Jildarin rumbled something that could have been agreement, disagreement, or just a thoughtfulhm. Then he got up and walked out of the coffee shop.
Rylana didn’t know if she’d succeeded in talking him into staying in the competition or not, but it was at least promising that he wanted to invoice his brother for the repair costs of his diner. One only repaired something that one planned to continue to use.
20
The Tower SquareMarket was the largest in the city with a mix of permanent wooden booths around the exterior and tents and wagons making haphazard rows in the interior. Intelligent beings from many species visited it to find the common and the rare, even those who didn’t get along well enough with others to live full-time in Tranquility. As she passed through, Rylana had to dodge everyone from ogres to trolls to gnomes to horses and donkeys pulling carts. A wyvern even flew in to land next to a tent selling rare meats.
With a pillar at every corner of the square and the omnipresent peacekeepers in the crowd with their golem enforcers, none of the visitors started fights. Even so, Rylana kept a hand on the pouch of magical sand, always wary about pickpockets.
Determined to learn what the goblin arsonist had been prepared to deploy, she walked toward a corner where herbalists sold their wares and alchemists mixed custom formulas for people. She diverted around a fountain to avoid a pair of female elves, though the half-filled baskets hooked over their armssuggested they were there to shop, not hunt down pointy-eared assassins.
A taller-than-average gnome peacekeeper walked through the crowd with two floppy-eared hounds on leashes, their noses twitching and their tails wagging as they sampled the air. One paused to sniff at Rylana's pocket. Since they were trained to find magical items, she drew out the pouch, curious to see if whatever reaction they had could provide a clue about the contents. One sniffed it briefly, then turned its nose toward her pocket again and licked it. Oh, was that a grease spatter? She’d had some of Jildarin's bacon for breakfast that morning.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the gnome said and clucked at the dogs to move them along.
“Whatever this is, it must not bethatinteresting.” Rylana eyed the bag again, then walked up to the first alchemist’s stand she spotted.
An elf stepped into view, a beaker in one hand and measuring utensils in the other. Rylana almost veered away. But the silver-and-green-haired male had sharp eyes and spotted her and her pouch immediately and waved for her to come closer. He wore an apron, the pockets bulging with tools, and didn’t look that menacing, so she approached.
His gaze skimmed the crowd behind her. As if he expected someone else to be with her? Sylin?
“Hello.” Rylana told herself it was unlikely thatallthe elves in the city were looking for her comrade. “How much do you charge to identify a substance?” She set the pouch on the counter.
“It depends on how long it takes to run the tests to do so. If you’ve brought nothing more than a bag of nutmeg or sand, I could identify it quickly.”
“I’d like to thinkIcould identify such substances.”
“Humans aren’t very apt at using their senses.”
Since she needed his help, Rylana made herself smile instead of baring her teeth. “So, you’ve an hourly rate? Of what?”
“Two gold.”
“That’s steep.”
“There are others you may seek out if you desire mediocre service. As an elf, I have keen senses, extensive knowledge, and decades of experience, thus ensuring a high rate is fair.” He looked past her shoulder again. “You have come to the market alone?”
“Yeah, I don’t like chitchat to get in the way of my shopping experience.” Rylana didn’t mention that Sylin didn’t care for crowded places and wouldn’t come to a market unless it was an emergency. So far, Rylana didn’t know for certain that the elf was looking for Sylin.
“I see.” The alchemist opened the pouch, dipped a measuring spoon in to extract a sample of the granular substance, and spread it on a square of paper. He sniffed it, eyed it, then rubbed it between his fingers. “It is magical.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you acquire it?”
“A goblin arsonist.”
His eyebrows rose, and he picked up the pouch, turning it all around. There wasn’t a label or mark that might have suggested its origins; Rylana had already checked.
“I can run tests on this sample if you wish.” The elf waved at equipment on a counter behind him. “But a goblin alchemist might recognize it immediately if it is something their kind makes.”
“Arethere goblin alchemists? I thought their people are mostly herbalists and foragers who sell what they find to the alchemists of other species.”
“There are some with a passion for making concoctions that give their kind advantages—or at least make them lessdisadvantaged—when dealing with taller and stronger species.”
“Are there any in the market?”
“Hegimok sometimes brings a wagon and parks down there.” The elf pointed. “If you leave this sample with me, I will also test it. Even learned goblins aren’t the most reliable of resources.”
