“Of course I don’t need your help to sneak in, I’ve been doing it my whole life,” she said. “And it didn’t make sense for me to show my face in front of those guards, not when Iriyat has probably already asked them to look for me. My way was simplest. It’s not my fault you’re a whiner who hates climbing walls.”
“I have a maimed hand!” He clutched it to his chest for emphasis. Maimed was a strong word. His right hand had two crooked fingers and the occasional ache. He’d never be very dextrous with it, but he was left-handed. Climbing the wall would have been difficult, but he could have managed.
Alizhan flicked a glance at him, unmoved. “You only bring that up because ‘my clothes are too nice’ isn’t a good excuse, given the circumstances. Anyway, you got in. Congratulations. I’m very impressed.”
“You’re cruel.”
“So are you,” she said. “If you’d brought up your hand with Ev, she’d have felt terrible.”
“Ev would have thrown me over the wall.”
“It’s weird that you sound so wistful about that.”
“You don’t dream of being swept off your feet by our favorite warrior queen?”
Thiyo hadn’t known it was possible to embarrass Alizhan, but he must have, since she said nothing and sped up.
He caught her in two long strides. “Of course. I know how you kiss. You don’t let anyone push you around. Wait. Are you mad that I’m talking about this? Isn’t this what you do all the time? Bring people’s secret thoughts to light?”
“I’m not mad that you’re talking about it,” Alizhan said. He wasn’t convinced. She was still hurrying down the street like she could escape this conversation if she went fast enough. “But Ev is being held prisoner and probably doesn’t even know her own name and you’re teasing me and I don’t—I can’t. We shouldn’t. Don’t make me feel—”
Alizhan stopped and left him to guess the end. Don’t make me feel good? Thiyo was a long way from feeling good, after their punishing ride from the disaster of Adappyr to confront whatever new horrors awaited them here. Being silent and severe wasn’t going to help them save Ev any faster, and it wasn’t a crime to smile for a second even when the world was falling apart, but he respected Alizhan’s wishes.
He was quiet the rest of the way to Temple Street, even though there was plenty to talk about. The sheer variety of color—people, clothing, animals, buildings, food—in the streets stunned him. Nalitzva was populous, but it was a serious, orderly place. Ndija always had something sly and violent about its streets. Adappyr had been in the midst of a crisis. Thiyo had been to Summit in Hoi a few times when he was younger, and it was grand and bustling, but the isolation of the islands couldn’t compare to the openness and diversity here. He’d already heard five different dialects of Laalvuri, plus Hapiri, Adpri, and Nalitzvan. He smelled unfamiliar spices, frying oils, salt air, perfume, sweat, smoke, and manure. There was music coming from somewhere, and shouting from somewhere else. Every major thoroughfare they used seemed to have a celebratory air to it, even when people were just making their way home from work: living in this chaos of other humans, this mass of possibility and heartbreak, was a feat to be proud of, and everyone here knew the secret.
Thiyo wanted to learn that secret. He’d been in Laalvur for half an hour and he wanted to stay forever. He wanted to tell Alizhan, but she was biting her lip and nearly squeezing her eyes shut, and it made him remember that not everyone knew the secret. Adappyr, with its citizens alert to the possibility of magic, had been easier for Alizhan to navigate. She’d forced her way through thorny underbrush and clambered up a stone wall without hesitation, but walking down Temple Street was an obstacle course for her.
“We have to teach them to shield their thoughts,” he said, and when Alizhan paused in her determined walking, he added, “After we save them from the possible wave and Iriyat’s tyranny and all that.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s funny that you suggested that. Kasrik wrote about it in one of his pamphlets. The idea that… that everyone else should change, and not me.”
Thiyo had only the vaguest notion of who Kasrik was, but this information seemed to mean a lot to Alizhan. What a flaw in this city, that it would make her feel so unwelcome. But if Laalvur could accept so many other kinds of people, surely it could accommodate Alizhan. Thiyo didn’t have a chance to tell her so because she’d slipped down an alley and was pounding on an unmarked door. Judging from the piles of refuse, they were about to enter somewhere through the kitchen.
