However my parents had found my secret, there might still be missing pieces. They might not know who Arav was. They might not know I was already ruined.
And because I had told no one—not even Arav—they could not possibly know how well I had trained myself in the use of my own power. They still thought of me as their inept, undisciplined child.
That was an advantage. I had learned, starting with the moment that Rossin Tyrenx tried to touch me, that appearing powerless can make one powerful.
“Please,” I said. I did not have to fake desperation. “Don’t hurt him.”
“We won’t, we won’t,” my mother promised.
My father’s hard expression said otherwise.
“This happens sometimes,” my mother said. “People make mistakes. It’s fine. It hasn’t gone too far yet. We just have to correct it. It won’t hurt at all. Everything will be fine.”
It had gone too far, by my own design. But they did not know that, and I did not intend to let them. Not yet.
“Both of you will be happier when this is over,” my mother said in the kindest of tones. She took a step toward me, the silk of her tunic whispering against her knees. She looked soft and sophisticated in grey and lavender. “It will only take a moment. You won’t feel a thing.”
We tell each other that Lacemaking is painless, but this is only because no victim ever remembers the experience.
“We’ll never see each other again, I promise. Don’t take him from me,” I begged.
“Your promises mean nothing,” my father said. He did not bother to disguise his anger as concern or kindness. “How can we trust you? I will have his name!”
So they did not know. I could still protect Arav.
“Merat,” my father said, addressing my mother. So she was the one who would take Arav from me. Was she stronger than my father? More skilled somehow? Or did my father ask her to do it because despite everything, he loved me too much to hurt me like that? How can I possibly credit such an unbelievable thought, after all these years? And yet the idea haunts me. The words appear on the page. A most unwelcome ghost.
I digress. Her given name was all the instruction my mother required. She raised her hands.
There are things even Lacemakers like to forget. Our craft is violent. It hurts to have your memory altered. It hurts more if you resist.
My mother cupped my face in her hands. From the outside, for anyone who did not know what we were, it must have looked like a gesture of comfort. A mother soothing her weeping daughter. The two of us were a matched set of beauties, pale and soft and golden-haired, dressed in delicate silks. A lovely veneer.
And an unspeakable violation underneath.
Tears sprang to my eyes as her fingertips touched my temples. My mother’s touch was physically gentle but mentally vicious: the hard, sharp edge of a spade digging through my memory. I shrieked and sobbed and made no effort to restrain myself. I knew my father would hate it—even born and raised in Laalvur, he was Nalitzvan enough to despise any display of emotion as weakness. Let him hate this, I thought. Let him suffer even a fraction of what I am suffering.
My mother was looking for a name and a face in my memory, and she found one easily. I thought of Jai, the only other sailor who had survived the encounter with the giant medusa, the one who had lost his arm. Jai lived in the Marsh, not far from Arav’s family, and we had met several times. It was wrong to set my parents on his trail, but I could not feel sorry for it. Even now, I know I would make the same choice. I had to sacrifice someone to save Arav. It would cost Jai only a moment of pain—instantly forgotten—to lose all his memories of me. When my parents found him, as they surely would, my little trick would become obvious. I hoped that my parents would see that Jai was innocent and leave him alone. I hoped they would save their real fury for me. More importantly, I hoped that by the time they discovered Arav’s identity, I would have had a chance to warn him so he could leave the city.
You will note that I am writing of both Jai and Arav, evidence that my memory of both of them remains intact. My mother could not take anything from me. My practice had paid off. I had grown strong enough to withstand her. But the pain was real, and it was easy to pretend she had succeeded. I knew exactly the reaction to imitate: the blinking, wobbling daze that marks victims of our craft. It is exhausting, having one’s memory altered. My fatigue was genuine.
My father did not wait for me to recover. He simply grabbed me by the arm and led me to my room. I went willingly, thinking all the while about how I could get word to Arav. Parneet or one of the other gardeners might be able to help me. I would have to be discreet.
My father shoved me toward my bed and left the room without a word.
