The Nameless Assassins

Finding Him

Still thoughtful after what I'd seen, I drifted across the city to Brightstone with half-formed plans of scouring the Bowmore Bridge neighborhood for him. But as I passed through the Silver Market, a gaggle of young Akorosian ladies in Skovlan-themed clothing jolted me out of my reverie.

Ye gods, was that really an entire, cage-crinoline-type skirt constructed from screaming yellow, pink, and orange tartan silk? The Lampblacks would have opinions, no, the entire province of Skovlan would have opinions – of the variety where you didn't want to be on the wrong (i.e. pointy) end.

Hastily purchasing an overpriced wool cloak to fling over my threadbare gown, I scurried after the girls like a friend who'd gotten left behind.

When I caught up at a jewelry stand, Tartan Skirt was holding a crude gilt brooch to her bosom while her friends teased, "Hoping you'll impress Finnley tonight?"

The target blushed and giggled, but determinedly asked the vendor, "Are you quite certain this is authentic, Master Goldsmith?"

Might I suggest the section on Skovlan in the Charterhall University Library for some light background reading?

Sensing a victim, the artisan adopted an ingratiating tone. "But of course, my lady! May I?" Taking the brooch, he held it up to the electroplasmic bulb. "Do you see how elongated the dragon is? And how it's set against a background of interwoven vines that form a classic knot?" All the girls clustered around him, craning their necks and bobbing their heads eagerly like so many painted geese. "This style is all the rage in Skovlan right now."

He pinned the brooch to Tartan Skirt's bodice and held up a mirror so she could preen to her heart's delight. Edging through the gaggle, I pretended to admire the effect. "That goes so nicely with your hair!" I praised. (Well, gold matched any color hair, even muddy brown.) "Whoever he is, I'm sure he'll be utterly entranced when he sees you." The girls all teetered, and I cast an arch glance at them. "So who is this mysterious someone?"

Tartan Skirt turned as pink as the stripes on her dress and elbowed her nearest friend, who dodged and blabbed, "Why, it's Lord Finnley Tyrconnell from Skovlan, of course! Ooh, he's soooo hot! He's just the perfect height – you know, tall enough to make you feel protected, but not so tall he makes you feel like a dwarf – and you can tell he's a sportsman, but he doesn't bulge like a common docker – "

Another girl, who was wearing an orange, turquoise, and black tartan cloak, cooed, "And he has hair like spun gold and eyes the color of – of what they say was the color of the sky before the Cataclysm.... He's just sooooo dashing...."

If we were talking about the same man, then regrettably I had to agree. Donning a dreamy expression of my own, I sighed, "Isn't he just?"

"And he's so mysterious, too!" put in a chubby girl, at whose waist pouffed a pink tartan bow the size of which might have impressed even Faith. "He's always the consummate gentleman – not even the Dowager Lady Dunvil can fault his manners, and you know she hates everybody under the age of twenty-five – but he never gives any woman a second glance."

Tartan Skirt stage-whispered, "I heard from Mara, who heard from her sister's friend's cousin's fiancé, that Lord Finnley came to Doskvol to forget a girl who broke his heart."

"But you're going to un-break it, aren't you?" I teased, but my voice didn't come out quite naturally.

She didn't notice. She was too busy disclaiming her intentions.