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

notice if she took up bird ownership.
    Verena had concluded the swap for the opals; Sophie selected a couple journals, a pen, and a packaged collection of items, labeled in a language she didn’t speak, that caught her eye because it seemed to contain the skin of a passenger pigeon. “How much for these?”
    â€œFive, Kir.”
    She handed over a coin as if she knew what it was worth and waited. After a beat, he gave her a bunch of smaller coins.
    Verena handed her an inconveniently heavy bag full of money.
    â€œHow much does this come to?”
    â€œThink of it as about four hundred bucks, assuming you can learn to haggle.”
    â€œI’ll give it a try.”
    â€œWhere to now?”
    â€œTons to observe in a market, am I right?”
    â€œYou’re not supposed to be observing at all,” Verena said.
    â€œWhat are you going to do, put my eyes out?”
    Verena’s objection, she thought, seemed halfhearted. Had she surrendered to the idea of the shopping trip a bit easily? That would suggest she was hiding something specific.
    She started down the mall as she mulled that over, passing a cobbler and dressmaker, then heading down a level and finding herself in front of a sign that read, POWDERER .”
    â€œPowders?”
    â€œMy lips are sealed.”
    â€œFor spells,” Sophie said. “I bet this is inscription ingredients.”
    The powderer’s shop was filled with clay jars, all corded and sealed with wax, and each with a tidy label written in Fleetspeak: talc, mixed coral, red coral, black coral, obsidian, whalebone, specter, antelope, basker (whatever that was) human skull, human tooth, human ash male, human ash female, quartz, red granite, black granite, agate.
    There were packages here, too, like the one she’d just bought with the bird corpse. “Is this—?”
    â€œNot answering,” Verena said.
    Next to the powderer’s was a place that sold scales and hair, then a sanguarium.
    â€œSanguarium,” she repeated. “Blood vendor.”
    A whole shop full of labeled blood samples. All she needed was permission to do research and someone to run DNA.
    â€œFine, yes,” Verena said. “Blood sellers. Sophie, what are you up to?”
    â€œLook, I’d have to be dead to not notice things about Stormwrack, am I right?”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œTelling me not to do science is just dumb. Not taking any hard information home until Annela gives permission, I understand that. Not sharing what I see with anyone but Bram—I can toe the line. I hate not having a camera, but I’ll survive. But I’m still a tourist here.”
    â€œIt’s just shopping,” Verena said, but Sophie’s attention had been caught by a poster, printed on a recycled scrap of sail.
    It was a crude image of a small sloop with an odd, almost dome-shaped wheel and two masts.
    â€œThat looks like the ship we sighted.”
    â€œI asked the jeweler about it,” Verena said. “He says it was stolen from the dockyards at Tug Island.”
    â€œTonio thought the derelict came from Tug, too.”
    â€œThere’ve been a few disappearances. They figure whoever made off with the sloop is sinking ships.”
    â€œWe reported seeing it, right?”
    â€œParrish will,” Verena said.
    A bloodcurdling shriek, from what looked to be a feather store, interrupted them.
    The creature in the front display cage was large, on the scale of an albatross—an enormous seagull with a wingspan, she estimated, of over nine feet. It was white but for a band of black over its eyes and mottled patches of brown behind its shoulders. Its feet were typical gull feet: pink, webbed, stunningly huge.
    â€œThis is Corsetta’s snow vulture,” Verena said.
    â€œHow do you know it’s hers?”
    â€œThey’re rare. There won’t be two.”
    The vendor had a harassed look. “She’s missing the