Copper Ravens(71)

“What about Dad?” I asked. “Did you ever see him?”

“Not all the time,” Max replied. “During those last few months, I didn’t see him at all. I just got messages, which I read and burned.”

“How did you know it was your father who wrote those messages?” Micah asked. “Baudoin’s enemies could have easily manipulated you.”

“I know. That’s why I stopped coming.”

And why you let the Institute take you. I didn’t say it out loud, but it was plain as day on Max’s face.

“Then why are we coming here now?” Sadie asked, eyes darting toward a particularly chilling screech. “If you stopped hearing from Dad way back then, what makes you think he’ll be here today?”

“This is the last place he was known to be,” Mom said quietly. She rubbed her nose, then she tossed her golden hair over her shoulder. “We know he was here, or close by, after the war ended, for at least a few years. We’ll start looking here. If we find no trace of him, we’ll look someplace else. I will find my husband, of that you can be certain.”

Based on the fire in her eyes, I believed her. So it was my mother who led us to the gates of the Goblin Market, which were little more than pale wooden planks crudely lashed together with blackened, fraying ropes; the haphazard construction was due to the market’s need to uproot and flee at a moment’s notice. Not that they were doing anything wrong, of course.

A set of ragged guards flanked the gates; no, “guard” wasn’t really the right term. They were more like bouncers, the scary kind you only find outside the not quite legal hangouts. What’s more, they didn’t care if we were criminals or thugs, they just wanted to ensure we weren’t there to shut them down. Being that they’d set up shop so close to the Whispering Dell, Micah could have ordered them to pull up stakes or had them apprehended and sent to Oriana for judgment. Since that wasn’t what we wanted, at least not for now, Micah swept a hand over his hair, glamouring the distinctive silver to a rich brown, and the Lord of Silver passed unnoticed into the Goblin Market.

And what a market it was. To the left was a group of stalls that sold odd food items, and by odd I mean that some of the food was still moving, wriggling odd tentacles and limbs. To the right was a random collection of tents, stained with smoke and blood and who knows what else. The largest tent belched a thick reddish smoke whenever the flap was raised, along with a chorus of laughter and screams. While those entering the tent appeared healthy, those leaving were gray-skinned and frail, their eyes sunk deep in their skulls. What was worse, the not-yet-dead food and questionable goings-on in the tents and stalls were far from the creepiest aspects about this place.

Even though it was a bright, clear day, darkness hung like a chill blanket over the aisles and stalls. I couldn’t put my finger in it, but there was a wrongness that seeped from every hawker. The evil permeating the Goblin Market was much stronger than anything I’d felt in the dark quarter of the Whispering Dell’s village, and it made the crone at the apothecary seem like a fairy godmother.

We are so out of our league here.

“Why did you come here in the flesh?” Sadie whispered to Max. “Why didn’t you just dreamwalk?”

“This is no place for dreamwalking,” Max answered, nodding toward a nearby stall. Among the dried herbs and incense was a display of tightly capped containers, some made of fine crystal, others constructed out of badly thrown clay.

“Those are pretty,” Sadie murmured. She tried to get a closer look, but Max grabbed her.

“Don’t get any closer,” he hissed. Sadie stared from the jars to Max, uncomprehending, but I instinctively knew what those jars were for. Souls.

“Later,” Max grumbled when Sadie questioned what good a jarred soul would be. “The more you act like a dumb kid, the worse it’ll be for you.”

“I am a dumb kid,” Sadie reminded him. “Remember, you and Mom kept all of this from me.”

“With good reason,” Mom said, indicating the Goblin Market with her gaze. “Would you have rather spent your youth hiding here, or in that library you so loved?” Sadie dropped her eyes; yeah, no one likes having the truth held from them, but sometimes it’s done with good reason. “Max, where would you wait for Beau?”

“Here.” We’d reached a fountain, so shiny and black it could have been carved from obsidian. The water, which had long since ceased flowing, was choked with slime and stank like a week-old corpse.

“All right, Maximilien Laurent.” Mom surveyed the square; the fountain was the centerpiece of a common area, surrounded by somewhat permanent-looking shops. If the placards hadn’t all been made from bleached bones and bloody skins, it would have been a nice spot for a picnic. “Sadie and I will watch from that shop,” she declared, indicating a storefront across the way, “and Sara and Micah will take a post behind you. Once your contact approaches, go with them. We will follow.”