Page 39 of City of Stone and Silence

There’s a long silence, long enough to make me realize I’ve said something wrong. After a few moments, her voice a little thick, Meroe says, “That might depend on … your plans.”

Rot. Rot rot rot. Leave it to me to miss the point. Obviously, I still don’t understand people.

“Meroe,” I manage. “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s not.” I grit my teeth. “Look. I’ve spent my life with exactly one person who means a rotting thing to me.” I bring my hand up and grip one of hers. “Now I have two, and I don’t intend to leave either of you behind, wherever we go.”

She squeezes my hand. There’s another silence, of a much more comfortable kind.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she says, after a few moments. “It’s not just me that you care about. Not anymore.”

“That’s your influence,” I say. “You’re a better person than I’ll ever be.”

Meroe holds me a little tighter, but says nothing.

The next morning, the fighters among the crew gather in one of the unused chambers. I stand in front of them, with Meroe, Zarun, and Shiara behind me, and try to look like I know what the Rot I’m doing. I explain to them what I told the others the night before, and I watch their faces. There’s respect there, and skepticism, and fear, and excitement, and Blessed knows what else.

I know so few of them by name. I recognize people, from the nightmare march or afterward, in the Garden, but most of the pack leaders and others I came to know before the passage through the Rot are gone. A leader—if that’s what I am—ought to know her people, and I resolve to start learning.

Zarun steps forward. “I think the Deepwalker has the right idea. If we’re going to stay here—and it doesn’t seem like Soliton has given us any choice—getting rid of the army of hell-spawn corpses seems like a good start.”

A few in the crowd mutter in agreement. Shiara steps up beside him and says, “It’s a risk, but if it pays off it will put us in a strong position to bargain with the Cresos and the Minders. I think it’s our best chance.”

More mutters and nods. These aren’t soldiers, who march into the jaws of death for a king or because they’ll be whipped if they refuse. Soliton’s crew are rebels, outcasts, discards. Deepwalker or not, I have to convince them.

Jack and Thora are the next to step forward. Jack turns to face the crowd, giving an elaborate bow.

“You all know Clever Jack is always up for a scrap,” she says. “And this seems like a good one. That’s all I need.”

That brings a round of laughs. Thora puts an arm around Jack’s shoulders, nearly pulling the smaller woman off her feet.

“For my part,” Thora says, “I never figured on seeing home again. If we’re going to be staying here, we’d better make this place our own.” She looks at me. “And I owe the Deepwalker for bringing us to the Garden. We all do. If this is what she thinks is the right move, I’m with her.”

One by one, the rest shout their approval. I stand up a little straighter, and can’t help but smile.

9

TORI

The upper floors of the hospital are reserved for its permanent residents.

As usual, we’re badly shorthanded. Grandma has called in every favor and friend to help deal with the fallout from the draft riots, but most of those assistants are needed downstairs, caring for the freshly hurt. It’s been several days since the last disturbance, but the mats down there are still full of people with splinted limbs, mending under Grandma’s watchful eye.

Meanwhile, the daily work of the hospital piles up. Some of it is simply going undone—it’s past time, for example, to replace the light summer curtains on the windows with heavier winter drapes, but no one has time. Yet meals have to be prepared, chamber pots emptied, and linens cleaned regardless of how busy we get.

At the moment, Garo and I are delivering food. We turn on to the east corridor, one of us on either side of a big, wooden-wheeled serving cart rescued from a junk heap. The thing has a tendency to suddenly veer to the right at the worst possible moments, so I direct it carefully, while Garo pushes from behind. In spite of his slim frame, he’s well-muscled.

We’ve been spending quite a lot of time together, in fact. Just as I’d seen in his mind, Garo was completely serious about becoming my “apprentice.” It’s ridiculous when you say it like that, both because he’s a year older than me and because I don’t really have anything to teach him other than the basics of life in the lower wards. But the basics are precisely what he needs, never having had to attend to them himself. It’s quickly become apparent that, for all Garo seems to consider us equals, his life at home is very different than mine.

The hateful cart bumps and jolts against my hands as we make the last turn. There’s a wide landing, leading to one of the outdoor staircases, and then a hall of tiny rooms. A desk sits by the window, where it gets a little light during the day. Jakibsa, Hasaka’s boyfriend, sits behind it, dressed in a long, loose black robe.

Garo sucks in his breath, and I realize I should have warned him. Jakibsa is a bit of a gruesome sight. His career in the Legions ended while fighting frontier barbarians, one of whom happened to be a Myrkai adept. Burned across most of his body, he’d been expected to die, and the Legions hadn’t quite known what to do with him when he survived. He’d turned down their offer to live in one of their communities for retired soldiers and come here instead.

He has hair on only one side of his head, and wears it long, pulled over the burned part of his scalp and down across his face. It almost obscures the ruin the fire made of his flesh, angry red-and-white scars running down his cheek and neck, one ear entirely gone. He wears gloves, because his hands look much the same, with two of the fingers on his right fused together, and he walks with a cane.

Given all this, he’s cheerier than he has any right to be. He’s writing, as usual, when we come in, a nib pen held in a delicate, flickering blue aura dancing unsupported across the pages of a leather-bound journal. It pauses at the sound of the cart, and he inclines his head as we appear, a little stiffly.