Elena

 

I watched Wynn pass close to the nearby trader’s stall, her hand hanging loosely by her side as she brushed her fingers against the fruit it held. There was a mischievous smile on her lips as she worked, playing the role of untrustworthy street orphan a little too well.

The market square was abuzz with people of all ages, circling and mingling all around us. Traders were calling out prices for their wares while a circle of men laughed somewhere closeby. They cheered and patted one another on the back, evidently celebrating something. There were more folks in one place than I’d ever seen in my entire life, but I was overjoyed. It was far easier to get lost in a sea of people than it was in an empty street.

The merchant that owned the stall turned as soon as he noticed my companion and rushed over to shoo her away from the food he believed she was trying to lift. That was my signal to move in.

Wynn gave the trader a cute smile, her hands raised into the air in a show of innocence. It also meant that her sleeves slipped up her arms, revealing that she wasn’t hiding anything in them.

She’d let me borrow her satchel earlier this morning and I flipped it open with my deft hands. My fingers nimble sought out the most expensive fruits they could find: grapes, lemons, oranges and something pink with a soft fuzz. I didn’t remember what they were called – Wynn had pointed them out earlier and I dutifully deposited them in the satchel.

Wynn had already started to back away from the stall, retreating to safety, but I wasn’t done yet. I willed them both to keep on arguing for a little while longer and for the trader not to notice me yet. After several agonising seconds, I finally stopped, the satchel overly full and difficult to close.

My objective completed, I shoved a couple of grapes into my mouth and moved as if to dart towards the nearest side-street. As I turned around, I collided with someone I hadn’t noticed moving up behind me. This sent me stumbling to my knees but, without even a single backward glance to see who it had been, I picked myself back up and rushed off again.

We’d already agreed on a place to meet up again once we’d stolen our satchel of fruit – somewhere in the back alleys. I skipped through gaps between shoppers, being careful not to collide with anyone else. There were several yelps of surprise as I danced a little too close on occasion, but I paid them no mind.

Once I found myself in the cool darkness between buildings, I allowed myself to slow a little and catch my breath.

I went my way through the dark, grimy backstreets and found the agreed-upon spot without any trouble. I only recognised it because Wynn had marked the ruddy brick with a footprint. Since it didn’t look like she had arrived yet, I leaned against the wall to check exactly how much food I’d managed to pilfer.

Humming quietly to myself, I tried to peer into the pouch, but the dim light was giving me trouble. I could catch vague silhouettes of the different kinds of fruit, but I didn’t want to rummage and end up squishing them all.

At that moment a quiet scraping noise reached me, sounding as if it had come from the alley I’d just passed through. I flicked my head up to see what it was, my eyes flitting around for signs of movement. Squinting, I stared at the shadowed section of the alley but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Was Wynn trying to sneak up on me?

Footsteps pattered towards me from the other direction, and I knew from the rhythm that it was her. She was laughing softly as she approached, reaching out for my hand.

“That was so fun!” she exclaimed. “Let’s go take it to her.”

I nodded, flashing Wynn a quick smile, but I couldn’t resist taking another glance over my shoulder as we wandered off through the maze-like backstreets. The hairs at the back of my neck were standing on end and I could have sworn that we were being watched.

My friend led us onwards, seeming to know her way around like she had a map of the place burned in her mind. We took a dizzying number of twists and turns and I tried to snatch glimpses over my shoulder whenever I could, but saw nothing. If we were being followed there was a great chance that we’d shaken ourselves free of our would-be stalker.

Eventually, the buildings around us began to look familiar and I realised where we were. It was an odd sensation, being able to tell one filthy, dank back-alley from another. In the two weeks since I’d escaped from the clutches of The Razor and his gangers, I’d found that navigating the city wasn’t as hard as it had first seemed.

 

We entered the small square and steered for the open door of Maya’s meal house. She had been there every time we’d visited, and we were there twice a day.

This morning was quieter than usual – we were only standing in line for a few minutes before Maya called us over, her eyes following my satchel expectantly. She had a weary smile that I hesitantly returned as I pulled the bag around in front of me, flicking open the flap.

I could see her lifting herself up on tip-toes, trying to get a better view of what we’d brought with us, and I couldn’t stop myself from giggling quietly.

