by Nina Varela
Ayla felt the blood drain from her face. She wanted to cry again, to be sick, or . . . “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was weak, too, this attempt to deny it.
“But I do,” he said, and there was something lurking in his voice now, something more than bitterness or even jealousy, something young and pained and almost scared. “I do, Ayla, gods, how do you not—” He broke off, letting out a shaky breath.
“Benjy—”
“I know what it’s like,” he said over her. “Loving someone who’s . . . who’s impossible to have. I know what that’s like more than anything.”
Ayla was stunned speechless.
“But you just do what you think is right, Ayla. It was never really a choice, was it? Wanting her. Killing her.”
Ayla pushed herself to her feet, unable to handle this conversation any longer. Right before she left Benjy alone in the orchard, she looked down at him. Forced her voice into something cold and hard. “If a spider weaves her web to catch flies and catches a butterfly instead, what does the spider do?”
Benjy stayed silent.
“She eats the butterfly,” said Ayla.
21
The necklace felt heavier than usual in Crier’s hands that night. As if every time she fell into it, she left a part of herself behind. A part of herself—and a part of Ayla, now. The forest clearing was green and vibrant in Crier’s mind, imprinted on the insides of her eyelids: the sunlight, the rustling branches, the laughing girl, the laughing boy who swept her up and held her tight. The easy intimacy between them, the way love glowed in their eyes and in their smiles. What a pure, crystalline memory. Once secret, now shared.
It had been a long day.
Crier had spent the morning sifting through endless shipment records. Her father had returned a day early from his portion of the “mourning tour,” full of righteous anger over the growth of the rebellion in the rural lands, and Kinok had expressed only polite relief in the fact that she had survived an attack on her carriage. She didn’t tell them the rest: that she had watched a rebel murdered right before her eyes.
Had watched the way that single act had turned Ayla back into a hardened shell, cold and armored with hate. Crier couldn’t get that image out of her mind, the pure hatred on Ayla’s face, the stiff set of her body, a defense mechanism, stay away—she couldn’t stop thinking of it, even as it tore at the memories of their kiss.
So she occupied herself with the list of shipments.
There were a lot of Red Hands on that list.
Betrayal tasted like metal on her tongue. In a surge of anger (how dare they call themselves Red Hands, how dare they claim to serve the council, the nation of Zulla, and all the while—) Crier had included one last piece of information in her newest letter to Junn.
Friend—
Fear blossoms like a fed garden. I have reason to believe—I suspect strongly—that Wolf is responsible for the disappearance of a Red Hen. The Wolf’s reach is wide and its greed is strong.
I have a way to track down those who support the Wolf, however. The pack that protects him and works with him. The Wolf’s paws leave traces of darkness behind. Traces we can follow.
Make no mistake: Wolf is a predator, a threat to all of Zulla. Please, help me stop him—before spring comes. A gathering in late winter is the perfect time to pluck snow blossoms—to be rid of the weeds.
—Fox
In Rabu, it was tradition to fill the hall with white flowers to celebrate the marriage of two Automae. And every single Red Hand would attend her wedding. Every single Red Hand—the ones still alive, anyway—would be there. All of them gathered in one place.
Queen Junn would read between the lines.
A big part of her was terrified about what Junn might do—but an even bigger part was ruled by her own anger, her sour-bile disappointment in the leaders she had admired for so long.
It felt huge and terrible, sending the letter off with the courier, knowing it was too late to change her own words, to scratch them out. Too late to take any of it back. Crier tried not to think about the Red Hands who had already died at Queen Junn’s quick and merciless hand. She had no illusions about the queen’s methods, and none of them were gentle or kind.
Would Crier’s wedding be a bloodbath?
Could her world really change in a single day?
Yes, something inside her whispered. No matter what: yes.
And it was the only way, she told herself firmly. There was no way she could actually marry Kinok. Especially not now—not after the kiss. Not after she knew the truth about herself.
That she was capable of the most human feeling of all.
