Summernight

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  No, Tamerlan didn’t need the Smudgers. He needed answers. And he wouldn’t find them with the Smudgers or on this piece of crumpled paper.

  The old woman winked at him again. Hadn’t she already passed once before? In her shimmering black robes, light on the breeze, who could say? All the Smudgers looked the same.

  He shivered and stuffed the recipe back in his pocket. No need to draw attention to it.

  He needed to focus and not be distracted by the lure of a mystery – even one involving books, his greatest weakness.

  He would need all the focus he could find to save Amaryllis. He had just five days until she would be sacrificed.

  5: Patrol

  Marielle

  “WE’RE DUE ON PATROL,” Carnelian said when Marielle joined her in the armory. She was tightening the straps on her leather boots and checking her standard issue dagger and truncheon. The City Watch wasn’t meant to kill citizens, but they still went equipped for a fight – even Scenters like Marielle.

  The smell of armor polish hung heavily in the air, like a dull yellow haze that would have been imperceptible to a non-Scenter. A string of red smoke wove between the weapon racks like a ribbon. Marielle could have followed it upstairs and found whoever had committed violence last night and then come down here to stow away his gear. Maybe it had been breaking up a fight in a tavern and smashing a few noses. Maybe it had been something much grizzlier. Her nose tingled and twitched at the thought of following the trail. It was hard to have the discipline to stand still.

  Carnelian ignored the scent like any non-Scenter would do. “Tighten your straps. Make sure your weapon is sharp, check your kit.”

  She said that before every patrol. And she smelled the same before every patrol. A hint of cilantro anticipation mixed with the dull brown and dry wood scent of boredom or routine and just a hint of something almost-sweet that Marielle couldn’t quite place. It picked at her every time she smelled it, like she should be able to place it and just couldn’t.

  Marielle checked over her uniform and kit quickly. Her weaponry was sharp and ready – not that she was likely to use it. The rest of the squad protected Scenters like a secret weapon. She’d only have to fight if things went very wrong. Her leather shirt and bracers were properly cinched, belt in good shape, warning bell tightly strapped in its pouch, boots buckled firmly. Her cloak and breeches were regulation and clean. Her Scenter’s scarf looped properly in place. It was free of smudges or dirt. Marielle liked clean things. When you were always smelling everything, cleanliness was a gift.

  Carnelian leaned in close so that her words would only be for Marielle, “Don’t worry about old Ironarm. She’s got to go hard – especially with complaints from a superior Scenter like Anaala, but we all know how good you are.”

  She looked right and left sneakily before giving Marielle a mischievous grin. “The rest of the squad is glad you’re with us. We’re already in the lead on the arrest lists. With you, we’ll keep that lead through Summernight. And I bet big on us. Don’t make me a loser!”

  She punched Marielle’s arm playfully before saying, “Scarf up. We’re going to the Alchemist’s District to cover off a busy sector there. If you don’t hide that pretty nose, you’ll be seeing double for a week.”

  Marielle complied, pulling the scarf over her nose and mouth. That wasn’t how it worked. The strong scents of the Alchemist District would give her headaches and even nausea, might even make her pass out, but they wouldn’t affect her vision. No point telling Carnelian that, though. She liked the Watch Corporal and she might be Marielle’s only ally in the Watch right now. The other Scenters were prickly and the non-Scenters usually gave her a wide berth, nervous of her ability to sniff out anything hidden.

  Marielle followed Carnelian up the Watch stairs, reveling in the excitement of the Watch House main floor above them. What might appear to be a sleepy hole for ancient Watchmen, popped and fizzled with vivid colors for Marielle.

  A bubble of deceit in greeny-yellow and a whiff of caramel in one corner mixed with longing in ribbon-like pink and a whiff of lavender which in turn blurred into the beige boredom and dust scent of the overly-large officer at the front desk. Desperation rolled through in pulsing orange waves and a ginger scent that burned her nose and violet pride that smelled of pine trees washed off Officer Sten’li as he strutted past with his newly polished armor.

