The mayor’s voice returned to her from the Beyond.“The world outside pays very well for the gift of time.”
“Rich for certain,” she grumbled. Then she stepped back onto the road and followed it.
Loxlen wasn’t like Ghadra at all. For one, it wasn’t comprised of shades of grey. The sun shone brightly upon beige, slate roofs and paler stone walls, and though there were shadowy places and plenty of alleyways, they didn’t give her that sense of foreboding the town she’d left always did. She would even hazard a guess that if she were to walk through them, she wouldn’t even step in anything unsanitary.
And then there were the people.
She hadn’t seen many yet, as it seemed most were either tucked in their homes on the autumn day, or hidden away in carriages. A few were on horseback or sat on wagons, and only several walked as she did now. None, she noticed so far, possessed the shifting eyes of Ghadra’s Dark. Nor even the upturned noses of Ghadra’s Light.
Even the smell was pleasant: brisk air rather than burning hair.
She continued to trail the carriage. It followed the main road, and though there were many streets nearly as wide, it didn’t turn. There was a common destination at the center of town, and that was where she was sure it headed.
Edgar, the mountain recluse, said Loxlen was a hub of trade. That, though it was some distance yet from the sea, being at the base of the range caused it to be near enough to offer itself as a prime location for all manner of people to sell and barter and buy. Lux didn’t know how much stock she could place in a man who never left his own four walls, but she supposed he dragged enough details out of the people who found him. It seemed he was correct in this.
Not a single person cast a furtive glance or a scowl her way the entirety of the time she walked. With her cloak, pack, and dirt-splattered boots, she supposed she looked like any other traveler come to trade. But her hand didn’t leave the knife anyway.
She passed by a woman and child, both wrapped in thin capes and white gloves. The woman smiled warmly at Lux, and Lux, so unused to strangers offering anything of the sort, blinked back at her. It went on far too long. The woman’s smile faded, and her stare turned hard, and as quick as she was to offer Lux welcome, she hauled it back the same. The pair crossed the road to continue walking on its opposite side.
“Devil below. I’m forever doomed to be socially strange.” She watched them turn, and only when she spun back did she realize the carriage had stopped.
She smacked headlong into it.
“Son of a—”
“My apologies, Miss.”
Lux clutched at her nose with both hands, tilting her head back on the chance it bled. She didn’t know if it did. It felt like it should.
“No. ‘s my fault,” she mumbled from beneath her palms. Risking one hand, she waved his apology away.
Her watering eyes cleared a few moments later, and she saw the man hadn’t left after all but stared at her with a stoic expression that her pessimistic self labeled “boredom”. He was of average height, middle-aged, with a hat brim so wide, it’d likely keep his shoulders dry in a drizzle, and he held a leather bag at his side.
A second man’s gloved hand reached out and took it from him.
“Will you be all right?” the driver asked her. “Or do I need to see about a healer or physician or an apothecary with a poultice?”
“No apothecaries, thank you,” she replied, releasing her nose. “They’re all quacks.”
“As you say, Miss.”
Her gaze narrowed on him for all of a moment before she remembered why she’d followed this particular carriage to begin with. While she’d been keeping her ears open for gossip and dealings, she’d also been keeping her eyes open for deep pockets—and a carriage and luggage this fine surely bespoke deep pockets.
Only, she’d gone and ruined it all by hurting herself. Now, whoever was in that carriage was lost to the crowd. She scanned the market, but it was bustling beyond belief. She’d never seen anything so large—not even Ghadra’s Festival of Light could rival it. And this was a regular Noxday at noon, not even a holiday. Her eyes widened as far as they could.
What a hellscape this is.
People were quite literallyeverywhere.They ate mushrooms from skewers and bought ale from barrel-minders. They haggled over fabrics and exchanged coin for trinkets. And all the while, Lux’s nose throbbed, and her head ached.
She did not love markets, and she did not enjoy most people. This was, in every sense of the word, a nightmare.
But she would suffer it anyway.
She must.
“Where did your charge go?” she asked of the driver before he could return to his perch.
“Mycharge?”
