Iriyat was going to give some kind of disgusting speech, presenting the victims of her experiment as though she’d rescued them herself. Ev would be dragged up on stage with the most terrifying person in the world. Probably the young man who’d been trapped in the house with Ev would be there, too. Comprehending Thiyo’s singular focus on Ev, Djal didn’t bother adding him to the drawing.
They’d worked without cease to clear the two houses and shore up the ceiling, but now everyone was taking a break to head toward the city center. Thiyo didn’t want to go, but it was a chance to see Ev. To make sure she really had survived that quake. To work out how he, speechless and alone, might rescue her from a woman who destroyed cities. Besides, as filthy and exhausted as he was, he couldn’t go back to the bed he’d shared with Ev. Not while she was a prisoner. Would Iriyat hurt Ev the way Thiyo had been hurt in prison?
He couldn’t think about that, not unless he wanted to be sick in the street. He was following the Vines crew and the residents they’d worked with toward the center, since they were all planning to watch this event. Thiyo hung back, walking slowly to allow himself more time to think. Iriyat had sent Ilyr to Hoi in search of information on medusas and waves. Thiyo and Ev had thrown Ilyr’s notes on the fire, but all that information was in his head. Iriyat could get it out. He could offer it to her in exchange for Ev’s safety. No. Ev would never forgive him. He couldn’t trade the world for her. He’d end up with neither.
The street was shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone moving in the same direction. Thiyo let the crowd carry him along. He’d lost his companions, but that didn’t trouble him. He knew how to find that inn with the crooked column in front of it, and they’d gather there later. All that mattered now was figuring out some way to get Ev free. If he were Alizhan, he could climb through windows and pick locks. He had one of her memories of doing just that. His mind remembered, but his body didn’t. Would breaking in even help? Iriyat had hired her own private army. There were sure to be guards around.
A few indignant shouts broke through the general noise of the crowd. Someone was trying to move against the current, and apparently causing a lot of trouble while they did it. They must be desperate to get away from this event, and Thiyo could hardly blame them.
He searched the crowd, distracted, but couldn’t see any movement, even as tall as he was. On impulse, he angled his head lower, in case the troublemaker in question was a child. Instead, he saw a diminutive woman pushing her way through the mob, her face twisted with furious determination and her black hair hanging over her shoulder in a long braid. Her hands were gloved.
He spent a second thinking it was a dream. Then he was shouting. By some miracle, when he opened his mouth, the right sounds tumbled out. “Alizhan! Alizhan!”
Ev woke up staring at a ceiling shaded in stripes of red and gold like the sky over Laalvur. It was paint over orange-brown rock. She was in Adappyr. Levering herself up from the bed, she groaned. Her back and shoulders were bruised—and bandaged.
She touched the linen wrappings under her tunic, then looked around more carefully. In addition to the bed where she was sitting, the room also contained a sofa and a table with two chairs. Sanno was asleep on the sofa, his knees bent and his head pillowed on one of its honey-colored throws, his body far less bandaged than hers. She’d kept him safe.
This luxurious room couldn’t possibly be at The Crooked Column. Ev remembered the quake and the ceiling falling, bursts of pain against her head and her back, and then a sudden rush of light and air. Someone had dug them out and carried them here.
The door opened, silent on its hinges, and a large man with mismatched eyes and a scar through one eyebrow entered. Iriyat’s head guard, Vatik. Last time Ev had seen him, they’d been in the garden of the burning house on Gold Street, and Alizhan had convinced him to betray Iriyat.
Iriyat. She was in the city. This room must belong to her.
“They didn’t know who you were,” Vatik said without preamble. “The Lampgreen men that found you. They bring us everyone they rescue, so Iriyat can have her pick of sympathetic victims to trot out during her speech. It’s in two hours. The Sun Hall’s already filling with people. Should be a good time for you to escape.”
Ev exhaled with relief. He meant to help her.
“The men didn’t know you. They knew him, though.” He tipped his head toward Sanno. “He’s a troublemaker. Her ladyship wanted a go at him. You’re here by mistake.”
