by Nina Varela
Crier had allowed Ayla to stay. Had given her the day off. She’d never had a day off before—not since working here. She hated the stillness. Guilt gnawed at her, same as hunger. A quiet, private, relentless kind of torture. Revenge had left her hands bloody, but it wasn’t the right blood.
She knew what she should be doing. She should be trying her best to find Kinok’s private study. If he kept any secret documents pertaining to the Iron Heart, anything that would be useful to the Revolution—a map, blueprints, a heartstone ledger, information about the trade routes—it’d be there, in the safe Malwin had mentioned.
And yet every time she set foot near the doors to the palace, a horrible chill flooded through her—dread. The memory of Nessa’s handkerchief. Her shoes.
Maybe I should just give up now.
But if I give up, then what have I even been living for?
Alone, she watched the sunlight slide across the walls of servants’ quarters. Four hundred empty beds. Everyone else was out in the fields, the gardens, the orchards, the palace. The Reaper’s Moon—marked by the last crescent moon of the harvest season, the moon shaped like a harvester’s scythe—meant that weeks of laboring in the fields had come to a close, and it was time to settle in for the winter.
When Ayla’s parents were growing up, the Reaper’s Moon was celebrated with three days and three nights of festivals and dances and parties that lasted till dawn, huge feasts in the village square, neighbors eating and laughing and singing with each other, their faces painted gold. When Ayla and Storme were young, there weren’t any big celebrations—not with the constant threat of raids. But Ayla’s mother had always braided golden ribbons into Ayla’s hair, and her father had sung harvest songs and moon songs and love songs, and the fire had been so warm, and they’d all been smiling.
Ayla’s cot was cold and uncomfortable. She didn’t usually feel the aloneness quite this much. But it was harder, this time of year, to ignore the graveyard in her chest. Harder still when it had just grown by two bodies.
The sunlight slid down the walls and turned from pale yellow to old gold to orange with sunset. In another life, Ayla would be dancing right now. In another life, she’d be dressed in rich colors and her face would be painted and her hair sleek with oil, and she’d be dancing in the village square, and her feet would hurt and it would feel so nice, and there wouldn’t be any weight on her shoulders. No hatred, no fear, no death.
In this life, she closed her eyes.
And opened them barely a minute later when someone poked her hard in the forehead.
“Benjy,” she snapped, shoving his hand away and ignoring his grinning face. “What do you want?”
“You think I’d let you sleep through the feast?” he said, plopping down on her cot. “No way. Look at you, all your bones showing. You need this just as much as the rest of us.”
That meant the day of work was over. The servants would forgo their dinners to set up for the secret celebrations, deep in the woods or somewhere far from the immediate grounds. The council meeting was a perfect cover, sending Hesod, Kinok, and Crier away for the full day.
But Ayla couldn’t stomach even the idea of a celebration. “I’m not going.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. It’ll get your mind off—you know.” He pushed gently at her shoulder. “There will be wine. Remember last year?”
“Yes. You drank too much and got sick in the ocean.”
“Don’t you wanna be there to watch me embarrass myself?”
“No, Benjy,” she said, staring at a tiny piece of straw poking out from the mattress, willing her eyes away from his. “I’m not going, not this year. You have fun.”
He scowled. “How am I supposed to do that without you?”
“Benjy—”
“Ayla,” he said, not annoyed anymore, just soft and pleading. “Please. I feel like I barely see you these days. When I do see you, it’s because something terrible has happened. I miss you. You’re my best friend and I—miss you.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Please.”
Best friend.
All she kept thinking of was the thread connecting them on Kinok’s chart—blazing red like a fire.
She looked at their joined hands. His was much bigger than hers, but they were similar in other ways: the ruined fingernails, the calluses, the marks of labor.
A feeling rose in her again, familiar as Benjy’s face: the battle between being close to him and pushing him away. Being friends with him and being friends with no one. Which was worse, vulnerability or loneliness? The danger of friendship or the safety of total isolation?
