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The Pain Merchants
Janice Hardy


Nya has a secret she must never share…A gift she must never use…And a sister whose life depends on both.This astonishing debut novel is the first in the epic dystopian fantasy adventure trilogy, THE HEALING WARS.Fifteen-year-old Nya is one of Geveg’s many orphans; she survives on odd jobs and optimism, finding both in short supply in a city crippled by a failed war for independence. Then a bungled egg theft, a stupid act of compassion, and two eyewitnesses unable to keep their mouths shut exposes her secret to the two most powerful groups in the city: the pain merchants and the Healer’s League. They discover Nya is a Taker, a healer who can pull pain and injury from others.Trouble is, unlike her sister Tali and the other normal Takers who become league apprentices, she can’t dump that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it from person to person, a useless skill that’s kept her out of the league and has never once paid for her breakfast.When a ferry accident floods the city with injured, the already overwhelmed Takers start disappearing from the Healer’s League and Nya’s talent is suddenly in demand. But her principles and endurance are tested to the limit when her talent turns out to be the only thing that can save her sister's life.










The Healing Wars: Book One


The Pain Perchants






Janice Hardy












For Thomas Hardy and Harlan Ellison.Only one knows why.




Table of Contents


Cover Page (#uc7191fc0-c81f-59bd-9f0e-7666812dcb05)

Title Page (#u2c95d0d6-270f-554a-a118-d1a4d7346a26)

Dedication (#u8a028509-0e2d-51b7-b6ae-82ec81d1f469)

Chapter One (#u7d5c76ad-c7b3-51ce-99c1-c4044f1cd273)

Chapter Two (#u4d63ac5e-a663-5c40-b98b-c46673bcb473)

Chapter Three (#ubb1fc2ed-9c01-5c12-84a1-fb96447447c6)

Chapter Four (#u5a63449e-763c-5e83-a556-0c4f54975e57)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One (#ulink_52f01db1-34ba-5904-8c53-9c547d8851ec)


Stealing eggs is a lot harder than stealing the whole chicken. With chickens, you just grab a hen, stuff her in a sack and make your escape. But for eggs, you have to stick your hand under a sleeping bird. Chickens don’t like this. They wake all spooked and start pecking holes in your arm, or your face if it’s close. And they squawk something terrible.

The trick is to wake the chicken first, then go for the eggs. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure this out.

“Good morning, little hen,” I sang softly. The chicken blinked awake and cocked her head at me. She didn’t get to squawking, just flapped her wings a bit as I lifted her off the nest; she’d soon settle down once I tucked her under my arm. I’d overheard that trick from a couple of boys I’d unloaded fish with last week.

A voice came from beside me. “Don’t move.”

Two words I didn’t want to hear with someone else’s chicken under my arm.

I froze. The chicken didn’t. Her scaly feet flailed towards the eggs that should have been my breakfast. I looked up to see a cute night guard not much older than me, perhaps sixteen. The night was more humid than usual, but a slight breeze blew his sandpale hair. A soldier’s cut, but a month or two grown out.

Stay calm; stay alert. As Grannyma used to say, if you’re caught with the cake, you might as well offer them a piece. Not sure how that applied to chickens though.

“Join me for breakfast when your shift ends?” I asked. Sunrise was two hours away.

The guard smiled, but aimed his rapier at my chest anyway. Was nice to have a handsome boy smile at me in the moonlight, but his was a sad, sorry-only-doing-my-job smile. I’d learned to tell the difference between smiles a lot faster than I’d figured out the egg thing.

“So, Heclar,” he said over his shoulder, “you do have a thief. Guess I was wrong.”

Rancher Heclar strutted into view, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the chicken trying to peck me—ruffled, sharp beaked and beady-eyed. He harrumphed and set his fists against his hips. “I told you crocodiles weren’t getting them.”

“I’m no chicken thief,” I said quickly.

“Then what’s that?” The night guard flicked his rapier tip towards the chicken and smiled again. Friendlier this time, but his deep brown eyes had twitched when he bent his wrist.

“A chicken.” I blew a stray feather off my chin and peered closer. His knuckles were white from too tight a grip on so light a weapon. That had to mean joint pain, maybe even knuckleburn, though he was far too young for it. The painful joint infection usually hit older dockworkers. I guess that’s why he had a crummy job guarding chickens instead of aristocrats. My luck hadn’t been too great either.

“Look,” I said, “I wasn’t going to steal her. She was blocking the eggs.”

The night guard nodded like he understood and turned to Heclar. “She’s just hungry. Maybe you could let her go with a warning?”

“Arrest her, you idiot! She’ll get fed in Dorsta.”

Dorsta? I gulped. “Listen, two eggs for breakfast is hardly worth prison—”

“Thieves belong in prison!”

I jerked back and my foot squished into chicken crap. Lots of it. It dripped out from every coop in the row. There had to be at least sixty filthy coops along the lakeside half of the isle alone. “I’ll work off the eggs. What about two eggs for every row of coops I clean?”

“You’ll only steal three.”

“Not if he watches me.” I tipped my head at the night guard. I could handle the smell if I had cute company while I worked. He might even get extra pay out of it, which could earn me some goodwill if we ever bumped into each other in the moonlight again. “How about one egg per row?”

The night guard pursed his lips and nodded. “Pretty good deal there.”

“Arrest her now!”

I heaved the chicken. She squawked, flapping and scratching in a panic. The night guard yelped and dropped the rapier. I ran like hell.

“Stop! Thief!”

Self-righteous ranchers I could outrun, even on their own property, but the night guard? His hands might be bad, but his feet—and reflexes—worked just fine.

I rounded a stack of broken coops an arm-swipe faster than he did. Without slowing I dodged left, cutting up a corn-littered row of coops running parallel to Farm-Market Canal. It gained me a few paces, but he had the reach on my short legs. No chance of outrunning him on the straight.

Swerving right, I yanked an empty market crate off one of the coops. It clattered to the ground between me and the night guard.

“Aah!” A thud and a crack, followed by impressive swearing.

I risked a glance behind. Broken crate pieces lay scattered across the row. The night guard limped a little, but it hadn’t slowed him much. I’d gained only another few paces.

The row split ahead, cutting through the waist-high coops like the canals that criss-crossed Geveg. I veered left towards Farm-Market Bridge, my side throbbing hard. Forget making it off the isle. I wasn’t going to make it off the ranch.

More market crates blocked the row a dozen paces from the bridge. The crates were knee high and a pace wide, with tendrils of loose, twisted wire sticking up like lakeweed. Didn’t Heclar ever clean his property? I cleared the crates a step before the night guard. His fingers raked the back of my shirt and snagged the hem. I stumbled, arms flailing, reaching for anything to stop my fall.

The ground did it for me.

I sucked back the breath I’d lost and inhaled a lungful of dust and feathers. The night guard crashed over the pile a choking gasp later and hit the ground beside me. Dried corn flew out of the crate and speckled the ground.

I hacked up grime while he swore and grabbed his leg. He’d left a good chunk of his shin on one of the crates and his bent ankle looked sprained for sure, maybe broken.

He glanced at me and chuckled wryly. “Just go.”

I dragged myself upright, but didn’t run. He’d lose his job over me and I’d guess he didn’t have many options left if he was working for a cheapskate like Heclar. I knelt and grabbed his hands, my thumbs tight against his knuckles, and drew.

For an instant our hands flared tingly hot from the healing. He gasped, I groaned, then his pain was in my hands. I left the bad leg. It was a good excuse for letting me go and, Saints willing, he’d keep his job. If he didn’t, then at least I’d healed his hands. It was hard enough for native Gevegians to find work these days and bad hands wouldn’t help.

Knuckles aching, I turned away before he realised what I’d done. It wasn’t the first time I’d healed someone out of pity, but I tried not to do it often. Folks tended to ask questions I didn’t want to answer.

I took a step forward, but something large blocked my escape. Heclar! He swung at my head and I ducked, but not fast enough.

Pain slammed into my temple and I thudded back to the ground. Heclar floated in the silver flecks dancing around my eyes, a blue-black pynvium club in his hand.

That cleared me straight. I was lucky he was so cheap he only hit me with it instead of flashing it at me. The weapon was too black to be pure pynvium, but blue enough to hold a lot of pain. I didn’t want it flashed in my direction any more than I wanted to go to prison.

He scoffed and pointed the club at me. “Bunch of thieves, both of you.”

I grabbed the night guard’s shin and drew, knitting bone and yanking every hurt, every sting, every wince from his ankle. His pain ran down my arm, seared my leg and chewed around my own ankle. Yep. Definitely broken. My stomach rolled, but there was nothing in it to throw up.

I seized Heclar’s leg with my free hand and pushed. The agony the night guard hadn’t revealed raced up my other side and poured out of my tingling fingers into Heclar. I almost gave him the knuckleburn, but that would make his hands clench and a hard, sudden grip on the pynvium club might be the enchantment’s trigger. Be just my luck to accidentally set it off.

Heclar screamed loud enough to wake the Saints. To be truthful it was worse than he deserved, but sending me to prison for eggs I hadn’t yet stolen was worse than I deserved. The Saints are funny that way.

I left both men lying in chicken feed and feathers and sprinted for safety. Just five paces to the exit, then another five to Farm-Market Bridge. Once I crossed the bridge, I’d be off the isle and in the market district on Geveg’s main island where it was easier to hide. If I didn’t pass out first.

At the foot of the bridge, two boys in Healers’ League green were staring at me in wonder. I skidded to a stop and glanced over my shoulder. I had a clear view of the night guard and the blubbering rancher. The boys had seen me shift for sure.

“How did you do that?” one boy asked. Tall and skinny, but with hard eyes for a boy so young. Too young to be an apprentice. A ward then. The war had left Geveg with plenty of us orphans about.

“I didn’t…do anything.” Breathing took more effort than I had. I held my side as I edged past them, checking for mentors or escorts that stuck to wards like reed sap. If either had seen me shift pain…I shuddered.

