The gaj’s severed head sits on my workbench the way a king sits on a throne: taking up more space than necessary, clearly demanding the attention it knows it deserves. I’ve been grinding it since before sunrise. My mortar is marble, but the pestle is carved from the thick femur of a braxat I bought off an elven hunter six years ago. You have to grind psionic bone and chitin with psionic bone - anything else will contaminate the ink.

The trick is patience.

The gaj’s chitin had to come off first, chipped away in flakes over three days. What’s left underneath is dense, pale, and sort of sticky. The chitin needs to be fine enough to pass between fingers without grit before it gets mixed with bile extracted from a silt horror’s liver and a few drops of my own blood. This becomes something like a living ink that thinks and listens.

I work the pestle in slow circles, feeling the faint push of the forming ink against my mind. Even dead and pulverized, a gaj shell will tend to resist; most creatures that ever had a psionic bone will resist, and sometimes they fight back.

Three hours of this and I have enough ink for two, maybe three commissions if I’m careful. Or more if I’m cheap on the ink. It depends as much on my mood as on who’s asking; I’m picky like that.

That’s how I’ve been making my living since I left Kurn and crossed the silt to land on the Anattan coast. Now I live in the marvelous and prosperous city of Gilland… Well, no longer prosperous since the mud has blocked the main port, and I doubt it ever was marvelous. I’m happy here though, my only souvenirs of Kurn are those two massive scars that form a large ugly ‘X’ mark across my whole face. Courtesy of the Gray Heralds, sadism with a human face.

A knock wakes me from my grim daydreaming.

Three fast and then two slow: Yiyi’s secret knock, which she decided to make for reasons only important to her. She doesn’t need a password to collect from me, but it’s something that has become a custom between us.

“Come in Yiyi, door’s open!”

She comes in sideways, as if shy to intrude. She’s fifteen now, and just got taller than me. When I first found her, hidden behind some crates in the alley near my shop, the tiny terrified girl was being hunted down by three older hoodlums. They had cornered her and were explaining, with great patience and physical emphasis, the cost of operating without their Brotherhood sanction in their territory.

I had words with the boys, who unfortunately thought they could use the same emphasis on me. Obviously, the words were not the kind I use in consultation. Yiyi had looked up at me from the ground, bleeding from her nose, and said: “You shouldn’t have done that, they’ll just come back angrier.” She wasn’t wrong, they did come back. I handled that too, and that was it with those hoodlums. Not because of anything REALLY dramatic, but because word travels fast in a harbor district, and the specific word that traveled was that the scar-faced bone-ink woman had a bit of a temper and no particular fear of consequences. Knowing something of the Way and being perceived as a bit insane gives one the kind of reputation that discourages unwelcome visits.

The hoodlums were nothing, but the Brotherhood was another matter. They still had to be accommodated, or else leave town or go to war with them, and I have no intention of leaving.

What I had instead was Yiyi.

She’d joined the Brotherhood six months after the alley incident. Youngest runner they’d taken on in years, which she might have managed by using my name; she never asked my permission and I never expected her to. People had to do what they had to do to survive, and no matter my pure heart, I had no intentions of being her surrogate mother.

She came to me on the first morning before she started, sat on the low stool by the door and said nothing for a while, and then gathered her courage to say: “I’ll make sure they leave you alone.” She tried to sound as if the offering was a deal too good to refuse rather than begging and pleading.

Eh, I didn’t argue. I understood what she was doing - she was making herself necessary to a transaction the Brotherhood would otherwise conduct with much less ceremony. She became the only viable channel between me and them, the way a clever merchant inserts themselves between a buyer and a seller who don’t share a language. The Brotherhood tolerates the arrangement because it costs them nothing and saves them face. I tolerate it because she needs it, but also because the Brotherhood aren’t bad customers. They’re spending more on tattoos than I do for their “protection”.

“The others are waiting outside.” she says now, setting down a small bundle of deep-fried silt mollusc, a twist of salt, and a piece of bitter fruit from the coastal traders. “Fostah sent three this time. He says the harbor’s been getting busy again.”

Fostah, a young nikaal, is the leader of her little outfit in the Brotherhood. A careful man, I’m told. He sends muscle to accompany Yiyi rather than collect from me directly: officially, the Brotherhood receives its due from an establishment in their territory. Unofficially, they receive it from a girl who is the only person in the organization who calls me by my first name.