“Is that all for us?” Maya asked me, her eyes flicking from the bag to my face for a long, tantalising moment. My cheeks crimsoned at her attention and I hesitantly held her gaze, losing myself in her eyes.

She broke the contact and shifted nervously, eyes dropping back to the fruit. I cleared my throat at the awkwardness and bit at my lower lip. To try to hide my reaction I began to unload our haul and placed each item onto the table between us, one-by-one.

“We have some oranges, grapes, lemons and…” I held up one of the fuzzy fruits I’d taken. “Whatever this is.”

“That’s a peach, Ellie,” Wynn told me, watching me with bemusement.

“And some peaches,” I added, refusing to let my lack of knowledge about the real world make me feel upset.

Maya’s dark eyes were widening as more and more food was deposited in front of her. She grabbed a woven reed basket that she kept tucked away in the corner and began to scoop it all up into it.

“My, this is a lot today, girls,” she said, with an appreciative glance at both of us.

When our eyes met again, I felt drawn to her, like she had tied a rope around my waist and was gently tugging me ever closer with each passing second. We stayed like that for what felt like several hours but must have only been a handful of moments until we both looked away, sheepish.

Maya mumbled something under her breath and darted upstairs with the basket tucked under her arm. I glanced aside to Wynn, nonplussed, but she just looked confused. Sighing, I turned to scan the rest of the room behind us –  I hoped we hadn’t caused a scene.

My eyes passed by a small knot of children by the doorway and I was just about to turn back around when something caught my eye; to be more precise, someone did.

Performing a double-take, I noticed a young man leaning against the doorway and it was quite obvious that he didn’t belong here. He kept his face partially hidden with a scarf across his mouth, but I recognised those eyes. They belonged to one of the members of the gang that I’d escaped from not too long ago.

At that moment he was paying attention to a group of younger girls that were standing alongside us, but I saw his gaze sweep to me. I froze, dread seeping into my veins but I was too terrified to look away.

Almost the entire gang knew me by sight. Even though I’d spent almost all of my childhood in a mask, there had still been moments when they’d all had the opportunity to get a good look at my features. The question was whether he recognises me.

Somewhere deep down, I begged whoever might hear me for him to ignore me – and I closed my eyes.

My heart was beating in my chest, fear threatening to overwhelm me, but I felt a hand land on my shoulder.

“Are you alright?” Wynn asked in a whisper, concern in her voice.

I pried open my eyelids until I was peering at the blurry outline of the young man by the door. He was no longer looking in our direction – his attention had moved on to another group behind us. His jaw was set beneath his scarf, annoyance and frustration clear in his eyes.

Nodding, I turned back to my friend and flashed her a forced smile, “I’m fine.”

Maya made her return then, the basket now empty except for a couple of bundles wrapped in muslin. As she approached us both with a gleeful glint in her eyes, she offered out the basket to us both.

“Here. For all your hard work gettin’ the little ‘uns fresh fruit,” she said, her smile widening a fraction as she looked in my direction. My stomach started doing flips and my heart was fluttering in my chest.

We both took a bundle each, and I could feel something soft and spongy wrapped up inside. It was decidedly bread-like, whatever it was, and I felt my stomach gurgle in anticipation of its next meal.

I cast a furtive glance towards the door but the young man had left now. Evidently he wasn’t looking for me after all.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling my bundle to my chest as I grinned back at her like a fool.

Wynn cleared her throat, thanking Maya for her own package, and began to nudge me towards the door. I glanced back, waving to the exotic-looking girl over my shoulder with a few flicks of my fingers until Wynn practically heaved me outside.

 

~*~*~

 

Some of the orphans that Wynn liked to hang around made mention of an alchemist a few streets away from the market square. I still hadn’t looked into selling any of the things that I’d stolen from the gang’s hideout and my lack of money was starting to become a problem.

Safe places to stay were becoming harder to find. I’d been hearing a lot of tales of thugs disturbing all the homeless kids and roughing them up in the night. Why was anyone’s guess, but I suspected that they were looking for me. With some coin I’d be able to stay in a room or hostel for a little while, or perhaps even find some transport somewhere else entirely.

