Free A Daughter of No Nation by A. M. Dellamonica

she’d be caught giving in to the cardinal-sin impulse of curiosity.
    â€œI’ll stand for her. Verena Feliachild, Verdanii.”
    â€œVery well.” He dipped his head to Sophie in a way that seemed to mean “no offense” and handed the coins over.
    Maybe it’ll be Sophie of Sylvanna soon, she thought. The thought came with a thrum of guilt, a sense that she was doing wrong by her parents, back in San Francisco.
    â€œWhat about these?” Sophie dug out an old wallet filled with little gems: a couple of diamonds, some semiprecious stones—turquoise, amethyst—and about six opals.
    The jeweler raked through them with a look of studied indifference on his face.
    â€œWhat’s the point of this?” Verena said.
    â€œGetting a bit of money of my own,” she said.
    â€œOpals?”
    â€œGifts from over the years. Because of my middle name. They aren’t heirlooms, Verena.”
    â€œTwo of these might be all right for magic,” the jeweler interrupted. “The rest, just for trinkets.”
    â€œNonsense,” Verena replied. “They’re nice and symmetrical. They’re great for spells.”
    Sophie entrusted the haggling to her sister, drifting on to the next vendor with her handful of coins. She paused at a blown-glass goldfish bowl. Three bright yellow creatures swam within; they were only the length of her finger but had the shape and gaping lionlike mouths of the silk dragons she’d seen at Lunar New Year’s celebrations in Chinatown. As she slowed, they broke the surface, letting water stream from their tiny jaws, and began to let out a whistle, the three of them pitching their notes so they formed a chord.
    She found herself smiling. She extended her hand toward the bowl—
    The vendor caught her just as one of the fish made a sharp-toothed snap for her fingertips.
    â€œBevvies, Kir? Brighten your day, bring good fortune.”
    She shook her head—both to say no and to shake off the odd, soporific effect of their song. It would be amazing to have live specimens of pretty much any species, but she needed somewhere to keep them first. She crossed to what looked like a bookstore, searching through the collection of bound diaries and ribbon-bound bundles of writing paper.
    â€œNo books—these are blank?” she asked.
    â€œOur bookseller’s ma took sick,” the vendor replied. “Went back to her homeland.”
    Had Verena deliberately chosen a market without a bookstall?
    â€œMay I ask you something?”
    His face took on a suspicious cast. That wariness, again, of curiosity. Was it simply cultural conditioning, or was magic at work here, somehow? Courtesy or the customer service impulse won out. “Of course, Kir.”
    â€œI got a letter recently that came with a sheet of paper that—well, I wrote on it, and someone from another ship wrote back.”
    â€œMessageply.” He nodded.
    â€œHow does that work? I want some for my brother.”
    â€œThe pages must be prepared by a specially scribed paperworker and be of a sheet.” He pointed out a locked case with a giant, two-ply roll of what looked like toilet paper. “The sheets are then picked apart and held by the separate parties. They are two halves of the same thing, you see.”
    â€œSounds like quantum entanglement.”
    â€œI don’t know this term ‘quantum,’ Kir.”
    Bram would be fascinated. “To use something like that to contact my brother, I’d have to send him the other half of a page already in my possession?”
    â€œThere are other ways to message. Cheapest is to scribe a pair of chitterbugs hatched of one casing. You teach them a tapping code, tell one, the other picks up the rhythm.”
    â€œTapping code—like Morse?” She ran out a series of dots and dashes.
    He nodded. “Wealthy folk prefer birds who’ll talk.”
    Verena and Annela would definitely