“Yes, you did!” The other boy nodded his head and his red hair fell into his eyes. He shoved it back with a freckled hand. “You shifted pain. We saw you!”

“No I didn’t…I stabbed him in the foot…with a nail.” I leaned forward, hands on my knees. The silver flecks were back at the edge of my vision, sneaking up on me from the sides. “If you look close…you can still see the blood.”

“Elder Len said shifting pain was just a myth, but you really did it, didn’t you?”

I wasn’t sure which Saint covered luck, but I must’ve snubbed her big time at some point in my fifteen years. “You boys better get back to the League…before the Luminary discovers you sneaked out.”

Both paled when I mentioned the Luminary. We got a new one every three years, like some rite of passage the Duke’s Healers had to go through to prove their worth. The new Luminary was Baseeri of course, and like all Baseeri who held positions that should have been held by Gevegians, no one liked him. He ran the League without compassion, and if you crossed him, you didn’t stand a chance of getting healed if you needed it. You or your family.

“You don’t want to get into trouble, do you?”

“No!”

I placed a finger to my lips and shushed. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

They nodded hard enough to bounce their eyeballs out of their heads, but boys that age couldn’t keep a secret. By morning, the whole League would know about this.

Tali was going to kill me.

“Oh, Nya, how could you?”

Tali used Mama’s disappointed face. Chin tucked in, her wide brown eyes all puppylike, lips pursed and frowning at the same time. Mama had done it better.

“Would you rather I’d gone to prison?”

“Of course not.”

“Then sink it. What’s done is done and—”

“—I can’t change it none,” she finished for me.

I had three years on her, which usually gave me implied authority, but since she’d joined the League she’d been forgetting who the big sister was. Hard to do with only the two of us left, but she managed.

“Be grateful I got away.” I flopped backwards into green floor pillows. Tali sat on the edge of her bed dressed in her Healer’s apprentice uniform, her white underdress neatly pressed and her short green vest buttoned. A sunbeam from the small window above poured over her, making the braided silver loop on her shoulder sparkle.

The door to Tali’s dorm room was shut, but not soundproof. Shuffling feet and excited giggles drifted in as the other apprentices readied for class. Morning rounds were about to start and I had work to find if I wanted to eat today. Tali sneaked some food out for me when she could, but the League rationed it and they watched the wards and apprentices carefully at mealtimes—especially if they were Gevegian. Hungry or not, I wasn’t about to let her risk her apprenticeship for me any more than I had to, and I needed a bigger favour than breakfast.

“Are you on this morning?” I asked, wiggling my toes in the sunbeam.

Tali nodded, but didn’t look at me. I think stealing the heals scared her more than stealing food, though getting caught in the dining hall was a lot more likely.

“Could you?” I lifted my aching hands. The pain from the night guard’s knuckleburn made me useless for all but hauling and I couldn’t carry enough on my back to be worth the money.

“Sure, come here.”

I scooted over and she took my hands. Heat blossomed and the ache vanished, tucked safely in Tali’s knuckles. She’d keep it there until some aristocrat paid the League to get rid of their own pain, then dump both into the Slab. It was risky sneaking the pain past the League Seniors, but I couldn’t dump my pain into the Slab even if I could get to it.

The Slab wasn’t its real name, but that’s what all the apprentices and low cords called it. Its real name was something like Healing Quality High-Enchanted Pynvium, which didn’t have the same ring at all. I’d never actually seen it, not even when Mama was alive, but Tali said it was pure pynvium, ocean blue and the size of a bale of hay. I could eat for the rest of my life with what the Luminary must’ve paid the enchanters for it.

Tali flexed her fingers and winced. “You could have sold that to the pain merchants, you know.”

I scoffed. The pain merchants weren’t quite thieves, but they paid so little for pain it was practically stealing it. Before I was born, they used to charge people for healing just like the League did, but they’d discovered they got more pain if they offered to pay for it. They made their money now from using that pain to enchant their trinkets and weapons, which they then sold to Baseeri aristocrats for a lot more than they’d got by healing folks.

Of course, there were drawbacks to this.

Since the pain merchants didn’t hire trained healers any more, you could never be sure you’d actually get healed if you went to them. Some of their Takers just took your pain and left what was wrong if they didn’t know how to heal it. Only folks with no other choice went to them now and I’d seen my share of “mysterious deaths” among the poor and desperate. There were as many limps and crippled limbs from bad merchant healing as there were from war wounds.

I was almost desperate enough to go to them, but I had other reasons to keep my distance. “Too risky. What if they sensed I was a Taker and wondered why I didn’t dump it myself?”

“Not that many can sense. You’re one of the few I know who isn’t an Elder.”

That talent still didn’t buy me breakfast. I’d trade it fast as fright to sense pynvium like Tali could; to feel the “call and draw of the metal” as she had pounded into my head over the summer, trying to get my skill to work right. She’d just turned twelve and we’d thought to join the League together. Turn us both from untrained Takers into real Healers and live a good life. The League was one of the few Baseeri-run places that accepted Gevegians. Both sides had lost so many Healers in the war and there just weren’t enough trained ones to go around these days.

But no matter how hard we tried, I couldn’t sense pynvium, couldn’t dump pain into it. I’d made Tali go alone and the League had accepted her as fast as they would’ve turned me away. I hated her for it at first, then felt guilty as soon as I realised it was easier worrying about just me. But it would have been nice to have a soft bed and regular meals like she did.

I rose. “I’d better go. I might find work cutting bait or washing down the docks if I hurry.”

“Maybe we could risk you applying to the League now?” Tali whispered, playing with the pin holding her apprentice cords to her shoulder. The cupped hand offered a life I’d never have. “Several apprentices are missing so we’re short-handed. The Luminary’s worried about it too.”

“What do you mean, missing?” I dropped back into the pillows. The war had ended five years ago, but I still remembered how it started. Healers disappearing in the night, stolen from their homes to heal in the Duke of Baseer’s war. We didn’t know what war. We barely knew who the Duke was back then. That changed pretty fast when his troops invaded, occupying Geveg and stealing our pynvium when our Healers started hiding.

“Not like that,” Tali said, eyes wide. “At least I don’t think so. The Elders said they left because the training was too hard. People even heard the Luminary complaining about it.”

“Do you believe them?”

She shrugged. “It happens, but people usually say goodbye when they go.”

Unless they didn’t leave of their own accord. I shook the concern away. I was worrying over nothing. Tali was safe at the League. Three meals a day, a soft bed, training from the best Healers in Geveg. All the things I couldn’t get for myself, let alone give her.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I thought maybe we could convince them to let you heal, and when your shift ended I could do the transfer for you.”

My heart flipped like a beached fish. “You didn’t tell them about me, did you?”

“Of course not! But you can heal. We could work as a team.”

Pointless—and dangerous—to even ask. “No, Tali, you know what they’d do to me if they found out I could shift.”

Experiments, prison, maybe even death. A few years ago, the Duke starting claiming that abnormal Takers were abominations and were to be brought to the League if discovered. He’d put up posters all over Geveg, covered every inch, even the smaller farming isles.

Tali shrugged. “I heard they might lower the entrance requirements for apprenticeship down to those just strong enough to heal minor cuts and bruises, so I thought maybe the Luminary wouldn’t care. You can heal a lot higher than that.”

But it wasn’t real healing, not like what Tali did. “He would care. Besides, it would wear you out and the League wouldn’t risk your health. They need you.” Even if they didn’t ship me off to Baseer, I was useless to them. I’d keep drawing pain until I was so twisted up in agony I couldn’t move.

“Well,” Tali said after a brutally long silence, “if you don’t want to work here, then next time steal a whole chicken. That way you’d have eggs every morning.”

I grinned, even though I did want to work for the League and be a real Healer. I just knew it would never happen. “A chicken loose at the boarding house? Millie would love that.”

“So steal a coop as well. And some corn. Maybe a little bit of straw for a nest.”

I tried to keep a straight face, but the idea of a coop in my room was too much. The giggles came on fast. Tali and I rocked back and forth like children, clutching our sides, tears in our eyes, until the rounds bell rang.

Tali stood, her shoulders quaking. She pushed a blonde strand of her Healer’s ponytail off her shoulder, jingling the tiny jade and gold beads woven through it. Her hair looked pretty, all smooth and straight like that. I couldn’t afford the irons to flatten my curls. Neither could Tali really, but League apprentices had to look smart, and they got to share luxuries like hair irons and face powders. Aristocrats didn’t want healing from a bunch of scruffy children and, after the war, those were the only Takers Geveg had left. They had to bring in Elders and teachers from Baseer just to train us, and the first crop of Gevegian fourth cords were training now. Next year they’d be full Healers, allowed to go out and seek their fortunes, though most would probably stay at the League.

“Will you be all right?” Tali asked. “When did you eat last? I might be able to sneak some food from lunch.”

“I’ll be fine.”

My stomach rumbled and she sucked in her bottom lip, once again the worried little sister. She nodded quickly, then threw her arms around my neck. “You be careful.”

“You too. Don’t go anywhere alone, OK?” I hugged her back. She smelled like lake violets and white ginger.

“Promise.”

“Go forth and heal the sick, young one.” It earned me a giggle.

“Go forth and mutilate fish.” She smiled, but still looked worried. Maybe she was thinking about the missing apprentices, or maybe it was the knuckleburn she’d taken from me.

We left her room. Tali went towards the hospital wing, while I hurried right towards the exit on the other side on the main entrance hall. It was the closest exit to the docks, and the north gate League guards always let me pass. I was pretty sure the skinny one was sweet on me, but I’d sooner kiss a croc than a Baseeri.

I crossed into the front antechamber and wove my way through the dozen or so people waiting for heals. Bits of green, white and silver flashed as apprentices late for class took the shortcut up the back staircase.

“That’s her!”

I jerked around before my wits could stop me. Two wards were pointing at me, as wide-eyed and amazed as they’d been last night. Saints and sinners! I couldn’t find good luck in an empty pail.

“She’s the one who shifted pain,” the ward said loud enough to turn heads. More than a few folks stopped and stared. “She drew it right out of one man and pushed in into another. We saw it, didn’t we, Sinnote?”

