He sat up straighter. ‘What do you mean, what it does?’
I shrugged, scooping some salt from a barrel and pouring it into each of the inky jars. I wasn’t trying to make a Cold Charge with the salt, I just didn’t want the Wisps dissolving in the blackness. ‘To see if it spreads evenly. To see if it rises or falls or comes together in clumps. Or if there’s any metals or potions that it’s attracted to more than others. I figured we need to know everything we can about Cold if we’re going to invent something that can find it.’
‘We, really? You’re going to include a High Noble in your plans, even after what just happened?’ Cam took a deep breath. ‘I sure know how to pick them.’
‘You’re the only reason I’m here,’ I replied, giving him a small smile.
Cam reached out and touched one of the Bellows I’d hauled to the table. ‘So you put the Wisps in the ink. The ink seeps in through the little holes and stains the Cold. Then you crush it, and then watch what it does? That’s the plan?’
‘Unless you have any better ideas,’ Shilah said with a sneer, finally settling down on a nearby chair.
‘Be nice,’ I said. ‘We’re in this together.’
Cam’s head sagged. ‘I’m sorry, Shilah. I’m really, really sorry for everything that’s been done to you.’
Shilah took a steadying breath but didn’t bite back. Cam’s earnest tone seemed to appease her for the moment. ‘Let’s just get this over with,’ she said.
‘Should we get Leroi?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Shilah said, looking over to the study, the tinkering sounds having stopped long ago. ‘Let him have his peace.’
‘Well then, here goes,’ I said. The five jars were ready, different amounts of salt poured in each. I grabbed the first Wisp, kissed it for luck, and dropped it in the first inky concoction.
All three of our faces closed in on the glass, each of us holding our breath.
The Wisp sank to the bottom and dissolved.
I tried not to think of this experimenting as wasting Cold, and selected another one from the basket. I added it to the next jar, which had double the salt. This time the Wisp held near the top, starting to fizzle at the holes, but eventually it dissolved too. My lips pinched with disappointment, but I repeated the process over and over, finding the fourth jar to have the combination I was looking for; the Wisps sinking enough to be submerged, but staying in one piece.
I stuffed half a dozen Wisps in that jar, letting them suck up the ink.
‘How long?’ Cam asked.
‘Few minutes should be enough.’ I shrugged, turning to Shilah. ‘Got any stories?’
She made a face, her eyes glaring at Cam, who physically shrank under her intensity. I’d never seen a High Noble intimidated by a Jadan in this way. The tension crackled in the room as we waited in silence.
My chest beating with excitement, I finally handed Cam the pair of thin tongs I’d found near the fireplace. ‘Want to do the honours?’
Cam accepted them with a bow of his head and began fishing out the Wisps, letting them dry on the sheets of boilweed we’d laid out on the table. The ink ran off the surface of the Cold, but it was still staining the insides.
I opened the mouth of the Bellows and stuffed one of the Wisps into the vice, my fingers growing sticky with ink.
‘The Jadan’s work upon the sands,’ I sang softly, closing the Cold in and wishing Matty was by my side to see this. ‘Those who need the Cold.’
‘What’s that?’ Cam asked.
‘Whatsit,’ I replied with a smile, and turned the top crank of the Bellows.
Using two hands to spin it hard, I was able to shatter the Wisp all at once. The jaws of the vice collapsed in relief, and immediately a trail of black smoke rose from the mouth, slithering into the air. I leaned away as the trail widened, my heart pounding, but the black kept flooding out in my direction. I stumbled back, knocking over my chair, but the dark cloud kept coming at me. The swarm split in two in the air, half of it swinging towards Shilah, who also tried backing away. I couldn’t move fast enough, the inky air surrounding me, covering my skin and diving into my lungs. It blinded me, and I choked, tasting cold and salt, the air rough with the ink. Although I couldn’t see her, I could hear Shilah choking too. I tried to hold my breath, but the cloud didn’t want to dissipate. I held my shirt over my mouth and filtered small breaths for a few moments, until the cloud became less dense. I wiped my sleeve over my eyes, removing the ink and coughing out the last of the black air. My vision cleared after my streaming eyes had flushed out the ink, and I watched the black cloud fade into the air, spreading out and shrinking until it was too thin to be seen.
