Holding Onto Hope Read online

  “Whatever’s in you,” she said finally, “it’s not a demon.”

  “That was more a turn of phrase I had chosen. I can hear a very powerful being who likes to make fun of me.”

  Elantria considered this. “Do you think it will help or hinder your ability to be a thief?” she asked finally.

  “You have a very one-track mind, don’t you?”

  “It’s what makes me good at what I do.” She folded her arms and looked at him. “So?”

  “She’ll probably make me better at it,” he said.

  “Not until you apologize for calling me a demon, I won’t.”

  “Good,” his companion said. As an afterthought, she added, “And don’t tell anyone else you have a demon in your head. There’s a whole gang of demon-killers in the city and they’d gut you before asking questions.”

  Ben could feel Prima’s smugness radiated at him. He sighed and nodded.

  “For your first assignment,” Elantria told him, “you have to find out who the most successful merchant in the Sunset Market is.” She smiled at him, took a running leap to jump up onto the wall, and began to scale it.

  “Wait!” he called after her. “Where is the Sunset Market? How do you define most successful?”

  She gave him a grin as she reached the roof but didn’t answer and simply ran lightly across the tiles. He blew his breath out in annoyance and paused to think.

  Well, he knew one thing he had to do first, at any rate. “Prima? I’m sorry for calling you a demon.”

  Sulky silence was his only answer.

  “You’re more powerful than a human,” he explained, “and you like to play tricks on us. That’s either a demon or a fairy, and I recently met some fairies. You’re clearly not one of those.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “They don’t know what computers are here so how was I supposed to explain AI?”

  “Golems are a thing, you know.” She sounded mollified, however. “Very well, let’s get to it.”

  “Good. Where am I going?”

  “I’m not doing everything for you, you know.”

  Ben threw his hands up and walked through the gates. On the other side stood two soldiers who had clearly heard some of his conversations and who looked around for a companion. He tried to hasten out of sight before they realized there wasn’t one but also to not walk so quickly that he looked like he had committed a crime.

  After considering his options, he decided to start by going downhill. This led to the bay, and he had seen a market there the day before. That might be the Sunset Market for all he knew.

  He took notice of all the small details today. Some of the buildings were as lovingly made and magically maintained as the Wind Dancer and looked untouched by time. Generally, these were surrounded by more common types of mansions made of stone or plaster, with turrets and balconies. The city also seemed to be a mishmash of rich and poor, however, with beggars on even the most upper-class corners and shacks built in the alleys between the homes.

  After a while, he glanced at the sun. He had learned how to tell both time and direction from the sun when he was in the Boy Scouts and that simple trick had served him well.

  In the early-morning light, it also gave him an idea. Zaara and Kural had left the city via a road that wound north. He took a moment to center himself, then turned west. The Sunset Market. Maybe it would be on the western side of the city.

  He passed through neighborhoods that were dingy and some that were clean. Both private guards and city officers watched him from under wide-brimmed hats. A few people called out to him, most with words he had never heard before. Sometimes, he guessed from their wares that they were selling food of some kind.

  Occasionally—as with the man who held a carved amulet out that made his skin crawl—it seemed that they sold something more occult in nature.

  More than once, he thought he saw groups of people huddled in the shadows, some with iron collars or manacles.

  “Prima,” he murmured. “What am I seeing?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I…why are they here? Why put slavery in this world?”

  “Slavery is all around you,” she said. Although her words sounded grandiose, she seemed quite serious. “In this world, it is simply in front of your eyes.”

  Ben swallowed and hurried on with his head down. He tried so hard not to notice anything that he didn’t see the Sunset Market until he was almost past it.

  It was at once the most intriguing and most depressing place he had ever seen. This wasn’t simply because it existed on the southern side of the city. It was that it was composed of things others hadn’t been able to sell. Wilted cabbages and battered fruit smelled like they were on the edge of rot. Scraps of cloth were tied together into bales and any number of stalls boasted broken odds and ends.

  He walked through for a few minutes before he remembered why he was there and immediately realized that he had no idea where to begin.

  With no real plan, he began to look at the items he walked past. Was it the fruit and vegetable vendors, he wondered? Surely there would always be a market for food, no matter how close it was to being spoiled. Or perhaps the cloth, which had less of a time limitation?

  At the corner of the market, he noticed a merchant with wares that glittered. He drifted closer and tried not to get caught looking directly at the stall. Soon, he was close enough to identify glittering rings and jewels. Many of them were probably fake but he guessed that some were real—and liberated creatively from their prior owners.

  This, surely, must be the most successful merchant.

  He knew from the silence behind him that Elantria was there. She came to stand next to him.

  “Have you made your guess?” she asked.

  Ben was about to open his mouth to speak when something in her manner stopped him. It was too easy. It seemed far too obvious. He turned and looked at the stalls. Was it the most customers or the most valuable wares?

  The woman was smiling when he looked at her. She sighed—not one of disappointment but one of acceptance—and nodded toward the edge of the market. At first, he didn’t understand what she was saying. The woman she had indicated was old and bent, dressed in rags, and sold broken pieces of pottery. She surely could not be the most successful merchant.

