‘Please, won’t you help us, sir?’ Cam asked with a gulp.
‘No such thing as a Coldmarch,’ the voice inside warned, grunting a few times before another arrow appeared. ‘And I’m pretty sure I don’t miss twice.’
I wanted to reach out and touch the arrow to see if it was actually dripping with honey, or if that was just my imagination.
‘You dare threaten someone of House Tavor?’ Cam asked, aghast.
A silver token hopped out of the crack in the door, landing on the ground with the crest face up. I hadn’t seen a coin like that since the days of endless errands as a Street Jadan, and all of a sudden I was back on my corner, the Vicaress parading around a group of my chained, young, and scared kin.
‘You dare bother someone from House Suth?’ the voice inside said in an imitation of Cam’s arrogant tone. ‘You hold no sway here, boy.’
The camel gave a throaty grumble, broken in frantic brays.
The arrow pointed down at Shilah’s throat. ‘I’m closing the door now.’
Cam’s face was all fire. ‘Sir, I demand you lower your weapon and talk to us about the Coldmarch.’
The smoke at our ankles had stopped drifting out. ‘Scarabs on your shitty demands, Tavor.’
‘Please,’ Cam said, breaking into panic. ‘We went through the tunnels beneath her shop, we saw the red alder—’
‘Say it, Micah,’ Picka whispered to me. ‘Remember? You should say it now.’
I heard my father’s voice beneath the words of the camel, which was disconcerting, but didn’t stop me from taking the advice.
My throat opened just long enough to allow the prayer. ‘Shemma hares lahyim—’
The arrow swung to me, pointed right between my eyes.
‘You don’t finish that sentence, slave!’
At least the words were real this time, and not just in my mind.
More importantly I’d struck a chord, his words cracked with emotion down the middle. I had to use my tongue before it hopped out of my mouth and grew wings.
‘Shemma hares lahyim criyah—’
‘I mean it!’ The man was at full alarm. ‘Not another word, or I shoot!’
Shilah reached over and put a hand on my lower back to get me to stop, but I knew what I had to do, even if my vision was slowly narrowing to a pinpoint, and my arm felt as if it had been buried at the bottom of the dunes.
‘Shemma hares lahyim criyah Meshua ris yim slochim.’
‘DAMN EVERYTHING TO BLEACHED BONES AND SHRIVELLED TONGUES, FINE!’
The arrow disappeared and the door was flung open by way of a swift boot kick. The man stormed out, revealing a paunchy stomach, thin and wispy hair, and a nose that was craggier than our way back to Paphos. After closer inspection, I realized this man was also another beige smear. Everything was beige now, actually.
‘Fine. The Coldmarch is real,’ the smudge said. ‘I’m Split the Pedlar. Is that what you want to hear, you little brats? Years of peace you just upended. Now get your friend inside and—’
Beige went black.
‘In your opinion,’ I said, putting the vial marked ‘Gales breath’ back in its potion slot, ‘what are the most important ones to know?’
Leroi crossed his arms, something the Head Tinkerer did quite often. ‘All of them.’
‘No, I know that,’ I said, turning away from the cabinet full of solutions and giving him a smile. ‘But I mean the most important specifically for inventing.’
Leroi gave me an incredulous look, raising an eyebrow.
I selected the next vial, marked ‘Crushed Marjoram’, and tapped at the bright green powder, a colour I’d only ever seen in Noble eyes. ‘I know it’s important to recognize them all, but we can’t really use everything for inventing. So what I meant is, what are the things in this cabinet to focus on for our line of work?’
Leroi sat back on his chair and crossed one leg over the other, giving a ponderous scratching of his goatee, looking around the Tavor tinkershop. ‘What is it that you think we do, Spout?’
‘Make things,’ I said with a shrug. ‘With metal, and gears, and Cold Charges.’
‘And that’s it?’
I shrugged. ‘Obviously not, but you know what I mean.’
‘Course I do. But just because you’re Jadan don’t think I’m going to take it easy on you.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t think that’s ever been the case.’
Leroi spread his rough facial hair down at the corners of his moustache. I expected him at least to smile at my joke, but his eyes had become distant and heavy. ‘I imagine that’s true.’
I nodded, taking out the next vial, with was filled with preserved newtworms from the Hotland Delta. I shook the glass, wondering how much better Jadankind would be if, like these slimy creatures, we didn’t need Cold to survive. I wondered how much Leroi had already experimented with these life forms, trying to discover their secrets.
‘What you have to remember,’ Leroi said, ‘is that you will never be finished learning. You will never have only certain things to focus on.’
I put the newtworm vial back. ‘What do you mean?’
Leroi sighed, taking his hand away from his face and wiggling his fingers. ‘Art. Inventing is art. The hands of Creation itself. Sometimes you work for the hand of the Crier, sometimes for—’ He stopped himself, shaking his head. ‘Sorry, you don’t need to hear that nonsense. What I mean is, your life isn’t going to be like the Builders or the Patch Jadans or even the Domestics, with certain quotas to fill or tasks to be completed. Inventing is not like other lines of work. There’s no cap, no finishing. Inventors don’t get to specialize in paint, or words, or music, or clay, we work with all of reality itself. Creation to destruction. You need to know everything, and you can never know everything. You need to know that Golemstone reacts violently with Milk of the Dunai. You need to know at what pressure Glassland Black will shatter, and at what temperature it will melt. You need to know how many ounces of Halia’s elixir will dissolve diamonds, or how many drops will make a grown man scream. You need to know your metals and poisons and your powders and your mathematics and your poems, dammit, you need to know what the world needs, Micah, what Jadans need, and Nobles, too, and what this desecrated, Sun-damned, piece of—’
Cool water splashed my face, snapping me awake. My mouth instinctively gaped, collecting all the water it could. I sputtered and choked as it washed down my throat, but it felt wonderful against my burning tongue. Everything was still out of focus, and I blinked wildly, trying to figure out where I was.
‘There. He’s alive,’ a voice announced. ‘Now we get this over with.’
‘Give him some time, man.’
A throaty grumble.
‘Spout.’
A snap of fingers in my ears, then pressure on my chest, rubbing back and forth.
‘We can have him ride Picka. She’s small,