A child with an androgynous mop of black hair answered the door and stood there without saying hello, dark brown gaze pinning both of them to the spot.
“I’m looking for Eliyan,” Alizhan said. She stepped over the threshold and into the kitchen, and the child moved aside. “Or Kasrik, if you know him. They’re… friends.”
The child lit up with a smile. “Miss Eliyan lives here.” Their guide bounded through the kitchen and up two flights of stairs, through a courtyard open to the sky and into a corridor and then a small office. Seated behind an imposing desk was a woman dressed in unrelieved grey, which rendered her even more serious and tired than the concentration that lined her face. She looked up from whatever she was reading. Her heavy brows jumped. The motion changed her whole aspect, making her livelier. The grey robes still didn’t suit her.
“Alizhan.” Her lips curled into a fraction of a smile. “I wish better circumstances brought us together, but I’m glad to see you alive.”
“I’m glad you’re alive, too,” Alizhan said. “He taught you to guard your thoughts. That’s good.”
Eliyan eyed Thiyo. “You trust him?”
“Completely.”
Eliyan nodded, but didn’t look persuaded. “It’s hard to comprehend, sometimes, what it means to live the way you do. So he’s not hiding his thoughts from you?”
“He’s an exhibitionist.”
That drew another fraction of a smile from Eliyan. Perhaps she’d grant them a whole one before their time ran out. “I see. My name is Eliyan Matrishal. If Alizhan trusts you, that’s good enough for me.”
“Thiyo,” he said. His full name was unnecessary. He didn’t even really belong in this conversation.
Eliyan accepted his introduction with a solemn nod and turned back to Alizhan. “I’ll give you the address where you’ll find him. I can’t be seen going there, but I’ll change my clothes and take a different route. And it’s best if the two of you could be discreet. Arrive separately. Hide your face if you can. Act like customers.”
Eliyan wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to Alizhan.
“The Uzet?” Alizhan said, reading the address. “Isn’t that a brothel?”
That kind of customer. Hopefully the proprietor was friendlier than Madam Zhenev.
“They’re accustomed to being raided and hiding secrets, and they were willing to let him stay.”
“For a price?” Alizhan asked.
Eliyan shook her head. “They’re devoted to the cause. Loyal readers. They would have housed the press if they’d had space. But it’s best if we keep things separate.”
Brothels were apparently hotbeds of sedition, Day or Night. Thiyo had learned so many things since leaving home.
“Right. Well. I suppose we’ll see you there,” Alizhan said. She spun on her heel and passed Thiyo, but as she reached the door, she turned back. “Wait. You said you were glad to see me alive.”
“I was being genuine.”
“I know. We don’t know each other that well. You don’t have much reason to like me—Kasrik must have told you how much of this is my fault, and even people who don’t know anything about that tend not to like me—but you do. Is it because I remind you of your brother?”
This sudden shift in conversational topic struck Thiyo as ill-advised, and he didn’t conceal it well, because the next thing Alizhan said was, “Oh, shut up, Thiyo.” Then, to Eliyan, she said, “I’m sorry. I know this is delicate. I’m not good at del
icate. I wouldn’t be good at it even if we had more time. And you know which brother I mean.”
“In answer to your first question, I like you because you’re trying to undo Iriyat’s work,” Eliyan said. She hesitated, and her next sentence was stiff. “But yes, I suppose there is a resemblance.”
Alizhan took a breath. “You know what Iriyat can do.”
“Alter memories. What does that have to do with my brother?”
“Nothing good,” Alizhan said. “I just want you to know that I can restore your memory, if you want. But it might make you unhappy.”
“Or perhaps you could tell her the short version,” Thiyo said. “Let her know what she’s getting into.”
“You used to know Iriyat. She and Arav were in love.”
Eliyan’s face moved slowly from perplexed to suspicious to horrified. “Oh no. Oh God.” Her hand went to her mouth and her gaze fixed on Alizhan’s face. Alizhan didn’t look at her, but her mouth twisted into a sad smile. Eliyan dropped her face into her hands. “This is why you brought up the resemblance.”