I did not panic. Then, outside my door, I heard a bolt slide into place.
10
Doubt Is Prayer
ALIZHAN WAS A FIERY FUCKING reckless fool, and Ev was the twice-burned dope who kept following her into trouble.
The worst part was that Ev had never been so angry as when she’d realized that Alizhan was standing in the kitchen with some sword-wearing stranger, making plans to slip out of Ev’s life forever.
Ev should have clonked Zenav on the back of the head at the first opportunity. But her father was always in her head saying don’t hurt anyone you don’t have to and Ev hadn’t known what to do.
That instant of hesitation had won her a rope around her wrists and a long, silent walk back to Laalvur. Zenav was hovering behind the two of them, carrying Ev’s staff. She couldn’t say anything important to Alizhan in his hearing.
Not that she wanted to talk to Alizhan.
Zenav obviously didn’t consider them worthy adversaries, these two young women who’d willingly made themselves his captives, as he’d only bothered to bind their hands and not their feet. Ev twisted her wrists, rubbing them against the rope. The binding wasn’t painfully tight, but it was well knotted.
Zenav was using her staff as a walking stick. Would he use it in a fight? Or would he drop it and unsheathe his sword instead? If she got in close enough, he’d have to fight hand-to-hand. He was bigger than her, and more experienced.
Ev had overheard most of his conversation with Alizhan, so she understood that Mar had sent him. He was looking for Alizhan and the book. Alizhan’s questionable plan seemed to involve stopping at the Temple of Doubt.
They entered the city walls in the foothills outside the cliffs of Dar. The guards let Zenav and his two prisoners pass. Just like that, Ev and Alizhan were back in the city. Ev had, at least, had the foresight to tuck her father’s gifts into her pockets. Zenav hadn’t bothered to search her.
From the outer walls, they climbed up into the hilly streets of a neighborhood called The Knuckles. Then they turned toward the coast, and Zenav marched them down the zigzagged street on the city-facing side of Dar.
Varenx House loomed above them at the tip of Dar. Ev looked down at the inlet of Denandar instead, at the Temples carved into the Dayward side of Denan, and still her skin prickled.
The Temple of the Balance, the wealthiest temple in the city, was high above the water on the light side of Denan. The Temple of Doubt, a newer and far less powerful organization, had ensconced itself two levels below, still on the more prestigious Dayward side of the inlet, but at much greater risk of destruction by wave. Zenav herded Ev and Alizhan across a narrow wooden bridge high above the water. Alizhan wobbled on her feet. She was sweating. Their walk hadn’t agreed with her, and Ev knew from Alizhan’s memories that crowds never did.
What did Mar ha-Solora want with them? Were Ev and Alizhan going to end up in a cell in the bowels of Solor House? Did Mar intend to move against Iriyat? How could he, if she could erase memories with a touch? How could anyone? Perhaps Ev would end up in a cell in Varenx House instead. A cheery thought.
Or maybe Iriyat would touch her and make her forget all of this. Even better. Iriyat would put Alizhan back to work, most likely, and nobody would ever know what was in that book
. And if they never found Kasrik, would anyone remember him?
The bridge creaked under Ev’s foot, startling her out of her worries. When she looked up to step carefully off the bridge and into the crowded stone street, there was a pair of eyes watching them.
A tall, solidly built man dressed in grey. His curly salt-and-pepper beard was neatly trimmed to show off the hard line of his jaw. He wore a sword. This man might be the one from Alizhan’s memory, Iriyat’s head guard. Vatik. Ev was able to notice physical traits that Alizhan missed: the scar through the outer edge of his left brow, the pale blue of his mismatched right eye, and the grim set of his mouth. Ev had never felt so hated, and Vatik wasn’t even looking at her. His stare was all for Alizhan.
Vatik kept his hair short and wore no rings or earrings. Nothing to grab. His grey clothing was loose enough for easy movement but not so billowing that it would trip him in a fight. What could Ev do against a man like that, who wore a sword with such practiced ease? Zenav still had her staff.
