“How much?” she asked, then held her breath. She only had six lin, and a working seasons-glass would have cost twice that, and even if it wasn’t the kind of thing her father would put in his shop, he was always complaining of the cold, and she thought he’d like it. This palmful of warmth.
“Two,” said the sailor, and she had to bite down to hide the smile. Her father was always saying she should never let her feelings reach her face. She reached in her pocket, pulling out two lin.
“Just so you know,” he added, “it’s broken.”
That was very honest of him, she thought, when most of the sailors would tell you a plank of wood was a golden sword if it would make you buy the block.
She put the two coins on the table and said, “I know.” She did not say that she could see the exact spot the threads had frayed. It wouldn’t be hard to fix.
As she was slipping the broken orb gingerly into her satchel, the sailor did a series of odd things. First, he finished whittling the bit of wood into a tiny pipe. Then he produced the small, articulated skeleton of an owl from somewhere around his feet, set it on top of the table, and put the pipe in its beak. The sailor smiled, amused. Tesali stared in wonder.
“How much for that?” she asked.
“The pipe?”
“The owl.”
He glanced up, studying her. “S’not magic,” he said. And it wasn’t. There were no threads of spellwork, broken or whole, no signs of any craft running through the little bird, only silver wire, holding the bundle of bones together.
He gave the owl a long, appraising look. “Five,” he said.
“Four,” countered Tesali, but he must have seen the want in her eyes, and shook his head. Her heart sank. “I don’t have five.”
He shrugged, as if that wasn’t his problem. She chewed her lip, searching her pockets, as if the coins might multiply. Then her hands went to her hair. It was pulled up, as it always was, wrangled and pinned with a clasp. She freed the clasp, and her hair with it, a cloud of brown curls spilling down around her shoulders. The clasp itself was nothing much, but there was a silver bauble on it. She pried it free, and added it to the four coins in her palm.
The sailor considered. She held her breath.
Then he reached for the little bird, and plucked the wooden stick from its beak.
“That will buy you the owl,” he said. “But no pipe.”
She could have thrown her arms around the sailor then, but she didn’t. Instead she handed him the payment, and swept up the dead little bird into her arms before he changed his mind. She watched him pocket the coins and slip the bit of silver into his own hair.
And then she turned and ran all the way home.
* * *
For the first time in years, there were no empty chairs at dinner.
Forten Ranek’s four daughters were all home, and sat arranged around his birthday table, as fine as prizes in their best clothes, done up like dolls. One day at the dock market Tesali had seen a set of nesting wooden figures. The sailor showed her how they fit, one inside the other, each painted with a different face. Ever since, that was how she thought of her sisters. It didn’t help that there were exactly four years between each, a set of descending stairs, from twenty-four to twelve.
The four Ranek girls were different in almost every way. They ranged in age and height, in beauty and in mood, even their eyes, which spanned from amethyst （Rosana） to hazel （Serival） to brown （Tesali） to almost black （Mirin）。
The only thing they had in common were their curls, and even those didn’t grow the same on all four heads.
Serival’s grew in loose dark waves, and were somehow always wrested back into a plait, sleek and groomed.
Mirin’s were sun-kissed rings, never bound up, but left to fall in a shining mane.
Rosana’s curls were cut short, a halo of warm brown wisps that fit beneath her many performer’s wigs.
And then there was Tesali, whose curls were wild, unruly, a thicket of ever-escaping weeds. She had done her best, tonight, to tie up the stubborn mass, wrangle it into a pleasing shape, but by the time the roast was cooked and served at midday, the glasses filled with strong southern wine （of which even Tesali was allowed a pour, though she didn’t like the taste, or the way it made her head feel large and small at once）， she could feel the tendrils coming free.
Her mother beamed at them, glad to have her family home and whole.
Her father smiled, too, glad to see the sum of his work.
Then Esna cleared the plates, and it was time for gifts.
Tesali clutched hers beneath the table, waiting her turn. It was wrapped in a gauzy scarf and bound with ribbon. It had taken her all afternoon, from the second she’d come home to the time she’d been called downstairs for dinner, but she’d done it.