focus on the prospect of being caught out as a healer, though she knew that was not her greatest obstacle. Testing aside, passage required coin, and if she had to remain in the city she would require the same. She needed to sell her ring so that she’d be prepared for either circumstance.
* * *
Selling a ring, unfortunately, proved to be a far greater challenge than she’d anticipated.
No one in the city was buying luxury goods. No one was willing to even trade for it, recognizing instinctively what she hadn’t—that it was worth too much to be easily sold for currency. After hours of trying and failing, Lydia found a wall to lean against and slid down until she was seated at its base.
“Blast it all,” she said, staring at the black grime caked under her lacquered toenails.
“Listen all, and listen well!” A shrill voice reached her ears, demanding her attention. A young boy with tawny brown skin and a wild mop of dark curls stood on the edge of a public fountain, a small crowd gathered around him. “The sun sets tonight at half past the ninth hour. Those who linger on the streets past twilight do so at their own risk. For those who have no home of their own, the Crown offers shelter in all four quadrants of the city.”
“They’re filthy and filled with vermin and plague,” someone shouted.
The boy shrugged one shoulder. “If you’d rather risk the deimos than bed down with a few fleas, be my guest. I merely tell it as it has been told to me.”
The crowd grumbled, but before any more comments were made the boy held up one hand to silence the noise. “Before you lot go making any rash decisions, let me tell you a tale that came to my ears this very morning. There were two casualties last night. Two!” he shouted. “A sorry fellow who dared to tarry on the streets after dark fell victim to the deimos. The creatures stripped the flesh from his body and gnawed his bones until all that remained was the echo of his screams on the wind.”
Lydia raised one eyebrow at the boy’s dramatics, only then catching sight of two women dressed in elaborate gowns and fur-trimmed cloaks who’d stopped to watch the proceedings. Both of them wore them their hair up in elaborate coifs, and though their faces were a blur, Lydia caught a glint of jewels on their ears. An idea formed in her mind.
The boy continued. “There was a second death.” He paused for a long moment, surveying his audience before shouting, “The death of a deimos!”
The crowd gasped, many leaning closer to the boy, but Lydia immediately abandoned her plan in favor of retreat. She knew this story, and if the boy described her well enough she’d be recognized.
“A man,” he stage-whispered. “A lone man, caught out past sunset. He walks swiftly, keeping to the shadows even as the skies fill with the shrieks of deimos on the hunt.”
Lydia eased around a woman, stepping over the children sitting at her feet.
“He reaches the door to his home—safety! The sweetest nectar to be had in the dark of night. The door handle is in his grasp, but he hesitates.”
“Idiot,” the woman muttered, meeting Lydia’s gaze.
“Clearly,” she replied, stepping over another pair of children.
“Help! Help! Help!” The boy jumped from foot to foot, shouting in falsetto. Lydia’s heart sped faster.
“He hears a crone’s voice split the air, begging for salvation from death on wings!”
Crone’s voice? Lydia froze in her tracks, turning back to the performance.
“With no regard for his own safety, he sprints through the streets, finding the crone hemmed in by a deimos. A lesser man would run, but not this warrior. Not Lord Killian Calorian.”
The crowd stirred, but the boy ignored them, climbing to the top of the fountain, heedless of the spray. “He attacks, but not even the sharpest steel can pierce the creature’s hide, so he tears a door from a home with his bare hands, pummeling the creature until it flees. But more descend, circling, teeth snapping and wings flapping, so he leaps onto the back of the leader, riding it through the streets with the others on his heels.”
“What?” Lydia muttered.
“He herds them toward the gate, but the cowards on guard only hide behind the steel bars, watching on as he fights five, no, ten! deimos, never faltering despite the injuries they inflict upon him. One by one, he drives them off, until only