“A smokehouse?” Yemi squinted. “Meat?” Yemi quieted her growling stomach.
“Not all of them. I know the smell of cigars. Nobody chain-smokes like the godly.”
“There are also people that way.”
“Yes, but… my people, one could say.”
“Yourpeople,” Yemi repeated evenly.
“Don’t overthink it. Look, the Hot Gates are just there.” Nova pointed to a narrow pass in a wall of sheer white rock barely visible beyond the edge of the town. “It’s either this or we forgo this plan that I, again, do not love and head back to join up with Cutter.”
“We’re continuing with the plan, but your protest has been noted.”
“Right. Well, there’s nowhere to hide you. You stay here. I’ll pop down, find the thing, and pop back before the fog clears.”
“I’d rather I went with you,” Yemi insisted. “This is, subjectively, among one of my more harebrained ideas and you shouldn’t have to deal with it alone.”
“Calm down, Combat Queen. I trust you to manage one potentially sleepy guard if they come back. I’m not walking you directly into Murder Town.”
It annoyed Yemi that she was right, that it made more sense for her to cower like a child and wait for her escort than to tempt fate as if she hadn’t been in every newspaper her entire life. She appreciated Nova waiting for her to agree and rewarded her by relenting.
“We’ll talk about your need to play the hero when you get back.”
“Who’s playing?” Nova replied and kissed Yemi quickly on the lips before looking her very seriously in the eyes. “My Light, My Dark.”
“Your moon and stars,” Yemi replied.
“Back in a blink.”
Nova descended the cliffside quickly, keeping her footfalls soft on the crunching brush before skidding down a silt bank and into the weeds. Yemi watched her head bob among the tall grass as she edged toward the town and eventually out of sight.
• NOVA •
Nova inspected what she could of the town through spaces in the patchwork fog. It was a quiet place. Farmers hadn’t yet taken to their fields, but a blacksmith’s hammer rang out. Few to none were on the streets. The metal walls of a few homes were opened like vertical shutters, and people milled about in their front rooms instead. The roads seemed scant and in disrepair—less than ideal for the wheels of a military force, Nova thought, but well suited to the ambler vehicles popular in the mountains. A set or two of bouncing headlights traveled the one road that extended back toward the mines.
She tucked her undyed hair tightly beneath the broad farmer’s hat and walked the gray gravel pathways between stilted homes at a gait that she hoped registered as common and not at all stealthy.
The fog seemed denser as she kept her eyes up, looking for the buildings with smoke in their chimneys. She found herself some distance behind a person illuminating pathway and doorfront lanterns on high stalks with a long stick bearing flame. They were singing in a familiar voice as they did it.
Van?
Nova followed them as they rounded a corner and lit a brazier over a broad street between the bathhouse and what appeared to bea row of commercial buildings. An elderly someone slid open a bathhouse door and greeted them with nothing conversation.
ItwasVan.
Nova stayed tucked beneath the bathhouse bridge, aware that this would become a dangerously busy place once the town woke up completely. She could continue up the path to the smoky chimneys and hope no one caught her, or flag down Van and hope they would help.
Van approached a stairway that would lead them to the top of the bridge. Before they could reach it, Nova stepped just out of sight of the old-timer and grunted softly, raising her hat just high enough to be visible.
Van stopped mid-stride, did a double take, and then squinted.
“Ennov—”
Nova shook her head aggressively and pulled her hat lower, ducking again beneath the wall. Van excused themself and reversed course down the stairs, pinching Nova’s arm in a manner that could only be described as violent.
“This way.” They blew out the pilot light on their staff.
Around a series of corners and up another set of stairs, Van shut the door of a small, clean home behind them. It was minimally but comfortably decorated and smelled of sandalwood. The vent over a stone hearth had been carved to echo the chambers of a nautilus beside an altar bordered by dried herbs and the rinds of fruit. The wooden floors were well polished, and the open slats of the eastern wall looked out over the crops in the riverbed before Van shuttered those as well. This must have been their home. Nova stowed the guilt she felt about never having seen it before.
