by Jo Anderton
"I told you, I'm no one's lady." But I leaned against the railing beside him. He shifted and his bent elbow touched mine. I didn't move. "And I'm going home."
"Ah." He watched a small vessel whip past us as it flew downriver. It looked more like a seedpod than a boat, and I wondered what colour the pions were that kept it afloat and gave it so much speed. "Hard day, then?"
"No words could explain it. No words."
But even now the past few days were fading, becoming grey like a half-remembered and unsavoury dream. Kichlan's house, Eugeny's warning, Lad's sudden and violent temper hardly seemed real when the sunlight hit the Tear just so and Devich smiled like that.
"I'll have to take your word for it then."
I was glad he didn't push the issue. Debris technician or whatever it was Devich called himself, he still didn't need to hear how far I had fallen.
I listened to the low creak of wood and the drum-like slosh of water below. "And you? Where were you going?"
"Oh, out for a night of fun!"
"Olday night and Rest morning," I murmured, and bent forward so my nose came close to the cool glass.
"The very same."
I could recall the end of many sixnights so celebrated. Frosted drinks so potent they kept you warm despite their rim of ice; pale pink pions lighting a room where women in improper outfits of snakeskin and white feathers danced to bells; old-world balls where everyone dressed in voluminous skirts of velvet and lace, and I – no matter how many times I arrived in dress suit and top hat – could still cause a stir. Just another distant dream, far nicer than my nightmares of debris.
"Where will you spend your Olday night?" I asked, before I could stop myself scratching at the old wound.
"This sixnight? Underbridge ballroom, I believe. I'm meeting someone…" Devich trailed off, perhaps at my expression. I knew the Underbridge. Blue stone, blue lights, blue liquor, the soft blue music of viola and oboe. From the door, on a clear Rest morning when the new sun was touching the Keeper's Edge, you could make out the ice-cream mounds of my art gallery on the opposite bank of the Tear.
A perfect place to meet a nameless someone. I had done so, at least once before. "Sounds lovely." My words frosted the glass.
"A night at home after an indescribable day has its good points."
"I'm counting on them."
Devich hesitated for a silent moment, then said, "You know, you could join me-"
"No." Could I tell him the charge just to enter the Underbridge ballroom was more than I earned in two sixnights? Could I tell him I preferred the dream of a past life to remain a dream, for now? A memory softened by pretended sleep. "But thank you."
"It doesn't seem right." Devich gave up any pretence of watching the river. "You, in that apartment of yours, all alone."
"Doesn't it?"
"No." His fingers toyed with a splinter of wood where it had risen close to one of the brass railing's hooks. "No one should be alone after a day they can't even talk about."
I allowed myself to let his easy charm trickle into my stomach, his smile to warm my cheeks. "You really care about that suit of yours, don't you?"
He blinked, confused. "I do?"
"Isn't that what you said? That you wouldn't leave me alone, because you'd put so much work into my suit?" I waved my wrist in front of his face. He tracked the circle of silver that peeked out of my sleeve like a cat with a feather on a string.
"Sounds like something I would say, yes." When his hunting-cat eyes met mine they lost none of that intensity. "And I should probably check its condition."
I longed for my bath, for my bandages. I was quite sure I still smelled faintly of sewage and yellow root mush. But Devich had been going to meet someone, out there in that pion-sighted, kopack-rich real world. And now, it seemed, he didn't want to anymore.
"What about your someone?" I whispered.
"There's plenty of someones in the Underbridge ballroom. She'll be fine."
My heart did a small flop, the kind of nervous activity it hadn't done for years, and I answered a messy "Yes" by nodding and waving one hand aimlessly.
Devich and I disembarked a few wharfs down from the bridge, and walked home together.
I hadn't entertained guests in my apartment for a very, very long time. Before Grandeur was even a twinkle in the veche's eye, back, perhaps, to a time when my bluestone art gallery was a haphazard sketch in lines of sheer light.
