CHAPTER 28: SHELL GAMES

  They wandered together with no destination in mind. For once in Elias’s fleet-footed life, it was the meandering journey that mattered most. If anything charted their path past the myriad plazas and taverns and brothels the Garden District was best known for, it was the pull of conversation, leading them to the river’s edge where the crowd thinned and the water’s quiet welcomed them as it did all who found themselves in need of it.

  “The town I grew up in had a river not so unlike this one,” Elias said as they seated themselves on a solitary stone bench, the occasional lost soul stumbling past them along the winding riverwalk. “Well, the river was similar. There was less… stuff.”

  “Acreton, you mean,” she replied.

  “You actually remembered.”

  “How could I forget a name like Acreton?”

  Elias chuckled and, for a few seconds, stared up at the stars, which were a little brighter here than they were in Sailor’s Rise—but nothing like home. His gaze fell back to the blocky horizon. The newer neighborhoods across the wide river were smaller and dimmer than the old city behind them, though they were still more sprawling than any settlement in Sapphire’s Reach. So far from home he had come, even farther than before.

  “This wine actually isn’t terrible.” Abigail peered into her half-empty goblet with a look of mildly surprised satisfaction. “Better than I expected, anyway.”

  “I thought Azir was known for having excellent wine,” Elias mentioned.

  “Oh, sure, but not all of it. Not most of it. It’s like anything, really. Adelbury has great theater. It also has plenty of terrible theater. Anyway, this is better than I expected for tavern wine—that’s all I’m saying.”

  Elias smirked, finally spotting a rare flaw in the young woman he had constructed into a perfect specimen. “You’re a snob,” he said teasingly.

  “I am not a snob,” she shot back. “I merely appreciate quality, and one cannot appreciate quality without also recognizing mediocrity. And what is your favorite kind of wine, might I ask? What do they drink in Acreton?”

  He shook his head. “Red.”

  Abigail shook hers and laughed.

  The quiet of the river returned as Elias said, “Earlier, when we were talking about your family, you said they don’t really listen to you. Not even your mother?”

  “Especially not her,” Abigail confirmed.

  Elias reflected on his own upbringing. “That sounds infuriating.”

  “Infuriating is an apt word for it,” she said. “I was born with everything, and yet I feel as though my whole life has already been plotted out before me. What is a relic really worth without choice?”

  “I’m the opposite,” he mused after a moment. “I was born with nothing, but I have no idea where my life will go from here. No one who expects anything of me. No one but my own pride and the ghost of my mother.” It was nothing he did not already know, but saying it aloud felt like a minor revelation.

  “Sounds nice.”

  “It can be. And it can also be stressful. We’re always an inch away from losing it all.”

  “I think I would take that trade,” she said.

  “Then why don’t you?” he asked.

  “Because it sounds far easier than it truly is.”

  Elias was not sure he understood that part. There were too many missing pieces in that statement, pieces someone who had experienced a different childhood might have been able to fit together, and so he let the babbling river fill those gaps for him. Elias too often assumed that, deep down, all clever individuals were like him: raring to break free of life’s shackles, no matter the consequences, no matter the damage, no matter who might feel betrayed or abandoned. Was that a product of his own background or his personality? Was that the man he was raised to be? Or left to be.

  “Perhaps I can do you a small favor,” Abigail said. “Perhaps I can keep you from sinking for another day.”

  Elias was all ears.

  “The sultan is nigh impenetrable,” she went on, “but I’ve witnessed for myself one crack in that fortress of a man. He has a particular fondness for cats.”

  “Cats.” He chewed on the word, a smile forcing itself across his face.

  “He has a few dozen of them at least, and he knows all of their names.”

  “I did see a cat in the palace,” Elias recalled. “I’m not sure yet how I’ll use this information, but thank you for the tip. I will find a way, even if I must get down on all fours. We need every advantage we can get. I just hope your brother doesn’t whisper something unscrupulous about us into the sultan’s ear.”

