As a group, they were beautiful.

  The woman at the table wore even less than anyone else, a loin cloth that barely preserved her modesty, an opaque scarf wrapped over her breasts, one ear pierced with a multitude of silver earrings, and a crownlike piece woven into her cornrow braids. Her lips and eyelids were blackened with powder, and her tattoos were highlighted with a sprinkling of silver dust.

  I noticed right away that her skin was much paler than that of those around her, a light creamy brown. She seemed to be of a slightly more voluptuous build. Her eyes were gray, and against the dark contrast of the eye makeup, looked almost silvery.

  As she smiled and flirted with every member of her audience, her delicate hands moved three identical half shells over the surface of the table, dropping and picking them up again with smooth sweeps, a steady stream of indiscernible patter falling from her painted lips. A young man stepped up to her table, dropping some coins upon it, and chose one of the shells with a tap of his finger. The woman lifted the shell, revealing nothing underneath. She pouted at him sympathetically, and scooped up his money.

  Some things, it seemed, were universal.

  I couldn’t understand the next words out of her mouth—raising Karish’s fear of a different vocabulary once more—but the gesture was an unmistakable invitation for someone else to step up.

  No one did, though, for they’d found something else to hold their attention. That something else being us. They let us know this by freezing in place and starring at us. A few whispers reached our ears.

  I was not impressed. They’d seen Northerners before. I knew trades people, at least, had been down there. What was there to gawk at?

  Other than Karish. He had that effect on people, sometimes.

  The woman at the table was not well pleased. “Eh!” she called to us. The rest of what she said was unintelligible to me.

  There’s no polite way to tell someone you didn’t have a clue what they’d just said.

  But she ascertained that all on her own, clever girl. “Go or play,” she ordered with more clarity.

  I nodded and stepped away.

  But my choice, it appeared, didn’t please her either. “Challenge!” she said. She gestured at the shells imperiously.

  “We have no coins.”

  I jerked back from the old woman next to me who appeared to be trying to touch my hair.

  The woman at the table tugged on her earlobe.

  Karish removed the gold hoop from his ear. “You do it, Lee. You’ll catch it.”

  “I don’t play these kinds of games.” Didn’t gamble at all, really, unless you included playing cards with Karish. And as I always won, that wasn’t really gambling.

  “If you don’t do it, they’ll either think we’re cowards or that we think too highly of ourselves to participate. Either way, not a good first impression to be making.” He made his way through the small crowd and placed his earring on the table. “Besides, we can use the money to buy your shirt back, if you’re so keen on it. Come on. Do your thing.”

  I wouldn’t need money to get my shirt back, but I saw no harm in complying. Karish loved to wager on things. And I wouldn’t lose. Not that it would matter if I did. He had other earrings and could get more easily enough.

  I stepped through the crowd, trying not to invade other people’s space, a waste of effort as they had no compunctions about invading mine. I felt strange hands stroking my hair and brushing my skin. It was a most disquieting experience.

  When I reached the table, I nodded at the woman to let her know she could begin. She did so, smoothly shifting the shells about while reeling off a practiced patter of words. I found that I could understand the odd word, perhaps one in five, and it was no doubt a matter of accent rather than language that was causing my lack of comprehension.

  The woman stopped her shuffling and indicated that I could choose.

  I did, lifting the shell myself and revealing the small brown ball underneath.

  There was delighted laughter and applause behind me. With a triumphant chuckle, Karish scooped up his earring and slid it back into his ear.

  The gamester was not impressed, of course. Her smile dropped off and she glared at me as she dropped a trio of coins on the table. “Again,” she announced.

  I shouldn’t do it again. I had an advantage she was perhaps not aware of. It was hard to fool a Shield—a good Shield—with sleight of hand. It was part of our role to be particularly aware of what the object of our attention was doing. This was her livelihood, and the lack of sleeves on her person suggested she might be honest in pursuing it. It wasn’t fair to meddle with that.

  The woman raised her eyebrows in mockery. “Afraid?”

  Good Zaire, she was trying to provoke me. How ludicrous. “Certainly not.”

  “Then play again.”

  I could decipher those words easily enough. And if she wanted it that badly…“All right, then.”

  This time there was no pretty verbal patter as she manipulated the shells. She was faster. Instead of keeping the three shells in a single straight line she moved and placed them all over the small table top, and I noticed her hands flowing in a different pattern. That didn’t mean that when I chose my shell and picked it up, the brown ball wasn’t under it.

  More applause from the spectators. Karish curled an arm around my waist and kissed my temple like it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen me do. The woman dug into a sack lying by her feet on the ground and pulled out three more shells, identical to the ones already on the table. She then pulled out more coins, six of them, and looked at me.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” I muttered. “What am I supposed to do with all of these?”

  “Give them to me,” Karish said.

  “What do you need them for?”

  “To buy my way into a card game.”

  “You don’t know that they play cards here.”

  “Everyone plays cards everywhere.”

  Well, all right, then. I nodded at the gamester. She nodded back.

