She noted his hand on hers and he drew back, flexing his fingers. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “You can still hold my hand.” No sooner had the words left her mouth then his cloudy eye darkened. The pupil dilated, pooling outward like a puddle of blood. “Lycidius,” she breathed.
“What?”
“Your eye…it’s—”
He frowned. “What?”
Snofrid minced back at the impulse to defend herself. His eye turned blacker, fiercer, like it might sprout jaws and chomp out her throat. She didn’t doubt that it wanted to. Since the first day she’d seen it, she’d thought his eye had seemed like a living, breathing creature with a mind of its own. Whatever lay behind it, the entity intensely despised her.
“Snofrid.” Lycidius was more demanding. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to ask you something and…and please be honest with me.” She tugged on her shirt sleeve. “When we were younger, you used to tell me that you had a friend—one only you could see. Is that true?”
The inquiry clearly took him off guard. She was stunned when he reacted defensively. Angrily. “Go pack,” he said, rising to his feet. “We’re leaving in two hours.”
“Lycidius—”
“No,” he snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it. Leave.”
A retort crawled up her throat, but she forced it down. Turning quickly, she left the office and shut the door behind her.
Upstairs in her loft, she sat on her bed. Her knees quivered and she pressed her palms into her eyelids until she saw sparks. He’d never pushed her away like that, not since he’d kissed her. She couldn’t understand it. And it hurt worse than all the things Lucian, Hessia and Hadrian had done to her combined. In every way possible, he’d opened up to her, except about his invisible friend. It was almost as if he was protecting it.
A while later, a fist rapped on the door. Snofrid, in the midst of packing a suitcase, didn’t get up. “Come in,” she said.
Lycidius stepped inside. Without looking, she could feel the regret fanning off him like steam. “Snofrid, I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “Please don’t be upset. There are some things I’ve never told anyone; things that would be too hard to understand.”
She set down the knit sweater she was folding, now realizing why he’d closed off. He believed if he told her the truth, she’d feel differently about him, perhaps even change her mind about being around him. “Nothing you say will make me love you any less,” she said. “I thought you knew that by now.”
“I’m not used to trusting people on their word, Snofrid.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think I would now?”
He scratched his neck tattoo. “I don’t expect you would. But sometimes staying ignorant is better.”
“You’re wrong. The truth is always better.”
He considered her expression, then nodded stiffly. “I’ll tell you what I can.” Sitting on a futon, he thought for several moments, tapping his combat boot anxiously. Then he crossed his arms. “I hear sounds, Snofrid—or more like a voice. It’s been with me since I can remember. I think it was with me when I was born.” His knuckles burnt white, as if he was practically shoving the words out. “My left eye looks different because it’s not mine. It never was.”
Snofrid stared at him in bewilderment. Her mouth opened as she took in his pale, vulnerable expression, trying and failing to make sense of what he’d told her. “A voice? You mean like a person?”
“Yes. His name is…I call him Rima.”
Her fingers clenched around the folded sweater. His eye was changing again. And she’d seen it equally enraged only once before: the night Lycidius had kissed her. “He’s a real person?”
“I’m not crazy, Snofrid.”
“I know, Lycidius. I only meant—” She bit her lip, at a loss for what to say. “So…you talk to him, then?”
“Sometimes.”
“About what?”
He flicked his barbell around in his mouth, clicking it on his teeth. “Everything.”
“About me, too?”
“Yes.”
Snofrid grappled. She didn’t know how to feel—how to react. A positive side of her insisted that there was a scientific or magical justification for the voice. Another side wondered if he’d simply been traumatized by war. She frowned and discarded the idea. All the years they’d spent together spoke differently. He’d grown more than she could’ve ever hoped, and he’d always been rational, even if he was extreme.