My empty stomach tightened. Standing between the wards was a League Elder in full gold cords. Eight braided cords coiled on his shoulders like vipers, the ends dangling down to the edge of his vest-robe. Thick arms strained his crisp sleeves and his beaded black hair was pulled back and tied rope-thick at the nape of his neck. A husky man, Mama would have said.

He hooked a finger towards me and pointed at a tile in front of him. “Come here.”

Running would make me look suspicious. Disobeying would make me equally suspicious. I’d never make it past the guards anyway, no matter how much that fellow at the gates liked me.

“Now, girl.”

Nothing good ever followed just two words.

I stepped forward, wondering what time they served lunch in Dorsta Prison.




Chapter Two (#ulink_43fd344f-b590-5b49-a890-db10a9cac841)


The Elder stared down at me, looking as solid as the thick columns that supported the entrance-hall balcony behind him. He folded his arms across his broad chest and tapped a single finger against a bicep. Men in robes shouldn’t look that intimidating. That’s what armour was for. “Your name?” he asked.

“Merlaina Oskov.” Tali would give me Mama’s stern face again for lying, but having an Elder know your name was trouble in a box. They paid heed to none but the Luminary, and he paid heed to none but the Duke, just like all of Geveg’s military-appointed leaders. Wasn’t safe to get noticed by any of them.

“Do you know these wards?”

“No, sir.”

The chatty one’s brown eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. “But—”

“I work the sundown to sunup shift at the taproom,” I said quickly. “Don’t see how boys would cross my path at those hours.”

Sinnote pinch-twisted his friend’s arm. “I don’t think that’s her.”

“It is her. She’s even wearing the same dirty clothes.”

“You’re wrong.”

League Elders weren’t fools, much as I needed this one to be.

“What time did you see her?” he asked.

“Three,” the boy said.

“Five,” Sinnote said at the same time. He grimaced and his freckles wiggled.

The Elder’s mouth twitched at the corners, then he reached for my arm. “Come with me.”

I jerked away. If someone was kidnapping apprentices again, getting trapped in a League treatment room was the last thing I needed. “Pardon, but I can’t. I have to get home.”

“Your family will understand. Now come!” The Elder grabbed my forearm mongoose-quick. His eyes popped wide, then narrowed. “You are a Taker.”

“Let me go!” My shout echoed in the domed antechamber. Beaded heads turned and everyone stopped and stared. Green vests shimmered against grey slate and stone as more lingered. A man passing behind the Elder stopped and watched me with an uncertain frown on his face.

“Stop struggling, girl. I’m not going to hurt you.”

But he was. My skin burned where his fingers dug into my arm. Saints, he was strong.

The wards gaped. The crowd stared. No one moved to help. Why would they? I was just some river rat and nobody questioned an Elder, though I’d bet a week’s lunches that if my hair was Baseeri black, someone would have stepped forward.

“I said, let go.” I kicked him in the knee, smearing grime on his white uniform. And he did, sucking in air with a wet hiss.

I ran for the north gate entrance, crossing the rest of the entrance hall and ducking into the side foyer. Apprentices and wards parted as I barrelled into them. Gasps and jingles drowned out the Elder’s raspy orders, but I could guess what they were. Guards, get that girl. Lock her up, poke her, prod her, find out if she’s the abomination they claim.

I shoved my way past a knot of first cords by the exit and slammed open the door. Sunshine felt like freedom, but I wasn’t off League property yet. The north gate glinted ahead. Copper clanged against stone as I burst through.

Heart racing, I slipped into the crowd coming in for healing. They filled the circular limestone courtyard outside, more than I usually saw this early in the morning, but it didn’t look like many were getting inside. Children in velvet played tag between grandmothers in patched cotton. A farmer in muddy overalls hugged a bleeding hand to his chest. Dozens of fishermen, soldiers, merchants and servants mixed together like a beggar’s stew. I elbowed my way through and learned two new swears from one of the soldiers posted at the main bridge.

At the edge of League Circle, bridges and canals fanned out like wheel spokes to the rest of Geveg. Pairs of soldiers stood on every corner, some mast-straight at attention, others leaning against lamp posts. A few pole boats bobbed at the end of the floating docks as Baseeri aristocrats stepped out, their military aides and bodyguards close at their heels. On the left, the lake sparkled as far as you could see, already dotted with fishing boats.

I slowed, trying to avoid being noticed by the closest pair of soldiers. Thankfully, they were bored types and neither looked over. I jumped over a low stone wall and dropped under the nearest bridge, stomping down a pad of water hyacinths as I landed. Cool water splashed up my legs. I hid knee-deep in lake and flowers and tried not to think about crocodiles.

Considering I’d just kicked a League Elder, that wasn’t hard. A croc’ll snap you and spin you down underwater, but a furious Elder might throw Tali out of the League. He might make her repay the healing we’d stolen. He might—

Why weren’t the League guards chasing me?

I stood on tiptoe and tilted my ear towards shore. Footsteps, coughs, the nervous babble that always followed crowds, but no shouts. No thudding boots.

He let me kick him and run?

Slowly, I climbed up the lakewall and hopped back over. Still no guards. Not even a fuss in the crowd, just the usual small groups of twos and threes, scurrying along with their heads down. Maybe the Elder thought he could find me at one of the taprooms. I grinned. He’d find no Melana anywhere. Or was it Meletta? Didn’t matter. She was gone as goose grease.

There might be guards looking for me, but bright green League uniforms were easy to spot. Folks tended to give way when they saw armed men coming.

My stomach rumbled again. A painful rumble that twisted up my guts and said it was way past breakfast. And lunch. And supper. I headed for the docks, but my guts also said I was too late to cut bait.

“The boats are out, Nya. I’ve got nothing for you.”

“Sorry, Nya, I already had some boys wash the docks. Did it for cheap too.”

“If you’d been here earlier I had carts to load, but that’s all done now.”

Every berth foreman had the same answer, though a few looked sorry to turn me away. Especially Barnikoff, who usually found something for me to do. He’d lost three daughters and he liked having me around to tell stories to while he scraped barnacles off the hulls, but there were no boats in dry dock today.

Nor was there any work at the bakery, and the butcher had enough people to yank the feathers off chickens and guineafowl. The glassblower had two girls running sand and didn’t need me. A line of strapping boys my age waited outside the blacksmith, scowling at a girl I knew. Aylin was dancing by a river-rock garden wall outside the show house, a peek at what you’d see inside if you paid the outrageous prices for their food, drink and entertainment. She gleamed, her pale shoulders stark against the deep red and gold of her dress. Yellow beads traced her neckline and glittered at the ends of her short sleeves.

I headed over. With all the officers, aristocrats and merchants that went past her every day to spend their stolen wealth, Aylin knew more gossip than a crew of old women. If anyone had work for me, she’d know about it and I could sure as sugar use a job fast. My pockets were as empty as my belly. Rent had been due yesterday and I could avoid Millie for only so long. Warm nights promised I wouldn’t be cold, but there were other things in the night for a girl sleeping under a bush to worry about. And most of them wore blue uniforms.

I wove through the flow of people coming off the ferry and hopped up on the wall behind Aylin.

“Please tell me you know about some work. I need good news.”

“Hi, Nya.” She tossed her long red hair and waved at a well dressed merchant walking by. He flipped up his brocaded collar and ignored her. “Nah, just the usual stuff. Are all the jobs taken already?”

“I got a late start. Think the canal master is hiring leaf pullers?” Water hyacinths clogged the canals every summer and made it tough for the pole boats to get through. Dangerous work, but it paid well.

“Feel the need to dodge crocs?”

“Feel the need to eat.”

Her smile vanished. “Oh, that bad?”

“Would I risk becoming a meal to get one if it wasn’t?”

Her smile returned. “Hey, handsome, come inside! We have the

prettiest dancers in the Three Territories,” she called to a muscled soldier in Baseeri blue. He elbowed his friends and waved, but didn’t come over. “No, you’re smarter than that. I was telling Kaida the other day how you—”

“Aylin, are they hiring?”

“Oh, no, not any more. Morning, gentlemen! Come inside, three plays a day, the finest actors in Geveg!” Another set of soldiers went by, all wearing the blue and silver osprey emblem on their bulging chests. Baseeri soldiers always lined the streets, but I hadn’t seen so many on patrol since the occupation began.

My toes twitched with a sudden urge to be anywhere else. “Why all the soldiers today?”

“Verlatta’s under siege.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded and her dangling shell earrings swayed in time with her hips. “I had a Baseeri officer stop to talk on his way in last night. Said His Dukeship is after Verlatta’s pynvium mines.”

Even the late-morning sun couldn’t keep my shivers away. Baseer was two hundred miles upriver, on the borderlands between the Three Territories and the Northern Reaches, but it felt like the Duke was breathing down our necks again. He’d already conquered Sorille and now controlled most of the good farming land, but he hadn’t had any pynvium mines until he conquered us. We tried to fight him, regain our freedom, but it hadn’t worked. Once he had Verlatta, he’d rule all three lands his great-grandfather had granted independence to long ago.

“First our mines, now theirs. You’d think the Duke would have enough to heal everyone in Baseer by now.”

Aylin shrugged. “It’s not for the healing—it’s for the weapons. If he’d stop wasting his pynvium on weapons, he wouldn’t need so much. A vicious circle is what it is. Greedy toad. It’s his own fault.”

Aylin was right, but it was more sick than vicious if you asked me. Send your soldiers into battle and use their pain to fill your pynvium weapons, just so you could go attack other folks and steal their pynvium, so you could heal your people because you used all your pynvium to make the weapons in the first place. Stupid. Just plain stupid.

“There are a lot of people,” Aylin mused, watching the refugees shuffling off the ferry. The Duke had long since set up checkpoints on all the mainland bridges and roads, and without proper Baseeri travel seals, you didn’t get to pass. Getting proper travel seals wasn’t as hard as you might expect—it just cost you everything you had. Folks had tried forging them, but checkpoint soldiers were very good at spotting fakes.