That she loved Ayla.
The thought was like a bell resonating inside her, echoing and echoing and echoing. She didn’t know how it was possible—it had to be the result of her Flaw. But it was true.
Besides, if she married Kinok, even if he wasn’t the killer she suspected him to be, he would always have absolute control over her. She would never, ever be free. She’d become another part of his plans. We won’t need humans at all.
The only way to survive was to put a stop to Kinok’s plans before they advanced any further—to swipe her arm across the chessboard and knock all the pieces to the floor.
There would be deaths. Automa deaths.
But Crier would live. Her father would live.
And maybe, someday, if she proved herself worthy, if she stopped Kinok—if she made things better for Ayla’s Kind, for every human in Zulla . . . maybe she could have what Queen Junn had with that human man.
Maybe she could be with—
She turned the necklace over in her hands, examining the deep-red stone for the thousandth time. Moonlight slid across the wall of her bedchamber, catching on the gold threads in the tapestry of Kiera. It was far past the middle of the night. She hadn’t slept properly in—five days, maybe more. She should sleep.
Or.
Without letting herself think too closely about what she was about to do, Crier reached up and pulled one of the pins from her hair. It was a pretty thing, a little white flower made from pearls with two jade leaves. More importantly, the end was sharp. It was easy, easier each time, to deliberately prick her finger hard enough to draw blood.
She pressed her bloody finger to the red stone at the heart of the pendant, and once again the world smeared like paint around her, colors dripping down the walls.
When she opened her eyes, she was still in her bedchamber.
Crier frowned and sat up, confused—and realized immediately that while she was sitting in a bed in the dark, this wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t her bedchamber, either, but one much smaller. The walls were rough mud brick, not stone, and there were no bookshelves, no tapestries, nothing but a hearth, a small table, a wooden chest in one corner.
As always, Crier wasn’t alone. There were two women sitting on the stone lip of the hearth. Crier recognized one of them as Si—Siena, the laughing girl from the woods. She looked maybe a few years older, a few years more mature, her dark hair tied back in a braid instead of loose and wild around her face. There was a heaviness to her shoulders that had not existed in the forest.
The other woman with her was not human.
But not Automa, either.
Crier stared at her, fascinated. Not Automa, no, but close. An early prototype? The girl sitting with Siena was beautiful in a way that seemed almost grotesque. Her features were too symmetrical, and all of them were slightly too exaggerated: eyes a little too big, nose a little too thin, lips a little too red. She looked, oddly, like a very beautiful bird. Her skin was tan, her hair the color of dark honey and falling in curls to the small of her back. Her cheeks were artificially pink. Crier moved closer, aware that neither girl would be able to see or hear her. She crept across the floor to stand behind Siena so she could see the not-Automa girl’s face even better.
The firelight was kind to her inhuman features, adding warmth and softness to the sharp lines
of her cheekbones and jaw. Her eyes were bright gold. Even in shadow, even in the flickering half-light of the fire, they were bright gold. And yet they looked so dull—like the blank eyes of a porcelain doll. Or a dead animal. The longer Crier looked at the girl, the more she realized the biggest difference between herself and this creation: Crier had a mind, a heart, her own thoughts. This girl did not. She was a beautiful vessel, but an empty one.
It didn’t seem to stop Siena from caring for her, though. Siena was pulling a comb through the girl’s long hair, brushing it out with gentle movements. There was nothing but fondness on Siena’s face, a peaceful, proud sort of love.
Crier was so caught up with watching them that it took her a moment to realize that there was someone else in the room.
Leo.
He was sitting in the corner, far from the warmth and light of the fire. He had a pair of leather boots and a tin of boot polish in his lap, but it looked like he hadn’t moved for a long time. He was sitting stock-still. Like Crier, he was also watching Siena and the Made girl. He didn’t seem so fascinated, though. He looked . . . pained. Almost jealous. Of what?
