Queen of faces, p.30
Queen of Faces, page 30
If I used any magic or swapped out of the body that was killing me, he would find me and hunt me down.
Adam Weaver had cornered me. And I had nowhere to go.
we hid in the Shenti slums, on a tiny, squat island just outside Lowtown. Nima led us across the same abandoned railway bridge where Carriwitch had blown out my guts, nine months ago. I could still see the bloodstains as we passed them.
Rubbish covered the streets, and rust covered the streetlamps. We walked past dark houses, demolished buildings and clusters of Shenti beggars roasting fish over barrel fires. The Shenti War had ended close to a decade ago, and technically, the slum dwellers were free to move out. But no one wanted to hire a Shenti, much less rent to one. So, the slums grew every year, filling with the displaced as warlords turned Shenten to rubble, as the rising tides swallowed one island after another. My mother had grown up here, and moving out of this hellhole had been a point of pride, a long hill she’d had to climb up to get to the Agricultural Islands.
Now her daughter was coming back here to die.
Nima led us to the abandoned house they’d found, a short walk from the water. A one-storey bungalow with splintering walls and grimy roof shingles. Someone had smashed the windows, and the roof had fallen off in places. Dust covered the floors, and plants grew out of cracks in the wood.
‘Your old place had a bubble bath,’ Wes said with a sigh. ‘I’m going to miss bubble baths.’
‘You’re free to leave.’ Nima blocked him at the doorstep. ‘Encouraged, even.’
‘I saved you.’ Wes smoothed his green longcoat. ‘A thank-you wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nima. ‘Now piss off.’
‘Ana’s in trouble,’ said Wes. ‘And the whole city’s after us. If we separate, they can pick us off one by one. But together, we trounced Adam Weaver. Together, we’ll last longer.’
‘He’s got a point,’ said Korin.
‘He’s got a nice face,’ said Nima. ‘Pretty people always get forgiveness. I should know, I’m two of them. Don’t fall for it, old goat.’
‘He stays,’ I said.
Everyone turned to me.
I shrugged. ‘He’ll die without us.’
Over the next hour, we scavenged blankets and pillows off the streets. Nima boiled the fleas out with magic, and we set them on the floor, sweeping aside broken glass to make room. Cardamom woke from his tranquilliser, and I petted him to pass the time.
Korin promised he would renovate this place, just like the clock tower. But that would take months, and for now, the ruin was nothing more than a cold, dark pile of wood.
You bled for the Eldritch Guard. And this is your reward.
I silenced the nagging voice in my head. Go too far down that road, and you’d end up just like the thugs of Commonplace, trying to burn down the world for being imperfect. The exhaustion from our chase took hold of me, and I slumped on a mattress to sleep for twelve straight hours. But when I woke, I still felt like a carcass.
‘Let’s kill Adam,’ said Wes as I crawled out of bed. ‘Then the tracer is gone, and Ana is free.’ The members of Queen Sulphur were huddled round a fire out back, roasting a fish as the sun set.
Left-Nima shook her head. ‘I was watching his movements all day. He’s holed up in Paragon.’ Breaking in there was out of the question.
‘You used Copycat on Ana’s old boss, didn’t you?’ said Korin. ‘You found the location of that Commonplace stronghold. What if we traded that for a pardon?’
‘Even if it’s real,’ said Nima, ‘I doubt one address is going to cut it. Not after we stabbed their star pupil. We’d need to rescue half the city, or the prime minister’s dog.’
‘We’ll get through this,’ said Korin, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
That night, I lay on the mattress we’d scavenged, staring at the ceiling long after the others drifted off, listening to Korin’s gentle snores. It took all my effort to hold back the tears. Maybe it was the worsening aches in my stomach, my lungs, my pinky stump. Maybe it was the chills.
Or maybe it was the truth, gradually bleeding into every thought. I was going to die.
And I wouldn’t see Ori ever again. Even if I did, would we still be friends? Would she hate me? For lying to her, for hiding my double life.
One letter. A single letter, and everything was suddenly over. And I didn’t even know who wrote it.
I glanced at my right arm, feeling the icy sensation of Adam’s tracer. A cold barrier wrapped round my soul, my magic. If I breached it, Adam would know where I was. Down to the fraction of an inch.
