“The past is the past.”

A withering look. “Lies don’t write themselves on me, Miss Bard.”

“I’m not lying,” said Lila. “The past is the past. It doesn’t live in any one thing. It certainly doesn’t live in something that can be given away. If it did, I would have just handed you everything I was, everything I am. But you can’t have that, not even for a look around your market.” Lila tried to slow her heartbeat before continuing. “What you can have is a silver watch.”

Maris’s gaze held hers. “A pretty speech.” She lifted the Inheritor over her head and set it on the desk beside the timepiece. Her face betrayed no strain, but when the object hit the wood, it made a solid sound, as if it weighed a great deal more than it seemed, and the woman’s shoulders seemed lighter for the lack of it. “What will you give me?”

Lila cocked her head. “What do you want?”

Maris leaned back and crossed her legs, one white boot resting on the dog’s back. It didn’t seem to mind. “You’d be surprised how rarely people ask. They come here assuming I’ll want their money or power, as if I’ve any need for either.”

“Why run this market, then?”

“Someone has to keep an eye on things. Call it a passion, or a hobby. But as to the question of payment …” She sat forward. “I’m an old woman, Miss Bard—older than I look—and I really want only one thing.”

Lila lifted her chin. “And what is that?”

She spread her hands. “Something I don’t already have.”

“A tall order, by the looks of this place.”

“Not really,” said Maris. “You want the Inheritor. I’ll sell it to you for the price of an eye.”

Lila’s stomach turned. “You know,” she said, fighting to keep her tone airy, “I need the one I have.”

Maris chuckled. “Believe it or not, dearie, I’m not in the business of blinding my customers.” She held out her hand. “The broken one will do.”

* * *

Lila watched the lid of the small black box close over her glass eye.

The cost had been higher, the loss greater, than she realized when she first agreed. The eye had always been useless, its origins as strange and lost to her as the accident that took her real one. She’d wondered about it, of course—the craftwork so fine it must have been stolen—but for all that, Lila wasn’t sentimental. She’d never been particularly attached to the ball of glass, but the moment it was gone, she felt suddenly wrong, exposed. A deformity on display, an absence made visible.

It is only a thing, she told herself again, and things are meant to be used.

Her fingers tightened on the Inheritor, relishing the pain as it cut into her palm.

“The instructions are written on the side,” Maris was saying. “But perhaps I should have mentioned that the vessel is empty.” The woman’s expression went coy, as if she’d managed a trick. As if she thought Lila was after the remains of someone else’s power instead of the device itself.

“Good,” she said simply. “That’s even better.”

The woman’s thin lips curled with amusement, but if she wanted to know more, she didn’t ask. Lila started toward the door, combing the hair over her missing eye.

“A patch will help,” said Maris, setting something on the table. “Or perhaps this.”

Lila turned back.

The box was small and white and open, and at first, it looked empty, nothing but a swatch of crushed black velvet lining its sides. But then the light shifted and the object caught the sun, glinting faintly.

It was a sphere roughly the size and shape of an eye.

And it was solid black.

“Everyone knows the mark of an Antari,” explained Maris. “The all-black eye. There was a fashion, oh, about a century ago—those who’d lost an eye in battle or by accident and found themselves in need of a false one would don one of blackened glass, passing themselves off as more than they were. The fashion ended, of course, when those ambitious, misguided few discovered that an Antari is much more than a marking. Some were challenged to duels they could not win, some were kidnapped or murdered for their magic, and some simply couldn’t stand the pressure. As such, these eyes became quite rare,” said Maris. “Almost as rare as you.”

Lila didn’t realize she’d crossed the room until she felt her fingers brush the smooth black glass. It seemed to sing beneath her touch, as if wanting to be held. “How much?”

“Take it.”

Lila looked up. “A gift?”

Maris laughed softly, the sound of steam escaping a kettle. “This is the Ferase Stras,” she said. “Nothing is free.”

“I’ve already given you my left eye,” growled Lila.

“And while an eye for an eye is enough for some—for this,” she said, nudging the box toward Lila, “I’ll need something more precious.”

“A heart?”

“A favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

Maris shrugged. “I suppose I’ll know when I need it. But when I call you, you will come.”

Lila hesitated. It was a dangerous deal, she knew, the kind villains coaxed from maidens in fairy tales, and devils from lost men, but she still heard herself answer, a single binding word.

“Yes.”

Maris’s smile cracked wider. “Anesh,” she said. “Try it on.”