Free With Fate Conspire by Marie Brennan Page B

unfriendly eyes.
    Dead Rick found Cyma standing in front of a cracked mirror, holding a dress of printed cotton against her body. It was a strange-looking thing, with a tiny bodice that went no lower than the breasts, and a narrow skirt falling loose from there. “Where in Faerie did that come from?”
    Cyma shook her head at him, amused and pitying. “Don’t you remember? They used to wear these, years ago—mortal women did. During the Prince Regent’s reign. I found them delightful. Very Greek, don’t you think?”
    It could have been Chinese for all he cared. Dead Rick sidled closer and muttered, “I can pay you back now. Mostly, anyway—I’m still a bit short. But if you let me keep a bite or two, I can probably get the rest.”
    He’d left Cyma for last because she was kinder than his other creditors. She had been a court lady, rumor said, back when there still was a court beyond the Prince’s few followers, but she didn’t spend her time dallying in the surviving gardens with the scant handful of lords and ladies that remained. She couldn’t: Cyma had her own debts, of a sort that couldn’t be repaid in bread, and Nadrett held them. It gave her more sympathy than most; she might forgive him the extra delay.
    Dead Rick was startled when she smiled and patted him on the cheek. “You’re a sweet one, aren’t you? Paying me back, when I know you’re all but penniless. You needn’t worry. Keep it for yourself; I don’t mind.”
    He stiffened warily. “In exchange for what?”
    Cyma’s eyebrows rose. “Why, nothing. I don’t need it, Dead Rick.”
    The use of his name was as good as a whole message in code. Nobody else used it; almost nobody in the Market knew it. He was just Nadrett’s dog, a nameless slave. Hearing those words on Cyma’s lips told him she wasn’t playing some game, bargaining forgiveness for some favor from him; she meant it. He didn’t owe her.
    Why?
    Even if she was leading some mortal lovers about on a string, the bread would have been valuable; with it, she could buy practically anything she wanted. That dress, and everything else the bored puck behind her had to sell. Everything but freedom from Nadrett. “What did you do, loot a bakery?”
    She laughed. “No, no. Better than that. I’m leaving, Dead Rick. I’ve had enough of all of this.” One hand swept a graceful arc, indicating the tawdry excesses of the Goblin Market around them. “I’m going away.”
    It produced a strange pang in his gut. “You think you can run away from Nadrett?”
    “Not run away, no…” Cyma’s expression darkened. “I know what Nadrett is like. But I’ve done what he asked of me, and settled my debt, and now—well, I must look to the future, mustn’t I?”
    It echoed Dead Rick’s own thoughts, and made the cramp in his gut worse. “Where?”
    She laid a sly finger alongside her nose. “Wouldn’t you like to know. But I know better than to say anything; I don’t want anyone stealing my place. Keep the bread, Dead Rick, with my compliments. Use it to buy your own way free of that dreadful fellow.”
    The pain was like a spike through his innards. If only I could.
    He mumbled thanks to Cyma for the bread and beat a retreat before his bitterness could overwhelm him. Making his way deeper into the warren of the Goblin Market, he sought out the one thing even scarcer than bread: solitude.
    The corridor he went to had once branched off to the left, but the buckling of that delicate arch had brought the stone crashing in, closing the way to anything bigger than a mouse. There was a hob approaching from the other direction as Dead Rick neared that collapse, a surly Irish fellow who did the occasional odd job for Lacca, another Goblin Market boss. The skriker leaned against the wall perhaps ten feet from the fallen stones and dug through the pockets of his trousers, as if looking for something in their empty depths, until the hob had turned the corner and gone into the room