“Yes,” Thiyo volunteered, when Alizhan said nothing.
“I suppose this is the wrong moment to protest that my brother would never have fallen in love with such a monster.”
“She wasn’t always,” Alizhan said. “We had this journal, and she wrote… she wrote that you were friends.”
“I don’t want to remember that,” Eliyan said, firm and decisive. She stood up and came around the desk, stopping in front of Alizhan. Her hands hovered in front of Alizhan’s hands, not touching. “Are you his, then? Was Arav your father? Are you my niece?”
Alizhan nodded mutely. She stared at the floor, but her hands crept into Eliyan’s hands. Eliyan squeezed her hands and then swept her into a hug. Alizhan made a sound that might have been surprise or a muffled sob. Thiyo guarded his thoughts and directed his attention elsewhere, trying to let her have a moment with the only living relation she’d ever met whose heart wasn’t a rotting sinkhole of ambition, bigotry, and manipulation.
But he heard it when Eliyan murmured, “Well, in that case, I’m very, very glad to see you alive.”
Uzet was a Laalvuri word meaning forgetful, but it was also the name of a trumpet-shaped red flower, and the brothel’s doorway was marked by an overflowing planter. There was no sign, but Eliyan had warned them about that. Thiyo was secretly relieved not to be dispatched to find a place based on its sign. But the proprietors of The Uzet were prepared for an illiterate clientele, and luckily, Eliyan had described the plant to him. Thiyo couldn’t divine the connection between the word and the flower, and he hadn’t asked her. The institution’s name was likely playful, but it struck him as sinister. He didn’t want to forget anything else.
The Uzet was housed in a wooden building painted yellow and covered with red designs evoking its namesake flowers, skirting dangerously close to breaking the prohibition against representational art. It was nestled between two other wooden buildings in a pitted dirt street where all the flaking paint was brightly colored. The dusty sea air was clouded with the scents of flowers, sweat, and something amazing being fried a few doors down. It was crowded and disreputable, not in the cool, furtive way of back alleys in Nalitzva, but a cheerfully shabby, wine- and sunshine-drunk way. A stray cat twined around his ankles while he hesitated, wondering if Alizhan was already inside the brothel and if so, how she’d managed it. Here in the lower part of Hahim, the buildings weren’t carved into the cliffs, so there were many more potential entrances. For his part, Thiyo planned to use the door.
The only other brothel he’d been in was Madam Zhenev’s. The Uzet was lighter and airier, its main door opening into a flower-filled courtyard furnished with couches and small tables. No one was rude to him, but perhaps that was a benefit of not showing up covered in blood and pursued by the law. He was offered wine or tea or—he assumed—the services of the pretty young woman batting her lashes at him, all of which he declined. Thiyo hadn’t discussed with Eliyan what to say to convince these people that he needed to see Kasrik, because where was the fun in that? He opened his mouth to improvise a request for something elaborate and unusual. As he lifted a hand to gesture, his sleeve dropped to reveal his scarred forearm.
He didn’t get more than two words out before the young woman gasped and grabbed him. She led him to a private room upstairs, dimmed with purple drapes, where the large bed had been pushed against the wall to make room for a writing desk. Both the bed and the desk were covered in pages, some handwritten and some printed, and in the center of this maelstrom of paper were Alizhan and a boy on the cusp of adulthood who must be Kasrik. Alizhan was seated at the desk and Kasrik was kneeling on the bed.
He had long, straight, black scars down his forearms.
Before even speaking his name, Thiyo offered up the scarred insides of his own forearms, their black tracks far more curling and knotted than the ones on Kasrik’s skin. “My name is Thiyo.”
Kasrik made only an instant of eye contact before his gaze fell back to Thiyo’s scars. “You recovered.”
He intoned the words like a statement, but there was a question folded inside, so Thiyo answered it. “It would be more accurate to say I am recovering.”
Kasrik offered him a weak smile. “The same for me. What are you doing with her?”
Thiyo got the sense that Kasrik and Alizhan had a difficult history, but he couldn’t ask about it here. Instead he walked to the bed, moved aside a few pages, and sat on the corner. Alizhan said, “You should know that Kasrik shares some of my gifts.”