  “My brother doesn’t have the sultan’s ear—no one does, really, save his cats—and even if he did, try explaining to a head of state that you lost your airship to a few crafty teenagers because you didn’t want to pay your taxes.” Abigail found the punchline of it all just as funny the second time around. “No. You won that round, Elias, but you’re not entirely wrong either. One day, Edric will bite back. He’s petty like that.”

  “It sounds like you really love your family,” he said.

  “Loving them doesn’t mean I must like them,” she pointed out. “I have an aunt I’m quite fond of, I’ll have you know. Enough about the bonds that keep me imprisoned. Tell me about your family.”

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  “There’s not much to tell,” Elias said. “My father was a sailor who died at sea when I was young, so my memories of him are fuzzy. He feels more like a story than a person. It was my mother who raised me. The gray fever took her when I was fifteen, and I’ve been on my own ever since. She was the perfect mother, though. She kept us afloat, whatever it took, and somehow even paid for my education until the day she couldn’t. She’s why I can read and write, why I was able to start a business, why I can dream my stupid dreams. I wouldn’t even be here if not for—” He had told this story many times before, or some version of it, so why now did it catch in his throat?

  “Sounds like there’s quite a bit to tell, after all,” Abigail said. “I’m sorry for your loss, Elias. I can’t imagine.”

  “I had friends in Acreton.” He found his voice again. “Friends are sort of like family. Their names were Melo and Ginger. They were there for me through it all, and then I sort of just disappeared on them—as soon as I could muster the coin. Now I have Bertrand and Briley. The Fairweathers invite me over for family dinners, but I’m not sure that makes me an honorary Fairweather. I don’t know if I love them as you love your family, but I definitely like them.” He paused. “I kind of like you too.”

  Abigail tensed her cheeks but could not contain the tight grin that revealed itself anyway. “You barely know me,” she said. “Perhaps we should head back. Your real friends are probably wondering where you went with their wine.”

  Elias beckoned her to lead on as they stood up from their stone bench. He had also somewhat lost his sense of direction, having not paid their journey any mind, too enraptured by its company. They eventually made their way back through a familiar plaza a few blocks from the tavern when Elias stopped them for a moment.

  “What is it?” Abigail asked.

  He nodded toward a scrawny, bearded man with a large, beaded necklace, standing along the side of the road behind a small table, waving over any drunken passerby with whom he happened to make eye contact. When he saw that Elias was staring at him, he waved them over too.

  “You look like a man with a sharp eye,” he yelled across the street. “Why not show off for your lady friend and make a little coin. Only one relic to play.”

  Elias did have a rather sharp eye, if not a lady friend. He exchanged an amused glance with Abigail and shrugged.

  “You seriously want to waste money on a shell game?” she inquired. “Not exactly making a strong case for your business acumen.”

  “What’s one relic?” he asked—besides a day’s work in a not-too-distant past life.

  “It’s your coin,” she said.

  And so he walked over, Abigail following two paces behind, arms crossed. Elias retrieved his coin purse and a single, shining relic, placing it down on the table between them. On the smooth wooden surface were the split halves of three walnut shells. The bearded man lifted them up one at a time, revealing a single green pea underneath the middle shell. “Choose the right shell, earn a second relic. Pick the wrong one, your relic stays with me.”

  “I know how it works,” Elias said.

  The game host shrugged, smiling, always smiling, the deep creases around his eyes—the lines of a hard life lived in the sun—bunching and stretching, his teeth like an old, weathered fence. He showed them the pea once more, and then they began. The host slid the shells around the table as if they were frictionless, his magician’s hands hovering over top them, providing the distraction. Elias observed with his eyes, trying to track the pea, or where the pea should have been, but it was another kind of sight he would rely upon when the question was ultimately asked.

  The bearded man lifted his hands and invited them to give it a guess. If Elias had believed his eyes, he would have chosen the leftmost shell. But the green line he conjured into existence, visible only to him, pointed to the middle one. He trusted in its magic, his gift, and tapped the middle shell.

  The game host looked a little surprised. He flipped the shell over and revealed the pea. “Lady Luck is on your side tonight, lad,” he said.