We waited until after we’d finished eating our lunches of bread and cheese as we sat in the shade of a tall building in the midday sun. I’d been allowed upstairs for sunlight regularly but I’d always been watched closely when it happened. They never allowed me to stay out for longer than an hour at a time, so experiencing the full heat of the summer was new to me.

I pulled out the book from my cloak, being careful not to damage it beyond the rugged appearance it already had. There was writing scrawled across its cover, but I had no way of knowing what it said. I’d never been taught to read – he had always said that I didn’t need to learn. As I flicked through a few of the pages, I noticed diagrams and illustrations, including a few drawings of plants and their leaves, and the equipment needed for working with them.

“Can you read, Ellie?” Wynn asked me, through a mouthful of food.

I shook my head but didn’t look up, tracing one of the lines on a diagram with the tip of my finger.

She tried to lean over my shoulder to get a better look so I angled the page towards her. Her eyes were wide and I could see crumbs of bread falling to the floor as she chewed on her meal.

“What is it?” she asked once she managed to swallow.

“Dunno,” I replied, turning the book back to me. “I’m probably gonna sell it, honestly. Do you think it’s worth anything?”

She nodded, lifting a shoulder in a loose shrug, “Probably. Someone’ll pay for it, fer sure.”

That made me smile and I tucked it away again. There were plenty of thieving hands around here and I didn’t feel like getting in a scuffle with some greedy urchin right now.

“You know, you never did tell me what your Facet was,” Wynn commented once we’d started our journey to the alchemist’s store. She was leading since she knew the way, while I kept on the lookout for any signs of the guy I’d seen earlier.

“I still don’t know what you mean,” I said, looking back at her with an apologetic curve to my lips. “What are Facets?”

Her jaw dropped and she stared at me in shock, “Wait, you’re actually serious?” When I nodded she shook her head in disbelief, “Wow. Where did you grow up, Ellie? Surely someone would have... must have told you about it?”

When I didn’t reply she let out an exasperated sigh. I bit at my lower lip, worried that I’d annoyed or upset her, but she just launched into an explanation of the Facets and what they could do.

From what she was saying, the things I could do with healing was rare. That particular piece of information explained why everyone had always had wide-eyed expressions whenever I did that near them. Honestly, it wasn’t something I gave that much thought to – it was just the way things had always been for me.

When she asked if I could do anything else, the look in her eye made me pause. She seemed almost… excited. That made me consider, my lips pressing tightly together.

As we approached a slight curve in the street, I noticed a plain wooden sign above a doorway. Painted on its surface was an open book with crossed potion bottles underneath. This must be the place.

Wynn was pouting cutely when we arrived at the entrance, upset that I hadn’t replied to her question. If I were being honest, I wasn’t sure what the answer was. What did people consider normal? Did those barriers that I could use count?

A bell rang as I pushed open the door, announcing our arrival. I was highly aware that my face was on full display to everyone inside, but I wasn’t feeling as self-conscious as I had been. Sometimes I felt naked without my mask and I’d slip it on for a little while but Wynn always chided me when I did that.

Shelves and shelves of ingredients, potions, books and what I assumed were alchemical devices lined the walls. They were completely crammed with colourful bags of various herbs and powders, very few of which I recognised at all.

When I took a breath, I noticed that the air was musty but carried a faint mix of scents that I’d never smelled before in my life. It was overwhelming at first and I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts.

I felt a familiar comforting hand on my shoulder, calming me and allowing me to steady myself. An elderly man was watching us suspiciously from behind a wooden counter, his eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together. He was leaning against the polished surface, one of his hands dangling down below and out of sight, casually.

He didn’t shout at us or seem all that hostile so I reached into my cloak pocket and pulled out the book again.

“Um. Do you know what this is?” I asked hesitantly.

His eyes turned to the tome as soon as it saw the light of day, and he eyed me once over again. I expect that I looked a little scraggly and wild to him – I hadn’t had the chance to clean my clothes more often than every few days. The river was salty where it flowed into the sea and I had to go a bit further upstream to really be able to wash and clean.

“What’s that you have there, girl?” he asked, his croaking voice betraying his age.

Stepping closer to the counter, I held out the book and slid it onto the counter. As I was doing this, he pulled out a pair of spectacles, cleaned the lenses for a moment and then slipped them on.

