Dax looked appalled. “Music is a language that speaks to everyone. It’s a language of the heart. It’s not just for the rich!”
“Eh,” the guard said. “Only music that speaks to me is my paycheck.”
One of the other guards guffawed. “Ha! What about that feathery fellow at the club? You were waxing poetic ’bout him just the other week.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s music all right. Sings while he juggles bottles of booze. Incredible sight. Never dropped a one. Nowthatis my heart language.”
Propelled by Perri,Silverleft the guards rapidly behind, so whatever the other guard replied, Marin couldn’t hear. Dax muttered, “What is it with juggling musicians? Is that really what people want?”
“You could juggle me,” Ree offered.
“A kind offer, but I’ll stick to the tri-lute, thank you.”
As they made their way through the canals, there were clear signs of damage: some buildings bore scorch marks, many had broken windows, and others had half-crumbled walls. A few of the overhead bridges had been destroyed—they’d stretch halfway across the canals and then stop in a jagged stone. But the canals were clear. They didn’t encounter a single barricade.
No more emperor. No more empire.
Could it be true? Could the revolutionaries truly have won? It was over?
She would have expected more rejoicing. And maybe there had been in the immediate aftermath, but now… the empire hadn’t fallen without causing a lot of damage in its death throes.
Near the shop district, where the florist shop was supposed to be, the destruction was even worse. In this part of the city, the majority of the buildings had been built of wood, not stone, and they’d burned faster. She imagined too that the sorcerers had been tasked with saving the structures near the heart of the city first and only spread to the areas where ordinary people lived later.
All of them were quiet as Marin poled down a canal that should have been lined with shops and cafés and clusters of stalls selling crafts and produce. It felt more like a graveyard. All the shops were closed. Many were blackened shells.
But there were people. Hollow-eyed people, cleaning, picking through the debris, working on repairs, trying to rebuild. Some of them were children, playing in clumps, more quietly than they should have been.
Marin wondered what the provisional government was doing about this. Did they know? Did they care? There had to be a phenomenal number of things to fix in the wake of the empire’s collapse, but shouldn’t this be a priority?
At last, they found the florist shop, or what was left of it. She used the pole to slow the boat and then halt. The pole to tie off to was still there, as were the stone steps leading up to the water-entry to the shop. The main entry would have been from the plaza on the other side of the buildings. She could see a glimpse of it through the shop’s broken windows.
“All right, so this wasn’t the best idea,” Marin said.
“We need to find them,” Ree said. “This is Yarrow’s family.”
“They may have left the city…” Marin began.
Ree shook, agitated enough that several leaves fell off his branches. “Marin, you’d do anything for your family, wouldn’t you? I know you would. These people… They’re gardeners. Or they were gardeners before they came here. They’re from Belde. Like me. They came here, chasing their own dreams, and just because they left doesn’t mean the people they left behind don’t still care. We have to at least try.Ihave to try.”
Sweet, noble,youngRee. Marin glanced at Dax. She could see the sympathy in his eyes. He was looking at the same burned-out shop she was, and he knew the odds of finding Yarrow’s family weren’t great.
But Marin didn’t say it. Instead, she tied the boat to the pole, and she walked up the stone steps into the destroyed florist shop. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone here? We come as friends.”
“As family,” Ree corrected. “We come as family.”
The saddest part of the florist shop was the flowers that weren’t burned—the ones that had survived the fire only to wilt in the aftermath. No one had come to save them.
Marin walked through the remains of Yarrow’s family’s shop.Shattered glass crunched beneath her shoes, and she bent to pick up Ree. He didn’t protest, just curled his branches inward around his roots. She couldn’t imagine how this felt, seeing all the dead plants.
“Do you want to go back and wait onSilver?” she asked him. “It’s okay if you do.”
“No,” Ree said. “I need to try.”
She understood.
Dax studied the cashier’s desk near the front of the shop. There were books there, shop records and plant care manuals, mostly charred. He tried to flip through them, and several of the pages crumbled. “Where would they go?”
“Away, if they could.” She’d seen a lot of boats leaving the city. She didn’t know if a family of florists could afford passage all the way to Belde, but they could have left as refugees to a nearby island. If so, they’d be impossible to find. Unless they left word with a neighbor?
