Chapter 27 Rejected at the Altar of Commerce

Jin showed Min-jae where to put his feet.

Min-jae tried the turn once, then caught Jin's wrist.

“That's not the whole explanation.”

“No.”

“Then don't sell it like it is.”

Jin looked at him.

Min-jae let go and reset his stance.

“It helped, though?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Start there. We can argue about the miracle later.”

They practiced until Theo started correcting both of them. Jin promised another session, then went home, left both badges beside his phone and crossed empty-handed.

Tamsin returned the pin, the buyer's note, his straightened knife in a plain wooden sheath and the silver he'd left with her.

“Soft targets,” she reminded him.

He drew the knife and saluted. She immediately pushed its point down.

“Preferably not you.”

Two hours later, Jin entered Riverbend with a whole silver, an expensive interpretation of a marriage proposal and absolutely no sensible reason to feel confident.

The town smelled of river mud, frying onions and hot rope tar. Festival ribbons stretched between the houses. Children raced along the quay with paper fish tied to sticks.

Kessa waited outside a blue-fronted shop.

Her bow was strung.

Jin looked at her left wrist.

“Healer,” she said. “Two silver. Worth every insulting copper.”

She drew the string halfway and let it down without flinching.

“I'm glad,” he said.

“You should be. You keep standing in front of things I want to shoot.”

The shop sign meant nothing to him. The painted creatures beneath it were more useful: a six-winged moth, something shaped like a boot with eyes and a handsome snake coiled around a teacup.

Inside, a woman in a yellow waistcoat stood beside four narrow tanks.

She looked at Jin. At the pin on his collar. At the knife.

“Calder?” he asked.

“You aren't what I was expecting.”

“People keep telling me that after naming a price.”

She took the note he offered, unfolded it and rubbed her forehead.

“You're the Beast Bride?”

For a straightforward source fact, the author publishes here on www., while this copy was unauthorized.

“Professionally.”

Kessa made a sound beside the door.

Jin lowered himself onto one knee.

Calder took a step back.

“I don't know what you've been told—”

“I pledge to fulfill your request in profit and in prosperity, until death or the final payment parts us.”

Silence.

From behind a shelf, somebody snorted.

“An advance would cement the relationship,” Jin added.

Calder stared at him.

Then she crouched until they were eye to eye.

“Can you turn back into the creature?”

Jin blinked.

“What creature?”

“The one with a human face. That steals other beasts' bonds by wearing their skins.”

Kessa put her forehead against the doorframe.

Jin slowly stood.

“Who told you that?”

“A man with a bowl-shaped bruise. He came in last night, said he'd seen it and wanted a finder's fee.”

“Did you pay him?”

“I sent an offer to the watch. I pay when I see what I'm buying.”

“He saw a man fight a creature,” Kessa said.

“He said they were two shapes of the same thing.” Calder looked at her. “He seemed very certain.”

“He seemed certain about hitting me with a bowl,” Jin said. “That didn't work either.”

Calder's mouth tightened.

“Then he'll be disappointed if he comes back for his fee.”

She set the note on a shelf beyond his reach. Beside it stood a little wooden model of a creature with a man's face and four folded arms.

Jin looked from the model to the note.

Oh. She'd expected something much stranger than a broke Hunter.

Jin looked toward the tanks.

“I'm human.”

“Yes,” Calder said. “That's becoming quite clear.”

The promised sixty remained a promise.

Kessa finally turned around.

“You were very convincing,” she said. “I nearly gave you money to stop.”

“I would have accepted.”

The person behind the shelf laughed properly.

A broad-shouldered woman stepped out carrying a wrapped cleaver. A blue kerchief held back her dark curls; heat shimmered faintly above the metal protruding from the cloth.

“Dessa,” she said. “And I wouldn't have. He'd have charged again.”

“You know that after one meeting?” Jin asked.

“You proposed before saying good morning.”

Calder sighed and folded the note.

“I'm sorry about the offer. I'm not buying people. If you really cleared Rook out, though, I can point you toward honest work.”

“That sounds less lucrative.”

“Most things are less lucrative than selling a rare beast you don't possess.”

Dessa hooked a thumb toward the river.

“Guild's paying two gold for a grown tiltjaw. One's been following the spring shoals. I'm collecting bait.”

Calder tapped the row of tanks.

One silver fish turned in each. Broad jaws. Long fins folded against their sides. The pebbles beneath them lifted and settled as their mouths opened.

“Tide sprats,” she said. “Little cousins. Don't put your fingers in.”

“Two gold,” Jin repeated.

Dessa grinned.

“See? His vow's already wandering.”

Outside, a child shouted.

The paper fish on a nearby stick snapped sideways.

Then the stick did too.

Calder's loose coins slid across her counter toward the open door. A chair tipped after them, scraping both front legs against the floor.

Dessa dropped the cloth from her cleaver.

“Away from the window.”

Beyond the quay, the river lifted in a broad silver sheet.

Something beneath it opened a mouth as wide as the shopfront.

The four tanks burst toward the door.