“No, never!” the merchant exclaimed. “On you it has imprinted, lady. It will love you for always. It is only other people who are near you that it might become a bit…well, snappish with.”
Harper had a mental image of herself wearing the rainbow porcupine fabric and sitting on a subway or a crowded bus. It was one thing for the fabric to protect her from attacks—but it was something else entirely if it was going to start attacking people around her just because it was in a bad mood. It would be like going out with a badly behaved dog, one that was prone to biting.
“I don’t know…” she began but Shad was already holding out his thumb.
“We’ll pay your price,” he said to the merchant. “I like the idea of my female being protected so completely.”
“But—” Harper began but she didn’t get to finish because Shad was already pressing the pad of his thumb to the merchant’s small silver payment cube.
“Here you are, my lady. May it guard your life and serve you well.”
Carefully and still wearing the gloves, the merchant unfolded the cloth of thorns from its protective covering and draped it around the still-protesting Harper’s shoulders.
It fell over her as soft as silk and not nearly as hot or heavy as she’d imagined it would be. How something so incredibly light could really protect her, she didn’t know. But Shad seemed satisfied—especially after he reached to adjust a fold of the cloth—which had settled naturally around her shoulders like a cloak—and it bit him, its long spines forming a kind of mouth with many sharp teeth.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, drawing his fingers back and sticking them in his mouth. “Son of a bitch! It’s quick.”
“I did warn you, sir.” The merchant shrugged. “The royal cloth loves none but its owner. All the rest of the universe is the enemy. A more loyal bodyguard your lady could not have—aside from yourself, of course.” He bowed deferentially.
“I see that.” Shad put his injured finger in his mouth and sucked at it thoughtfully. He looked at Harper. “Well, now that you’re protected by that gaudy, bad-tempered piece of cloth, maybe we can finally do what we came here to do—go see Master Yll-no.”
Harper sighed. “Lead the way.”
“Come.” Being careful not to touch the rainbow cloak, he led her deeper into the market.
* * * * *
The way to Forger’s Row was not an easy one. For one thing, even at the Thieves' Market what they were doing was considered illegal. And for another, they only wanted to be found by those who could afford them. So when Shad saw a black tent which appeared to have nothing but a dusty floor and dark, foreboding shadows inside, he thought he was getting close. When he felt the air of menace and dread which surrounded the place, he knew he was.
“Wait—we’re going in there?” Harper pulled back on his hand as he attempted to lead her into the dark and dusty tent. “Why? There’s no one in there. And it feels creepy…wrong.”
“It’s supposed to feel wrong,” Shad told her patiently. “The forgers want to frighten away the wrong kind of customer. Anyone who doesn’t know exactly what they’re looking for won’t go in.”
“So you’re saying the forgers themselves—this Master Yll-no—somehow made this tent seem scary on purpose?” she demanded.
Shad nodded. “Yes.”
“So people who come to see them have to go through a haunted tent to prove they’re worthy? That’s crazy.”
“No, that’s doing business with a life-forger. Come on.” Shad nodded at the forbidding opening again and this time she followed him—albeit very reluctantly.
They went through the empty tent and Shad threw aside the back flap to reveal an amazing sight. The back of the tent opened up into a boulevard of wonders. Behind him, he heard Harper gasp as she took it all in.
They were standing on a row lined not with tents, but with every other kind of dwelling imaginable. To their right was a stately mansion with white marble pillars and an arching doorway. To their left was a castle surrounded by a moat with a fire-breathing dragon perched on its tallest spire. It roared down at them, smoke puffing from its nostrils. Harper flinched but Shad paid it no mind. It, like everything else here, was just a forgery—a very clever fake.
“What is this place?” Harper breathed, going up to a house which appeared to be made entirely out of candy. It had gingerbread walls and fist-sized red and white peppermints lined its windowsills. The icicles hanging from its eaves were clearly frosting and the front doorknob was an oversized green gumdrop.