“Is Alizhan—”
“Alive,” he said. “Surly as all hells lately, too. Thinks you’re dead.”
Ev didn’t have time to savor the wash of relief and longing. “You have to get us out of here. This city is in imminent danger of collapse, and if that happens, a wave will hit Laalvur. You have to set us free so we can warn people. You should go home to Laalvur and warn them, too.”
“You think they’ll believe you? Your pamphleteer friend there’s been sounding the alarm for weeks. A few have heeded his warning, but most haven’t. It’s hard to get out of this city. We nearly baked, coming here by the Sun Road, and I hear the Exile Road’s even more dangerous.”
“It doesn’t matter! We have to try!”
“What were you doing in Ulomi Tida?”
“Repairing that house. Trying to find out if the residents had seen anyone causing damage—and trying to warn them that things will get worse.”
“It’s dangerous for you to be here,” Vatik said, shaking his head as though he could shake off her foolish answer. “The men who brought you to me reported you as an injured woman. They didn’t recognize you. If you leave now, I can tell Iriyat that ‘injured woman’ had a bad attitude and wouldn’t have elicited the crowd’s sympathy, so I let her go. But once she comes in here, she’ll know who you are.”
Iriyat would know Ev through her connection to Alizhan, but Ev had other connections to fear. She thought of the man in the bar who’d seen her father’s ring and attacked. Vatik was right about the danger, but she didn’t want him to know that. “It’s dangerous for everyone to be here.”
“I know,” Vatik said. “I’m doing what I can. I’ll let you go, but Iriyat wants Ulachiru. She knows he’s here and she’ll be in soon.”
Vatik was offering to let her go. She could go back to Thiyo. They could find Alizhan. It was simple. Perfect. Ev almost stood up, but Sanno sighed and twitched in his sleep.
Iriyat wants Ulachiru. That was Sanno’s family name. Because he was Eminyela’s son. Smoke and fire. Ev couldn’t abandon the son of Ifeleh’s only childhood friend to Iriyat’s cruelty. “Let us both go.”
“If she walks into the room I’ve been guarding and finds it empty, she’ll kill me on the spot,” Vatik said. “I’m offering you the best deal I can. You get out, maybe you can come back for him later.”
“He stays, I stay.”
“Your surly little friend won’t like that,” Vatik said, and it took Ev some time to parse that he was talking about Alizhan. “You know what Iriyat can do. I couldn’t withstand it. Why would you be any different?”
“I can’t leave Sanno,” Ev said. Iriyat wanted him, and Iriyat couldn’t be allowed to have what she wanted. Ev had to try. And Alizhan and Thiyo were out there somewhere. The two of them would stop Iriyat, even if this was the end for Ev. “Think about what I said earlier. If you have people in Laalvur, go home and get them safe. Tell everyone you know. You can’t live this way forever. You know you’ll have to run from her at some point. Make it now.”
Vatik frowned, but just then there was a knock at the door. It was too late for further argument. He gave Ev a brisk nod and left the room. Iriyat came in after a murmured conversation in the hallway, smiling like it was the best triad of her life. “Evreyet,” she said, settling herself into one of the chairs and draping her arm over the table. “What a surprise.”
As stunning as ever in spotless lilac silk, she spoke sweetly. Ev had never been more terrified. What did Iriyat intend? Her hands were bare.
; “My daughter thinks you’re dead,” Iriyat said. “She’s been inconsolable.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ev said, as neutrally as possible, when it became clear that Iriyat wouldn’t continue unless Ev participated. “It was a logical assumption on her part.”
“I would so love to hear where you’ve been,” Iriyat said. “What a fascinating story you must have to tell. I have so many questions for you about everything, you know. You have something I want.”
This last sentence was frank, lacking the flirtatious softness of the others. It was the first thing Iriyat had said that sounded genuine, but Ev couldn’t imagine what she meant. Iriyat’s grey gaze, so similar in color to Alizhan’s, bored into Ev.
“You read my journal and you still don’t understand,” Iriyat said. Ev had disappointed her. Was it possible to feel more afraid than she already did? Her rigid muscles and sprinting heart said yes.