As Crier watched Leo, she was struck by a wave of—emotion. It was like the very first memory she’d fallen into, the burning city, when she’d felt Leo’s blinding terror like it was her own. It wasn’t terror this time, but something quieter. Subtler. A pang of longing, deepening when Siena set the comb down and ran her fingers through the Made girl’s hair, separating it into sections for a braid.
“Aren’t you tired, love?” Leo said suddenly, startling Siena, who twitched and nearly dropped a handful of hair. “Don’t you want to come to bed? Or—Clara’s asleep, but you could wake her. She’d love one of your stories.”
Siena didn’t even look at him. Just kept braiding. “She’s too old for my stories.”
“She’s barely seven years,” Leo said. “She’s a child yet.”
“Stories,” said a new voice. A strange, whispering, metallic voice, a voice like clock gears whirring together. The Made girl looked over her shoulder at Siena, doe eyes wide and unblinking. “I like your stories.”
“I know you do, Yora,” Siena cooed. “You’ll never be too old for them, will you?”
“Never,” said the girl.
Crier felt everything Leo was feeling in that moment. It was a terrible mix of revulsion, guilt, jealousy of the Made girl, and below it all, like an underground river: his love for Siena, his wife. Untouchable, unchanging. Even with all the bad things layered above it.
“Maybe I shall tell you one tonight,” said Siena. “Which would you like to hear, Yora?”
“‘The King and the Black Horse,’” Yora said in her metallic voice.
Crier felt a throb of despair, an echo of Leo’s sadness for—for the little girl in the next room, the seven-year-old girl—Clara; Leo was thinking of her, Clara, his daughter—their daughter, their real daughter—
A falling sensation, another smear of color and firelight and dark, and Crier was back in her own bedchamber. Her own bed. She was alone. Her own hearth fire was cold and dead, long burned out. And she could still feel Leo’s pain like a dagger in her chest. His anguish over Siena’s wavering love, the bone-deep fear that she loved the Made girl, Yora, more than she loved him—or even their daughter.
Yora.
Yora. The name caught in Crier’s mind, a briar. She’d heard it before. More accurately, had read it before. Crier could conjure it up perfectly, her own crystal-clear memory of those two words in Kinok’s handwriting:
Yora’s heart.
She understood something then, something terrible.
Ayla’s family history was in this locket . . .
And it contained the secret Kinok wanted.
She had to tell Ayla, had to warn her. Tonight.
No, it was too late. She couldn’t risk it. Not now—not after everything . . . she wanted to go to her right away, but she knew Ayla was grieving, knew she was furious over their kiss, even if Crier swore that she’d reciprocated, maybe even started it—that she had wanted it just as much as Crier had.
No, she wouldn’t try to find and wake her now. She’d sleep—it had been far too long since Crier had slept, and her body needed a rest.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning Ayla would come to her, and Crier would tell her everything.
Crier would find a safe place for Ayla to go—away from here.
But first, she would tell her a thousand other things. That she was sorry. That she loved her. That she would prove it, some way, some day, if only Ayla would let her. That she would help keep her safe, and that when the time was right, she’d find her again.
Tomorrow.
She’d tell her everything tomorrow.
They came at night. They moved silently in the darkness. We didn’t know they were coming until they were already at our doors. They all looked the same. Tall and strong. They all moved the same, too, like monsters in the old stories. Like shadows. Demons from the dead realm.
They had no torches. But when I looked out over the demon army I saw light. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. A thousand tiny specks of light. It looked almost like fireflies.
Then I realized. It was their eyes.
—FROM THE PERSONAL RECORDS OF AN UNNAMED HUMAN GIRL DURING THE WAR OF KINDS, E. 900, CIRCA Y. 51
22
Ayla had spent the day shivering. Not cold shivering, but fear shivering. Adrenaline shivering, raw-nerve shivering, like something was alive and wriggling around inside her bones, making her teeth chatter and the hairs on her arms stand up straight. She nearly dropped a teacup of liquid heartstone, a book, Crier’s bone-handled comb. When she handed over the cup of heartstone, it rattled against the saucer, and Crier frowned a little but miraculously didn’t comment.
