“No one’s paying that one,” Alizhan said, indicating a pamphleteer. “He might still be a crackpot, though.”
Ev bought his pamphlet and skimmed the text. “Look,” she said, shoving it under Alizhan’s nose. The article contained an interview with “A Priest” and there was a tiny printed portrait of a bearded man who was clearly Ivardas.
“I assume that’s supposed to be Ivardas,” Alizhan said, not looking at the paper.
“Oh,” Ev said, embarrassed. A drawing of a face would mean nothing to Alizhan. She ought to know that by now. “Yes.” And then, before Alizhan read her mind instead of the pamphlet, she said, “In this interview, Ivardas says nothing happened and it’s all a big hoax. No one drew a blade in the Temple. He says, and I quote, ‘I would be incensed if anyone had broken that taboo and I would be doing everything in my power to bring that person to justice.’ But we were there. He was incensed.”
“If he’s not angry anymore…” Alizhan began.
“Someone made him forget,” Ev finished.
No wonder it was so hard to find the truth in Laalvur. Iriyat was constantly erasing the facts.
Alizhan and Ev went out looking for Kasrik every few hours. Ev wanted to be strategic, to search different neighborhoods in an orderly manner, returning at different shifts in case Kasrik was keeping a different schedule. Alizhan wanted to lurk outside the Temple Street orphanage and listen to people’s thoughts for as long as she could physically tolerate it. Ev didn’t like loitering and watching sweat bead on Alizhan’s temples. They were vulnerable and conspicuous. Every time Alizhan began to droop, Ev insisted they retreat back to the solitude of their room. Alizhan protested that this extreme caution was hindering their progress, but they wouldn’t make any progress at all if she collapsed.
Their plan bore no results, but it was better for both of them to be doing something. At first, they’d pulled A Natural History out of its bag of salt every shift, but they soon switched to checking the book every triad. As the book’s pages desiccated, the bluish ink darkened. Perhaps by the time they reconnected with Kasrik, the text would be readable.
Ev hoped that time would arrive soon. The longer they spent in one place, no matter how careful they were, the more likely it was that Iriyat would find them. Would she kill them? Make them forget?
Strangely, Alizhan seemed less troubled by Iriyat’s absence from their lives than Kasrik’s. Or at least, she mentioned Kasrik more often. “What if he’s dead, Ev? What if this is all for nothing because Vatik already killed him and hid his body somewhere? Do you think Iriyat has had other people killed? And if Kasrik is dead, is it my fault?” she’d said. “He did call me a traitor.”
“You can’t betray people if you don’t know they exist,” Ev had replied, because she didn’t know how to answer any of the other questions, and Alizhan had said nothing.
And then there was the comparatively simple problem of money. Ev slid a handful of coins across the bar in exchange for the tray of food she’d take back to eat in the room with Alizhan: two mugs of beer, a plate heaped with the spicy fried onion dumplings that Alizhan loved, and two pieces of soft flat bread wrapped around a mixture of lentils, potatoes, and fried cheese.
Not a leafy green in sight. Ev hadn’t minded the tavern food the first time, or even the second, but it was wearing on her. And it was expensive. Her father’s purse had struck her as a fortune, but it wouldn’t last long if they kept living in a rented room and buying tavern food.
They’d arrived at The Anchor three triads ago. They had money for perhaps five more, depending on how much else they bought. Ev hated wasting her father’s carefully saved money. She ought to be doing something grander with it than buying dumplings. What if they needed to bribe someone? What if they needed to buy bandages or medicine?
She pushed open the door to their room and found Alizhan seated cross-legged on the floor, gingerly turning the pages of A Natural History with her gloved fingers.
Ev sat down next to her and put the tray on the floor. It was that, or eat their meal in bed. They couldn’t afford a room with chairs and tables.
“Dumplings!” Alizhan said, as if they were a treasured childhood favorite that she hadn’t seen in years, rather than what she’d eaten for her last eight meals. She chucked her gloves onto the floor and dug in.
Ev ate her own food with considerably less excitement.
“You want one?” Alizhan proffered the dish of dumplings. This time, it had to be a joke.
