Sancia crawled to one wheel. She cringed as the scrivings whispered in her ears, growing louder. This was perhaps the oddest aspect of her talents — she’d certainly never met anyone else who could hear scrivings — but it was tolerable. She ignored the sound and poked her index and middle finger through two slits in the glove on her right hand, baring her fingertips to the moist air. She touched the wheel of the carriage with her fingers, and asked it what it knew.
And, much like the wall in the passageway, the wheel answered.
The wheel told her of ash, of stone, of broiling flame, of sparks and iron.
Sancia thought, Nope. The carriage had probably come from a foundry — and she was not interested in foundries tonight.
She leaned around the back of the carriage, confirmed the guards hadn’t seen her, and slipped down the line to the next one.
She touched the carriage’s wheel with her fingertips, and asked it what it knew.
The wheel knew soft, loamy soil, the acrid smell of dung, the aroma of crushed greenery and vegetation.
A farm, probably. Nope. Not this one either.
She slipped down to the next carriage — this one your average, horse-drawn carriage — touched a wheel, and asked it what it knew.
The wheel knew of ash, and fire, and hot, and the hissing sparks of smelting ore…
This one came from another foundry, she thought. Same as the first. I hope Sark’s source was right. If all of these came from foundries or farmland, the whole plan’s over before it began.
She slipped down to the next carriage, the horse snuffling disapprovingly as she moved. This was the penultimate one in line, so she was running out of options.
She reached out, touched a wheel, and asked it what it knew.
This one spoke of gravel, of salt, of seaweed, of the tang of ocean spray, and wooden beams soaking above the waves…
Sancia nodded, relieved. That’s the one.
She reached into a pouch on her rig and pulled out a curious-looking object: a small bronze plate inscribed with many sigils. She took out a pot of tar, painted the back of the plate with it, and reached up into the carriage and stuck the little bronze plate to the bottom.
She paused, remembering what her black-market contacts had told her.
Stick the guiding plate to the thing you want to go to, and make sure it’s stuck hard. You don’t want it falling off.
So…what happens if it falls off in the street or something? Sancia had then asked.
Well. Then you’ll die. Pretty gruesomely, I expect.
Sancia pressed on the bronze plate harder. Don’t you scrumming get me killed, she thought, glaring at it. This job’s offering enough damned opportunities as it is. Then she slid out, slipped through the other carriages, and returned to the fairway and the foundry yards.
She was more careful this time, and made sure to stay upwind of any guards. She made it to the drainage tunnel quickly. Now she’d have to trudge back through those fetid waters and make straight for the waterfront.
Which was, of course, where the carriage she’d tampered with was also bound, since its wheels had spoken to her of sea spray and gravel and salty air — things a carriage would only encounter at the waterfront. Hopefully the carriage would help her get into that highly controlled site.
Because somewhere on the waterfront was a safe. And someone incomprehensibly wealthy had hired Sancia to steal one specific item inside it in exchange for a simply inconceivable amount of money.
Sancia liked stealing. She was good at it. But after tonight, she might never need to steal again.
“Twenty thousand,” she chanted softly. “Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand lovely, lovely duvots…”
She dropped down into the sewers.
2
Sancia did not truly understand her talents. She did not know how they worked, what their limits were, or even if they were all that dependable. She just knew what they did, and how they could help her.
When she touched an object with her bare skin, she understood it. She understood its nature, its makeup, its shape. If it had been somewhere or touched something recently, she could remember that sensation as if it had happened to her. And if she got close to a scrived item, or touched one, she could hear it muttering its commands in her head.
That didn’t mean she could understand what the scrivings were saying. She just knew something was being said.
Sancia’s talents could be used in a number of ways. A quick, light touch with any object would let its most immediate sensations spill into her. Longer contact would give her a physical sense of the thing she was touching — where its handholds were, where it was weak or soft or hollow, or what it contained. And if she kept her hands on something for long enough — a process which was deeply painful for her — it would give her near-perfect spatial awareness: if she held her hand to a brick in the floor of a room, for example, she’d eventually sense the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and anything touching them. Provided she didn’t pass out or vomit from the pain, that is.
Because there were downsides to these abilities. Sancia had to keep a lot of her skin concealed at all times, for it’s difficult to, say, eat a meal with the fork you’re holding spilling into your mind.
But there were upsides, too. A facility with items is a tremendous boon if you’re looking to steal those items. And it meant Sancia was phenomenally talented at scaling walls, navigating dark passageways, and picking locks — because picking locks is easy if the lock is actually telling you how to pick it.
The one thing she tried hard not to think about was where her talents came from. For Sancia had gotten her abilities in the same place she’d gotten the lurid white scar that ran down the right side of her skull, the scar that burned hot whenever she overextended her talents.
Sancia did not exactly like her talents: they were as restrictive and punishing as they were powerful. But they’d helped her stay alive. And tonight, hopefully, they would make her rich.
The next step was the Fernezzi complex, a nine story building across from the Tevanni waterfront. It was an old structure, built for customs officers and brokers to manage their accounts back before the merchant houses took over almost all of Tevanne’s trade. But its age and ornate designs were useful for Sancia, offering many sturdy handholds.
It says something, she thought, grunting as she climbed, that scaling this big goddamn building is the easiest part of this job.
Finally she came to the roof. She gripped the granite cornices, clambered onto the top of the building, ran to the western side, and looked out, panting with exhaustion.
Below her was a wide bay, a bridge crossing it, and, on the other side, the Tevanni waterfront. Huge carriages trundled across the bridge, their tops quaking on the wet cobblestones. Almost all of them were certainly merchant house carriages, carrying goods back and forth from the foundries.
One of the carriages should be the one she’d marked with the guiding plate. I scrumming well hope so, she thought. Otherwise I hauled my stupid ass through a river of shit and up a building for no damned reason at all.
For ages the waterfront had been as corrupt and dangerous as any other part of Tevanne that wasn’t under direct control of the merchant houses — which was to say, incredibly, flagrantly, unbelievably corrupt. But a few months ago they’d gone and hired some hero from the Enlightenment Wars, and he’d booted out all the crooks, hired a bunch of professional guards, and installed security wards all over the waterfront — including scrived, defensive walls, just like those at the merchant houses, which wouldn’t let you in or out without the proper identification.