Free The Thief Queen's Daughter by Elizabeth Haydon

difference does it make what time it is? We’re in the market. We can do whatever we want.” Saeli nodded in agreement.
    Ven’s skin was itching so much that it felt like it would peel off his body. He turned around slowly, trying to take in all the sights.
     

     
    The brightly colored booths were set up in a series of circles, almost like streets. The pit fires and other places where food was being sold were mostly in the inner circles. Tents and booths with wares for sale seemed to be in the outer circles, some of them flying colorful flags, others with brightly painted maypoles or wooden signs in front. Ven’s eyes were flooded with all the colors.
    Just then he heard McLean’s voice in his head.
    I imagine it’s a spectacular place, full of bright colors and sweet smells and glorious music. That’s why you must be especially careful, Ven. Outside the Gated City, those things serve to delight the heart. Within its walls, their purpose is to distract the eye. And the mind.
    He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out his great-grandfather’s jack-rule. It was his most treasured possession, a folding measuring stick with a knife, a magnifying glass, and other tools that had been made in the underground kingdom of the Nain almost a thousand years before. Carefully he extended the lens and looked through it.
    Past the circles of colorful booths were buildings surrounding the square. The buildings on the closest street were beautifully kept, with window boxes full of flowers, carefully tended gardens, and neatly shingled roofs. They stood side by side, sharing walls, with occasional alleys between them.
    When Ven looked closer, however, past the first row of houses and stores, he could see that the streets and buildings quickly lost their colors, fading into gray. It looked like a mist was hanging around them, making them hard to see. The shutters on the windows were more often broken or missing, the paint on the doors peeling.
    What caught his eye most of all, however, was what was over the buildings of the Gated City.
    Suspended in the air above the streets, attached to the roofs of the houses that stood side by side, was a second sidewalk. Wide ladders led up to it at each alleyway. Above the roofs, people were walking on the elevated footpath, greeting each other in passing as if they were on the ground below. The street in the air stretched all the way into the Market as far as he could see.
    Ven was suddenly nervous. He folded the jack-rule and looked back at his friends. Everyone was watching him. They all still had their tokens around their necks, as did he.
    “Where to first?” Char asked.
    “Let’s go to the center of the square,” Ven suggested. “We’ll start by just looking around to begin with.” He put the jack-rule away and headed into the middle of the Outer Market. The other four children nodded and followed him.
    Past the pit fires where the food was roasting were other types of fires, over which other types of pots were hanging.
    At one, a tall, thin woman with red hair and a colorful apron was dipping an enormous spoon with a tin cup in its bowl. When she lifted it out of the pot, the cup had been plated in gold. Two men were striking coins in silver, copper, and a strange blue metal in a forge and cooling them in another of the pots. A third pot seemed to be a giant cauldron of medicine. Six men in brightly striped shirts with hair and skin that matched were bottling the contents of that pot, each with a long-handled ladle. Ven noticed that every time one of them poured what was in his ladle into a bottle, the color was different.
    Some of the townspeople who had entered the gates with them were wandering around much like they were, taking in the sights with wonder. Others, who had obviously been to the Market before, hurried to certain booths and shops.
    All around them the air was filled with delicious smells. Beyond the roasting food there was the scent of heavy spice and rare perfume,