“What are you going to do when I finally say yes?” Ev said. “If you keep asking me that question, eventually I will. Do you like me enough to share those?”
“I wouldn’t ask the question if you were going to say yes,” Alizhan said through a full mouth of food. She swallowed and licked her fingers. Then she pointed at Ev. “And some time, after I cheat everyone in that room out of all their palaad, I’ll buy you all the raw leafy greens you want, you little rabbit.”
Nobody had ever called Ev little or rabbit.
Alizhan teased her at every meal. Like many Laalvuri, they were both vegetarians. But Ev liked her vegetables recognizable—still green, or even a little crunchy—and Alizhan preferred hers browned in butter, seasoned with the entire contents of a harborside spice warehouse, and hotter than the smoking crater at the peak of Adap.
“And fresh fruit,” Alizhan continued. “I’m gonna win enough money to pay you back a whole lifetime of stolen thornfruit.”
“Those were gifts.”
This argument, like the teasing, happened at every meal. This fantasy of winning at cards was Alizhan’s solution to Ev’s concerns about money. Alizhan’s first suggestion had been theft, which Ev had rejected. This second suggestion was hardly better. Alizhan had no idea how to play cards. She planned to learn from the other players—without asking. You’ll get caught cheating and get your ass kicked, Ev always said. You’d never let anyone do that, Alizhan always responded, with utterly unjustified faith in Ev. Ev had to worry for both of them, since Alizhan never did.
“I’ll buy you a new staff to replace the one that Zenav took,” Alizhan said, in between shoving food into her mouth.
“That might be useful,” Ev allowed.
“So you agree that I should go clean out the pockets of every card player in this tavern. Maybe the whole harbor.”
“No,” Ev said. “But I also don’t see how else we’re going to get any money, and we’re no closer to finding Kasrik.”
“I knew you’d come around eventually.”
“By that logic, you should stop asking me if I want any dumplings.”
Flush with victory, Alizhan laughed, and the crushing weight of the world lifted.
It was the shift of the Honeycreeper. The call had rung out from the tower of the Temple of the Balance, bells ringing in imitation of birdsong, not long ago. No cities ever truly slept, and Laalvur was no exception, but some neighborhoods kept more of a schedule. Wealthy, fashionable Jewelbox residents preferred to work and play during Lyrebird and Rosefinch. Arishdenan Harbor was most crowded during Lyrebird and Honeycreeper. But it was never quiet. Ships arrived from Day and Night at all times, so people worked and drank and visited brothels during all three shifts. The taverns were always open. There were always card games.
Ev and Alizhan had been sharing a bed, catching a few hours of sleep here and there, trying to make sure their search for Kasrik was as thorough as possible. Sharing a bed with someone so beautiful might have sounded tantalizing to Ev in the past, but the reality was miserable. Ev woke from sleep with a stiff neck and shoulders from holding herself taut for hours, as though she could rein in her thoughts by controlling her body. A futile attempt—her dreams were full of brilliant, guilty color. Mostly the bronze of Alizhan’s skin, the black of her hair, and the rose of her lips. Ev woke up mortified every time. But at least she got some sleep.
As far as Ev could tell, Alizhan rarely did. Ev was probably keeping her awake with those lurid dreams. How could she
possibly fix that?
If something didn’t change soon, Alizhan’s restlessness would drive her to go out and cheat some sailors out of their hard-earned money without Ev at her back—if she didn’t have an attack and fall unconscious on some tavern floor first.
So Ev had promised to accompany her to a tavern this shift.
Alizhan was vibrating with excitement. She was standing on the other side of the bed, facing away from Ev as she pulled her new tunic over her head. New clothes had been a necessary but painful expense. Alizhan’s nosebleed had ruined her tunic when they’d first arrived at The Anchor, and bloodstains didn’t fit into Ev’s ideal, inconspicuous aesthetic.
Ev wrapped a length of fabric around her breasts. It was easier to move unnoticed through the city if people thought she was a man, so she’d stopped correcting people who made the mistake and started encouraging them instead. It had rankled at first, but it rankled more to be propositioned for sex, which happened when she was dressed as a woman.
