The air smells like cloves and silk, drifting slowly through the air. For the past two days, I've been stuck in a cramped apartment with a stinking boy and only one window. This morning, day three, Leo has refused to speak to me. I tried everything, threats, taunts, bribes, but nothing's working. So I found some stronger rope, double tied his hands to the chair and his feet to an anchoring hook in the floor, added a blindfold for good measure and left. Now I'm in the market, and feel free. Rose soap and emerald earrings catch my eye, and I wander over to browse. The market is large, several blocks set up in the produce district. Children run around buyers feet chasing stray cats and loose chickens and stealing apples from day-old crates. Women smile wider than they dare at home, talking and scheming with friends while men hug and laugh with friends. There are kind parts of the market, but there are cold too. Where I stand is warm and golden, selling goods that people don't need. I know there's a time constraint, but five minutes looking through all the beauty won't hurt. Besides, my birthday is coming up and I have just enough coin saved up to buy a small present.
"How much for the journal, sir?" The tent is made of light purple silk that opens to the sky five metres above my head. The walls are lined with bookcases and a giant table sits in the center of the room, big enough to seat thirty people.
"This is horse leather, very good quality." He speaks slowly to me, emphasizing each word. "It is made from the skin of the finest horses in the world, and the paper inside will never rip. It is ten francs for some, but for you, eight!" Eight isn't bad. He's lying, I think, about the leather. Fabrics were never my strong suit so I can't say for sure, if Cat were here she could tell in an instant, but horse leather has distinctive swirling patterns that are missing. I tell the man that I'll keep browsing, and turn to the bookshelves. Ever since I can remember, I've devoured books. The academy has an enormous library, thousands of books, but I've read almost all of them. The vendor may be slimy but the books are new, published recently. I've recently been reading books by a Miss Amelie Terrin about a journalist who uses flying machines to solve crimes, but there aren't any here so I thank the man and go on my way, into the cooler parts of the market.
There are no children here. No laughter, no pattering feet. You can almost always tell the virtue of a place by the amount of children there, and besides the occasional ragamuffin begging there aren't any. To get here is a variety of twists and turns, cuts through back alleys and handshakes with strange men. You wouldn't be able to find it easily without a map. Once you get here it's more cramped than the official market and dark too. The booths are slammed in next to each other and are covered in ratty tarps and made of rotting boards. Easy to dismantle if anyone decides to raid. Though the market is shoddy, the goods are quality and though there are liars more abundantly here, there are also legitimate goods that you couldn't get anywhere else in the city.
I start meandering. The academy had taken away my medicines and salves for that exam, which seems like years and years ago, and they need to be remade just in case anything were to happen. So I need herbs, flowers, gems, powders and potions that would never touch an average woman's hand. I need belladonna, nightshade, to keep a dying man breathing, or to make a breathing man stop. I need bloodroot and arsenic and thallium and mushrooms and flowers and fungi to either prolong or prevent life. And it's all here. Though it's tempting to delve right in, to begin the bartering and the sweet-talking and such, I'm smarter than that. This place has no laws, no safety. I'm a woman, I'm young, look naive and so I make my own.
1. Only buy from women. Female vendors are less physically dangerous and smarter. 2. Only buy what you know. Don't purchase new things that you haven't studied and read up. 3. Buy quickly, have several exit routes. This one has saved me more than once. Now I head into the throng fully, walking quickly, my head is bowed. I don't want to exude fright or fear, don't want to look like prey so I walk with confidence, even though my head is down.
"How much for the aspilia and the dried foxglove? Actually, could you add some monkshood root and ginger?" That's not nearly enough, but I can't seem too out of place. Any overseers would assume that I'm performing abortions for women, and that's fine with me. If the world was perfect, there would be about one hundred more herbs and mushrooms at this table, most incredibly poisonous if used wrong. There isn't though, this booth is fairly sparse, and I've spent time here already so I need to get going. The woman wraps my herbs and plants in wax paper, and I slip them into my reticule, hand her my coins and leave. There's a boy a few stalls away, a butcher staring without discretion at me, looking at me like I'm more pet than person. He nods to his partner, and begins to untie his apron, ready to walk over here. This is the kind of situation girls never want to get into, one that I need to avoid right now. I begin to walk very quickly in the opposite direction, zigzagging and weaving in and out of booths. I catch his reflection in a polished metal plate, still there, maybe thirty metres behind me. Fuck! I tower over most of the other women, making me easier to spot. I can't fight my way out of this, can tell he's stronger just by a glance. I can't run either, there's no easier way to pull attention to yourself. That leaves me with a few options, but the option with the highest probable success rate is, well, not my favourite. I take a deep breath, and duck into an alley between two large canvass tents.
My fingers fumble with the top button of my shirt, until it finally comes undone. I pull my hair out of its one braid, shake it out. Then turn away from the entrance, and every primal instinct tells me not to, but I turn anyway because that's what I have been taught to do. I have done this hundreds of times at the academy, dozens in real situations, and though I know I am in full control and this boy won't hurt me physically, it's still terrifying. I can hear footsteps coming closer and closer and closer, footsteps turning down the ginnel. Just breathe. He's getting closer, ten metres, five, and at two or so, I spin to face him. I don't look him in the eye, cower a bit with my eyes fixed on his blood-stained boots. Play down your strength, your courage, and blitz them with it once they've fallen for your face.
"What's your name, pretty?" His voice is nasal and grating. I grit my teeth.
"Lil-lil-Lillianne." My name is not Lillianne, but he will never know. I stutter, make him think he's in charge.
"Lillianne. Beautiful, just like you." He's gotten closer, now a few hands from my face.
"You know, I like your hair Lillianne, I like your eyes, I like your nose. I like your lips. I like your lips a lot." I've heard this one before, just a few more seconds.
"I think I'm going to kiss you, and you're going to kiss me back, or there's going to be a problem. Do we want a problem?" Yes! I do! Just ten more seconds. I shake my head and he chuckles.
"Alright, no problems." Then he leans, closer and closer, hands grabbing my wrists, lips puckered. Alright, go time. I knee him where the sun don't shine, and he keels over. Before he can make a sound, call for help, I've pushed him onto the ground and have a forearm on his windpipe. He's choking. It sounds far better than his speaking voice. I pull out my knife.
"You tried to kiss me, you cornered me, and I'm sure I'm not the first girl you've done this to. Is that right?" I can hear a muffled 'bitch' come out of his mouth and lean harder on his throat. That confirms it. I can't let him get away with this again.
"You think you can kiss anyone you want, you can own us? I am going to make sure you never kiss anyone again." I pull a knife out of my back pocket, the one I couldn't stab Leo with. That won't be a problem with this one. Blood dances on the tip of the knife, a puppet under my string-snatching hands. The knife glints as it shines against the pale of his skin. He makes choking noises, for all I care I could be deaf. I drag the knife from his left cheek, across his bastard lips, down to under the right side of his chin. Then, the inverse. I cut quickly, it doesn't hurt much. But a large scar will be left, an x across his lips. He's marked like a predator, will never be able to kiss someone again. I hit him on the head with the hilt of my knife, and he's out. Then I duck under one of the tent flaps and make my way back home. I don't normally enjoy inflicting pain, but that was different. There are thousands of terrible men in this city. One of them has been stopped. I start to walk with a little bounce in my step, and whistle, every swooping note soaring higher and higher into the sky.
YOU ARE READING
Mad Honey
FantasyWIP - Azalea is an academy trained spy, an occasional assassin. She's sent on mission to find and interrogate a boy who has been watching the academy, and her. But things go wrong when she is kidnapped and thrown into a conspiracy much bigger than h...
