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“By the lockpick,” I said with him, “and the lyre.”

CHAPTER

29

COEN

String music washed over me from a lonely, smog-cloaked corner of the street.

I glanced at the man hunched against the brick wall of a looming mill, my chest tightening. He strummed his instrument with eyes closed, one of his boots off his feet and sitting several feet in front of him with a cardboard sign propped against it: WILL PLAY YOUR FAVORITE SONG FOR A COPPER.

Not a single passerby stopped to request a song, however. The few who were out scurried past with heads bowed, shoulders hunched. Back on the island of Eshol, it would be Monday afternoon right about now, but here, further southeast, everyone was hurrying to get home before the sun could sink below the hazy city skyline.

This was Pliyith, after all, where the vampires came out at night to steal humans away—supposedly. I’d never stepped foot here before, but my faerie senses didn’t pick up any signs of vampires as I forced myself to stride past the homeless musician, a plain Sorronian cloak wrapped tight around me, hood over my head to cover my pointed ears.

I had one mission in the human territories, and it didn’t involve investigating the vampire situation. At least not yet. For now, my desire to bring down Dyonisia had increased tenfold since she’d brought Rayna’s father to her a few days ago, shackled and bloodied, like a goddamned gift wrapped in a bow made of chains.

In doing so, she had shackled Rayna to the Esholian Institute even more than her dome of antipower trapped everyone on that island.

So now I needed to find a special kind of lockpick.

My boots splashed through grime. I turned a corner, treading down a narrower lane sandwiched between rows of conjoined shops with steepled roofs that all seemed to be named after their owners. Mr. Friggin’s Apothecary. Mama Helio’s Jewelry. Gowdy’s Finest Shoes. The Jenkin Pawn.

And there, jutting out at the end of the lane like a crooked tooth, just what I was looking for: Calioke & Sons.

There wasn’t a single weapons manufacturer on the island or in Sorronia that would make something with lead, but hopefully this one in the human territories had something I could work with….

No sooner had I taken a step toward the shop than a scuffling made me turn. A child had appeared at my side like a wraith, so quiet that even my faerie hearing hadn’t detected her until this moment.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have anything to eat?”

My stomach clenched. Her face was covered in dirt, hair cropped and sticking out in every direction, shirt ripped and baggy while her pants, obviously the wrong size, cut off above her ankles. She couldn’t be more than seven, but the gray-blue eyes looking up at me had obviously seen far more than any seven-year-old should.

For a moment, my mind flashed back to the few memories I had of my own childhood before Queen Mydusia had ripped me off the streets: me with my mother in Sorronia, sitting at the lip of soggy alleyways, begging for change. Some faeries had tossed us a coin or two. Most hadn’t spared us a glance, as if we were little more than lichen that clung to window frames. That same hunger from then reflected back at me now in the eyes of this human girl.

Who tilted her head at that moment and asked, “Are you mute, sir? I know someone who is mute. You can use your hands, if you’d like.”

I cleared my throat, a smile tugging at my lips. “That won’t be necessary. Where’s the nearest bakery?” I didn’t have any Pliyith coinage on me, but I had a few Sorronian ones that should work considering our two realms had been trading since the Treaty of Gradaleigh.

The girl frowned. “That would be Madam Petty’s Cakery, but she’s already closed for the night. And there wasn’t anything in her trash cans.”

My blood riling, I glanced up. The lane was empty now, shop windows dark, the last of the sun streaking along the grime-caked cobblestone. Even though I couldn’t sense any vampires, the smell of human fear reeked in the air like a rotten spice. Was this really how our allies lived? Terrified and starving?

I shouldn’t have expected anything less, considering that Mydusia didn’t actually fucking care about the human territories. Even in her own realm, there was a small segment of the population who still lived like this—my mother and I had been part of it—but at least it was only a segment.

Here, every human seemed to be shaking in their boots.

Except maybe this girl.

“Is there anything open after dark?” I asked her. “Any place with food?”

She tapped a chewed, dirt-packed fingernail against her chin. “There’s the place with stinky men, South Crimson Row. But no kids allowed.”

Stinky men had to mean taverns… which also meant grub. I’d purposely dressed in a simple cloak to hide my identity so that I wouldn’t get an abundance of stares, but I could reveal myself if need be, so I jerked my head at the girl.

“Lead me to it. I’ll get you something.”

She didn’t ask questions, just scampered off, so quick that even my long, powerful strides had trouble keeping up. As we passed Calioke & Sons, I glanced at the dark display window and the cracked wooden sign hanging from the door.