I looked over at Shilah. Every bit of her skin had been stained black, and dressed in her dark robes, she looked like a shadow, with only the whites of her eyes and teeth reacting to the light of the Sinai.
‘It went right for us,’ I said, astonished. ‘Like a magnet.’
‘Your whole face is covered. And your neck and hands. All black,’ Shilah said, smiling.
I turned to look at Cam, expecting him to be covered in ink as well, but he was surprisingly clean, his complexion only slightly dusted by the cloud. He ran his hands over his robes and skin, with a puzzled look on his face. He retched out a cough, but it seemed forced. ‘Did it get me?’
‘No,’ I said, curiosity deepening. ‘It seems to have avoided you.’
Cam’s expression soured. ‘Maybe it was because you two were closer. Let’s try again.’
‘We need masks this time,’ Shilah said, grabbing a piece of boilweed and putting it over her mouth. ‘And eyewear too.’
I found a few pairs of Leroi’s soldering goggles, and we all strapped them on. I loaded another inked Wisp into the Bellows and cranked it hard, the cloud shooting out. Like the last one, it swarmed towards Shilah and me right away, but it barely touched Cam, passing over his body in the same impassive way it did everything else in the tinkershop. We cleaned our skin and repeated the test several times, but each result was the same.
The Cold shot right to the Jadan skin, but didn’t seem to care about Cam, regardless of where he stood.
‘The Cold finds us,’ Shilah said. ‘And not Nobles.’
I unstrapped my goggles and lowered my boilweed mask. Cam was frowning deeply, his bottom lip twitching in puzzlement. ‘Cam, I don’t know—’
Cam swallowed hard. ‘It’s okay. But maybe we could try some bigger Cold?’
We wheeled over the largest Cold Bellows that Leroi had made, inking up a few Drafts to test them out. The clouds were gigantic this time, massive plumes of inky air that made our teeth chatter and our skin tingle, but still the Cold ignored Cam completely, whilst it stained our Jadan skin so black that I wondered if the ink would ever wash off.
We even tried it with Cam turning the Bellows himself, but it was always the same, the light mist that eventually found him not even darkening the colour of his golden hair.
Cam lowered his goggles, his face more miserable than I’d ever seen it. ‘I’ve been so trying,’ he said in a sad voice. ‘I don’t want to be one of them.’
‘Cam,’ I said gently, even though my heart was racing. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘We’re not chosen,’ Cam said, backing away from the table. ‘He hates my family for what we’ve done. He hates what we’ve been hiding. It’s obvious. We’re infected. Like firepox, but worse.’
‘Who hates what?’ I took a step towards him. ‘Cam, just relax for a second—’
Cam held up a hand, turning it over to see how clean it was. ‘I’m sorry, Spout. I can’t be here.’
And with that, he ran out of the tinkershop, slamming the door behind him.
I grabbed one of the remaining pieces of clean boilweed, dipped it in the water trough, and went over to Shilah. ‘Hold still,’ I said, dabbing the stuff onto her face, trying to clean away some of the black from her cheeks and hair.
She stood straight and proud, a smile creeping on
to her blackened lips. ‘Micah. Do you get what this means?’
I nodded, wiping her forehead next. I was transported back to the first conversation I’d had with Leroi, about the first Khat being less than Jadan. ‘I think I do.’
‘I told you we‘re worthy. That the Drought was all lies. Cold is meant for us. Micah, this changes everything!’
I moved the boilweed down her arm, wiping the ink away from her Opened Eye tattoo. She didn’t shy away, allowing me to mop her up.
‘Let’s get Leroi,’ I said, trying to take my mind off my pounding heart. ‘Maybe he can shed some light on all this.’
We went over to the study door, our knocks turning to pounds, our pleas turning to hushed shouts. He didn’t answer, regardless of how much we threw ourselves at the door. Eventually, anxious that we might find a corpse on the other side, I found some tools and picked the lock. The door swung open to reveal a single anklet on the desk, next to an empty decanter. A strong stench of alcohol filled the room.
All of his tinkering materials had been piled in the corner, and there was no other trace of the Inventor himself.