Then the thought that perhaps a Spectral Inborn had possessed his mind occurred to her. But Spectrals either possessed and conquered a mind swiftly, or they were defeated and cast out. For a voice to have inhabited Lycidius’s mind for twenty-two years without fully conquering it was unheard of. On the other hand, she reminded herself that the science of Spectrals was ever-expanding. Inborns didn’t have all the answers, and, for all she knew, there might be a legitimate reason for the voice. If it wasn’t a Spectral, then it was magic.
Clearing her throat, she said, “From what I can understand, Rima has no control over you. Is that right?”
“Yes. I’ve always controlled him. Everything I’ve ever done and said has been my choice.”
“Well then…Rima doesn’t matter—as long as you’re still you.”
Lycidius frowned, skeptical. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me. Someone is in your mind, and you have no idea who he is or where he came from.” Her elbows started to tremble. “It’s scary, Lycidius. But,” she paused, “it doesn’t change how I feel.”
He leaned forward, looking as if she’d just lifted the world off his shoulders. “For years I wanted to tell you, Snofrid, but I was sure you’d think I was crazy.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to tell either.” She gave him a look of reassurance. Setting down the folded sweater, she stood and wrapped her arms around him. It was as if this was all he needed, because his decisiveness returned. He buried his face into her shoulder, and from the way he held her, she wondered if he’d ever let go.
When she finally broke away, his cloudy eye was smoldering in a soundless rage. She braced herself and a chill danced all the way to her toes. The look Rima gave her seemed to imply that he’d lost some kind of battle. Somehow, she sensed that he had. But she also sensed the battle would only be the first of many.
The Alley-out-of-the-Way
Tuesday, 3 Days until the Hunt
Does that stuff even work?”
“Yes,” Snofrid told Lycidius, raising her voice above the commotion in the Alley-out-of-the-Way. “It’s an astringent. It will stop the cut’s swelling and slow the bleeding.”
She was kneeling beside him in their designated corner of the Alley—the corner he’d paid out two-million silvers to buy—pressing a cloth soaked in witch hazel on his split cheek; the shattered blood vessels were already swelling into a reddish bruise, one that, indirectly, she was responsible for. Since gaining asylum in the Alley two days ago, she and Jazara had been repeatedly harassed, so much that Snofrid felt reluctant to even leave their corner. All the Inborns had unanimously agreed that pure-blood Inborns were more deserving of life; this was the second hit Lycidius had taken in their defense.
“How long do I need to wear a face bandage?” he asked.
“At least a few days,” she said, “or it won’t really even help.”
“Fine.” His eyelid twitched as she pressed the cloth into his wound. “When you’re done, I’m going to sleep for thirty minutes. Make sure you stay with Desya.”
“I know the rules.” She fished a roll of gauze from the first aid kit, and, as she applied it to his face, went extra lengths to be gentle. He blinked slowly, becoming drowsy at her touch. He lowered his gaze and watched her hands while she worked.
Actually, one eye watched, the other eye fumed.
Snofrid attempted to ignore it. She hadn’t yet had time to fully process the ex
istence of Rima. But then, what was there to process? In the back of her mind, knowing that someone would always be intruding on their every conversation, their every look, and their every moment not only upset her, but made her extremely self-aware. Rima had stolen a piece of what she valued most. As was natural, she wanted justice—or revenge.
“Thank you,” Lycidius said when she’d finished. He laid on his back with his jacket hood drawn over his face.
“From nothing. If something happens, I’ll wake you.” She brushed the tip of his glove, so softly he didn’t notice. As soon as they escaped Hollowstone, she was determined to find a way to evict Rima. Then, when Lycidius had regained full possession of his mind, they’d raise a Stonewall Spell on it, so that it could never again be breached by outside entities.
Gathering up the first aid kit, she veered down a shaded stone path toward their supply pile. Just as she tucked the kit into a duffle bag, her phone alarm triggered. It was time for her final mission briefing. She’d dreaded this moment. She had yet to figure out how she’d manage the meet without arousing suspicion. Since the Covenant forbade telling anyone, or even leaving a note for Desya and Lycidius, she saw no option except to sneak out of the Alley. However, the briefing would take two or three hours, which meant someone would definitely miss her. She’d have to think of a sound excuse for her absence.
