“I’ll give you ten,” Zayr said, schooling his features into a blank expression.
“Forty,” I countered. “The idea is mine. You would’ve never thought of it on your own.”
“True, but I’ll have to find help to actually make it happen because I have no time to do it myself. I’ll have to pay them then. Frankly, I’m better off not getting into this at all.”
“But maybe this is your chance to break free from Ray?” I pointed out. “A way to buy your freedom from him eventually?”
The muscle below his eye ticked—his only reaction to my words. But I knew I struck a nerve.
“Fine,” he said. “Twenty, and I’ll do it. That’s my final offer.”
“I’ll take twenty-five percent,” I counter-offered. “I’ll also get you in touch with someone who knows a cook for the royalsarai. You won’t have to sit on the market all night. You’ll sell your entire stock in bulk once you have it. Deal?”
He worked his jaw, mulling over my words.
“Deal.” He thrust his right hand toward me with force, as if trying to jam it through a brick wall.
I didn’t take his hand. Instead, I stretched out my right arm and paused my skeletal claw-hand next to his, without touching him.
“Deal,” I said, waiting for him to accept the handshake.
My reasoning was simple. Now that we were speaking amicably, I didn’t want to force the touch of my mangled appendage on him. It was customary to shake hands on a deal, but we could’ve shaken left hands instead. Yet Zayr had given his right hand to me, leaving me no choice.
Now I was giving a choice to him.
He shifted closer, staring at my hand before giving it a quick, firm squeeze that made my bones crack. I’d feel no pain even if he decided to break them, but he didn’t seem to do it to hurt me or even to assert dominance in the situation. He did it as if on a dare with himself, to prove that he wasn’t afraid.
“I’m honored to do business with you,” I said formally, as if we weren’t in this illegal cavern of priceless water but in one of the finest homes in Kalmena.
The faint pulsing sensation on the back of my head had been intensifying since the moment I’d left Elaine. I hated being away from her, hated leaving her in that ramshackle hut on the beach, and I couldn’t wait to get back to her now that my business with Zayr was done.
He stared at me, his orange eyes following my right hand as I withdrew it under my cloak.
“What are you?” he exhaled, deep confusion and a hefty share of astonishment seeping through his schooled neutral expression.
I wished I knew the true answer to that question.
“I’m a pleasure trader,” I gave him the only answer I had. “And now, I need to get back to my Joy Vessel.”
The sun burned high in the sky as I left the caves, but its heat was already obscured by the gathering clouds of the approaching day storm.
The anxious, pulsing sensation intensified the longer I stayed away from Elaine. It pushed me forward, making me move faster. I passed the bottom of the stone path that ran along the cliff face of the Wall, steering my chair into the less populated part of the beach, toward the hut that Elaine and I had been calling home.
A crashing noise came from that direction, and the pulsing in the back of my mind exploded into an inferno of panic and rage.
Elaine!
I sped up, pushing my chair to the limits of its magic.
I heard her before I saw her.
A desperate, panicked shriek pierced the air. Shadows scurried around our hut. A wall of the building had a gaping hole, the wood and clay crumbling around the breach.
“Elaine!” I bellowed.
A fae woman carried Elaine under her arm. Several others were with her. The woman looked familiar, but I had no time to ponder where I’d seen her before.
“Timur!” Elaine thrashed in the woman’s grip with all her human strength, which wasn’t nearly enough against the fae.
