Chapter 57
the one they just passed: tents, flags, smoke from a hundred cookfires, a crowd. The Marka swings hard about and drops a gangplank onto the dock before it has even stopped.
Drekk doesn't wait for the plank. He jumps from the rail to the dock, lands badly, and runs.
Drekk shoves through the crowd: stalls of starfish-jerky, spice from realms nobody's heard of, a man selling cages of glowing moths. He's turning in circles.
breathing hard, listening. Nothing. Just the market's roar. The laugh is gone.
catching up behind him, third eye half-open.
Trollmage haggles with a merchant over a jar of troll-coffee beans, the crow on his head. Behind him, a small child in a fox-fur hat, with a fox's bushy tail pinned to the back of their coat, slips a hand into his robe and out again, holding his purse.
patting his robe, outraged.
The fox-child runs, weaving through legs. And from the rooftops, Rougeina is already Swapping after them, roof to roof, a silver-rose streak.
The child ducks into an alley. Rougeina Swaps into the alley's far end, cutting them off. The child skids to a stop between her and a dead end and hands the purse back over their shoulder, to someone else.
Leaning in the alley's shadow: a woman, lean, all angles, red hair worn loose and wild, a fox's grin, laughing amber eyes. A real, living, bushy fox tail curls behind her. She tosses the purse up and down.
flickering, uncertain, as if it can't decide what to say:
RÄVA · DRIFTING-7 · K-IV SHAPED · Scalelist: — (wearing her own, for once)
blades out, cold.
She tosses the purse toward Rougeina, high, way over her head, and while Rougeina's eyes follow it—
Räva steps backwards, casually, into an open barrel of pickled fish.
She sinks to the neck. A fish slides slowly onto her head and sits there like a hat.
She bows deeply from inside the barrel, the fish still on her head, and says with total dignity: "…I meant to do that."
And something nobody on the crew has ever heard happens: she laughs. Not a cold huff. A real laugh, startled out of her, sudden and helpless and bright.
mid-laugh, and then the laugh stops. Her hand flies up to her face. Her fingers find… smooth skin. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. A blank, like an egg.
Räva climbs out of the fish barrel, wipes the brine off her face and raises her head. She has Rougeina's face. Crimson hair spilling down over the red. Rougeina's cold green eyes. Rougeina's mouth, smiling a smile Rougeina would never smile.
snapping into place over Räva:
ROUGEINA · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #777
faceless, hand on the blank where her face should be. She can still see, somehow, and hear. But she has no mouth to scream with. Her whole body says it instead.
with Rougeina's face, drawing two thin blades from her own belt. Not mirror-steel. Cheap copies. She grins.
Rougeina against Rougeina.
The faceless one Swaps behind. The masked one is already turning.
Steel on steel, sparks in the alley's dark.
Räva fights like a thief, not like an assassin: dirty, fun, kicking crates, flicking fish. Rougeina is better. Much better. She drives Räva back step by step.
with Rougeina's face, sweating, delighted.
Rougeina's blade is at Räva's throat. Pinned against the alley wall.
Above it, out of a clear sky, a ship drops: white hull, Trisdel gold, a hound's head carved on the prow. Chains of Ledger-light lash out from it and anchor it into the dock. Ramps slam down.
Out of the ship pour the Hounds: Trisdel trackers in grey coats and white collars, each with a long chain-leash and a black hound-mask over the lower face, sniffing the air through brass grilles.
RANK PLATE ×20: HOUND · K-II MARKED · Scalelist #110,000–#190,000
still pinned by Rougeina's blade, Rougeina's face going pale.
at the mouth of the alley, sniffing through his grille. He looks at the two women: one with no face, one with Rougeina's face and Rougeina's plate. His brass nose-grille swivels toward the plate.
Twenty Hounds pour into the alley and hit the wall where the two women stand. Chains of Ledger-light whip through the air, hooks and nets crackling white.
Rougeina, faceless, spins and cuts the first three chains in a single Swap-arc, defending the thief who just stole her face, because the chains were aimed at both of them.
Räva, wearing Rougeina's face, laughing in Rougeina's voice, ducks under a net, steals a Hound's own chain, and wraps him in it.
Above them, on the rooftop, little Ekorre, the fox-child, throws rotten fruit at the Hounds' heads with deadly accuracy. Down the street, Vigolas, Kompis and Mingus come running, Vigolas yelling "WHAT DID I MISS?!"
Vigolas hits the Hounds from behind with green lightning. Kompis, gunless, tackles one into a moth-cage and a thousand glowing moths burst into the air. Mingus pulls a Hound's leash right out of his hands and runs off with it, delighted.
In the chaos of moths and light and chains, the Hounds fall back to their ship. Their leader, an old man in a heavy grey greatcoat with a white beard and the only unmasked face among them, glares from the ramp.
Moths drifting. Rougeina stands faceless, panting. The thief is gone.
a few streets away. Räva crouches over it, studying her reflection: Rougeina's face, crimson hair, green eyes. She tilts her head. She touches the cheekbone gently. Something uncertain crosses the borrowed face.