Queen of faces, p.31
Queen of Faces, page 31
I shook my head. ‘In a few weeks, I won’t be useful to anyone, except the gravedigger. You really want to go back? To the school you struggled in? The mother who threw you out?’
The water turned scalding hot, and I hissed.
‘I lied to you for nine months,’ he said. ‘You know nothing about me.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar. You’ve been lying your whole life. You put on a face for your mother, your classmates, yourself. You cower in plain sight because you don’t know who you are. And that terrifies you. Because you could be breathtaking.’ I glanced back at him. ‘Or you could fail.’
‘Enough,’ he said. The water poured off me, leaving me damp and cold.
‘Your true face,’ I said, ‘is hiding beyond a rainbow veil.’
‘Shut up,’ said Wes.
‘Were you happy, being a girl?’
‘Shut up.’ Wes stepped closer.
I ground my teeth, staring at the tin wall of the bar. He had everything I didn’t. Talent, a proper body, a future beyond the next few months. Ori had given him a chance, Ousting him into this body. And he was squandering it.
‘Leave with Korin and Nima.’ I turned to face him. ‘They don’t have tracers. You can sail across the ocean and waste the rest of your perfect life.’
‘What about you?’
I shrugged. The motion felt like lifting a mountain. ‘Most caterpillars die in the cocoon.’
Wes shook his head. ‘When I met you, when I steered that car towards you, all I saw was grey. I thought you were soft and bland. An easy mark.’
‘And now?’ My voice came out weak.
Wes stepped closer. I felt his breath on my scalp. Tiny stars gleamed in his eyes, and I was close enough to count them.
‘You’re a demon,’ he said. A cool wind blew over my bare chest. My hair dripped water on to the bricks, on to his dress shoes. ‘I think you’re going to be the death of me.’
I glanced up, and his beauty hit me like a sledgehammer. His body was a work of art, forged in starlight, woven together millennia ago in long-sunken halls. All to end up here.
Wes lowered his voice. ‘You’re in my nightmares, Ana.’
Far in the distance, waves crashed against the island. I could feel every inch of my skin tingling.
I swallowed, dizzy, and whispered, ‘You’re in my nightmares too.’
Then his lips were on mine, choking every rational thought.
I should’ve pulled away. I should’ve buried my knife in his heart, spat at him, something. Instead, I grabbed his shirt with both hands and pulled him into me, kissing him back. I drank him in like scalding tea, and even as he burned my throat, I kept drinking.
I staggered back to the wall, yanking him with me, bracing my foot against the bricks. His hands skimmed over my wet hair and shoulders. We both moved with a panic, an urgency, like if we slowed down, we would realise what we were doing. We would wake up from this mad, electric dream.
I didn’t want to wake up.
When we stopped, we were both out of breath, standing on the flooded surface of the water. His cheeks were rosy, and soapy water drenched his longcoat. He stared at me, blinking, as if seeing me for the first time. He backed away, swallowing.
Without a word, I turned to the wall and pulled my shirt back on, cheeks burning.
As farewells went, it wasn’t bad.
I cracked my neck and pulled on my raincoat. I knew what I had to do.
That night, I stayed up when everyone else went to sleep, lying awake on my mattress. In the darkness, I looked at the business card where Nima had written the location of the Commonplace base.
Rachdale Point
Walk west
I slipped out of the front door and strode into the morning twilight, turned hazy blue by the smog. Dim streetlamps shone on the cobblestones, and the ocean breeze blew a paper bag across my path.
I arrived at Elmidde’s north-east ferry building and bought a ticket, the only passenger here. I shivered on a silent pier, staring into the empty blue. A thick layer of fog surrounded the city, turning the ocean into a dim haze in the distance. Below the boards, a school of dead fish bobbed against the wooden posts of the dock.
Half an hour later, the four-thirty boat arrived, a lone light in the darkness. When I stepped on, the ferry was just as empty as the dock. I got the whole cabin to myself, a tiny grey room with circular windows and creaky seats. I sat on one, wrapping my coat round myself.
The boat’s engine huffed and puffed, preparing to leave. Outside the station, the streetlamps flickered off one by one, signalling the dawn to come.
