by Hazel Hunter
Though Gillian wondered what Absinthe Alley was, her feet were sore. It felt as if they had walked all over the market, but they hadn’t seen a place by that name.
“Maybe we should be asking for Absinthe Alley,” she said, almost to herself.
“I already have,” Shayne said.
Gillian stopped. “You have?”
“While you’ve been busy with apothecaries, I asked some questions on the street.”
Gillian smiled, buoyed for the first time since they’d arrived. “Do you know how to get there?”
“You are not going to Absinthe Alley.”
“What?” Gillian exclaimed. “I thought you weren’t going to keep me from–”
“If, god forbid, we need to go there, I will be going alone,” he declared. “I can at least look after you to that extent, can’t I?” Gillian frowned. “Look at it this way. If I go, I’m actually going to take weapons with me, and they’ll most likely be drawn. Understand?”
Gillian bit her lip, but she nodded. After all, it didn’t matter how she got the dragon’s eye seeds, as long as she got them.
A deep weariness settled on her. In the middle of the rocky island, there was no way to tell night from day. What she did know was that she was flagging, in fact almost ready to drop. She stopped by a store that wanted to sell her the very finest of dreams, propping herself against their rough wall.
“I think I’m done for the day,” she said. “If I get some sleep, I can pick this up in the morning, or whatever passes for morning around here.”
Shayne nodded.
“Good timing. I think we passed an inn back there.”
The Pig and Rooster was a fairly clean establishment, but it made Gillian think of every fake Irish bar she had ever been in. Everything was wood-paneled, and the entire place reeked of spilled beer. There were rooms overhead, however, and that was all that mattered to her.
Despite the rustic look, she found the bathroom to be perfectly modern and the bed to be amazingly comfortable.
“I’m going to go downstairs and get us paid up for the next couple days,” Shayne said. “Go ahead and relax. All we have to do tonight is eat and sleep.”
Gillian smiled, nodding. She hadn’t realized how much their fight had stressed her. Shayne’s silence had been awful. But now that he was talking to her again, she felt more optimistic.
She just got the water running when she realized that, so far, Shayne had paid for everything. But Marceline had given her a bizarrely generous budget through the Baltus Institute, and if she were going to use it anywhere, it ought to be the Midnight Market. She smiled a little at seeing the receipts. Though the enormous bathtub looked amazingly welcoming, she merely splashed some water on her face and went back downstairs.
In the crowded common room again, Gillian had just entered when she stopped. Shayne was deep in conversation with a stranger who was definitely not the bartender or any member of the inn’s staff. Instead, she was a tall, broad woman who easily matched Shayne for size. She was dressed in tall boots and a heavy rain slicker, and her blond hair was cut in a short crop. Alarm bells began to go off in Gillian’s head. Instead of waving Shayne down, she made her way through the crowd, keeping out of Shayne’s view. She managed to approach without being seen.
“I told you before, warlock, I don’t truck with slavers.”
“Will you listen to me? I’m not a slaver, she’s not my slave.”
“Just your captive, then? That makes it so much better.”
“I’m her escort, and I’m escorting her out of here.”
“It seems to me that if she thought she were in such danger, she’d be here making these arrangements. Instead, here you are telling me that you want to bring an unwilling woman aboard my ship. That doesn’t wash, friend.”
“She could die.”
“Then explain it nicely to her and bring her to me. Otherwise, you can find yourself a berth on some other ship.”
Shayne made a frustrated noise and continued to argue, but Gillian had heard enough. She reversed her way through the crowd. She didn’t think she really breathed until she was back in their room with the door closed behind her. She took several deep breaths, trying to steady herself. The first red shock of betrayal was wearing away, and what it left behind was a cool core of reason.
I have come too goddamn far to let anything stop me.
Every fiber of her body wanted nothing more than to storm down and confront Shayne. If she thought about it too long, she might. But the problem was power. He had it and she didn’t. If he wanted to put her on a ship kicking and screaming, he could do it. If he had come this far with her, if he had listened to everything that she said, and he still was ready to all but kidnap her, there was nothing to be done.
Right now, your only advantage is that he doesn’t know you know.
For a moment, Gillian wished that Sal was here. She even wished that Marceline was here. But Marceline would have mocked her for being a child.
Gillian shook herself. She was all she had. For a moment, she wondered if she was in shock. Everything had a slightly unreal feeling. But she knew she had to act quickly. Taking a deep breath, she started to do one of the most difficult things she could imagine: she acted as if nothing was wrong.
She went into the bathroom and stripped to the skin. There was no shower head, but she filled the tub with hot water. There were curious golden balls in a small basket. When she experimentally dropped one into the water, it fizzed and released a glitter of golden flakes. She climbed in and settled back. The prettiness of the bath distracted her for a little while until she heard Shayne’s step at the door. She sat tense for a moment, waiting to hear if there were footsteps in addition to his. She relaxed a little when there weren’t. She rinsed herself off with a few pitchers of clean water poured over her head. Then she wrapped herself in one of the enormous fluffy towels before she ventured out into the room.