  Marielle shivered in delight. She could sit all day in the corner of the Watch House and just absorb the scents ricocheting through it like shooting stars on a clear night. She still couldn’t believe she got to work here every day. Field trips into the real world had been sparse at the academy.

  “No need to rile the girls up,” she’d heard Headmistress Archari say a thousand times.

  They were all girls. All Scenters were girls, though not all girls were Scenters. Carnelian was proof of that. They said she had vivid red hair – dyed – to go with the name, though Marielle couldn’t tell. Carnelian was giving off a fresh light blue and linen scent as they made their way to the doors. Expectancy. She wanted to win that pot for the most arrests.

  Marielle wanted to help her.

  “Now, we all want to win, right?” Carnelian said as they exited through the tall doors onto the street. Two large braziers burned there. Word was, the Alchemists provided a special oil that kept the flames blue to indicate a Watch House. Marielle didn’t care. Light was light. Scents were where true beauty lay.

  “Of course,” Marielle agreed. She wasn’t really listening. Her nose was following a thousand scents, the scarf barely concealing their potency.

  “But even though we all want to win, you need to be sure the crime is being committed in the present, okay? Unless it’s a big one. Oh, I get why you wanted to haul that noble in. I wanted to wash that smile off his face myself, but we can’t afford those kinds of mix-ups, right? We need only solid arrests if we’re gonna win. No time-wasters. You with me?”

  “Yes, Carnelian.” Was that the smell of a jealous husband? It was so close to the smell of a woman noticing that another woman was prettier than her that they could be hard to distinguish without a purer sample. But she needed to get better at trace samples if she was going to be the legend on the Watch that she dreamed of being.

  That was definitely the intent to steal creeping through the breeze. She could smell it – rust-like in scent – but so faint that it was impossible to tell where it originated. She spun around, searching, and was hit with a blast so hard she stumbled.

  Desperation. Raw, ragged, pulsing orange and ginger streaked desperation. It slammed against her skull like the haft of an axe. It dug into her eyes like the claws of an eagle. She grimaced, clenching her jaw against a scream and then – suddenly – it was gone.

  She struggled to breathe against a thick scarf of wool and a heavy leather glove.

  “Hold on. Breathe. Oh, maybe I should move my hand,” Carnelian was saying. “You only had one layer on. You should know better than that by now, wet-ears! Two layers at the minimum! Even I know that, and I’m no Scenter!”

  “Thanks,” Marielle gasped, clutching her own nose and the extra layer of scarf Carnelian had wrapped around her face. That had been close.

  Whoever had felt that ... well, gods have mercy on them!

  And that was the worst part of being a Scenter – knowing the worst and not being able to stop it. Marielle always knew. There was never any doubt for her about intentions or hopes or dreams. She could smell them as easily as burnt toast. As potently as rotting peonies.

  She could smell her worst nightmares all around her.

  And the most angelic of dreams.

  She focused on Carnelian, breathing in that light blue expectancy. There was safety there. Expectancy, cheerful optimism – that was a safe emotion. That was one you could breathe all day without throwing yourself from a building.

  “I can see why you stopped,” Carnelian was saying. “I can smell the ox dung from here. They should clean up after those
beasts.”

  Marielle nodded her head, grateful for the pretense. She could smell the dung, of course, a faint hint of fecund earth. And she could smell the nearby canal – stagnant water mixed with the scent of life from the people who lived on the barges and gondolas there. Waverunners never left the water. If they set so much as a foot on land it was said that they could never return to their people. Marielle would have called that harsh, but it was their law, and a law couldn’t be too harsh if it protected people. Maybe there were things worth fearing on dry land. Maybe they were worth making laws against.

  The smells weren’t unpleasant or overpowering. Natural smells rarely were. It was emotions and intentions that bowled a person over ... or worse. But she didn’t want to think of what was worse. Not right now.

