A Discourse in Steel Read Online Free Page A

they’d cut into the custom of the four Narascene readers elsewhere in the Bazaar, the oldest and wrinkliest of whom gave Merelda and Rose the Witch’s Eye whenever they crossed paths. So far things hadn’t gone any further than that, but Merelda worried they might.
    She pushed back her chair and stood back from the cloth-covered table, wincing at the headache that had rooted in her temples. She rolled her head from side to side, dabbed her nose to check for blood.
    None, thankfully.
    She stretched, her movements constrained by the gauzy, layered robe she wore. She bumped her headdress on a candelabrum and cursed. She spent most of each day covered in beads and cheap crystals and grease makeup and heavy cloth and she was well and truly tired of it. She imagined she felt a bit—just a bit—like the girls who worked for Tesha in the Tunnel. They, too, layered on clothes and makeup and false emotions and pretended to be someone else while they worked.
    She reached out for her sister’s mind.
Have you talked any more with Tesha about us buying half her interest in the Tunnel?
    The mental projection deepened her headache.
    Rose’s mental voice carried from behind the wooden screen that separated a third of the tent from the rest. They kept a moth-eaten divan and table back there, as well as their coin coffer, and they used the tent’s back flap to come and go unobserved. Merelda imagined Rose lying on the divan, resting.
    Don’t use the mindmagic casually, Mere,
Rusilla projected, then said aloud, “You know better. And I’m trying to rest.”
    Merelda massaged her temples. “Did you, though?”
    “Not in a while. We don’t have the coin right now and I’m not sure she wants to sell a part interest. I can’t push her, Mere. And I’m not sure it’s right for us.”
    Merelda nodded. Tesha was not one to be pushed around. “I think it is and I’d wager we could buy from the boys.”
    A long silence. “Let’s see how things go, Mere.”
    “Let’s see how things go usually means no.”
    “Let’s just see, all right? I don’t like owing them anything more than we already do.”
    Merelda stayed on her side of the screen. She didn’t want to see Rose’s impatient expression.
    “They’re nice to us, Rose. And they don’t expect anything.”
    In fact, both Egil and Nix seemed so solicitous of the sisters that Merelda sometimes teasingly reminded them that she and Rose weren’t made of glass.
    “Not yet,” Rose said. “But they will. That’s how men think.”
    “That’s how our brother thought,” Merelda said. “But he wasn’t all men.”
    She could imagine the roll of Rose’s eyes.
    “We’ll see, Mere,” Rose said.
    Mere rolled her own eyes and pulled off the headdress she wore. She set it down beside the incense burners, small gong, and various crystals that decorated the table they used for readings. The smell of cooking meat cut through the smell of incense that always lingered in the tent. Merelda realized she was hungry.
    She poked her head around the screen and found Rose just as she expected—reclined on the divan, her long red hair spilling over the arm, her pale skin made even paler by the makeup they wore.
    “I have a headache,” Merelda said. “You take the next one, all right?”
    “A headache?” Rose asked, concern in her pale face. She sat up. “Are you all right?”
    “Just fatigue, I think,” Merelda said.
    Rose stood, came to her side, and put her hand on Merelda’s brow.
    “I’m not sick, Rose,” Merelda said. “Just tired.”
    Rose dropped her hand and hugged Merelda. “I know. The readings are taxing, even the shallow ones. But it’s worked and the coin is coming in steady now.” She held Merelda at arm’s length. “We’re not going to do this forever. Just till we save enough to start something real.”
    “Talk to Tesha again,” Merelda said. “And if she’s not interested, then talk to the boys. Owning part of the Tunnel would be a good thing.” She