I could not really touch him, of course. I kept my gloves on.
“It changed me,” Arav said. Witnessing such horror would change anyone, but that was not what he meant. “Part of me died when it touched me.”
“You mean your skin,” I said. I was still exploring, and Arav was patiently holding out his arms for examination. Even with gloves, touching anyone was a novelty to me. I had never been so close to a man.
Arav shook his head no, but refused to explain further. It would be months before I took his meaning.
After a while, it dawned on me that I was behaving inappropriately. I was keeping Arav from working or resting, and the other sailors were directing baleful looks at us as they passed. I should not have been so close to him for so long. Our conversation, and thus our touching, had to end.
“Will I see you again?” I asked.
Arav raised his eyebrows comically high and looked pointedly around the ship, and I blushed at the foolishness of my own question. I tried to put my head down to hide it, but Arav put a finger under my chin to tip my face up toward him. For the first time since telling his story, he was smiling again.
I had never wanted anyone to kiss me before.
Arav’s mouth quirked. He dropped his hand, turned, and walked away whistling.
5
A Natural History of the World
THE TASTE IN EV’S MOUTH was sour and acid when she woke up. Her back was against the rough wooden planks of the cart. Everything about her body felt wrong, and it wasn’t the nausea, or the cut, or any physical discomfort, but a slithering, soul-unsettling feeling of being in the wrong skin.
Ev sat up. She looked at her hands and touched her own face. The same hands. The same face. Ev was herself. Her hands didn’t sting, because she hadn’t scraped her palms sliding down a carved column at Solor House. Her throat wasn’t raw, because she hadn’t been sick in the garden at Varenx House.
But Alizhan had. And while Ev was unconscious, she’d dreamed she was Alizhan.
Had it been a dream? Or had it been a memory?
Alizhan’s life would be a lot easier if she could just wander up the switchbacked streets of the Jewelbox, knock on Mar ha-Solora’s front door, and say “Hello, you stole something from my employer, and she would like it back.”
She was wandering those very streets right now. She’d finally convinced Iriyat to let her out of bed so she could investigate. Kasrik had already had hours to get the book back to Mar. Alizhan just had to pray that the damn thing was still in Solor House.
The Jewelbox, Laalvur’s richest neighborhood, was nestled in between the rocky promontories of Hahim and Arish. It extended along the Dayward side of Hahim, and it had gotten its name because of the way the sun lit up the colored glass windows that all the bankers and merchants put in their homes. A lacy filigree of shadows from the high wooden bridges connecting the two cliff faces overlaid the streets below. The scattered reflections over the red stone, and the yellow and purple flowers in windowboxes, and the green vines curling up trellises and over doorways studded the neighborhood like gems. Alizhan could grudgingly admit that the place really did resemble a jewel box, something precious to be tucked away safely.
But the neighborhood, patrolled by Solor guards and distinctly unfriendly to strangers, was a real pain in the ass. Alizhan was in a hurry to get out.
The streets of the Jewelbox were as narrow and steep as all the other streets in Laalvur, but they tended to have fewer piles of donkey shit. Property close to the water was slightly less expensive than homes on the upper streets, nearer to Solor House, her destination.
Alizhan wended her way up through a few more Jewelbox streets, hiking as high as she could before she had to scramble around the end of Hahim and cross into the shadows. Hahim, the land form that would have been Laal’s index finger if anyone still believed in the old ways, jutted diagonally into the water, with one of its sides forming a wall of the Jewelbox and the other facing Nightward. The city continued beyond Hahim down into a large, open harbor. Beyond Hahim Harbor, along the coastline that would form Laal’s thumb, lay a sea-level neighborhood called the Marsh. It was a sprawl of ramshackle houses on stilts, all in constant shade and perched precariously close to the water. From this high up, if she turned her head, Alizhan could see the steady green glow of lamps in a few windows, as well as fires burning bright and dangerous. But the Nightward side of Hahim had only scruffy mosses growing on its shadowed rocks.