My home had, since then, been my own. My slice of quiet, of stillness, of the soft dark of half-lit lamps and comfortable chairs. I frequented ballrooms like the Un derbridge, and night-stays with views of the Keeper so exclusive you had to hope you were more important than the next amorous couple just to get in. With commissions from the national veche I hadn't worried about being turned away.
So my home was not fitted to have guests. It was nearly empty of food, particularly at the moment, and never hosted anything to drink stronger than Hon Ji tea.
But Devich was a different kind of guest. The kind who had already worked his way inside my well-butsparsely appointed sanctuary, and who had done this when I was vulnerable, when I was ill. Like a family member, perhaps. And yet, nothing like family at all.
We walked in silence too comfortable to bear.
"Designed any new suits since I've seen you?" I winced at my own staggering lack of tact.
He took it well enough. "Oh yes, dozens. I'm a hard worker."
I ignored his wink. "Same as mine, or something special?"
"Nothing's as special as yours, my lady."
"I already told you-"
"-you're nobody's lady."
Not without a circle of nine, I wasn't. "Then will you stop calling me that?"
"Not while you are mine."
We turned onto Paleice and I focused on the buildings so I wouldn't have to look at Devich, with his bright eyes and roguish smile.
Gate thirteen was closed and wouldn't open for me anymore – or, rather, I didn't have the skill to open it – so I was forced to crouch and scramble beneath it. Devich chuckled, and vaulted over with an unseemly show of strength and agility. Together, we headed to my ground level apartment. As I slipped my gloves off to touch bare fingers against the crystalline lock, Devich bent and collected a folded sheet of paper from the step. He sidled close to me and tapped the paper lightly against my shoulder. "This would be for you, I assume."
"Of course it is." I struggled to take the paper and unlock the door at the same time. "Anyone else in this building lose their pion sight recently?" The lock rejected me with an angry-wasp buzz. "You're not helping."
Devich leaned in, nose close to my temple, breath warm against my neck.
I concentrated, kept my hand steady, and the lock clicked open, echoing from marble tiles.
"You still are," he breathed into my ear. His lips brushed the very top of my cheek, and the hair along my forearms stood on end.
"Still what?" I asked.
"A lady."
My gloves and the piece of paper tumbled to the tiled, courtyard floor.
Scowling, I bent to collect them. But Devich was faster – easier to move without stitches and bandages and the bruises from falling bricks – and snatched them up.
"Give them back." My fingertips were cold and quivering as I held out my hand.
Grinning, Devich tucked the paper under his arm and wove his fingers through the gloves, as though he and my disembodied hand were clutching each other. It was disconcerting. He said, "You can't pretend. Not to me."
I held out my hand again, cutting the air, trying to be firm.
"And ignoring me won't help either."
"Really?" I swallowed. "Well, what do you know about being a lady?"
"I know." Devich held the gloves high above his head as he stepped closer. In my previous life, I would have been able to take them, a single jump and a quick snatch with a well-directed hand. A previous, pain-free life. "I know that scars can't make you less than you are." And before I could sto
p him, he touched the bandages on my neck with his free hand.
I jerked back. "Don't!"
"Why?"
"It hurts." You arrogant, rich bastard, I thought. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea." I sighed. "Give me my gloves."
But Devich shook his head. "You were a lady because you were a circle centre, is that it? A skilled pion-binder, a rich one."
A respected one. "That's the way it works. 'My lord' and 'my lady' aren't applicable without a nine point circle of your very own. Unless you happen to be a member of the veche, of course."
He shrugged like none of it mattered. "You might not be a skilled binder any more, Tanyana, but you are a skilled debris collector. And this city need collectors just as much as it needs binders."
But it didn't respect them as much, did it? I said, "Perhaps I should have explained the past few days in greater detail."
"Other!" Devich nearly bit into his own knuckles. "Other's balls, you can be frustrating!"
I grinned, and again held out my hand.
"But you're still my lady."
