“I can’t! But why would they hide from me if they had nothing to hide? They’re Iriyat’s spies! Maybe not all of them but—someone here is spying for Iriyat. She keeps up with people all over the world. She’s always writing letters. Some of them came from Estva. I know there’s someone here. We can’t trust anyone. And this place is evil! They force people out into the cold!”
“Alizhan…”
“Stop. I know. I haven’t been eating. I haven’t been sleeping. You think I’m crazy. You don’t believe me about that flower. You. Both of you. The only people—the only—” she tried to breathe and her body was wracked with a sob. No one was more surprised than Alizhan.
Thiyo moved first. Ev watched as he wrapped Alizhan in a hug and held her until she stopped crying. His long arms fit so easily around her small frame. “Hey,” he said, and it was jarring to hear his voice so gentle. “Why don’t you come work with me this shift? I don’t think Sardas will mind. The kitchen will be short one pair of hands but I’m sure they’ll manage. We have to go back to work or we’ll draw unwanted attention to ourselves. And Ev has to be able to say that she found you and that you’re earning your keep. She’ll make up something very convincing, I’m sure.”
Alizhan sniffled and nodded, then strode ahead without another word.
Alizhan entered the room with the press with tentative steps and wary eyes. Sardas gave her a welcoming smile, but her gaze didn’t stay on him for more than an instant. Thiyo showed her around the bindery and introduced her to Fama, Rin, and Ayat. Alizhan hardly looked at any of them, but Fama and Rin shared an unsettled glance from across the wooden frame where they were clamping manuscripts. Rin, being Nalitzvan, might be fearful and alert to any signs of witchcraft, as he’d call it. Thiyo hoped he wasn’t the type to report the rules being broken. Fama was Adpri, so there was a chance he’d recognize Alizhan’s gifts, but less of a chance he’d inform the authorities. At least Thiyo hoped so. Alizhan didn’t come close to them, and they made no move to greet her with anything other than a nod.
Maybe they were just wary. They’d treated him the same way.
Ayat said nothing. She threaded her stack of pages as though nothing unusual was happening, but she wasn’t as good at hiding her curiosity as she thought she was. Spitefully, Thiyo hoped Alizhan’s total lack of interest hurt her feelings—if she had feelings to hurt.
When Thiyo brought Alizhan back to show her how the press worked, she whispered, “It’s like an empty room.”
“You have eyes and ears,” he said. “Use them.” Sardas was loading new paper into the press, close enough to hear them if he wanted to listen. And Thiyo was well aware of how silently Rin, Fama, and Ayat were working. With good hearing, they might catch a few words. This was why the damn book was taking him so long—he never got a moment’s privacy to work on it. Everywhere he turned, people were watching and listening. Mad or not, Alizhan wasn’t wrong about that.
Alizhan sighed despondently.
Thiyo busied himself with arranging the tiny metal letters on the plate. When he showed it to Alizhan and asked her to proofread it, the first few paragraphs were an exact copy of the manuscript they intended to print, but the last sentence said you can’t read Ev anymore.
“That’s right,” Alizhan said after a slow appraisal. So she’d been feeling a general sense of isolation, compounded by being cut off from the person she loved and relied on most in the world. And Ev hadn’t believed her about the flower, which must have stung. That explained some of her erratic behavior around Ev. And it must hurt to see Ev develop such easy camaraderie with Pirkko. Thiyo had seen them together, and their relationship was everything that Alizhan and Ev’s wasn’t—fresh, uncomplicated, and full of casual physical affection. Alizhan passed the plate back to him.
“Oh, look, we missed something.” He disassembled the last sentence. In its place, he wrote you’re upset.
“Some genius,” Alizhan muttered. There was a little twitch in her eyelids that suggested she might start crying again.
Thiyo took that as a yes. He wanted to ask some questions, to start a real discussion—Alizhan was depressed and hadn’t seen the potential advantage of her position—but it required more space or characters than he had available. With limited resources, he opted to share news instead of feelings.
not alone HK also having trouble
“You’re taking your time,” Alizhan said lightly. “We’ll never get this book printed. What’s next?”