“The Avenue of Forgers,” Shad answered. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s…bizarre.” Harper was looking across the street at an underwater palace entirely contained in an enormous round fish bowl. “But if they forge money all day, why do they spend it like this? I mean, is this some kind of a status symbol or something?”
“Forge money? You mean make counterfeit bills?” Shad frowned.
“Well…sure.” Harper shrugged. “I mean, that’s what a forger does, right? Makes fake money?”
“Not here on Juno in the Thieves' Market,” Shad told her. “Here, they forge fake lives. Which is exactly what we need for you if She Who Alters is going to agree to meet with you.” He jerked his head in the direction they needed to be headed. “Come on.”
* * * * *
Harper still felt dizzy from everything that had transpired since they’d landed on Juno. It seemed like strange things just would not stop happening to her and she was beginning to feel like Alice in an extremely warped version of Wonderland.
She still wasn’t sure about the rainbow porcupine cloak she’d acquired in her latest bizarre adventure either. It wrapped around her securely but the minute anyone else tried to touch her, the cloak went into a snarling, biting frenzy. Back home in Tampa it would have been a legal liability—a lawsuit just waiting to happen. But here on Juno, maybe it would be an asset.
She hoped.
They passed by more strange dwellings—a grand house that appeared to be suspended twenty feet up in midair with golden steps leading up to it, a tiny pink structure no bigger than a large doll house (Harper wondered how anyone was supposed to get in there), and the entrance to a cavern filled with green and gold and blue stalactites and stalagmites that glittered with jewels and veins of precious ore embedded in them.
But it was to none of these or the various other strange and wonderful houses that Shad was leading her. Instead, he pulled her towards the end of the long street where Harper saw a small, humble wooden house.
It was more of a shack than a house, actually. The kind of falling-down structure someone might use for a garden shed. With all the other amazing buildings on the street, Harper wondered why they had come to this one.
“This is it?” she asked flatly as Shad reached out to knock at the rickety, unpainted wooden door. “All these other amazing places and this is the one you take us to?”
“This is where Master Yll-no lives,” Shad said simply. “He—”
At that moment the door was opened by the tallest and most beautiful woman Harper had ever seen. She was six foot six at least and had pale lavender skin and wide, golden eyes fringed thickly with black lashes. A long waterfall of thick black hair fell to her ankles and she was wearing a flowing scarlet robe which should have clashed violently with her skin tones…but somehow didn’t.
“Yes?” she murmured in a soft, husky voice. “How may I be of help to you?”
Harper was certain they must be in the wrong place but Shad clearly wasn’t ready to give up.
“We are here to speak to the Master of the house,” he said.
“Master of the house? What of the Mistress of the house?” the lovely woman inquired. Then she changed before their eyes, melting like a crayon in the sun, her colors running, her shape changing until she was a young boy, of about seven or eight. The boy had mint green skin and eyes as golden as the woman’s had been. His hair, though, was a white gold that was almost silver. “Or woul
d you speak to another?” he asked in a high, soft voice.
Harper blinked. What the hell was going on here? If it was a magic trick it was a damn good one. Neither the woman nor the boy looked anything but completely real. She wondered if they would be solid to the touch or if it was somehow an optical illusion.
The boy melted just as the woman had and reformed to become some kind of animal—it looked like a cross between a black panther and a lion, to Harper. It yawned hugely, showing sharp white teeth like daggers.
“Well?” it said, twitching its whiskers and shaking out its long, black mane. Its large golden eyes regarded them with interest.
“I wish to speak to the Master of the house,” Shad repeated, frowning. “Only he can help me. I am calling in a debt that is owed to my Twin Kindred fathers, Deep and Lock.”
The panther-lion twitched and frowned—a strange expression on an animal face, Harper thought.
“Name me and you shall know me,” it said at last.
Shad straightened his shoulders.
“Master Yll-no,’ he growled. “I call on you to come forth and fulfill your obligation.”