  Then, he saw the building. Somehow, even in a fantasy world, banks still looked like banks.

  “Those who hold and change the money,” Elantria said, “accrue it. Each of these vendors pays a fee to the people who surround this market so they won’t be driven out. In turn, they can get an advance on their sales—for interest, of course. Some of the prime positions are owned and sold by the oldest names in the city. You looked at the market, apprentice, not at the shadow in which it sat.”

  Chapter Six

  Ben woke the next morning with every muscle in his back and shoulders cramped. Elantria had offered him a place to sleep and had assured him it was safe.

  It was on a small balcony with no bed.

  He had a bedroll and a small pack, courtesy of the fae king, but it made very little difference to a hard floor. She had shown it to him with a twinkle in her eye that suggested she was waiting for him to protest, and he hadn’t wanted to give her the satisfaction.

  If she tried to pull some crap where he had to do menial chores to learn various techniques, he was out.

  A moment later, another rock struck him and he realized why he had woken up. He turned, winced in pain, and looked at the floor.

  “Good morning,” Elantria said. “You certainly slept in.”

  “I’m recovering from—you know what? Never mind.” He stood and looked into the courtyard. “Is it training time? Is there breakfast?”

  “There is breakfast, and the sooner you learn your first skill, the sooner you can have it.” She pointed to the wall. “Climb down.”

  “I would, but—”

  “But nothing.”

  He bit back an angry retort and also decided not
to dwell on the fact that things like this were exactly why he had chosen to stay there. Kural and Zaara had been supportive, caring, and eager to pull chairs out for him and carry his trunk. From the first conversation with Elantria, he’d known she wouldn’t do any of those things.

  She would push him and didn’t care at all about any protests he might have.

  “Move.”

  Right. He studied the wall with a critical eye. There was an easy path but a few of the holds were plaster and he had no idea if they would crumble under his fingertips. The thought of that brought to mind a very unpleasant memory of climbing on a sandstone formation. Up until recently, Ben would have classified that as his worst climbing memory, but the accident had blown it out of the water.

  Thinking about the fall made his heart race. He swallowed convulsively and threw one leg over the balcony, straddled it for a moment, and felt the creak of the old posts. That was sufficient to make him decide not to waste any more time.

  After all, everyone said that when you had a fall, you couldn’t recover until you climbed again. And nothing could happen to him there, right?

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Not now,” he muttered and gritted his teeth.

  The building was three stories high and his balcony was on the second. Irregular bricks and blocks of stone had been piled together haphazardly and plastered over. The weather had worn and battered the plaster over the years to leave holds that were both tempting and dangerous.

  Ben eased out onto the wall and let his breath out slowly. Every muscle in his body was shaking.

  Now, he merely had to move his foot. He had located a promising rock only a short distance below his initial foothold, and it was best to start small.

  All had to do was move his foot.

  It’s no big deal. Move your foot and you’re there.

  He began to hyperventilate and clung to the wall. No matter how hard he held on, he could feel himself hurtle down and the jerk as the rope went taught and his body flopped like a ragdoll.

  The sound of crumbling plaster jerked him out of his reverie. He reacted on instinct, grasped another handhold, and braced himself.

  At least he still remembered how to do some things. That was good.

  With adrenaline-fueled caution, he inched down the wall in fits and starts. Every time his body moved gracefully, the movement would end slightly in the wrong place or his arms would move out of time with his legs. By the time he reached the bottom, he was coated with sweat and his forearms and fingers ached. It was such a rookie mistake to hold on too tightly with his hands, but all the confidence had been stripped out of him.

  He turned to meet Elantria’s eyes and waited for the derision.

  “I can see it now,” she said softly. “You were injured, weren’t you? I noticed a strange way of moving yesterday, but I didn’t see…” She frowned. “Where were you injured?”

  Ben thought hard about what to tell her. Would she understand?

  “I fell,” he said. His voice shook and he hated that. “Badly. I hit my head.”

  The instinctive concern in her expression came as a surprise and encouraged him to continue.

  “Everything seems to be mostly fine,” he said. “But I had to relearn…everything…about how to move.” He stretched one hand out —which shook visibly, dammit—and stared at the fingers. “Two weeks ago, I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t eat. Now, I look normal, or close to it.”

  “Close to it.” She didn’t sugarcoat things.

  “Close to it,” he echoed.

  She stared at him for a moment. “Well, we won’t start you on pick-pocketing, then.”

  “You planned to teach me pick-pocketing before breakfast?” he demanded. “A nice round of pick-pocketing, then go out to eat?” He realized the truth a moment later. “I would have had to steal my breakfast, wouldn’t I?”

  “Yep,” said Elantria with a ready grin. “Don’t worry, I’d never bring you anywhere in this neighborhood—we’d go somewhere posh and where they wouldn’t miss a few extra pastries.”

  “Right, the places with the private guards.”

