Page 68 of This Dark Descent
A longing Ari knew well passed over Mikira’s face. Everything she was doing was to protect her family, to not have to wake up every morning afraid. She smiled forlornly. “Well, you’ll just have to be strong enough for the both of us.”
Ari took her hand. “I will.” The girl had been right when she’d said they were two small fish in a bay of sharks, but with magic like this, Ari would have teeth too, and she would bite anyone who came for either of them.
Mikira’s smile faltered, her next words tentative. “What happened, Ari?”
She read the words underneath:What made you this way?
Blood on her hands. Blood on the walls.
Ari squeezed her eyes shut against the memories of her Saba and told Mikira instead about the men who came to her workshop. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was part of it, and the look of understanding on Mikira’s face was enough to make her heart ache. Fear lived in them both, and she wanted to crush it.
Mikira squeezed her hand. “They win when they make you afraid,” she said quietly. “Don’t let them win, Ari.”
And Ari promised she wouldn’t.
CHAPTER 23
ARIELLE
FOR THE FIRSTtime in a very long time, Ari didn’t feel afraid.
Even as she strolled through the tumult of Rathsborne Street, sidestepping dusty horses and dockworkers heading to the pub for an evening drink, she didn’t worry if one of them might stare at her too long, if the horse’s rider might be the Anthir, come looking for the unlicensed enchanter from the Westmire.
Her conversation with Mikira that afternoon had steeled something inside her. She walked with her head held high and the belief that if she did not bend, then people would bend around her.
It was with that mindset that she strode into the enchanted animal shop.
A bell dinged overhead, nearly swallowed by the piercing call of a charmed falcon perched nearby. She ducked under a hanging cage of colorful birds and between crates of enchanted kittens, disturbed by the cramped, dirty space they’d all been crowded into. The whole shop smelled distinctly of animal piss.
She finally reached the back counter, where the glow of a candle illuminated the shopkeeper reading the evening’s broadsheet. “RISING REBEL RUCKUS” was printed atop a photo of Prince Darius surrounded by his guards at the last race. Below it was an article about Mikira’s win. Peoplewere starting to bet on her for the upcoming third race, and Damien had practically been bombarded by requests from reporters to interview her.
The shopkeeper flicked the paper down to peer at her. With beady black eyes and blond hair that hung in a greasy curtain about his pale face, Welzin Carswoth looked more like a rat than one of Veradell’s foremost enchanted animal dealers, let alone the man that had changed the course of her life. He’d given not only Damien the chance to find her, but likely the men who had robbed her—or so Ari intended to find out. Though from the acerbic look he leveled at her, she had a feeling he wouldn’t be quite so chatty with her.
“Mr. Carswoth,” she said.
“Do I know you?” His voice was gruff and wheezing and laced with the remnants of a Vynan accent.
“A friend of mine gave me your name. They said you might have an unusual enchant. A cat.”
Welzin raised a verillion cigarette to his thin lips, taking a long draw as he evaluated her. He let the smoke out in a perfect ring and folded up his broadsheet. Sliding his thin body around the corner, he disappeared into the shop long enough that Ari started to wonder if something had eaten him, before finally returning with a sleek white cat in his hands.
She knew it on sight—it was a golem that she had made for Lady Vanadahl, heir to House Vanadahl. The woman had swept into her workshop flush with cash and looking to burn it, and had wanted a cat enchanted to detect lies. It was one of the few ethereal enchantments Ari had been able to manage.
Welzin huffed. “Well, don’t just stare at it all day. You want it or not?”
Ari’s fingers curled around the emerald stone inside her skirt pocket. The steady buzz of verillion hummed low and hot in her stomach.
Make him give you the truth, coaxed the voice.
“What did you give Lady Vanadahl in exchange for my name?” she asked. “Or did she give it for free?”
Welzin’s narrow face constricted. “Your name? What in the hells are you talking about, girl?”
“My name is Arielle Kadar.”
The shop owner only blinked at her in confusion. Either he was a fantastic actor or he had no idea who she was. But that didn’t make any sense. Damien had gotten her name from him, and she’d assumed that meant the men had too.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
