Balance - Chapter 4.1

Narantse's map was exquisite. Made of evenly-pounded paper that covered most of the floor, it was held down at the corners by white-veined river stones that the healer kept in a warm box under her reagent table. Everything about Sai Thi was marked out, almost everything named, from the Phoenix Emperor's palace at the far upriver end of the city to the river gates past the slums, the pen-strokes even and clean across the entirety.

It must have been worth a king's fortune. Jazai's hands travelled from name to name on the map as ce tried to judge its worth and find some common vein with the written characters. Some of them ce recognized as the characters for square, or for the Goddess's names, or the odd word out that ce knew, but most of them were completely foreign. Ce knelt at the edge and laid cer palms flat against the paper, looking back up at Narantse in her chair. "You're sure this can help you find Biang?"

She drained her third cup of baijiu and set it on the floor. "Of course I'm sure. Would I be doing this if I wasn't sure, Jazai?"

The scavenger arched an eyebrow. "I don't know what you'd be doing." Ce glanced around the map, then found the small yellow rock that Narantse had put on Thi's Square. If Biang had left in the morning, she could have been anywhere in the city; if the priesthood got their hands on her again, she could have been as far as outside, bundled in a cart on her way to some far temple valley. "How long will it take?" ce asked, trying to guess distances from the yellow stone to the edges of the map.

Kneeling next to cer on the floor, the healer rattled a few smaller stones from the same warm box in her hand and leaned over the paper. "That's relative. How easy will she be to find?" She reached out as far as she could and dropped one stone on the sprawl of the city palace, then another to the other side on the river gates. "If she's got wards on her, it'll take longer."

"And if she's in a temple?" Ce couldn't rule that out. It was just as likely they would want to get her out of the city as quickly as possible, but she could have been collared to one of the temples again. Cer eyes narrowed, Jazai looked between the stones on the map—which of them would lead back to Biang?

"She might as well be lost to me. The priests have so many wards on them, I'm surprised they haven't collapsed from the weight." Narantse finished bordering the city with a handful of other stones and ran her hands over a clear area of the map. "You said you had a job to do, Jazai. Go do it."

Jazai sat back on cer haunches and folded cer arms across cer chest. Already, cer eyes swept around the room for anything ce could take with cer—Narantse's things and cer own—and ce was discounting them. Cer jacket stood out too much, cer charms were too loud without the muffling glamor, and ce didn't want to risk the wrath of a healer, but… "I'm—"

"Go." The woman's eyes were boring holes through the paper, and she lifted that piercing gaze to cer with a little smile. "This is going to take a bit, and it might be best if you're not here for it."

"Of course." With a nod, the scavenger pushed cerself to cer feet, the new bandages stiff around cer throat. There was no point in asking if she was sure—she was always sure, and ce didn’t want to risk another injury on the eve of a hunt. Ce stepped around the map and paused at the doorway, glancing back at Narantse with wary eyes.

The healer bent over the paper, and the muscles in her bare shoulders pressed taut against her skin as she crooned a hoarse language.

Jazai didn't want to trust magic—it was unreliable and impure, a liar’s way to live—but if it was the quickest way to find Biang, ce had no choice. Her life was already in danger, and if the priesthood reconnected her to their magic tethers, it would take too long to wean her off without risking a total relapse.

Ce sighed and stepped out into the square. There was no bringing a mage back from a spell until they wanted to come back, unless ce wanted to risk injuries to both of them, and Atheera's job shouldn't be long for cer to complete. Winning on either side of the coin, ce remembered cer teacher calling it. Mage does half the work, you're paid for the whole job.

He had been full of scavengers' proverbs like that, a mysterious man who hated his liquor and loved his gods, and even six years after his death, his magic-green eyes stood out in cer memory. Jazai glanced up at the sky, streaked with imperial gold and purple, and let cerself wonder for a moment if he was in his Celestial Heaven.

Unlikely, though. Ce shrugged and looked back out at the square, where a couple of stray lamp-lighters scurried through and the night guards were coming out of their little barracks home on the edge of the houses. They all had their paid jobs, and ce had cers. The city was a wonderful paradox of law and lawlessness, and Jazai had to make sure that ce stood on the right side of it all.

The sun set somewhere below the western palaces, and soon enough the entire city would be coated in darkness and the streetlamps would be lit on the main roads. The Dragonriver would have been glimmering blood-red in the firelight, flecks of gold racing over its surface from stray magic lanterns that escaped the temples and ran to the heart of the city to die—but ce had no desire to watch the lights.

Not while Biang was in trouble, and most definitely not while that same magic could have been tied to her and making her dependent again.

Jazai turned north and started off towards the alchemists' row.