  Her hands moved incredibly swiftly, and with the additional shells it was much more difficult to follow the ball. Had the gamester been the sort to cheat she probably would have beaten me. But she didn’t cheat and difficult didn’t mean impossible. When I chose my shell I was awarded with another nice little pile of coins, and I was a hero among the spectators.

  “You’ve bested me,” the gamester said. She took the extra shells from the table and put them back into her bag.

  I guessed the challenge was over. I took the coins and Karish’s hand, depositing the former into the latter. “Gamble them away in good health.”

  He looked offended. “Hardly away,” he objected. “I don’t lose.”

  “Except to me,” I reminded him with a smirk.

  “Aye, no point in breaking a trend.”

  I frowned, trying to decipher that.

  “Hey!” The gamester waved both hands at us. “Go, go, go! I—”

  I couldn’t clearly understand the rest of what she said, but hey, I could catch a hint with the best of them.

  We moved on. Unfortunately, for both the gamester and us, nearly half the crowd moved on with us. I ended up with a lot of people touching my hair. And yes, it was red, a freakish color even at home, but couldn’t they just look at it?

  We soon came across a contortionist. In a costume more paint than cloth, the young woman stood—sort of—on her hands. A fixed smile on her face, her back was bent nearly in half to allow her feet and shins to dangle over her shoulders. Looking at her made my spine hurt.

  “Can you do that?” Karish asked.

  I looked at him with disbelief. “Can you?”

  As before, however, the performer lost a good part of her audience once they became aware of us. And again with the hair touching. Here was this woman turning herself inside out for their entertainment and they would rather stare at me. Didn’t I feel like a freak? “Let’s move on.” I didn’t want to detract from the profits of the performers.

  So we moved on. To the jugglers. Gorgeous young men dressed in mere strips of red cloth hurling long shiny knives at each other. Drummers and tumblers. Tightrope walking and trapeze artists, a snake charmer and some kind of fortune-teller.

  At each location, the spectators seemed more interested in us than in the performances. I was used to a certain amount of attention due to being a Shield. This was different, more invasive. It was definitely time to get off the street.

  I had to ask to be pointed to a boarding house. Which, I discovered, was called a bunker. At least I was getting used to the accent, and if I listened carefully enough, I could understand what was being said.

  The bunker was only two stories high, which was as high as any building I had seen so far. Two vertical flaps of cloth, pretty but insubstantial, served as a door. We ducked under and were yelled at before we’d moved more than a few feet past the door.

  “Please,” a man cried quickly, shuffling out from another room. “Kindly remove your, er, sandals.”

  We looked at our feet, and then at the neat collection of sandals piled on the step just inside the door. “We’re very sorry,” I said. We hastily pulled off our boots and added them to the collection. They looked out of place, not to mention ugly, next to the dainty beaded sandals.

  “Thank you, madam, sir. You need a room?”

  It was difficult to see whether this was a place in which we’d want to stay. I could see nothing but walls, bare walls of dull yellow wood, the foyer nothing but the small square in which Karish and I stood, a narrow hall crossing before us. It smelled clean, though, and it was quiet.

  “Do you have two rooms available?”

  He nodded. “Three grays for each room. That includes nightly bath and morning fruit.”

  “Ah.” They really must have had next to no exposure to Sources and Shields. It made sense, as they didn’t seem to produce any. “I am Shield Mallorough. This is Source Karish.” I stressed the titles and waited for him to realize his mistake.

  He nodded and beamed a smile. “Please call me Vikor. May your sun rise high.”

  Did that mean he’d understood? “You are aware that Sources and Shields do not pay for goods and services?”

  His smile didn’t dim a jot as he said, “Everyone pays.”

  “Uh, actually, no, Sources and Shields don’t pay. It’s the law.”

  He frowned then, but in puzzlement, not irritation. “There is no such law.”

  “It is the Empress’s law.”

  The response was a blank stare.

  “Empress Constia.” That apparently didn’t ring any bells for him. “In Erstwhile.”

  “Ah,” he said. “The Northern Empress.”

  “The only empress. Her laws are valid here, too.”

  He tsked, but sympathetically. As if he pitied me. “She makes no roads here.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “She makes no roads. No schools. No tribunals. She sends no Runners here, no teachers or healers or surveyors. Or even”—a gesture in our direction—“your sort. She digs no ditches, builds no canals. So”—he smiled—“she makes no laws.”

  I stared at him, a horrible suspicion forming in my mind. “What?” was my most articulate interrogation.

  “We have our speakers and our members and our own laws. And by our laws, everyone pays.”

  And here was panic, making another visit. “So Sources and Shields are expected to…to pay for accommodation and food and clothing and everything?”

  “Why should you not?” And he looked honestly be-mused, as though my expectations truly were bizarre.

  Breathe. In. Out. “Because we risk our lives protecting people and their property from natural disasters and don’t get paid for it.” That sounded good. Firm. In control. Completely nonhysterical.

  “Not here,” he responded. Pleasantly, as he had throughout this upsetting little episode. So calm and reasonable I just wanted to reach out and smack him.

  Was this how I made Karish feel?

  “All right. Is there another bunker in this area?”

