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Only the entrance to The Seven Peals could attract such vagrants. The moon was still to rise yet already a few men loitered by the pavement, chatting loud enough for the entire city to hear, laughing over obscene jokes. Across the street, a mother covered her son's ears and quickened her pace.

Isla clutched the knife under her cloak, but the drunkards gave them no grief. More people tumbled out the door, the terrace creaking under their combined weight. Isla pulled Haana aside as the men swayed past, leaning upon one another for support. Light and music spilled out, quickly fading once the door swung shut.

Isla peered through a fogged window. Aldir was not one to spend his time in the company of drunkards and barmaids. More likely than not, he would be spending his night in his quarters. 'Whitebill will have to call him down.'

His bondmate would easily find him. The erne took off, rising as high as the upper floor windows and disappearing around the side of the building. Isla rubbed her shoulder, dreading the bruise that would surely ripen come morning. Even under the thickness of her cloak, Whitebill's talons had been a painful reminder of just how bad an idea this was.

'We should wait inside.' She took the lead, immediately regretting her decision, for they were met with an onslaught of noise: laughter, shouts, chinking glass, and the thumping of a dozen fists onto wood as somewhere inside, a drunken minstrel danced atop a table, singing and plucking at his lute. They stood awkwardly by the door before Isla spotted an empty table off to one corner. 'Come, we'll take a seat over there.'

'I cannot hear you!'

'Over, there!' Isla yelled back over the cacophony and pulled Haana towards their table.

No one payed them any mind. Isla was reassured by the presence of a smatter of women and children, dining as far from the bar as was possible. Most of the clientele, however, preferred to watch the minstrel, who was dancing clumsily on heeled slippers far too delicate for his frame. The crowd around him roared with glee as he stumbled off the table and into the bosom of a passing waitress.

'This is where Aldir chooses to stay?'

'It isn't the most cultured of places,' Isla admitted, eyes scanning all corners of the room.

'At least it is safe, I suppose. One scream and the whole place will come to our rescue.'

If they can hear us over all this noise. Even then, the crowd of intoxicated men looked incapable of rescuing wine from its skin. Isla took the knife beneath her cloak and struck it into the table. 'Hopefully that deters anyone from approaching.'

Haana frowned but made no protest. 'It is so cold. Have we time for a glass of hot milk?' The door had opened, bringing with it another customer and a gust of wind. Haana had already shed off her furs – large, ostentatious thing that it was. The less eyes on them, the better.

'Later, when Aldir's joined us.'

'I hope he will not be angry to find us here.'

Isla played with the hilt of her knife. 'Aldir isn't one to keep a temper.' Nor one to keep others waiting.

'He does look more the studious type.'

'Don't let that deceive you. He's useful in a knife fight.'

'Might be we need it in a place like this. Never have I seen so many Eastern Islanders lose themselves.'

'This is the Eastern Markets. There are more people from our side of the sea.'

'They would not behave so vulgar back home.'

'No, they'd be afraid of every squeak and shadow. Is that how you prefer?'

Ale spilt as a pair danced past. Haana looked at the couple scathingly, ignoring Isla's remark. 'There are many Surikh in the city?'

Isla wiped the table with her cloak. 'I'm sure ... though we only know a few.' Even then, they were not close. Noi kept a distance from other Surikh as a matter of precaution.

'I did not think there would be so many.'

'Surikh? Or Eastern Islanders in general?'

'Defectors.' Haana's eyes turned towards Isla.

She leaned back in her seat. 'You mustn't assume. We all have stories. Some are harder than others.'

'You are a defector once you abandon your realm, no matter the reasons.'

'Which makes you one, as well.'

'I am not proud of it,' said Haana. 'But these people ...' She waved flippantly towards the dancing, jeering crowd. 'It does not even occur to them. Or do they drink their guilt away?'

'You feel guilty? What, for escaping?' For leaving her mother behind?

Haana's face was all distaste as she looked upon the room. 'Our realm needs us. Our people need us, yet ... we choose to run ...'

'Need us?' Isla smiled to contain her laughter. 'By finding the smallest reason to lock us away? Take us from our families?'

'If you speak of the conscription –'

'Yes, yes ... it is for the good of the realm. We've drunk to that cup.'

'There is no need to become aggravated. We must all make sacrifices. This realm is no better.'

That, at least, is true. Elingar was not without its faults. Isla drew a deep breath. Haana was right – she was letting her emotions get the better of her. But the Maha Rama's laws were the least of it. Of course a man in power would issue laws to keep himself in power. It was the people she failed to understand. People like Haana. How compliant they were, wilfully blind.

But running away instead of doing anything ... Isla, too, was no better. 'I should not take it out on you,' she said at long last. 'Sometimes I just think ... instead of improving, our realm only becomes more draconian.'

'We are in difficult times.'

Isla laughed. 'Spoken like a war veteran.'

'I am young, not stupid. Everybody knows the monarch's Grace is waning. A result of generations mingling with the baseborn. An incursion now means the end of our realm. Is it any wonder Maha Rama Judhistir issued the eugeneic act?'

'Collecting early-blooming girls and wedding them into noble families?' Isla's brows wrinkled. 'How is that supposed to –' And then the realisation hit her.

