My fingers glide down the scar. “Not too worried.”
I know I need to leave soon, to change and take care of Unach and her apartment, but everything here is too perfect. Every minute is a gift. I let my hands roam over Azmar’s chest, his stomach, his hips, laughing at how quickly his body responds. The hour is early enough for us to engage in our affections one more time, and it’s easier the second time, even more tantalizing, and in truth I could lose myself to him all the day long. But we both have responsibilities that tether us: Azmar to the city, and me to Tayler.
When I finally pull myself away, I wish so badly that I could wear his bloodstone proudly. It’s a fanciful dream, and I tuck it away quietly. Once I’m home—as much as I can call my dark quarters home—I press a kiss to the stone before tucking it away again, change my clothes, and hurry upstairs to set water boiling on Unach’s fire. I notice a new rug and cushion in the main room; Kesta must have moved in.
I have breakfast ready for the both of them by the time they wake.
That afternoon, around the fifteenth hour, I make my way to the human enclave. It’s not as blustering as it was before; most of its tenants must be working elsewhere in the city. I spy Wiln at his clock shop and give him a wave, but the person I want to visit sits in the back of the short hall on a blanket, working dried herbs with a mortar and pestle.
“Ritha.” I kneel down across from her.
Her face lights up. “Oh, Lark! I haven’t seen you around. Were you involved with the spreener yesterday?”
Just thinking of that enormous spider, of my body dangling above the canyon, sends a shiver up my backbone. “I was, but I’m fine.” I tuck my bandaged hand under my leg.
“Good.” She grinds away at a paste in her bowl. “I don’t suppose you came just to chat.”
I smile. “I will come just to chat again soon. But I do have a . . . favor to ask you.”
Her grinding slows. “I don’t like how your voice quieted.” She glances around, surveying for eavesdroppers.
“You leave the city to collect these, right?” I gesture to the bundles. So many herbs and plants have long been lost to drought, but the most robust ones manage to survive the dryness, just as we do. “Could you go tonight? And take me with you?” Ritha would have a trollis escort, of course, but it would get me out of the city, and if I happened to venture off toward my rendezvous with Tayler . . . so long as I came back having collected something, I think I’d be all right.
But Ritha frowns. “Not today. Not until all this scouting nonsense ends.” Her voice drops as she adds, “I bet it was trolls killing trolls, and they just blame it on us.”
The assumption makes my gut twist. I leave it be. “I see. Then . . . if anyone were to ask. Say Unach, or . . . Tartuk”—Ritha stiffens at the name of the human task force leader—“would you tell them I spent my evening here with you, preparing these?” I touch a bundle of creeping rosemary. “And I can help you, later tonight. The work will be done.”
Ritha chews on her lip.
“Please, Ritha.”
Setting down the mortar and pestle, she whispers, “And what are you doing that needs me to cover for you?”
I consider, but I might as well tell someone. “I’m meeting a human outside the city.” I keep my voice so low I can barely hear myself. “His name is Tayler. His people need seeds.” She doesn’t need to know the rest.
Her frown deepens.
“He might have information I need. If I come with a trollis, he’ll run. He was very specific about that.”
A thin sigh pushes past Ritha’s lips. “There’s Perg.”
There is Perg. Tayler has one half-trollis friend, so perhaps Perg wouldn’t upset him as much as Azmar would. But then again, he was very specific that I come alone.
Perg could be a backup plan, if I could even convince him to come. He likely wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his caste.
Reaching forward, I grasp her hand in mine. “Please, Ritha.”
She looks away. “Fine, Lark. But if anyone does come looking and gets suspicious, I have to save my skin.”
“Thank you. Wiln just saw me, too.”
“Well, that’s something.” She turns away, riffles through a burlap sack, and begins pulling out tiny packages. “I have some seeds you can take to them. Most will only grow in the canyon, though.”
Hope floods my limbs. “Thank you, Ritha. I won’t forget it.”
I use a window in Deccor housing to slip outside the city.