* * *
In retrospect, calling the Merry Way a pleasure garden was … generous.
It was more a rowdy tavern offering a collection of dark corners and rooms overhead, and you didn’t have to listen hard to hear the sound of bedposts scraping on the floor. Lila leaned against the wall beside a belching fire, nursing a pint and watching as hosts drifted through with painted red lips, and let their hands graze the shoulders of any patrons whose affections they’d accept.
More than once, Lila sensed a host coming toward her, and sent them on their way with a pointed look, flattered though she was. She took a sip of her ale, and winced. It was black, and bitter, thick enough to leave a trail on the inside of the glass. And like all brothel drinks, it was brutally strong.
That’s what she was counting on. It was common knowledge that liquor made tongues loose. It also made them loud. Whispers quickly became shouts, and secrets had a way of spilling out as patrons leaned further into their cups.
And yet, so far, she’d learned nothing.
Oh, she’d heard the usual mutterings of discontent, but not a single mention of the Hand. No one even had the decency to look as though they were conspiring. One man did spit the king’s name, but it had all the force of a mumbled oath. Other than that, it was raucous laughter and slurred stories and a sailor passed out by the fire. Either the patrons were good at holding their tongues. Or, she suspected, they weren’t involved.
This wasn’t the right garden.
And now, her own head was beginning to fuzz in that warning way, and she knew that when she stood, she’d feel the swell and sway of the floorboards underfoot. But she had sea legs, and knew how far she could go before they failed her.
So Lila stayed long enough to finish her drink.
When it was gone, she went to leave the glass on the bar, and for the first time noticed it was cracked.
She traced the line, her thoughts skating like a pebble off the shore. What was it Maris had said, about the persalis? That it had been damaged in the fight. Maybe it still worked, and maybe it didn’t. Say it was broken. Needed to be fixed. An object that dangerous, maybe they’d try to repair it themselves. But if they hadn’t—if they couldn’t—
Lila flagged the brothel’s barkeep, a stocky woman with a hard jaw, but when she went to fill the glass, Lila put her hand over the rim.
“Let me ask you something,” she said, softening her words to sound a little drunker than she was. She made sure to pair the words with a lin on the counter. “Let’s say you got lucky, had a fine piece of magic fall into your lap.” The barkeep raised a brow, waiting for the question. “But it got a little banged up on the way there. Where would you take it?”
“Me?” said the barkeep, putting her hand over the coin. “I’d save the cost and the trouble, and fix it myself.” She slid the coin into her pocket. “But if I weren’t so clever, I’d go to Haskin.”
Lila’s gaze flicked up. She turned the name over on her tongue. “Haskin?”
The barkeep nodded. “He can fix anything. Or so I’ve heard.”
Lila smiled and sat back. “Good to know.”
A shout went up across the room, and the barkeep drifted away. Lila looked down into the dregs of ale as if it were a scrying glass. Haskin, she thought. In the morning, she’d start there.
She nudged the glass away and shoved a hand in her coat, only to find she’d given the barkeep her last lin. She switched pockets and found the handful of coins Maris had given her, the ones lifted from the Hand who’d died on the ship.
Lila weighed the three lins, letting them spill from one palm into the other. She had come all this way because of them, she reasoned. The least they could do was pay for her drink.
She put two back in her pocket, set the third on the table, and rose. A little too fast, it turned out, thanks to the last pint. She paused, steadying herself a moment. And frowned. Perhaps it was the angle of the light on the edge of the coin, the way it hit the ridges in the crimson metal. Or perhaps it was something else, something harder to define, some gut sense that made her take the lin back up. Lila ran her thumb along the edge and saw that she was right—it wasn’t entirely even.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered as she turned it, trying to make out the pattern, but it was too small, the metal of the coin too dark.
Lila sank back down into her chair.
She drew the other two coins from her pocket, and studied their edges, but they were even all the way around. This one alone was different. Embossed with a code. Or a message. Lila only needed a way to read it. Of course, she had no paper on her. No ink. She rapped her fingers on the table, mind racing.