And the ivy towns—where she had stolen her share of wallets while tightening her plan earlier that day—were bright and beautiful in a way that made Tavia feel just how rough her edges were.
But she wasn’t in Creije anymore and she could never go back.
The Kingpin had seen to that.
Tavia checked her timepiece as the busker approached.
He was tall and stocky, with a wide jaw and dark eyes. His face matched the description, and the way he walked toward her, untouchable, and so similarly to the way Tavia knew she had walked the streets of Creije, told her this was her guy.
Nolan Kane.
Tavia smiled as he got closer.
Exactly two hours after sundown, just like her source had promised. Rishiya’s best busker was prompt—he liked routine.
What a moron.
Keep them guessing. Don’t do what’s expected. Never let yourself get predictable.
Wesley had taught her the most important lesson a busker could know: how to be invisible.
“If you’re not looking for me, then you should be,” Nolan said, all bright teeth and smarmy eyebrows. “I’m about to give you a wild night.”
Definitely not invisible.
“So what’s your poison?”
“My poison,” Tavia repeated, as though she was pondering it. “I’m a little particular. What have you got?”
“Anything,” Nolan said. “Everything.”
“That’s a big promise to make.”
Nolan took off his backpack and held it up like a trophy.
“There’s not a single piece of magic in all of Rishiya that I ain’t got tucked away. Any charm or trick you want, for the right price.”
“So much magic in such a little bag,” Tavia said. “You sure seem confident.”
“Ever heard of a relativity charm?” Nolan asked. He tapped his backpack twice. “This baby can hold three times what it should.”
Moron. Moron. Moron.
“You have any time magic in there?”
“Sure do. Looking to undo the last few days?” Nolan asked.
Which was silly, because you could barely rewind a few minutes with the best time charms out there. Tavia didn’t want to erase the past: She wanted to disrupt it.
Time will be carried in strange hands,
across the realms and through stranger lands.
What is done will be undone,
a battle lost is a battle won.
That was the prediction she had heard from the fortune orb Wesley helped her create, and though Tavia didn’t care much for prophecy, she could hardly ignore it. After all, the time barrels they had built to freeze the Kingpin’s army had jolted something inside the old man, too.
Impossibly, it had hurt him.
They had made him run, and even if Tavia didn’t put much stock in prophecy, she sure as shit put stock in people running away.
Whether Karam or the others agreed with her, it didn’t matter.
Tavia knew what she was doing and she knew what they needed.
“I’ve got a memory serum,” Nolan said. “Want to erase days or years? I’ve got it all. Whether it’s you who wants to forget, or if you’ve got someone else’s mind to play with.”
Tavia pretended to look bored at the thought and let her eyes scan the streets as if she was looking for another busker.
Give up the goods, Nolan, she thought. You know you want to.
“Or maybe you know someone who misses the glory years,” Nolan said, inching closer to her, desperate not to lose a sale.
Tavia understood that urge better than most.
“I’ve got something that can make people young as we are, younger even. Turn back their body clock for a whole day. And it can be all yours,” Nolan said.
Tavia offered him a coy smile. “All mine?” she asked. “By the gods?”
“As long as you have money to spend,” Nolan said. “You do have money to spend, don’t you? I ain’t got patience for time wasters.”
Tavia reached into her pocket.
She had money all right. And though it wasn’t hers—a technicality at best—she was ready to spend it.
Just not on this guy and his magic.
Tavia pulled out her gun.
“Great sales pitch,” she said. “I think you’ve inspired me to take the lot as a contribution to our war effort.”
Nolan’s face shifted, eyes narrowing as Tavia gripped the bone gun tighter, taking aim.
Wesley’s gun still felt odd in her hand, more delicate than she was used to and shaped in a way that didn’t quite fit her grasp. Maybe it had been made for him or, even if it hadn’t, it had carved itself around him, taking the shape Wesley wanted and molding itself to whatever he needed.
Wesley had that kind of effect.
“You’re one of the people trying to go against the Kingpin,” Nolan said. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “Haven’t you heard? Dante Ashwood is fixing to tear down anyone who gets in the way of his new realm. Doyen Schulze can’t stop him. You’re on the wrong side and you don’t have what it takes to win.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. “Now hand over your backpack while I’m being nice enough to let you live.”
Nolan laughed and stepped forward so the gun was pressed right to his chest. “How about you run along while I’m being nice enough to let you live,” he said. “You don’t have the stones to kill me. I can see it in your eyes.”
He wasn’t exactly wrong.
Shooting people wasn’t Tavia’s style, and killing a busker on the streets to steal his magic seemed excessive. She’d hoped the gun would scare him into submission, since she wasn’t sure she could take him on in a fight. Tavia had always been better with magic than her fists, but the last thing she wanted was to waste good magic trying to rob him. They needed all the charms they could get these days.
“So that’s a no to being robbed at gunpoint, then?” she asked. “Fair enough. I’ll admit it was a bit much. Luckily, I have a Plan B.”
Tavia took a step back—because she was not about to let this amateur snatch her weapon—and reached into her pocket with her free hand, keeping her eyes on Nolan to make sure he didn’t try anything. Tavia was still as alert and quick as Wesley had taught her to be.
She may have spent the last week in a forest, but she wasn’t rusty enough to let her guard down.
“A Plan B,” Nolan repeated. “To shooting me?”
“A girl has to have her options,” she said.
She squeezed the charm in her fingers, letting the magic wash over her with a familiar warmth. At first, it felt like it was pulling at her insides, tugging the skin from her bones and the nails from her fingertips. Her hands shook, her joints locked, and Tavia’s eyes flickered until all she could see was pure, blinding white.
When the realms finally shifted back into color, Tavia was not alone.
She was surrounded by six more versions of herself.
All the Tavias stood with their black hair carving across their chins, gray eyes daring as they pulled knives from their pockets and guns from their belts and ran fingers over brightly polished knuckle dusters.
They circled Nolan with that same slow smile.
Tavia could feel them each at the corners of her mind, taking a small piece of her for themselves. She didn’t need to think about what she wanted them to do because they were already inside her mind, predicting her actions and readying to do what she needed.