There was a path up the cliff face if you knew how to climb. Years of long practice had given Alizhan the strength and the patience for it. Her hands were good for something other than causing pain: she found handholds and footholds like a creeping vine. Even in shadow, she could cling to the rock like lichen. My little shade-blooming flower, Iriyat called her.
Alizhan did not normally steal things. She was a thief of secrets, not objects. She shuffled through shadows, collected conversations, and fished in people’s feelings. Stealing an object presented an exciting change of pace. It would be easier to sneak into a house and filch something than wander through one of Iriyat’s parties, observing her guests. Picking locks and scrambling through windows never made Alizhan so dizzy that she had to bend over and retch.
Solor, the oldest of the Great Houses, had constructed their home on the first and highest of the city’s rocky promontories that extended into the sea like grasping fingers. Its red towers watched over the city, and rumor had it that generations ago, crafty old Kos ha-Solora had hollowed out the entire end of Hahim, from the water all the way up to the cliff peak where his mansion sat, for secret vaults full of treasure.
It was nonsense, of course. Alizhan had broken into Solor House before, whenever Iriyat had some whim to spy on Mar, and there were only two underground levels. That was more than most people could afford, but still, the distance from the water to the top of the cliff was twenty stories. Not even Mar ha-Solora had that much wealth. And if he did, he’d never have spent all of it hollowing out the end of Hahim. Alizhan had spent a great deal of time eavesdropping on Mar, at Iriyat’s parties and in his own home, and she knew he preferred to spend his money keeping his mistresses in silks and perfumes.
Mar’s tenderness toward Iriyat was a secret buried under a mountain of pragmatism. Mar might hope that Iriyat was refusing all other lovers as she slowly warmed to him, but he wasn’t awaiting her change of heart with priest-like chastity. For as long as Alizhan had been eavesdropping on him, there had been a succession of beautiful women in his bed, mostly well-off widows or unattached actresses and dancers, but he didn’t say no to the occasional unsatisfied wife.
Mar might not have carved out the whole cliff to store his treasure, but he did think of his home as an unassailable fortress. He never had enough guards to keep her out because he didn’t expect anyone to climb up the dark side of the cliff. He expected even less for that person to be a little ghost who could see people’s insides better than their outsides.
Alizhan reached the top of the cliff and was confronted with the Nightward wall of Solor House. A few rooms had carved stone screens to allow the cool Night air to pass into the house, but the majority of the wall was solid, windowless stone. She paused. Sensing people through stone walls required concentration. Moments passed before she felt a guard on patrol. He was bored and hungry—there was nothing of use in his mind. The book’s location wouldn’t be common knowledge. Alizhan would need to find Mar himself in order to know where it was. Kasrik might still be in the house, but she couldn’t read him, which left only Mar as a possibility.
The bells had just rung for the shift of the Lyrebird, so Mar was likely awake. He was likely to be awake during any shift; he hadn’t doubled the massive fortune of Solor House by sleeping. He might be anywhere inside his enormous house. It would be easiest to get inside by climbing up to the second-story balcony and unlocking a window or a door, but the balcony was on the Dayward side of the house.
Alizhan inched toward Hahim Point, scrab
bling along where the cliff edge met the rough-hewn stone of the wall. The Point itself was narrow and exposed. Her hand scraped a loose pebble and it tumbled free, jouncing up and down as it struck the rocky ledges.
She didn’t hear it hit the water. The distance was too great.
Heights made other people feel cold with fear. Their stomachs lurched when they looked over a precipice. But for Alizhan, that grand, dizzying drop sparked something hot and bright inside her. High places were a threat and a thrill all at once. The focus required by a long climb was a kind of bliss.
Alizhan didn’t look down. She didn’t look over her shoulder, either, although the air changed temperature as she pulled herself around to the Dayward side. Anyone down in the Jewelbox who happened to squint up the Point right now might see a brownish smudge clambering over the rocks. There was nothing to be done about that. What mattered was not being seen by the guards.