I thought back to the first time I’d sneaked on to a ferry, more than three years ago. Emptying my mother’s lockbox and buying a one-way trip to the capital. I’d stepped off the plank at Lowtown, just another dumb kid from the sticks. A fragile stalk of wheat, ready to be ground into flour. I’d made so many desperate choices since then. Working for Clementine. Stealing a body and working for Carriwitch. Taking nineteen lives. Trusting Wes to help us escape. Every decision had seemed obvious, necessary.
Yet here I was. Still backed into a corner, sailing towards my end.
As the ship accelerated, a figure sprinted down the dark pier, arms pumping. The person leapt on to the moving boat. Then the cabin door opened, revealing a slender face and dark brown hair. Wes.
He leaned against a seat, wheezing. ‘Lost you for a block or two,’ he said, gasping. ‘And the Humdrum at the ticket desk? Prophets, he moved like a drunk sloth.’ He slumped next to me, catching his breath. ‘So, what are you doing? Trying to run away?’
‘I’m not running away.’ I avoided eye contact. ‘Please leave.’
Wes bit his lip, thinking. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Why?’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘I’ve seen that look,’ he said. ‘You’re about to pull an Ana.’
‘An Ana?’
‘Charging off. Doing something harebrained and dangerous just because you think it’s right.’
I stared out of the window. The boat glided north along the coast of Caimor, leaving Elmidde behind. Hightown, Midtown, Lowtown. The Shenti slums. Paragon. All shrinking in the distance. Minutes melted away, and the landscape around us turned barren and rocky as we travelled up the northern coast.
‘Whatever you’re planning,’ he said, ‘there’s got to be a smarter option.’
I held up my grey left hand, one of its fingers burnt off. ‘I’m all ears, Paperboy. But give it a week and those might be gone too.’
Wes gazed out of the opposite window, at the endless ocean to our east.
‘I won’t tell you my plan,’ I said. ‘But I’ll tell you this much: I don’t expect to come back. There are seven stops between here and Rachdale Point. I suggest you get off.’
‘I don’t know what you’re planning. But Khaiovhe could very well be there.’ He smirked at me. ‘If she is, I’ll show her how my family deals with monsters.’
‘You’ll show her how flammable your skin is,’ I said. He hadn’t been at the fish market. He hadn’t seen what I had. ‘You don’t even know what my plan is.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But it’s yours. That’s how I know it’ll work.’
I blinked at him rapidly, not sure what to say. Wes was throwing away a perfectly good body. But at this point, there was no stopping him.
He thumped his chest twice. The heartbeat salute.
I saluted him back.
Hours later, the boat passed Rachdale Point, and the two of us walked to the back railing. I gazed west at the mainland of Caimor. A forest of red trees towered before us, submerged in the turquoise waters of the ocean.
I nodded at Wes. We slipped off the back of the ferry, and the water hardened under my feet. Wes, doing a Water Walk for both of us.
The boat kept travelling north, oblivious of our exit. And the two of us strode forward under the crimson leaves, travelling west under the grey sky.
My feet ached. Sweat drenched my skin. The flooded forest pressed in around us, cold and dim. Finally, after two hours of walking, the trees parted before us, and a hill rose out of the water. A town perched on top of it.
A demolished town. Houses, storefronts and schools had all been reduced to rubble, huge piles of bricks and splintered wood. Lamp-posts had been knocked over. Trees at the edges were a blackened crisp.
Black Arrows marched in the ruined streets, carrying rifles. Bunkers, sandbags and machine-gun nests littered the edges of the hill. Five tanks guarded the corners, their engines rumbling. More enemies gathered on the dirt road leading out of the town. Tanks, supply trucks, columns of foot soldiers. An army of terrorists: Humdrums and mages both. A Commonplace stronghold. Nima’s information was good. Half the trucks had faded Shenti lettering on them, a language no one spoke any more, thanks to the Babel Curse. Purchased from Shenten, probably. Old war stock from the eastern branch of Commonplace.
‘This is Helmfirth,’ said Wes. ‘The Shenti bombed this place during the war. It’s been empty ever since.’