What had safety done for her lately?
“All right,” she said finally. “I’ll go.” If only to stop his pleading. If only to keep moving, to stop thinking, to stop questioning.
He whooped, pulling her outside, into the welcoming dark toward the celebration—and she let him.
There were no golden ribbons in her hair, but there were caskets of pale, sour wine, and that was just as good. Or better, maybe.
They made their way to one of the big caves at the foot of the cliffs where the festivities were being held this year, a grotto with a wet, sandy floor. Inside the cave there was a fire pit, lanterns strung over the curving stone walls, two boys playing homemade drums—the beats echoed through the cave, sound doubling back on sound, so deep and incessant that it made Ayla feel strange and almost sick inside. Overwhelmed. There was space for dancing both inside the cave and on the black sand beach outside, the tide crashing and dissolving against the rocks that lined the shore like tall, straight-backed guards.
The air was filled with flecks of white foam, the smell of smoke and wine and sea spray, the sounds of drums and dancing and old harvest songs sung in a hundred voices. Everyone was wearing a mask. Some were painted with gold or vermilion, but most were just made from scraps of straw and clothing. These people were servants. Any luxuries had to be hidden and hidden well.
The moment she and Benjy entered the cave, a boy Benjy’s age bounded up to them. He was only wearing a half mask, a silvery-purple thing around his eyes. “Ben!” he said happily, pulling Benjy into a hug.
Ayla hung back, wary. She had definitely never seen this boy before, but Benjy was hugging him back, looking equally happy to see him.
Benjy ruffled the boy’s hair and stepped back, gesturing between him and Ayla. “Finn, this is my closest friend, Ayla. Ayla, this is Finn.” Finn. She remembered the stories. He and Benjy had grown up together at the temple as kids, long before Ayla knew Benjy. Finn had been the first to run away. Benjy had been gutted by it, but the anger was what had galvanized him to leave, too. Years later, Rowan helped them find each other again. They’d kept in touch ever since.
Benjy was grinning wide, like a happy fool. “He traveled here from an estate to the east and I haven’t seen him in nearly two years, the bastard.”
Finn laughed. “It’s hardly as if you’ve come to visit me!”
“Well, at least I always respond to your letters!”
“Oh sure,” said Finn, rolling his eyes. “And it only takes you three months per letter.”
They shoved at each other, bickering with an easy familiarity. Ayla hung back, silent, feeling a little lost. She knew Benjy wrote letters to people he knew outside the palace, but none of them had ever come to visit. And to come all this way just for the Reaper’s Moon? It seemed like madness. The celebrations were a risk in and of themselves. They weren’t sanctioned—they weren’t strictly illegal, but the Automae didn’t like any human gathering, whether it was ten people or a hundred. They saw it as a threat.
“Wait here, I’ll get you both a mask,” Finn said, and disappeared back into the crowd.
Benjy turned to Ayla, still grinning. “He hasn’t changed a bit. Everybody’s best friend, everywhere he goes. I bet you a statescoin there’ll be some girl mooning after him when he’s gone, even though he’s only here for a night.” His grin faded when Ayla didn’t reply. “You al
l right?”
“Isn’t it dangerous to leave the estate?” Ayla said. “Did he really travel all the way here just for a party?”
“Not just for a party,” Benjy said. “He came here to see me.”
“But it’s dangerous,” Ayla insisted.
Benjy was frowning now. “So? It’s worth it, isn’t it? We’re family. It’s important to stay connected to each other. In case you forgot, Ayla, that’s what we’re fighting for.”
Stay connected. Once again, she thought of the red thread in Kinok’s office. “I don’t have a family. And I’m still fighting.”
His expression softened. He reached out to touch her shoulder, thumb on her collarbone. “But you have the memories of them. You have ancestors, you have stories.”