“Alizhan,” Ev hissed. Zenav was listening, but she couldn’t let the moment pass without saying something.
Alizhan glanced at her. She looked a little unfocused, maybe even ill. It must be the crowd affecting her.
There was an idea. Could Ev just… think the words and not say them? But she’d asked Alizhan not to peek inside her head. “We’re being watched,” Ev said quietly.
“By about fifty people,” Alizhan said, not bothering to whisper. “I can hear them all.”
Ev pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows, then tilted her head in Vatik’s direction. He was weaving through the crowd, his pace leisurely, but he was clearly keeping an eye on the three of them.
Alizhan looked in that direction, puzzled. She was probably on the verge of protesting again that everyone was watching them, so how could she possibly single out anyone?
“Oh,” Alizhan said. She stopped so suddenly that Zenav almost ran into her back. He grunted at her to quit gawking and keep moving.
So much for discretion. Now they were even more conspicuous than before.
Alizhan’s realization couldn’t have come from scanning the people on the street, since she was staring into the distance as usual. She must be examining someone’s mind.
“That’s Vatik,” Alizhan said, confirming Ev’s suspicions.
“He’s watching us, right?”
“Zenav,” Alizhan said, addressing their captor and not deigning to answer Ev’s question. “Remember how I said there were some people looking for me?”
“You mean to tell me they’re here,” Zenav said. They stopped in front of the columned facade of the temple. He gestured for Alizhan and Ev to go through the door. “No one draws a blade in a temple. If they’re still here when we come out, I’ll take care of it.”
Zenav would be more evenly matched with Vatik than Ev. His hands weren’t bound, for one. Both men had swords. Zenav was smaller and younger, but he might be more agile.
Ev didn’t want to be anyone’s prisoner, but given the choice, she’d take Solor House over Varenx House. As far as she knew, Mar ha-Solora couldn’t touch her and make her forget her own name.
With that reassuring thought, she crossed the temple’s threshold.
The oldest structures in Laalvur were built into caves in the cliffs. The caves had been expanded and smoothed through human effort. Because the rooms of the temple followed the shape of the original cave, the ceiling of the entrance arched high above their heads. Even with the sunlight streaming through the door, it still felt dark and cavernous. The eerie effect was, if not entirely deliberate on the part of the Temple of Doubt, then certainly desired.
Ev had never set foot inside before. Her father’s suspicion of authority encompassed religion as well as politics. Papa might not have been impressed by the enormous entrance hall, but Ev was.
The hall was bustling. People came to make inquiries of every kind, since the priests devoted their lives to the knowledge of all subjects. The edges of the hall were occupied by a series of desks separated with wooden partitions. At each desk sat a black-robed priest, face marked with a stripe of kohl from temple to temple, symbolizing both their fallibility and the darkness that obscured their quest for truth. The makeup was meant to remind everyone of the difficulty of knowing anything for sure, and to keep the priests humble in their eternal education, but Ev could remember Obin muttering many times that no makeup could do that.
Each priest was surrounded by stacks of books and papers, working in the soft green glow of a lamp. Under the murmur of conversation in the room, if Ev listened, she could hear the rustle of feathers when the priests shuffled in their robes.
There was an uneasy truce between the Temple of Doubt and the Temple of Balance. The division between them wasn’t a difference of religion, but a difference of perspective. All things, including doubt, were contained in God’s Balance. Most people on both sides of the division acknowledged that. But priests of the Balance often wondered aloud if it was necessary to dedicate a whole temple to doubt. Those who dedicated themselves to doubt thought so, and furthermore, they thought it was foolish to worship God’s Balance without being able to understand or explain it. Doubt, they said, guided them in their quest for truth. Studying God’s Balance was one way to worship it.
Ev, Alizhan, and Zenav were ushered to a back corner. The priest in front of them glowered at their unwelcome interruption to his work, but when he realized that two of the three people in front of his desk had their hands bound behind their backs, he granted them his full attention.
Zenav dumped the book on the table. “These two tell me there’s some kind of hidden information in this book.”