We were on our own.
Chapter Thirty
I put some muscle into it, scrubbing hard, even though it wasn’t necessary. The Cold had left the ink powdery and dry, so the residue from the clouds was coming off the floors and walls of the tinkershop with ease. I barely had to rub the boilweed over the black dust, but still I dug in, polishing the walls to a shine.
Abb told me sometimes the mind gets so overwhelmed that the only way to process things is through the body. I was sweating all over, my arms burning with fatigue, trying to step far enough away from the jumble of questions in my mind that I might stumble upon some answers.
‘Micah,’ Shilah said from my side, removing corked beakers from a shelf and dusting them with the boilweed.
I grunted in response, knelt down as I removed the black dust from a particularly deep nook in the wall.
‘I think it might be enough,’ she said.
‘I want to keep working,’ I said, trying not to let myself become overwhelmed. ‘Leroi deserves to come back to a clean tinkershop.’
Shilah put a beaker back, coming over to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Not the cleaning. I mean this discovery. It might be enough.’
Even though her touch sent a shiver through my body, I kept furiously cleaning. ‘For?’
‘Think about it,’ she said, digging her fingers into my arm. ‘If we can show everyone that the Cold is attracted to Jadans and not Nobles, they have to admit everything is a lie. We’re the worthy ones.’
I stood up, her hand coming with me, but I didn’t feel ready to face her. I kept scrubbing the wall. ‘What if it’s just a fluke? What if the cloud just found us for some reason, and not all Jadans? We don’t know enough yet.’
She gave my arm another squeeze. ‘Look at me.’
My hands didn’t stop. The powdery ink on the walls was now an offence to me, each particle mocking my efforts. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes.
‘Look at me,’ she said again, in a softer tone.
I sighed, wiping the sweat off my forehead, and spun around to look at her.
Her face was glowing.
And not from some stray beam of light from a Sinai. She was resolute in her happiness, pure and free. Her smile struck me like Cold water, and her brazenly upright posture made her look as majestic as one of the Khat’s own family. Her skin seemed smoother than usual, and her eyes gleamed with hope. I wanted to run my hands over her face and feel every angle of her joy.
‘You know what I mean,’ Shilah said. ‘This is enough to make people fight back. The Crier wants Jadans to have Cold. We can prove the Drought was a lie.’
‘Shilah, this isn’t enough. You should know that too. If this gets out, the Khat isn’t going to free us. Nobles will do everything they can to hide the truth. They’ll kill us, and say you and I were just spreading the Sun’s trickery, and then probably have the Priests and Vicaress do another Cleansing just for good measure. We need more. We need something bigger. Even if Cold comes to our kind in the air, it still only falls into the Nobles’ hands.’
Shilah let her hand fall. ‘I know.’
‘I’m going to find Leroi’s secret passage and use it to see my father. I need to tell him about all of this,’ I said. I needed him more than ever now. ‘Maybe he’ll know what to do next.’
Shilah nodded. ‘Fine. But I’m coming with you. And we should probably raid this place for weapons, in case—’
Three raps on the main door. Two fast, a pause, and then another.
Shilah’s expression immediately became suspicious, but all I felt was relief. It wasn’t pleasant to see how this discovery affected Cam. If seeing Cold prefer Jadans took such a toll on a kind, sympathetic Noble, I could only imagine the rage and denial it would inspire in all the others.
I raced across the tinkershop, tossing aside my boilweed as I dived up the stairs. Swinging open the door, I expected to find my friend, but there was no one on the other side. I chanced peeking out into the hallway, but there was no sign of life.
On the ground, however, sat a wooden chest with a note on top.
‘You deserve this more than we do. I hope it will free me.’
I pulled the chest inside, noticing the odd temperature of the wood against my hands as I closed the door and slid the chain. I immediately felt very strange, my mind buckling under an odd sensation, as if I’d just walked into a barracks I’d never seen before, but somehow recognized the faces of the Jadans there.
‘Where’s Cam?’ Shilah asked from below.
‘Not here,’ I said absently, staring at the box. I set it on the landing and sat cross-legged beside it, my hands running over the smooth woodgrain. The chest was colder to the touch than anything I’d felt before, and I wondered what Cam had delivered that needed to be kept in such Cold.