Ah. Yes. She’d told him that at some point and he hadn’t kept track of it. Not counting Iriyat, Kasrik was the first person Alizhan had met with abilities resembling her own. The first thing he’d ever said to her was an accusation of betrayal. Then he’d been tortured on Iriyat’s orders. Difficult history indeed.
Everyone tensed as the door opened, but it was only Eliyan. She looked younger and far less imposing without her robes, but the disapproving glance she cast at the mess of Kasrik’s room restored her authority. She leaned against the wall rather than making a space for herself on the bed.
Once they were together, the whole story came out. The question wasn’t so much what had happened as what would happen, and they set about planning as best they could.
“I’ll write a pamphlet warning people that they should be ready for a wave,” Kasrik said.
“I like them, by the way,” Alizhan said. “Especially that one about educating people about magic.”
“Well,” Kasrik said and pressed his lips together. He might write brilliant political essays, including ones that could move Alizhan, but he was still a teenage boy, and by the looks of it, not one who was adept at dealing with emotions. Eliyan made eye contact from her post. It was like a word of code between them. “Thank you,” Kasrik said stiffly. He nodded once.
It was like watching two people who had no idea how to swim wade into the water and splash around for the first time, cautious and awkward and nowhere near what they ought to be doing, but endearing nevertheless. Thiyo stepped in to save them from the ensuing silence. “The pamphlet is a good idea. But it won’t save Ev, and it won’t stop Iriyat in the future. What we need is a way to get her out of power. She’s slipped out of our grasp twice now. She eluded blame of any kind after the fire in Gold Street, and while we were probably able to convince some people in Adappyr that she’s connected to the damage their city suffered, Adappyr is a long way from Laalvur, and people here might have difficulty believing it. It’s hard to believe even when you know all the details.”
“Some people would believe,” Kasrik said.
“Some isn’t enough,” Eliyan said. “It has to be city-wide, or failing that, it has to be the Council of Nine. We need evidence.”
“We had evidence at Gold Street,” Alizhan said. Thiyo saw Kasrik’s face darken and wondered what he was thinking of. “What we need is to take her by surprise.”
“She knows what
I want,” Kasrik said. He lifted a handful of pages from the bed and rustled them in his fist. “I don’t think I can surprise her.”
“Let’s go through our options,” Thiyo said. He was intensely curious about Kasrik’s writings, but it would have to wait. He couldn’t stomach the thought of struggling to read in front of these strangers. “We bring charges against Iriyat for… what, exactly? Interfering in Adpri politics? Would that be against the law?”
Eliyan and Kasrik shook their heads.
“The simpler, the better,” Kasrik said. “We have to find someone she’s killed. Something like that. Something that makes a good story for the public. And the Council, corrupt as they are.”
“If the public were all that mattered, I think you could do it singlehandedly,” Alizhan said. Kasrik smiled, but it vanished when Alizhan continued, “The Council’s the problem. Whatever charges we bring against her, Iriyat will go whisper in everyone’s ear just before the trial, and none of them will speak against her. She’ll manipulate their minds however she has to, like she did with Mar.”
Kasrik grimaced at the mention of Mar’s name. Mar was a powerful man in Laalvur’s ruling class, Thiyo remembered, so it was important if Iriyat had manipulated his memory. But Kasrik’s reaction struck him as more personal. What interest did an orphaned outcast have in a rich man’s well-being? Thiyo would ask Alizhan later. For now, they were speaking of Iriyat’s abilities, and he had more pressing questions. “What if she couldn’t?”
“You want to torture her?” Kasrik asked, and Thiyo couldn’t tell if he was impressed or horrified. That hadn’t been Thiyo’s meaning, and his stomach turned at the thought of using medusa venom on a person. Still, Kasrik had a point. They might have to.
“Nightvine,” Alizhan said, following Thiyo’s original train of thought. “We give everyone on the Council nightvine. Then she can’t manipulate them.”
“Which is what?” Eliyan asked.
Shadebloom Page 29