The Shifter (8 page)

A pinch of my guilt vanished. No wonder they thought their daughter’s life was worth more than a fisherman’s. Just like every other Baseeri aristocrat who’d thrown families out of their homes when the Duke’s occupation began, ensuring we’d behave ourselves and not interrupt his flow of precious pynvium. Hard to rebel when you were scrambling for food. I folded my arms across my chest. “Sorry, the answer is no.”

Voices exploded. The father yelled, the mother wailed, Zertanik hollered over everybody. For a moment, he succeeded in forcing calm, and a small voice rang clear in the room.

“Please? For me?” said the fisherman.

So much sadness in his words I almost cried. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do. Please, miss, I lost my boat a few months back. I can’t get work no more and my wife is carrying our fourth child.” He tipped his head toward the parents. “They offered to pay our rent for a full year if I’d help them. My oldest boys have been scraping barnacles since they was six, so they can get work while I’m down. And they can fish, so we won’t go hungry.”

Saints no, I didn’t want to do this again. “You could die.”

He nodded. “I know. Either way my family has a year to get back on their feet. We could sure use that right now.”

I looked at the dying child and her family. The enchanter and my fancy man. Jeatar looked hesitant, his unreadable eyes on the dying child; then he leaned over and whispered into Zertanik’s ear. The enchanter’s eyes flared wide for half a breath; then he nodded.

“Dear, if you do this, I’ll ask my sources at the League about your sister. My contacts are
very
influential.”

Five faces stared at me, all hopeful, but for different reasons.

“Please, miss,” the fisherman said again in that soft voice.

He was trying to save his family. They were trying to save their daughter. I needed to save Tali. This wasn’t so different from helping Danello and his family, was it?

My guts still said no, but fifty oppas! And I didn’t even have to dodge crocodiles to get it.

I nodded, and the mother started sobbing again. I placed my hands on the child and tried not to think about the fisherman’s chances. It was hard once I felt how injured she was. How injured
he’d
feel once I healed her and shifted all that pain to him. It wasn’t real injury anymore, but could so much pain kill?

“You’re sure?” I asked the fisherman. “This is”—I glanced at the parents—“bad.”

“I’m sure.”

I turned to Zertanik. “Do you have another cot or table?”

He flicked a hand at Jeatar, who slipped out and returned with a cheap vendor table like the shopkeeps used at the market.

“Put it next to her,” I instructed, “with me in between. I’ll need to do this at the same time.” Though they didn’t deserve the sparing, the fisherman did, and I didn’t want to say the child was so injured that I didn’t think I could hold her pain long enough to shift it. Some things folks were better off not knowing.

I put one hand on each, gritted my teeth, and
drew
. Agony raced into my arm, cut across my chest and down my other arm, faster than I’d
drawn
, like it wanted out before something caught it. Bright specks flashed around my eyes, shifting to red, pale at first, then darkening, tinting the room. Then the pain poured into the fisherman, and nothing I tried would stop it.

Struggling to stay on my feet, I blocked out his screams and thought of Tali.

Jeatar set a damp cloth on my forehead while Morell mopped up my puke in the front hall. I’d almost gotten his shoes in my rush for the door, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Jeatar had carried me to the couch after I’d emptied my stomach, and even lying down, I felt the room wobble.

“Feeling better?” he asked, real concern on his face. Morell glared at me, but he looked better, so there had to be a little pynvium somewhere if they were able to heal him.

“Some.” The fisherman had finally stopped screaming. I’d tried to keep some of his pain, but it had poured through me fast as the Cyden River and I couldn’t dam it. Closest I’d ever come to feeling death, and the poor man had to live with it now.
Please, Saint Saea, let him live
. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“Zertanik made arrangements to get him home. He’ll be taken care of.”

“He can’t hold that much pain for long. Even if you only have a few pynvium items left, take some of it from him, please. It was so much worse than we thought. He can’t take it.” My stomach rolled again.

“Easy.” He put a steadying hand on my shoulder, but I spotted doubt in his eyes. He masked it quick. “In a day or two the pynvium shipments will arrive and we’ll buy the pain from him.”

“How can you be sure the shipments are even going to get here?” He couldn’t promise anything with Verlatta under siege.

Jeatar glanced at Zertanik’s door. “He pays very close attention to those things. Don’t worry, the fisherman will be fine.”

He wouldn’t be fine. Who could be fine with all that pain? Enough to kill a child, maybe enough to kill a man. I closed my eyes, but that made it easier to see his agony. I opened them again. This was all for Tali. I could stand it if I remembered that. “He’ll ask his sources about Tali?”

“I’ll make sure he does, I promise.”

“When will you know something?”

“There’s not a lot of information coming out of the League right now. Might take me a day or two to hear something.”

