was soaked through with rot and rainwater, but there were still some parts white enough to catch the sunlight. Catch the eye.
Ayla could not stop glancing over, and every time she did, she felt the gut-punch of what had happened to Luna all over again. And now, days later, the reminder rippled through the other humans like the dress itself rippled in the summer wind. No one even knew what Luna had done. Why the sovereign’s guards had killed her.
Ayla continued on her way through the marketplace. She usually worked in the orchards at Sovereign Hesod’s palace, sowing seeds and collecting bushels of ripe apples, but one of the other servants was practically delirious with fever and Ayla had been ordered to fill in. For the past week she’d joined the group of exhausted servants who left their beds halfway through the night, just so they could make it to the closest village, Kalla-den—a good four leagues of treacherous, rocky shoreline from the palace—and set up their wares by dawn. It would’ve been miserable no matter what, but being greeted in the marketplace by Luna’s empty dress made it all the worse. It was like a ghost. Like a pale fish in dark water, flickering at the edges of Ayla’s vision.
Ayla had worked in some capacity at the sovereign’s palace for the past four years. And it had been months since she’d finally made it out of the stables and into the orchard-tending rotation. Some days she was so close to the white stone walls of the palace that she could smell the burning hearth fires within, taste the smoke on her tongue. And yet . . . she still hadn’t managed to get inside.
Nothing mattered until she got inside. And she’d vowed to do so to exact her revenge—even if it killed her.
But now Ayla stared out at the marketplace, at the crowd of sleek, beautiful Automae—leeches—and tried to keep the hatred and disgust off her face. Nobody bought flowers from a girl who looked like she’d rather be selling poison.
“Flowers!” she called out, trying to keep her voice light. It was almost sunset, almost time to give up for the day, but there were still far too many unsold garlands in her basket. “We’ve got seaflowers, apple blossoms, the prettiest salt lavender up and down the coast!”
Not a single leech glanced in her direction. The Kalla-den Market was a kingdom’s worth of chaos stuffed into an area the size of a barn, and it was so noisy you could hear it from half a league away. The marketplace was vendors’ stalls shoved up against each other three deep, their carts and baskets overflowing with candied fruits, pastries, fresh-caught fish, oysters that smelled like death even under the weak autumn sun. It was leeches huddled around baskets of heartstone dust, dipping the tips of their fingers into the powdery red grains, bringing them to their lips to test the quality. It was whole chickens or goat legs rotating on spits, roasting slowly, smoke filling the air till Ayla’s eyes watered; it was wine and apple cider and piles of colorful spices; it was a crush of grimy, skeletal, desperate humans hawking their wares to an endless stream of Automae.
And of course, the rows and rows of Hesod’s prized sun apples, gleaming like so many red jewels—nearly as crimson and bright as heartstone itself.
But the majority of the Automae seemed to treat the market like one of those traveling menageries—Step right up, folks. Gawk for free. Look at the humans. Look at the flesh-and-bone animals. Point and stare, why don’t you. Watch ’em sweat and squeal like pigs.
The only good thing about the market was Benjy. She looked over at him as she called out Flowers! again. He was the closest thing to a friend that Ayla would allow herself. She’d known him since she was twelve years old and haunted, hollowed by grief. In the thick of it, still.
Unlike Ayla, Benjy was used to the madness of Kalla-den. He even seemed to thrive in it, his brown eyes bright and sparkling, the sun bringing out the freckles on his brown cheeks. The first day Ayla had joined him here in the market, he’d nearly taken some eyes out while pointing at all the exciting things he wanted Ayla to see—colorful glass baubles, mechanical insects with windup wings, twists of sugared bread shaped like animals. On the second day, Benjy showed Ayla the secret underbelly of the market: Made objects.