Djal blinked once, but her sharp tone wasn’t enough to vanish his smile. “So suspicious, little sister,” he said, and took one long-legged stride toward the street, as if they were both going to go along with this plan regardless of how he answered her question.
Ev didn’t move.
“You were excited to meet me only a few hours ago,” Djal reminded her. “You want to know about Adappyr. You want to know about Vines. You especially want to know about your father.”
Ev hadn’t said one fiery word about her father, and she hated that Djal already knew all her secrets. Alizhan reading her thoughts had almost become tolerable, but this stranger was definitely not invited in.
“You want me to stay out, you’d better learn to keep me out,” he said amiably. He didn’t seem to be taking her concerns seriously at all. He hadn’t made any attempt to answer her.
Wait. “I can learn to keep people out?”
“It astounds me what people here don’t know,” he observed. “You might not ever be able to keep Alizhan out. But you could probably learn to keep me out, most of the time. You could certainly learn to be a little quieter.”
Ev relaxed a fraction. Someone who was out to get her wouldn’t have told her that. “Alright,” she said. “I’m still not going anywhere with you until I know more.”
“There’s more than one answer to your question. I don’t like how this place treats people like me, and I like to help them when I can,” Djal said.
So he wanted to help Alizhan. Ev could understand that—but of course, he would know exactly what Ev would find sympathetic. He could see into her head. “What are the other answers?”
“Your family,” Djal said shortly.
“You know my father?” Ev said. She tried not to sound too eager or surprised, though the effort was futile around Djal. She’d thought he’d only mentioned her father a moment ago to needle her, to give her a nasty little reminder that he knew everything, but maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Djal had mentioned her father for some other reason.
Ev’s father had once been a sailor, but as long as she’d been alive, he’d worked on their farm. Djal was a few years younger than her father. It was unlikely he’d ever sailed with Obin.
“I know of him,” Djal said.
“And that’s enough for you to help me?” When other people mentioned that they knew about her father, it was usually people in Orzatvur implying that they knew he was a foreigner, an Adpri exile, likely a criminal. No one had ever said I know about your father and meant anything good by it. Until now.
“Not exactly. He told you about Vines, but he didn’t tell you everything,” Djal said. “It’s not really my story to share. I hardly know it, anyway. Let’s just say we have a friend in common.”
That little bit of an answer was almost more frustrating than knowing nothing. She crossed her arms over her chest.
For some reason, that made Djal smile even wider. “Smoke, you look just like—well, anyway, it’s delicate, you understand? None of us like to talk about why we left. I don’t want to go telling other people’s secrets. I’m sure you’ll learn soon enough.” He paused and smiled. “Oh, now I see you want to know what I did to get kicked out. Your head’s loud, little sister. You got to work on that.”
Ev didn’t like any of that, but she supposed he’d given her as much of an answer as she was going to get. Alizhan trusted him. And he and Mala had saved Alizhan. There wasn’t time to deliberate. He’d offered to help find the house in Gold Street, and they needed to go now. Ev took off, heading uphill.
It was a steep hike out of the inlet, and wherever possible, Ev took the shortcut ladders between streets. Djal followed her in silence. If she were like him or Alizhan, she’d know the character of that silence—was it companionable? Resentful? Scheming?
But if she were like them, there’d be no real silence in her life at all. The din of the streets would be doubled by the roar of thoughts underneath it all. Ev was glad not to hear that.
As they climbed farther from the sea and into the hills surrounding the city, the streets grew sparser, quieter, and less breathlessly steep. Ev had to slow her pace in the Knuckles, which was not as familiar to her as Arishdenan.
Luckily, the aptly named Gold Street was in a wealthy quarter of the city. The richer a neighborhood was, the more likely it was that the streets were marked with written signs. Poor neighborhoods had no signs, since Laalvur, as a city, was only semiliterate. Ev had heard many of her father’s tirades about this sad state of affairs. In Adappyr, everyone could read.
