then you’d best act like it. Steal what you please when you’re not mumming as a Crow. But if you’re going to keep rolling our fortune-bones over something slight as an empty gut, I’d rather turn around right here and go try my luck with the Floating Fortress.”
Tavin raised an eyebrow. “There are shorter ways to say ‘I don’t want a dumpling.’”
“How about ‘don’t steal, bastard boy’?” she shot back. “Is ‘steal again and I’m out’ too many words for you?”
His grin faded. “No, chief.”
She gave a stiff nod. And then she swiped two dumplings. “Rule number two: don’t waste food.”
Prince Jasimir had the decency to look faintly disapproving as he also took two.
Before Fie could take a bite, she caught splinters of torchlight on steel in the corner of her eye. A pair of Hawks strolled down through the market, spears tipped against their shoulders.
She shoved her thieved dumplings into her bag and jabbed an elbow at Tavin. He blinked up around a mouthful and sighed, resigned. “It’s that sort of day, isn’t it?”
He stuffed the second dumpling into his mouth and led them away from the road, into the great swells of grass-studded sand betwixt them and the bay. Fie couldn’t say how long they stumbled through the dunes, sharp seagrass whipping at her legs, only that the walls of Cheparok had shrunk too far and yet not enough by the time they stopped.
“Here.” Weariness sapped the expected lilt from Tavin’s voice as he gestured to a copse of squat sandpines at the edge of the beach. “This is … this is good.”
Jasimir didn’t say anything, just staggered to a patch of seagrass and dropped. Fie cast a last look behind her, then found her own sandy hassock and allowed her legs to give out. The hilt of Pa’s sword jabbed into her ribs until she laid it aside.
Then, finally, she pulled the dumplings from her bag and took a bite.
Pa should have salted it for her first, as a Crow chief did.
Pa wasn’t there.
The pastry dough was dry, the maize and tripe gooey. It glued to the inside of her mouth and stuck there as she chewed, a thick wad that hurt as she gulped it down. A faint snore said Jasimir had already fallen asleep.
Through the bottlebrushes of sandpine needles, she saw the pale streak of sand, a gray blur of ocean, and, too far away, the unyielding walls of Cheparok.
The next bite was harder to chew, harder to swallow.
A faraway part of her wished for a drink of water. Then the absurdity hit. She’d had plenty of water today, from the gentry’s freshest reservoir to the canals of Third Market. She’d just been drowning at the time, was all.
A bubble of broken laughter turned to a shuddering cough, then a sob, and then Fie curled in on herself as she drowned again, this time in salt and fire running from her eyes, from her nose, from her mouth.
She wanted a campfire, she wanted a kettle of stew, she wanted Madcap’s jests and Swain’s nebbish sneer and Wretch’s scoffs. She wanted walking songs and salt. She wanted Pa’s voice.
She wanted her damned cat.
Fingers brushed her quaking shoulder, then vanished, a misstep corrected. Sand shifted at her right as someone sat.
“I’m sorry,” Tavin said.
Part of her shriveled with shame at weeping like this before him. The rest was too raw and furious to give a damn.
“I’m sorry about my cousin in the market,” he continued. “I’m sorry about my … about the Hawks, how they treated—how—how we treat you. And I’m sorry for making you keep the oath. I didn’t—I don’t—” His voice hitched, and he cut himself off a moment. “Rhusana gave the Crows over to the Oleanders, but Jas and I brought your family into this mess ourselves. I’m so sorry.”
She wanted to hit him. She wanted him to stay. She wanted him to be speaking true.
But the weeping didn’t go away. Neither did he.
The words spilled out like her tears, burning, unstoppable. “I hate it. I hate how, how we’re always the ones who have to keep our mouths shut and take it and keep doing our job, because we’re Crows. You can kick us around anytime because we all know if we kick back, you’ll just put on some white powder, call yourselves Oleanders, and cut every one of us down.”
She couldn’t stop.
“And even if you don’t, you just look the other way, and when they’re done you say we provoked them, we