The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(315)

“Got it,” I said. “Then?”

She shrugged. “I sell them at the Sun Market. Or give ’em away, if people can’t pay.” She glanced at me, looking me up and down, and then snorted. “You could pay.”

I looked down at myself. The black clothing I had manifested back in Sky was filthy and stank, but it was made of fine-quality cloth, and the shirt and pants and shoes all matched, unlike her clothes. I supposed I did look wealthy. “But I don’t have any money.”

“So get a job,” she replied, and resumed work.

I sighed and moved to sit down on a closed muckbin, which squelched when my weight bore down on it. “Guess I’ll have to. Know anyone who might need”—I considered what skills I had that might be valuable to mortals. “Hmm. A thief, a juggler, or a killer?”

The girl stopped again, looking hard at me, and then folded her arms. “You a godling?”

I blinked in surprise. “Yes, actually. How did you know?”

“Only they ask those kinds of crazy questions.”

“Oh. Have you met many godlings?”

She shrugged. “A few. You going to eat me?”

I frowned, blinking. “Of course not.”

“Fight me? Steal something? Turn me into something else? Torture me to death?”

“Dear gods, why would I—” But then it occurred to me that some of my siblings were capable of all that and worse. We were not the gentlest of families. “None of those things are my nature, don’t worry.”

“All right.” She turned back to examine something she’d found, which I thought might be an old roof shingle. With an annoyed sigh, she tossed it aside. “You’re not going to get many worshippers, though, just sitting there like that. You should do something more interesting.”

I sighed and drew my legs up, wrapping arms around them. “I don’t have a lot of interesting left in me.”

“Hmm.” Straightening, the girl pulled off her stupid hat and mopped her brow. Without it, I saw that she was Amn, her white-blonde curls cropped short and held back with cheap-looking barrettes. She looked ten or eleven, though I saw more years than that in her eyes. Fourteen, maybe. She hadn’t eaten enough in those years, and it showed, but I could still feel the childhood in her.

“Hymn,” she said. A name. My skepticism must have shown, because she rolled her eyes. “Short for Hymnesamina.”

“I like the longer name, actually.”

“I don’t.” She looked me up and down perfunctorily. “You’re not bad-looking, you know. Skinny, but you can fix that.”

I blinked again, wondering if this was some sort of flirtation. “Yes, I know.”

“Then you’ve got another skill besides thieving, juggling, and killing.”

I sighed, feeling very tired. “No whoring.”

“You sure? You’d make a lot more money than with the rest, except killing, and you don’t look very tough.”

“Looks mean nothing for a god.”

“But they do mean something to mortals. You want to make money as a killer, you need to look like one.” She folded her arms. “I know a place where they’d let you pick your clients, you being what you are. If you can make yourself look Amn, you’d make even more.” She cocked her head, considering this. “Or maybe the foreign look is better. I don’t know. Not my thing.”

“I just need enough to buy food.” But I would need more mortal things as I grew older, wouldn’t I? There would come a time—soon, probably—when I would no longer be able to conjure clothing or necessities, and someday shelter would be more than just a pleasant accessory. Winters in central Senm could kill mortals. I sighed again, resting my cheek on my knees.

Hymn sighed, too. “Whatever. Well… see you.” She turned and headed toward the mouth of the alley—then froze, her gaze going sharp and alarmed. Her tension thickened the already-ripe air further when she stepped back, out of the alley’s entrance and into the shadows.

This was just enough to pull me out of my mood. I uncurled and watched her. “Muggers, bullies, or parents?”

“Muckrakers,” she said, so softly that no mortal would have heard her, but she knew I could.

By the way she said it, I realized she expected me to know what muckrakers were. I could guess, though. There was money to be made from any city’s refuse, from charging to get rid of it to selling its useful bits. Curious, I hopped up and came over to where she was standing, out of the slanting light from the torchlamps. When I peeked around her at the street beyond, I saw a group of men near an old mulecart, on the other side of the potholed street. Two of them were laughing and hefting muckbins, dumping them into the cart; two more stood idle, talking, while a fifth was in the cart with a pitchfork and a mask over his face, stirring something that steamed.