Terrier by Tamora Pierce

Author:Tamora Pierce [Pierce, Tamora]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General, Juvenile Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police, Police Procedural, Magic, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Girls & Women, Law & Crime
ISBN: 9780375838163
Publisher: New York : Random House Children's Books, c2006.
Published: 2007-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

Thursday, April 9, 246

Before training, afternoon.

When I opened the door this morning, before I even had my hair braided, Kora stood there with a jar of pears pickled with currants and almonds. Her long eyes were flashing with anger. I could swear I saw blue-green sparks stuck in her lashes.

“A lily pendant on a gold chain,” she told me. “Enamel on gold. Maybe so big.” She held a thumb up, bending the first joint. “There was a mot at the Glassman Square fountain who was trying to get bacon grease from her man’s shirt. We got to talking of the Shadow Snake. She said her neighbor’s girl was taken. The lass’s father gave up the necklace he bought his wife to the Shadow Snake.”

I took the jar. “And the little girl?”

Kora picked up my cat and cuddled him as if she needed to touch something soft. “The Snake gave her back. She wet the pallet she slept on after, though. And it wasn’t two moons later, my Birdie told me, before the whole family packed their things and moved from Corus altogether. They said they were going to Barzun, where the only snakes could be killed with a spade.” I think I heard her sniff. “He did that to a little girl for a necklace.”

“But that’s why no one’s cared about this Snake, love.” Rosto leaned against my door frame. He could be so quiet on my creaky stairs.

I nodded. “Because he goes after folk whose lives are so small no one else thinks they have aught of value,” I said. Like herb women with lung rot and five little ones who live on Mutt Piddle Lane. Mama’s last man had been kin to the Shadow Snake, thinking no one would take vengeance for her. And just as he did, the Shadow Snake would learn how wrong he was.

“I like Lady Sabine, Beka,” Aniki said, coming over from her rooms with a cheese and bread halves from yesterday’s breakfast. “You should have come back to the tavern after your shift last night. She and Tunstall were doing sword dances like they have in the eastern hills. It was fun.”

I shivered. The thought of Tunstall throwing his long legs about in any kind of dance is fearsome. Still, it makes me wonder if Goodwin shouldn’t maybe get used to the idea of him and Lady Sabine being friendly, or more than friendly. Tavern dancing usually leads to dancing at home, Mama always said.

I opened the shutters. The pigeons fluttered down, just a handful so early – Slapper, White Spice, Pinky, Mumper, Ashes. None of them said more that was new as I gave them the last of my cracked corn and some bread. They mourned the loved ones who thought they had been left behind. They whispered of the pink city rock. They fought each other over space on my ledge and strutted, cooing as if they had naught in their minds but eggs and feathers.

Of my other, human friends, Verene and Phelan arrived holding hands and carrying hot fritters.

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