Page 80 of City of Stone and Silence

I open my eyes. I should be in a panic, heart pounding, but I feel calm.

I’m on a musty pallet in a small room, empty except for a few broken bits of wood that look like part of a table. When I throw back the thin sheet, I find that my clothes are gone, replaced by a ragged linen shift of the sort we use for patients at the hospital. Bandages are wrapped around my left arm. I move it, experimentally; there’s a throb of pain, but I can manage.

Isoka used to come home with wounds like that. I would bind them, washing the cuts and stitching them closed, with old rags for bandages. By the time she brought me to the Second Ward, her skin was a mass of scars, while mine was still unblemished. She’d wrapped herself around me, protected me, borne the blows and the wounds.

Until now. I close my eyes and remember the maddened guard’s thrust, the curious not-pain of those first few instants. I would have a scar of my own—always assuming the wound didn’t fester and kill me, of course. And my hands, which Isoka had tried so hard to keep clean, were stained crimson.

They had been for some time, if I was truly honest. Just because I’d kept the blood off my clothes didn’t make me any less responsible—for the Ward Guards at Nirata’s restaurant, for Nouya. For all my bleating about my power feeling wrong, I’d used it at the first real temptation.

Monster. Of course. Who would trust someone who could turn their own mind against them? Not Garo. Not Isoka. Even Grandma, herself marked as an outcast by her power, had only tolerated me as long as I was useful.

Tears threaten. I feel my hands curling into fists, fingernails digging painfully into the skin of my palms. Now my heart pounds, and my shoulders shake.

Let them be alive. Grandma. Kosura—Blessed, Kosura had been taken by the Immortals, and I’d barely spared her a thought. And Isoka, Isoka, please. I don’t care if she hates me forever, just let her still be alive, let me see her again.

There’s a rap at the door.

It takes me a moment to pull myself together. “Y … yes?”

“It’s Garo.” He sounds tired. “Can I come in?”

“Go ahead.” I think about wrapping myself in the sheet, for modesty’s sake, but it seems like too much effort.

The door slides open, and Garo enters. He’s sporting a bandage of his own on one leg, and a spreading bruise across his cheek. His arms and hands are covered in strangely regular patterns of angry red welts. Dark circles under his eyes speak of lack of sleep.

In spite of all that, he smiles at me. “How are you feeling?”

“All right,” I say.

“One of the hospital people stitched your arm and did the bandage,” he says. “She said it should heal clean, as long as you don’t strain it.”

I nod. “What about you?”

“Me?” He shrugs. “I’ll be okay. Just tired.”

“Your arms?”

He touches the welts. “Powerburn. It’s not bad.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Most of the day. It’s past sundown now.”

“I take it we got to the safe house.”

He nods. “Most of us. We split up, and a few groups got tagged by the Ward Guard. Fortunately by then things were getting bad everywhere, and they didn’t have the time to keep chasing us.”

“What do you mean, bad?”

“You still need rest.” Garo frowns. “I’m not sure—”

“Don’t give me that, when you’re about ready to fall over.” I kick the sheet off and struggle to my feet. “What’s happening?”

“Ah.” Garo averts his gaze. “I’ll get you some clothes, shall I? And then we can go downstairs and explain things.”

I look down at myself—the shift isn’t very long, and I’m only marginally decent. I swallow a comment and just nod, and he backs awkwardly out of the room, returning a few moments later with a simple brown robe. I put this on, folding it back where it doesn’t fit, and join him outside.

We’re on the upper floor of an old, boxy building. Garo leads me down a corridor flanked by dark, empty rooms. A stairway leads into a much larger open space on the first level. This place had been a warehouse, years ago, before it had been abandoned and Grandma had acquired it on the cheap. Since then it’s served as her fallback, insurance in case the government ever really cracked down. I don’t know if she ever expected to really have to use it.