Men and women’s clothing in Laalvur differed mostly in color and in detail, not in cut. Most people wore loose tunics and trousers, and their sex was only evident if their shape could be distinguished under their clothes. Ev’s disguise was minimal: loose clothing, short hair, and Alizhan by her side. People who saw the two of them together naturally assumed they were a couple. Since petite, long-haired Alizhan was obviously a woman, strangers tended to address Ev as a man.
No wonder Ajee hadn’t wanted to marry her.
The thought no longer stung. It produced a dull ache, like poking an old bruise. Ev hadn’t really wanted to marry him either. She’d been searching for something—a future, a purpose—and she’d mistaken Ajee for the answer.
Alizhan, still facing away from Ev, said, “You’re much too pretty to be a man.” Her hands continued their quick work of braiding her hair.
“You have no idea what my face looks like,” Ev retorted, pulling her tunic over her head.
“Well, I don’t know what your face looks like, but I know what everybody else thinks, and that’s it. Besides, you wanted somebody to say it, so I said it.”
“Stop peeking,” Ev said, and they both knew she wasn’t talking about nudity. “You don’t think men can be pretty?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alizhan said. Of course. It had been a silly question. “The whole concept is mysterious to me. A few of them are nice, I guess. I don’t really know very many. But sometimes men in the street look at me and think obscene things as I pass by. Did you know that?”
“Unfortunately, they rarely keep those thoughts to themselves.”
“That’s most of what I know about sex,” Alizhan said, painfully honest. “Well. Not just that. People think about it all the time. But I can’t imagine it. There’s so much touching.”
That wasn’t fear or disgust in Alizhan’s voice. It was yearning. And yet she’d told Ev not to hope for anything.
Alizhan was still talking. “So sex never made sense to me—it seemed absurd and disgusting and sometimes terrifying—until I remembered kissing Ajee in the barn loft. That was nice. Until he was an asshole, I mean.”
“Alizhan,” Ev warned. It made Ev squirm to think of Alizhan possessing—experiencing—her most intimate memory. The worst part was that it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant kind of squirming. Alizhan must already know that by now, too.
Ev changed the subject slightly. “And Ajee’s not an asshole. He’s in love with someone else. That’s not his fault.”
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Alizhan said. It was surprising, but sort of sweet, that she had taken Ev’s side so fiercely on the subject. “You still like men, though,” she added, obviously intrigued by the idea. “You think they’re pretty, or whatever word you want to use. Attractive. Beautiful.”
Ev tried desperately to avoid thinking about who, exactly, was beautiful. But she was confronted with the sight of Alizhan ten thousand times a shift. It didn’t matter how careful Ev was. Alizhan knew. She’d always known. Mercifully, for whatever reason—Alizhan rarely respected Ev’s request not to talk about Ev as if she were an open book—she’d refrained from commenting on that particular subject.
But lately, it came up all the time.
Ev hadn’t done anything to encourage strangers in thinking that Alizhan was her lover. She never touched Alizhan in public or in private. But Ev wasn’t oblivious. Alizhan was encouraging strangers’ perceptions: leaning in close when they were together in public, smiling at her, laughing too much, sighing dreamily, biting her lip, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Because Alizhan wasn’t especially good at appearing natural even when she wasn’t acting, the whole performance had an over-the-top, cheap-street-theater quality to it that made Ev uncomfortable. Alizhan knew that, as she knew everything, but Ev never asked her to stop, and she never offered. It was a useful lie.
Ev said nothing else on the subject of attraction, and Alizhan let it drop. They left their room, passing the empty, shabby common room at The Anchor. Even if it had been lively with card players, they wouldn’t have played there, just in case Alizhan got caught cheating. After they’d walked up the street and Alizhan had examined each place they passed, she finally selected a tavern that struck Ev as identical to all the others: dirty, noisy, packed. It was called The Red and Black, and the sign hanging outside was carved and painted to look like a pair of playing cards, the Ten of Suns and the Ten of Smoke. Whatever it was called, this tavern was just as likely to make Alizhan sick as all the others, which meant Ev didn’t like any of them.
