“Twenty thaums gets you nice.” His head bobbed. His neck was freakishly long, and spotted like a giraffe’s. “What kind of nice? We have Dhisthran sandalwood here all the way from the other side of the Tablelands, send men into rutting elephants’ heat.” Her face must have twisted, because he laughed, creaking like a rusty dock chain. “Smells for all occasions. Murder, sacrifice, passion, betrayal.”

“I need incense,” she said, “to mourn a god.”

He lowered his chin and watched her through the bushes of his eyebrows. This was why Izza’d come herself, rather than sending one of the other kids: enough refugees had flowed through from the Gleb at one point or another that the request might not seem strange.

“Old festival coming up?” he asked. “Some god dead in your wars?”

“Give me the stuff.” She didn’t want her voice to shake. It shook all the same.

“Which one are you mourning? Or would I know its name?”

“A god that doesn’t talk much.”

He shrugged, and stepped into the back room, taking the machete with him. Thin trails of smoke rose from smoldering joss sticks, twisting in and out of light. Izza’s head hurt from the soul loss. She hoped that was the reason. Maybe the old man had drugged her with smoke. He might be out the back door now, running to call for the watch, for the Penitents. She had done nothing wrong, but that didn’t matter much.

She stayed. She needed this.

The man returned, machete in one hand and a slender black wood box in the other. He set the box on the counter and slid it across to her.

She reached for the box, but he placed the machete edge against the lid. His eyes were a lighter brown than Izza’s own.

She laid her coin on the glass beside. He snatched the coin, walked it down spidery fingers, up again, kissed the milled edge, then dropped it into one of his four shirt pockets.

She grabbed the box, but he pressed down with the machete and the blade bit into the wooden lid.

“How old are you?” he said.

“Fifteen.”

“Old for a street kid.”

“Old enough to take what I pay for.”

“You should be careful,” he said. “The Penitents start grabbing kids about your age.”

“I know.” If she could have burned him with her gaze, he would have been dust already.

He lifted the machete. She tucked the box into her belt, and ran into the street, trailing doorbell’s jingle and wafting incense and the old man’s laughter.