“You have wealth and power,” Ev said. “An ability that allows you to manipulate everyone around you, and on top of that, you’re beautiful and charming enough that you rarely need it. I don’t understand why you haven’t just settled into a life of indulgence in Varenx House. Why ruin the world?”
“You’re right, you know,” Iriyat said softly, to Ev’s surprise. “I have been given unparalleled advantages in life. But you’re wrong, too. With the power that I have, it would be a sin to retreat from the world, to enjoy myself without a care for anyone else. I have to think of the future. And you’re wrong about something else: not ‘ruin,’ Evreyet. Fix.”
“The Adpri citizens who’ve had their homes destroyed in collapses would disagree.”
Iriyat lifted her hand from the table and brushed it through the air, dismissive. “We will never accomplish anything if we think only of the present. This is only one city, and we have the world to consider. But this isn’t what I wanted to talk about, Evreyet.”
That was three times now Iriyat had used her full name. Was it meant as a reminder that Iriyat knew who she was and everything else about her? A warning? A threat? Or was it some kind of bizarre endearment? Ev tried not to let it bother her. “What did you want to talk about?” Ev asked, her voice tight because she couldn’t seem to open her jaw all the way. “Your plot to destroy this beautiful place and the innocent people who live here? Something you’ll make me forget later?”
“I would never do that to you, Evreyet,” Iriyat said, so serious that Ev almost believed her. “You know what my parents did to Arav. I will not do the same to you.”
Arav. Iriyat’s first love and Alizhan’s father. How was he relevant? Unless Iriyat was thinking of Ev in his place, and herself standing where her parents had once stood. The pieces fell into place. Because Alizhan loved Ev, Iriyat wouldn’t remove Ev’s memory. It was too similar to what her parents had done to her own lover. Iriyat wouldn’t balk at wiping a city off the map, but she couldn’t bring herself to commit this much smaller crime.
“How did you do it?” Iriyat asked into the silence. “How did you get her to love you?”
When Iriyat had said you have something I want, what had she meant? Ev stared at her, not quite believing the answer she’d come up with.
“I didn’t get her to do anything,” Ev said. “Alizhan makes her own choices.”
“It’s never happened before, you understand. Everyone else, if I wanted them to love me, it was the simplest thing in the world. I always knew exactly what to do and say to make it happen.”
How could such trickery elicit genuine feeling? Ev didn’t think Iriyat would understand the distinction. “You could have started by not lying to her with every breath.”
Iriyat’s lips pressed into a flat line. Ev had pissed her off. “I did that to protect her, and she knows it. You know it, too.”
“I know that’s what you think. Iriyat—” Ev didn’t smile, but she took savage pleasure in addressing Iriyat ha-Varensi by her first name “—if you want your daughter to love you, you’ll stop all of your plans to ‘fix’ the world. Including your plans to ‘fix’ Alizhan. She doesn’t want either of those things. You know that.”
“Impossible,” Iriyat said. “She doesn’t understand what I’m trying to accomplish. No one does.”
“Aren’t you making a speech? Isn’t that why you’ve kept me and Sanno here? Use your speech this shift to confess and apologize and offer to make things right.”
“That’s not an option. And it wouldn’t work anyway.”
“No,” Ev admitted. “Probably not. But it’s the first step. And maybe you’ll take fifty steps and she still won’t love you. Because you abused her her whole life. And because that’s how people are. You can’t make them feel anything. You act, they react.”
“God, you do preach. Abuse. Honestly. She’s the person I love most in the world, but you could never understand that. It’s beyond you. Who are you but a peasant? So simple and dull. I don’t know what she sees in you,” Iriyat said. She stood, glaring, and took a step forward. Ev drew her shoulders back, preparing for pain. Iriyat’s promise not to alter her memory meant nothing. The woman was a lifelong liar. “If you’re not going to be useful to me, I have no reason to keep you around.”
“Alizhan will never forgive you if you hurt me,” Ev said. She could feel her pulse in her throat and chest, her body sounding every possible alarm.
Iriyat came to the edge of the bed and leaned in close, a predatory smile narrowing her eyes. “Alizhan thinks you’re dead.”