I strode up the hill, and Wes followed. A squat middle-aged man sat at the edge of town, wearing a silver mask over his face and watching us. A scoped rifle sat next to him, but he made no move towards it. I’d seen him at the Brenby Fish Market, Khaiovhe whispering in his ear. He’d survived the Eldritch Guard’s attack, somehow.
The man nodded and jabbed his thumb behind him, pointing down the street. Directions for us to walk.
So, they weren’t going to shoot us right away. Maybe they wanted to savour the kill.
We walked through the ruins. Lines of Black Arrows jogged past, glaring at us. But no one spoke.
At the end of the street, we reached the one building that hadn’t been turned to rubble. A Shenti temple, built out of dark crimson wood, with a slanted tile roof and stone lions standing guard at the corners. Lanterns hung from the edges, and incense burned in a jade brazier, shrouding the ornate doors in smoke. My mother had prayed in a temple like this, once.
I strode down the stone path, Wes close behind. We hovered on the doorstep in a cloud of incense, unsure of what to do.
After a moment, I reached forward and lifted the brass knocker. I let go, and it slammed on the door with a low, deep thud.
The carved wooden doors creaked open of their own accord. A woman stood within, her hair as dark as night, her face a mask of youthful beauty. Black flames danced over her ragged gown, like the cloth itself was woven from indigo fire.
‘Good day,’ said Khaiovhe. ‘Please, come inside.’
khaiovhe stared at us. The air itself seemed to shimmer around her, like a warped heat wave. The black in her eyes had faded, revealing a deep, stunning brown, with the faint gleam of stars underneath. Tiny black flames licked the edges of her dress, and even from here, I could feel their heat. Darkfire. Ana had told me about her decoy at the fish market. But you couldn’t replicate those flames so easily. This Khaiovhe was real.
She was beautiful. Breathtaking. Even as the hatred swelled in my chest, it was an undeniable fact. Every facet of her face, every black hair on her head looked incredible. And she barely seemed older than us.
She killed your father. She was my target. My final, only ticket home to Samuel. If he even wants you any more. My mind flashed to my kiss with Ana last night.
Khaiovhe turned, striding back into the Shenti temple. Ana and I followed her, and I sniffed. An acrid scent had drifted into the room. It smelled like burning rubbish. Old incense, probably. I sniffed again, and it vanished.
We passed cracked urns. Faded wall paintings and rotting scrolls. ‘This temple was the centrepiece of this town,’ said Khaiovhe. ‘The greatest of its kind outside Shenten. Its monks used these rooms to house the poor, feed the hungry, even during the war when half the town was spitting at them.’ She ran her fingers down the splintered wood of a shrine. ‘Then your precious headmaster cast the Babel Curse. The monks lost the only language most of them could speak. The only language they could think in. A few weeks later, they all walked into the ocean and never came back.’ She looked at us. ‘Tell me. When you slaughter part of a man’s mind, does that make you guilty of murder? What if you did that two hundred million times?’
‘We were at war,’ I said. ‘The Shenti would have conquered us all. Caimor, Kshatra. Every island on the Eight Oceans. Carriwitch had no choice.’
‘I had no choice,’ Khaiovhe said. ‘People love to say that, when they’re taking away yours.’
The three of us wound through the halls of the temple for what felt like an eternity. We reached a small prayer room at the far end of the building, and the Black Wraith pulled up rickety chairs to a table, like we were guests at a tea party. She filled three cups from an ornate teapot and sat down.
We sat with her, and I sipped from mine. Ana stared at me, and I shrugged. If the Black Wraith wanted us dead, she’d set us on fire. Why bother with poison?
‘You have supped on lies,’ said Khaiovhe. ‘You have dined at their table and drunk their wine, so that deceit now suffuses your flesh. If I cut you open, you’d bleed naught but falsehood.’
The smell of rubbish faded in and out again. I thought of charging at the witch, drawing my sword and taking her head in a single stroke. But I wasn’t that foolish. My father had been faster than me, and that wasn’t nearly fast enough. Your plan had better work, Gage. I had kissed her like a fool. And now I was following her head first into a wolves’ den. Madness had taken hold of me.
Khaiovhe uncovered a small bowl filled with steamed chicken and rice and began to eat it with a pair of chopsticks, dipping each piece in scallion sauce. ‘After everything you’ve done,’ she said, ‘I don’t expect you to join our cause right away. Better a boot heel than an ant.’
