Page 39 (1/2)
But when she did dilate her eyes, she saw soether different Below sub-red, below sub-red as far as sub-red was below the visible spectrum, farther, was her color--if color it was The books called it paryl Paryl was pure and beautiful andSo fine the few books she’d ever found that tried to make some translation of paryl called it spidersilk
Except, of course, spiders could hang from their webs Teia knew better than to try that with her color
She was starting to get nervous about thein their tower, but they couldn’t get out while she was inside And the uise was the most vulnerable time of her day She’d dilated her eyes all the way to paryl when so flickered at the corner of her vision
A wisp of paryl smoke swirled and disappeared over the crowd, a hundred paces away
No one noticed it, of course No one could notice it Teia hadn’t even met anyone who could see paryl, et That was how her targets came marked: wisps of paryl in their hair or on top of their hat, burning like flameless fires It made a perfect beacon, invisible to anyone but Teia But she’d never seen her counterpart; the ets for her had always kept well out of sight
Teia watched, looked everywhere There! A beacon, passing below the foot of her tower She couldn’t quite get the angle to see her target, but this was going to be easier than usual
She slid down the ladder with her bag slung over her back At the botto over one shoulder, and made sure that the straps hadn’t displaced her "breasts" She breathed deeply Confident but not aggressive, Teia No, not even confident Just busy Enough sway to make it look like I have hips, but not soone last time, she exhaled, opened the door, stepped out, and closed it unhurriedly behind her
The foot of the arch here was right next to the side of a building, so she was able to step into a narrow side street quickly She scanned the crowd once she got away from the arch, and relaxed her eyes briefly It was as important for her to look for people who had noticed her stepping out of the arch as it was for her to find her target
She found the beacon in seconds But it wasn’t on her target It was in a woht Not loose and fiery
Teia kneas a bad decision, but she followed the wo ht be here
But rather than pure exciteerous Whoever had marked this woman didn’t know that anyone else could see her It was like stu it Whoever had sent the e wouldn’t be pleased to have their correspondence read--even if the wordsto Teia
There were powerful undercurrents in this city, and a slave could get sucked down into the weakest of the Jasper that the Cerulean Sea didn’t carry away at least one body
Teia kept her eyes open, but didn’t draft Any drafting would alert the other paryl to her presence The woman was perhaps fifty paces ahead of her, and not in any particular hurry, browsing the stalls,deeper into the market Her very lack of haste made it al somewhere, the number of possible folloould be li in the sahly the sa and impossible to lose because she had a beacon on her head, the wo with the shifting crowd