  “No. But if there were, you would have to pay there, too.”

  “No one feels the need to follow the law here?” I asked coolly.

  “That is the law here. Everyone pays.”

  “This can’t be.” It couldn’t be. Surely, surely everyone didn’t expect us to pay for things. That was just ridiculous. And the Empress, she wouldn’t have sent us here if we were expected to pay our way.

  Sources and Shields did not pay for goods and services. That was the law.

  And a hell of a lot of good that would do us if no one cared to obey it, and there was no one there to enforce it. I hadn’t seen anyone that looked like a Runner yet.

  What were we going to do?

  It wasn’t like that all over the island, was it? It couldn’t be.

  I looked up at Karish, who was looking a little panicked himself. He dug out the coins I had given him earlier. What had appeared so numerous before now seemed pathetic and thin.

  Oh gods. Oh Zaire. Oh hell. Stuck in this foreign place that expected us to pay for things, and we had no money. And no means of making any. And no way of getting back home. And, oh god, we were so nailed.

  Breathe breathe breathe.

  “Relax,” the hatefully pleasant Vikor assured us. “It can’t be too hard for two healthy young people like yourselves to find work.”

  “Work?” Karish demanded incredulously.

  Vikor chuckled. Chuckled! “Kai. Work. What, are you feeble?”

  No. Just useless.

  “We are members of the Triple S!” Karish hissed. “We don’t work!”

  “Then I’m afraid you’re going to starve.” There was just a touch of sharpness to his voice, then, as though he were losing patience with us.

  That was always a sign it was time to leave. “Thank you for your assistance,” I said, trying not to sound as terrified as I felt. “We have to talk about this. We might be back.”

  He didn’t appear to be relieved to be getting rid of us. I had to give him a lot of points for that. His gesture was half nod, half bow, and he wished us luck.

  With no hope at all, we walked the curving stone streets of the village. After making a few inquiries we learned that there were, indeed, no other boarding houses. And that people expected us to pay for things. We went to merchant after merchant, and all of them, with varying degrees of patience and amusement, pointed out that they didn’t care who or what we were, everyone paid.

  We were in so much trouble.

  I couldn’t believe it. How could this happen? How could we end up in a place where our skills were worthless? Why did no one warn us?

  Maybe that was why the Empress had sent us, of all people, on this ridiculous mission of hers. Cheap labor. She wouldn’t have to pay us, or pay our way. Only that had blown up in our faces. Mine and Karish’s. Her Imperial Majesty was safe and comfortable and well fed in her palace in Erstwhile. Probably had a new pretty boy to decorate her court. Probably had forgotten all about us. Damn damn damn, what were we going to do?

  We found a place to sit on the ground away from any of the performances sprinkled throughout the village. We didn’t want an audience while we panicked.

  And I was panicking. I had that roiling in my stomach, that sour taste in my mouth. My breath was coming short and sharp. Hell.

  “We don’t have nearly enough, Lee,” Karish was telling me, flipping the coins over in his palm. “These coins are different from the ones back home, but I’m not sure we’ve got enough even for one night at that bunker.”

  Nightmare. A total nightmare.

  “I’ve got a few earrings on me,” he said. “I wish I’d kept my ring.” When I’d first met Karish, he’d worn a family ring. He’d removed it after abjuring his family’s title, in order to continue working as a Source.

  I wished he’d kept it, too. I wished I’d cultivated the habit of wearing jewelry myself. I had nothing of value. Except, apparently, my shirts, and I had only a couple more of them on me.

  What were we going to do?

  That stupid, ignorant, careless bitch. How dare she do this to us? When we got back, if we got back, I was going to throw a tantrum worthy of Her Imperial Majesty Empress Constia herself.

  All right. Breathe.

  “Damn, it’s hot,” Karish muttered, pulling his collar from his skin.

  There was nothing for it. We’d just have to find work of some kind. Lie to get a job and learn the skills after, if necessary. I didn’t like that idea, and it might jerk back to smack us in the face, but I didn’t know what else to do. We needed a place to sleep and food to eat. And really, it couldn’t be impossible to find work. Thousands of people found work without having any real skills. Surely, we could as well.

  Chapter Five

  It so happened that we did have enough currency to spend a single night at Vikor’s bunker, provided we shared one room. We even had a couple of coins left over, but we were too afraid to spend them. I was starving. Karish wasn’t hungry, due to his difficult voyage, but he should have eaten something. We didn’t have the money for a meal.

  We had spent a terrifying and futile evening looking for work. It was obvious to everyone that we didn’t have the first clue how to go about it. When asked what I could do, I listed my pitiful collection of non–Triple S related skills. People were shaking their heads before the words were half out of my mouth. Later, when asked what I could do, I asked what they needed doing. No one liked that response.

  Everyone was very kind, of course. All very sympathetic and pleasant as they told me they had no use for me. Some of them referred me to their neighbors, naming names, and I wondered if the so named went back to the namees and visited upon them some physical retribution. But in the end, as the sun slid out of the sky, I met up with Karish and had any faint hopes destroyed when he said he’d had no more luck than I.