Page 121 of City of Stone and Silence

Thank you. I feel the phantom sensation of Silvoa’s lips, pressed against my brow. Then she steps away, out from inside me, and I can see her again, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. I have been waiting a very long time for that.

What he did … I shake my head, gorge rising, as some of the memories come back to me. I think I would have gone mad.

Maybe I did. Silvoa cocks her head. I knew that someday, something would change. Maybe that brought me back. She gestures at the dais. Speaking of which.

I take a shaky step forward, and grab the conduit.

access error; redo from start

access request received; home//caspar

result:

authorized/accepted

three-step authorization recognized

superuser access granted

And I gasp, as a new world opens in my mind.

23

TORI

In my dream, Garo kisses me.

We’re in the back of the closet, in the house in the Second Ward, in the soft nest of old bedrolls that’s my private hideaway. We kiss in the warm, dusty dark, and his fingers run up and down my sides and along the small of my back. I take hold of his hand, his fingers thick and calloused next to mine, and pull it to where my belt knots on the side of my robe. He undoes it, haltingly, and unfolds the cloth. I shiver at the breath of air across my bare skin. Then he’s touching me again, and I arch underneath him with a sigh.

“You used him.”

Isoka’s voice. She appears in the darkness behind Garo, one blade glowing. Its green light reflects from a hundred silk-thin strands, running up from every joint on Garo’s body and winding together into a thick bundle. I know, without looking, that the other end is wrapped around my finger.

“You used him, and when he wasn’t useful anymore, you threw him away,” Isoka says. She slashes the strings with her Melos blade, a fat spark of green energy crackling through them. Garo falls on top of me, a dead weight. “I tried to protect you.”

“I know.” My voice is a whisper.

“I kept you safe.” Isoka gathers Garo’s strings in one hand, wrapping them round and round her fingers. “And this is what you’ve become. Whore. Murderer. Monster.”

“I know.”

In one quick motion, she wraps the puppet strings around my throat and pulls them tight. After a moment, my chest begins to burn. The world is going gray at the edges.

“You deserve this,” Isoka says.

My lips move soundlessly.

I know.

“Tori?”

I sit up, gasping for breath. I’m alone, in one of the barrack rooms at the safe house. Golden light slants in through the narrow window, the sun barely above the horizon. The pounding of my heart reverberates in my ears, as though it were a kettledrum. I’m horny as rot.

Someone’s watching. The curtain in the doorway is pulled aside, just slightly.

“What?” I say.

“It’s starting.” Giniva. “You said to wake you.”