  She followed Carnelian on the beat. Carnelian knew the city inside and out. At twenty-nine she’d seen everything – or so she said. She was strong – and not just for a woman. She was pure muscle and she smelled often of sweat and swill under those predictable emotions of hers.

  Marielle was none of those things. But as they followed their beat, the crowd parted, and it wasn’t for her swathed face and big eyes. It wasn’t for her waist-length plait of black hair or her slight figure. Oh no, it was for Carnelian’s eagle-eyed stare and muscled exterior.

  “Gonna dress up on your nights off?” Carnelian asked. She liked making conversation, even though Marielle was a poor conversationalist. “You can’t when you’re working. Gotta be in the right kit.”

  “I don’t think I will,” Marielle said demurely.

  “You should. It’s not Summernight if you don’t dress up and you need to experience a true Summernight. We can pick a Legend who covers her face. You know the Legends, right?”

  “Remind me,” Marielle asked. Not because she didn’t know, but because that golden-brown scent of motherhood she was smelling as she passed the stout woman with the big basket was so overwhelming that all she wanted to do was bask in it for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Well, there’s the Lady Sacrifice, but her face is clear and noble so we can see her suffering and beauty. And Queen Mer, but her face is lit with gems and a crown. Lila Cherrylocks might be a good fit. She’s a master thief and she covers her face with a deep hood.” She chuckled. “I certainly can’t see you as the Maid Chaos.”

  “I’m not too proud to be a maid,” Marielle said absently. She already knew that she’d never dress as a thief or as Death’s handmaiden. She was content in the Watch Officer kit she wore.

  “You’ll see what I mean tonight. On second thought ... maybe we should see how you do dressed as Maid Chaos.”

  “Ooof!” Marielle sucked in her breath. She’d been so distracted by the mother-scent that she didn’t notice until too late that she’d stumbled right into someone.

  Not just someone.

  That pulsing orange scent – the one that hit her only moments before – filled her nose so sharply with ginger that she fumbled for her scarf. It must have slipped when she stumbled. But no, it was still tucked around her nose and mouth.

  There were other smells underneath the desperation. Regular smells that filled the background: spices and chemicals, leather, old books, cinnamon, honey, a gentle love of beauty, and something young and masculine and musky.

  She looked up, wrestling against the maddening scent of desperation mixing with the human smells of life and occupation. Her eyes met a pair of eyes standing out light and stark against slightly darker skin. His face was chiseled despite the softness of youth and his figure was strong and lithe under the Alchemist apprentice’s apron, but it was the eyes she couldn’t stop staring at. Because it was in them that she saw what she was smelling – that desperate cocktail of need and terror.

  She reached out to him, not meaning to, feeling strange when her hand steadied his trembling arm. His lips – the top one thin and the bottom full, quivered with some suppressed emotion, but it wasn’t anger or irritation like Marielle would have expected. He was hunched over a package wrapped in sealskin – something valuable – but his scent said he wasn’t worried about the package. His spiking emotions – popping and flaring with bursts of uncertain color – were about something else. He looked like a demon wrapped in an angel’s body – like a man at war with himself.

  Marielle licked her lips, trying to think of something to say. Nervous orange and ginger sizzled from him as his gaze caught on her uniform and then swiveled to Carnelian.

  “My apologies, Officer,” he said in a resonant voice – a voice like a full-bodied string instrument. It puffed out from him with a golden scent that tangled around her in a cloud. She knew this scent. She swallowed, trying to push it away, but the more she did, the more it slid into every crease of her uniform. “I did not watch where I was going.”

  Carnelian snorted. “Watch yourself, Apprentice. The Jingen Watch has double the bodies on the streets for Summernight, but you could still stumble into people with more ... ill intent ... than you expect.”

  He ducked his head respectfully, eyes flicking to where Marielle still held his sleeve. She let go with a gasp. That blasted golden scent! The smell of warm honey and cinnamon of fresh earth and sunshine. How long had it been since she’d smelled that? Had she ever smelled it so powerfully?

