ALICE
Ilet my fingers drift next to Brahm’s, offering assurance as we wait. He looks nervous but eager, mirroring the emotions swirling in my own heart.
A few minutes later, the woman returns, taking the parchment and scanning it to make sure Brahm filled it out correctly. Satisfied, she places it next to a ledger.
“Would you like tea?” she asks. “Or if you’re hungry, there’s a nice café on the next block. I expected Magistrate Rodgers to return by now. He must have been delayed.”
Brahm turns to me, letting me decide.
Even though I don’t think I could eat right now, the idea of passing the time in the small, warm room is unnerving. “Maybe we’ll browse a few shops and then return.”
The receptionist nods politely, and we walk onto the icy entry once more, this time passing without incident.
We step into the first business—a tea shop that smells like rosemary and lemons. I browse the selections, intrigued by blends I’ve never seen offered in Kellington, such as lemongrass with rose, mint, and chamomile. There are exotic black teas as well, costing more per ounce than silver, from faraway places I’ve never even heard of.
The next shop is a working gallery, with a blown glass artisan creating his delicate figurines in the back of the room. We watch him for a while, and then we move to the next business—a shop that carries nothing but stationery.
Brahm pauses by a map of the Valsta Algora Alliance that hangs on the wall, and another customer strikes up a conversation about trade routes with him—something I’m not sure a prince of West Faerie knows much about, though Brahm carries his end of things well enough.
I smile as I walk through the aisles, taking in the assortment of hand-pressed papers, many of them flecked with tiny, dried flower petals or herbs. The shop carries dozens of quills and every imaginable color of sealing wax. There are envelopes, hand-painted cards, and decorative cork stamps that are designed to press into ink-soaked pads.
I pause near the counter, standing in front of a case filled with paperweights. Many of them are little animal figurines made of pewter—small rabbits, cats, a few owls, and a dove. Others are glass and brass, and a few seem to be made of silver.
“Would you like to see anything closer?” a man with a thick mustache asks, looking eager for a sale.
“I’m just browsing,” I say, and then my eyes catch on a letter opener next to a pewter rooster. I gesture to it. “Is that copper?”
The man pulls it from the case. “It is, yes. The scrollwork is quite exquisite.”
That may be, but that’s not what snared my interest. It’s long, with one sharpened edge and a narrow, pointed end.
“How much is it?” I ask.
“Fifty-seven fluots.”
That’s robbery if I’ve ever heard it, but the inflated prices are a product of the shop’s location and the clientele they cater to.
But I have the money with me. It’s the leftover pay that Brahm gave me all those weeks ago for tending the conservatory plants.
“I’ll buy it,” I say.
“Lovely!” The shopkeeper beams. “I’ll wrap it up for you.”
“I’ll take the little glass rabbit there as well,” I say, pointing into the case.
The man’s smile grows. “Of course.”
A few minutes later, I meet Brahm by the door.
He gestures toward the brown paper bag the man gave me. “Did you find something you like?”
I nod, pulling out the rabbit.
He takes it to examine closer. “And what is its purpose?”
“It’s a paperweight.”
“All right,” he says, clearly not understanding the point of that any more than a glass rabbit.