Vanished:Brides of the Kindred 21 Read online

  “Are you sure it won’t decide it doesn’t like me after all?” Harper asked nervously.

  “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