I count out the ceramics; the amount has never changed, not in four years. The Brotherhood’s normal rate for a studio of my size and traffic would be three times this - something I know because I checked, through channels that weren’t Yiyi. They accept what I pay because the alternative is worse. It is, no doubt, but I don’t bother to think about that; sometimes things stay peaceful precisely because you don’t think about them.

I set the coins on top of the small packed lunch. She scoops them into her belt pouch with the practiced casualness of a city-state merchant.

“Ship came in from the coast far to the west last night,” she offers, settling onto the low stool. “Big one. Round-hull siltseer-type of vessel.”

I look up, I’m not too keen to have a Kurnan ship around. “Any tree on their banners or emblems?”

“Nope!” she says. “A sheaf of grain with a sun on their banner.” she pauses, “A few sailors seemed to be looking to get tattoos. Not sure you’d like all of them.”

“Balican sailors.” I say, more to myself than to her.

She reads my tone and understands it isn’t an invitation for questions, so she doesn’t ask. She stands, smoothing her clothes. “Otojdula, an old lady is waiting outside.”

I cover the mortar with its fitted lid and press my thumb against the wax seal. “Send her in on your way out.”

Yiyi pauses at the door. “A big sailor,” she tries to recall the name I used, “from Balic, asked at the wharf about psionic services. Someone pointed him here.”

The someone was Yiyi, obviously - she thought I could tolerate that one. She almost winks at me when she leaves. It’s a shame Yiyi has the psionic capability of a rock - I swear sometimes she can read minds.

My first patron, Heshkatti, wants a protective sigil on the inside of her left wrist. Nothing complicated, just a simple icon to keep her thoughts shielded from her possessive and jealous bastard of a husband. She’d described him with the flat, exhausted voice of someone too tired to be angry.

“Has he said anything?” I asked her.

“No, he let the psionic lashing do the talking.” she’d answered.

I prepare the needle; a sliver of tembo bone, hollow at the tip, pre-loaded with the diluted Gaj powder mixed fresh this morning. The mix for a protection-tattoo is lighter than for a combat-mark or a talent-anchor; just enough psionic density to hold a pattern. Too much and the ink starts expressing its own preferences, and a gaj’s preferences are not something you want living under your skin.

I learned that the hard way - still have a reminder on my left shoulder, where the scar tissue refuses to heal. If people think getting a psionic tattoo can feel like torture, they should try ripping one off raw from their skin to save what little sanity they have left.

“Painful?” I ask.

“It’s okay.” Her face says otherwise.

The first pass is always the negotiation: needle meeting skin, meeting ink, meeting the faint, specific architecture of a person’s mind. Everyone’s different.

Heshkatti’s thoughts have a copper-bright quality, sharp and organized - the mental texture of someone who has spent years working with her hands and trusts them. The ink gets under the skin with ease, that’s good.

Three hours. We don’t talk much. We’re both almost meditative. I realize the ink is eager, it won’t be bad for her. Heshkatti’s husband, however, might get a surprise next time he even thinks of raising his voice at her; I hope he gets a good one.

When it’s done, Heshkatti stares at her wrist for a long moment. The tattoo is subtle: a small knotwork shape, dark grey-blue, the gaj powder giving it that faint luminescence you’d only notice in full moonlight.

“Will he feel the block?” she asks.

“He’ll feel something like a closed door,” I say. “He might not know why.” It also might feel like a heavy palace door slamming on his fingers repetitively; I don’t tell her that.

“Good.” She pays and pauses at the door without turning. “Thank you, Otojdula.”

I am already cleaning the needle. “Keep the tattoo from his direct sightline anyway.”

She almost smiles. Then she’s gone.

The sailor finds me at midday, when the harbor and the whole Anattan coast smells like burnt ash and something faintly similar to brine. He’s a big man, not half-giant big - they don’t have those over here - but big enough to get quickly noticed. His forearms are already marked with the simple work of a city tattooist, not psionic work.

He looks at my workstation the way people look at things they pretend to be familiar with, but aren’t. “You’re the bone-ink woman,” he says.

“I’m Otojdula,” I say. “Sit down.”