“Not really,” she said. “My father’s family is all dead and my mother never talked about her side. All I know of her line is that I was named after her grandmother. That’s it.”
“Her grandmother’s name was Ayla?”
“Siena Ayla.” Ayla looked away, jaw tight. “A name. That’s all I have.” She clutched the locket under her shirt. A name, and a necklace.
“Ayla,” Benjy said quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying your name. Ayla.” He stepped closer, letting her name whisper across her skin. “Ayla. It is a gift. It is a memory. And that’s one they can’t take from you.”
Ayla felt the strange urge to laugh. A memory was nothing like a gift.
A memory: the day before the raids. A stupid, childish fight, Storme and Ayla shrieking at each other for no reason, Ayla hurling a handful of dirt and then, when that didn’t make him stop teasing her, she hurled words. I hate you. She spat them out like poisoned water. I hate you. I wish I didn’t have a brother. I wish you’d go away forever. She was so angry, her small body vibrating with it, and he was laughing at her. Like the child he was. Leave me alone! she screamed at him, and never took it back.
And the next day—
“Sometimes I wish I remembered nothing,” she whispered, stepping back, her throat burning. “Sometimes it seems like that would be so much easier.”
Benjy opened his mouth to reply, but just then Finn returned, pressing masks into their hands: a fox for Ayla and a plain straw mask for Benjy. Ayla put the mask on, immediately feeling much more comfortable with her face hidden. The dyed wool was scratchy on her cheeks.
They joined the party, Finn shouting and laughing and dragging Benjy along behind him. A girl she recognized from the stables handed Ayla a cup of the pale wine. It tasted terrible, bitter and sour all at once, but she drank anyway. The wine burned all the way down, a line of heat from throat to belly, and by her second cup Ayla was warm and pleasantly tipsy, bobbing along in her own head. The drums pulsed in her rib cage. Whenever he wasn’t with Finn, Benjy kept touching her lightly, guiding her through the crowd, hand on her hip and arm and shoulder.
It was easy, for a while, to forget. Ayla drank her wine in great big swallows and let herself sway along with the music, so warm, sweating a little. She let Benjy pull her close and then closer, arm around her waist. She smiled at everyone she recognized and also everyone she didn’t, even though her face was hidden behind the mask.
“Aren’t you glad you came?” said Benjy when they returned to the casks of wine for a third cup. “Aren’t you glad you listened to me?”
“Maybe,” she teased him. “I don’t know. You shouldn’t ask me things like that when I’m swimming in wine.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because I’ll say yes.”
“Maybe there are some things I want you to say yes to.”
Ayla laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Ayla,” he said, sounding very serious all of a sudden. She caught the movement of his throat, a nervous swallow. “Ayla, I need to tell you something—”
Suddenly, her stomach hardened.
No no no—
“It’s my fault Nessa died,” she blurted out.
The ensuing pause was terrible. Benjy stared at her for a second, confused, and then he shook his head. “Wait,” he said, “wait, what, what are you—Ayla, I really need to tell you—I want to tell you—”
“She lent me her handkerchief,” Ayla barreled on, quiet enough that no one else would hear her over the drums and singing but loud enough, sharp enough, to make Benjy’s mouth snap shut. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t hear whatever he wanted to tell her; she had a sick feeling that she knew what it was and she couldn’t, not now, not ever maybe. What if she let herself feel for him the way he felt for her . . . and then lost him?
She wouldn’t recover. She knew she wouldn’t. But how to explain that?
“I’m the one who accidentally left it in Kinok’s chambers, Benjy,” she said instead. “It’s my fault they thought Nessa was snooping. It’s my fault they tried to take her child.” She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing desperately that she hadn’t drunk so much wine. “It’s my fault she died.”
Benjy shook his head hard. “You can’t blame yourself—”
“There’s nobody else to blame! It was my fault!”
