“I know,” Alizhan said.
She didn’t add I loved her, too, but perhaps Alizhan couldn’t think of it in those terms. Ev, whose gut twisted every time she remembered Alizhan’s memory, absolutely did. Iriyat might not have given birth to her, but she was the closest thing Alizhan had to a mother.
“The fight,” Zenav said. It was the first time he’d participated in the conversation. “This is why Ivardas can’t remember the fight in the Temple.”
Mar nodded. “I thought he was just afraid of some kind of political retaliation. I thought he’d decided to stay out of things. But if he genuinely can’t remember, this would explain it.”
Zenav looked at Ev and Alizhan. “After you left me to fend for myself in the Temple, Vatik slashed my sword arm. Luckily, the crowd was pulling us apart by then, so he couldn’t finish the job. But Ivardas saw the whole thing, and he was blazing mad. He knew I’d been defending myself, so he swore to me that he’d go after Vatik and bring him to justice for breaking the rule.” Zenav sighed and shook his head. “But when I went back to the Temple a triad later, he didn’t remember me at all. He told me to stop stirring up rumors.”
“But a hundred people must have witnessed that fight!” Ev said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mar said. “Rumors are easy to start and hard to stop. If you’re right about Iriyat, she has an advantage in this arena, but it’s possible to accomplish the same thing with money instead of magic. A few well-regarded, authoritative witnesses swearing that nothing happened, that’s all it takes to make people doubt the account of any layperson who happened to be passing by at the time. There are so many different pamphlets on the subject now that no one knows what to believe. But it’ll all be forgotten as soon as something else grabs the public’s attention.” He paused. “I’m sure the Doubters appreciate the irony that Iriyat has mastered spreading doubt so well that she can use it against them. Or they would, if they could remember.”
“What a mess,” Ev said with a sigh. She hadn’t liked Ivardas, but she wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
“We’ll need even more evidence to take Iriyat down. We have to find all her secrets,” Mar said.
“Oh.”
Mar looked to Ev, as if she could translate this single syllable from Alizhan.
“It might be nothing,” Alizhan said. “But I was one of Iriyat’s secrets for a long time. And I think I know another. There’s a… ghost. In Varenx House. A person locked in one of the upstairs rooms who never comes out. He—I think it’s a man, but it’s hard to tell—he’s confused all the time, and angry.”
“You don’t know anything else about this person?”
“Iriyat keeps him alive but never talks about him. There are two or three servants who care for him and feed him and clean the room. They don’t know anything about him. No one likes going up there.”
“That’s a secret, certainly,” Mar said. “But I’m not sure where it gets us. Can this man speak?”
“I don’t know,” Alizhan said. “His mind is a jumble. He hardly remembers anything.”
“Ah,” Mar said.
“Iriyat must have done that to him,” Ev said. “But why keep him alive?”
“She needs him for something,” Alizhan said. “Iriyat doesn’t keep people around unless they’re useful to her.” There was a lifetime of anxiety simmering under the lid of that statement.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mar said. “Whoever he is, he’s not enough for us. We need proof. Something irrefutable. Something people can stare at. Something people can never forget.”
“Like a written record that incriminates her somehow?” Ev asked.
“Or testimony from Kasrik, if he’s alive,” Alizhan said. “And me.”
Could Alizhan stand in front of the Council and testify without passing out? Ev bit her lip instead of voicing this concern, but the thought was already there. No matter. She would do whatever it took to make sure Alizhan got through.
Mar nodded. “But you and Kasrik aren’t enough. One orphan won’t do it, and neither will two. We need the whole orphanage. There must be other people involved—priests, Kasrik said. If we can find them and force them to testify, that’ll help. If we can figure out what’s in that book, even better.”
“We’ll find Kasrik,” Alizhan said. “And the orphanage.”
“Will you let me look at the book, or can I expect to be knocked unconscious for asking?”
