The Hidden City Read Online Free Page B

softly.
    â€œI do. When there’s work. When someone needs me. When it’s festival season, I can be a runner—”
    He lifted a hand, and she let the words trail off. She still had hope. He couldn’t decide whether that was a gift or a curse; when one had hope, one always stood on the brink of despair.
    â€œThe magisterians would consider your line of work suspect,” he told her, smiling to take the edge off the words.
    It didn’t work. Her face crumpled around the edges, her eyes narrowing in shame. He almost reached out to touch her then, but that would have been a mistake, and Rath had survived to be called Old Rath for good reason.
    â€œWhen I’m older,” she told him, averting her gaze, “I’ll work.”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œWhat everyone else does,” she said. There was no hope in that phrase at all, and Rath decided that hope, in Jewel’s case, was a gift. To him, at least.
    â€œWhat,” he said carefully, “does everyone else do?”
    She hated the answer, and didn’t give it, but she shot an accusing glance at him, and held his gaze.
    â€œNo lies,” he said softly.
    â€œI wasn’t going to lie,” she told him. “I just wasn’t going to answer. You said you weren’t an idiot. You figure it out.”
    His shadow flickered as he moved; the magelight, unlike inferior candle flame, was steady and constant. “Sell your body?”
    She nodded.
    â€œIt’s not a good life,” he told her. “And it’s usually a short one.”
    â€œShorter than this?”
    â€œLess respected.”
    She snorted. Not quite what he’d expected, but he was willing to let it play out. “It shouldn’t be,” she said, after the pause had grown long. “I own my body. It’s mine to sell. It’s honest. Stealing isn’t.”
    â€œJay—”
    â€œIt’s true,” she continued, her earnestness at odds with the subject. “At least that way, I’d be giving something back. I try,” her voice dropped, “to steal from people who look like they won’t starve if they lose a few coins. I try not to take more than I need. But I—”
    Silence.
    â€œThere are men who won’t pay you,” he told her quietly. “And men who will beat you if they think someone else has.”
    She said nothing.
    â€œJewel.”
    Looked up.
    â€œHow long have you been living by the bridge?”
    She shrugged. He knew, by the quality of that forced nonchalance, that she could tell him to the day how long it had been. But he didn’t press her. Instead, he rose and untied the leather thongs that bound the backpack shut. Her eyes shifted, watching his fingers work the knot. She didn’t offer to help him.
    But her hands jumped up against the tabletop as he pulled the two tablet fragments from their resting place and laid them out beneath the light, runes taking shadow and making shape of it.
    â€œWere you born here?” he asked, as he carefully arranged them so that they were oriented for her view. They were cold to the touch. Almost as cold as her hand had been, come new from the river.
    She nodded, still staring, her fingers now fluttering as if they were trapped by some unseen force of air. “At least I think I was. This is the only place I remember.”
    â€œAnd your parents?”
    â€œNot my Oma. My grandmother,” she added, as if Rath couldn’t be expected to know the old Torra word. He did; he didn’t enlighten her. Enough that she talked at all.
    She hadn’t looked away from the engravings, but her expression was slowly shifting into something that looked like disappointment. If disappointment could be said to be shattering and crippling. “I can’t read them,” she whispered. “It’s not—it wasn’t the light.”
    He said, “If you cry, I’ll throw you out. I cannot abide tears