Iseult had always known in those moments—as she hugged a tree branch tight and prayed that her mother would find her soon—that the Cahr Awen was nothing more than a pretty story.
Gulping, Iseult heaved aside those memories. This day was bad enough; no need to dredge up old miseries too. Besides, she and Safi were almost to the guards now, and Habim’s oldest lesson was whispering at the back of her mind.
Evaluate your opponents, he always said. Analyze your terrain. Choose your battlefields when you can.
“Single-file lines!” the guards called. “Any weapons must be out where we can see them!”
Iseult clapped her book shut in a whoof! of musty air. Ten guards, she counted. Spread out across the road with carts stacked behind them to block the crowd. Crossbows. Cutlasses. If this little interrogation didn’t go well, then there was no way the girls could fight their way through.
“All right,” Safi muttered. “It’s our turn. Keep your face hidden.”
Iseult did as ordered and sank into position behind Safi—who marched imperiously up to the first sour-faced guard.
“What is the meaning of this?” Safi’s words rang out, clear and clipped over the constant din of traffic. “We are now late to our meeting with the Wheat Guildmaster. Do you know what his temper is like?”
The guard’s face settled into a bored glower—but his Threads flashed with keen interest. “Names.”
“Safiya. And this is my lady-in-waiting, Iseult.”
Though the guard’s expression remained unimpressed, his Threads flared with more interest. He angled away, motioning for a second guard to loom in close, and Iseult had to bite her tongue to keep from warning Safi.
“I demand to know what this holdup is for!” Safi cried at the new guard, a giant of a man.
“We’re lookin’ for two girls,” he rumbled. “They’re wanted for highway robbery. I don’t suppose you have any weapons on you?”
“Do I look like the sort of girl to carry a weapon?”
“Then you won’t mind if we search you.”
To Safi’s credit, none of the fear in her Threads showed on her face, and she only lifted her chin higher. “I most certainly do mind, and if you so much as touch my person, then I will have you fired immediately. All of you!” She thrust out her book, and the first guard flinched. “At this time tomorrow, you’ll be on the streets and wishing you hadn’t messed with a Guildmaster’s apprentice—”
Safi didn’t get to finish her threat, for at that moment, a gull screamed overhead … and a splattering of white goo landed on her shoulder.
Her Threads flashed to turquoise surprise. “No,” she breathed, eyes bulging. “No.”
The guards’ eyes bulged too, their Threads now shimmering into a giddy pink.
They erupted with laughter. Then they started pointing, and even Iseult had to clap a gloved hand to her mouth. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh—
She started laughing, and Safi’s Threads blazed into red fury. “Why?” she squawked at Iseult. Then at the guards, “Why always me? There are a thousand shoulders for a gull to crap on, but they always pick me!”
The guards were doubled over now, and the second one lifted a limp hand. “Go. Just … go.” Tears streamed from his eyes—which only served to make Safi snarl as she stomped past. “Why don’t you do something useful with your time? Instead of laughing at girls in distress, go fight crime or something!”
Then Safi was through the checkpoint and racing for the nearest fat-hulled trade ships—with Iseult right on her heels and giggling the entire way.
FOUR
Merik Nihar’s fingers curled around the butter knife. The Cartorran domna across the wide oak dining table had a hairy chin with chicken grease oozing down it.
As if sensing Merik’s gaze, the domna lifted a beige napkin and dabbed at her wrinkled lips and puckered chin.
Merik hated her—just as he hated every other diplomat here. He might’ve spent years mastering his family’s famous temper, yet all it would take at this point was one more grain. One more grain of salt, and the ocean would flood.
Throughout the long dining room, voices hummed in at least ten different languages. The Continental Truce Summit would begin tomorrow to discuss the Great War and the close of the Twenty Year Truce. It had brought hundreds of diplomats from across the Witchlands to Veñaza City.
Dalmotti might have been the smallest of the three empires, but it was the most powerful in trade. And since it was neatly situated between the Empire of Marstok in the east and the Cartorran Empire to the west, it was the perfect place for these international negotiations.
Merik was here to represent Nubrevna, his homeland. He’d actually arrived three weeks earlier, hoping to open new trade—or perhaps reestablish old Guild connections. But it had been a complete waste of time.
Merik’s eyes flicked from the old noblewoman to the enormous expanse of glass behind her. The gardens of the Doge’s palace shone beyond, suffusing the room in a greenish glow and the scent of hanging jasmine. As elected leader of the Dalmotti Council, the Doge had no family—no Guildmasters in Dalmotti did since families were said to distract them from their devotion to the Guilds—so it wasn’t as if he needed a garden that could hold twelve of Merik’s ships.
“You are admiring the glass wall?” asked the ginger-haired leader of the Silk Guild, seated on Merik’s right. “It is quite a feat of our Earthwitches. It’s all one pane, you know.”