Would the fisherman still be alive then? What had I done?

The door opened and the Duke’s rich couple walked out, the sleeping little girl clutched in her mother’s arms. The father reached into his pocket, then dropped a handful of coins on my chest. I flinched, but they didn’t burn. They should have after what I’d done to earn them.

Ten oppas.

I sat up and they slid down into my lap. “You said fifty.”

“You didn’t help her for us—you did it for that man and for yourself. You’re lucky I gave you anything at all.” They stomped out of the building and slammed the door shut behind them.

Jeatar frowned in disgust. “They should have paid you double,” he muttered.

“I have to get out of here.” My shirt suddenly felt too small, keeping me from taking more than tiny, shallow breaths. I pocketed my coins quickly, not wanting to touch them longer than necessary. “Find me the instant you hear something about Tali.”

“Where will you be?”

I hesitated. I had no home anymore. Would he even keep his promise, or would he trick me like the Baseeri had? “I’ll find you. I’ll come back every day.”

He glanced again at the door to the fancy rooms. “No, don’t come back here. Send in a note and I’ll meet you somewhere. You pick.”

“I will. I need to go.”

“You should rest longer.”

“I can’t stay here.”

Zertanik appeared as I started for the front door. “Well, dear, your attitude was certainly uncalled for. Those people offered a fair price for a service only you can provide, and you treated them most terribly. I hope that doesn’t happen next time.”

Jeatar cleared his throat. “Sir, I don’t think we should—”

“Nonsense, she’s a natural.”

My heart banged against my chest. “I’m not doing this ever again.”

“Think of all the money you could make.”

“Yeah, ten whole oppas.” Papa used to say principles were a bargain at any price, and I’d sold mine for cheap.

He frowned and smoothed his sleeves. “Well, they
were
a bit stingy there at the end when you refused to help. If you’d been more agreeable, I’m sure they would have paid more.”

I grabbed the front door latch, but he snatched my arm and stopped me.

“We have other clients willing to pay dearly for this service.”

“No.”

“You’d never go hungry again. You could get a place with your own washroom.”

My old house flashed through my mind. A room of my own, two washrooms, rooms for eating and cooking and sitting by the fire reading. A yard out back, small but ours. Without Tali, without family? Meaningless.

How had I been stupid enough to think this was real healing? Real healers didn’t hurt people. Ever. Blood rushed in my ears, but not loud enough to drown out the screams in my head. “I’m not doing this ever, ever again.”

“Oh, I’m certain you will, my dear. Not a doubt in my mind.” He smiled like a man who knew things I didn’t.

I yanked my hand away and pushed out the door, running as fast as my quivering legs would go.

SEVEN

I
got as far as the bridge before I stumbled against a wall. The street swirled around me, and I sagged to the ground.

Something cold touched my head. I looked up, and the usual afternoon rain tapped my forehead. Just a drizzle. Saint Saea’s crocodile tears.

What if the fisherman couldn’t handle the pain until more pynvium arrived? What if he died? What if I’d
murdered
him? I couldn’t breathe.

I squeezed my eyes shut. He had
begged
me to do it. He knew the risks, and he was willing to take them to save his family.

You didn’t argue all that hard.

I clamped my hands over my ears. I
had
argued. I said it was wrong. I said no. They didn’t listen. And he
begged
me!

Was it worth it?

To find Tali? Yes! I sniffled, wiped my nose on a damp sleeve. Jeatar insisted the new pynvium shipment was on its way. The fisherman would be fine once it got here. Everyone got what they wanted. No one was forced to do anything.

Is having no choice the same as choosing?

I shook the thought away. He begged me. They begged me.

Cold washed over me, then hot, then blackness. Cold again, and hardness, rough against my hip and shoulder. I opened my eyes. The world had shifted sideways.

No, I was slumped over. Fainted? I’d never fainted before, not even from hunger. I sat up, my body sore, my skin clammy. It stung a little as the rain dripped on it.

People looked at me as they walked by, some in pity, others in disgust. One woman started to move closer, concern on her wrinkled face, but three Baseeri soldiers came over the bridge and she scurried away, her head low. The soldiers didn’t even glance down.

No one was going to help me stand up, let alone save Tali. Certainly not a Baseeri, and not even one of my own people. They were all too scared they’d get noticed, too scared to raise a fuss, no matter how small. People who got noticed got hurt. People who fussed, disappeared. That was just how things were.

We’d heard the same stories from those who’d escaped Sorille before the Duke had burned it to the ground, and by the time the Duke was done with Verlatta, they’d understand it too.

I took a few deep breaths and things steadied. I could do this on my own. I would find Tali and together we would save the fisherman. I struggled to my feet and started back toward the Sanctuary. I was nearly there when a hand landed on my shoulder.

