I returned his haughty gaze. “I won’t begin on the path to my throne by forcing people into my service or asking others to do it for me. Maybe my ancestors operated that way, but the old ways are dead, if you hadn’t noticed. If you come with me, you come of your own free will or not at all.”
He adjusted a buckle on the saddlebag’s flap, snugging it tight. “I understand, and I appreciate that you would give me that option, but I respect Justina’s authority, and I choose to obey her.”
“What about your family?” I glanced at the Charosvardo’s gleaming balloon and considered the household living beneath it. How it must have pained them to prepare for takeoff, knowing they were leaving their son behind to venture into uncertain danger with me, an outsider and exile who’d, too often, found herself in the crosshairs of powerful enemies.
“If my mission with you is successful, they will be honored by my actions.” He set his foot into the stirrup and hauled himself into the saddle.
“And if we’re unsuccessful?”
He held out a hand to Malita, and when she took it, he tugged her into the seat behind him. “If we are unsuccessful, I think my family’s honor will be the least of my worries.”
“Malita, are you sure you want to come with us?”
She glanced at me over Niffin’s shoulder. “What can I do? I cannot stay with them.” She pointed at the airships. “I cannot walk to Nri. I cannot get home alone.”
Unable to offer Malita an alternate solution, I set aside my qualms. I’d have plenty of time to worry about her while we travelled. “You know we’re taking a ship, right?”
Niffin patted his pocket. “Justina made sure I have the necessary supplies to perform my duties.” By supplies I assumed he meant money, which relieved me because I certainly had none to spare.
Mounted and ready, we waited at the field’s edge and watched as the Fantazikes lifted off, one by one, rising into the skies like shimmering silver fish gliding through a vast blue ocean. We watched until they turned to distant dots in the sky, until the last speck of the armada disappeared and only the three of us remained.
Adaleiz stamped a foot as if eager to get moving. Without a word, I pushed my heel against her side and clicked my tongue. Malita and Niffin’s horse, Khosha, matched Adaleiz’s stride, and we sauntered away, leaving the emptied fairgrounds behind us.
Separated from the bustling, loud, and vivid Fantazike community for the first time in weeks, I felt alone and weighed down by trepidation. My heart seemed heavier than usual, as if filled with sand, but I kept my thoughts to myself, suspecting Niffin wouldn’t have much sympathy for my worries. He’d left his family before, tracking the bandits who’d kidnapped Malita from her village, but he’d known then he would eventually return to his clan.
***
We reached Petregrad before noon and found the Burya, the small steamship on which Gideon had booked my passage. After purchasing Niffin’s and Malita’s fare, we led our horses away from the docks, heading into the heart of the city.
“So,” Niffin said, “we are to call you Liesl, now, if I overheard your conversation with the ship’s purser correctly?”
“If I’m going back to Steinerland, it’s best if I’m as invisible as possible. I have a feeling no one in Dreutch will be rolling out a welcome mat for Evelyn Stormbourne.” I glanced at Niffin’s distinctively colored eyes and thought of the crimson hair hiding beneath his broad-brimmed hat. The pedestrians around us noted him, ladies leaning close to whisper to each other behind their hands as they passed. Traveling with a Fantazike was like traveling beneath a spotlight, but how did I ask him to camouflage himself without wounding his pride?
“You must change more than your name,” Malita said, as if reading my mind. She gestured at my skirt and blouse and at her own distinctive attire. “Niffin and I will change, too, yes?”
“Buying a new outfit and accessories is on my long list of things to do today.” I pointed down the street at a tall marble building with a wide staircase rising to a pair of heavy red doors—the Banka Mirovoy. “First, though, is to collect the funds Gideon arranged for me.” Although his note had told me which bank to visit, it hadn’t explained where he’d gotten the money. Either he didn’t want me to know, or he was protecting his source—possibly the same source I was on my way to meet in Steinerland. “Then lunch, then shopping.”
“Shopping?” Niffin said drolly, rolling his eyes as I tied Adaleiz’s reins to a hitching post outside the bank. “Not my favorite pastime.”
I gestured at his vividly colored eyes. “You’ll draw attention—you can’t help it.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you expect me to do?”
I marched up the bank’s wide stairs, and a doorman swung open one heavy red door for me while my companions waited on the sidewalk. Pausing, I glanced back at Niffin. “Have you ever considered the aesthetic possibilities of shaded spectacles?”
I ignored Niffin’s haughty snort and crossed the bank’s threshold into the cool, quiet interior. My skirts swished across the black-and-white tiled floor, and I pinned my gaze straight ahead, ignoring the inquisitive and arrogant looks from my fellow bank patrons. My attire was appropriate but humble, and compared to the bank’s customary clientele in their expensive gowns and fine hats, I looked like a wren among peacocks.