The panther-lion melted again, this time becoming a mild-looking old man with thinning gray hair and warm, copper-colored skin. He was wearing a simple white robe and a bemused expression on his kindly, worn face. Only the golden eyes remained the same.
“Yes?” he said. “What can I do for you? No, wait…” He held up a hand to stop Shad from answering. “Come inside where we can speak in privacy.”
“Thank you.” Shad inclined his head and he and Harper stepped inside.
Harper had expected the rustic shack look to continue inside the structure, but she was surprised again. The minute they crossed the threshold, a warm, comfortable sitting room was revealed. A soft, jewel-toned carpet in green and blue and crimson covered the floor. A fireplace with a fire of dancing gold and indigo flames was on the far wall and three brown, furry beanbag looking things were arranged around it.
“Here we are.” Master Yll-no shut the front door and made a motion for them to sit down. “Please, make yourselves comfortable and I will return in a moment.”
Harper started to sit on one of the furry brown beanbags but her new cloak reacted badly, hissing and spitting and trying to bite the beanbag, which whimpered audibly like a hurt puppy.
“Oh!” Harper gasped, jumping up again. “What’s going on? Is that thing alive?” She looked down at the furry beanbag which was undulating in a way that made her think it was trying to get away.
“My dear, if you could please take off your cloak of thorns, just for as long as you’re here,” Master Yll-no said. He pointed at a coat tree which looked like a pole with antlers growing out of it. “You can hang it there. I promise you will come to no harm from my humlocks. They wish only to cradle a visitor in comfort but of course, your cloak sees them as a threat.”
“Humlocks?” Harper said doubtfully, but after a glance at Shad, who nodded, she took off her cloak and hung it carefully on one of the antler branches of the coat tree.
It whined softly when she took it off and Harper felt suddenly awkward about leaving it.
“It’s all right, buddy,” she murmured, stroking the rainbow colored spikes which twined around her fingers appealingly, like a toddler begging its mom not to leave. “I promise it’s only for a minute. I’ll be right over there and I won’t forget you.”
The cloak’s sad whining subsided and she felt a little better as she went to sit down again.
But this time as she started to lower herself onto the furry humlock, she found herself falling.
“Oh!” she gasped and would have hit the floor with a jarring thump if Shad, who was already settled in the humlock beside her, hadn’t reached out a hand and grabbed her.
Unfortunately, her bottom landed in his palm so he saved her by getting a handful of her ass.
“Oh!” Harper gasped again, this time for a different reason.
“Forgive me,” Shad said roughly, removing his hand hastily as she scrambled back to her feet. “I acted on instinct. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“It’s okay,” Harper said quickly. “I…I’m fine.”
But was she? The touch of his big, warm hand in such an intimate area seemed to have done something to her. Her breasts suddenly felt tender, her nipples sensitive against the silky red material of the gown she still wore. A shiver of pure desire went through her, making her feel swollen and hot between her thighs. What was wrong with her?
Trying to shake the strange feelings off, Harper looked for her furry beanbag, which was halfway across the room.
“What happened anyway?” she asked, sounding breathless in her own ears.
“I am afraid the humlock rolled away from you at the last minute.” Master Yll-no sounded apologetic. “Clearly it thought it would be hurt again if you sat on it. You must reassure it before it will allow you to sit.”
“Reassure it? How?” Harper asked, bewildered.
“Call it over—coax it and promise you will not injure it again,” Master Yll-no directed. “It has limited intelligence but it will come if you are kind. Although, admittedly it will respond to the tone of your voice more than your words.”
“What—call it like a puppy?” Harper demanded.
Shad shrugged. “Why not?”
Because I’ll feel like an idiot sweet-talking a hairy beanbag, that’s why! Harper thought but didn’t say. She sighed deeply. Well, she had hurt the humlock by trying to sit in it with her bad-tempered cloak, even if it hadn’t been on purpose. And her mother had always told her to apologize if you hurt someone by accident.