I screamed and turned around, braced for soldiers or worse.

Aylin yelped and threw her hands in front of her face.

“Saints, Nya! I thought I told you to stay hidden.”

“Aylin, I’m such a horrible person.” I clung to her, sobbing on her already damp feathers.

“No you’re not. What happened?” She leaned her head away and wrinkled her nose. “Were you puking?”

I covered my mouth and nodded. “I did something terrible. I—” Couldn’t tell her without telling her I was a Taker. Not without getting her involved in this more than she already was. I still didn’t know who had Tali and couldn’t risk Aylin getting kidnapped as well. “I stole ten oppas from the charity box at the Sanctuary.”

Her worried frown twitched at the corners. “You need it more than anyone I know. You’re not a bad person.”

Yes I was. Monstrous. But money and information could help me find Tali, and I needed both. “Did you find out anything?”

“A little, but I don’t think it’s much help.” She glanced around. “It’s too open here. Let’s go to Tannif’s, and you can buy us coffee with your stolen wealth while we talk.”

Tannif’s was crowded, stools and benches along the walls crammed with people. Baseeri were seated at the larger tables with padded chairs. Aylin managed to grab us a small table in the back near the door to the kitchen. Every time a serving girl swished by, scents of coffee and fried perch wafted out.

“Tell me everything,” I said, hands tight around a mug of coffee. My first hot meal in months was cooking in the back. The money felt tainted, but I couldn’t find Tali if I was half starved. Common sense saves more lives than swords, as Grannyma used to say.
And liars and thieves are never happy
. I shoved
that
thought away.

“My friend said the Elders have been carrying a lot of people away from the main treatment rooms. Somewhere higher inside the League, but he couldn’t see exactly where the stairs led past the second floor.” She leaned in closer across the table. “Nya, he swears every person he saw carried upstairs was wearing green.”

“Apprentice green?”

She shrugged. “He wasn’t sure, but he thought so.”

“Did you talk to any Elders about Tali?”

She scoffed. “They wouldn’t talk to me, but I found a few fourth cords who said Tali quit because it was too hard. They said she went home.”

Fear stole my hunger away. “That’s a lie.”

“I know, but they believed it, so someone they trusted must have told them that.” Aylin looked around the coffeehouse. “Nya, I asked the son of one of the show house regulars about the people being carried upstairs. He’s a guard at the League, and he didn’t seem that worried, said the
Luminary himself
told him they were exhausted because the ferry heals were so draining. They were just being taken somewhere to rest.”

The Luminary was lying? It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. He had a lot to hide. No pynvium, so many injured, apprentices being carried upstairs and not coming back down.

Saint Saea be merciful! They
couldn’t
be…. No, it was too unthinkable…but…

What if they were healing without the pynvium? If there’d been more injuries like the little girl’s, folks so close to death the pain leaped right out of them, the apprentices wouldn’t have been able to stop it. I doubt even the Luminary could have stopped it. Was that why he wanted more Takers? Because he couldn’t get any pynvium and needed more bodies?

How could the League do that to them? The apprentices couldn’t know. No one would agree to that if they knew.

The fisherman did
.

Not Tali. She wouldn’t sacrifice herself to help a Baseeri aristocrat.

“Aylin, I think the Luminary is using apprentices as pynvium,” I whispered, hardly believing anyone could be so horrible. “When they can’t heal anymore, he’s taking them upstairs and out of sight.”

Aylin’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”

I told her what I’d learned at Zertanik’s, and her eyes went even wider.

“I have to get Tali out of there. I have no idea how much pain she’s taken or how long she’s carried it. A day at least. Probably since the ferry accident.”

The serving girl came and thunked our perch and sweet potatoes on the table. I gave her one of my oppas and she handed back my change. Wasn’t much, but I could get another meal for it. She scowled at Aylin and walked away. Aylin picked up a few chunks of potato that had rolled off and set them back on her plate. It never seemed to bother her when folks treated her badly for working for a Baseeri.

“I have to go,” I said, rising.

Aylin gripped my arm and held me down. “No, you have to sit and eat. You can’t lay siege to the Healers’ League without food in your stomach. Eat. Now.”

“But—”

“No, be practical about this.”

I ate fast, speaking between bites. “Can your friend get me inside?” I doubted I had time to wait for Jeatar to get back to me.

“I don’t know—I can ask. Nya, you’ll need more than that to get to Tali, though.”

“I’ll figure that out when I get inside.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll get caught and thrown out—if you’re lucky. If not, you’ll get arrested. Or worse.” She lowered her voice, even though the chatter in the room was loud. “Do you think they want people to know there’s no pynvium?”

“No. There’d be panic.”

Aylin nodded. “Bad as anything in the war. Maybe even more riots.”