Alizhan treated her symptoms and fits far more cavalierly than Ev ever could. This, Ev reflected sourly, was because Alizhan had never had to witness herself collapse. Her pupils got huge and her breath hitched and she crumpled instantly, as though her body had been held up by an invisible force that suddenly had winked out of existence. It was hard not to think of that invisible force as life, and the collapse as a kind of death. No matter how Ev explained it to herself, it was fiery awful to watch.
Alizhan was undeterred. She had to work hard to keep her composure in rooms full of people, but she insisted on accompanying Ev anyway. If Alizhan was focusing on Ev’s thoughts and feelings in order to block out everyone else’s, as was her habit, she’d stopped mentioning it. Ev preferred it that way.
Ev bought them both beers and then ensconced herself at a table with a good view of the card games, where she planned to stay and glower at anyone who approached for the rest of their time here. “Don’t piss anyone off too badly. Act natural.”
“Of course,” Alizhan said, even though they both knew she had no idea how to do that. They both expected this adventure to end in total catastrophe. The difference was that Ev was resigned, while Alizhan was exhilarated. “I’ll listen for mentions of Kasrik, or the fight in the Temple of Doubt, or Varenx House or Solor House.”
“I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends.”
“Don’t be grouchy,” Alizhan said. “Ev?”
“Yeah?”
“You have to give me some money so I can buy in. I think that’s how it works, anyway.”
Ev handed Alizhan some coins, giving her a pointed look she undoubtedly couldn’t see.
Alizhan sat down at the table without being invited. As long as she had a task, she’d be fine. She could focus on a few select people and ignore the rest of the bar. No panicking, no getting sick, no nosebleeds, no fainting, no fits.
The old man across the table from her grunted, “It’s ten.”
Alizhan dropped ten kalap on the pile of money in the middle of the table, and they clinked against the other coins. The pile was mostly the brown metal of kalap, dull and tinged with green, since betting hadn’t gone high enough yet for anyone to put in a shiny white palaad.
The dealer dealt her a hand. Alizhan studied her five cards as if they meant something to her, although they didn’t. Iriyat liked card games, as she liked all games, and she’d mentioned once that Nalitzvan cards included jacks, qu
eens, and kings. Proper Laalvuri cards used only numbers. The suits were the same in both cities: two drawn in red and black, Sun and Smoke, and two drawn in white and black, Snow and Stars. This particular deck had an intricate green pattern curlicued all over the back of each card.
Alizhan’s cards were mostly Smoke: Two, Four, Five. The illustration of black smoke wound, calligraphy-style, across the red field of the card. She also had the Seven of Snow and the Ace of Stars, both with little white symbols picked against black backgrounds. She had a vague idea that the suits were ranked in worth: Sun was the most powerful, followed by Stars, then Smoke, then Snow. Other than that, she didn’t know if there was anything of worth in her hand.
But Alizhan knew how the woman to the left of the dealer felt. She wanted to stay in the game. Her hand was strong—a Night and Day, meaning three Star cards and two Sun cards. The other men at the table were still sober enough that they’d fold quickly, and the wide-eyed little slip of a thing who’d just appeared at the table out of nowhere radiating foolishness couldn’t possibly be a threat.
Alizhan, accustomed to encountering other people’s brutally honest opinions of her, didn’t react.
Night-and-Day was a stout woman wearing red and yellow with her grey-streaked black hair pulled into a tight, high bun. She dropped twenty kalap in the pot—a whole palaad’s worth.
The bearded man to her left was assessing the rest of the table very carefully and thinking face like a stone. He smelled like stale sweat. Stoneface wasn’t sure what to make of Alizhan yet, except he’d thought shame about that gigantic nose when he’d first looked at her. But he hadn’t formed any opinion of her skill at cards. Like Night-and-Day, he wasn’t impressed by the other men at the table. He liked the look of Night-and-Day, though, and might offer her a drink if the game didn’t go too badly for either of them.
Stoneface had the Eight of Snow and the Eight of Stars. Not a terrible hand. But not as good as Night-and-Day’s. He didn’t behave as Night-and-Day predicted: he called her bet, dropping twenty kalap in the pot without hesitation.
Thornfruit (The Gardener's Hand Book 1) Page 16