After a brief exchange with a short, bald bookkeeper with a drooping mustache, I exited with a pouch of coins large enough to strain my skirt pockets and make my head spin. I wondered how Gideon had arranged to give me such a large sum of money. Who was our mysterious benefactor? Or had Gideon robbed someone for my benefit? I pushed the unlikely and unsavory thought aside. When it came to my stalwart protector, there had always been more to him than he was willing to show me.
Once a spy, always a spy...
Gideon was like the wooden nesting dolls popular among Varyngan children. Every time I removed one of his outer layers, I found there were still many more yet to be revealed.
Chapter 3
With funds securely in hand, Niffin, Malita, and I followed directions the bank’s bookkeeper had given when I’d asked him to recommend a reasonably priced inn. We handed our horses to a stable boy, set our saddlebags in our rooms, and met in the inn’s dining room for a quick lunch of thin pancakes with sour cream, pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, and fish seasoned with dill.
Glancing at my distinctive scarlet-haired companion, I frowned. “I’m happy to go into Steinerland alone if abandoning your customs makes you uncomfortable, Niffin.”
He touched his napkin to his lips before answering. “I would not have you go alone. I would not be doing my job if I did. And the Fantazikes are more experienced with disguises than you think.”
“And you?” I met Malita’s gaze. “If you want, we’ll find a safe place for you to wait while I meet with Gideon’s contact.”
She shrugged. “Where you and Niffin go, I go.”
After the innkeeper gave directions to the local shops and markets selling the things we needed, Niffin left Malita and me on our own, promising to meet us later for supper. We followed him outside and watched him disappear into the throngs of heavy traffic trundling along Petragrad’s sidewalks. Malita and I turned the opposite direction and weaved through the crowds, my fingers firmly laced through hers to avoid being separated.
Several blocks later, we turned into an open-air market where merchants had laid out their wares—everything from cooking pots, teakettles, and horse-tack to fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Vendors hawked their goods, their voices blending into a discordant jangle. Smells of cooking food, warm bodies, machine oil, and manure combined into a hostile, urban stench. I resisted the urge to pinch my nose as we pushed deeper into the market.
A clutch of dirty children in ragged clothes rushed past us, and the largest one, a gamine girl not much younger than me, plowed into my shoulder. Stumbling, I yelped, and Malita clutched me against her side, holding me steady while I fisted my coin purse in my pocket. Niffin and the bank’s bookkeeper both had warned me about pickpockets.
“Osteregat'sya,” the shabby girl snarled as she gripped my upper arm, fingers gouging my flesh. Her blond hair fell in tangles to her shoulders. Grime stained the knees of her knickers, and patches adorned her waistcoat.
Malita shoved herself between us, putting me at her back, and I gaped at her uncharacteristic display of hostility. Snatching the urchin’s wrist, Malita squeezed until the girl’s eyes popped wide. She gasped and released my arm, but Malita held fast, applying steady force until the girl’s hand bent back to the point of snapping.
“Otpusti menya, devushka,” the urchin growled, her eyes shooting daggers.
Neither Malita nor I spoke much Varyngan, but sometimes actions were clearer than words, and this girl was clearly furious. Her jaw muscle bulged as she ground her teeth. Malita released her, and she stumbled back. Giving us one last hateful glare, the girl spat at our feet before sprinting away and joining her gang. They disappeared into the crowds of oblivious shoppers.
Staring with my mouth agape, I grabbed Malita’s hands. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that before.”
“Niffin teaches me things—how to fight.” She looked up, a blaze burning in her eyes as she stabbed a finger to her chest. “I am no victim.”
I pressed her knuckles to my chest over my heart, which was still beating at an uneasy pace. “You were amazing. Maybe I should ask Niffin to teach me too.”
Her gaze drifted over my shoulder, scanning the market behind me. “We should not stay long. That girl will not be happy with us.”
After waving off a pushy tinsmith and ignoring the flirtatious grins of a young man trying to sell us a bouquet of daisies, Malita and I found a stall of ladies’ secondhand clothing. I turned my nose up at the petticoats and wide skirts, but her eyes went big and round when she found a plain muslin dress printed with yellow crocuses. It was perhaps a bit finer than something a working-class woman would wear on a regular day, but her smile melted my heart. I plucked coins from my purse, but Malita waved me off. She revealed her own small pouch of money. “I take care of myself.”
While we waited for the merchant to wrap the dress in brown paper and string, I surveyed our surroundings, looking for something more suitable to my tastes.
“No dress for you, my lady?” the vendor asked.
Shaking my head, I pointed toward another stall farther down the road. “I’m looking for something a bit more—”
“For boys,” Malita said, rolling her eyes. She thanked the merchant and tugged me toward the men’s clothing stall. “Come, come. Trousers for you. I know what you like.”
***
