8
OLD FRIENDS, NEW DEALS
Syrina left the siblings after she paid a week’s advance for room for them at an inn called The Chisel. She used some of the tin Chulla had “taken from her village.” It wasn’t opulent. It sat just a half span from the docks and two reeking textile mills, but they seemed impressed enough.
Well, impressed didn’t quite cover it. Neither Pasha nor Anna could find words for the sprawling rows of tents that flooded across the plain for spans, leading to the open gates of Valez’Mui. Pasha had thought they’d been in the city and looked embarrassed through his awe when they’d finally come to the great, circular, zig-zagging marble wall, spiked by minarets rising from each point, so seen from above, it looked like thirty-five pointed star.
Syrina did her best to make Chu