A horrifying idea came to me. It grew in my mind like wildfire, and I rejected it. No. Just thinking about it made my hands shake.
I needed another play. Something that wasn’t a death sentence.
But the next morning, everyone came up blank. And the morning after that.
With no inspiration, I secluded myself in an empty bedroom, coughing. Sometimes, I read. I got Nima to borrow an old book from the library about telegraph code, the dot-and-dash system telegraph operators used. Every now and then, I practised it. Sometimes, I watched Wes study for his Ousting exams. He struggled through textbooks, pacing, fidgeting, folding the pages into cranes. Several times in a session, he would slap himself, muttering under his breath. One night, in a half-asleep haze, I confronted him.
‘You’re studying wrongly,’ I said.
‘Thanks for the insight, grey girl. You can go back to bed now.’
‘Ori told me about your mother. You’re studying like she’s right there, looking over your shoulder. Hitting yourself. Dragging your eyes over the same page for an hour.’
‘Instruct me, then, Professor,’ said Wes, ‘with your three-fold success on the entrance exam. What would you do?’
‘Whatever you’re not doing.’ I ignored the sting of his words. ‘You can’t just repeat stuff and act like it’s going to change. You have to change. Write the next page.’ I slumped back down on my dirty mattress. ‘Or don’t. I couldn’t care less.’
The next day, Wes hired Nima to tutor him, to copy the skills from the best teachers in Elmidde and instruct him. The boy got distracted often, but Nima kept the sessions short, using quizzes and games to hold his interest. Wes spent time with Korin too, working out every day. Korin made him a harness for his wings, which fitted under his raincoat in place of his backpack.
I wasn’t sure why Wes bothered. He’d sought his mother’s favour by going after Khaiovhe, and then me. But both his targets were alive, and he was a fugitive on the run. The admiral’s approval couldn’t be lower right now, and with it, his chances of Ousting Ori.
Maybe he just needed something to do. A sliver of hope to cling to.
I envied his optimism.
Mostly, I just stayed in bed, staring at the splintered ceiling, as the weeks passed and the days grew hotter. Cardamom cuddled next to me and I stroked his fur, remembering Kaplen.
At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I went for walks on the empty roads, down the black sand beaches on the shores of the Shenti slums. I walked until my legs burned, exhausting myself so I could catch a few hours of sleep.
One night, I strode down the eastern shore of the island, and found Korin standing on the beach, his bare feet dipped in the waves. Black sand coated his legs, staining his trousers like ink, reflecting the moonlight like stars.
He glanced back. ‘Hi, Ana.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The sea is frightening,’ said Korin. ‘But it’s also sort of comforting.’
‘You grew up in a fishing village.’
Korin nodded. ‘It’s so much bigger than we’ll ever be, so much older. Sometimes, when I’m angry or scared, I’ll go to the ocean and put my feet in. I imagine the pain seeping out of my body and into the water. And then I’m not afraid any more. I’m just empty.’ He smiled. ‘My hometown is flooded now. So much of Shenten is. But still, I come here.’ The eastern continent was large, but flat, at a lower elevation than Caimor or Kshatra. Of the three great powers of the world, the rising waters would swallow it first.
I stepped beside him, water soaking my socks and shoes, and glanced back to the rows of houses. Someone had carved eastern dogs on one of them.
‘Is it always like this for you?’ I said, my voice soft. Half the stores on the Agricultural Islands had refused to serve my mother. Caimorian kids had bullied me as a child, though they’d never raised a hand against me. Better a ‘half-breed’ than a dog, I guess.
Korin shrugged.
‘How did you survive all that? Prison. Torture. Living in an old woman’s body, a country that hates you. How does it not kill you?’
‘It does,’ said Korin. ‘Every day, I wake up and feel numb. There’s a swelling emptiness inside me, inside everyone who’s survived this much. If I don’t fight it every hour, it’ll swallow me whole. Sometimes, when I come here, I start walking out into the water. Some part of me tells me to walk and walk, and keep on walking until everything is blue around me. Blue sky, blue ocean. Blue, and peaceful. But I drag myself back every time.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s my penance.’