Devich dropped the gloves, heavy with the warmth of his skin, onto my palm. I tucked them into my jacket pocket and opened the door. The smells of home, and its cool darkness, invited me.
"Well?" Devich, no longer lounging against the door frame confident and cheeky, stood tall, tense, and hesitating.
"The door's right there. You know the way in."
I let Devich into my home and shut the door behind us. In the cool dark his warmth radiated like light. I turned, my back to the door, and he leaned in against me. I pressed my mouth to the hollow of his neck. He breathed into my hair.
"Welcome home, my lady," he whispered.
I tipped my head and sought his lips. They were hotter than the rest of him and his tongue, as it slipped out to touch the inside of my lip like a tentative finger, was cat-rough and quivering. Then his hands slid down my shoulders and pulled me forward, away from the door's supporting solidity. I tasted his teeth and wrapped both arms around his waist. He was thin beneath his coat, not an unhealthy thinness, more something lithe and sensuous.
Then he cupped my head with two hands, pressed our lips together so forcefully they ached, and caught the corner of a bandage with his little finger.
"Other!" I gasped, and pulled away.
He resisted for a moment, tried to pull me closer to him, and rocked his hips against mine. The overall effect was nearly enough to overwhelm the simple pain of a stitch tugged out of place.
"Wait." Cold air rushed between us as I stepped away. "The bandage."
He let go immediately, almost took half of my neck with his left hand, and ended up torn between an awkward distance and tempting closeness.
"Your bandage is stuck to my sleeve," he croaked.
"I noticed. Here, shuffle with me." Somehow, we came to the lamp in the entranceway's far corner. I turned a small valve and let the invisible particles rush in to create light enough to see by.
"Can you see it?" I asked, unable to work out how, exactly, my neck connected to his shirt.
"Let me." Devich stuck the tip of his tongue out as he concentrated, and I found myself wanting to nibble it. "Here we go."
I smoothed the bandage down as Devich frowned at the cuff of his pale sleeve.
"It's sticky and… yellow." He sniffed the stain. "Why is your bandage yellow?"
That was far too long a story to tell. "Never mind."
Another two delicate sniffs and Devich seemed to remember what we had been doing. He smiled, ruefully. "It's a shirt." He leaned forward, warming me again. "Just a shirt."
Bandages couldn't be dismissed so easily. I didn't let him close the gap, but headed down the entranceway and hung up my coat. "Good. Tell me, were you going to eat anything in that ballroom of yours?"
Devich checked himself, but had the good grace not to look too disappointed. "I believe that was part of the plan, yes."
"Pity, because I doubt we'll be able to eat here."
"Oh?"
"Let's look, shall we?"
I brushed past Devich and headed for the kitchen. He hung up his coat beside mine and followed.
The pantry was more deserted than I had feared. Tea leaves rattled in a large glass jar. Crumbs, and a few remaining nuts, occupied another. Very empty and very clean. I had to remember to speak to the cleaner.
"How much time do you spend here, anyway?" Devich asked, an eyebrow raised. I couldn't bring myself to tell him the only proper meal I'd had in a long while was in another man's house.
"Not a lot." I closed the doors. "Would you like to make us tea again?"
Devich laughed. "Tea won't quite fill my stomach, I'm afraid. But I know what will." He held out his arm, crooked at the elbow. "Care to join me for supper, my lady?"
I shook my head. "Not really."
His face and elbow fell. "Oh."
I tried a tender expression. "Listen, Devich, I wanted a night at home and that's what I intend to have. Food or no food."
"You need to eat."
"Not as much as I need to bathe." I could smell worse things than sewage in my clothes, now I had taken off my coat. I could smell Eugeny's homemade soap, clothes-drying smoke, and golden roots of the waxseal plant.
"For you, my lady, I will compromise." The smile returned. "You clean yourself and I will bring you food."
I hesitated. The tea leaves rattling in the bottom of the glass jar was really about all I could afford.
"My treat."
