upward gestures. When she raises her hands to the sky, blooms of fire expand outward, dissipating in clouds of colorful sparks.

Pyromancers have visited the house in the Second Ward a few times, though not quite so provocatively dressed. They’re Myrkai Well users, touched or weak talents, who have trained themselves in the subtle control of their arts to make up for a lack of raw power. Like Jakibsa with his pen, they achieve a mastery beyond most mage-bloods, combined with a knowledge of flammable powders and potions to put on a show.

This one is good, but not as skilled as some of the others I’ve seen. Garo seems entranced, though, his breath catching as she blows a cloud of red sparks from her mouth and then gestures rapidly to surround it with a halo of hanging green fire. I wonder how much is the performance, and how much the costume, and the thought comes with a touch of unpleasant jealousy I’ve never felt before. I bite my lip, try to relax, and work harder than ever to keep my Kindre senses closed off.

He’s still holding my hand. I squeeze his fingers, and he squeezes back, looking down at me. His handsome face is outlined in the flickering multi-colored light, eyes ablaze with reflections as though they were glowing from within. My heart gives a weak flip-flop, and my skin feels suddenly hot.

With that final flourish, the performance ends. The pyromancer bows low, but Garo is still looking at me. I clear my throat, inaudible in the tumult, and can’t think of anything to say.

“It’s getting late,” he says, after a while. “We ought to find this restaurant.”

Restaurant. Right. I give a jerky nod, and reluctantly release his hand. He smiles at me, and I watch him a moment longer before I turn away.

Nirata’s is a simple eatery, one of dozens of similar places across the High Market and the rest of the Eleventh Ward. It occupies the ground floor of a large tenement building, with a main room full of cheap, splintery wooden tables. At the back, a curtained doorway leads into the kitchen, and a hole cut through the wall provides a counter. Customers get their food—usually bowls of rice topped with fish or chicken—and eat them standing up at the tables, in the midst of lively chatter.

It’s unremarkable, but I find myself looking at it through Garo’s eyes as we come in through the open doorway. There are so many unspoken rules. You can join a table that has fewer than four people, for example, but shouldn’t try to crowd a fifth unless you know each other; meals you can’t finish should be left in place for the other diners to pick over. No one ever told me these things, unless it was Isoka and I was too young to remember. You just … absorb things, through the air, until it feels like second nature.

No wonder Garo’s efforts to fit in here were doomed. It makes me realize that I never would have been able to blend in, either, if I’d been the Second Ward girl I pretend to be.

The man behind the counter, in a sweat-stained robe with the sleeves tied up, catches my eye as we come in. There aren’t many customers at this hour, just one trio of porters wolfing down their rice and a lonely old man picking through abandoned bowls. The proprietor waves us over, and I lead Garo through the curtained doorway. There’s not much room—a cooking hearth, banked to a dull glow now, and a proper door leading to what must be a storeroom. Another door, which looks like it might lead to a back alley, is so dusty it seems like it hasn’t been used in decades.

“You’re Tori, aren’t you?” the man says. He offers me a nervous bow. “Nirata Genza. You helped my son Toma when he got caught in the fighting.”