Noblemen may wed baseborn women without divine repercussion; children produced of such unions considered nobility themselves. Early-bloomers were certain carriers of great theurgy. Wedding them to noblemen would increase the odds of producing powerful, noble heirs – whom in turn could be wed into royalty without fear of tainting their Grace.

Isla's stomach churned. 'He's ... creating breeding stock?'

'That is a crass way of putting it.'

'Crass is too mild a term for what I think of it.'

'Easy to say, here under the protection of Elingar's countless first-ranking maharaji –'

'There are not as many princes here as –'

'We, on the other hand, have no such luxury. There are sacrifices few must make for the good of all.'

Isla fought down the heat rising to her temples. She is only a girl. She repeated it to herself. A girl who knows nothing of what she speaks. One who has been under Surikh rule for far too long.

She rose, snatching her knife from the table. 'Wait here while I fetch that hot milk.'

Hopefully Aldir would have arrived by the time she returned. Isla shoved towards the bar without waiting for a reply. She could not even look at Haana for fear of revealing the disgust on her face. Clearly Haana was attached to their realm in ways Isla could never comprehend. She had been raised in Elingar; so far removed from her home country that she felt no urge to defend it or its repulsive practices.

Had her father known such a law would one day come? Is that why he had been so desperate to sending them away? The conscription was reason enough – it was a means of keeping a leash on women the realm considered potentially dangerous – but nowhere near as heinous as wedding girls whom have not even reached maidenhood ... forcing them to bear child the very moment they bled ...

'What are you having, dear?' The woman behind the bar looked at her as though she were a child.

'Hot milk. Make it boiling.'

She was calmer by the time the barmaid slid a large mug over the counter, but even then Isla dreaded returning to Haana. She looked towards their table, catching a glimpse of Haana's furs before a group of dancers obstructed her view. Cowed by a child.

If Tam Mai could only see her now.

Perhaps the deities still watched over them after all, and this was Isla's due for being a horrible sister.

The dancers fought against her as she pushed through. Someone reached for her hips, spinning her into the music. Isla slapped away the unwanted arm. Hot milk sloshed over flesh. Someone yelped. Isla jostled back towards her table and found Haana's furs draped over an empty seat.

She lowered the mug onto the table. Calmly. Haana had probably gone to the privy.

Without her furs?

Isla returned into the crowd, searching the faces around her.

'Haana!' Her calls were drowned under the minstrel's bellowing of My Lord's Bride.

Why had she left her on her own? It had only been a few minutes. Isla cursed herself. She did not deserve to indulge in excuses. She wove between tables, peered frantically at one face after another ...

She isn't here. How could I have been so careless?

And where is Aldir?

Isla looked out the window, hoping for a sign of Whitebill. A face flashed past; long, black hair merging into the darkening night. Mouth open, words sealed behind glass and music. Isla tore out the door just in time to catch the tails of a skirt disappearing into an unlit alley off the street. 'Haana!'

A familiar voice cried out in response.

Isla raced down the street, turned into the alley. A gaslight burned somewhere farther down. All else was dark. Her boots splashed against water, sunk into mud, thwomp-ed against broken concrete.

Shadows passed under the gaslight ahead – two forms, one much taller than the other – and vanished deeper into the alley.

'Stop!'

She heard a scuffle up ahead, but met no other response. When she reached the gaslight, a rolled parchment lay in its wavering light. Haana's painting. Isla pocketed it and reached up to take the lantern off its hook.

What am I doing? She was not thinking it through, even while her feet took her farther into the darkness. She could not hope to fight off whomever had abducted Haana. She should be waiting for Aldir. But how long would that take? Wise Father only knows what will happen by then ...

A distant moan interrupted her train of thought. Isla strained to pinpoint from where the sound came. There – she lifted her lantern and tried to make sense of the shadows dancing before her. The alley branched off into several smaller paths; nothing more than dirt trails between high walls, and from one of those came a distinct cry: 'Isla!'

A man cursed, followed by the sharp slap of palm against flesh. Isla was already dashing down the footpath, half-blind, knife in one hand, lantern swinging in the other. Its light bounced against the brick walls, too fast for her to follow, and before she knew it, she was face to face with the man from the coffee house.

He reached before she could react. Hands tightened over her face. She tasted sweat and calluses; gagged as he squeezed, a pounding quickly forming in the base of her head.

Isla sliced. Hardly strong enough to matter, but the man flinched. Isla swung her lantern, shattering it over his head, unleashing a stench of rotten eggs and a trickle of flame that danced like fireflies into the night sky. Isla jumped as the atmosphere sizzled. The fine hairs rose on the back of her neck. A flame caught in midair and trailed like a fuse, ending where it met the man and lit his back into wings of curling red and gold.

Isla barely registered Haana's screams; it was more reflex than conscious thought that made her snatch the girl to safety. Heat grazed her face in the seconds she came close. They backed far enough and watched, transfixed, as the man threw himself repeatedly against the brick walls. His roars stilled Isla's feet – the cries of a beast in pain – but ifrit flame was not so easily squelched.

She knew in the back of her mind they should be making their escape, but Isla could not tear her eyes from the burning man. Haana's hands were by contrast cold, yet she did not notice when it slipped away; not until Haana cried and jolted Isla from her trance. The last thing she remembered was turning to reach for her, and the sharp, searing pain that tore into her gut.

     
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