“Hush, keep your voice down,” he hissed, eyes darting around at the pulsing crowd. He reached out to put his hands on her shoulders, swaying to the music—making it look like they were simply talking and dancing like everyone else. “Ayla. You can’t take that on. You said it was an accident, right? Leaving the handkerchief in Kinok’s room?”
“Yes. A stupid goddamn mistake. I can’t believe I was so careless. So stupid.”
His grip tightened on her shoulders. “Nessa wasn’t the first to die in this war, Ayla.” His words were a punch to the gut. “And she won’t be the last. That doesn’t mean we give up. It means we fight harder—we fight until we win this war.”
“War?” She actually took a step back, and he gripped her hips tighter. His hands were big and warm and too much. “There is no war. There’s only a rebellion that keeps failing. Nessa didn’t die for the cause. She died because of me, because I wasn’t good enough, because there’s always something. Hell, Benjy. If I’d dropped my own handkerchief, it would have been your shoes hanging from the apple tree.”
“No. Nessa must have done something else. Even the leeches wouldn’t murder a good servant just for dropping a handkerchief on her rounds.”
“It’s not that she dropped a handkerchief,” Ayla said. “It’s that she was trespassing. And they tried to hurt her child, as punishment, and Nessa wouldn’t let them. The same thing happened to Faye and Luna.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Luna wasn’t killed because of something she did. She was killed because of something Faye did. They punished Faye by killing the most important thing in the world to her.”
“Are you sure?”
She thought again of that chart. “I’m sure.” Quickly, Ayla explained about her awful run-in with Faye. “I don’t know what she did. But it must have been serious.”
“Maybe . . . maybe it had to do with Kinok.” Behind the straw mask, Benjy’s voice sounded far away. “I haven’t ever seen something like Nessa happen before. Maybe it’s because she crossed Kinok. Maybe that’s why the punishment was so harsh. Maybe Faye did the same thing, maybe she . . . got in his way, somehow.”
“Maybe.” But what did it matter? The outcome was the same. The person Faye had cared for the most had been turned into collateral damage.
Guiltily, Ayla thought of her necklace. The locket that lay beneath her shirt even now. Crier hadn’t reported her for it, but what if someone else saw?
Would they come for Benjy next?
Ayla looked around the grotto with new eyes. What had been fun and loud and beautiful just moments ago now seemed overwhelming, nauseating, the whole party spinning like a child’s toy, a blur of noise and color and grotesque masks. She needed some fresh air. She needed the ground to stop tilting beneath her feet. She looked out at the mouth of the c
ave, staring longingly at the cool dark night—and saw it.
A flash of golden eyes.
Someone was watching them.
An Automa.
The shock of it went right through her. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but on instinct, she could guess who it was. Crier.
In a short time, she’d grown to know exactly what it felt like to be watched by her, the way Crier’s gaze trailed her when she thought Ayla was busy with a task.
Only, how had Crier gotten here so early? Shouldn’t she still be at the council meeting? And why had she followed them? And what would she do, now that she’d seen? And—
“Benjy,” she said, extricating herself from the circle of his arms, “will you get me another drink?”
He sighed. “All right,” he said, and took her cup of wine, heading toward the barrels.
When he returned to their spot near the fire pit, Ayla was already gone.
11
Perhaps the worst part hadn’t been watching Kinok take the seat that Crier had always wanted. Perhaps the worst part had been getting sent home early. That, above all else, made it clear that she was not wanted or needed in the Old Palace. That there was no place for her in the Councilroom. That there never would be.
It was a brand-new hurt.
She wondered, during the long, silent caravan ride home, if it would feel like this for another Automa. If they would hurt like this, a dull ache deep inside. Or if she only cared so much because she was Flawed. At the meeting, in front of everyone, Kinok had joked that Reyka, too, had been passionate. Crier thought of the Automa woman whom she’d always looked up to, almost like a mentor. Reyka, who’d always locked eyes with Crier when she spoke, who’d given her treats and encouraged her to have her own opinions. But for what?