“Hmm,” he said, hefting it in his hands and peering at the title. “Yes indeed, it is quite the impressive collection of recipes.”

After several moments of rifling through the pages, his attention then switched back to me.

“Have you read it?”

I shook my head, glancing away, “I… can’t.”

He sniffed and eyed me again, “I expect that this does not really belong to you. Am I correct?”

When I sheepishly shrugged a shoulder he let out a coughing laugh.

“Well,” he continued once he’d recovered. He flicked through the pages, focussing on one of the pictures inside. “This is quite the book. Are you looking to sell it, young lady?”

“How much will you buy it for?” I asked, pushing down an unsettling sensation in my stomach. 

His appraising eyes wandered between the two of us and he tapped his chin, contemplating. Once his gaze had flicked from us girls to the book and back again several times he finally spoke.

“Two bronze,” he announced, lifting his eyebrows at us. I was just about to accept the offer when Wynn touched me on the elbow and scoffed loudly.

“Two? It’s worth at least five,” she announced, slipping in front of me and giving him a hostile glare.

“Five?!” he croaked incredulously, though I could see a small wrinkle of worry on his forehead. He cleared his throat as his eyes turned back to the book, “I can give you three and no more.”

“You seem to want it real bad, mister,” Wynn told him with a lopsided smile. “Three and a half.”

He cleared his throat again and nodded, reaching into a pouch of coins at his waist. He fished out a handful of small metal discs, grumbling under his breath the whole time. Wynn snatched them and began counting them with her expression set in deep concentration.

I reached into my cloak again, this time pulling out one of the bottles that I’d stolen along with the book.

“What about this?” I asked, holding it to the light so that he could see its pale green colouring.

“What is that?” he enquired, peering a little closer. When he leaned over the counter, he pushed his spectacles further up his nose and hummed, “Hmm. An unactivated healing elixir, it seems.”

Unactivated? I’d never heard of that before.

“What do you mean? Unactivated?”

He smiled, leaning an elbow on the counter as he regarded me with smug amusement.

“Well, what do you girls know about the Facets?” he asked us, and I shrugged. I could see Wynn glancing at me out of the corner of her eyes, but I ignored her for now.

When neither of us replied he started into a more in-depth explanation of what Wynn had tried to tell me earlier. He went over what I assumed were the basics of how the colours of magic worked and the different Facets that were known. I stayed silent, absorbing every word he said with fascination.

“So, when a draught is concocted,” he continued on, “the ingredients mixed together will invoke a Facet which provides the base effect. No additional energy is needed for a potion to be effective, but those that are Unactivated pale in comparison to the Activated ones.”

“How does someone activate a potion?” I asked, my attention now on my vial that he was playing around with between his boney fingers.

“Well, you simply have a mage with access to the necessary Facet release the appropriate magical energies into it,” he answered flatly as if the answer were obvious.

A smile grew on my lips and I regarded the magical remedy, “How long does it stay activated for?”

He lifted his eyebrows, evidently caught off-guard by the question, “How long? Oh. It depends on the power of the mage and the quality of the brew itself. My standards are sufficiently high for them to last a year with only a moderately powerful mage.”

He was boasting, I could tell, but that did make me wonder.

“Could I have it back now?” I asked, reaching out a hand.

With a start, as if he’d forgotten that he was even holding the container, he offered it back to me and I accepted it with a grateful grin.

“I never buy potions made by others, my dear. But there is a healer I know that may be interested,” he told me, giving me instructions on where to find them. They were based in one of the more wealthy parts of the city, but it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle for me to get to them if I avoided the guards.

I thanked him and on a whim, I decided to see if I could do this whole ‘activation’ thing. Healing was something I’d known how to do since I was young and was effectively second nature and this was a healing elixir. Without much effort, I had it glowing brightly in my hands.

The alchemist stood up straighter, his mouth wide as he stuttered at me, “W-wait. Y-you’re a mage?”

My giggle only grew louder as I allowed more of the healing to flow into the vial, and it grew brighter still. His eyes were bulging in their sockets when I glanced back at him.

“I guess you’re right. It is pretty simple after all,” I said, heading towards the door.

“W-wait!” he called out to me, but we were both already outside and moving away before he had left his place behind the counter.