“Too many people,” I agreed. Families in tailored clothes with the bright beaded collars popular in Verlatta shuffled beside families in sewn-together rags. Each person carried a bag or basket—probably all they could grab before they fled Verlatta.

And every last one of them would also be looking for work in Geveg.

I glanced at a pain merchant’s shop down the way, its sign swinging in the breeze. Teasing. Taunting. Tempting. Maybe I could risk it. Plenty of refugees around I could sneak some pain from and one sale might get me through a few more days. I just had to find someone who looked bruised or cut, nothing too serious that a Taker might recognise wasn’t a real injury of mine. Their lack of real training might be a lucky break for me.

Maybe Aylin knew which Takers couldn’t sense? She’d want to know why though, and much as I liked Aylin, I wasn’t sure how good she was at keeping secrets. With five pain merchant shops in Geveg, the chances of one having a senseless Taker were—

A man was watching us, almost hidden behind a hibiscus bush two shops down. Dressed fancy too, in smooth yellow and green silk. He wasn’t carrying anything, so he wasn’t off the ferry. An aristocrat’s son? He glanced from me to Aylin and his lips wrinkled in a vaguely familiar frown.

“I’d better get going, see if anyone needs a hauler in the market,” I said. The show house was Baseeri-owned, so I didn’t care if my stained shirt and wild curls scared away its customers, but I didn’t want Aylin to lose her job over it. “You’ll let me know if you hear of any jobs?”

“Of course.”

I hopped off the wall and the world spun around my head.

“Easy there.” Aylin grabbed my arm and kept me standing. “You OK?”

“Just a little dizzy. Moved too fast.”

“You’re so skinny I could wear you in my belt loops. Do you need money for something to eat?” She reached for a pocket.

“No thanks, I’m all right,” I said quickly. I couldn’t pay her back and Grannyma always said a debt owed was a friendship lost.

Aylin frowned as if she didn’t believe me, but cared too much to call me on it. “Tell Tali I said hello.”

“I will.”

Things were still a little swirly, but I tried my best to walk straight and not worry her further. At the farmers’ market, a heavyset woman with a basket full of bread caught my eye. Not an aristocrat, but her pink shirt matched her patterned skirt and looked neither worn nor patched, so she probably worked for one. Kitchens most likely. She was looking at mangoes, picking up one at a time and sniffing them. My stomach poked at me again, pain caused more from guilt over what I was planning than from hunger, but no one would hire a girl who kept fainting.

I swayed as I walked by and lightly shoved the woman into the mango bin. Mangoes wiggled and several rolled off the top of the yellow-orange stack. She cried out and grabbed the table edge, dropping her basket and the fruit on to the rough street stones.

“I’m so sorry!” I knelt and picked up her basket before it could roll over and dump the bread. Good stuff too, warm and wrapped in cinnamon-scented cloth. “Here you go. I hope it didn’t get dirty.”

She snatched the basket out of my hands. “Stupid ’Veg!” she swore. “Watch where you’re going.”

“I’m so sorry. You’re right, I should watch where I’m going. There’s no excuse for such clumsiness.” I tucked two mangoes into my pocket and handed her three others. “I think these are the last of them.”

She glanced at my non-black hair and scoffed. “Useless, all of you.”

“Fine day to you.” I dipped a bow.

She harrumphed and turned back to her shopping.

I waited a heartbeat, then two. No cries of alarm, no angry farmer racing after me to demand payment. I slid into the crowd, letting it take me downstream of the market district and into the tradesmen’s corner.

Knees quivering, I settled down in the grass under the big palm tree in front of Trivent’s Leathers, leaning against the trunk with my legs out straight. Madame Trivent didn’t care for folks resting under her tree, which is why it was usually vacant. Not much open space in Geveg was unoccupied any more.

I bit through the mango’s skin, sucked the juice up, ignoring the pinch in my stomach as I tried to gobble it up quicker than I could eat it. The first went down fast and I started on the second, slower this time.

I’d missed all the morning work, but there’d be more after lunch. The fishing boats returned mid-afternoon, so if I went now, I could get work unloading today’s catch. The Sunset Runner was on a good streak this week. They’d kept me almost two hours longer than any other loader on the docks the other day. Said I’d done a good job too.

I stopped mid-chew. The fancy man was back, watching me from behind a fence. Me, not Aylin. No good reason why any man would be watching me, unless he was from the League.

The League! That’s where I’d seen him, passing behind the Elder and the wards.

The mango soured in my mouth. A League man overhears that I can shift and starts following me? What if he was a Tracker? I hadn’t heard talk of any since their kidnapping spree during the war. Rumours said they tracked for us and the Duke, so the Healers they grabbed never knew which side they might wind up healing. Folks whispered about Trackers like they whispered about marsh spirits and the haunted barge wreck. Except Trackers were real.

Keep chewing. Don’t let on you’ve seen him. Too close to the marshes to risk another dip in a canal. Would he try to grab me in the open or—

“Shoo, girl!” Two more little words that always meant trouble for me. Madame Trivent thumped me on the head with her broom. The straw bristles stabbed behind my ears and yanked some hair out.

My mango dropped to the ground. I snatched it back and scrambled to my feet, ducking her wide swings. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Filthy ’Veg. Don’t you be bothering my customers.” She swept me down the walk like dust and shoved me into the street. “Don’t come back!”

Folks put extra steps between me and them as they passed. The soldiers didn’t like fuss, and trouble had a nasty way of sticking to other people like flung mud. Mama used to say the rock in the river never knows the misery of the rock in the sun, but I’d change places with that river rock. Under the water, the river rock had protection against a fancy League Tracker.

Who was now gone.

I turned a slow circle, but caught no glimpse of yellow and green silk behind bush, tree or corner. Hunger’ll play with your mind, but I didn’t think I’d imagined him.

I needed to be a river rock.

Slouching, I slipped into a wave of refugees who hadn’t seen me booted off and didn’t shy away. Home sounded like a good idea. If I stayed low, stayed quiet, maybe the fancy man would leave me alone.

Even a rock knew that was a foolish dream. Trackers didn’t let you go. They dragged you off in the middle of the night and no one ever saw you again. Made you heal the soldiers. Keep the rebellion alive. Fight the Duke. Chase him out of Geveg. Keep the pynvium in Geveg.

Hadn’t worked.

But I was useless to the League, and Geveg had no more soldiers to heal and fight. The League didn’t even know who I was. I rarely spoke to anyone there except Tali and she wouldn’t reveal me. How could—

I sucked in a breath. The north-gate guards. They knew me. They’d seen me run out earlier, scared as a scalded cat.

I ran the last block to Millie’s boarding house. It sat on the edge of Pond End Canal not far from where the chicken ranchers tossed their rubbish. The view wasn’t bad and the smell kept it cheap. I thumped up the creaky stairs to my room on the third floor.

My door was pegged shut.

Tears bubbled up a drop faster than the sobs. I was only a day late on my rent. Millie had never pegged me out for being a day late before.

“You have your board money?” Millie stood on the landing at the end of the hall, her skinny brown arms folded tight across her chest. The woman had ears to make a bat jealous.

“I will by this evening, I swear.”

She tossed her hands up and scoffed, then started back down the stairs. “I’ve got your gear. Come and get it before I sell it.”

“Millie, please, give me a few hours. I’ll pay soon as the boats come in.”

“I have three families wanting the room.”

“Please, I’m good for it, you know I am. I’ll pay double tomorrow.”

“Got folks willing to pay that now.” She shoved my clothes basket into my hands, then wiped her palms on her apron. White flour clouds puffed outward. “Go and stay with your sister in her fancy dorm room.”

Millie knew the League did bed checks. She rubbed my nose in it cos the League had turned her son away. Not enough talent, they said. Couldn’t heal a grazed knee. He’d even been turned away by the pain merchants, and Takers didn’t need much talent to work there. Some of the new swears I’d learned came to mind, but I stilled my tongue. Millie had the cheapest rooms. Throw me out today, take me in tomorrow, and she’d never think twice about either. She was also the only boarding house in Geveg that believed me when I said I was seventeen and old enough to rent.

I shuffled back to the street, my fingers gripping the basket filled with everything I owned. Two shirts, a skirt and three unmatched socks. I lifted my chin. Tears dripped off on to my hands. I had half a day to find work. Maybe I could untangle nets through the night. Barnikoff might let me sleep in his shed if I tidied it up. And there was always—

Breath died in my throat.

Saints save me, the fancy man was back.




Chapter Three (#ulink_6b312bfe-7e4c-5f02-a821-f97bab62b52f)


Strength left my legs and I flopped into the weeds beside Millie’s path. I sat cross-legged, basket in my lap, chin on the basket. The tears hadn’t stopped and they dripped tap tap tap on the wicker.

The fancy man kept watching. Watched me sit and cry. Open my basket and pull out a sock. Blow my nose on it. Put it back. Watched me watching him. He never moved. I’m not sure he even blinked.

Gave me shiverfeet.

“Nya?”

I yelped. So did the pigtailed girl I hadn’t noticed walk up beside me. A flock of bright waterbirds at the lake’s edge took flight, dozens of tiny wings flapping like sheets in a windstorm.

“Enzie!” I scolded. She’d shared a room with Tali for a while until a bed opened up in the wards’ area, the orphanage part of the League where they took in potential Healers. I’d never seen her without her League uniform on before. She looked more like a little girl with her brown hair bound in ribbons, and a simple grey shirt and trousers like mine. Hers were newer though and didn’t have patches on the knees and elbows. “For the love of Saint Saea, don’t sneak up on folks like that.”

“Sorry, Nya.” Enzie settled into the weeds beside me. “Tali asked me to give you a message.”

My chill returned. “Is she OK?” If she got into trouble because of me, I’d throw myself to the crocs right there.

Enzie nodded. “She wants you to meet her at the pretty circle at three. Under the tree.”

The flower gardens. Tali had called it “the pretty circle” when she was four. We’d had picnics there and sat on a soft blue blanket under the biggest fig tree I’d ever seen.

