and they made their grumbling way back to the palace.
Rillen went to his chamber, watched the ships as they sailed into harbor for the reception, all the greediest, richest traders wanting to jostle for position with his father and his new mages. Those traders now preening along the avenue in their best, their wives dripping with jewels, showing off what they had. So much wealth, all in one place. His father a weakling blustering toad just waiting to be squashed, good with trade but not much else, and soon a rack to blame it all on when he made his plans come alive.
* * *
Van Gast sauntered into a drift-inn in Estovan’s delta, a shanty shack held together with driftwood and hope. The delta wasn’t a place for the faint of heart, but that had never been his problem. Outside the forbidding walls, the city spread out among the islands, some more permanent than others. The alleys became little more than twisted muddy paths crowded either side with buildings. The guards didn’t like it down here, where they couldn’t see farther ahead than three steps, where every window might hide a rack and his pistol.
The farther out into the delta you went, the more rickety everything became. Buildings only held up by their neighbors, water-raptors that became impatient for a meal to fall into one of the brackish waterways and waited around a corner for drunkards. Sucking patches of sand to grab the unwary, vast reeking banks of blister-kelp along the seaward shores that might do the same to those foolhardy or brave enough to try to harvest the bladders. All of it moving, shifting with sea and tide, sometimes slow, sometimes alarmingly quick. You couldn’t be sure the same building would be there two days running, but you could be sure of some things.
In the delta, anything went and everything was for sale, which meant that every third person was a racketeer. It was just their sort of place, and Forn’s bells chimed over the noise of traders, hawkers, hucksters, gamblers, lovers, tumbles, prostitutes and drunks.
Van Gast took his time looking around, nodding to one or two racks he knew. The thrill of danger, of the thought they might just turn him in, fizzed his blood. The inn still looked the same—splintered wood bled to gray by salt and wind, scraps of glass for windows held in place by string, nails and spit. Not an inn for staying in, unless you were poor or desperate. An inn for drinking, gambling and fighting in, not to mention finding your tumble for the night. An inn for meeting Josie in, the last time he’d been here. He was hoping he’d find her here again, or at least word of her.
The taproom was thick with fug and the heady smoke of rend-nut, but it didn’t take him long to see her. A head of white-blond hair flickered between the darker mainlanders. Unmistakable. She had her back to him and he strolled over, hoping he looked more nonchalant than he felt. She wanted him to catch her, he was sure of it. Van Gast stroked the hilt of the glass dagger through his shirt, safely tucked away. Catch me if you dare, she’d said. Yes, she’d given him every sign.
The chatter of the inn died as he walked up behind her. Everyone knew their hatred, that they’d take any and every opportunity to try to kill each other or, if that wasn’t possible, con each other hard enough to bleed. Everyone knew, and they were wrong, dead wrong, or had been. Maybe now it was no longer a show on her part. The air stilled, even the rend-nut smoke stopped swirling as everyone waited for the fight, the one that would surely end it now, after she’d stolen Van Gast’s ship and sailed it here, the one place he was wanted more than any other.
The large bulk of Skrymir sat to one side of her with a wide grin plastered over his face. Skrymir, last seen at the helm of Van Gast’s ship as Josie stole it, was a big, muscled Gan, the only other fair hair in the place, maybe even in Estovan. Fair hair was rare here, where everyone was dark of skin and hair and eye. He’d taken on with Josie’s crew because he was Gan and he’d oathed and that was what they did, for the good of their soul. Van Gast didn’t hold it against him and they