Such a Daring Endeavor by Cortney Pearson

she changed, that she wasn’t the friend I knew. But wanting him near, that sounded like something she might do.
    “So where would Talon be in relation to that entrance?” I ask, not wanting to argue with him about her. “The dungeons?”
    Ren draws me a map from memory, showing me a secret passage into the dungeons and the main places we need to avoid in order to get there. I clear my throat with the smallest sound, though there’s really no need. Just something to do, some type of noise to break up the tension building through me like I’m slowly hardening into glass, waiting to be shattered.
    Seeing a drawing is one thing. Finding it in person is another. Still, I take another shallow breath and point to the courtyard on his paper. “Okay. We go in here.” I pause. “How in the vreck are we going to get back out?”
    Ren’s eyes gleam. “Got any moyen on hand?”

"M oyen for what, exactly?”
    “Do you really have to ask?” He gestures around, his head dipped and brows elevated as if I’m missing the most obvious thing in the world.
    Dircey has left the room, though I don’t remember it happening. And o f course I understand his meaning. Dircey said several vendors were still here, that they were itching to move on. But he can’t be serious.
    “Those tears were crazy expensive, Ren. Two thousand moyen, expensive. Even if I did have money, I wouldn’t have that much.”
    Ren shakes his head. “Not all their stuff is that spendy. Besides, we’re not after tears.”
    A soft pang pricks at my heart for that annoying, meddling jar, and again my hand slides its way to my flat pocket. I wonder what the maiden wizard or the Firsts would think of my having traded them to the sirens.
    I wait for the nudge, the humming prickle at my spine, for some acknowledgment from the pesky things, but the tears offer nothing of the kind. Estelle said she wouldn’t drink them, but has she? I inhale, doing a mental scan of every inch of my body, trying to find—hoping to find—even the tiniest nudge, some sign that the connection isn’t completely gone. The pang stretches me out inside, widening itself. Curse it, I miss the blasted things.
    I wonder if I’ll be able to tell if they’re being drunk. A small part of me wants to go back, to offer another trade. But the sirens gave me their song; that’s not something to throw back at them, especially not to a race of creatures so resplendent and free.
    Ren’s lips press into a line, and he watches me, waiting for my decision. The Black Vault vendors intimidate me. But if this is what it will take to get to Talon, I’ll pay any price.
    “Okay,” is all I manage.
    Ren folds his crude map and slides it toward me. “You’ll need this more than I do,” he says, leading the way out of the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s find Ayso.”
    I don’t bother asking what she has to do with any of this. From the way Dircey praised Ayso, she must be a valuable member of their rebellion.
    Ren heads down a hallway where a series of long bulbs give off shaky light above our heads.
    “I thought you were a part of this rebellion,” I say, hurrying to keep up with him. His stride is much wider than mine. “Why do you still have to pay for stuff?”
    Ren takes a turn down another hallway. The walls are damaged, dirty as though covered in newsprint and paper sacks. I wonder what kind of offices used to be here before it was abandoned. “We all work together, but the vendors don’t owe me anything because of it. If I want stuff, I still have to pay for it. It’s their business.”
    Their business. I hope this doesn’t take as long as going to Black Vault itself would. We don’t have that kind of time. I can see why Shasa took so long rescuing Jomeini, especially if there’s no way to get Jomeini her magic back, short of killing the man who stole it from her. Actually, there is
one
 other way… Absentmindedly, I grip the teardrop through my shirt.
    I wonder if Shasa and Solomus were