“What’s going on, Enzie?” Tali had never been sneaky before. She either spoke her mind clearly or didn’t speak it at all.

“I don’t know.” Her green eyes looked away and she sucked in her bottom lip.

“You can tell me.”

“I don’t know, honest. But I’m scared anyway.”

I leaned over and hugged her. Poor girl. She was only ten. She had talent, even if she couldn’t use it for two more years. It hummed in her like the thrum of a bridge when the soldiers marched over it. “It’s OK, Enzie.”

She sniffled and clung to me. I rubbed her back in small circles. The fancy man kept watching. I stared at him hard, putting a dare into it, though I couldn’t say what the challenge was.

Whatever he saw in it, he declined. He turned and walked away.

I hugged Enzie tighter, suddenly just as scared as she and not knowing why.

I walked the full three miles across Geveg to the gardens, on the opposite side of the island from Millie’s. Though the gardens were public property, they were inside the aristocrats’ district. Powdered women with pearls braided through their black, piled hair glared at me as I headed for the gates. Baseeri soldiers stood watch at all four entrances and kept out the folks aristocrats didn’t like seeing—which pretty much meant everyone who wasn’t from Baseer. They weren’t supposed to by law, and sometimes you could talk your way in if you looked clean and sharp and didn’t mumble your request, but nobody went in carrying a clothes basket. Squatters were not allowed under any circumstances.

I’d been inside three times with Tali since the war ended. She’d picked a lousy place for a secret meeting.

I dipped a sock into the lake and washed as best I could, then hid my basket under a leafy hibiscus bush not far from the eastern entrance. Clean? Somewhat. Sharp? Not at all. At least I didn’t mumble.

The soldier watched me walk up. I didn’t slow when I neared him, making it clear I planned to go inside and did so often.

“Pardon, miss.” He stepped forward and held his arm out across the path, looking a lot like some of the trees that grew inside. Tall, wide, brown, with a mess of gold on top. Unusual to see a blond Baseeri, but he did have the Baseeri nose and chin. Maybe he looked more like a bird than a tree. Or a bird in a tree.

“Yes?”

“Your business here?”

“I’m meeting my sister.”

He looked me over and reluctance flashed in his dark eyes. Kindness too, if I could make use of it.

“It’s her birthday.”

“I don’t think—”

“Our parents used to take us here every year for our birthdays.” The truth popped out on its own and I couldn’t stop talking. “We’d walk down from the terraces and if the wind was blowing just right, the whole bridge would be covered in pink flowers. They’d fall like rain and the air smelled so sweet it made your eyes water.” Mine were doing it now. I hadn’t thought about those birthday trips in years.

His stern expression wavered a little, then he dropped his arm and nodded. “Go on in. You tell your sister Good Birthday.”

“Thank you, I will.”

The gardens welcomed me back. The cool, green-tinted shade kept the rest of the city out and the air smelled exactly as I remembered. No carpet of flowers this time, but the grass looked thick as a rug and softer than any bed I’d slept in for a long time. Branches shook as monkeys chased each other through the treetops, whooping in high-pitched frenzy. I passed under arches of brown and the trees whispered in the way that always made me feel they had secrets to tell me. This time Tali was the one with something to say.

She waited on a red-veined marble bench under the big fig tree at the edge of the lake, a bright speck among the softer greens and browns.

“I got in, can you believe it?” I called. My smile was almost genuine.

“Oh, Nya.” She jumped off the bench and hugged me, her tears soaking the same shoulder Enzie’s had. I went cold. Had she been kicked out of the League?

“What’s wrong?”

“Vada’s gone.”

For a terrible, guilty instant, I was glad. Tali’s apprenticeship was still safe. Vada was her best friend at the League and too many of our recent visits had ended short with, Well, I have to go. Vada and I need to study…Wouldn’t bother me if Vada left the League, except I’d prefer it if it didn’t happen when apprentices were already missing. “Are you sure she didn’t go home for a few days?”

“She would have told me. We tell each other everything.”

Everything? “Did you tell her about me?”

“Of course not!” Tali wiped her eyes and dropped with a huff on to the bench. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Something’s wrong, I know it. She’s the fourth apprentice to vanish this week.”

Saints save us, it was happening again. But why would the League track and kidnap their own apprentices?

Tali twisted her skirt, her knuckles white as the fabric. “People are asking questions now. Four girls don’t just leave in the middle of the night and some of the boys say their friends are missing too. They’re even limiting the number of people to be healed because we’re so short-handed. The mentors tell us not to worry, but they act as if something’s wrong and they don’t want to tell us.”

My shiverfeet came back. Apprentices missing. Trackers following me. Verlatta under siege. Just like the war, only this time no cries of independence rang in the streets. Tali needed to be careful. We all needed to be careful if more than one Tracker was here. “Tali, there’s a—”

“I’m scared. I hear things from the first cords.” She leaned closer and cupped the side of her mouth with one hand. “They say the Slab sometimes turns Healers away. Like it doesn’t want their pain.”

“What? Tali, you can’t trust first cords. They’re barely older than I am. Listen, there’s—”

“But they’ve finished their apprenticeship. They know things.”

“They don’t know that much or they’d have earned more than one cord.”

“They’re also talking about you.”

“The first cords?” How many people knew about me? No wonder Trackers were on me like fish stink.

“No, the Elders. Not by name, but a rumour’s been running all day in the dorms about a girl who can shift pain. That chicken rancher came in for healing at first light and told a story too good to keep quiet. The Elders even asked me about you. Interrupted rounds to do it too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this first?”

“They were asking everyone, and they called you Merlaina, so why worry you over nothing? No one knows who you are but me.”

And the Tracker. Even if he had my name wrong, he knew my face—and now he knew Aylin’s.

A strong gust blew my curls around and Tali’s hair jingled. We looked up in unison and gazed out across the lake, so large we couldn’t see the other side. Blue-black storm clouds darkened the horizon, mirroring the jagged mountain range on the other side of the city. The same mountains that made Geveg rich in pynvium and a target for greedy men like the Duke. Several fishing boats were hauling anchor. Lakeside storms were the worst kind and we got our share every summer afternoon.

Tali handed me a roll and half a banana, wrapped in what looked like a page from one of her schoolbooks. “I smuggled this out for you at lunch. I’m sorry, it’s all I could get.”

“Thanks.” I gobbled the food, hoping it would make it easier for me to think. “What do the Elders want with me?”

“They didn’t say. I wanted to find out, but I was afraid they’d get suspicious if I asked questions.”

I swallowed the last of my bread. No butter or cinnamon, but still delicious. Shame there were no answers tucked inside like the special cookies we used to get on All Saints’ Day. “Tali, you need to be careful. There’s—”

“I know. They can’t find out about you. I was stupid to think the League wouldn’t care that you weren’t normal. They’d lock you up or send you to Baseer so the Duke can turn you into an assassin.”

“Wait.” I held up my hands, palms out. “What are you talking about?”

“This morning’s history class. Elder Beit was acting odd, telling weird stories, checking over his shoulder the whole time like he thought someone might come in. He said the Duke used to use Takers as assassins; that’s why it was important to report them right away if you found one. He said the Duke discovered a way to make them hurt people. I thought of you right away.” Her eyes grew bright. “Do you think there are others like you and that’s why he wants different Takers so bad? Maybe you’re not alone!”

Thunder rumbled soft and low and a fresh gust rustled the leaves. More like me? Saints, I hoped not, but if that were true, then the fancy man might be tracking all of us. “Tali, you didn’t ask anything in class that might make them suspect me, did you? Or say anything that hinted you knew someone like that?”

“Nya! You know I’d never do that.”

I chewed what was left of a thumbnail. Maybe the fancy man was a Baseeri spy. There’d always been spies in the city and they’d no doubt have some freedom about what they spied on. Just my luck he’d been there when those wards pointed me out.

How much danger was I in?

“Tali, a Tracker is following me.”

She gasped and looked around frantically. “Here? Now?”

“No, earlier today.” I grabbed her shoulders and the panic dimmed in her eyes. “He left when Enzie came.”

“He saw Enzie?”

“She wasn’t wearing her uniform and he was too far away to hear what she said. I don’t think he knows I came here.” Not for certain anyway, but I doubted I’d see him if he didn’t want me to. “Be very careful who you trust.”

“I will, I promise.” Tears blurred her eyes and left streaks on her cheeks.” Do you think he took Vada? And the others?”

“I don’t know.”

Tali hugged me, her head tucked between my shoulder and chin. “Like Trackers took Mama.”

No, she’d gone willingly, like Papa, to fight, but by the end of the war the Trackers hadn’t just grabbed unimportant Takers any more. They took Elders from the League, personal healers from the aristocrats—no Taker had been safe.

Honeysuckle and rain scented the air. In the empty space under the fig tree, I imagined a blue blanket held down against the wind by bowls of spiced potatoes and roasted perch, and Mama spooning out her special bean salad while Papa buttered the bread.

Another war. Another need for Takers. What about Takers who could do more than heal? If they came for me this time, would I wind up on the front lines healing or get stuck in the dark doing something far worse?

The storm drove the boats back in early. Wind-blown drops stung my cheeks and soaked my clothes. That didn’t keep me from the docks, and a chance to get my room back, any more than the fancy man who wanted to turn me into an assassin did. Sadly, the rain didn’t keep anyone else away either. Dozens of folks stood in line by every unloading berth, some with baskets in their arms. A few even had children clinging to their legs or cowering in their arms. No one complained when parents were chosen first, but more than one scowled. At least here a Tracker couldn’t snatch me without someone seeing. Whether they’d care or not was anyone’s guess.

The jobs filled up fast. By sunset only one boat was out, but at least forty people jostled each other to catch the berth foreman’s eye. I’d kicked the foreman once after he’d pinched me nowhere proper, so I walked away, shivering in the rain as the last of the sun’s warmth faded.