That would end their conversation, since they’d have to fix the plates into the press and Sardas would see what they were doing. Wasn’t Alizhan interested in his discovery? Was she relieved to learn she wasn’t the only one having difficulty? And why hadn’t her mind wandered in the same direction as his? She’d sounded so lonely on the ramparts when they’d been alone, asking if there was space in the world for someone like her. But when people said space, they meant something else: acceptance, respect, love. As usual, Thiyo had to provide all the answers around here.
“Alizhan. Let me show you something.” Was there a discreet way to tell her that he wasn’t going to shield his thoughts? “I’m going to be very open with you.”
She fixed her eyes on the metal plate and didn’t move. Luckily, she was on Thiyo’s left, so he was able to use his good hand without much trouble. He lifted his hand and placed it right next to hers. She’d taken her gloves off to work in the press, so all he had to do was slide his hand over hers. There was nothing but the feel of skin on skin. No pain. No headache. No new memories. Hard to imagine that delicate little hand had ever posed a threat to anyone.
Harder still to imagine that touching hadn’t been her first thought when she’d realized she couldn’t read Ev. Night madness indeed.
“You see what I mean?” he said. He squeezed her hand lightly. Then he trailed his fingers back over her wrist. He’d have gone further, but the heavy brown sleeve of her coat blocked his progress. “It’s easy. You can do it, too.”
Alizhan met his eyes. He’d never seen such a mixture of awe and bewilderment. She turned her hand over so she could grip his. She gave it a few experimental squeezes, then slipped her hand out from under his and raised her arm until she could touch his face. Her fingers trailed over his cheek, and then suddenly both her hands were on his face, cupping his cheeks and tracing under his jaw. He bit his lip trying not to laugh. He hoped whatever Sardas was reading across the room was really engrossing.
Alizhan removed her hands from his face, lowered them, then turned them this way and that, staring.
“You didn’t think of this, did you?” Thiyo said.
“No. I’ve been so consumed with—” Alizhan stopped herself. The ruse that Thiyo was teaching her to work the press had been stretched beyond belief. She shook herself, then jumped up and kissed his cheek. She laughed. “I’ve never done that to anyone before. You’re a genius.”
“I know,” Thiyo said. “Although that’s not really why I’m a—”
“Show me what happens next,” she repeated, gesturing at the press. She couldn’t seem to keep her hands still. Her fingers wiggled and she curled and uncurled them. She shoved them into her coat pockets and bounced on the balls of her feet.
She wanted to talk about the press now? Thiyo needed to explain himself further. “Just a second.” He reached for the plate again and rearranged the final line of text until it said kiss her.
Ket and Henny were waiting outside the men’s dormitory when Thiyo finished work. They were both smiling, which was a nice change from working in close quarters with Alizhan and Ayat. What had they found to smile about?
“Let’s take a walk,” Ket said. He spoke Laalvuri, despite the fact that all three of them could speak Nalitzvan, and for Ket and Henny, that would be the far easier option. But Nalitzvan was a more common language among the residents. Laalvuri would make it harder for anyone to overhear them. Ket led them outside to one of the staircases that climbed the ramparts and didn’t speak again until they�
��d all reached the top. “We did a test, like you said. And we can still affect each other, but it’s much harder now than it used to be.”
“So it’s not us,” Henny said, her breath a white puff in the darkness as they walked. “It’s them.”
“Well, it’s us, too, now,” Ket said.
“At first we thought we’d both lost our abilities—or were gradually losing them. Seems like it’s happening to Alizhan, too. But I got someone new in the infirmary this shift, someone who’d just started working in the mines, and he was very grateful to me. It was just one little touch and—boom. Pupils dilated. Dopey smile. He felt better. That hasn’t happened since we arrived. I couldn’t even get a smile out of Ket when we tried a couple triads ago.”
“Something about this place makes people resistant to us,” Ket said. “Our abilities don’t work as well—or maybe sometimes they don’t work at all—on people here. And now that we’ve been here long enough, that includes us.”
