Lu swayed as Nate plowed their steamboat through the night-drenched waterways. Screams chased them, tangled cries from people fleeing the gathering at Fort Chastity.
In the very heart of a clandestine Argridian assembly, Lu had done nothing. She had no information, nothing to hold as proof that this mission had been worthwhile. At least they had destroyed Tom’s stores of plants—thanks to Nayeli. Did he have more, though? Why had Elazar called so many innocents to Fort Chastity? What had stoked them to such panic?
And what had Tom meant by all his talk of Menesia?
Too many questions. Too much pain. Not enough action.
Lu rocked with the steamboat, bleary and blank. She couldn’t put a name to her state: a cloud had fallen over her, and though she drew in shuddering breaths, she feltas though underwater. The living embodiment of a breath held.
The farther they sailed from Fort Chastity, the more Lu expected the screams to dissipate. But old cries flowed into new, coming from ahead—the sanctuary.
Nate docked the boat, and Nayeli was the first to race off. Rosalia and Nate closed in behind, while Lu moved sluggishly, stumbling across the dock and past the barricade.
Voices rose. As Lu wove through one of the tenements guarding the main bulk of the sanctuary, screams became accusations.
“Howdareyou!”
Torches and lanterns flickered on a dozen refugees in the center of the main outer road. A mix of raiders surrounded them, some confused, others jostling one another and mocking the obvious turmoil. But a single group stood apart—a knot of Grozdan raiders.
Rosalia was already with them. A canvas bag sat on the ground at their feet, and she was talking with her people, shaking her head, chuckling at something in her hand.
The refugees were not amused. One shot forward.
“We never agreed to this!” he bellowed. “It’s thievery—but what else should we expect from the likes of you?”
Lu hung back, scanning the crowd. There—Kari pushed through behind a fuming Fatemah; Nayeli, next to them, looked drawn and exhausted.
“Where have you been?” Fatemah demanded of Rosalia.“Is this how you run your syndicate—vanishing without a word, leaving your raiders to ransack innocent homes?”
“Ransack?” Rosalia scoffed. “They didn’t rob anyone. It’s atithe, woman.”
Fatemah’s face went purple with fury, but her voice came low and controlled, the growl before attack. “You will return what your raiders stole from those under our protection. The people of Port Mesi-Teab who desire Tuncian protection pay a fee—but it is their choice. This is war. You cannot demand tribute from those who have no say about our—”
Nate and Pierce shoved out of the shadows, into the little clearing that had formed in the road. Raiders and refugees alike watched on.
“We’re well aware of this being a war, Fatemah,” Pierce said. “But we’ll be damned if we return to Port Camden empty-handed after this. We can’t be running a charity. Protection takes resources, time, funds, and we got a list of some rare shit we need for our ultimate move against Elazar.”
Realization stabbed Lu.
Rosalia took a half step closer to Lu, enough to get her attention, and chucked a bauble into the air. Lu caught it, a chain coiling in her palm around a small trinket.
It was a glass sphere the size of Lu’s thumb. A murky maroon substance swirled behind an etching of a bear’s face, curved teeth bared in a vicious snarl.
Rosalia was too far away for conversation, but when Lu met her eyes again, she gave a wicked smile and mouthed,Visjorn bear blood.
Lu’s eyes widened. They’d found Visjorn bear blood.
Lu had tasked Pierce, Nate, and Rosalia with gathering items for permanent magic. This was how they had gotten her supplies so far? By robbing these people?
The refugees were terrified. A man stood at the front, his shoulders heaving; a woman and her child huddled against each other.
This necklace had to be sacred to whomever Rosalia’s people had stolen it from, a Tuncian or Emerdian with Mecht ancestry. But Lu tucked it into her pocket, hoping the refugees would forget this trinket, her heart a tangle of eagerness and regret.
“What you are doing is not normal syndicate function,” Kari tried now, stepping between Fatemah and the others. Ever the peacekeeper. “It is extortion. And we cannot—”
“Oh shut up, Councilmember!” Pierce’s cry rang off the surrounding buildings. The Emerdian raiders shot fists into the air. “You’re the reason that this isnormal syndicate function. Your lot stole the magic trade with the Mainland from our syndicates.Extortionis the only way we keep our syndicates running, and like hell will I sit here while these people”—Pierce pointed at the refugees, who flinched—“oweus. They owe us, like it or not. When we get Grace Loray back from Elazar, how did you think we’ll run things?”
“With agreement,” Kari said. “With proper involvement and all voices heard. With—”