“If we’re going to work together, we’re going to work together,” Alizhan said.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve examined your motives, and I think you’re mostly doing this for the right reasons, but you still stand to benefit politically if Iriyat goes down. You can’t just do this for yourself, or for yourself and one kid you happen to care about,” Alizhan said. “This doesn’t end with Iriyat. If we find that orphanage, and if there are children there—no matter how many, and no matter how damaged or strange they are—you’re going to make sure they get taken care of. Then, after that, we change things in Laalvur.”
“I’m so flattered to have been judged ‘mostly good’,” Mar deadpanned. “You know it will take more than a few words from me to change the whole city’s attitude toward magic.”
“I know.”
“Well,” he began.
“I don’t need you to promise, or swear on God’s Balance, or say anything at all,” Alizhan said.
“I suppose you don’t.”
“I’ll give you the book,” she said. “You know I can get it back whenever I want.”
Mar had learned, by this point, that his participation in the conversation wasn’t necessary. His restrained, neutral expression was shadowed with unhappiness. At his side, Zenav was watching in astonishment.
“We need money, too,” Alizhan said.
Mar simply nodded.
As they walked away from the table and into the street outside the tavern, with heavy pockets and new purpose, Alizhan said, “You want to know what Djal said to me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Djal? Is that the name of the man you were with earlier?”
Alizhan didn’t even dignify this with a nod. He was the only possible answer. “He said ‘get those teeth out, little wolf.’”
Ev had almost as many questions about Djal as worries about Mar, and that was saying something. Ev imagined dozens of improbable hypothetical scenarios—Mar was tricking Alizhan somehow, or still in love with Iriyat and bound to turn on them—to torture herself when she ought to be sleeping. Alizhan had her own troubles going to sleep. She didn’t need anyone else’s.
But that was her whole life. Everyone else’s troubles in her head left no room for her own.
Alizhan didn’t answer Ev’s questions about Djal, because Ev didn’t say any of them out loud.
They were perched on a low stone wall outside the Temple. Alizhan was eating thornfruit and dropping the rinds in the street, and Ev wasn’t sighing out loud, but she was planning to pick up the rinds later and deposit them in a refuse heap like a decent person.
Alizhan could spend a lot longer out in the city when she focused on Ev. It was hard to focus on Ev and listen for any strangers’ thoughts that might lead them to the orphanage. But Alizhan couldn’t admit out loud that they weren’t making any progress, because Ev would drag her back to their room at the first sign of failure. Ev worried too much.
Alizhan dropped another rind on the ground. When Ev was annoyed, she had less time to think about how ill Alizhan looked.
With the tip of her sandal, Ev discreetly pushed the rind into a pile with all the others that Alizhan had dropped.
“You’re adorable,” Alizhan said, and popped another fruit into her mouth.
Ev didn’t understand that at all—she thought Alizhan meant it as a joke—and Alizhan was about to explain when Djal strolled up the street whistling. He had his hands in his pockets and he paused next to them and leaned one shoulder against a column.
Alizhan said, “How
did you find us?”
“I looked.”
Ev didn't like his answer, but she did like the way he looked. Alizhan hadn't given his appearance much thought at their first meeting, since she’d been far more interested in what she couldn't see. But just like Alizhan was excited to meet another mind-reader, Ev was intrigued by the idea of meeting another Adpri.
It wasn't just Djal’s skin that that she noticed. In particular, Ev’s gaze was drawn to his arms, their impressive musculature bared by his red sleeveless shirt.
She also took in the narrow width of his waist, the breadth of his shoulders, the exposed hollow of his collarbone and the masculine line of his throat. Then Ev moved on to appreciating his face, and Alizhan was lost.
Bodies were less mysterious than faces, and she supposed that the appeal of Djal’s was clear enough, but gawking was a waste of time. Ev should be thinking about their mission. And Djal should leave them alone and go off to do whatever sailors did when they weren’t at sea.
“Shouldn’t you be cheating at cards?” Alizhan said.
“Well,” Djal said. He didn’t sound mad or surprised.
Was Alizhan even capable of hearing emotion in someone’s voice if she couldn’t read their mind? Being cut off from Djal’s thoughts made her doubt herself. She dropped her last thornfruit rind on the ground and crossed her arms.