A short way off, Jazara was curled up on a bench in a stone alcove. Her eyes, red and bloated with tears, were staring into space. Desya sat beside her, his Hematic fangs bared in warning to all the halfbreed-hating Inborns loitering nearby.
Snofrid slowly wound her satchel around one arm, certain that Jazara would be safe with Desya. Her best chance would probably be to slip away while they were occupied—even if this would be cruel.
Retreating behind a pillar, she wheeled down a narrow colonnade, away from their designated corner. Immediately, she felt a sting of guilt. Lycidius and Desya would go wild with worry when they realized she was gone. The dark glowers from onlookers only added to her unrest. She felt trampled by their stares, like she was dirt under their fingernails or something to be thrown out with the trash. She remembered telling Lycidius that she was happy one of her parents was human, but at times, it was difficult to hold to this statement.
At the end of the colonnade, she gazed out across the small interior of the Alley. It was a rustic highland village bordered by rocky bluffs. All that she beheld fit inside a single stone in the wall of the Red Oxygen Bar. The magic worked like a Non-Stop Pocket Spell, shrinking people and objects that they might fit inside whatever object had been enchanted. Purple trees roamed the village plateau, forming a river of forest through the cabins; the doors were built facing east towards the rising sun.
In the main courtyard, she noticed that a heated debate was ongoing. The way people had gathered in a wide circle resembled a council. She shifted nervously, praying they weren’t talking about evicting her and Jazara. Drawing up her hood, she rambled through the crowd until she arrived at a row of cage elevators anchored to the cliff face. After boarding a vacant cage, she spoke to the bronze leaf curled around the elevator’s lock, “The Main Exit. Top speed, please.”
The gates slammed shut. With a clattering echo, the cage shifted sideways, rising up the cliff wall. Cold mist sprayed her face as wind threaded her clothes. She watched the colors of the plants and trees blend together like a motley streak of paint until, all at once, the elevator accelerated, ascending so fast she imagined her insides had scrunched together.
The cage braked at the summit of the cliff. Buckling on her gasmask, she left the elevator and went to where the rocks were scabby like barnacles. She brushed her fingers across their surface until she’d located a rectangular-shaped stone with a round hole cut into its base. After a last glance over her shoulder, she stuck her finger into the hole. Little by little her body drew forward, as if the hole was slurping her up. The walls blurred around her, expanding wider and wider until she felt as small as a particle of dust. Her feet lifted off ground and the roar of wind came thundering to her ears.
Light suddenly burnt up the darkness.
She found herself standing in the basement of the Red Oxygen Bar, facing a squad of able-bodied security guards. They were lounging at a table, drinking pints of dark beer and playing Quell, a traditional Inborn board game.
“Saldut debokter,” she greeted them.
The sound of cocking hammers pricked her ears. All the men drew machine pistols from under the table and took aim at her.
“Password,” a bald man holding a lighted cigarette stated calmly.
“The Oleander Club.”
He lowered his pistol. “Why are you leaving?”
“I need to meet someone. It’s really important.”
“It may be. But once you leave, there’s no coming back in. Security purposes.”
“Please,” she insisted. “My family is in the Alley. And I can’t miss this meeting.”
He nonchalantly took a drag of his cigarette. “If your family is in there, then you don’t want to get separated. Go back in and wait with them until the Sky-Legion flies in.”
Snofrid held her ground. Reaching into her sweater, she held up the gold pendant necklace Atlas had gifted to her. “I can pay,” she said. “As soon as I come back.”
“The necklace is a start, but you’re asking me to break Alley Rules. What else can you offer?”
“One-hundred coppers.”
“A hundred coppers is slum change.”
She groped her pockets and mentally ran through the items in her satchel. She carried nothing else of value. “It’s all I have. Please.”