The priest was frowning. Zenav’s cavalier handling of the book must have displeased him. Although given the deep creases in his bearded face, frowning was his habitual expression.
“My name is Ivardas,” the priest said. His tone was a rebuke for something, but whether it was Zenav’s handling of the book, his failure to introduce himself, or the three of them disrupting Ivardas’s research, Ev couldn’t tell. Perhaps his name itself was supposed to impress them, but it meant nothing to her.
He examined the spine and cover of the book, and then opened it carefully, scrutinizing the edges of the pages, the flyleaf and the inside cover. He flipped through all of it, noticed the handwritten notes in the back, and lingered on them.
Ivardas handled the book with practiced expertise. Rumor had it that all the other rooms beyond the entrance hall were filled with books. The Temple also possessed a printing press for the distribution of pamphlets and new books, if any of the priests happened to overcome their doubts long enough to write such things.
A Natural History of the World was exactly the sort of treatise that an initiate might produce to win the right to wear those trailing feathered robes. The study of waves, quakes, and eruptions was of particular interest to priests of Doubt. These disasters, supposedly a natural part of God’s Balance, shook the world at its foundations and made it seem very Unbalanced indeed.
Ev didn’t have time for these grand questions. She was her father’s daughter, a practical girl. The sight of Vatik watching them in the street had given her an idea. Perhaps she could set Vatik and Zenav against each other, and escape from both of them. She was only concerned with one thing: could she and Alizhan get free?
Alizhan had agreed to come back to the city as Zenav’s prisoner, but Ev couldn’t believe she intended to remain that way. Alizhan hadn’t gone to Solor House for help last triad. She’d hidden in Mar’s bushes for a whole shift, waiting for a sign of Kasrik, not daring to approach Mar.
When Alizhan had needed help, she’d come to Ev.
Ev was with her now, and they were going to get away.
Zenav was still standing behind Ev and Alizhan, but his attention was on Ivardas. Stretching her fingers painfully far, Ev examined her bonds again. Could they be loosened? She might not have another opportunity.
“What kind of information?” Ivardas asked Zenav.
“We don’t know.”
Ivardas flipped back through the pages. “What are these strange blue smudges?”
“What smudges?” Alizhan said, and Zenav glared at her for speaking up and ruining the illusion that he was in charge.
In the lamplight from Ivardas’s desk, faint coloring was visible over the black print. The paper was marbled with ghostly streaks. It didn’t look like writing.
“That wasn’t there before,” Alizhan whispered, as if she hadn’t been able to keep the thought private but wasn’t ready to say it at full volume.
“That looks like some kind of washed-out stain,” Zenav said. “Not like writing.”
“If you leave this book with me, I could examine it more closely,” Ivardas offered. They’d intrigued him, and now that he found them worthy of his time, his demeanor improved.
“No,” Zenav and Alizhan said immediately.
Ivardas gave them a sour look.
“We were hoping you could help us figure out why this particular copy of the book might be worth stealing,” Ev said, hoping to soothe Ivardas with flattery. She needed the conversation to keep going. She couldn’t undo the knot in the rope, or slip her hands free. The rope would have to be cut. “Since you know so much more about books than we do. Does that list of dates mean anything to you?”
“What do I know?” Ivardas murmured. It was a refrain so common at the Temple of Doubt that it had been carved on the inside lintel. The outside lintel said DOUBT IS PRAYER.
Priests of Doubt were meant to remain humble and eternally skeptical of their own knowledge. Still, they were human, and not immune to compliments. Mollified, Ivardas read the list of dates again. “It is simply a list of events—quakes and things. All public knowledge. Nothing secret. This information can be found in any copy of this book.”
In addition to the Natural History volume, lying open, there were three stacks of books on the desk. A few loose pages. A quill. An inkwell. A glass lamp filled with bioluminescent fluid. Could Ev use any of that? She looked again. Those pages. They were letters. A more careful scan of the desk revealed a carved wooden handle sticking out from under one of them.
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