“That’s not the sort of welcome I expected after our last conversation, little sister. I came to check on you.”
“I’m fine.”
“That friend I mentioned, she’s just down the street, and I think she might be willing to teach you a thing or two, if you want.”
“We’re busy.”
“What friend?” Ev interrupted. “What would she teach Alizhan? Who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Djal said. “It was rude of Alizhan not to introduce us.” Okay. Maybe he did sound a little mad. “My name is Djal,” he continued. Why did he suddenly sound so friendly? What was he thinking? It was awful, not knowing. Alizhan squinted at his face as if staring hard enough might makes his features give up all their secrets, but instead of transforming into intentions and desires, they remained eyes, lips, and teeth.
Djal had said hardly anything, but Alizhan harbored a fierce suspicion that he was flirting with Ev.
He was being respectful, unlike the men who talked to Alizhan in bars. And he was offering to help. There was no reason to be rude to him. And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d interrupted her conversation with Ev, which he hadn’t, and was intruding, which he wasn’t. None of this should have ruffled her, which made her even more agitated, and this was all Djal’s fault, and she wished he’d leave.
“Ev,” Ev said, introducing herself, and inclined her head.
Djal did the same. Then he said, “And just down there is my friend, Mala.” He pointed down the street. Following the direction of his gesture down into the crowd was useless, but Alizhan gathered from Ev’s thoughts that he was pointing at a woman. “I think she’d like to meet you both.”
“Appri u go?”
Alizhan didn’t understand the words, but she could guess that Djal was asking if Ev spoke Adpri. The question embarrassed Ev, who shook her head and held up a hand with her index and thumb very close together. “Fi.”
“That’s alright,” Djal said. “You grew up here then?”
Ev nodded. There was a frisson of fear in her thoughts, a concern that Djal might ask why her father didn’t live in Adappyr any more, and if he was a criminal like all the other exiles. But then Ev realized that Djal, probably an exile himself, would be sensitive about that topic, and she relaxed. Djal was Adpri. She’d had so few chances to meet her father’s people. She had to take this one.
“That song you were whistling when you walked up,” Ev said. She hummed a few bars softly, and then recited: “In golden Laalvur by the sea so low, my love lives high on a red stone hill, and there still the curling vines do grow.”
Djal nodded.
“Is Vines your ship?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say she’s mine, exactly,” Djal said. “There’s a whole crew of us. Laalvuri, Adpri, Hapiri, Ndijan, even a couple from up Nightward. Why? Who wants to know?”
Ev’s excitement spiked so suddenly that Alizhan had to suck in a breath. She resisted the urge to rub her aching temples. But before either of them could answer, a woman appeared at Djal’s side. She was taller than Alizhan, but still short. Her round figure was wrapped in a bright blue-and-white printed dress, and she wore a scarf in matching fabric over her hair. She said something to Djal in Adpri, and he replied in kind.
Alizhan had no idea what either of them was saying or feeling. The woman had shields just like Djal. Was this how it felt to be other people? Completely cut off? She hated it.
Ev didn’t know what was going on, either, so Alizhan couldn’t rely on her. A whole city full of people thinking and feeling and wanting and needing at full volume, and Alizhan had managed to find two more she couldn’t read. She didn’t know what their faces looked like and she had no idea what words they were saying and their minds were silent.
In other circumstances, it might have been a relief. Right now, it was irritating.
Just to remind herself that she wasn’t totally useless and isolated all the time, she scanned the crowd in the street. A rush of thoughts mobbed her—a man in a hurry to get down to Arishdenan, a woman worried for her sniffling child, a priest striding toward a house in Gold Street, and so many more—and Alizhan reeled. It was vertiginous, like peeking over the edge of a cliff and realizing just how far down the ocean was. Except heights never bothered Alizhan. But crowds did. Her heart gave a sickly flutter in her chest. She closed her eyes. She shouldn’t have peeked.
A man going to the market. A sailor finally back at home. A man going to the Temple. A woman going to the Temple. A woman going to see her tailor. A man going to meet his lover. A priest, hiking up his robe, hurrying into the Temple.