I almost snorted. Khaiovhe thought we’d come here to join up. After Paragon had attacked us, a weak soul might be tempted.
I was not weak. The Eldritch Guard had been unfair to us, vicious even, but that hardly justified terrorism and murder.
Still, I could feign interest, while Ana set up her mystery play.
‘What?’ said Ana. ‘A boot heel?’
‘It’s an old expression. “Better a boot heel than an ant.” You’re torn, ragged and covered with mud, but at least you earn the pleasure of crushing an insect under your sole. At least there’s something beneath you. Weak people are always looking to hurt someone weaker.’
Something twinged in my chest, like my ribcage was a tuning fork she’d just struck. ‘We’re not weak,’ I said. ‘How many of your followers have we killed? Ana’s studied magic for less than a year, and she beat Adam Weaver. We beat Adam Weaver.’
Then the Black Wraith did something I’d never expected. She started laughing. It began as a faint chuckle, then spread through her torso, bursting out of her lips, rising and rising until her whole body was shaking.
Ana stared at her, frozen. My skin tingled, and my fists clenched.
‘Adam Weaver’s Grey Coat, turning against him,’ said Khaiovhe, still laughing. ‘The burning pale hero. The hall of mirrors and the repeating clock. It’s almost too perfect.’
What is she talking about? The witch had truly lost it.
She stared at Ana. ‘I have seen your putrid heart, Anabelle Gage. The dam explosion. The brain infection. Running away from your mother and living under Clementine’s boot heel. Failing the entrance exam three times over.’ Her eyes bored into Ana. ‘You think pain justifies what you’ve done? Hardship? You’re nothing more than a pawn. And nobody mourns a pawn.’
Ana held her gaze. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know everything about you, grey girl.’
Ana went dead silent. Ice water flooded my veins.
Khaiovhe took a bite of her chicken. ‘Let me tell you about Arthur Hyll.’
Ana sat back. The smell of rubbish faded in and out.
‘Arthur Hyll,’ said Khaiovhe, ‘is a Humdrum boy from Lowtown. He just turned fourteen this spring, loves cricket and hiking in the woods. Five years ago, his mother’s hospital bills were swelling, so he took shifts at a textile mill. Dyeing shirts in filthy vats of chemicals. No gloves, no mask, breathing in fumes from morning to midnight. No more time for cricket games. No more strength for hiking in the woods. Now his lungs are failing, and he’s too poor for a fresh chassis.’ She stared at us. ‘He’ll be dead in six months. As will thousands of others just like him.’
I shrugged. ‘There’s a waiting list.’
‘Anabelle Gage has been waiting for eight years. How has that fared?’
Ana swallowed. The decay had spread up her body, covering all but her neck and face.
‘The owner of the factory, Lord Hector Belmont, owns thirteen fabricated bodies,’ said Khaiovhe. ‘He took one to a mage’s costume ball this winter, where he drank enough liquor to put it into a morgue. He was fine, of course.’
Commonplace propaganda. ‘Bodies don’t grow on trees,’ I said. ‘There just aren’t enough to go round. You can always find exceptions, but the Eldritch Guard needs those chassis. They risk their lives for this country. They’re heroes.’
‘Look outside.’ Khaiovhe gestured to the bombed city, the flooded forest. ‘If your greatest heroes left you this world, were they ever really heroes at all?’
‘And you are?’ I said. ‘My father taught you everything. You were his Grey Coat.’ A pressure built in my skull. ‘He got you into Paragon, and you burned him. You burned him.’
‘Revolutions aren’t won with clean hands and plucky teenagers.’
‘What are they won with?’ said Ana.
‘Blood. And steel. How do you think this country was built? Who cut the stones of that pretty castle in the sky?’
I thought of my father, and the flour sack filled with his ashes. That cold stone mausoleum I’d hidden from, never visiting. The anger kept swelling in my head, a burning ache that trampled all other thoughts.
Ana stared forward, her eyes flat. This was personal for her too.
‘What about Kaplen Ingolf?’ she said. ‘Was he a part of your blood and steel?’