“I
have
to get inside somehow.”

“If they’re doing this, they’ll never let you in. It’s amazing
I
got in. They started turning people away as I was leaving. Have you seen the crowds in League Circle?”

“Then I’ll wear a disguise. I’ll steal some clothes. Something green. Can you make me look like an apprentice?”

Aylin hesitated only a heartbeat, then squeezed my hand. “Come back to my room. I know exactly what to do.”

I’d forgotten how nice a bath felt. By the time Aylin finished scrubbing me with the floral soap she splurged on, I looked almost respectable. Her room was next door to the washroom, and some of the steam crept in through tiny cracks in the walls.

“I appreciate the help, but what about your job?” I asked, combing out my wet hair. “You can’t still be on lunch break.”

“I told them I had a family emergency.”

“What if they fire you?”

“Then I’ll find a new job.”

She made it sound so easy. But then, that was just her way. We’d met scrubbing out the bilge on a Baseeri skiff two years back. Taking work from a Baseeri bothered me a lot more than the smell had, but Aylin smiled her way through the job and even made it fun. The owner liked her so much, he recommended her for more work. I didn’t get the same offer, but then, I’d made it pretty clear how I’d felt about Baseeri.

“Here, put this on.” She pulled a simple yet pretty white dress off a line strung up in one corner and tossed it at me. Six more dresses bounced on the line, and she had two clothes baskets on the floor underneath. “I don’t have any green vests, but it should get you inside.”

“They’re not going to let me walk upstairs just because I’m clean,” I said as I pulled the dress over my head. My voice sounded muffled through the cloth.

“You’re realizing that
now?
”

I frowned at her, but she was right—I had no idea what I was doing. A plan simmered, though, and I just needed a few more ingredients to make it palatable.

“I
can
get your hair right,” she said, opening a jewel box on a small table by her bed and pulling out a green beaded necklace. She snapped the string, spilling beads into her palm. “Hmm, not exactly League green, but close enough. No one’s going to be looking that closely at your hair anyway.”

The beads sparkled like hope. “Tali has three uniforms. If I can get to her room, I can change into one and look like any other apprentice. I’ll get there just after classes have let out, so I should be able to blend in.”

“And then you can go wherever you want! Great idea. Better hope they don’t ask you to heal.” She flinched as if sorry she’d mentioned it. I’d let slip once how jealous I’d been of Tali getting into the League when I couldn’t, and she probably figured this was harder for me because of that. She grabbed the hair iron heating on the stove. “Let’s straighten out those curls, shall we?”

Steam hissed as Aylin tugged my hair into shape. I tried to remember the fastest route to Tali’s room. I’d go in through the north gate for sure—or maybe not—the skinny guard might recognize me and I needed to look like an apprentice. West gate then, with the public, and I’d blend in with folks wanting heals. I could do this. I could make it to Tali’s room. And after that? I needed a plan I didn’t have.

Aylin held up a mirror. “You look perfect.”

I looked like Tali. Tears blurred my vision. I caught myself before I wiped them on Aylin’s dress. I blinked them away instead. She tied a white scarf around my fake Healer’s ponytail, beads and all.

“Thank you, Aylin.”

She flashed a grin, then solemnly pulled the two bracelets off her wrists. “Take these.”

“I don’t need jewelry—I’m good enough.”

She grabbed my hands tight. “They have pynvium beads in them. I painted them to look like regular beads, but they’ll trigger if anyone grabs your wrists hard. They won’t flash a
lot
of pain—I couldn’t afford the ones to knock someone out—but these’ll sting hard enough to make them let go so you can run away.”

“Aylin, I—”

“Take them.” She slipped one on each wrist. “Healing is big money. People kill to keep big money. If you’re right about what they’re doing to the apprentices, think about what they’ll do to hush
you
up.”

I was trying my best
not
to think about that. I hugged her, focusing on the badly framed landscapes all over her walls to keep from crying. “Thank you, Aylin. Thank you so much.”

She clung to me, trembling. “You be careful. You’re the only real friend I have. You know that, right?”

I didn’t, though I probably should have. “I’ll be careful.”

She wiped her eyes, smearing dark streaks across her cheeks. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What? No, you’re not going.”

“Who’s going to introduce you to my guard friend?”

“No, I changed my mind. You’re right about the danger, and I won’t risk getting anyone else in trouble if I’m caught. I have to go alone.”

She bit her lip but nodded. “Good luck. Saint Moed be with you.”

“Thanks.” I needed all the courage I could get. “I’ll be back soon with Tali.”

She smiled, but it was forced. Like she never expected to see me again and didn’t want to think about it.

I turned before I started crying again, and headed for the League.

Seven Sisters, hear my prayers, ’cause I’ll need every last one of you to get
my
sister back.