A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas Page A

fluttering underneath. Even at this late hour, the city was alive with people, pausing at market stalls, leaning against walls to chat and laugh, hurrying about their business. The smell of food filled the air, escaping from windows, wafting from a few stalls she passed.
    One market holder caught her eye and began to yell. “Fabric!” he said. “Beautiful fabric, all the way from Eko.” He held up a length of red material, too stiff and too shiny to be of true quality. His stall was illuminated by a lamp overhead, and the fabric glimmered in the dim light. “Worth its weight in gold, but I can cut a deal for a pretty lady like yourself. Two silver coins for a ream. Can’t say fairer than that!”
    â€œDon’t listen to him,” shouted a woman from across the way. She held up another length of fabric, green and translucent. “He buys his fabric in Alyssinia, tries to scam everyone.But this stuff—this stuff is from Vanhelm. Inspired by the color of dragon eyes, it is.”
    â€œSorry,” she blurted, and she hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Small paving stones covered the street, gray with dust. A groove had been worn into the brick. Another ran parallel to it, a few feet away.
    â€œMove, girl!”
    Something clattered toward her, and she jerked aside. A horse cantered past, held to a carriage with steel bars and a gleaming harness. The carriage itself was almost square, black lined with bronze, with a single lamp swinging ahead of it, and another behind. A man sat on the roof, whipping the reins.
    The wheels ran through the ruts in the road, spitting dust in Aurora’s face. She stepped back, coughing, then turned aside and ducked into a side street, away from the crowds.
    There was no market here, only shuttered windows, hanging laundry, and the occasional person leaning against the walls. Not a trace remained of the forest that had stood here a hundred years ago, but some of the houses had boxes of flowers and plants hanging below their windows. Private patches of green amid the never-ending stone and dust.
    Aurora took one turn, and then another, always heading downhill, following the curve of the streets, until they were so narrow that she could reach out and touch the walls on either side with her fingertips. Voices bounced out of the windows, laughter and chatter and the occasional shout. When Auroraglanced over her shoulder, only the tips of the castle towers were in sight.
    A few people idled around a tatty building that jutted out of an alley. The Dancing Unicorn, the sign said. Aurora doubted that real unicorns were as fat and ungainly as the picture suggested. A woman’s voice floated on the breeze as Aurora paused. She was singing, haunting notes that rose and fell like a sigh. The sound seemed to slip into Aurora’s veins, as soft and delicate as silk. She had heard court singers and performers before, at the few celebrations she had attended as a child, and she played the harp herself in a clumsy, tentative sort of way, but she had never heard anything like this, nothing that sounded so raw and naked and sweet.
    The music lingered in the air, tugging on some unknown part of her, the hollowness that had filled her ever since she awoke. She peered through the entrance and saw a large crowd of people, all moving, talking, laughing, dancing together. The rush of chatter made her pause, glance around warily, but there were so many people here that she truly was invisible. She could slip in, have a taste of that music, and no one would know.
    She raised her chin and walked tentatively through the door.
    The room inside was low and cramped, the air spiced with smoke. Lanterns hung from the rafters, swaying back and forth in time with the steps of the crowd, throwing scattered patches of the room into shadow. Mismatched furniture filled most of the floor—torn armchairs and stools of different colors andtables that rocked, seemingly without