marketplace is starting to feel cramped. I’m picking up something in the air. It’s hidden beneath the mounds of smoke and spices. I decide it’s the perfume tent and the throngs of people we pass. “How do we find the way to the oracle?”
Kurt, who’s rarely at a loss for words, stands with his mouth open. “Uh—”
“Look at these!” Layla runs over to a stand with pots and tubes full of colorful smoke called Fazya’s Wish Come True.
Kurt calls out after her—all “Stay together”—but the woman has Layla hooked. The vendor is tall with a wild mane of curls. Her eyes are rimmed black against rich coffee skin.
“Come, my darling,” she says. Her voice is as soft as the smoke in one of those jars. “Come to Fazya.”
I pick one up and give it a shake. The smoke spins in a coil of blood red.
“Tut, tut.” The vendor pries it from my hands. “Mustn’t touch.”
“What in the seas are these?” Kurt demands, not hiding his disgust.
“They’re wishes, of course. What your heart desires.” She sweeps her long, elegant hands over her display—every color of the rainbow and jars in all shapes and sizes. “True love granted. Hair longer than Rapunzel herself. Sight in the darkness. Flight to the heavens. Power in the palm of your hands. Loved ones returned from the dead—”
Thalia’s hand reaches out toward the jar, the vendor’s eyes becoming dark saucers as she does so. She has a hunger that reminds me of Nieve—taunting, searching, waiting.
I take Thalia’s hand and jerk it back, breaking whatever trance was beginning. The jar topples over and cracks with a steam-engine hiss. Fazya’s eyes become red as embers. When she opens her full mouth to hiss at me, a black tongue slithers out, while her hips sashay from side to side. Her sultry voice is replaced by a very flat Brooklyn accent. “Ya break it. Ya bought it.”
Gwen claps. “Good show, Tristan.”
Kurt throws Fazya a gold coin and leads us farther into the market. He gives me a look that screams, “You should know better.” The thing is, I don’t. I’ve never been in a place like this. I might as well be at my dad’s office being reminded not to touch anything.
“We shouldn’t engage with those people. Our goal is to get underground,” Kurt says.
Gwen stops walking. The traffic of people weaves around her. Her head is cocked to the side, waiting for an explanation. “Those people?”
Kurt huffs and puffs. “Dark magic. Sorcery. You know very well what I mean, Lady Gwenivere. It’s dangerous. It consumes the soul, the magic. That’s what happened to the silver witch. Her power grew bigger than herself. That woman,” he points a finger at a still fuming Fazya, “uses false wishes to take advantage of others. Those are the people I mean.”
“How would you know any of it?” Gwen asks. “Read it in a book? When you get to be my age, you’ll learn to tell the difference, Kurtomathetis of the Guard.”
“And just how old are you?” Kurt crosses his arms, puffing out his chest until he towers over her. “Other than being promised to the former herald of the East, we knew so very little about you at court.”
Gwen raises her hands slowly. Maybe she’ll try to choke him. Maybe she’ll blast him with her magic fingers. As much as I’d love to watch, I know I can’t.
“Guys, come on. That’s enough.” I step directly between them, facing Gwen. I take her slender wrists in my hands and she brings down her guard. I can feel Kurt’s hot breath on my back so I turn to face him. “Are you forgetting that you’re on the same side?”
Deep in my heart, I know that’s not true. Gwen made it clear to me the night we were on our way to Shelly. She considers herself to be her own team, like a lone wolf. The way Kurt’s been treating her, I can see why. They step away from each other, and Gwen takes a step behind me to be shielded from them.
“I apologize,” he says dismissively. “Let’s resume our search.”
“Not that I’m doubting you, Kurt,” Layla says, “but do we even know what we’re looking for? A magic cupboard? Enchanted armoire? Fancy-looking glass?”
“Whatever would we do with that?” He looks down at the ground and the smooth cobblestone steps beneath his feet. “We have to get beneath. The underwater entrance is sealed. There has to be a passage somewhere here.”
“Is there a sewer?” Layla suggests.