I mull this over for a minute. “So if I make a wish into this mirror, it will show me what will happen when I get what I want?”
“It will show you what must happen, and what you must do. Yes.”
Now that she’s explained it, it actually sounds pretty great. It doesn’t grant your wishes; it just helps you sort out the good wishes from the bad ones. That does seem useful.
What I could I wish for? What do I want?
Two names echo simultaneously in my head. Ronan. Beck.
Could this mirror tell me what I have to do to protect them both from the Shadows?
The woman gazes at me, her smile looking innocent again. “You may learn how to achieve any desire of your heart, with only a wish. I offer this, a single wish, to all passersby who desire it.”
Okay, now this definitely sounds too good to be true. “For free?” I ask.
Still with the smile. She never stops smiling. “Is anything ever truly free?”
So, that’s a no, then. I remember Mead’s warning from before, at the pastry stall—if it were all good, it probably wouldn’t be here. “Then what does it cost?”
She nods in the direction of the mirror. “Look within and find out.”
“No, that’s the cost of actually getting the wish. I want to know the cost of looking.”
She just smiles.
I turn back to the mirror again. Blue lights dance across its perfectly ordinary surface.
If I get only one wish, what do I wish for? My brother, or Beck?
“Rosco!” Mead’s voice shatters my thoughts. He sounds more urgent than I think I’ve ever heard him.
I turn around just as he grabs my arm and yanks me away from the mirror. “What were you thinking?” he says, too loudly.
“I was . . .”
“What did you do? Did you make a wish?”
“No, I was just—”
I might be imagining it, what with the darkness and his hood and all, but I think he looks relieved. He glares down at the woman, who’s still sitting at the side of the street and smiling. Creepily.
“We won’t be needing your services today, thanks,” Mead says sharply. He tugs me away, keeping a firm grip on my arm until we pass three stalls and turn at a bend in the road, leaving the mirror out of sight.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he snaps, letting go of my arm. “Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid?”
“I didn’t do anything. I just asked her what the mirror does.”
Mead sighs, and I can’t tell if he’s more angry or exasperated. “I told you. Nothing here is safe.”
“That’s ridiculous. That book you were pawning off looked perfectly safe. And she told me what the mirror does. What’s so bad about it?”
“Rosco . . .” He trails off. “Look, I don’t have time for this right now. I wasted ten minutes looking for you, and we’ve got more transactions to make before we can get out of here. Come on. Where’s Reigler?”
I point in the direction that Beck went, and Mead scowls and darts across the street.
I hurry after him, dodging several hooded figures. “This place makes you nervous, doesn’t it?” I say. It’s a strange thought—I never would’ve suspected that Mead gets nervous about anything—but it’s so obvious: the way he keeps checking over his shoulder, his constant warnings, his hurried pace.
“Of course it doesn’t,” he says, not the least bit convincing.
I open my mouth to tease him, but he cuts me off, darting forward and seizing a small cloaked figure by the elbow. It’s Beck, who was lurking outside a tent.
“Don’t let her out of your sight again,” Mead says to him.
Beck’s eyes widen. “What did you do?” he asks me.
“I didn’t do anything. He’s overreacting.”
Mead tugs Beck in my direction. “Both of you, keep an eye on each other and don’t go wandering off.”
I scowl. We can hardly tell him why we’re wandering off, of course, but it’s very tempting. If only I could tell him we’re trying to save the entire Guild and take down the Shadows.
Mead storms up the path. Beck glances at me, shrugs, and follows him.
“Find anything?” I whisper, hurrying after him.
“No luck. You?”
“Nothing.” I glance at Mead, who’s a few steps ahead of us. “This place makes him nervous, doesn’t it?”
Beck laughs. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but Mead’s always been a little afraid of magic.”
“Seriously?” I didn’t think Mead was afraid of much of anything.
“He made the mistake of pickpocketing one of the Guild’s magicians once. The magician put a spell on him. Every time someone said his name, he’d have to start singing Ruhia’s national anthem.”
I laugh, trying to picture it. “How long did that last?”
“Oh, it took about a week or so for the spell to wear off. Bray and Flint had way too much fun with it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’m pretty sure Bray sent that magician flowers.”
I grin. “And you didn’t take advantage of it at all, of course.”
“Of course not. I’m too pure and innocent.”
I burst out laughing. Ahead of us, Mead turns around and calls, “I can hear you, you liar.”
“Who, me?” Beck says. “I would never.”
Mead snorts. “Right, you’re so virtuous and wholesome that you paid Rosalia fifty jamars to follow me around shouting my name all day.”
“Oh, I didn’t have to pay her. She volunteered.”
I hide my laughter behind my hand as Mead glares at both of us before turning around. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this story sooner,” I say to Beck.
“I’ve got lots of good Mead stories,” Beck says.
“Don’t make me come back there,” Mead calls over his shoulder, which sends us into a fit of laughter again.
For a moment, I’m reminded of being back in the Guild, of joking just like this with Beck and Mead and all their friends. This was the thing that drew me to the Guild in the first place, the thing that makes me want to help Beck and Rosalia save it. Not because of the Guild itself, but because of the people in it.
