The shop was too stuffy, the shelves too full and dustcoated. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be out in Movoc's crisp sunshine and stinging air.
Kichlan, oblivious to the lines of tension strung up between Yicor's eyes and mine, clapped his hands. "Glad to hear it. Now-" he rubbed them together "-how much?"
I turned my head away. I didn't want to hear them haggle over my old life. But Yicor leaned forward, while keeping one hand on the book's cover, and touched my wrist. "How much do you need?"
"To live this life?" I didn't truly know.
Kichlan, however, had begun ticking off his fingers. "You'll need a surety payment, that'll be four hundred and fifty, I'd say. Three sixnights' lease is the usual. Of course, the more you have to spare the better you'll be. What else? Clothes, food, something to sleep on."
Yicor eyed him with pity and I realised how keenly the old man understood me. How much more he had seen, in that single glance, than Kichlan had for all his lecturing. "I cannot offer you kopacks for something so priceless. At least, I cannot offer you kopacks alone."
Like a dog on a leash, Kichlan bristled.
"What will you offer me then?" I lifted a hand to stay Kichlan and focused on the shop owner.
"Somewhere to house you," Yicor said.
"We can do that on our own," Kichlan interrupted. What about this man and his generosity had Kichlan so agitated?
"Somewhere safe, around people I know and can vouch for. Clean, well kept, warm. With furniture and a place to sleep."
I rather liked the sound of it. Kichlan, sulking, crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders.
"For I cannot pay you the worth of this." Yicor's hand had not left the book cover. "I only hope to fill the gap with what help I can."
I nodded. "How much, then?"
"Twenty-five thousand is all I can spare."
Kichlan dropped his arms, and whispered a curse under his breath. But I knew how poor a sum that was for something like the Principles of Architecture. Yicor knew it too.
"I accept," I said, and gave the old man a small and rather shaking smile. "As long as you find it a good home." And, I hoped, not the home of someone I knew, who would realise it was mine and how much further I had fallen.
"Of course," Yicor said, his eyes solemn.
I drew my rublie, sad and clunky in its crutch, from my pants. When I held it out to Yicor and he pressed his own against it, only then did I understand. For his was also sheathed in that sad cover, although it read considerably more than the five kopacks left in mine.
Kichlan, looking away, already muttering about the best way to spend my sudden wealth, didn't notice. Yicor and I shared our understanding alone.
"Where is your team stationed?" Yicor asked casually, as we watched the bright numbers on our rublies flick over.
"Eighth Keepersrill," I answered.
He seemed to think for a moment, and once my rublie was full, he found a scrap of paper in a desk drawer. He scribbled an address using a quill and ink from a crystalline glass jar. The entire odd and antiquated process fit in perfectly with the atmosphere in the shop. "Somewhere close, somewhere safe." His letters were flourished, l's high and g's curled. "Try them."
Kichlan eyed the paper like it was mess at the bottom of his shoe. "I'll tell Eugeny you were helpful." He rested his eyes on me. "We'll wait outside for you to finish." He strode from the shop.
Yicor handed me the piece of paper. "Your friend should know better. You need somewhere you can be protected. He just does not want to admit it."
My fingers stilled, touching the paper lightly. "Protected?"
Yicor clicked his tongue. "Eugeny sent you to me for a reason, more important than the book. Perhaps you are involved in something you do not understand. Perhaps there are people, strange people, dogging your heels. Perhaps they appear when you do not expect them. Perhaps they are watching, always watching. He sent you to me, so we can watch you too."
I folded and tucked the paper into my shirt, my hand shaking. "Thank you." My voice shook too. "How did you know all that? You're not even a collector, are you?"
Smiling, Yicor lifted his arm so his shirtsleeve fell back to reveal a bare wrist. "Not all of us are."
"How is that possible?" How had he fallen through the cracks while I was caught, shackled, and forced to roam the streets for a pittance of kopacks and less respect? How many of us ran free?
"Just good luck." And he would say no more. So I thanked him again and left him with the last piece of my old life, knowing I would never see it again, and hoping it would rest somewhere safe now, behind glass.
Kichlan was unimpressed by Yicor's help. "What do you think he knows that I don't?" he huffed as we walked away from the shop. Lad stared sadly at the empty space under my arm.
"He's one of us, you realise," I said, keeping my voice low and hoping Lad was too concerned by the book's disappearance to listen carefully. "A coll- no, not a collector. But he can see debris, not pions."
Kichlan puffed up his cheeks and let out an explosive breath. It gave him a froggish air. "Hardly."
"But he is. You didn't see his rublie!"
"Didn't need to."
I was shocked by this. "You knew?"
"Of course." Kichlan scowled down at me. Just like old times. "Not all of us-" he waved his hand and light flickered from the silver on his wrist "-do the right, the responsible thing."
"Oh." Still, how exactly did one avoid doing the right, responsible thing? How did one escape the puppet men? The strange men that were, indeed, forever watching, following, appearing. And to be protected against them, to be watched by more faces I did not know in shadows of their own, it hardly filled me with confidence. If anything, it was worse. "Don't you wish you had that kind of freedom?"
Kichlan looked at Lad as he answered. "Hardly. We have a purpose, Tanyana. Something more worthwhile than selling ancient junk."
"I don't think a book worth twenty-five thousand could be considered junk."
"You know what I mean."
True, I had never seen such a comprehensive collection of dust.
"Still." I flipped the scrap of paper over, reading the address yet another time. "I want to try his suggestion first."
"If you'd rather trust an old man you hardly know more than me, that's your prerogative."
I sighed. "I suppose you already had a plan, did you? Knew exactly where to look?"
Kichlan said, "You could say that."
"You were going to wander around and hope we found something, weren't you?"
"What have you got against spontaneity?"
"Will you help me find this place? Groundlevel, 754 Lightbrick. It's the seventh Effluent, Section ten. Should be close."
"Sounds delightful."
"Will you help?" I asked.
"Of course we will."
"Of course!" Lad broke in with a grin. I could tell by the lightness in his face, the ease, that he hadn't understood a word of our argument. "We're here to help Tan, aren't we, bro?"
"What if she doesn't need our help?" Kichlan asked him, words lightened by the twist in the corner of his mouth. "What if she doesn't want it?"
"Of course I do." I hooked an arm into Lad's elbow. He squeezed my arm against his chest. "I always do."
All roads led to the Tear, and so did all rills and effluents. So we headed to the river to get our bearings. The sharp sun warmed us as the morning aged, tempering the crisp wind and melting what was left of the ice, huddled in windows, and the muddy snow crowding the edge of the road. A large street cleaner ghosted by, prying out dust from the walls and muck from the street with wideranging tentacles of now-invisible light. Kichlan and I averted our eyes: there was something disturbing about a floating wedge of clear honeycomb gradually filling itself with dirt. Lad watched it avidly.