“Everyone can eat, too,” Djal said, “or at least, they could before things started to go wrong.”
When Ev glanced over her shoulder, he smiled, spread his hands wide in apology, then pointed one finger at his temple. “This is what you meant about me being loud,” she guessed.
“You’re real easy to read. Always thinking and feeling a lot and never saying any of it.”
“That’s what everyone does.”
Djal laughed. “Trust me. It’s not.”
“You think I could fix it?”
“I think you’d be quieter on the inside if you were louder on the outside,” Djal said, with a shrug of one shoulder. Then he took off, heading up a street to their right, leaving her no choice but to follow.
“You don’t even know where we’re going.”
“Sure I do,” he said. “I’m in a city full of people who know their way around.”
“When Alizhan tried to find us a way through the Temple of Doubt by reading everyone around her, she collapsed afterward.”
“Are you worried about me, Miss Umarsad?” Djal said. “I’m touched.”
Ev didn’t bother to respond to that.
“Alizhan has no training, so she doesn’t know when to stop,” he explained. “She doesn’t pay attention to her own feelings, including physical signals like pain. And in that Temple, she was rushing through a situation where she and everyone around her were shocked and in a panic. I, on the other hand, am just strolling through this lovely neighborhood, looking for other people strolling through this lovely neighborhood who are thinking about where they’re going and where they’ve been. Big difference.
“Also,” he added, grinning, “there are street signs. I’d never win at cards without such excellent powers of observation.”
“You don’t win, you cheat.” Ev hadn’t told him any of the details of their escape from the Temple. She ought to be used to this by now.
Ev wasn’t thrilled to see that the street he’d chosen was, in fact, Gold Street, but she had to admit he was useful. As its name suggested, the street was not all residences. The beginning of the street was occupied by banks and money changers, but as they made their way further up, the businesses were replaced by neatly kept houses built right up against each other.
“Slow down,” Djal said quietly, ambling by her side. “Stop looking so determined. Gawk like a tourist.”
These houses weren’t open to the light like Ev’s family home, but narrow and upright and enclosed. They faced the street, but they were set back from it, protected by walled and gated courtyards.
“We have all the time in the world,” Djal said. He slung an arm around her shoulders.
“Kasrik doesn’t.”
He leaned in so close that the tip of his nose touched her skin. “Especially not if we get caught.”
She couldn’t dispute that. She tried to relax her pace, admire more, and assess less.
In the lush, low light of Laalvur, these courtyard gardens flourished and flowed across their boundaries, sending tendrils over the tops of the walls. Ev wondered what Alizhan might have made of these homes with large windows and vines draped from their balconies. They looked easy to break into.
“They all have hired guards,” Djal said, keeping his voice so low that he might as well have been one of her thoughts. “That’s how rich people live.”
“Those two have all their windows latched, at least,” sh
e said, pointing.
Djal nodded, and Ev suddenly felt foolish for pointing. Djal stopped outside the next house.
Alizhan did that sometimes. He must be sensing something that she couldn’t.
“Don’t look,” he murmured.
As soon as Ev was instructed not to look at the house, looking away became almost painful. It was as if she’d always wanted to see those huge blocks of red-brown stone that made up the lower level, and the red tiles of the roof. The garden in the front was as lush and as manicured as all the neighbors’. Ev could see nothing different about this house.
On second glance, she saw it. None of the vines reached the upper balconies. Someone was tending to the garden in one very particular respect. She never would have seen it if Djal hadn’t stopped. What did he sense?
“Look at me,” Djal said. He grabbed her hand to get her attention. “We’re having a conversation.”
Ev’s gaze darted back to the house despite his instructions. There were lamps in the second-story windows, and the red paint around the bottom of the wooden door was flaking where the corner hit the doorjamb. The path from the door to the courtyard gate was clear of growth, and the gate wasn’t rusted or hanging from its hinges. People lived in that house. People came and went frequently.