“Did anyone see you?” Thiyo asked Henny.
“No one but my patient, and he wasn’t gonna say nothin’.”
“Good. Don’t do it again. Now we have to find out what it is about Estva that’s causing this. My guess is the food. It’s one thing everyone has in common. And the one food in Estva that’s different from everywhere else is nightvine. We should quit eating it and then repeat the tests.” Thiyo stopped walking. “Alizhan hasn’t been eating it. She tried it once when we first arrived and hasn’t touched it since.”
“We should do the test on her, then,” Henny said.
“We’ll have to wait—we can’t do it now,” Thiyo said. “I just told her to go find Ev.”
The rest of Ev’s shift passed minute by gut-churning minute. Was Thiyo right? Was Alizhan—for whatever reason—especially upset with her? What had Ev done to deserve that? She and Pirkko found several other absent workers over the next few hours, but Ev didn’t find any answers to her questions. Instead of confronting Alizhan, Ev went straight down to the hot springs when she finished work.
The cavern was empty and the water was still. There were greenish reflections on the surface from some scattered lamps. Ev left her boots and clothes in a neat pile and slipped into the heat of the water. It eased some of her tension. Grateful, she sat down on the stone ledge at the edge of the pool and let the water come all the way up to her shoulders. She rested her head against the wall and tried not to think of anything.
It was only a few minutes before footsteps disturbed the silence. Ev had closed her eyes and didn’t want to open them, but when a cheerful voice said “Hello, Ev,” she did.
Pirkko was grinning at her, brighter than any lamp. All the light in the room seemed to stick to her, illuminating her face and glinting off her hair. She was bent over, balancing on one foot, pulling off her boot. Her long blond braid was swinging while she accomplished this. One boot thunked down, then the other. She dropped all her clothes on top of them, left the pile in the middle of the floor, then strode toward the water. She picked up her braid and tried to wrap it in a coil above her head and pin it in place. It took two tries to get it to stay. Each time Pirkko raised her arms, the movement lifted her breasts.
She had a softer, rounder figure than Ev expected, having sparred with her. She caught Ev staring and paused at the water’s edge. Smiling broadly, she cupped her breasts and then patted her belly. “For keep warm.”
Ev intended to say a word—which one, she wasn’t sure—but changed her mind halfway through and let out a strangled cough instead. She averted her eyes toward the surface of the water, which transformed from stillness into ripples.
Pirkko slid in right next to her. “You want look, you look,” she said, her tone warm and amused.
Ev did want to look. But Alizhan would know if she gave in to the urge. She’d know about the urge itself, too—maybe that was why she was already so cold and angry. Ev hadn’t even done anything.
God, but it was hard to have all her thoughts scrutinized constantly. She was tired. And if Alizhan was going to be angry no matter what Ev did…
“I want look,” Pirkko said, as shameless and carefree as ever. “You very beautiful.”
Pirkko put a hand on her arm, the lightest of touches, under the water where no one could see. And then she trailed her fingers up the back of Ev’s arm until they broke the surface of the water and curved over Ev’s shoulder. Water ran down everywhere she’d touched, warm rivulets retracing her steps. Ev couldn’t help it—she glanced up. And Pirkko was smiling, gazing at her like there was nothing in the world she wanted more, and what was there to do but smile back? Her lips lifted before she’d had a chance to think.
That was all the invitation Pirkko needed. She leaned in and touched her mouth to Ev’s, an instant of light contact posed like a question, just like her touch to Ev’s arm a moment ago. When Ev didn’t flinch or recoil, Pirkko kissed her. She angled her head to fit their lips together, interlaced her fingers behind Ev’s head, then slid her tongue into Ev’s mouth. Ev tilted her head back to receive the kiss and lifted one hand to lay it on Pirkko’s shoulder. What did she intend? Impossible to say. There was nothing beyond the next instant, nothing beyond the pulse of want thrumming through her body. At Ev’s touch, Pirkko moved, cutting smoothly through the water, swinging one leg over and straddling Ev’s lap. They were skin to skin, still kissing. The heavy press of her breasts against Ev’s was as hot as the water.
