The Broken Eye(19)

The alley was right there: “This way, Teia.”

That man, that assassin, had used solid paryl to kill, like in the stories. Magister Martaens had sworn that solid paryl was impossible. Or at least that she couldn’t do it. If Teia could learn to draft solid paryl, she could defend against it, right? Perhaps these people could teach her.

Paralyzed, indecisive, passive and hating herself for it, Teia looked down the alley. Paryl’s greatest strength was that no one could see it except a handful of people in the world. If someone else could see their murders, those assassins lost their greatest weapon.

Which made Teia a threat to their power. Teia had seen an assassination. Perhaps they feared she’d seen the assassin, too.

So, Teia, do you isolate yourself with a man you know has murdered an innocent before, and who is threatened by your very existence?

Putting the matter that way made what remained of Teia’s curiosity shrivel from a big succulent grape to a nasty little raisin. Teia hated raisins. Loved grapes. They weren’t the same thing at all, no matter what people said.

If the man had wanted to simply murder her, he could have done it already. With his paryl messages, he’d proven that he could move nearby without her noticing him. So he wanted to get her alone first. Why?

It couldn’t be for something good. The man was a murderer. If your enemy wants it, don’t let him have it.

She ran.

Teia got a few startled looks as she bolted, but she didn’t care. As long as no one shouted ‘Thief!’ no one was going to care much about a young girl running. She hit the next busy intersection and slipped through the crowd there as fast as humanly possible. She slid between a yoke of oxen and the cart piled high with hay they were pulling before the man driving the team could even squawk. She ran along the lip of the little fountain at the center of the intersection and dodged through the line gathered for the water. She ran toward the next street, then stopped, backtracked a few paces, and dodged into an alley. She ran down that alley, nearly slipping on the garbage and slops, turned the opposite way down the next street, and turned up the next alley.

It started misting rain. Teia hadn’t even noticed the clouds gathering. She took off the dark spectacles, dropped her pack at her feet, flipped her cloak around so its muted blue side was out, put the pack back on, but in the front, and pulled the cloak on over that. She pulled up the hood and joined the streams of people hurrying in the rain. It was harder to modify your gait when you were rushing. Throwing your hips around to mimic a curvier woman was easy for her at a walk, she could merely bring her steps together as if walking a rope. Doing that while half jogging as if to get out of the rain? She wasn’t that good.

She began rummaging through the pack as she walked. She hadn’t brought much she could use for disguises to wear, but she did have a bright yellow shawl and a scarf. At the next intersection, she ducked into a merchant’s stall as if using it to cut a corner into another alley. She dropped the hood, pulled out a red scarf—or maybe it was green, the squad liked to play its little jokes on each other, and knowing her problem with colors, none of them would tell her straight.

She bound the scarf around her hair, and threw the shawl around her shoulders, tying it quickly. She ducked her chin and then walked back out the way she had come, holding the cloak shut and using the bulk of her pack on her front to make it look like she was pregnant. She put a hand on her belly to complement the disguise.

Teia hated slow disguises. Hated not making a speedy exit. But so did everyone else, and that was why this kind of disguise could be so effective when fleeing. She walked right by a tall man in a gray cloak who cut through the shop and headed into the alley. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe he was just a man hurrying home in the rain.

After two agonizing blocks at a slow deliberate place with a hand on her swollen belly but not too much waddle, Teia ran again—but not home. She ran to the brewery where Marta Martaens had said she’d taken a room.

The brewery, the Maiden’s Kiss, was housed in a squat, square building. It was whitewashed like almost all the buildings on Big Jasper, with a domed roof. This one was a shocking pink, the wooden doors were plain except for a stylized maiden in profile, offering a kiss. There was no text. Teia knocked firmly on the door.

An apprentice opened the door, a young girl not past ten years. “Is this where Marta Martaens takes a room?” Teia asked.

The girl’s big brown eyes went bigger. She hesitated. “Can you wait here? Back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail?”

Odd one. And Teia didn’t like people acting odd when her life was on the line. Her throat was still tight. But she moved that tension to her body, readying herself for attack. She knew being aware but loose was faster, but there no way she could find that calm right now.