“Are we almost there?” Beck asks Mead, interrupting my train of thought.
“Here,” Mead responds, stopping in front of a large tent. A hand-lettered sign hanging from the top says TREASURY in fine print. “Our final stop.” Without waiting to see if we’re coming, he lifts the flap over his head and ducks inside. With a sigh, I follow him, Beck by my side.
The interior of the tent is dimly lit, with candles and lanterns resting on various surfaces. Unlike the blue lanterns outside, these burn with ordinary fire. The space is crowded with wooden tables, benches, and chairs of various sizes and styles, different pieces all thrown together chaotically. The air in here is musky and smells of smoke and something metallic I can’t quite place.
Mead leads us through the maze of furniture, our feet padding softly against the plush, darkly patterned rugs on the floor. More rugs and cloths are draped across random pieces of furniture, and on top of them are seemingly endless assortments of objects. We pass a bench covered in glass jars full of liquid, a table bearing ornate golden bowls and crystal drinking glasses, some kind of fancy statue propped up on a chair, an empty blue vase so large that it’s nearly as tall as I am, a little rounded table holding a set of brass scales and a tray of colored marbles . . .
There’s too much to take in all at once, and Mead is moving so quickly, I don’t have time to examine anything more closely. I have no idea what all these objects are doing here, or what they have in common . . . except I do. All of these things look expensive, like something you’d see in a noble’s house or in a display window of Ruhia’s fanciest shops. Items like this wouldn’t be placed in ordinary marketplaces, where they might be stolen.
They are stolen.
The realization takes my breath away. Everything I’m seeing, this
maze of furniture and objects, all of it must be stolen goods. This is what happens to things the Guild steals.
The coin could be here. The coin could be anywhere. The Shadows don’t want to sell it, of course, but they could easily be hiding it here. No one would ever be able to find it in a space like this. Including Beck and me.
I look at him, my eyes wide, and he looks away.
This is hopeless.
Still, I keep my eyes peeled as Mead and I reach the back, where a long counter runs the length of the tent. A salesman stands behind it, framed by glass display cases whose contents glitter in the dim lantern light. “How can I help you?” he asks.
For the first time since we arrived in the Night Market, Mead lowers his hood. “Hello, Tarren.”
The man beams. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Mead, come to darken my doorstep again!” He glances curiously at me and Beck.
“Darken, yes, but also improve,” Mead says. “You know you’d be lost without me.”
Tarren laughs. “But I suspect we’d be much less aggravated.”
“Aggravated? You wound me.” Mead smiles. “How’s business?”
Tarren’s expression tightens. “Selling as well as ever,” he says, “but it seems the king is being more . . . cautious as of late. The Guild has had fewer and fewer treasures to bring me these past few months . . . except, of course, for our mutual friends.”
The Shadows. That must be who the “mutual friends” are. I’d bet a hundred jamars—if I had that many—that this man has been double-crossing the Guild, knowingly buying from Shadow members on the side. The heat of my anger rises under my skin, but I have to keep it under control. After all, I’m technically here with the Shadows. I have to pretend not to care, even if I want to scream at this man. The Guild must provide most of the goods for his little illegal tent here, and this is how he repays them? By working with the Shadows?
Mead just nods. “Speaking of which, I have something I thought you might be interested in.”
Tarren’s smile returns. “Not official Guild business, I take it?”
“Not quite.”
Tarren glances again at me and Beck. “And those two?”
“Some of our mutual friends,” Mead says. Tarren nods, taking Mead at his word, and gestures us forward.
Mead pulls a small pouch from his pocket and withdraws a tiny golden object. Could it be—?
I step closer as Mead hands the item to Tarren, and my heart sinks in disappointment. It’s not a coin. It looks like some kind of elaborate hairpin, the kind that noble ladies wear to balls. It’s decorated with jewels and undoubtedly valuable, but it’s not the coin.
Tarren inspects it very carefully, turning it this way and that. “Authentic?” he asks.
“Don’t insult me,” Mead says, though he doesn’t sound insulted. “One hundred percent Astian gold, my friend.”
“And the emeralds?”
“Genuine. Check for yourself.”
Tarren places the hairpin on the counter and raises a small round eyepiece. It must have some kind of magnifier in it. He peers down at the hairpin, continuing his inspection.
It looks like this could take a while, so I glance around at the nearby items. Surely, if the coin were here, Tarren would want to keep it on this end of the tent, by the counter. But he couldn’t just display something like that in plain sight. It would be tucked away somewhere, where only he could access it.
I look more closely at the display cases positioned on either side of Tarren. They’re hard to see in this light, but the one on the left definitely contains some kind of crown on an upper shelf. It’s not silver, not gold, so probably not a royal crown, and nothing to do with the Guild as far as I know. On the shelf below it is an engraved wooden box and a blue cushion propped up to display bright red jewels. There are a few other objects in the back that I can’t make out, but all are too large to be the coin.
