Chapter 4
Syneca
When seeking the services of death, bring silver for the blade and gold for the silence that follows.
The noon bell hadn’t rung yet, but I was already walking. Past the Arch. Past the crowd. Past the point where anyone from the Chancellery Office could see me slip into the maze of side streets that led away from respectability.
Above me, a shadow wheeled in lazy circles against the gray sky. Silas had been tracking me since I left the building, patient as death, waiting for a signal that never came. Now he descended in a controlled dive, landing heavily on my shoulder with barely a whisper of displaced air.
“We’re not going home,” I said quietly.
His response was a soft trill, almost questioning. Then his head tilted toward the Crook, the darker underbelly of Grimora.
“That’s right.”
Without ceremony, he launched himself skyward again. My familiar knew the way.
The crowds thinned as I climbed toward the outer district. Here, people worked in foundries and in printing shops, or at the glassworks factory or the steam laundries: jobs that required strength but little thought. The air tasted of coal smoke and ink and the overwhelming stench of grim acceptance. But there was also an edge. A pulse in the stones of the city roads, beating with excitement for the games that would begin tonight. Only three trains made it into the city unscathed, but still there were enough passengers to likely fill the arena.
The monsters in the Ash targeted any tracks unguarded by the hunters. Of course, some people had come in via ship, but the seas were rough, and the travel took longer.
A scorched woman sat against a crumbling wall, five cheap clay runes spread before her like she was reading fortunes in their cracks. She pressed them to her skin one by one. The fallen wooden beam across her market stall didn’t even shudder.
“Three thousand crowns!” A merchant’s voice carried from across the street. “Genuine Life Runes! Don’t let your children burn!”
A man with hollow cheeks clutched a small girl’s hand. “I have eight hundred.”
“Three thousand.”
The father walked away. When the girl asked why they couldn’t buy the pretty stone, he didn’t answer. He’d likely saved every penny to spare his child should a Burning happen and still came up short.
Ahead, The Gilded Pestle sat between a brothel that never closed and a butcher whose customers asked no questions about the origin of the meat. The shop’s sign swung from rusted hinges, the painted letters nearly worn away, though the snake never faded.
But everyone who mattered knew runes weren’t the only thing that moved through Eda Mire’s doors, gleaming sign ornot. And those that didn’t matter still heard whispers of the Mistress of Blades, a witch who never used magic because, according to her, knowledge was always the sharpest weapon in her arsenal. I’d argued that fact, given that Calder and Vitoria were likely deadlier, but she’d only purse her lips and turn away.
A shifter stumbled out as I approached, pressing a jade rune to his wrist. His form rippled wrong, skin bubbling where it should have smoothed. “Counterfeit shit,” he snarled at the closing door. His eyes found me and widened. “I wasn’t here.”
There wasn’t a single rune in Eda Mire’s apothecary that was counterfeit. But there were plenty that needed specific amounts of power to wield them. When someone wasn’t strong enough, no matter the material used—be it cheap clay or expensive bloodstone—the rune wasn’t going to work.
Inside, copper and sage couldn’t quite mask the underlying scent of old blood. The shop was narrow but deep, shelves stuffed with glass jars climbing to the ceiling. Some contained ordinary herbs, handfuls of cheap runes, and various tinctures.
Others held things that moved when you weren’t looking directly at them. Somewhere, buried in the back, there was even a small collection of red dragon scales. Though I never knew how she got those.
Eda Mire stood behind her counter sorting materials; obsidian from the northern mines, granite worn smooth by river water, and a piece of bloodstone that made my power thrum. Her chestnut hair fell loose around her shoulders, not a trace of gray despite running this shop for longer than I’d known her. She moved with the grace of someone who measured everything twice, from death to payments to silence. Her fingers were ink-stained from ledgers no one else would ever see, each entry a life bought or sold.
“Three days early.” She didn’t look up. “The protections are burning out faster.”
Before I could answer, she was already moving, pulling a kettle from behind the counter. The liquid she poured steamed wrong, too thick for water, too dark for tea.
“Drink.”
I obeyed. The tea burned going down, but the exhaustion that had been eating at my bones since yesterday began to fade.
“Better?”
“What was that?”
“Something to help with the magical drain. You’ve been bleeding power for days.” Her eyes narrowed. “How many runes did you weave this morning?”
