Mardin frowned. "Don't know if I can help you get rid of fancy dresses. Maybe some jewels, but you should take those someplace up north. You'll get a better price."
"Not those sorts of things," Tennora said significantly. "I have a trunk of hers. An… old trunk. It's…" She cleared her throat to banish the lump forming in it, and looked away from Mardin. "That is, they're what you would call specialty items, and I think you know what that means."
Mardin leaned away from the table, his eyes suddenly wary. "Oh. That."
"Yes," she said tightly. "What is it in the box?"
"Her leathers. Her dagger. Lockpicks. Some jewelry. Gloves, boots."
Mardin scratched the back of his neck. "Well then. That's different." He cleared his own throat. "Didn't know she held on to those things. I… Well, it's a surprise, isn't it? Or did you…?" "I didn't know," she said. She looked away again. "I don't want to sell all of it," she said. "But… a few things need to find a… specialty shop. Do you know where I should take them?"
"Bring them to me," Mardin said. "You won't know how to bargain with that sort. Your aunt wouldn't like it."
"I don't much care what Aunt Aowena likes or not at this stage."
"You'll get arrested if you're selling… certain goods. No."
"I'm not trying to fence anything," Tennora said. "Just the… tools."
"You'll never get much for them."
"Let me try," Tennora said. "After all, I can't borrow coin from people for the rest of my life. When it doesn't work, you can say you told me so and loan me the coin, but I want those things out of my house. I don't want to live with her lies."
The sounds of Han, the cook, working up the highsunfeast-pots banging, dishes clattering, fat sizzling-floated into the dining room as Mardin stared at Tennora, saying not a word.
"I know-" Tennora said.
"Listen to me, petal," Mardin said, his voice stern. "I know your mother kept these things from you, and you're fair angry right now. And that's how it's going to be-I won't take that from you. But you have to know she didn't tell you because she loved you. She was protecting you. And not just from those nosy gulls Mesial was stuck with. There's a damned good reason I'm retired, and a damned better reason your mother gave it up. You don't even want to think about heading into that world. Understand?"
"I wasn't intending to," Tennora said, subdued.
"Good. All right then"-Mardin put his spectacles back on and leaned over the desk-"the name of the best shop for you to go to is-"
"Wait. I thought you said I shouldn't even think about it." "I did," Mardin said. "I also know you're a bright and stubborn young lady. You want to know, you'll find a way. Better I give you the name of somebody you can trust." He tore the edge of one of his ledger pages and scribbled the name and address of the shop on it. He passed the slip to Tennora.
"You tell old Fladnor I sent you," he said, gesturing with the quill. "First thing you tell him when you walk in. Keep your hand on your coin purse. And don't go wandering around down in the Dock Ward."
She started out the door when he called to her again.
"Tennora."
She looked back over her shoulder at him, watching her with a worried expression.
"When you get tired of being angry, remember your mother was a person too, and we all make mistakes."
"I'm not angry," Tennora said, the lie tasting foul in her mouth.
"Petal," Mardin said. "Stop."
"I'm not," Tennora said with a smile that felt as if it would shatter at any moment. "You're right. We all make mistakes." She turned and headed out the door before he could break her resolve.
Of all the things that Nestrix hated about her new life, boredom was the very worst. Bored dragons had all manner of remedies at their disposal-hunting, flying, swimming, counting treasure, terrorizing caravans… And it took a good long time to get properly bored. Years even.
She shut the book Tennora had left her. Another tome that made spurious claims about the culture of dragons. At least it had understood that xorvintaal was a complicated game that humans couldn't hope to grasp-much closer to the truth. But gods above, who had taught the author about denning?
The open window let in the sun, the crisp air of midmorning, and the voices of people on the square below greeting one other and chattering like a flock of geese. Faraway bells were chiming the hours. Nestrix didn't understand the point of that-why let people know an hour had past? It was only an hour.
Even after so long, Nestrix felt as if all she did was ask questions.
Tennora had said not to leave, had said to wait for her to come back. The apartment felt cramped and unfriendly.
And waiting for Tennora, all Nestrix wanted was to go out into the fresh air.
Why should she listen to a half-grown dokaal anyway? What was Tennora going to do if Nestrix did go out? And why shouldn't she do what she wanted?
"You stand out," Tennora had said. "People will take notice of you, and you don't want that."
Nestrix had to agree-she didn't want people calling the Watch on her again. While it had been amusing to taunt the Watch captain, and even amusing to fight off the men and women he'd sent to subdue her, she had a plan now. She didn't have the frustration to channel away.
But she had better clothes now-Tennora's skirt and blouse and the other skirt that went over the top of the first. What had she called it?
"Apron," Nestrix said aloud, savoring the sound of the unfamiliar word.
She felt suddenly dizzy, as a series of images-more of the aprons, hanging from a string tied between a house and a scraggly palm, and a girl with dark hair running between them and the sun so bright and hot that she didn't want to leave the shade of the house-overlaid her thoughts. She gripped the arm of the chair, her pulse racing. Her mind unfolded the remembered scent of linen and the attar of roses.
Then, as suddenly as it flared up, it receded and lay quiet in her mind, waiting for her to call on it.
Nestrix ignored it with a ferocity born of many such intrusions.
The first time the memories had erupted had been so long before, Nestrix couldn't recall when it was or where she'd been. Just that, out of nothing, she was recalling a man waving at her from the driver's seat of a wagon with a bright red cover.
They came and went, while she slept and sometimes while she was awake, as if some other person's thoughts poured into her ears and flooded her dreams. Sometimes she saw herself, blue-scaled and sharp-toothed. Sometimes she saw herself as a blonde-haired woman with a vulpine face and a gap in her teeth. Sometimes the woman was black-haired with an aquiline nose and eyes like a summer sky.
Sometimes the little dark-haired girl was there, tugging on Nestrix's wing or skirts and sometimes she was a blue wyrmling. Sometimes there was treasure. Sometimes there were people she felt she knew or places she could have sworn she'd been. The memories poured into her head without reason, without end.
She didn't want them.
And after the memory's intrusion, she didn't want to be in the apartment either. She still had no shoes. Tennora's feet were far smaller than Nestrix's, and nothing she offered would fit. Nestrix ran a hand over her heavily callused soles. She'd wrapped her feet in rags for so many years that she couldn't remember when the last bunch had rotted away and she hadn't bothered to replace them. Tennora's boots looked much sturdier.
After she'd changed, Nestrix's feet were always tender, always getting cut. Shoes would have helped-what poor work the gods had done when they created the dokaal! It would have been better to make the feet with the shoes a part of them-or rough from the start, as hers had become.
She wiggled her toes and thought about how much better they would look when they were claws again.