  “Careful, citizen,” she said through a dry mouth.

  He ducked his head again, his slight smile devastating against the visceral pain of his emotions, and then he was walking away, his purposeful strides sliding through the crowd like an adder through the grass. Now, why had she thought of an adder?

  “Pretty, I’ll admit,” Carnelian said, her gaze on his retreating figure. “But he won’t get our tally up today. Nose up, Scenter! Find us a good crime!”

  Marielle wrenched her gaze away from the young man, her nose sniffing obediently, but it was no use. Her every sense was still drunk on that golden burst of absolute attraction, the hot honey of it sinking into her like the warmth of the noonday sun. She was certain now that she’d never scented anything like it before. And it was hard not to feel disappointed when she realized she probably wouldn’t scent it again. Things like that didn’t happen every day and she didn’t even know his name.

  She shook herself irritably.

  “I think I smell violence that way,” she gestured at the red swirl heading down the street. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than pining for someone she didn’t even know.

  First Night of Summernight

  6: Desperate Measures

  Tamerlan

  TAMERLAN RAN A HAND through his short hair. He hadn’t stopped sweating since he ran into the Watch Officer on the street. He’d seen the way that Scenter looked at him – those lovely eyes, so dark they were almost purple. Her gaze bored into him like a drill into softwood. Had she known? Had she scented his intent?

  He’d been so shaken he’d nearly forgotten to bring the books to Master Kurond. So shaken he’d almost been caught when he pilfered the toolroom for a set of lockpicks and the laundry for a dark cloak. If nothing else, the Alchemists were great lovers of variety. Their toolrooms and storehouses had every item you could possibly need – even items for a thief.

  There was no weapon, though.

  He’d debated with himself about what to do about a weapon. He had knives. Knives for preparing solutions, for chopping ingredients, for tooling leather, for sharpening quills. None of them were for killing a man.

  Would he need to do that tonight? Why wouldn’t his dragon-cursed hands stop shaking at the thought?

  He forced his breathing to slow. He had the evening free for the First Night of Summernight. All the apprentices did. Dathan was already gone. He’d barely stopped to check on Tamerlan before he left. But he had checked. A good friend that.

  Tamerlan’s thoughts skittered like butter across a hot pan. With an effort, he forced them to focus.

  He tucked his last knife – he’d taken all the ones he owned, of every size – into his belt and patted h
is pockets. Nothing extra to jingle or give him away. The folded illuminated page fell out of his pocket and he scooped it up again. Best to leave it here. If he failed tonight, there was a good chance it would mean he was captured by the Watch. Or dead.

  Either way, he wouldn’t need a fancy page. He tucked it reluctantly beneath his pillow. Wouldn’t it have been nice if this chance page could have been the solution he needed? If it had been a map to a secret tunnel leading to the heart of the Sunset Tower or a page spelling out an old loophole to the laws and customs of Jingen. A fanciful thought, but still one that he clung to. If only he’d had time to try the recipe on it. Maybe it would have granted him extra stealth or power. His fingers itched to gather the ingredients even now. Somehow, he knew that where the ancient scribbler had failed, he would be able to succeed.

  The Bridge of Legends, the page said in the runes of the ancients, bridges the gap between life and death.

  If anyone was perched on the bridge between life and death, it was Amaryllis.

  And tonight, Tamerlan would join her there. With her arrival today, tonight this was his best chance. They wouldn’t expect anyone to try to break her out the very night she arrived, would they? They’d still be sorting out the guard schedule.

  Or at least, that’s how it would be at his father’s Grandhouse.

  Tamerlan just had to hope it would be the same here.

  He trotted down the winding stairs – three flights – from his small closet of a room through the floors of The Copper Tincture. The smell of something acrid filled the second floor. A tincture gone wrong, perhaps. Or maybe it was meant to smell that way. There were no mistakes in the Alchemist’s Guild. Only learning opportunities.