Page 75 of The Space Between Stars

“Well?”

“We’ve been docked in Seraphinden for two days!” he whined.

And she had yet to set foot on land. But with the research a full year’s worth of Luck had afforded her sitting at her fingertips, there was nothing better to disembark for. “Your point?”

“Get off the fated boat! Come play cards with me ‘n Cam.”

He wanted to use her to gamble. Fat chance.

“You ruined my sirwal.” A spring and small hose beneath the cap of her inkwell. Simple, yet cleverer than most of Mitek’s pranks. She had mistaken the small swell of bad Luck for impending landfall and fallen for it. They were her only sirwal, having grown out of the last. She still wore them, black spattering and all.

“What are brothers for?”

Fankalo kept her eyes firmly on her book. “My retribution will be swift and unyielding.”

“Let’s go nick you some new ones.”

Further sabotage. “You do realize I’ve been waiting for months to read these?”

He mimicked her tone, hands to his hips. “You do realize I’m just trying to help you, eaaah?”

She sighed. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but unless you can direct me toward a Nelfinden politician still in communication with the Tera’thian state amidst a diplomatic sanction, you can’t help me.”

She turned the page, leaving Mitek in a stumped silence.

“I can’t…” He rubbed his arm and squinted like he was trying to string too many thoughts together. “But I know someone who might.”

Ten minutes down the wharf from where the Rogue’s Rapture had been docked, Mitek pulled Fankalo to a stop outside a crumbling adobe shanty. Faded blue paint peeled from a set of swinging doors embossed with dragonflies.

Shrokan. Mitek usually avoided this district like the Strikapa, keeping to its outskirts and the districts around it. “This is it,” he said with a glance in either direction. He read the question on her face. “We’re fine here, but… keep your tanka loaded.”

“How reassuring.” She tilted her chin toward the building. “Old friend of yours?”

Mitek scratched at his head. “For a while, he was like an older brother. Best I had, before the other Fankalo. Then Cam. And you.” There was something unreadable in his expression then, and he cleared his throat before knocking.

The voice that cooed from within was deep yet feather-soft. “Please, come in.”

Fankalo followed Mitek through the doors into a room lined with aged wooden cubbies, each stuffed with letters and scrolls. A film of sludge from the street lined the earthen floor. Dark streaks stained the adobe walls where the rain had leaked in. The space’s sole occupant sat behind the counter: the most rotund young man Fankalo had ever seen. He wore bold prints and an emerald woman’s turban. Kohl as dark as his beard lined his eyes, and an orange hue stained his lips. He was unusual, but if she’d been given only one word to describe him, she would have chosen beautiful.

“Ay, Celestar. How’s it fare?”

“Mitek!” The man tottered from his stool and threw his arms around Mitek. Long moments of laughing and back-patting and hair-ruffling ensued. Finally, Celestar pushed Mitek out to arm’s length, meaty hands clapped over his shoulders. “Look at these muscles! Not a weak little thing any more.” His eyes darted to Fankalo, and for reasons she couldn’t understand, her stomach clenched. “And you’ve brought a friend!”

A corner of Mitek’s mouth pulled wide, and he gripped at his own bicep as if for validation. “Fankalo had some questions I thought you might be able to answer, so I brought him along.”

Celestar looked down his pug nose at her, mouth slowly drawing long. “That… is not Fankalo.”

Mitek chuckled. “Sure it is. It’s just been, what, five years? Six, since you saw him last?”

“That is not Fankalo,” Celestar repeated flatly. “And if it is, whatever ‘he’s’ had done, I want to speak to his guy.”

Fankalo had long since come to grips with the fact that the facade she’d paraded for so many years would not suit her much longer. Despite hair cropped short and clothes that blended with the crew’s, there were certain things she wouldn’t be able to hide.

“I’d rather we not speculate on who or what I am, as it will hardly accomplish anything. Do you know of anyone in the oligarchy’s circles—or dark market circles—who is still in communication with the Tera’thian state?”

Celestar’s angled eyebrows rose. “Why would a little thing like you have concerns for someone like that?”

“My business is my own.” She had to prevent herself from fidgeting under the look Celestar gave her: like he was reading her the way she read Luck, analyzing every possible current.