She should help them. Separate them from Iriyat. Hide them somewhere. But how? They were in the middle of a crowd and the house was still burning.
“Stay low to the ground, cover your mouth if you can,” Iriyat was calling. Smoke flooded the air, and yet instead of sooty and sweaty and scared, Iriyat was fearless and radiant, her burnished gold hair shining under the twin red-gold lights of Laalvur’s ever-present sun and the blaze of the orphanage.
A heroic image. No wonder the street was packed with gawking onlookers. Ev was at risk of becoming one of them until she shook herself. Iriyat didn’t need to touch these bystanders to alter their memories. Her performance was enough. But she was careful to touch each child before letting go.
Iriyat was destroying the evidence and covering her tracks. “Get them away from her!” Ev shouted, but no one listened.
She shoved her way forward. Where were Alizhan, Djal, and Mala? Were they still inside? But most of the children were outside already. Iriyat was urging the last few toward the wagon. They were safe from the fire, if not from her. Ev didn’t see any of the priests in the crowd, but in the packed, smoky street, she could easily have missed them. She didn’t see her friends, either. It would have benefitted Iriyat to silence them, which meant they might still be in the house.
In the blistering, flickering fire.
Ev used her size and shouldered her way through the crowd. As she got closer to the house, people began to let her pass more easily, since they were eager to be away from the blaze. The crowd parted just before she got to the gate, where Iriyat was standing in front of the bucket brigade leading into the house. People seemed to expect Ev to keep her distance from the ruler of Varenx House and the conflagration—any sane person would—so no one stopped her. And Ev didn’t stop.
The air was scorching. A flurry of cinders swirled above them. Ev lifted her tunic so she could cover her mouth. Iriyat, unveiled, look right at her as she approached. They were so close that Iriyat could have reached out and touched her and ruined everything in one instant, but instead, she squinted at Ev in incomprehension.
They’d only met once, after all.
“You’ll die if you go in there,” Iriyat said, shouting over the sound of the fire. A warning to a stranger could serve as part of her heroic image, the kind of prop she needed to make people believe she cared.
“And they’ll die if I don’t.”
The Vigilkeepers standing in the garden tossing buckets of water through the smashed front windows and the open door stared at Ev, and one tried to stop her. “Miss—”
“Did you get everyone out?” she demanded.
He opened his mouth, but Ev shoved him aside before waiting for his answer. No one knew how many people had been in the house except her.
The Vigilkeepers had taken an axe to the front door. Wooden remnants lay split on the ground, and Ev picked one up as she stepped over the threshold into the smoke, using it as a makeshift shield against the radiant heat. Her eyes watered. Her throat burned. She tried to match the impenetrable walls of smoke with her memory of the house from hours ago: there was an entrance hall, with a room on either side, and stairs to the second floor, which was where she’d last seen Alizhan.
Ev tried for the stairs, but halfway up, the heat and smoke were so thick that she could go no further. She backed away, hardly able to stand, and then went into the room where the children had slept. The fire roared and the house groaned around her, its walls buckling and straining. In the dormitory, the darkness was lit with an orange glow—the rows of cots were on fire.
Djal was on the floor near the doorway, with Mala beside him. She was clasping one of his hands, and with her other hand, she was pressing a wad of fabric against his abdomen. It was dark with blood.
“I can’t carry him,” Mala shouted.
But Ev could. She dropped her shield on the ground and bent to lift him. He was as big as her, an unwieldy and delicate burden, but she got one arm under his legs and the other around his torso. “Front door,” she said, and Mala picked up her skirts and, half-crouched, began to make her way toward the door as fast as she could. As frantic as Ev felt, an eerie, slow calm had settled over her, and through the haze of smoke, her eyes were drawn to details: Mala’s bare feet, the ripped hem of her patterned yellow dress.
Djal was heavy and unmoving in her arms.