“I know,” he said. “I see those things, too, and more. But we’re not looking. We’re just pausing here in the street to talk about where we might stroll next.” He lifted her hand up and kissed her knuckles, so that they might seem like a couple.
Smoke, but the two of them made a conspicuous pair. The last person they’d passed in the street had disappeared from sight minutes ago. And they both appeared foreign, to anyone who cared to make such categorizations.
They weren’t alone. The door to the house creaked open. From the pointed way Djal stared into her eyes, whoever came out of the house was important. She couldn’t afford to turn in that direction and put them in danger. Her heart picked up its pace steadily.
With his free hand, he cupped her cheek. She barely registered the kiss, except that he murmured “Don’t be mad,” and “Laugh,” and in between, his mouth brushed hers.
Ev did laugh, but it was less of a lovelorn giggle and more of an exhalation of shock.
What was he sensing? Who’d just come out of the house? Had they found Kasrik?
Djal’s grip on her hand tightened, but in his usual, cheerful tone, he said, “Come on, let’s go!”
Then he led her down the street, away from the house. She glanced over her shoulder as they left and saw a thin, bald man narrowing his eyes at them. His angry expression made it easy to recognize him—he looked just like his caricature in the pamphlet. Anavik. A priest of the Balance.
Training, it turned out, was not nearly as pleasant as having Mala touch her. Mala’s touch had made her a little stupid, but Alizhan would rather be stupid than suffering. And Mala’s training regimen left ample time for her to catalogue her complaints, since all they did was sit facing each other in silence.
Ev and Djal were out in the city finding that priest—and Kasrik—and Alizhan was here, doing nothing. Unbearable. Maybe if she laid her hands on Mala and really focused, she could knock Mala out and go find Ev. Ev would be worried, but Ev was always worried, and she and Mala and Djal were all overreacting. It had only been a nosebleed. And a loss of consciousness. But Alizhan had woken up. She was fine now. She just had to pick the right moment to reach out, touch Mala, and force all of her will into her hands.
“I don’t think you’re clearing your mind,” Mala said. “You’re not breathing the way I told you to, either.”
“Can you read people and do the thing with your hands?” Alizhan asked. Djal had all the good parts of her ability and none of the bad, and now Mala could ease pain with a touch and read minds? The world was profoundly unfair.
Mala huffed with laughter. “You could stand to use your other senses every now and then, little sister. You’re fidgeting.”
“Oh.”
Mala shook her head at Alizhan, then reached up and adjusted her yellow headscarf, although it was wrapped and pinned impeccably over her hair. She resettled herself on her chair, smoothing the skirt of her matching yellow dress. Her presence wasn’t threatening—she was maybe forty years old, of average height, with excellent posture—but she was very commanding. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing all the time. She also seemed like she’d remember an insult until she was a mound of ashes on a funeral pyre.
Alizhan wondered, not for the first time, what such a neat, prim woman had done to get exiled from her home, and what she was doing in the company of a sailor who cheated at cards. But she knew better than to ask.
“How do you normally deal with a crowd? Even if it only works some of the time.”
“Ev,” Alizhan said. “I focus on Ev.”
“A bad habit,” Mala said with disapproval. “You should rely on yourself. Know yourself.”
“There’s nothing there to know,” Alizhan said. She was an empty vessel. Other people’s feelings poured in and washed out. There was no room for anything else inside her.
“Just because you don’t know it yet doesn’t mean there’s nothing there to know. What did you do in crowds before you knew Ev?”
“Pass out, mostly.”
“And how long have you know Ev?”
“Either ten years or about a week, depending on when you want to start counting.”
Mala said nothing, which was one of those conversational cues that Alizhan never had to interpret on its own. Sometimes people said nothing because the conversation was over and they wanted to stop talking, but sometimes people said nothing because they were giving you an opening. The only way to know was to read the other person’s mind.