The display case on the right is similar: jewels, strange items, but nothing resembling a coin here either. The only other place that would make sense to hide the coin would be behind the counter, but there’s no way I can just look around back there with Tarren watching. It’s a long shot anyway—it’s unlikely that the Shadows would entrust something as important as the coin to Tarren’s care. This whole trip was probably for nothing.
Tarren and Mead finish their transaction and agree on a price, but Tarren doesn’t hand over any money. Mead doesn’t seem concerned, though. He simply pulls his hood over his head, gestures to me and Beck, and walks back through the maze of furniture to the exit.
“Why didn’t he pay you?” I ask Mead as we step outside into the crisp, cold air of the market.
“It’s too risky to hand over that much money here. The vendors might be able to protect their wares and coin with magic, but I can’t. There’s nothing to stop someone from stealing the money off me right now. Well, except I would never let that happen, of course. But better not to tempt anyone.”
“So, what, he hands the money over to the Shadows somewhere else?”
“Exactly. But don’t ask me where—the higher-ups in the Shadows handle that. I just run the errands.”
I don’t think that’s quite true. Clearly Mead is entrusted to carry these highly valuable items and not run off with them—which seems like a questionable decision to me—plus he gets to negotiate with the vendors and determine the price. He might not be a leader of the Shadow Guild, but he’s hardly just running errands.
“So that’s it, then? That’s all you can tell us about the Sha—”
Mead grabs my arm and pulls me to the side so suddenly that I stumble, nearly falling down. He tugs me off the path and into the darkness between two stalls, Beck following at our heels.
I yank my arm out of Mead’s grasp. “What are you—?”
“Shh!” He pulls his hood further over his face as Beck slips into the darkness of the shadows behind him. Mead nods slightly toward the path, where two figures walk past us.
It’s Kierr. A boy I met in the Guild. And next to him is . . . Dryn. The girl who trained me before my trial. Two of Beck and Mead’s friends.
“Why are we hiding from Kierr and Dryn?” I whisper to Mead.
“I haven’t been assigned to come to the Night Market recently,” Mead murmurs. “I can’t have word getting back to the king that I was here when I shouldn’t be. He’ll know what that means. Besides, I wouldn’t particularly want them to recognize you or Beck. You’re not supposed to be here either.”
“Hey, I’m not a Guild member. I can come to illegal markets on my own time if I want.”
Mead snorts. “You live with a lawyer and a protector, Rosco. You’re basically a spy for the enemy now.”
“Technically the protector doesn’t live with me. Also, ‘the enemy’? Really? You’re one to talk—”
“Keep your voice down!” Mead whispers.
But it’s too late.
Kierr’s head has turned in our direction. He peers into the shadows. Dryn stops. “What is it?” she asks him.
“Mead?” Kierr calls, looking confused.
I try to speak as quietly as possible, barely moving my lips. “What do we do now?”
Mead exhales. “Run.”
He and Beck take off, darting behind the nearest stall, and I follow. We cut past a tent, racing around a curve. I’m a faster runner than both of them, and I take the lead, heading back toward the main path. If we can get far enough ahead and get lost in the crowd—
Someone shouts behind us, but I don’t stop to look. I keep running, nearly plowing into the shadowy, cloaked figures in the path, ignoring their protests and the yells of the nearby vendors. I nearly run over a man carrying a large basket of what looks like black-skinned fruits, and they tumble out onto the street. The man shouts curses at us as we flee up the path.
I don’t slow until we come to a place where the path forks. “Right! Go right!” Mead shouts from just behind me.
I take the right-hand turn, but b
efore I get much farther, Beck shouts, “Over here!”
We duck into another massive white tent and drop the flaps closed behind us, panting. “Should be okay in here for a bit,” Beck says, bending over and placing his hands on his knees. “They’ll think they’ve lost us in the crowd.”
“Do you think they really recognized us?” I ask.
“Hard to say,” Mead replies. “If I’m lucky, Kierr will think he was mistaken about who he saw. Not sure if he caught a good glimpse of me.” He murmurs a quick prayer to Saint Ailara.
I raise my eyebrows. “I never knew you were religious.”
“Only when the mood strikes me.”
“So, only when you’re in trouble, then.”
“Naturally.”
I glance around at the interior of the tent. It’s dark and shadowy, with some kind of heavy purple smoke hanging in the air. A couple of cloaked figures are distracting the vendor at the back of the space. I can’t tell what’s being sold, but I’m not entirely sure I want to know.
Beck peeks outside the tent. “Looks like the coast is clear.”
We step outside. The street is bustling, but I don’t see anyone I recognize. “Think we lost them?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Mead says, “but let’s go before—”
Kierr and Dryn are coming around the corner, heading straight toward us.
Mead hangs his head back, looking up at the sky, and curses. “Thanks for nothing, Ailara.”
We run down the path, through the market, and out into the darkness of the frigid night.
Chapter Seventeen
Outside the Night Market, Beck leaves to find the thilastri that brought him here, while Mead and I find Jiavar. She flies the two of us back to the meeting point, and though the ride is just as harrowing as before, I barely notice this time around, since I’m having trouble staying awake.
The Shadow Thieves Page 19