Page 24 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Before they went out in the sun again, Silas gave Eliza one of his Artifacts: a square of tanned snakeskin affixed to a leather backing.

“It’ll keep the heat off,” he said.

Half of him expected her to reject it—and she did shiver when touching the snakeskin—but she slipped it in her pocket. When she thanked him, her smile was warm. Although he tried to shrug it off, his steps felt lighter.

They spent all morning interrogating merchants. Most were curt but honest, though a few grew offended when it became clear Silas and Eliza had no intention of purchasing anything. One wrinkled old woman threw her shoe at Silas and then thanked Eliza for retrieving it, leaving the princess laughing.

But none of them claimed to have seen the white box.

Come midday, Silas purchased food at one of the stalls, a bean mash wrapped in flatbread that sent Eliza into a coughing fit. He smirked, warning her too late about the heavy spice. In response, she threatened to throw her shoe at him.

Eliza finished first, wandering the neighboring stalls while Silas purchased and consumed a second flatbread. Just as he was ready to resume their search, he saw the princess take off running through the crowd.

“Seriously?” No sooner had he voiced the protest than the Cast yanked him forward.

At the same moment, it collared Eliza, sending them both plowing into people on the street. Silas waved off the irritated shouts, catching up to the princess while she was still offering bowing apologies to the people around her.

“Silas, look!” Eliza grabbed his arm, pointing with her other hand.

All he saw was a man gathering stoneware from a striped rug and loading it into a small cart.

“He must be done for the day,” he said. “What’s so—”

“That’s the stall where I bought the Cast!”

Now she had his attention. “That’s the Stone Caster?”

“No, that’s what I’m saying! I recognize the rug, but she isn’t here. That man is stealing her things!”

With a frown, Silas hurried toward the stall, Eliza beating him to it.

“Stop!” she shouted in Pravish, planting herself on the rug, blocking the man from the next statue he’d been about to grab. “This isn’t yours!”

“Senen, not sizen,” Silas corrected in Loegrian. “He’s a singular ‘you,’ not a plural.”

“Why is there a plural ‘you’?” Eliza hissed. “Why would there ever be a plural ‘you’?”

“Who are you?” the man demanded, demonstrating a correct usage of the plural.

Switching between Loegrian and Pravish so often gave Silas a headache.

He didn’t stumble on the transitions, since he spoke both fluently, but the effect on his mind was undeniable.

Splitting it in two. He was meant to be immersed in a new life in Pravusat, but speaking Loegrian dragged his old life through in patches, made it impossible to keep his focus in one place while his tongue was divided.

Silas straightened his posture, towering over the man and looking down with cold eyes. “Where is the Stone Caster who owns this stall?”

“I claimed it first!” the man said, making a grab for the next statue. Eliza slapped his hand away, and the man pulled back, cradling red knuckles. “She’s gone! I had nothing to do with it.”

“Gone where?” Silas pressed.

“Kuveti took her. Look, we can split the raw stone, but I get the statues!”

“Why was she arrested?”

“I don’t know! Sold bad Casts, maybe. But good statues. You can’t have them.” After feinting one way, he snatched another statue before Eliza could intercept him, then placed it with care in his cart.

“She will come back,” Eliza said fiercely.

Despite her Loegrian accent, the words were clear enough, and the man shook his head. “Not from the kuveti. You want to waste good limestone? Foreigner with no sense. Get out of my way.”

Before she could get shoved aside, Silas drew her off the rug, ignoring her protests.

“Most people don’t return from a kuveti arrest,” he said quietly. “Not unless they’re rich enough to bribe their way out.”

“Then we have to help her!” The copper flecks in Eliza’s eyes caught the sun, sparks ready to start a fire.

“It’s not our problem.”

Eliza gaped like he’d revealed himself as an Affiliate all over again. She turned to watch the man greedily loading stoneware into his cart.

“What is wrong with this place?” she asked softly, and somehow, the gentleness of her tone pierced more than if she’d shouted. “No one cares about the holes in their wall. No one cares about the beggars. No one cares about innocent people getting arrested. No one . . . cares.”

“As if Loegrians are so compassionate,” Silas said bitterly.

She opened her mouth, her eyes sparking again, but then her gaze dropped to the scar on his neck. They looked at each other in silence.

The man finished loading up his cart and hurried away with a spring in his step, leaving an empty rug behind. The skeleton of a stall.

“Come on,” Silas muttered. “We can ask—”

“I want to know why she was arrested.” Eliza straightened, lifting her head. “That man said it might have been for a bad Cast. We have a Cast from her. It is our problem.”