It was brazen to enter Solor House like this, but it was no more brazen than what Kasrik had done at Varenx House two shifts ago while Mar himself had been drinking wine on the balcony.
The Dayward side of the house was open to the light in classic Laalvuri style, with an arcade of carved red stone columns. Boosting herself up to the balcony required hardly any work.
Up on the balcony, Alizhan flattened herself against an outer wall of the house. The same guard that she’d felt earlier—Boredom—was passing by again. With her shoulderblades pressed painfully close to the stone, she waited.
Another guard. Itch.
Itch’s thoughts were slightly more useful than Boredom’s. There was no hint of a small leather-bound book, but he had seen Mar ha-Solora recently. It was hard to get a clear image out of his mind—people were always a riot of feelings and impulses—but Mar seemed to be at work. Dayward light. A desk. He didn’t want to be disturbed. That was all Alizhan could be sure of. But a new problem arose.
If Mar was in his study, he might be looking at the book.
She couldn’t steal the book while he was reading it. She was a superb lurker, an expert sneak, but her craft was based on avoiding notice. On the occasion when that tactic failed, Alizhan resorted to running away.
As Kasrik had demonstrated, she wasn’t always good at running away. Her bruised head was still sore from their encounter.
She didn’t have a plan for confronting Mar. But Itch and Boredom had both circulated to other parts of the house by now, giving her an opportunity to slip into the second story. She crept through the house until she sensed Mar.
He was in his study. Alizhan hovered outside the closed door. She recognized the feel of his mind. He was concentrating hard, and he was deeply troubled.
The shape of his thoughts was geometric, as though he were weighing some foreign object in his hands, touching its surface, sliding his fingers over it in search of a latch to pop it open. He was looking for patterns, rearranging elements until their edges fit together, solving a puzzle.
Alizhan suddenly understood: he was reading the book, but its importance eluded him. In truth, its importance eluded Alizhan, too. Like the other volumes of A Natural History of the World, volume eleven was a modern, printed book, not a unique manuscript. Mar could buy himself a hundred copies if he wanted. Alizhan’s memory was fragmented, but she’d seen the book when Kasrik had held it open on the desk, and she couldn’t recall anything special about Iriyat’s copy.
But Iriyat wanted the book back.
Mar didn’t know that, but he was studying the book with dedication. He’d seen it on the desk in Iriyat’s study too many times to assume that it was simple pleasure reading. Mar still refused to believe the boy’s wild stories that Iriyat was some kind of ruthless, murderous mastermind—to what end?—but she had secrets. Iriyat was sometimes a friend, but sometimes a rival, and knowing her secrets could only be to Mar’s advantage. Besides, it was always wise to keep a watchful eye on one’s fellow Council members. Ezatur and Sideran were self-important fools, but there were sharper minds among the minor Houses, people looking to move up in the world.
The text caught his eye again, and Mar scanned the descriptions of historical natural disasters, running his fingers down the page. Trying to read the text through the image in Mar’s mind proved impossible for Alizhan. He was distracted by his own thoughts.
What if Iriyat really was a student of natural history? Wine-blurred memories surfaced: conversations about quakes and eruptions, the conditions that preceded them, the destruction that followed. Iriyat never liked to talk about waves, and Mar never pressed her on the subject. She had good reason to hate the sea, which had taken her parents from her. She’d even refused to sail to Nalitzva when the royal family had invited her.
Curiously, for a woman with such an overpowering fear of water, Iriyat was also fascinated by the islanders, especially their methods for tracking and trapping giant medusas. Indeed, Iriyat had introduced Mar to the Prince of Nalitzva three years ago, and it was at her party that Prince Ilyr had first dreamed of undertaking his voyage to the islands.
No. All of that was a distraction. Mar flipped another page in the book, then stopped to rub his fingers together. They itched.
His thoughts wandered back to Kasrik. The boy claimed someone was rounding up children for some sick purpose, hurting and killing them, and he insisted Iriyat was behind it all. He might be addled, paranoid, or mad. But someone had hurt him. Mar intended to find out who. Laalvur was his city, and if someone was hurting children, he was going to stop them.
