“Try theSsstinging Drip. That’ssswhere the Veiled Bane like to conduct their busssiness.”
Kestrel wasn’t sure what the Veiled Bane was, and she considered asking the woman to elaborate, but she was alreadysauntering back to her post and making small talk with her partner.
Instead, Kestrel took a deep breath. She had made it this far and could figure out the rest.
With an invigorating inhale, Kestrel faced the town that seemed to be swirling with possibilities.
Chapter 7
What Happens in the Alleyway…
KESTREL
“The Stinging Drip,” she repeated, not having a clue what that meant. But it was the best lead she had.
What had started as pure wonder and reverence had quickly soured. The deeper into the town Kestrel ventured, the more overwhelming it became. There were people everywhere. More than she had ever imagined.
To be surrounded by so many others—to be bumped and banged into, to have someone shout across the street, for children to be crying and screaming—it was an assault on Kestrel’s untrained eardrums.
Noise was a foreign concept to her.
After a lifetime of solitude, to hear anything other than her own breathing and the sound of the crashing waves was like thunder cracking inside her skull. Despite the pain jostling her head, part of her still appreciated it though. Appreciated knowing that despite all odds, others had survived. They had endured, like she and Thom. And now here they were, smiling, walking hand-in-hand with their loved ones, and buying herbs and trinkets from the market, without so much as a cautiousglance over their shoulders or any mention of the monsters that should’ve been lurking behind every corner.
Kestrel didn’t understand how they could be so relaxed. How they could feel so safe.
Then again, she supposed she always felt safe behind her stone walls as well.
The deeper she went, the thicker the bustle became. The pounding between her temples deepened. And she didn’t know if she was any closer to finding thisStinging Dripplace.
“Excuse me?” Kestrel tried saying over the commotion. She tapped people on their shoulders, she raised her voice. “Do you know where I can find the—” but no one seemed to notice her. What was one more assault on their bodies when they were in a tidal wave of sensory overload.
The city had a mind of its own. The people moved as one, the way that the seagulls would swarm and maneuver together over the ocean, a rhythm inherently known by all of them, but foreign to any outsider, any imposter.
That’s what Kestrel was.
An imposter.
Not only to this bustling town, but to the idea of society in general.
She didn’t know how to move about them. Didn’t know how to maintain her balance as the others collided into her. She didn’t have years of experience learning how to anticipate their strides to get out of their way in time, nor how to assert herself to squeeze between the cracks like she saw some of the children doing.
In only a matter of moments, Kestrel was swept away by the current.
“Please, I—I just need to get through,” she spluttered, her voice hitching as the bodies pressed tighter around her. They slammed and crashed—the sharp edges of elbows and shouldersdigging into her. They left ghost-like marks all over her body.
It made her skin crawl.
Touch, it would seem, was also foreign to her. At least the kind that was pressing in on her, threatening to squeeze her until she couldn’t breathe.
Disorientation swallowed her, gobbled her up like she’d been flung into the Maw and now she was tumbling. Falling. Sinking.
As the people thickened around her, she lost all sense of direction. Kestrel couldn’t tell which way was which—where she had come from or where she was going. Strange faces crowded her. She couldn’t see around them. Over them. Through them.
A dizzying spiral of flesh and heat folded around her.
“I can’t—breathe.” She clutched her chest. “Help?”
The world was spinning like a desert twister, and she was caught in its churning forces.