‘Penance? For what?’
‘My parents died when I was young, so my grandma raised me. She taught me how to mix chemicals for fireworks and forge metal into miracles. Her training let me join Commonplace, though she urged me not to.’
‘The Shenti branch of Commonplace.’
Korin nodded. ‘I was a Humdrum, and poor, but I didn’t care about either of those things. I just wanted to reunite my country, after the war and the Babel Curse. I wanted to stitch our people back together, even if that meant working for a warlord. For the first time in my life, I had hope.’ He paused. ‘And then, my grandmother blew up my boss.’
I stopped moving.
‘My boss walked it off. Sinew magic. Strode out of the smoking crater like it was nothing. And I reported her to the military police,’ said Korin. ‘They sentenced her to life in prison, and I got promoted. Senior colonel at the age of sixteen.’
He sighed. ‘Politics. It makes such sweet promises. A noble cause, a brilliant future. An island of meaning in the great void. Yet now my country is a ruin. We fought the Caimorians and lost, and now our own people are devouring what’s left.’ He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. ‘Give me a simple life any day. A quiet house. A close friend and a good book.’ He stared into the ocean. ‘After I did it, the guilt crushed me for months. When the pain grew too much to bear, I visited my grandmother in prison.’
The pieces clicked together in my mind.
‘I had her swap with me. She used my body and papers to leave the country. I promised to escape the camp and meet her at a rendezvous point. I lied. If I knew the meeting spot, the Commonplace guards could wring it out of me, sooner or later. Then they would hunt down my grandmother. So, I got a mage to wipe the spot from my memory and was shipped off to Khaiovhe.’
I choked. ‘Your grandmother’s waiting for you, and you don’t even know where?’
He nodded with a pained smile. ‘If she made it out. If she’s even alive.’ He stared at his feet. ‘Now I look like this. And the one person I care for more than anyone else –’ he closed his eyes – ‘they’re never going to feel the same way. Not about a shrivelled old crone like me.’
My eyes widened. Nima. I squeezed his shoulder. He wasn’t the only one stuck in a grey shell.
Korin knelt, picking up a fistful of black sand. ‘At night, I have these dreams, where I’m sinking in dark quicksand. I scream and scream, but my voice makes no sound.’ He shook his head forcefully. ‘But I will meet my grandma again. And when I do, I’m going to return her body in tip-top shape!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured.
‘Don’t be.’ Korin gave me a wan smile. ‘Someday, all the people who’ve hurt us will be dead. All the people who love us. Every human we’ve met will dissolve like salt in the ocean. What use is there dwelling on such things?’
It wasn’t as comforting as he meant it to be.
The next evening, I went back to the flooded pier, to pick up the money I’d stashed there. We needed extra cash for blankets and food, for scrap metal and pipes that Korin would use to upgrade the shack, and to replace the weapons Nima had left behind in the clock tower.
To my irritation, Wes insisted on joining me. ‘You want to walk through Lowtown with ten thousand pounds in your backpack? Alone, at night, without your magic?’ He snorted. ‘If you get mugged, I don’t get my bubble bath. So, I’m coming with you.’
‘Fine,’ I grumbled. If he betrayed me again, it wouldn’t be for money.
The two of us trekked across the lower reaches of Elmidde, and out on to the water where we’d first forged our partnership. I picked up the money, and on the way back, I stared at the bar where I’d grown my first branch, the gaping hole in the roof. All the way back in September. I’d felt so beautiful then, so bright and full of possibility. Nothing like now.
‘I must smell awful, don’t I?’ I said. The others could bathe with magic, but without access to running water, I hadn’t bathed in weeks.
Wes shrugged. ‘It’s not as bad as you think.’
I scowled and climbed on to the bar counter. ‘I’m going to wash off over here.’ I handed him the bag of cash. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’
‘And leave you to brave the streets alone? Korin would never let me hear the end of it.’ He strode outside and round a wall, just out of sight. ‘Just tell me when you’re done.’
I sat down on the bar counter and pulled off my socks and shoes. I extended my foot and dipped a tentative toe into the water.