Shayne had stripped to the waist while he was waiting for the bath. He glanced up when he heard her. In the dim light, his brown eye was nearly black, but his blue eye seemed even brighter.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said with an easy smile.
Traitor, Gillian thought.
“Hi. Did you get the room paid for? I’m sorry, I should have gone with you. We’re on my expense account after all.”
“You can pay me back, it’s not a big deal,” he said, standing.
At his full height, he dwarfed her. Gillian thought it was strange that she’d never found it threatening, until now. She stood stock still as he came to plant a gentle kiss on her head. Something about the way she looked must have startled him, because he drew back.
“Gillian, are you all right?”
“I am,” she said after a moment.
Some of the real weariness and heartache that she felt leaked out. She was furious to feel tears on her cheeks.
“Gillian?”
“I’m tired. We walked all day, and I still didn’t find the seeds. Shayne, this is essential. If I can’t find them, I might as well have just stayed at the Baltus Institute. I can’t let this end here. I can’t.”
She swiped angrily at the tears on her face.
“Oh, Gillian.”
She knew that she shouldn’t allow him to do it, but Shayne swept her into his arms. He sat on the bed, and held her in his lap. When they sat like this, Shayne had always felt like her bulwark against the world. He could protect her, fend off the things that would have hurt her. Now it only made her more aware of how easily he could simply pick her up and take her where he pleased.
“Do you think I’m going to be able to do this?” she found herself asking.
It was masochistic in the extreme. It was something that she told herself she didn’t care about. But Shayne had gotten under her skin.
“Oh I believe you’ll find Tenebris. It’s impressive you got this far.” Inwardly, she couldn’t help but smile a little. “But if you don’t find it now, than you will in the year
s to come. There’s no need to rush. Trust me on that.”
“Even if I could find it in the next sixty or seventy years,” she muttered. “I don’t want to be elderly when I do.”
She didn’t know why she said it, maybe his use of the word trust. But his reaction was instantaneous.
“What?”
“I’m not initiated,” she said. “I was awakened a few years ago, and I…I’ve never gone further.”
Shayne stared at her.
“So the whole time we’ve been together, trekking through the wilderness, shot down in a plane, aboard a boat with a siren, you’ve been uninitiated?”
“Yes.”
Shayne was quiet for a long moment.
“Gillian. You know how dangerous this is.”
“I do,” she said defensively. “It’s a choice I’ve made. This is how I need to do it.”
“Why would you make that choice? Marceline would have been the first to tell you that you needed to have that bit of protection. Don’t you understand? Once you’re initiated, you would heal. Perhaps not quickly, but if you were injured, you would heal.”
Gillian pulled herself off Shayne’s lap. This conversation was a long time in coming, but it was also fueled by her anger at what he wanted to do to her.
“And who would I do it with, exactly?” she demanded. “Yes, Marceline told me to find someone ‘convenient’ before I left the Baltus Institute. But you know what? It’s not any of Marceline’s business what I decide to do with my body, and frankly, Shayne, it’s none of yours either.”
He stared at her in stunned and shocked silence.
“Don’t you think I considered it?” she asked. “With everything we’ve done, don’t you think I’ve at least thought about it? I have, and I’ve decided. Not you. You don’t get to make that decision for us.”
With a grim kind of satisfaction, she saw her words sink in.
“Gillian…”
“Not you,” she repeated. “Can’t you understand that?”
Shayne rose to his feet. For a moment, she thought he was going to shout at her, to tell her all about his plan to drag her down to the docks. Instead, his expression iced over.
“I do now,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’m taking a shower.”
He turned and walked away. The silence in the bedroom was deafening. Gillian had the sudden urge to run out the door and disappear into the Midnight Market, but she knew it wouldn’t work. If her lead was only a few minutes, he’d find her. Instead, she stashed her things by the door, her clothes folded on top. She crawled into bed wearing a tank top, her gloves and her underwear. Max, who had been happily exploring the nightstand, took a leap and ended up curled under her hand as she lay on her side. The little bit of warmth from her rat familiar made her want to cry. She stifled it, however, lying stock still.
After what felt like a small eternity, Shayne came out of the bathroom. She could sense him standing at the foot of the bed. Then he sighed. He crawled in beside her but, to Gillian’s relief, he didn’t come to rest with his arm over her hip, as they had taken to doing. Instead, he stayed on the other side of the bed.
She thought he was almost asleep, when she heard him whisper, “I’m sorry.”
This was the moment to confront him. She could turn over and tell him what she had overheard downstairs. She could tell him that she knew it all, and that she was furious. She could tell him how insulting it was that he thought he could dictate the course of her life. They could talk it out.
Yes, and then I will convince him to let me do what I need to do. Or I won’t. He’ll know to be on the lookout for me running.