  “A brisk run before a meal readies the palate.”

  Ben couldn’t help himself and started to laugh. “This is ridiculous. I can’t be a thief.”

  “Why not? Did your dear old dad want you to be…” She looked speculatively at him. “Something froufy, that’s for sure. Clerk?”

  “I trained as a chemist,” Ben said. When she stared blankly at him, he sighed. “An…alchemist?”

  “Oh.” She looked at him with more appreciation. “Oh, that’s very interesting. Then how did you learn to climb walls? You weren’t very coordinated but you clearly knew some tricks.”

  “I climbed rock faces near my home.”

  “Good gods.” She looked impressed. “Not entirely froufy, then. All right, stay here and I’ll be back soon.”

  He sighed and began some basic stretches. When he had camped or worked outdoors, he had stretched often, simply because there often wasn’t anything else to do. What he hadn’t realized at the time, being in possession of ample strength and balance, was that stretching used both.

  Focused, he moved through the actions and was upside down when the smell of eggs reached his nose and broke his concentration. He fell sideways with a grunt and a muttered expletive and hauled himself up hastily. Elantria waited with two parcels folded in pastry. She handed him one about the size of his palm and opened her mouth to say something when he popped it into his mouth whole.

  A moment later, his body went rigid and he danced around the courtyard while he tried to suck quick breaths into his mouth to cool the molten eggs, cheese, and vegetables.

  “That’s what I wanted to warn you about,” she said.

  “Iffa hopocka probbem.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Ben swallowed his food and winced. It was probably better than keeping it in his mouth but it burned all the way down. “It’s the hot pocket problem. Never mind, you won’t understand. Ow. Well, that was a breakfast experience.”

  “And there’s another one,” Elantria said. “You’ll get it after you successfully open that door—which, given that it will give the food time to cool, is good.” She tossed him a set of tools wrapped in a piece of leather. “Give it a go, Colorado boy.”

  “You remembered where I grew up.” He was impressed.

  “Yes, I looked for it on many maps. I didn’t see it.” She looked annoyed. “And then the library guards did their rounds and I had to leave.”

  “Where were the maps?”

  “In the palace.” She looked at him like he was crazy. “Who else has maps?”

  He knew better than to find an answer to that. Instead, he unwrapped the tools and moved to the door, which he confirmed was locked before he sat on the ground. He stared at the array of tools and tried to think about what to do.

  “To be clear, you want me to accomplish this all on my own?”

  “I’d like to watch you try.” She shrugged. “It’s stupid to not use all of the resources you have available, but you also won’t have someone around to ask questions of all the time. Getting the balance is tricky.”

  “Are there any tips on learning it?” Ben asked. He inserted one of the picks—long and straight—into the keyhole and jiggled it around.

  “Not really. You merely keep learning every time you fuck up.”

  The urge to roll his eyes was strong but he ignored it and wiggled the pick from side to side. He could feel something on the right side. If he wiggled the pick under it—no, over it? He tried to picture how a key would turn in his head. Two tumblers, likely, would have to move.

  Clockwise. He briefly considered trying to push them both down with the same tool and decided to add another pick into the mix. Of course, he had meant to ask questions while he did this but he didn’t have enough focus for that. He leaned his head forward and tried to do it by feel.

  The fact that
he was able to do this at all was surprising. He paused.

  That realization cost him most of his fledgling motor control. The rest of the lockpicking experience was composed of ten percent skill and forty-five percent each to swearing and sheer stubbornness. More times than he could count, he knocked one of the two picks out of place with the other one.

  When he finally positioned them both and the door clicked open, he was too frustrated to even celebrate. He simply dropped the tools and turned to sit with his back against the wall.

  Elantria waited for a few moments before she tired of his self-pity. “Pick the tools up. They’ll rust.”

  Ben didn’t look at her. It was also difficult to slide each tool into its place, and every tiny challenge annoyed the hell out of him. When it was finally done and the leather rolled and the cord around it even tied in a knot, he sighed. His hands were cramping.

  Seriously, he hated this.

  “Pick-pocketing would most certainly have been the wrong choice,” Elantria said. She came to take the tools and give him the other pastry.

  His mouth was burned but the food smelled good and his stomach rumbled. He took it and nibbled a corner off so the steam could escape, then ate it in quick, tiny bites.

  If he kept eating like this, he would get much thinner. He sighed and rubbed his face.

  “Are you done?” she asked.

  “With what?”

  “With being self-indulgent.” She raised her eyebrows. “We have work to do.”

  Chapter Seven

  Amber and Jacob were both slobs. It wasn’t obvious slobbiness—no rotting food, for instance—but neither of them liked to do regular cleaning.

  He managed this by getting an apartment with tons of closet space—or preferably, a second bedroom—and winging everything into the hidden space so the rest of his apartment could stay neat. She handled it by owning almost nothing at all—a bed, a chair and table, a computer, a single set of dishware, one towel, and enough clothes to get her through the week.

  When the PIVOT team met off-site, therefore, they almost always went to Nick’s apartment.