Alizhan froze, searching not with her eyes but with some other sense. She’d heard Thiyo call her name, but maybe she hadn’t recognized his voice. Even if she had, her hesitation made sense. They’d last seen each other aboard Honesty, and she had no reason to think he was alive.
Thiyo could give her another way to know him. He’d seen Djal training Ev to shield her thoughts from strangers in Ndija and Adappyr, so he’d relied on habit and instinct to protect his own. The medusa attack hadn’t taken that from him. If he’d been given the choice, he would have sacrificed that ability instead of his facility with language. And yet he hesitated for a moment before revealing himself to Alizhan and anyone else who might be out there. He’d never cared much for keeping secrets, but he’d never been so vulnerable, either. Alizhan would know exactly how pathetic he was.
He did it anyway. Only for a second, but it was enough. Alizhan shot through the crowd, veering toward him. In her charge, she pushed two people out of the way. When she finally slammed into his chest and clamped her arms around him, there was a barrage of incomprehensible sound and an even more startling flood of tears.
Thiyo had raised his arms to get them out of her way, but he dropped them after a moment. He rested his hands on her back, unsure of how she wanted to be treated. Even with no idea what she was saying, he wasn’t surprised she was upset. A crowd like this would be a nightmare for her. He let her words slow to a stop before he brought one hand to her face and wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb.
She grabbed his forearm and stared at his scars. Then she stripped off her gloves, dropped them to the ground, and put both hands on his face.
Thiyo braced himself for the pain, but there was only a tingling all-over awareness of her touch, nothing more.
So this is why you haven’t said anything yet, she said, and her voice was in his head as if they were speaking, but no sound passed between them. It wasn’t any language he knew.
Of course, he didn’t know any languages. Alizhan must know that by now, so she didn’t need a sad nod or a sheepish shrug to confirm it, but he provided both anyway.
Alizhan was alive and she could talk to him! Thank every blessed spring and leaf, he was going to cry. Thiyo tried to restrain his instant can you fix me reaction, because he liked her for herself and not only for what she could do, but the desire was so overwhelming that she must have sensed it.
I thought you were dead, she said.
It had been a near thing. He’d wondered a few times if the medusa had kille
d him that triad, and all of this was his spirit was suffering in the Depths. But he’d never been able to believe it fully, no matter how dead he felt, because Ev was there. Ev’s spirit wouldn’t have been condemned to suffer. And she couldn’t have been a part of his suffering, because even when she hadn’t wanted him, he’d still been happy in her presence.
Alizhan had stopped touching him. Her gaze was fixed on some point directly behind him. Tiny and tear-stained, she didn’t intimidate anyone around them, but Thiyo knew better. Everyone in Alizhan’s life had underestimated her, even the ones who’d feared her. In their ignorance, they’d cast her aside and refused to see her. It was a fear without respect—a small, ugly fear that made people grimace and turn away. But Alizhan was worth more than that. Thiyo didn’t want to be afraid of her, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. They’d exchanged memories once and it had felt like a punch to the head. She was powerful, and dangerous, and until now, he’d had something to lose. He hadn’t wanted anything extracted from or inserted into his mind. No matter how small and cute and funny she was, he’d felt a frisson in her presence: awe and wariness that loomed like a stormcloud, muting and darkening everything, demanding attention. A serious warning.
But what could she take from him now? Anything she could put back into the rattling emptiness of his mind would be welcome.
Thiyo touched her bare hand. Again, no shock came. Alizhan had learned control. He felt her hand and an extra sense of her presence hummed in his head. Let’s talk somewhere quieter, he joked.
She nodded and removed her hand from his, which stung his pride. He couldn’t speak to her otherwise. She had to know that by now.
Thiyo had an easier time making progress through the crowd than Alizhan. He was taller, for one, and people tended to stare at him, so it was simple enough to stride with purpose and glare at anyone who got in the way. The crowd thinned as they distanced themselves from the central hall. He found himself walking back up the street where he’d lost Ev in the quake, as if she might be there this time. He slowed so Alizhan could keep pace with him, and as he did, she took his hand.
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