When Alizhan had let go of her focus on Ev, she’d slipped over the cliff’s edge. She was falling, and the ocean was rising up to meet her. People were all around her, and she would drown in them.
“Ye,” someone said. Or something like “ye.” A long, drawn-out syllable of distress. Had people been talking this whole time? It was so loud in Alizhan’s head. “What’s this?” Those words were in Laalvuri, but the accent was foreign. “This one is sick. She shouldn’t be here.”
A child marveling at her first sight of the city. A woman going to visit her mother. A boy looking for pockets to pick. A man prodding at his donkey to pull its cart faster. A woman feeling sick to her stomach. A woman pushing her way through the crowd to cross the bridge.
“I know.” That was Ev talking. “She’s very stubborn.”
Something in the whirlpool of thoughts had flown past Alizhan. Something important. The thoughts kept swirling by—a girl grabbing her father’s hand, an old man spitting on the cobblestones—and Alizhan tried to catch her breath and find the one she wanted. A priest, hiking up his robe—no, not that one. A priest striding toward a house in Gold Street.
Where was he now? Had he gone too far?
She didn’t bother to open her eyes. Seeing him wouldn’t help. It was his mind she needed to find, not his body. Gold Street. Gold Street. Why was he going up toward the Knuckles, instead of into the Temple? Surely he didn’t live in such an expensive neighborhood. Was he making a house call?
There he was. Full of purpose and determination. Panting slightly as he went uphill. Thinking that damn house full of Unbalanced little monsters.
Alizhan’s eyes flew open. There was something wet and warm running down her face. Then everything went dark.
Alizhan’s sudden nosebleed was only one of her symptoms. Her trembling had worsened. She looked dazed, dizzy, unsteady. Her eyes rolled. Her jaw clenched, and then her face spasmed. Ev stepped forward just in time to catch her and keep her head from cracking against the stone as she fell.
&nb
sp; “Smoke,” Djal said. “Mala?”
His friend nodded, and motioned for Ev to hand Alizhan to her. Ev shook her head.
Mindful that touching Alizhan could make things worse, Ev laid her gently on the ground, clearing away the little pile of thornfruit rinds first. It was hard to step away. Alizhan’s limbs jerked. Froth bubbled on her lips. Her eyes were open and white, circling wildly.
Mala sat down next to Alizhan immediately, and just as Ev said, “Don’t touch—” Mala laid her branded hands on either side of Alizhan’s face.
Alizhan’s limbs stopped flailing. Her eyes closed. Gradually, she stilled.
“What are you doing,” Ev said, too panicked to do anything but spit out her question as fast as possible.
Mala gave her a steady look. “Magic,” she said, as though she was daring Ev to interrupt. She did not remove her hands from Alizhan’s face. Alizhan would never let anyone touch her like that if she were conscious.
“Are you hurting her? She can’t be touched, she—”
“I didn’t hurt this girl,” Mala said. “Whoever it was who didn’t teach her how to cope with her gifts, they hurt her. And she can be touched. By me.”
Djal put a hand on Ev’s shoulder. “Mala’s a healer. Mostly she does what all healers do. Cleans wounds, stitches ‘em, sets bones. Always wants herbs for teas and tinctures when we stop in cities. But she’s got that touch magic, same as Alizhan. When she lays hands on you, you feel better. Even if you didn’t feel bad in the first place. It’s something else.”
“She can heal with a touch?”
Djal shook his head. “Nah. If a man’s bleeding and she touches him, he’ll keep bleeding. But he won’t hurt so much.”
“That’s not like Alizhan at all, then.”
“It’s all hand magic,” Djal said, and shrugged. “Mala’s got more of a chance at teaching her to control it than any of us. And somebody has to, before the next attack does real damage. Or until she touches one of us and makes us go crazy.”
“That’s not what happens,” Ev protested. “You just—see into her head, sort of.”
“And it was all totally painless, mm?”
Thornfruit (The Gardener's Hand Book 1) Page 19