Where could I go? I retrieved my hidden basket and sat in the dry lee of the ferry office, half hidden behind a drooping hibiscus bush. On the lake, now empty fishing boats packed the canals leading to the docks, and two ferries with more people looking for work and rooms waited for the dock master’s signal to come in. One was an overloaded river ferry from Verlatta, its flag whipping around on its stern. The other was a small lake ferry that took folks from the docks to Coffee Isle, the largest of the farm islands. Every few seconds a sharp crack echoed across the lake as waves knocked the ferries into each other. The urge to scream “Go away!” at the refugees stuck in my throat. A lot of good screaming would do me.

A screech ripped across the lake and for a confused heartbeat I thought maybe I had screamed. I dropped my basket and it rolled into the rain, gaining speed down the sloped bank towards the lake’s edge. Thunder rumbled as I scrambled away from my dry spot under the awning. My feet slipped in the mud and I fell to my knees, but I caught the basket before it rolled into the water.

Another grinding squeal, like pigs gone to slaughter. The smaller ferry dipped hard to starboard, its side crushed against the bigger ferry. Muffled screams mingled with the splattering rain. The wind howled and another crack rang out.

I clutched my basket to my chest as a chunk of deck broke off and plunged into the churning waves. Crates followed. Lightning flashed, illuminating people falling into the water. Saints be merciful! I turned, scanning the shore, though I couldn’t say what I hoped to find. Rescue boats? Lifelines?

The crowds on the docks surged forward, but no one did more than gawk and point.

“Do something!” I shouted. Wind swallowed my words, not that anyone was listening anyway. The ferries chewed at each other. Passengers staggered across the decks, slipping on the wet wood. Waves and wind slammed the smaller ferry further under the water. It hit the channel lakewall and bounced off the canal marker. Waves sloshed against the walls, the ferries, the shore, getting higher and higher.

And still people did nothing.

Dropping my basket, I raced to the ferry office and banged on the door.

“Help! People need help out here!”

No one answered. Had they left already to do whatever they did in this situation? They had to have a plan; they just had to.

I raced along the bank back to the shoreline, slipping on grass and trampling reeds. Lightning lit the sky, silhouetting three people as they fell overboard and slipped into the black, swirling water. Before their heads reappeared, the ferry swung back, blocking the surface. Wood ground against rock. I tried not to picture bodies crushed between them, but I couldn’t think about anything else.

Off to my left, a smaller fishing boat crashed through the waves, fighting its way towards the sinking ferries. The crew struggled with oars never meant to propel the boat through such rough water. Waves hit the side and the boat listed heavily to port, and kept tilting. I held my breath, drawn a few steps closer as if I could pull the boat upright from the shore.

Wind ripped along the docks and the boat righted itself, but its angle said it had taken on too much water to stay afloat. Half the crew was already swimming, fighting against the current dragging them deeper into the lake. Swells chose victims randomly, lifting one man towards shore, sucking another under the darkness.

“Hang on!” I hollered, squishing through the reeds. Pale hands shot above the water beyond my reach and were swept away. Red flashed amid white foamy waves, but the bloody arms weren’t close enough to grab. Screaming. More screaming. So much screaming.

I had to get closer! Water swirled around my waist, tugging at my legs, trying to drag me out where the screams were. My heart made it further than my hands ever could.

A splash to my right.

I turned, searched the water. Orange flickered for an instant and I lunged for it. My fingers found softness and warmth, cloth and skin. Please, Saint Saea, let them be alive. I grabbed, held on with both hands and yanked.

A crewman rolled out of the waves, coughing and sputtering. So much blood on his forehead. A deep wound for sure, maybe even a brain bruise. I dragged him out of the water, through the reeds and up the bank. My hand covered the gash in his head and I drew, not a lot, but enough to close the wound and stop the bleeding. My head throbbed above my left eye.

Fishermen and dockhands appeared on the bank beside me, forming a chain with a thick rope wound around their middles. The largest man planted his feet in the muddy bank near where I had huddled behind the bush. I darted over and grabbed the rope a foot in front of him.

“Stay back.” He pushed me away and I nearly went down.

“I can help!”

“Help the injured.”

Burly men, their bodies thickened by hard labour, jostled me aside

and extended the chain out into the water. I moved away, scanning the shore for survivors, but the men hadn’t brought any back.

More flashes of colour and snippets of screams caught me. I ran down the bank, away from the men and their rope chain. Ferry passengers neared the shore, fighting to keep their heads above water.

I went back in, bits of wood and debris banging against my hips as wreckage started washing up. A dark shape loomed ahead and I lunged sideways, swallowing a mouthful of water. A crate swept by and slammed into a barrel behind me. Coughing water from my lungs, I found a woman whose arm would never bend again and dragged her to shore. My fingers were stiff as I pulled out a man who would limp. My heart went numb when I touched a boy too still, too cold to heal.

Rain fell harder, as if trying to flatten the waves so we could save more, but it hindered more than helped. A horrible snap, louder than the thunder, caused heads to turn. The smaller ferry broke in half and disappeared under the water. Seconds later the larger ferry ground itself over the wreckage. The hull cracked; wood tore away from beams. People clinging to rails toppled to the angled deck and slid into the lake.

I kept going, pulling them out, dragging them in.

Even after the screams stopped and the crying began.

I walked slowly, achingly, unsure where my own hurts began and the ones I’d taken ended. League Healers were rushing past me with stretchers slung between them, splashing through puddles and muddying their uniforms. Most were apprentices and low cords. I looked for Tali, but didn’t see her. My basket had disappeared. Stolen, kicked away, I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. I had nothing left but pain.

Tali would be busy tonight and exhausted tomorrow. With so many injured, the Slab might even fill before the night ended. Did they keep extras for emergencies? Two haybale-sized pynvium Slabs was more wealth than I could imagine, but would even that be enough for so much pain?

Music and laughter drew me to Aylin’s show house, but she wasn’t there. Happy, dry faces shone through the windows, oblivious to the suffering at the docks. The blacksmith was closed, but heat radiated off the chimney at the back. I stood against it under a roof that kept most of the rain off me.

“I have nowhere to go.” The words slipped out, startling me. Could I go to the League? Maybe they’d take my pain before realising I couldn’t pay for it. Or at least give me a dry place to sleep. I pressed closer against the bricks. Foolish thoughts. If I went to the League, those wards or even the Elder might see me. Too big a risk just to stay dry for one night.

I watched for Aylin, but she never appeared, not even when the rain stopped and the moon came out. So I walked. Almost dry, I listened to cicadas and music. Tomorrow I’d go to the pain merchants. I had pain to sell, lots of it. If they sensed what I was, I could run. I was getting good at it.

And if they told the League?

Then I’d run faster. Or let them catch me and force them to tell me why they were following—

Hands shot out and dragged me into the darkness between the buildings. One hand clamped over my mouth while an arm wrapped around my chest and pinned my arms at my sides.

“Don’t scream.”

I couldn’t think of doing anything else.




Chapter Four (#ulink_7027ea2e-6f59-5c74-bcb9-f6ece4d9d4ce)


“Don’t hurt me,” a low voice said matter-of-factly, as if he knew me and what I could do to him. He sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite match a face to the voice. Then hesitantly he added, “And I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

My fingers couldn’t reach his arm, but they tingled, ready to push every hurt into him the moment I could get my hands on his skin. Yet his fear seemed real and no one had ever been afraid of me before.

“I just want to talk.” He took his hand off my mouth, but kept the other arm tight around me.

I was too angry now to scream, but indignant I could manage. “What do you want?”

“I need your help. If I let you go, promise not to run? Or hurt me?” His tone sounded desperate.

“Yes.”

He dropped me like a live snake. I spun around, fingers splayed as if I could flash the pain out like an enchanted pynvium weapon. A handsome boy stared at me nervously, even sheepishly, and in the moonlight he almost looked like…

“You’re that night guard!”

He nodded and smiled. A real smile this time, and I didn’t see a rapier anywhere. “I’m Danello. I’m really sorry—”

“Why did you grab me like that?”

“I was afraid you’d run, thinking I’d want to arrest you again.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “What do you want?”

“I need you to heal my da.”

Every inch of my sore body flared in protest. I couldn’t hold any more pain, not even a blister. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You healed me, twice.”

No, just once. The other was a shift I never should have done. Mama’s terrified face flashed across my mind. Don’t ever put pain into someone again, Nya. It’s bad, very bad. Promise me you won’t do it. I’d tried so hard to keep that promise.

“Go to the League. They probably have every Healer on duty tonight.”

“We can’t afford the League.”

“Then go to the pain merchants.” If his da’s injuries were obvious, they’d probably be OK. Hard to pretend to heal a broken leg. Trouble came when they only half healed it. One of the fruit vendors couldn’t walk again after he went to a merchant and they healed him wrong.

“I did; they turned us away. They’re turning everyone away.”

That left me mute. The ferry accident should have been harvest day for them. No one would argue over the pittance they’d offer with family members bleeding and broken. People might even be willing to pay them, and they’d make money off the healing and selling the pain-filled trinkets later. With so many refugees around, pynvium security rods were in higher demand than usual. You thought twice about climbing through a window if the sill might flash pain at you.

“They can’t all be turning folks away,” I said. “Did you try the ones by the docks?”

“I tried all five in town. Three were even charging, not paying, but by the time I got there they said no more heals.”

Not good at all. If they were turning everyone away they’d also turn me away, and this time I had plenty of pain to sell.

Danello took a hesitant step closer. “Please, my da was on the ferry. He’s seriously hurt, a broken arm and leg, maybe a rib or two. He can’t work and he’ll lose his job.”

I couldn’t do it. I already carried too much pain and who knew when Tali would be able to take it from me. “What about you? Can you pay your rent if he can’t work?”

“Heclar let me go.” He didn’t say it was my fault, but I heard it anyway.

I glanced away. “Well, you can work in your da’s place till he’s well. Most foremen’ll let you do that.”

“I can’t. My da’s a master coffee roaster and I don’t have the training. You can bet someone from Verlatta does though. If my da can’t work, the landlord’ll peg us out. My little brothers have just turned ten. My sister’s only eight.”

