The Gold in the Dark

Chapter One

Tia Inkman plucked a myreskeet from the teeming bucket and ran her finger over its cool, slippery abdomen. At her touch, the creature drew its six stubby legs up into its shell, and she steeled herself, dreading the next part. Shucking skeet wasn't hard—just one movement, much practiced, quick so the poor thing wouldn't suffer. The job was a necessity; shucked myreskeet were the crucial ingredient used to make myreink, and it was myreink that put food on the Inkmans' table. Yet the feeling of her thumb digging through the soft meat of the underbelly and ripping flesh from shell—that Tia could never get used to.

Tia Inkman plucked a myreskeet from the teeming bucket and ran her finger over its cool, slippery abdomen. At her touch, the creature drew its six stubby legs up into its shell, and she steeled herself, dreading the next part. Shucking skeet wasn't hard—just one movement, much practiced, quick so the poor thing wouldn't suffer. The job was a necessity; shucked myreskeet were the crucial ingredient used to make myreink, and it was myreink that put food on the Inkmans' table. Yet the feeling of her thumb digging through the soft meat of the underbelly and ripping flesh from shell—that Tia could never get used to.

She cupped the skeet in her hand, putting off the inevitable. The upside-down skeet was beginning to relax again, gray legs poking back out of its shell. It waggled them around, trying to right itself.

Carefully closing her fingers over the skeet, she pivoted on her stool to face her older sister. Natlin's face was set in a look of concentration, and Tia saw she had already made a sizable dent in her bucket. This dirty job never seemed to bother Natlin as much, so maybe...

She drew in a breath. "I've just had a thought."

Natlin dropped a skeet shell to the grimy cellar floor before looking up at Tia.

"What's that?"

"What would you say to a couple hours with Hob tomorrow? I'll sneak out to the market early and buy everything for you, and you can go see him while I'm minding the store. No one will be the wiser."

Natlin's eyes dropped to Tia's hand, still palming the skeet. One eyebrow twitched upward.

"Very kind of you to offer," her sister said, voice deadpan. "And here I was, thinking you didn't like Hob..."

Tia rolled her eyes. "It's not that I don't like him, just... you know..."

Natlin crooked a smile at her. "I know." A girl from an upstanding merchant family did not have romances with Mirish bog runners in training, especially when said girl was being courted by other, parent-approved suitors. The Yarren Street merchants might let the bogmen lead them out into the peatlands to harvest iron and myreskeet, and they might let them sell a few bits and bobs in the corner of the general store, but it did not mean they kept close relations with their Mirish associates.

As for Tia's opinion of Hob himself, she chose to keep those private. The way she saw it, Natlin's secret beau was all sweet nothings, with an emphasis on the nothing—but he made her sister happy. Besides, Natlin always reciprocated whenever Tia helped her find time to meet with Hob. Her sister was not the only one with a secret.

"Go," Natlin said as she reached for another skeet and shucked it in half a second. Tia shuddered. "Should be past sixth hour now."

"You'll cover for me?"

"Of course. Though... You know, I think you should just tell them. Why be embarrassed?"

Tia huffed out a sigh. "I'll show them once I'm perfect."

Her sister snorted. "Don't think for a second I'll still be keeping your secrets when you're eighty."

"Very funny." Tia uncurled her fingers and dropped the spared skeet into her apron pocket. Standing up from the stool, she wiped her hands clean. "Thank you."