twisted in his seat to face her and the prince. Tavin climbed up into the wagon bed a moment later, prompting a disgruntled mew from Barf as she peered out from behind a sack of rice. The other Crows gathered round.
“Hold up a moment.” Pa cast his gaze about and waited until a band of Owl sojourn-scholars had passed down the flatway. “All right, here’s the pinch: they’ll have Vulture witches at the gate.”
“Why?” Prince Jasimir frowned.
“Checking for witches, mostly unregistered ones from the countryside. That’d be no trouble, but…”
“They’ll spot me for a Hawk witch,” Tavin finished. “One who’s supposed to be dead. So how do we get past?”
“Can’t hide you in the wagon. Odds are we’ll be searched.” Pa continued even as Prince Jasimir tilted his head at that. “We burned our only Sparrow witch-tooth on the Oleanders. We can sneak you through with two plain Sparrow teeth … but the Vultures will pick up on any spell I’m casting when they test my witch-sign. So that leaves Fie.”
Fie’s stomach dropped. “What?”
When, not if.
“It’s time.” Pa held out a fistful of Sparrow teeth. “How’s that practice?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN
“Step in the footprints.”
“What?” the prince whispered to Fie’s left.
“Don’t make new footprints. Step in Hangdog’s prints. Or Swain’s.”
“Good thinking.” Tavin’s voice drifted too close behind her.
Hair stood on the back of Fie’s neck. She ignored it, focusing on the Sparrow tooth in each fist. One burned already, humming steady with her bones. The other waited yet for her call.
Fie picked her way through Wretch’s tracks behind the wagon as they headed for where the flatway split five ways. Each path led to a gate in Cheparok’s sturdy walls, just like those on the eastern side of the Fan River. Blue-green roof tiles flashed just behind the city walls, crowning towers that flew the banner of the Floating Fortress. The lord-governor’s palace had earned its name by squatting direct over the Fan and the reservoir it filled.
At least, that’s what she’d been told. From this side of the walls, all she got was fancy roofs and bright flags. She’d have her chance to see it up close soon enough.
A trio of Hawk guards sat at the root of the branching roads, rolling gambling shells and sweating in the brutal sun. The one with a corporal’s copper armband eyed the Crows, spat, and jerked his thumb over a shoulder. “Fifth gate.”
He didn’t look up from the shells even once as Fie and the lordlings passed.
Each gate before them sat lower than the last, dropping from east to west like a stair. The first gate was meant for Phoenixes, and it stood empty save for its guards. The polish on their armor glittered nigh as bright as the green tassels on their spears, and just as eye-catching even from hundreds of paces off. Less flashy Hawks milled in and out of the second gate, stepping around Splendid Caste palanquins festooned in fringe and bead. That gate yawned the largest, its arch stretched high for visiting mammoth riders, though the heat made no such accommodation for the beasts. The third gate bustled with Hunting Castes, from melon-orange open carriages of Crane magistrates to the tiered lavender wagons of proud Owl scholars.
The fourth gate rambled even more chaotic, strewn with Common Castes. Sparrow farmers waited with strings of goats and cattle; Pigeons had set up shop at the roadside with their goods spread about the ground, peddling anything from clay luck charms to meat that Fie judged extremely untrustworthy. A few Gull sailors wandered from vendor to vendor, some haggling with Sparrows for livestock.
The line for the fourth gate was long, but it crept along with a slow, steady order. The same could not be said for the fifth gate. The muddy road sloped down, down, down, to the lowest point in Cheparok’s walls. There the fifth gate gapped, teeming with beggars, bloodflies, and the brands of Common-Caste convicts. It hadn’t a line so much as a mass that slid down the hill and pooled at the gate, some trickling through, others turned away to plead sanctuary elsewhere. The mud itself gave off a damp reek, one part ox dung, one part plant decay, and one part a musk Fie didn’t care to speculate on.
Her Sparrow tooth held as they waited their turn, humming patient in her mind. The second one stayed buried in her sweating fist until, bit by bit, they trudged down to the bottom of the hill.