Their passage through the open front door was not as much of a relief as it should have been. It was easier to see outside the building, but the air still burned. Ev carried Djal into the street, and the crowd parted for her again. In her peripheral vision, she saw the gold of Iriyat’s hair as the woman began to move toward them. Ev tried to move faster without jostling Djal. Mala followed close behind. Out here, Ev could see the trails of sweat down her face and the red of her eyes.
“Alizhan?” Ev said.
Mala shook her head.
Two Vigilkeepers came toward them with a stretcher for Djal, and Mala and Ev helped them load him onto it. Mala kept a cloth pressed to his abdomen. His bloody wound might have come from the fire, if something had fallen on him. But Djal would have been guarding the house, and this fire didn’t feel like an accident, not with Iriyat making her way closer to them with every passing instant.
“How did this happen?” Ev whispered.
“A man with a sword,” Mala said. “I think he went after Alizhan.”
Vatik. Could he still be in the house? Ev rejected the idea. He’d been looking for Alizhan. He’d probably found her. But where were they now? His orders must have been to bring Alizhan back alive. But Iriyat was here and Vatik and Alizhan were nowhere in sight.
“Oh no,” Iriyat called through the crowd. “What happened to this poor man? Let me help him!”
“Get this man to a hospital!” Ev didn’t intend to shout at the Vigilkeepers, but Iriyat’s approach made her panic. Raising her voice had the intended effect. The two men carried Djal’s stretcher toward one of their wagons.
“She’ll have to go through me first,” Mala said under her breath and then hurried after them.
“I’ll find you later,” Ev said. Had Mala even heard her? She was alone in the crowd now. Iriyat was closing in. Ev had to run, but where? The creaking, crackling house with fire blackening its stone walls? Iriyat wouldn’t follow her in, but the house was a death trap. If Alizhan was still inside, there was no hope for her. But if Ev didn’t move, Iriyat would touch her. Toward the house was her only option. Ev dashed for the garden. Her shoulders slammed into onlookers and Vigilkeepers in her rush. For one terrifying, hallucinatory instant, she made eye contact with Iriyat. Those ash-grey eyes narrowed. They were separated by one or two people—Iriyat’s reach failed by the length of a hand. Then Ev was past Iriyat and past the crowd and into the heat.
Ev aimed for the foliage filling the narrow alley between the house and its neighbors. It was monstrously hot, and the branches scraped her arms and face, but she forced her way through the thicket at the side of the house until she was in the back garden.
Alizhan and Vatik were standing, facing each other. Vatik’s arms were crossed, and Alizhan was gesticulating wildly and shouting. Ev couldn’t hear a word over the sound of the fire, but she went closer. Alizhan had dropped her arms to her sides by that time.
“Fine,” Vatik growled. “Say you’re right. Say it’s all true. The woman I’ve served all my life is manipulating me through some Unbalanced witchcraft. What can I possibly do about it? Run? I can’t do that. I won’t.”
Alizhan blinked, stumped by his sudden acquiescence. Ev pushed her way into the conversation. “Maybe we could have this talk somewhere that’s not on fire,” she said.
“Iriyat ordered me to bring you back alive,” Vatik said to Alizhan.
“Are you not listening?” Alizhan said. “You shouldn’t go back to her, with or without me. She’s killing you!”
“She’ll know what happened if I don’t go back,” he said. “She’ll come looking for me. Unless she finds my
body.”
“I’m trying to save you, not kill you,” Alizhan said.
“What if Iriyat found your body, but you weren’t dead?” Ev said. “What if it looked like we—or Alizhan, since Iriyat doesn’t care about me—what if it looked like Alizhan overpowered you?”
Vatik directed an incredulous look at the skinny young woman in front of him and then a pointed one at his own powerful physique, as if to ask how Alizhan could ever hope to overpower him. Before Ev could explain, Alizhan interrupted. “If we do that, then Iriyat finds him and then he’s still in her power, where she can alter his memory.”
“She won’t if I comply,” Vatik said. “Or give the appearance of compliance.”
