Elsi whistled. With a low note, a large copper coin bloomed out of a spot in thin air. Its liquid edges wriggled until it became too heavy and plummeted into her palm. A nascent silver bubble took its place. More coins accompanied more notes and the longer the notes stretched, the heavier her hand became. 

With a click of her mother’s tongue, Jorji’s wrist jolted and her fingers snapped open so Elsi could place the warm coins on her palm one by one. 

“More than enough.”

Once free, Jorji ran one thumb over the spikes of the snail shell etched on the copper coin and the other along the worn leather straps wrapped around the hem of her shirt. Her shoulders reached up tensely to her neck. It was just one night at an inn. Just down the road. If she hated it, she could come back home. If she embarrassed herself, she’d never see them again. Anxiety pinned her muscles in place nonetheless. She didn’t want to embarrass herself. 

The money caught the soft orange glow of the reading lantern. While the silver coins matched the paleness of her mother’s features, the copper coins matched Jorji's own hand and cut short the purple tattoos that wrapped around her fingers. Stray fractions of amber reflections—bouncing frizzy auburn hair, a nick on her sharp jaw, the inevitable frown when her words disappeared—became a list of reasons why she should stay home with Mama and not make a fool of herself. Teresa might decide she’d rather spend time with a woman who could keep still and didn’t have such broad shoulders. Jorji swayed from side to side with a knot in her ribs imagining a sneer on Teresa’s beautiful face. 

“Maybe it’s better if I don’t ruin anything.” Jorji reached out to return the money, but Elsi rapped her fingers on the hardcover book in her lap. The plum aura that hugged her silhouette pulsed. Jorji’s hand snapped back against her belly in a tight fist. 

“Maybe… but what if you don’t? Be brave, Jorji.”

Jorji’s shoulders fell. No use arguing with Mama like this. With a drag of Elsi’s fingertips across the book, Jorji’s other muscles loosened, too. She pushed herself to stand when Elsi’s fingers danced again on the book. The last tap shoved the coins into her pocket.

“... Bye, Mama.” Jorji gave and received two kisses for love and one for luck. She descended the cloth ladder into the kitchen with shadows of dark red lipstick on her cheeks that she rubbed away. One step away from the curtained door and the street beyond, she doubled back to the acacia wood bowl of freshly ground cinnamon. 

She’d wanted to make spiced bread, but the oven had refused to stay lit. Every time Jorji thought the kindling had taken, the fire snuffed itself out. Elsi told her it was a bad day for fire. The disappointment of semi-stale cinnamon ebbed when Jorji wiggled her tongue in her mouth thoughtfully. 

She lifted the mud-red linen cover, licked the tips of two fingers, and stamped them into the bowl. She stepped out of the curtains onto the street while she rubbed the sweet dust against her tongue. Her belly quivered imagining Teresa tasting it, too. 

Bravery came in spurts. While the young night still clung to the last edges of sunset, she started her way through the brown and purple city streets and avoided the inn. She needed a minute to go be strange, first. 

A group of Old Town children with tangled blue auras raced each other down the nearest alley to light the city street lantern three houses down. The lantern had panes of beige glass set in a smooth limestone skeleton and painted with the names of the crossroads. Jorji stumbled back against the wall as one child broke ahead, cupped their hands around their mouth, and gave a high shout. The lantern coughed but hesitantly reached a full glow as the children became just a trail of rowdy footprints.

She rubbed over the purple tattoos on her fingers and bounced on the balls of her feet as she tucked between her neighbors’ houses. Congested on one end with bags of softened pig bristles, the alley opened up to an unlit avenue closer to the market square. Just as she stepped out, she saw a pair of smaller children engaged with another lantern. 

One child held a long sparkler and approached the lantern cautiously. Their sibling reached up reverently, the sparkler’s tip hissing, to touch the wick deep inside while he stood back, neck craned up. When the lantern spluttered to life, their auras glowed green and the sparkler quickly swapped hands. Hand in hand, they walked away from Jorji while the new bearer hummed at the sparkler, brow furrowed, as it went out. 

Jorji’s hands itched. After half a step’s hesitation, she walked over to look up at the ball of warm light. She couldn’t look up with the same reverence to the flickering orb given how much taller she was, but if she got directly beneath and crossed her eyes, the lantern could be as big as it had felt when she was a kid again. When her eyes could take no more, Jorji continued on with her view obscured by a bulb of green and orange. She threaded her fingers together and twisted her wrists over and over. She leaned forward into her own turbulent hands and watched the purple crosses spin behind the leftover light. 

Other giggling packs of children had their numbers culled by parents’ calls from dark red houses. Further down into the city’s center, night merchants jostled for attention. Full carts rumbled, and smoke waved up past the lanterns into the stars. Clinging to the edge of the market, Jorji walked past two teens in an argument over the price of dried plums. An old married couple bought jam for tomorrow’s breakfast at a cart that smelled more like wine than cherries. Low winds folded in the scent of walnuts. 

She put a hand flat to the side of her head and closed one eye to steady herself against the square filled with shouts and too many swirling auras. 

To compete for tourists and regulars, merchants called out their wares loud enough to be whispers in the inn windows, but only an icicle seller gave Jorji any notice: he stood up straighter to obscure the sign advertising starting prices once his eyes caught the purple curves etched onto her neck. 

Jorji turned around a corner with her jaw tight. Not like she'd know what any of the prices were for. To loop back around to the inn, she found a crook of darkness that the children hadn’t taken away. In her final steps, she mimicked pulling out the coins and putting them on the counter. One room. One night. Where can I find the beautiful woman with the bird? Thank you. One room. One night. Do you know where the new travelers are? Thank you. 

The lantern light faded as she pushed past three layers of curtains, and the cold and ashy fireplace kept the entrance in shadow while a busboy in a long blue apron poked at the coals with a stick. Despite his insistent mumbling spells, the coals were resolute and silent. It was even a bad day for fire here. A brown goat skin rug spread from the door to the cheap marble counter just in front of it. Beside the counter, a low wooden gate bore a sign with the words in red. “Guests only,” probably.

“No room,” the innkeeper said before her throat twitched to shape words. Shorter than Jorji, he still maintained his stern appearance despite the dark circles under his half-lidded eyes and a scraggly gray mustache. 

Uh-oh. Her first steps to the counter meandered while she worked to understand the new space, eyes fixed on the ceiling. She pulled the coins from her pocket and placed them on the counter.

“No room.”

She put a finger on each coin and ground them in slow circles on the counter. She’d been so brave to get here. One room. One night. Do you know where Teresa and Astral are?   

“One ro—”

“We’re full. Go home.”

She stepped back, coins still on the counter. 

“Take your money. I don’t know what else to tell you.” His aura flared red, filling up the space behind the counter. 

When Jorji didn’t budge, he nudged the coins until they bounced off the rug. One rolled away closer to the fireplace just as the busboy gave up. The innkeeper leaned over to look down over his thick mustache at the money he didn’t want and straightened up to repeat himself. 

She knelt and picked them up slowly, savoring the weight of each one while she tried to think, until she had them all back in her fist and then back in her pocket. Her muscles tensed. 

She had to be brave. 

With a sharp exhale, she hopped over the low gate and ran down the hallway.