She also hadn’t commented on the fact that Ayla had been late that morning. If she had, Ayla would have said: I stopped to help a laundry maid pick up a spilled basket of clothes. It was only mostly a lie. Because she had seen a laundry maid trip and spill a basket of dirty clothes all over the flagstones in the western hallway, but she hadn’t stopped to help. She’d been on her way back from the music room. That was step one.
But Crier didn’t ask. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all for almost an hour. Her jaw kept working, her long fingers kept tugging at the small, curling tendrils of hair that always escaped her plait. It seemed like she was preparing for something.
Ayla didn’t want to know what it was.
So when Crier finally said, “Ayla,” in a raw, gutted voice as Ayla poured her a second cup of heartstone, Ayla had looked her dead in the eye, steam rising between them, and said:
“Don’t.”
“But,” Crier had started, “Ayla, it’s important, you’re in—”
“Danger?” Ayla cocked her head. “As opposed to the rest of the time, when I’m perfectly safe?” She didn’t let Crier respond. “Unless there is a battalion of your father’s guards outside the door at this very moment, ready to drag me away, I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter.”
Crier’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I,” she said. “I, but, but that wasn’t—that wasn’t everything, I wanted to—”
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. It,” said Ayla. A few weeks ago, it might have been a nasty thrill, talking to Lady Crier like this. Today, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. “Whatever you’re going to say, I swear to you I don’t want to hear it.”
And Crier had taken a funny little breath and fallen silent, and neither of them spoke again.
Anyway. The music room was step one.
This, here, was step two.
The gardens at night were a completely different animal. During the day, they were pretty much just like the rest of Hesod’s land, all neat and methodical and utterly soulless, nature removed from anything even remotely resembling wildness. But when the sun began to sink, slipping down the winter sky like a drop of water on a windowpane, it was like the
shadows touched things and made them chaotic. Like that story, that old old story about the king whose touch turned things and people into gold. That kind of weird alchemy—things transforming into other things, things warping and twisting and tangling up, carefully trimmed roses becoming wild thorn bushes when the shadows slid over their green spines. Sun apple trees became gnarled; fruit glowed like gems or rotted right off the branch; seaflower bushes grew legs and crept to different rows, until Ayla, who had spent a third of her life in this damn garden, found herself getting just a little bit lost.
But she wasn’t late.
She spotted Benjy under the apple tree with the knot that looked like an eye, just like they’d planned. She scurried through the roses, trying not to think of anything at all, and watched Benjy perk up when she drew near. The air smelled like roses and too-ripe fruit. Underneath it, the bite of salt and sea spray.
Benjy looked furious in the new moon dark. He looked cold and cruel and like he’d been carved out of bronze. All his edges sharp and deadly.
Footsteps silent on the soft dirt, Ayla joined Benjy under the branches of the sun apple tree.
“Hey,” said Benjy, more breath than voice.
“Where are the others?”
“There,” he said, gesturing into the orchard. Ayla saw a handful of figures melting out of the darkness between the rows of sun apple trees. Within moments they joined them under the tree. There was Yoon from the kitchens, Tem and Idric from the stables, a couple other faces that Ayla had seen around the palace but couldn’t name. Seven in all, and all of them looking at Benjy, waiting for him to speak. Ayla wasn’t sure when he’d become their leader, but she found herself grateful for it. She didn’t want anyone to look at her. She was afraid of what they would see on her face.
“What time is it?” Yoon asked, breaking the silence. “When should we—?”
Benjy glanced at his wrist, and Ayla caught a glimpse of his grandfather’s watch. “Five minutes till the first distraction. Then we take the palace.” He looked around their small circle, meeting everyone’s eyes. When he reached Ayla, he lingered on her face. “Then we’ve got fifteen minutes,” he said, and paused.