He sits. He has the wary, compressed stillness of someone used to keeping his thoughts close. Not psionic discipline per se, but more the psychological equivalent of keeping your knife at arm’s reach. It doesn’t work on me, but I don’t tell him that. It’s good to let people feel safe in their own habits.

“I heard you can anchor things,” he says. “Talents.”

“Depends on the talent,” I say. “And the person. And what anchoring means to you.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then: “I can sense weather. Not like reading clouds - I mean I feel it here,” he touches his sternum, “four, five days ahead. Been able to since I was a child. It’s the only reason I’m still alive on those routes.” A pause. “It’s been fading.”

I look at him properly then. He’s younger than he seems at first. Early thirties at most. There is a real sense of fear and worry in his eyes. I can only imagine how many lost nights of sleep he must have gone through as he slowly realized that the gift that kept him alive was gradually leaving him. Those sailing routes are death sentences, more often than not.

“Psionic expressions that bloom in childhood without training are the hardest to keep,” I say. “They’re rooted in the body more than the mind. When the body changes, they shift.”

He nods. He already knew this, or something like it. That’s why he sought me.

“I can’t restore what’s faded,” I tell him. “I want to be clear about that.”

“But you can anchor what’s left.”

“If there’s enough left to anchor. And if the ink agrees with you.” I study his forearms. “Have you ever reacted badly to psionic contact? Dreams that belong to someone else, sound delays, objects that seem to move in your peripheral vision?”

He thinks about it honestly, which I appreciate. “The sound thing, yes. On a crossing near Altaruk, for about a week.”

“That’s fine. That’s normal sensitivity.” I fold my hands on the workbench. “The gaj powder in the ink will test you before it settles; it’s not comfortable. Some people feel sick. Some feel nothing. A small number,” I pause, “have to stop halfway through.”

“And if I stop halfway through?”

“Then you have an incomplete anchor and a partial mark, and I hope that you know of other crafts to make a livelihood,” I say with a half smile and a half wince.

He looks at me steadily. His eyes settle on the ugly X scarring my face for a moment, as he tries to hide his thoughts. He has, I can feel, dealt with people who don’t tell him the difficult things in advance, and he appreciates being told. “How long does it take?”

“For a talent-anchor? Two sessions. Four hours each.”

“The ship leaves in four days.”

“Then we better start.”

He doesn’t tell me his name until the end of the first session: Akundin. By that point I’ve had my needle under his skin for three hours. The anchor-icon runs from his left collarbone to the edge of his pectoral - a long, branching mark that follows the specific topology of his talent, the way a river’s shape follows the land it runs through. No two talent-anchor tattoos are alike. This one has a quality I have only seen a handful of times: it wants to submit - the ink doesn’t resist. The gaj powder dissolves into his skin like it recognizes something.

I don’t tell him. It would take an hour to explain and he’s already past the point where conversation is comfortable.

When I’m finally done with the needle, he breathes out slowly.

“Feel anything?” I ask.

He puts a hand to his chest. He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, something in his face has shifted. He smiles like a farmer seeing rain.

“Yes.” he says.

I clean and cover the mark. I give him an ointment made of a mix of herbal paste and some instructions: “Most important, don’t try to actively use the talent until the second session seals the anchor. The ink might still negotiate,” I tell him. “Let it finish.”

He nods, looking in the mirror the way Heshkatti looked at her wrist. That look never gets old, it’s that unique expression of someone seeing a changed version of themselves for the first time.

As he put on his shirt, he asked, “That girl - the Brotherhood runner. She’s yours?”

The question lands with more edges than it should. “Nah, she’s on her own,” I say. “But I do see her as a gift more often than not.”

He considers this. “She watched us the whole time, while we unloaded the ship. I wasn’t the only one looking for you.”

“Yes,” I say. “She knows who I wish to avoid.”

He leaves. I sit for a moment in the quiet of the studio, listening to the city noise filter through the walls. Somewhere out there, Yiyi is watching the sailors in the harbour, making a mental list for herself. She’ll tell me what she believes I should know and hold back what she decides belongs to the Brotherhood, and that line is up to hers to draw. I’ll never tell her I was lucky to have met her. I’m happy to let her think she’s the lucky one.

Some debts compound, it seems.