Besides, if the boy really could read minds, he could be of great use. It might benefit Mar to have Kasrik in his debt.
Mar was a man of great determination. If Alizhan was going to wait for him to leave the book unattended, she’d be waiting a long while.
There was one thing she could try.
For years, Iriyat had tried to train her to use her touch as a weapon. It had never quite worked. Alizhan always hurt herself—puked or collapsed or both—in the attempt. Every time, she had head-splitting dreams, or visions, or memories, for shifts and shifts afterward.
But sometimes the other person collapsed too.
Alizhan had to keep herself conscious and functioning long enough to get the book out of the house. She wouldn’t be able to climb back down the cliff afterward.
A sound in the hallway interrupted her considerations. Alizhan looked up and saw Kasrik.
Stupid! She’d forgotten he could sneak up on her. Sensing Boredom and Itch make their rounds through the exterior stone wall of the house had made her complacent. Overconfident. No one could sneak up on her in a hallway.
God damn it. With Kasrik in the world—and maybe more like him—Alizhan would have to learn to be more careful.
She was never supposed to be seen outside Varenx House. There was no time. He could shout or tackle her at any moment. Unless she overpowered him some other way.
Alizhan tore her gloves off. She shoved her palm against Kasrik’s face and pushed him against the wall. Squeezing her eyes shut, she focused. Touching him still felt blank and neutral, just her hand against the jut of his nose, the hair of his brows, and the skin of his forehead. For the first time ever, this blankness was not a relief. Alizhan wasn’t seeking comfort.
She hadn’t been able to read Kasrik during their first encounter. Now, aided by contact, she dug into his mind with ferocity. And there he was: angry, aghast, and in agony from her touch. His pain became Alizhan’s, but she bit her lip and kept her hand in place. She could feel his eyes moving beneath his eyelids, but he was frozen, unable to resist or retaliate. She held her hand against his face until he swayed and fainted.
Only an instant had passed, but it felt like an age. Alizhan’s skull rattled with new information—thoughts, feelings, intentions, fears, fears, fears. A vessel fit to burst. Darkness spotted her vision. It was only the salt tang of blood from her lip that brought her back to herself, bleeding and sweating and trembling in the hallway, towering over an unconscious boy like the monster s
he was.
One ragged breath later, Alizhan slammed into the study and slapped her hand against Mar ha-Solora’s shocked expression. Compared to Kasrik, he was easy prey. The world went black for an instant, and her stomach lurched. She ignored it. Mar slumped over his desk. Alizhan grabbed the book, shoved the spine between her teeth, bit down, then half-flung herself out the open study window, slid down a column, and ran.
The carved stone column had scraped her palms raw. Alizhan held the book gingerly. Her ears were ringing. Her head was a bruise. It hurt to look at anything, and her mind swam with images her eyes had never seen.
A windowless room. Whimpers. A grim, silent man. Other children. Iriyat’s sweet voice. A glass bottle of clear liquid. A stripe of pain down her back—no, not Alizhan’s back. Kasrik’s.
What had happened to Kasrik to cause him that stinging pain? What were these memories? Had he really heard Iriyat’s voice, or was that Alizhan’s own memory swirling into the fog of his confusion? Who were those children? Were they all blank? Were they all like Alizhan?
Alizhan crouched in a corner of Varenx House garden, hidden in a thicket. She’d already been sick once. Breathe, breathe. She had the book. She’d done what Iriyat wanted. Iriyat wouldn’t be happy that Alizhan had been seen, but she could fix it. They could fix it together. Iriyat was resourceful and resilient, and she’d always forgiven Alizhan before. All Alizhan needed to do was to go inside and give her the book.
But Kasrik’s memories gave her pause. His fear was still coursing through her. Iriyat’s voice echoing in her mind.
Kasrik was like Alizhan. That meant Iriyat had lied. If she’d lied about one thing, why not lie about others? Why did Iriyat want the book back so much?
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