“Just because it was an accident doesn’t make it hurt any less,” she had lectured, although Harper’s crazy younger brothers got this particular talk a lot more than she ever had. They were always running into someone or jabbing you with their sharp little elbows and knees when they were little, just because they didn’t look where they were going.
Crouching down to get on the humlock’s level, she put out a hand as she would to a wounded dog or cat she was trying to get to come to her.
“Hey, buddy,” she said in her softest, most coaxing tone. “I’m real sorry I hurt you earlier. I didn’t mean to, I promise. Please come back and let me, er, sit on you. I’m not wearing the cloak anymore so it won’t hurt.” As long as the furry creature didn’t mind being squished by her overly large ass, that was, she though wryly. But Shad’s humlock didn’t seem to be having a problem and she was pretty sure the big Kindred weighed even more than she did. The difference with him was, it was all hard muscle.
A shiver went through the humlock and Harper got the feeling it was looking at her—though she couldn’t see any eyes—and trying to decide if it should trust her again. Watching it cower against the far wall, she felt genuinely sorry for it. Being bitten by her bad-tempered cloak of thorns was no fun and had obviously traumatized the furry creature.
“Hey little guy,” she tried again, forgetting to feel ridiculous for sweet-talking the strange beanbag-like creature this time. “Please forgive me and come on back. I swear I won’t hurt you this time.”
The humlock gave a little shiver which made its long brown fur ripple like a wheat field with a wind blowing through it. Then, slowly, it began to roll towards Harper, looking like a furry tumbleweed. When it reached her outstretched hand, she stroked it gently with her fingertips, as she might pet a mistrustful cat. She had the idea it was sniffing her—although again, she could see no nose—it was just a feeling she got.
After a moment, the humlock rolled closer and she was able to pet it with long, slow strokes.
“Poor little guy,” she murmured, though she had no idea if the creature was male or female. “You’re just scared to death, aren’t you? Don’t worry—it’s going to be okay.”
Harper had always been good with animals. In fact, she’d seriously considered going to veterinary college. But the waiting list to get in was incre
dibly long and she’d ended up in marketing instead—something she still regretted sometimes.
The humlock responded to her like most animals did and soon she was cradling the furry thing in her arms and humming to it gently.
“Well—it certainly seems taken with you now,” Master Yll-no remarked and Harper looked up, startled.
“Oh, um…I guess so.” She was embarrassed at being caught treating the wounded humlock like a baby or a hurt puppy. But to be honest, she’d forgotten the life-forger and Shad were even in the room, so intent had she been on soothing the strange creature.
“It should allow you to sit on it now.” Master Yll-no nodded at the humlock which was practically purring with delight as it trembled in her arms.
“But I don’t want to hurt it,” Harper protested, feeling suddenly bad at the idea of squishing the poor creature just when she’d won its trust. “I don’t want to put pressure on it when my cloak just, uh, bit it. Can I just hold it instead of sitting on it?”
“Well, that is something of a reversal but yes, I suppose.” The little old man shrugged his shoulders. He turned to Shad. “Let’s get down to business. You said that you are calling in a debt owed to your fathers, Deep and Lock. But they are Twin Kindred.”
“Were Twin Kindred.” There was a catch in Shad’s deep voice but he cleared his throat and went on. “They have been dead these twenty cycles.”
“Indeed?” The Master’s thin gray eyebrows rose in apparent surprise. “Then I grieve for you. But I must ask, where is your own twin? It was my understanding that Twin Kindred fathers always sired Twin Kindred sons.”
“They did sire Twins—my brothers, War and Peace,” Shad said quietly. “I am a Shadow Twin—an extra—so I have no twin of my own.”
“Ahh.” Master Yll-no nodded gravely. “One cursed to walk alone always. Then I am sorry for your lot.”
Cursed to walk alone? Harper wondered what that meant. Did it have anything to do with the way the big Kindred tried to keep his distance from her? Was he barred from ever having a close relationship because he didn’t have a twin brother like his brothers War and Peace did?