Ev blinked. She hadn’t expected any help from him. “Are you… are you offering to spy for us?”
“I’m not offering you two Unbalanced fools anything. I’m saving my own damn skin,” Vatik said. “But if the little ghost is telling the truth, and Mar ha-Solora’s on her side, then I’ll only need to stay with Iriyat until the Council makes its move.”
Behind them, a roof beam burst into flames and collapsed into the house, which groaned.
“Alizhan can knock you out,” Ev said. “When the fire is put out, they’ll find you back here. If we leave you far enough from the house, you shouldn’t get hurt.”
“How reassuring,” Vatik said. Then he bent down so that his face was close to Alizhan’s.
“What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” he said. “Punch me already.”
It was strange to hear a peal of laughter amid the thunder and crash of the fire, but that was all Ev heard before Alizhan grabbed Vatik’s hand and he slumped to the ground. They left him propped up against the back garden wall, and then began the long climb out of the garden.
21
Notoriously Unreliable
WELL, THAT WAS A DISASTER,” Mar said. “Sideran and Ezatur now think I’m a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist who has it out for Iriyat. And I didn’t have time to contact the heads of the five Lesser Houses, but I’m sure they’ll hear the news soon enough—Mar ha-Solora wants to put Iriyat in prison for saving orphans!”
Mar was so agitated that Alizhan hadn’t even entertained the idea of sleeping, although he’d offered her a room. Had Kasrik gotten any rest here, with Mar in this state? Ev had declined Mar’s offer as well, so they were now sitting in his parlor, drinking tea as if it would calm them.
They hadn’t heard from Mala. Alizhan didn’t expect to hear from Vatik.
“Shouldn’t Sideran and Ezatur be suspicious that the place you said was evidence against Iriyat burned down? And that Iriyat was on the scene right after it happened?” Ev asked.
“Of course,” Mar said. “But they’re not going to move against her without a mountain of compelling evidence. They won’t take that risk unless they absolutely have to, and Iriyat just gave them an out. It doesn’t matter what they believe in their hearts. Politics isn’t about what’s right. It’s about what’s convenient.”
“So we get them some compelling evidence,” Alizhan said.
“I don’t know if you recall what just happened—” Mar began.
“We have Kasrik,” Alizhan said. “We have Djal and Mala. We might even have Vatik, if he stays safe. Those are witnesses.”
“How can we trust Vatik?” Ev said. “We’ll never know if he’s been compromised, because he won’t know himself.”
“Testimony from a street kid and two foreigners won’t count for much with the Council,” Mar said. “Especially not if Iriyat lets them know that Kasrik’s been living in my house. I’d hate to see that pamphlet.”
“We still have the book,” Alizhan reminded him. “And somewhere out there are nineteen children who suffered in that house and who need taking care of.”
“I saw the Vigilkeepers load them into a wagon. They must have taken them to the Temple Street orphanage. The kids can’t stay there, though. If Iriyat knows where they are, then it’s not safe,” Ev said. “And they don’t know that they suffered, because Iriyat got to all of them.”
“You think taking away the memory heals the rest?” Alizhan said. She didn’t know the answer herself, but she suspected it was no.
“I suppose not,” Ev said. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t help them. But I doubt they’ll be able to testify, in any case.”
“And I haven’t been able to decode the book,” Mar said.
“So you just want to give up?” Alizhan said, and when their surprise buffeted her, it occurred to her that she’d shouted. “Iriyat is hunting down children—people like me and Kasrik—and hurting them, maybe killing them. If we don’t stop her, nothing will.”
Mar and Ev said nothing, which was good, because Alizhan wasn’t finished.
“If you’d like to withdraw your accusations against Iriyat because it’s politically convenient for you,” she said, and she forced herself to look into Mar’s eyes even though the intensity nearly overwhelmed her, “then Ev and I will continue without you. I doubt Kasrik will want to stay here any longer, either.”
