Page 75 of The Isles of the Gods
“It’s a promise,” he says quietly. “You belong on the water. We’ll get you back there.”
Suddenly I can’t speak.
TheLizabettais gone, even theLittle Lizabetta.My captain, my crew. Everything I own is gone.
And I’m not as sure as I used to be about where my course should take me next. Tomorrow the boys will be gone, and this little paper boat will be all I have.
“Thank you,” I say after clearing my throat, and he offers me an almost wistful smile.
“My father used to make them,” he says. “So I’m told. One of his friends showed me how, and as a boy I used to fold just about any piece of paper I came across. It felt like a link tohim.”
I know all too well what it means to want a link to someone who’s gone, but I just swallow hard, glance at the boat, andnod.
“Haven’t made one in years,” he muses, and neither of us speaks again as we let the crowd carry us along to the inn.
There I make myself businesslike, firming my tone. “Now get inside, and stay there until I can hand you off to someone with more than a secondhand pair of trousers to hide you.”
“My glory cannot be concealed, whether the clothing is secondhand or the finest in—”
“Go, you pain in my—”
“I’m going!” he laughs, and I watch until he disappears down the alley, to climb back up the fire escape once more. After all, our host is sure we never left. Then I turn away to follow the map a few blocks to the arcade, my stomach fluttering in a way I don’t think has anything to do with the meal I just ate.
The entrance is down a set of stone steps that lead below street level, topped with a wrought-iron arch. As I descend into the passageway, I realize the shops and the nightclub must be in the basements of the office buildings up above us. They face onto a neatly cobbled underground arcade, the walls lit with golden lights on strings.
The lettering on each of the little shops is gold, the script curling, and this place feels like money. There are half a dozen people in the laneway, some looking at cakes and jewelry through the shop windows, and some lined up for the nightclub inside a red velvet rope. The place doesn’t seem to have a name, and on the bar where a sign swings for the shops, there’s just a painting of a ruby, held in the palm of a woman’s hand.
Music spills out as I walk past, wild and playful, and through the open door there are couples dancing and shimmying. I press on past it to the next little shop, whose window readsHallie’s.
The girl inside is a rounder, curvier version of her sister back at the market, with the same flawless brown skin and coil of braids atop her head. She’s wearing a golden evening dress that shimmers as she moves around the shop. She has the same friendly smile as her sister, too, and when she spots me hovering in the doorway, she lifts a finger to beckon me in.
“You look like a girl in need of something special,” she calls. So, swallowing hard, I step over the threshold.
It takes Hallie less than a quarter hour to shuffle through her tightly packed racks of clothing and transform me.
She’s surprised by the thick, unformed stripe of my magician’s marks, pausing to gently lift one of my hands in hers and take a closer look.
“That’s a new one,” she says in her lilting Mellacean accent, and I barely resist the urge to snatch my hand from hers.
“Alinorish,” I mutter.
“You don’t say.” She’s not disbelieving—just curious.
“Can we cover them up?” I ask quietly, my chest tight.
She searches my face, and whatever she sees there makes her nod, sympathetic.
Soon I’m standing in front of a mirror looking at a girl I hardly recognize. She’s clad in a long-sleeved jade-green dress that reaches to her knees, sparkling beads creating a geometric pattern that starts at her waist and radiates out, up, and down. I can feel the beads clicking when I move.
The backs of my hands are covered too, with a piece of beaded lace Hallie quickly stitched onto each cuff and looped around my middle fingers, like an elegant version of my usual gloves. I curl my hands into fists, then flex my fingers, watching the green skin move beneath the lace, the anger and frustration bubbling up all over again. I wassoclose.
But I shove it inside the same box where it always lives and nail the lid shut. That’s what I need to do.
“That dress had four owners before you,” Hallie tells me with satisfaction. “Treat her right and I’ll give you five dollars back.”
There’s quite a discussion over the shoes after that. I want them flat. She refuses. I end up with half the heel height she wanted, but still more than I’m confident in. There’s a strap across the front, at least, so they won’t fall off.
She watches me with a critical eye as I practice walking around her little shop, past the racks of clothes stuffed into every available corner, their colors bursting out at me like promises of a thousand lives I’ll never lead and definitely don’t want to try.