In the end, it was too great a risk. If she had a life’s mission, it was to find Tenebris and stand in the Hollow City. She couldn’t abandon it, not when she was just getting started. She couldn’t risk that for anyone, not even Shayne. She waited, stiff as a board in the darkness, until his breathing evened out. Slowly, she turned over in the bed to look at him. In the dim yellow light, she could see him in profile. She briefly had the insane desire to kiss him. His kisses could turn her to water. He had touched her in ways that she didn’t even realize she could be touched. But she couldn’t risk waking him up. Gathering a sleepily protesting rat on her arm, she slowly crept to the door. She dressed as silently as she could. When she was done, she felt as ready as she ever did.
There was a moment when the door clicked open that she froze, certain that she would be caught. Instead, Shayne only turned over in his sleep. He called her name.
“I’m fine,” she said softly. “Go back to sleep.”
That was enough for him. She sighed silently with relief when his breathing lengthened again.
She closed the door behind her and made her way down to the common area, where things were in full swing. It struck her that despite the name, there was no night or day in the Midnight Market, no commonly assigned period for rest. She hoped it would work in her favor.
Gillian came out of the Pig and Rooster walking tall. She knew what she had to do. A soft cooing noise made her look up. Seated on top of the swinging sign was Vlasti. The falcon watched her with its golden eyes, tilting its head from one side to the other.
“Keep my secret,” she whispered softly. “Please.”
The bird gave no indication that she understood, but she spread her blade-like wings and took flight. Soon she was lost to the gloom of the Midnight Market.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ABSINTHE ALLEY WAS lit only by pale green lanterns. It was so narrow that in some parts, Gillian could touch either wall with her fingertips. When she had asked for directions, the first person had turned away with disgust. The second had lit up with such avaricious glee that it was her who’d turned and walked away. Finally, an older man, the wispy hair on his head greased to stand up in ghostly spikes, gave her the directions she needed. Before she went, he had caught her gloved hand in his.
“Are you sure you need to go there, lass?” he asked, his voice frail and wavering. “There are other ways of doing what it is you need to do, no matter what it is.”
“No, there’s really not,” Gillian said, pulling away.
The moment she stepped into Absinthe Alley, Gillian felt a chill wash over her. In a place where everything was legal, though it might have a price, she felt like a deer staked out for the slaughter. She reminded herself of the rule about killing however, and straightened up. She didn’t need Shayne to do this. She didn’t need him for anything.
There were no shops in the alley, like there had been in other parts of town. Instead, there were narrow windows through which she could see movement. As she walked past, one opened up with a creak and an unnervingly thin man dressed in a dirty white robe leaned out.
“And what is a fine young thing like you looking for here?” he asked in amusement.
Something about him set off every warning bell in her head. Reluctantly, Gillian took a step closer so she could hear him better.
“I’m looking for dragon’s eye seeds,” she said, hoping that it truly would be this simple. “Do you have any?”
The man eyed her speculatively.
“No, I do not. If you are looking for a truly painful way to kill a lover, however, I have other options. There’s algonquia, which will drown them on dry land, and of course there is never-heal, which doesn’t kill them exactly.”
“Thank you, no,” Gillian said sharply.
The man shrugged as if it made no difference to him.
She walked on, but she could feel his yellowed eyes on her.
She walked the length of the alley twice. She stopped––and was stopped by––many people, but the answer was always the same. No, they didn’t have it. They sold it, but they were out. It was hard to get, and would she like something else that would kill just as well?
By the time she completed her second round, she felt as if she had crawled through a sewer. In defeat, she sat down on a stone doorstep, hiding her face in her hands. There were other things she co
uld take to Cappadocia. She knew that. But somehow she knew they wouldn’t work. There were too many variables, too many ways it could go wrong. She couldn’t take that risk.
It seemed a bitter irony that after all she had done to leave Shayne, she might have to admit defeat after all. She was still going over her options when she heard a clanking noise. Startled she looked up and down the alley, but she could see no one approaching. The clanking grew louder, and Gillian realized it was the door behind her. She jumped to her feet and stumbled into the alley.
In the doorway stood a woman dressed in a floor-sweeping black dress that might have come from the ante-bellum south.
“Now what have we got here?” she asked, her voice soft and playful. But when she moved forward, the clanking sounds came from under her dress.
“I’m sorry,” Gillian said. She tore her eyes away from the garment. “I was just taking a break.”
But no sooner had Gillian stop staring at the hoop skirts, than she nearly gaped at the woman herself. Not only was she bald, she had no eyebrows or eyelashes.
“So I see,” the woman said, looking up and down the alley. “And what brings you to my doorstep, hmm?”
Gillian shook her head. She’d been about to say that she was giving up, but then habit and stubbornness made her ask one more time. This time she was blunt.
“Can you sell me dragon’s eye seeds?”
The woman didn’t even look startled, though perhaps it was to be expected without eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, I can’t, but I can take you to someone who can, yes?”
Gillian straightened as if she had been shocked.
“Yes,” she said instantly. “Please.”
“It’ll cost you.”
Gillian looked at the woman in surprise. The woman laughed in her face.
“Just because you were curled up on my doorstep like a kitten doesn’t mean I owe you shit,” she said, though not unkindly.
“What do you want?” Gillian asked cautiously. “I have money.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed a little. There was something very feline about her expression.