Did Mala want her to keep talking? Did she want to hear the story? It wasn’t a very good story, at least not until Ev showed up, but given the choice between sitting in silence in a dark room and telling the story, Alizhan picked the one where she got to talk.
“I’m an orphan. This woman took me in as a servant, sort of, when I was really young. I don’t remember much of my life before that. I spied for her, or stole things, and I got to live in her house and she fed me. But it was hard living there sometimes, and I was lonely, and she wasn’t always around. Sometimes I left. I had this dream that I’d find my real family. It’s dumb, I guess. Iriyat says—that’s her, the woman who took me in—well, she said they threw me out because I was touched. That I scared them and they didn’t know how to deal with me and they left me at the Temple orphanage.
“I can’t read Iriyat, so I don’t know if that’s true. But other people at the house said the same thing, and they always felt like they were telling the truth. Anyway. As a kid I never wanted to believe that. Who wants to believe their real family would abandon them? So sometimes when I got frustrated or upset about something, I’d run away to look for them.
“And one time when I was about eight or nine—nobody really knows how old I am, comes with being an orphan—I ran into Arishdenan market. And that’s where I met Ev. I was terrified, hiding under a cart, and she gave me some thornfruit.
“It’s stupid, I guess, that that’s all it took. It sounds silly now. But I can’t remember anybody else ever being kind to me before that. Iriyat was nice, but I always knew it was because I was useful to her, and that if I wasn’t… the way I am, she wouldn’t have kept me around.”
“It’s not stupid,” Mala said, quiet but firm.
“I got chased out of the market that shift—had to dive off a bridge and swim out of sight—but I went back every week for the next ten years, looking for Ev. I could stand the crowd if I was looking for her. And she was always so easy to find. Especially because after a while, she started looking for me, too.”
Mala said nothing for entirely too long. Then she asked, “Is she in love with you?”
Alizhan shrugged. “She thinks about me naked sometimes, or kissing me, and then gets embarrassed becau
se she knows that I know. I don’t care, though. People think about other people naked all the time. I know that’s not the same as love. But it can go hand-in-hand, the sex stuff and the feelings. Although on the surface—I try not to dig too deep, since she doesn’t like that—Ev mostly feels nervous and concerned and irritated when I’m around. But,” Alizhan added, “in my defense, a lot of people have been trying to kill us.”
Mala seemed to find this entertaining, and Alizhan had no idea why. It was just the truth.
Only a tiny fraction of the truth, really. Alizhan knew Ev’s feelings ran deeper than that. But Ev didn’t want her to know, and she certainly wouldn’t want Alizhan to talk about it. And Alizhan didn’t want to talk about it, either, and not just out of respect for Ev. Talking about it meant she’d have to think about it, and that would lead her to want things she couldn’t have.
Alizhan often thought of other people’s minds as houses. Her own mind had a lot of locked doors. A lot of closed-up rooms she didn’t even like to pass by.
“And you?”
“And me what?”
“Are you in love with her?”
Mala was banging on all the closed doors and rattling all the locks. Alizhan wanted her to stop. “What does any of this have to do with you teaching me to control my powers?”
“Answer the question, and we’ll find out.”
“No,” Alizhan said, because she’d told Ev not to get her hopes up. She’d told Ev that they couldn’t ever do that.
And then Mala was silent for a long, long time. Alizhan couldn’t tell if it was the kind of silence that invited more conversation, but she didn’t care. She had nothing more to say.
The force of Mala’s gaze withered her resolve. Finally, she admitted, “It feels good to be around Ev. Beneath all that worry and irritation, she’s happy to see me, and I like the way that feels.”
And that was all she was going to say about it.
“There,” Mala said, with a note of vindication. “I ask you a question about your feelings, and you tell me about Ev’s feelings instead. That’s a problem. You’ll never set your mind in order if you don’t address it.”
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