A bitter cold shot up my leg, and I jerked back. Prophets, it’s freezing. As spring turned into summer, the days had grown pleasant and warm, but at night, the ocean was still brutally frigid.
I hovered over the water for several minutes, hesitant. ‘Ana?’ Wes called from outside. ‘Still alive in there?’
I sighed. ‘It’s cold. The water’s cold.’
Wes strode back round the wall, his eyes shut. ‘Nima and I have been warming our water with magic. If you want, I could . . .’ He pulled a bar of soap out of his pack, letting my mind finish the sentence.
I scoffed. It was a silly offer, a ridiculous offer. Not once in a thousand years would I have accepted something so absurd.
Tentative, I leaned forward and dipped my hand in the water, willing myself to hold it there. It felt like an arctic lake.
I recoiled. ‘Damn it all,’ I muttered. ‘Yes. Yes. Get in here and open your eyes.’
Wes sauntered in, looking me over, and I clambered off the bar, on to the hardened water next to him.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Wes. ‘We swapped bodies. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’
I glanced at his face, then jerked my eyes away, embarrassed by the rush I felt. He’d just washed, his dark brown hair groomed to perfection, his brows sharp. His raincoat hung off his shoulders, spotless, the same deep green as his eyes. His star-woven beauty loomed over me, making me feel even uglier.
Still, I did need a shower.
Blood rushed to my face. I pulled off my raincoat and undid the buttons on my shirt. The fabric slid off my torso, and I shivered. In these last few weeks, the grey colour had spread all over my body. With the tracer on me, I couldn’t even hide it with Rainbow Veil. Bruises spread up and down my torso from our fight with Adam – as well as tiny cuts from the broken clock tower window, when Wes had tackled me out of it. I left my loose shorts on. That was a line I wouldn’t cross.
Wes stared for a moment. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘Like you care.’ I turned my back to him, facing the rusty wall of the bar. The moon shone through a haze of smog, and a gentle breeze blew over us. My bare feet rippled on the surface of the water.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Black hair or grey, you’re no hag.’
‘If I’m not a hag, what am I?’
Wes said nothing for a long moment. Then he glanced at his pocket watch, avoiding my gaze. ‘Let’s get to it. Haven’t got all night.’ He floated a sphere of water up from below and whipped his hand forward, shooting it towards me. For a moment, I thought it would be freezing, that Wes was playing some sort of practical joke. I flinched.
Then it brushed my skin, and it was warm, gentle, perfect for a bath. It wrapped around me, caressing me, washing the dirt from my skin and hair. The heat seeped into my body, and for a moment, I forgot everything else.
Less than a year ago, Wes had pinned me down with water magic and threatened to kill me. But oddly enough, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this.
‘Do you still want to kill me?’ I said.
‘You’re almost naked. I have a sword,’ said Wes. ‘Do you really want to ask?’
‘You could have slit my throat on top of the clock tower. But you didn’t.’
‘And you could have stabbed me two minutes earlier,’ said Wes, ‘when I thought I’d chopped off your head.’ He lifted his hand, and soap lathered over me. ‘We both had a moment of weakness. It means nothing.’
‘I’m right here.’ The soap scrubbed over my skin. ‘My knife is in my jacket. I can’t use magic. What are you waiting for?’
But Wes didn’t attack, just kept washing me with his magic.
‘I chopped off your hand,’ I said. ‘I shot your fiancé. Your mother Ousted you because of me. Why aren’t you boiling me alive?’
Wes clenched his fists. ‘The impostor told you.’
His words were daggers in my back. ‘Her name is Ori, and she was my friend. So were you.’
Wes stared at me, stars gleaming in his dark eyes.
‘Do you still think you can save me?’ Bitterness slipped into my voice. ‘You warned us. You were too late.’ I lifted my arm to remind him of the tracer, Adam’s invisible shackles. ‘It’s over.’
‘Khaiovhe is still leading Commonplace,’ said Wes. ‘She burned my father alive, sent him back in a flour sack. She’s the perfect prize for my mother.’ He set his jaw. ‘I am going to carve out her liver and Oust your friend. I’m reclaiming my birthright, and the love of my life. You’ll all be useful to me.’