Mar didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. She knew what he wanted: to be proved right in the eyes of his fellow Council members, to rid himself of the specter of having loved Iriyat, to stop the horrors they’d described to him from happening again, and to get justice for Kasrik. Ev might’ve thought less of Mar if she’d learned he wasn’t driven by justice alone. Luckily, Alizhan was familiar with the gritty underside of human nature, and she didn’t care about the purity of anyone’s motives.
“We have Zenav, too,” Alizhan said. “And probably some other people who were in the Temple of Doubt. Didn’t you say there were pamphlets about it? We can track some down.”
“Pamphlets are notoriously unreliable,” Mar said.
“You wanted a mountain of compelling evidence, and I’m working on it,” Alizhan snapped. “We need all the help we can get. We have to consider every angle.”
“You’re right,” Mar said.
“Didn’t you say there was someone—a ‘ghost’—in Varenx House?” Ev asked.
Alizhan nodded. She hated to add a problem to their list, but they had to be realistic. “It’s the same issue we have with the kids, though. I doubt he remembers anything that would be useful to us.”
Ev was quiet for a moment, but her mind was sifting possibilities and weighing outcomes. She’d speak soon. Mar opened his mouth to say something, and Alizhan held up a hand to silence him so that Ev could talk. He was affronted, but he kept his mouth shut.
“You gave me a memory,” Ev finally said.
“The first time we touched,” Alizhan said. “But how does that help us? Even if we assume that I could figure out how to do it again, which I might not, I made you remember something that happened to me. What we need from these people is for them to remember things that happened to them. Things that I have no way of knowing. Things that have been removed.”
“But what if they haven’t been removed?” Ev said. “We don’t know anything about how this works. What if the altered memories are just hidden? Or encoded?”
Mar was nodding. “If I may speak,” he said to Alizhan, and she knew the words were some sort of sharp-edged joke from the way he pitched his voice so obsequiously but still emanated smugness, but she didn’t care. “It’s a good point,” Mar said. “As far as we know, Iriyat takes things out of people’s memories. And in one instance, you put something in. She takes; you give. I’m not religious myself, but it does make sense that the world might balance itself like that. If some people are born with the ability to alter memories, other people are born with the ability to restore them.”
The idea that she might not be a monstrous aberration, but a natural, necessary part of the system of the world made a tiny bud of something—hope?—open inside Alizhan, but she crushed it shut. “I’ve never done what you’re proposing, and I’ve only done the thing Ev is talking about once, and that was an accident that knocked both of
us unconscious.”
“Didn’t you just shout at us about not giving up?” Ev said mildly.
“I’m sorry if this isn’t convenient for you,” Mar said, much less mildly.
Alizhan pressed her bare feet into the thick pile of Mar’s expensive carpet and took a deep breath. She took a sip of tea, too, but it was cold.
“Speaking of things that are hidden or encoded, we should talk about the book again,” Mar said. “Just because I haven’t been able to read it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“How modest of you,” Alizhan said.
A vivid flash of desire, viciously repressed, from Ev. Ev had imagined elbowing Alizhan sharply in the tender place just below her ribs—a warning against baiting their single powerful ally—but they were both tired, and hurting, and Ev cared too much about Alizhan’s wellbeing to do it, which made Alizhan smile.
“I might know someone who could read it,” Mar said. “And it might be a good idea for the two of you to disappear for a while. Iriyat will be looking for Alizhan, and she saw you at the house, Ev, so it’s a good bet she’ll be looking for you, too.”
“I’m not leaving until we know those children are safe,” Alizhan said, because she could see the plan forming in Mar’s mind.
“Ilyr,” Ev guessed. “You want us to go to Nalitzva and find Ilyr.”
“Yes,” Mar said. He was surprised to hear the words coming from Ev, rather than Alizhan. Alizhan took pleasure in that. People were always underestimating Ev. “I’ll pay your passage and arrange false papers for you. The faster we get you out of the city, the less chance that Iriyat will figure out what we’re up to, and the faster you’ll come back and solve this.”
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