When I was a real lady I wouldn't have agreed. But I was right about that, and Devich, poor boy, simply wrong. I wasn't that kind of lady, not any more. "That sounds like it could work."
"Fantastic." Devich clapped his hands together. "I'll, well, get going then."
Drilled into the wall beside my door was a smaller crystalline screen, a miniature of the pion lock at the front. Reprogramming it without access to pions would have been impossible, but together, Devich and I managed to alter its systems so it would accept his touch as well as mine. He had to tell me what the pions were doing, and move them around while I kept what I hoped was a calming hand on the screen. Pions are not easy to fool, and they rejected him three times before gradually coming to accept that he could be trusted. The whole process left me feeling shaken and exposed. It was like Devich had just helped me walk, or see, or talk: any of those faculties I'd always taken for granted.
When we were done I kissed his warm lips. "Don't be too long." He didn't quite run out of the apartment, but it was close.
Alone in the quiet and dim light I had craved all afternoon, I felt strangely at a loss. Rather than dwell on it, I unfolded the piece of paper that had been left on my doorstep.
I recognised the letterhead before I had read any of the words, scrawled on thick paper in heavy ink. My heart dropped. Walrus tusk and bear claw clashed in vibrant orange and yellow against a pale violet image of the Keeper at daybreak. Proud Sunlight was one of the top universities, accepting only those with the strongest skill.
It is with regret we hear of your misfortune. Please accept our condolences. We trust you will understand our position…
I scrunched the Other-damned thing in my hand. I knew what it would say. Sunlight had a reputation to look after, couldn't have the name of a lowly debris collector sullying its spotless honour roll. For a long and heavy moment I cradled the ball of paper against my stomach like a wound. But there was no point standing like that forever. So I did as I'd told Devich I would. I bathed.
The bandages came off grudgingly; Eugeny's paste had stuck to the fabric and to my skin with equal vigour. But, when they did come off, they left me surprised and pleased. The horrible red puckering from the night before was gone, the wounds were smooth and pink. Nothing itched, nothing ached. My stitches, my scars, they felt normal.
Normal.
A knot, at the arch of my hip, was loose. I gave it a little scratch, and the thread broke, slipping from my skin clean and quickly. A few tugs and the whole
thing unwound, leaving only a line of pink skin and the promise of a scar. I stared at my reflection for longer than I should have. The scars from Grandeur's fall were part of me now. They weren't some ghastly second layer of skin that did not belong. Sure, the rest of the stitches would slip away, the raised scarring would retreat, and the whole thing fade to white. But I would never be free of them.
They were my scars.
Shivering, despite the room's steady temperature, I ran my bath. A light pat of the switches above two bear's head taps and water gushed from their roaring brass mouths. And it smelled. Eugeny's water, heated by flame and carted up stairs by a volatile young man, hadn't smelled like this. Like metal, like rust, like something else I couldn't identify. The scent of the sky before a lightning storm, heady, and tickling the back of my throat.
I dropped capsules of aloe and oil into the running water, then a small shovel of earthy Dead Salts, and finally crystalline petals that dissolved and released a smell like roses. Yet, as I eased myself in, wincing as the golden paste washed away and a few of the wounds stung, I could still smell that lightning-sky tang.
Devich returned as I was dragging myself from the still-warm water. I wrapped myself in a towel as he strode down the hallway, a large box in his arms, and called me.
"I have a treat for you, my-" he stopped short as he spotted me "-lady."
I watched his eyes trace over my short hair, darkened by water and slicked out of any shape. As they took in the unbandaged scars on my face, the openings in my neck, the cuts along my shoulder and my arm, and down beneath my towel. I waited for the grimace, for the excuses, the reasons that weren't truly reasons to leave.
He gave me none.
"You're beautiful, Tanyana."
I raised my eyebrows at him.
"And you wear your suit so well."
The suit. I lifted a naked arm. The cleaned bracelet shone bright ciphers against my shoulder, on Devich's face, on the wall and the ceiling around us.