Pirkko unlaced her hands, letting one cradle Ev’s head and the other drift down into the water, following the curve of her waist and her hip. She paused there, letting her fingers splay over Ev’s thigh, and just as her hand began to slide down in between Ev’s legs, a sound echoed in the cavern. Footsteps.
Ev broke the kiss. “I’m sorry,” she said, and wished it hadn’t come out so breathless. “I can’t. I don’t—” Ev couldn’t say I don’t want to. It was an obvious lie. “I shouldn’t.”
Pirkko sighed and slid off her lap. “Sure?”
“Yes.”
“In love with little funny one?”
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. She’s mad at me. I might be mad at her, too. I don’t even know why. It’s stupid.”
“Only say yes. Say little funny one your forever love. Better for me that way. Heart less broken.” Pirkko touched her heart in mock solemnity. “Still broken, but less broken.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let this happen—it was wrong to treat you like this. If you’re angry with me, I understand.”
Pirkko shrugged. “Felt good. More would feel better.” Then she put her hands on her hips and gave Ev a half-cocked smile. “She make you mad again, find me.” She got out of the water, toweled off, and dressed.
Ev twisted around in the pool, trying to look back toward the entrance. For an unbearable instant, she’d imagined it was Alizhan hovering in the doorway, watching. That reverberating sound might have been her shoes slapping the ground as she ran away, mortified and betrayed. But there was no one there.
26
Unnatural Behavior
EV WASHED HER FACE IN the dormitory before her next work shift, glancing into the mirror to see behind her the whole time. Did Alizhan know what had happened? Could she sense it? Or had she witnessed it? She hadn’t said anything. When Djal had kissed Ev back in Laalvur, Alizhan had blurted that out right away. She’d asked if Ev was in love with Djal and Ev had laughed and said no. That had been good. Alizhan had believed her, of course, because back then she’d known exactly what Ev was feeling. The whole thing had taken five minutes and then they’d sorted things out and gone back to being friends. Or more than friends. Whatever they were.
Whereas right now, Alizhan was uncharacteristically silent and slow. She was changing clothes perfunctorily, with no expression on her face. Ev patted her own face dry with a towel, and when she looked into the mirror again, Alizhan was gone from sight. Ev glanced toward the door just in time to see Alizhan leaving the room. Dropping her washcloth, she hurried o
ut, assuming Alizhan had gone to the mess hall to eat before her shift. But she’d walked in the opposite direction. Toward the print shop?
“Alizhan!”
No response.
It took only a few long strides to catch up to her. “Are you alright?” Ev said. “Are you upset with me?”
Alizhan continued walking through the corridor and into a tunnel that connected their building to the one that housed the press. She didn’t look at Ev or say anything.
“Please tell me you’re okay. I just want to know you’re not going to disappear again, or—” Ev didn’t want to finish the sentence, so instead she walked Alizhan to the door of the print shop, which Alizhan entered without saying goodbye. “See you later,” Ev said weakly.
She still had a few minutes to walk back to the mess hall and eat something, but between Alizhan’s silence and the thought of spending a shift with Pirkko, her stomach turned.
Alizhan clearly hadn’t taken his advice. She ghosted through the print shop at their next shift, wordless and unfocused. The absence of her usual chatter and jitters unnerved Thiyo. He caught her standing in front of the same finished plate of text for several minutes. She didn’t move when he said her name. He let her be.
Sardas normally moved at a stately pace, but he was a whirlwind of activity next to Alizhan, and Thiyo went to help him remove a set of pages from the press. Alizhan was a complex problem, one he couldn’t solve in a single step. For now, he’d pull on a different thread. “I was just wondering if you could tell me about nightvine, Sardas. I’ve never encountered it before.”
“I hadn’t either, before I arrived here,” Sardas said. “Only Estvans eat it. There’s something particular about the thermal vents that allows it to grow. It doesn’t seem to need light.”
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