But when I opened the lid, I nearly fainted.
I’d never seen one before, but even after a single glance I understood what was sitting in front of me.
‘Shilah,’ I choked out, my fingers shaking at the sides of the chest. ‘Shilah!’
Footsteps padded up the stairs. ‘What? Are you okay?’
I started breathing heavily, entranced by the lovely sheen, wonder taking over my brain. It was the single most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It wasn’t dull like its kin but lustrous gold, more vibrant than any flower, smoother than any glass. And the centre had a gentle design, which seemed to rise to the surface in the shape of two thick lines with a third lying across the top. Seeing it up close, I knew instantly that these were the things shining in the night sky: that if I could fly, this is what I might bump into.
If there was ever proof of the Crier’s divine touch on this world, it was this.
Shilah got to the top step, but when she caught sight of the Frost, she nearly collapsed, her legs buckling at its beauty, and only just caught herself on the railing. I would have risen to help her, if not for my complete and utter shock at what had just been thrust into my life.
‘It’s a— Is that—’ Shilah sucked in a huge breath. ‘Frost.’
I had to remember to breathe too. Only the Khat was supposed to have Frosts. What was it doing in the Tavor Manor?
I swallowed hard, shutting the lid of the chest so I could think for a moment. I felt I was back on the banks of the Kiln holding Abb’s empty bucket, Sister Gale racing across the river to caress my face. The Frost had awoken something in me. Suddenly my hands itched to tinker more than they’d ever done before. I felt frantic, as if I’d woken up from a long sleep and was supposed to be somewhere an hour ago.
Shilah crept closer to the crate, putting her hand on the wood. She flinched away at first, not expecting the freezing cold temperature of it either, but she breathed in, and set her hand down again.
‘Maybe you did talk to the Crier,’ Shilah said, her voice an awed whisper.
I
took another deep breath, Shilah and I exchanging a look and then lifting the lid back off together.
The Frost was almost too much to look at. This Cold was truly holy.
I thought about all the Jadans and all the barracks that this could keep alive, and I knew it had come to me for a reason. That those nights sweating on the rooftops and sifting through rubbish had been worth the risk. That every lash I’d endured meant something, and that every piece of pain I’d suffered was valuable. That every little thing I’d created in the past had been in preparation for this very moment.
All so a Frost might end up in the hands of a Jadan Inventor.
I’d have my answers.
Half a night later and the wave of excitement I’d been riding had faded to nothing. I hovered over my tinkering table, materials and tools spread across the entire surface. My knuckles creaked as I rested my weight on the wood, my eyelids heavy and my frustration rampant.
Shilah was curled up in a chair beside me, fast asleep, her hair unbraided and blanketing the top half of her face. I stopped myself from reaching over to tuck it behind her ear.
The fatigue was winning, however. As the night progressed, my experiments shifted from thoughtful to downright weird. I’d been scared to touch it at first, but now the Frost lay suspended in a makeshift hammock I’d strung across an upside-down stool, and my current test involved sprinkling Rose of Gilead petals over the Cold to see if there was a reaction. There was none. I’d discovered early in the night that the Frost was impenetrable, unlike other types of Cold. Not crushable, not breakable, not anything. I thought maybe I could extract a small chunk to add to Leroi’s solution in the marked clay pot, but found my efforts rebuffed. Scraping a blade across its surface was useless, and if anything, the sheen seemed to grow stronger under the drag of the knife, lighting up, as if the Frost was laughing at my feeble attempts. I tried wetting a boilweed swab and rubbing it gently on the surface, as a droplet of water would melt away a tiny section of any other Cold, but the Frost refused to yield.
I’d even done some nonsense experiments that I was glad Shilah was too asleep to witness. I burned some incense. I took the Bellows and blew long ineffective puffs across its surface. I tickled its belly with a silk handkerchief. Held magnets on either side. Quietly sang the Jadan’s Anthem to it. Traced the Opened Eye symbol on it with melted candlewax. Dusted it with prayer sand from Marlea. In a final desperate sleep-deprived attempt, I’d even offered it a fig.
Coldmaker Page 27