Too young to be tossed out on the street, even with Danello to look after them if their father died. And he could if the merchants weren’t buying. Some old soldiers could set bone, but I’d never heard of one who did it well. Danello might be able to find one of the herb sellers from the marshlands, but you couldn’t trust the powders and poultices they sold. Better to risk an untrained pain merchant Taker than that. Even if the Taker missed an injury, they’d probably heal most of it. My throat tightened and I coughed to clear it. “I don’t have any pynvium.”

“But you don’t need it! You healed me and gave my pain to Heclar. You can do the same for my da.”

“Who’s going to take his pain after? You?”

He nodded. Actually nodded! “Yes.”

Even if it wasn’t a crazy idea it wouldn’t be enough. Not if his da had that many broken bones. “Taken pain doesn’t heal like a natural injury does. It doesn’t belong to you so it just stays in your body. Once you take it, you need a trained Healer to get rid of it.”

“I can manage it until the merchants are buying again.”

“No you can’t. You’d hurt bad as he does now. Don’t you need to work too?” Even master roasters didn’t make enough to support a whole family. Not many jobs in Geveg did—at least, not the ones Gevegians could get.

“Then we’ll all take some, me and my brothers and sister. It’ll be OK if we spread it around like that, won’t it?”

“It’ll be awful.” My stomach soured at the thought. “I can’t do that to them.”

Pleading, Danello grabbed my shoulders. “You have to. We don’t have anywhere else to go for healing. We don’t have much, but we can pay. A little food, a place to stay for a few days if you need it.” He looked me over then smiled, an odd mix of hope and pity in his eyes. “Looks like you could use that.”

More than he knew.

“I can’t,” I said. “I was there, at the ferry. I…I pulled folks out. I…” Wanted to cry. Wanted to run. Wanted to say yes and sleep somewhere dry. Shame settled on me like a damp chill. Hundreds had died tonight. Was I really thinking about hurting children for a bed? If I could consider that, I might as well work for the pain merchants, trading on misery for my own comfort.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

He stepped back a pace and looked at me, critically this time, reaching out and lifting one aching arm, then the other. Noticing every time I winced and bit my lip. “How much did you take?”

“More than I should have.”

I’d seen despair before, but it never looked as bad as it did on Danello’s face. I could get used to seeing that face too. Shame we kept meeting in the dark, twisted up in our own problems. “What if we also took that pain?”

“No. You don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.” I folded my arms again, trying to keep what little warmth—and self-respect—I had left. Without my terror keeping me alert, exhaustion tugged at my sleeves. I needed to find a place to sleep; preferably somewhere that didn’t ask me to give pain to children. “I’m sorry, I really am. I hope—”

“Give me some, right now.”

“What?”

“Pain. Let me see what’s it like, then I’ll decide.”

“You’re insane.”

He held out a hand. “Just do it.”

No, not insane. Desperate. Willing to do anything to save his da and his little brothers and sister. Would I do anything less crazy to save Tali if she were in trouble?

If I showed him what it felt like, he’d change his mind. I checked the alley and the street. A few folks were chatting outside the taproom, but no one was close. I took his hand and pushed.

He cried out and his hand flew to his left temple. Groaning, he pulled his fingers away and stared at them, a surprised look on his face. “I expected blood.”

“There was a lot on the man I took that from.”

Danello inhaled, blew out slowly, nodded. “OK, give me another.”

“No!”

“You need—I don’t know, room—to hold more pain if you’re going to help my da.”

The boy was crazy as a guinea hen. The pain should have ended it. Should have made him realise what a stupid idea this was and not something you did to children, no matter how desperate you were. Refusing was the right thing to do. I took his arm, prepared to take back the headache.

Memories made me pause. I was ten when we were orphaned, Tali seven. The orphanage had taken us in, but kicked us out when I turned twelve cos I was old enough to work and they needed the beds for the younger ones. Tali was scared, wanting to go home and barely understanding why we couldn’t. Danello’s siblings wouldn’t be considered orphans, not with him old enough to care for them. They wouldn’t even get a chance at a real bed or a hot meal. All four would be out on the street soon as their rent came due. Sweet as Danello was, he sure as spit didn’t know how to live like a river rat.

He’d have to learn fast or they’d all die. He’d have to become the kind of person who would consider shifting pain to children to sleep in a bed. He’d have to become me.

I gave him more pain. A little in the arm, the leg, a twinge in the shoulder. Nothing in the hands or back. Nothing that might keep him from working.

Danello closed in on himself, sucking in his breath and falling back against the wet wood of the building behind him. “It feels different from getting hurt.”

“The body has defences for injuries, but it doesn’t recognise another’s pain the same way.”

“Oh.” Another deep breath and he stood straight, defiant. If I didn’t know pain, I wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with him. Crazy, yes, but he had iron in his bones for sure.

“Better?” I asked.

“Yes. How do you feel?”

“Sore, but not bad.” At least on the outside. Inside? Like maggots on a dead crocodile.

“Good enough for my da?”

“I think so.” Unless he was dying. If so, I wasn’t good enough to do anything but steal his kindness the way Tali and I stole heals. And, Saints save me, I wasn’t sure which was worse.

Danello lived in one of the better boarding houses on Market-Dock Canal, in a neighbourhood I could only dream of affording. His family had three rooms to themselves—two bedrooms attached to a small kitchen and dining area. Though a woman’s touch still showed, it had been a long time since it showed strong. Two dying plants—possibly coriander—sat on a shelf near the window, holding back faded and singed curtains bunched on one side. A rack of worn copper pots hung above a small stove, its skinny pipe chimney snaking up the side wall. They did have a view, though it was only a grassy corner of the market square. I spotted two people huddled under a bush, a ratty blanket tucked around them. I looked away.

“Did you find her?” a boy called, running out of the room on the left. “Oh, I guess you did.” His mouth wiggled as if he was unsure whether to be happy I was there or scared that I had come.

“Nya, this is Jovan. The other two are with our da.”

Not knowing what else to do, I waved, and the smaller version of Danello waved back. Same rich brown eyes, same pale hair, same determined yet sad set to the chin.

“Da’s unconscious now,” Jovan said in the measured tone of someone trying very hard to sound grown-up. Saints, he was so young. Too young to carry pain that wasn’t his. “Do we need to wake him?”

My stomach twisted, but I shook my head. “Don’t wake him. I can do it while he’s asleep.”

We moved into the back bedroom, small but cosy. Paintings of flowers hung on the walls, some painted on wood, others on squares of cotton. By the bed, Jovan’s twin brother sat on a yellow stool, his unhappy face pale and tight. Their little sister sat on the floor at his feet. Her blonde head rested on his knee and her arms were wrapped around his shin. Neither looked up.

“That’s Bahari, and Halima there on the floor.”

I backed away. No bed was worth this. I wasn’t healing, I was deciding who suffered. Saints did that, not me. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. So can they.” Danello squeezed my hand, pulled me forward. “What do we do?”

“Change your mind. Find a pain merchant who’s buying and drag him here by his hair if you have to. Just please don’t make me do this.”

He took both my hands, held them tight. They were warm and for one irrational moment I felt safe. “What do we do?” he asked again.

What we had to, even if we didn’t like it. Hadn’t I always wanted to be a Healer? It might not be what Tali did, but I could help them. The shift was only for a few days, until the pain merchants were buying again. It wasn’t as if I were permanently hurting them. I gulped down air and reluctantly pulled my hands away.

“Nothing yet.” I whispered. “I have to see how badly he’s hurt first.”

His da’s forearm bent the wrong way, so that was broken for sure. The thigh was bloody and gouged, but the leg was straight. I glanced at Jovan and my stomach rolled. Just think about their father. I went to the opposite side of the bed and placed my hand on his forehead. Cold, wet strands of the same pale hair as his children’s stuck to my fingers.

Tali’s voice echoed in my head. She’d been teaching me what they taught her, claiming it was in case the League ever let me in one day, but I wasn’t so sure of that. I figured it was just her way of making it up to me cos she got accepted and I couldn’t.

I took a deep breath. Feel your way through the body, to the injury. My hand tingled as I felt my way through blood and bone. Broken arm, as expected. Three broken ribs. Torn muscle on the leg, but not broken. Cuts and bruises all over, but he’d heal that on his own.

“It’s not as bad as you thought.” I explained his injuries as best I could without scaring the little ones. Bahari already looked ready to bolt.

“I’ll take the arm and leg,” Danello said as if ordering dinner. “They can each take a rib. That won’t be too bad, will it?”

Spoken like someone who’d never had a broken rib.

“It’ll hurt to breathe deeply. Bending and stretching will be hard.” Three sets of brown eyes went wide. I almost smiled, but figured my grin would scare them more than the pain. “No rough play till the pain merchants are buying again.”

Bahari jumped up, his fists clenched at his sides. “I don’t want to do this.”

“We have to. It’s for Da,” Jovan snapped back.

“I’ll”—he looked around the room—“do something else to help. Go to the herb sellers.”

“Bahari!” Danello gasped. “Half the time they sell you poisons. I’m not risking Da’s life like that.”

I shuffled back against the wall. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this either, and I didn’t want to shift anything to Bahari if he didn’t want it.

“It’ll hurt,” he said.

“Yes, but you can handle it for a few days.”

“But—”

“Do it, Hari,” Jovan said in a voice too old for such a small boy. “Da’s never let us down and we’re not letting him down now.”

Bahari didn’t agree, but he didn’t say no again either.

“Fine, then it’s settled. Me first.” Danello dragged over a chair from under the window and sat down, grabbing the arms tight.

“Danello…”

“Do it.”

Just set the arm, heal the pain and sleep in a dry bed tonight. Gritting my teeth, I tugged on the broken arm and drew. I swallowed my gasp and tugged harder as the bone knitted, setting the arm back straight. My eyes watered, blurring the already spinning room.

“I’m right here, Nya.” Danello took my hand. The other was entwined in his da’s fingers.

I gathered the pain like Tali taught me, held it in a tight ball churning in my guts. “I’m OK. Are you ready?”