He tipped his head back and forth, considering. “If I say yes, the deal is closed. On your way back in, if we catch you trying to smuggle in someone else, you’ll both be thrown out. And the money is still mine.”
“Okay. We have a deal.”
He motioned for her to pass. “Go on, then.”
Ducking past the table, she left the guards behind. The unforeseen deal had wasted precious time she didn’t have. Quickening her stride, she entered a shadowy hall where Inborn tombs were slotted into the walls. She was startled to find that one of the triumphal arches was dedicated to Neko and wondered how she’d missed it on her way into the Alley. Beneath the arch lay a coffin with his remains. She closed her eyes in relief; it seemed that his body hadn’t been stolen, but recovered. His friends were more loyal than she’d realized.
Glitter drizzled onto her hood as she melded with the crowds outside the bar. People were pouring through Toddy Common in droves, eager to join the parties of Humanity Week—the seven-day annual festival in which humans celebrated their own existence. The tradition had first begun three years after the Inborn crossing, and with each new year, the parties grew wilder.
Stepping clear of the flow of traffic, Snofrid checked her phone hopefully. Before moving into the Alley, she’d asked Fergus Dripper for a ride at this specific time. Last minute, Hadrian had expressed that he wouldn’t risk sending soldiers to the Alley to collect her, so getting to their meet point on Cassiopeia Avenue was her responsibility.
Fergus’s message read:
Hey, Snowball. Got caught in traffic. Be there in five.
Satisfied, Snofrid pocketed the phone. Then, standing up against the wall of the bar, she waited.
A Call Around the World
Watch out, Fergus. I don’t think that bicyclist sees us,” Snofrid warned, as he guided his BlueCar, skidding and screeching, amidst a ruckus of honking transports on 43rd Avenue. She was cradling a cardboard box of primroses in her lap, which he’d explained were intended for his sister-in-law.
“She sees us now,” Fergus chuckled, flashing his headlights. With each jolt of the car, his orange braids leapt off his shoulders.
Snofrid peered anxiously over the flower box at the clock. She was scheduled to meet Hadrian on Cassiopeia Avenue in eight minutes. But if the hellish traffic endured, and if Fergus was forced to co
ntinue driving thirty miles under the speed limit, she’d arrive late. She didn’t want to imagine the consequences of that scenario.
“You know, there are some great bike trails in Albanus Park,” Fergus remarked jovially. “Ever been?”
“I don’t have a bike,” she said. “I usually take the metro.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. There’s nothing like packing up a cooler and blowing through nature for an afternoon.”
“You must not be too excited about moving then.”
Fergus raised a finger. “Actually, the Ninth Underground City has some sensational parks. They’re man-made, but a few of the trees are real.”
She nodded as if she understood, but really, she wondered how people could enjoy a park with fake trees. “I’m sure you won’t miss Hollowstone in that case.”
“No, I’ll miss her,” he granted. “She has her gems, but when all’s said and done, my new job has a salary. I used to—” Fergus slammed the brakes with gritted teeth, “I used to work a similar job about three years back, but ended up leaving for personal reasons. This time, it’ll be better, though: I’m gonna work right alongside some of the guys I knew back in the Union Houses of Science and Research.”
She started to feel curious how he made his connections. “You’ll be right at home then.”
“Just about.” He grinned wryly, a low chuckle in his throat. “It’ll have its perks.”
His insinuation was hardly subtle. Working in the largest research center in the world was more than a perk. She eyeballed the clock again: six minutes.
“Oh, look at this fool,” Fergus laughed, wiggling a finger at a high-end department store. Snofrid’s brows sprang upward. A hot air balloon had crash-landed on the roof and a DJ dressed in a silver jumpsuit hung limply over the side, vomiting into the street.
Fergus winced. “That’s gonna suck come sunup.”
“It looks like it already does,” she said.
“You know, Humanity Week gets weirder every year,” Fergus mused, stroking his chin. “I think I saw a gal fall down a manhole a few blocks back.”
Hatred Day Page 26