  “Or just that sharp eye you mentioned.” Elias was rubbing it in, pleased with himself, though Abigail seemed less impressed by the cocky grin on his face.

  “How about one more round?” the man asked. “Double or nothing.”

  Elias knew his answer should have been no, and still he said, “Double or nothing.” He wasn’t as naive as Abigail believed him to be, however, and not for the first time, he was using his abilities as a collector to impress her. Or rather, he was trying to. He wasn’t sure if it was working—or working against him.

  The performance started once again, for that’s what this truly was, Elias knew. The sunny streets of every small town in Sapphire’s Reach provided fertile ground for similar swindlers, preying on the desperate. Or perhaps the desperate were simply preying on each other: that prodding thought entered his mind from somewhere new. Maybe that was what the look on Abigail’s face meant, or maybe it was her mere presence here—one of the richest women in Sailor’s Rise, standing beside him. So consumed he was by his own struggles, he had failed to realize how far he’d already come, how different his new reality must appear to a stranger unaware of his old one. Elias had always resented the local cheats and their refusal to do an honest day’s work, but back then he had been their equal. A lifetime of righteous resentment suddenly felt unbecoming.

  When the game host finally stopped moving the shells, having made a longer show of it this round, Elias turned to his truer, better sight once more.

  The line pointed to the man’s hand. A cheat, indeed.

  Elias sighed, torn between his two selves. “I know you’re holding it,” he said.

  The bearded man did not flinch. “Pick a shell, and we’ll find out.”

  “I saw you grab it.” That detail was a necessary lie. “You’ll just slip it back under whatever shell I don’t pick. Look.” Elias, who was fast—faster than one would expect—flipped over all three shells in a single motion before he could be stopped. There was, of course, no pea on the table. What a fool he would have looked otherwise.

  “I’ll just take my relic back,” Elias said. It was less than he had already won fair and square. Or was it fair and square when he could quite literally manifest an arrow toward an unambiguous answer? Perhaps he was a cheat too. Cheating at a higher level, just like the Graystones, minus the one beside him, who still appeared unimpressed.

  The game host scoffed and waved him away, letting him keep his single relic.

  “Satisfied?” Abigail asked.

  “Hardly,” Elias replied.

  “You have a good eye,” said someone else. It was a voice he did not recognize, but it came from a face he had seen earlier that day: the long-haired Valshynarian from the colosseum. A lesser fighter might have walked over with a limp, his arm in a sling, his face bruised and puffy. But this man bore none of the hallmarks of a recent survivor, of someone who had fought for his life that very afternoon and against a most formidable opponent. He sauntered across the road with the careless charisma of upper nobility, though Elias doubted that wealth was the source of this collector’s confidence. His was well earned.

  He stopped before them and, hand upon his chest, offered a shallow bow and a name. “Lucas Dawnlight,” he said.

  “Elias Vice.” Elias sounded eager to make his acquaintance.

  “Abigail.” She held back her surname and spoke all three syllables slowly, as if each sound was a separate decision to reveal a bit more of herself to this stranger.

  “Abigail Graystone.” Lucas did not hold back on her account. “Yours is a well-known family, my dear. As for you, Elias, my friend Constance Eve said you met her on a merchant ship—in a sky rift, no less. Lucky timing, that.”

  Remarkably, Elias had not yet told Abigail his sky rift story. He looked like he was about to when a few more evening wanderers decided to join their growing party.

  They showed up like shadows peeling off the wall.

  If Lucas was surprised, he didn’t exactly act the part, casually turning toward the first thuggish bloke who stepped forward, scimitar in hand. The others, similar in appearance and similarly armed, collected around him in a circle as if performing a ritual, leaving no question as to their intended sacrifice.

  “Is this about your friend from this afternoon?” Lucas asked them. “I did not want to kill him, but the big guy didn’t leave me much choice, now did he?”

  “Your reasons don’t matter,” said the scar-faced man who had approached first, knuckles tightening around the hilt of his blade. No, these were no merchants, nor was reason a currency they traded in.

  Abigail followed her heels backward as Elias stood still, his hand inching closer to the pistol holstered to his belt.