He leaned back, grip tight on the chair again, and nodded.

I pushed, a little at a time, letting him take some in and make peace with it before another shaft of pain sliced through him. My hands burned to my elbows, especially on one side. Danello shook, his skin white as mist. His breath came in short gasps at first, then lengthened.

I slid to the floor, my back against the bed.

“Danello, are you OK?” Jovan tentatively reached out a hand and cupped his brother’s shoulder. No one asked how I was, but Bahari glared at me.

“I’m fine.” Danello puffed out a breath and grinned. Pain tightened the corners of his eyes, but he hid it well. “Now the leg.”

I gave him half. Who knew how long he’d have to carry it? I’d never carried pain for more than two days and by then I’d been good and glad to be rid of it.

Jovan stepped forward, hands clenched at his sides. “I’m next.” His determined face challenged me to say no.

If only I could.

“It’ll be sudden,” I warned, “and sharp. Breathe through it and squeeze something. That helps.”

I drew quickly, moved slowly, the needle stabs along my belly hot but not unbearable. I kept a little. Maybe he’d be OK with what was left.

Jovan yelped as I gave him his da’s pain, but sucked in his bottom lip, hissing as he inhaled.

“Shallow breaths, Jovi,” Danello cautioned.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Jovan said as I let him go. He wiped his sweaty forehead and grinned at his brother. “I bet you cry.”

Bahari slid his glare to his brother, but he stepped forward anyway and grabbed the bedpost. He nodded sharply at me, like I’d seen the boxers do when the Fair came to town. “Do it fast.”

“Are you sure?” I whispered.

His eyes softened a little and he nodded. “Yeah. It’s only for a few days, right?”

“Right.” I kept a lot of his. He didn’t cry, but he came close. He also didn’t yelp or make a single sound beyond the same teeth-gritting hiss Jovan had made. Bahari shot a smug grin at his brother. “I did it.”

“The bravest twins in Geveg,” Danello said, ruffling their hair.

Halima stepped forward, a handmade doll clutched in her arms. “I’m brave too!”

“I’ll take hers,” said Jovan. Bahari looked as if he wanted to argue, but kept his lips tight together.

Halima pouted, glaring at them. “I can do it myself.”

“No you can’t.”

“It’s too hard,” added Bahari.

“Yes I can! You never let me do anything!”

“Halima,” said Danello softly, a shaking hand on her hair. “They’re right. It’s too hard.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I wanna help Da too.”

“Your brothers will need you to take care of them,” I said. I could handle another rib. It’d be a rough night, but I’d have a bed and Tali could take it all tomorrow first thing. I could even come back after and get the rest. Stealing a few heals was better than hurting folks, and worth risking a trip or two back to the League. “Do you think you can run the house for a while?”

“Uh-huh.” She sniffled, wiping her nose with the arm of her shirt. “I’ll take good care of us.”

“Danello, I can—”

“No,” he said. “I know you kept some pain. Our deal was we take that from you too. You can’t heal well if you’re hurting.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t know if that were true or not.

“We can share it,” Jovan said quickly, giving me that stare again. “Don’t tell us we can’t. She’s not your sister.”

I glanced at Danello and he nodded. “OK, who’s first?” Jovan stepped up and dragged Bahari forward.

“Together?” he asked, clasping hands. Bahari looked at his sister and nodded.

I drew the last rib from their da, then placed a hand on each of their hearts. Under the pain, a faint hum like the one I’d felt in Enzie ran through them.

They were Takers!

Weak though, probably not even strong enough to work for the merchants or I would have sensed it when I first touched them. I glanced at their hands, gripped so tightly ten knuckles shone bright white. Linked twins. Did their talent grow stronger when they were linked? I’d never heard of that before, but then I’d never heard of a shifter until I first did it, and neither had Mama. They probably didn’t know what they could do yet. Couldn’t know or they’d try to take more pain from their father. Jovan would anyway.

Danello touched my shoulder. “Nya? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Just that his brothers were now at risk from fancy Trackers and the Duke’s new war. Most Takers started sensing pain at ten and were ready to start taking it by twelve. But with the siege on Verlatta, the Duke would need more Healers. He’d lost a lot of them fighting us, and he’d have no problem stealing children to conquer yet another city that didn’t want his rule. Just like he’d stolen from Sorille to conquer us.

“Are you sure? You look funny.”

I didn’t have to tell them. If no one knew, they weren’t in any danger. Even if someone checked them, they wouldn’t sense it unless the twins were linked. “I’m fine, really.” I turned to the twins, trying not to let Danello see my lie. “You two ready?”

They nodded, faces white as their da’s.

Neither made a sound this time, their eyes and cheeks bulging as they held back even the hiss. The lines of their da’s face had smoothed and he adjusted a little in his sleep. The twins settled down on the floor, gingerly prodding their middles. Halima watched them like they might suddenly turn inside out.

“When do you think our da will wake up?” Danello asked.

“Not till morning. He’ll be stiff and sore for a while, and probably mad as marshflies when he finds out what you did.”

“He’ll understand. Come on, I owe you supper.”

My stomach growled and he laughed sheepishly.

Equal parts hunger and guilt twisting my guts, I followed him back into the kitchen. I hid my slight limp. He didn’t hide his and also kept one arm tight against his chest. He wouldn’t be chasing any chicken thieves for a while.

“Danello, let me help you with that.” Ribs throbbing, I reached for the coffee pot shaking in his hands. He jerked it away and winced. What a pair we made.

“No, I’ve got it. Least I can do is make you supper. We owe you so much more than we can give. Thank you for this.” He smiled and my cheeks warmed faster than the pot.

“Are those fishcakes?”

He loaded up a plate for me, then set the pot to boil. About halfway through my fish I realised my gobbling looked a lot like a hyena with a fresh carcass.

“Um, sorry.”

“It’s OK.” He chuckled and poured us both coffee. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Don’t eat for three days,” I mumbled around a mouthful of fish. “You’d be surprised how fast you can shovel it in. You don’t even need to breathe.”

“No, I mean the pain, but that’s impressive too.”

I shrugged. “It’s only healing.”

“It’s more than that. I hurt so much I don’t want to move, but you seem fine.”

I kept my eyes on my fishcakes. “I’m used to it I guess. Or Takers have a naturally high pain threshold. I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

“Well, you’re really good at it.”

“Good at it?” I looked up in time to catch his grimace.

Danello looked away fast and fiddled with the edge of his plate. He was really cute all shy like that. Even cuter than he was in the moonlight.

“You know what I mean,” he mumbled.

“Hmm,” I said, suddenly aware of my dirty hands, damp clothes and a smell I prayed wasn’t me.

He stayed quiet for a long time, slipping glances at me and looking away again. I kept eating, fighting the urge to smooth my hair and trying not to think about how much it was frizzing. When the weather was this humid, my curls puffed like a frayed rope.

Finally he said, “Are your parents Takers?”

I chewed the fish a few chews longer than it needed and swallowed. “My mother was. Grannyma too.”

He nodded. “So it’s just you and your da now?”

“Sister. Just me and my sister.”

An understanding pause. “Did she work at the League? Your mother I mean.”

“Since she was twelve, same as my grannyma. My father was an enchanter. He worked the forges mostly and prepared the pynvium to absorb pain. His great-grandfather staked the first pynvium mine found in Geveg.”

Danello’s shoulders slumped like he’d heard bad news. “You’re an aristocrat.”

It surprised me that still mattered. It used to, back when Geveg was wealthy and there had been a lot of aristocrats. You didn’t see fishermen or farmers invited on to the Terraces. Such distinctions vanished when the war came. All had gone to fight when needed, even aristocrats. They weren’t like the Baseeri nobles, who paid others to die for them.

“Not since the Duke took it all away.” I gulped my coffee and singed the back of my throat. “After the Duke arrested Grannyma, his soldiers barged into our home like it was theirs, tossed Tali and me out like rubbish. Didn’t even let us get our clothes, our toys, memories of our parents. Didn’t care that we had nowhere to go. Is there more coffee?”

He stared at me, mouth half open, then nodded. “Yeah, let me get it.” He poured it, got me another fishcake and started slicing a pear. “My parents worked at the university, but they weren’t full professors or anything high-pay. My ma taught fencing and military history, my da philosophy. She was killed before the war ended. Da says it was stupid for her to fight when everyone knew we’d lose, but she did it anyway.”

He set the plate of fruit down between us and eased into his chair. “They kicked us out too.”

We didn’t talk much after that. Nice really, sitting with someone who understood and could just be. Halima came in and cleared the table, then made me a bed by the window. She fussed over it like any good hostess. Even asked me if I needed an extra blanket. Jovan’s brows rose a little and he glanced at his bed, so I declined.

“Goodnight,” the children said as they shuffled into their room. The door thumped shut behind them.

Danello stared at me, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. Foolish as it was, I kept worrying about my patched knees and mismatched socks. He didn’t seem to notice though, and he had his share of patches.

“How did you find out you were, you know, different?” he asked.

I hesitated, but he knew the truth already. “It was just before the war ended. I was ten, and my little sister and I were helping Mama and Grannyma treat the wounded at the League. Tali was running when she shouldn’t have and tripped over a sword. Sliced her calf open bad. I saw all the blood, heard her crying and I just grabbed her leg. I wanted it to stop, you know?” I shivered. “I’m not even sure what I did, but suddenly my calf hurt and she was fine.”

“You healed her without any training?” Danello’s eyes widened. “At ten?”

“Yeah. Mama always thought we’d both be Takers—it runs in families—but she kept quiet about it. She was afraid they’d take us away. She was always telling me, �Don’t try to heal, don’t touch the Elders, don’t get too close to the Trackers.’ I was so scared I’d done something wrong by healing Tali, I tried to put her pain back. And I did.”

That had scared Mama a lot worse than me healing had. I could still remember the terror on her face when Tali ran up, pointing to her calf that didn’t have a scratch on it and crying that it hurt funny. Mama had grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to never, ever do it again. Then she hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe, made me swear




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