She was trying to manipulate him again.

“Yvette read our Cast,” said Silas. “She would have seen anything wrong with it. You just want to help.”

Eliza stared him down. “And what’s so wrong with that?”

After a moment, Silas groaned, throwing his hands up. “What do you suggest, Highness? Do you have a royal treasury stash to bribe the kuveti?”

“I can write to Aria. She’ll send—”

“Loegria’s in turmoil, and you want your sister’s focus to be on relief for a single foreign stranger? By the time she could arrange and send anything, it would be weeks.”

Eliza bit her lip, looking down at the empty rug.

“What if the kuveti have Henry?” she whispered at last.

Silas frowned.

“They arrested me. What if the reason we haven’t been able to find Henry is because he’s in prison?”

“You have a royal ransom. Why would they target him?”

“Maybe it wasn’t Henry.” She met his eyes again, her face pale. “Maybe someone would pay for the capture of the magic stealer with him.”

It was a possibility. A strong one. Silas cursed to himself, rubbing his face. Perhaps he could ask Iyal Afshin . . .

Ask him what? The kuveti hated the university for having its own guard force rather than using their services. Even if they were willing to negotiate with the dean, the prices would be enormous. University funding was stretched thin already, and Silas didn’t even have an official research budget.

“I need to think,” he said.

Silas led Eliza to a tailor’s stall, hung with brightly colored shirts and sashes.

“Pick two outfits,” he told her.

She looked at him like he’d dropped his senses somewhere along the path. “Is this part of your thinking process?”

“Don’t question my process.” He smirked. But when she continued looking suspicious, he rolled his eyes. “If we’re going anywhere near the kuveti, you can’t look like a Loegrian. They’re on the hunt for a princess-shaped one, if you remember.”

Her hesitation melted to eagerness, and she took a step toward the stall.

Then she halted.

“I don’t have any money left,” she admitted, clearly trying to make the statement casual. Her forced shrug fooled no one. “Maybe I can borrow something from Yvette.”

“‘Pick two outfits,’ I said. That’s what I can afford.”

She looked up at him, and the wide smile growing on her face tugged at his heart in a discomforting way.

Without another protest, she scurried over to admire the options.

None of them were fit for a princess, at least by Loegrian standards, but she gushed over the bright colors and told the merchant they were all beautiful.

Silas moved to stand just behind her. “If you’re calling an inanimate object beautiful, it’s muhetsem. Tatli al is only for people.”

“Why are there two words for that?” Eliza laughed, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Pravish makes no sense!”

In the muggy heat, strands of her brown hair stuck to her forehead and neck, and beads of sweat glistened along her hairline. Somehow, she looked radiant despite that. It was her beaming smile. For as fiery as she got in her irritation, she showed the same amount of enthusiasm in her joy.

He looked away, shrugging, the gesture as forced as hers had been a moment earlier.

Eliza picked her way through the options, finally choosing a bright magenta shirt embroidered down the front with swirls of sunshine yellow. After another moment of indecision, she added a green shirt hemmed in pink.

Spouting praises of her taste, the merchant pulled the magenta shirt over Eliza’s head and showed her how to fold it at the waist and fasten it with the sash to make it the right length. Then she fetched matching scarves.

“Turn around,” Eliza ordered Silas.

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re changing here? In the middle of the market?”

“I’m just going to wiggle out of my shirt with this over the top. I’ll be modest.”

“Then why do I need to turn around?”

She glared at him until he rolled his eyes and turned, placing himself between her and the other marketgoers. If anyone tried to approach the booth, he gave them a flat stare with the clear message to move on.

“I’m ready,” said Eliza.

Silas turned to find her grinning at him, looking much more Pravish than before.

The merchant had helped her wrap a yellow scarf loosely over her hair, the cloth hanging like a hood, the loose end dangling in front of her left shoulder.

Her former silk shirt, soiled and battered, lay rumpled on the merchant’s rug.

“Not bad,” he said.

Eliza scoffed. “I believe the term you’re looking for is tatli al.” She leaned in, pressing her hand to the edge of her mouth for a loud whisper. “That’s the way to say beautiful for people.”

Raising an eyebrow, Silas said, “Sen tatli al gozumek.” You look beautiful.

She lowered her hand slowly, pink rising in her cheeks. Clearly, she hadn’t expected him to say it, but he’d taken it as a challenge.

“Apta,” he added with a smirk and was rewarded by her scowl. Then, drawing in a deep breath, he said, “I have one idea regarding the kuveti.”