The last thief had no idea what the Hand wanted the doormaker for, but he was pretty sure their plan relied on it working.
He studied the wreckage closer.
The pieces seemed to be all there, and he tried to fit them back together, thinking perhaps it was meant to fully come apart, but no—some of the metal was obviously warped, and the wood was splintered, and the one time he thought he might have it back together, the carriage hit a nasty bump and immediately the whole thing crumbled in his lap.
He sighed, letting his head fall back. His eyes slipped shut.
It was an adventure, he told himself.
It was an adventure, and he was Olik. He was the chosen one. He was—
—going to be sick.
He pounded on the roof of the carriage, and tumbled out before it had even stopped, retching in the street. There was nothing in his stomach—he’d been too nervous to eat before the job, and too ill after—but something still came up, a red-black sludge that left the taste of metal in its wake.
He straightened, steadying himself against the carriage as his legs went shaky and his head went light. He looked around. They were in the shal. It was a part of London that the merchant’s son had been taught to avoid when he was young and his parents brought him to the capital, a cluster of streets on the outskirts of the city that catered to all sorts of unsavory clientele. From here, the Isle’s red glow was barely a tint on the low clouds, the palace spires a glint of gold in the distance.
And yet, it didn’t seem so bad. This block, at least, had a baker, and a handful of carts, a tavern with its windows intact, a seamstress, and a shop with a gold H printed on the door. A sign was mounted just below, and he took a shaky step toward it until the words came into focus.
ONCE BROKEN, SOON REPAIRED.
And just like that, the last thief had an idea. It was a terrible idea, and if he hadn’t been so sick, he might have stopped long enough to see the folly in it. Instead, he returned to the carriage, and told the driver to wait as he gathered up the broken pieces of the persalis. He had the sense at least to take out the keypiece, the black-and-gold ring, and tuck it in the breast pocket of his coat, before he bundled up the rest and stumbled toward the shop.
He flung his weight against the door, only to realize it was locked.
He tried the handle, hissing through his teeth before he saw the little CLOSED sign in the window. His vision was beginning to blur. He rested his forehead against the wooden door, fought to catch his breath.
Then he hauled himself back to the carriage, and sank into the welcome dark, to wait.
X
Tes had gone to bed craving dumplings.
Sometime in her sleep, the want had lodged like a splinter, and worried there, so that by the time she woke it was no longer a want, but a need. She hadn’t even bothered with her first pot of tea, had simply shoved her feet into her boots, and thrown on her coat, and gone to find breakfast, telling herself the work would hold.
The shop could open late.
Over the last three years, Tes had made it a mission to sample all the dumplings London had to offer, from the dozen different street carts scattered across the city’s many squares, to the large stall in the night market, to the fancy storefront on the northern banks that specialized in fish, to that one kind of dodgy cart there in the middle of the shal. It was an ongoing search, but so far the best by far came from a little white stall tucked between a butcher and a baker on Hera Vas, on the other side of the docks.
It was a long walk, but it was worth it, and half an hour later, Tes was on her way back to the shop, clutching the steaming satchel as if it were full of gold coins instead of pillowed dough.
Morning had broken like an egg over the city, a yellow light that looked warmer than it felt as it touched the rooftops and glinted on store windows. All around her, London was coming to life, and though Tes still missed the cliffs where she was born, the constant hush of the sea, she had grown fond of the capital, the way it sprawled and grew, like a garden in full bloom, every day a little different, a little bigger. She liked the way it brimmed with magic, even if it was sometimes so tangled and so bright it hurt her eyes. She liked the markets that sprang up like mushrooms, and the fact that no matter how often she explored, she always found something new. She liked the constant rattle of horses and the ramble of voices in the street, the melody that rose and fell but never fell away. She liked knowing she was in a place so big and full of noise that she could shout, and no one would turn. That she could hide, and no one would find her.
Where are you, little rabbit?
Tes shivered, told herself it was just the cold breeze that had kicked up, finding the holes in her coat.