Page 96 of City of Stone and Silence

“I think so.” I force a smile. “We’re going to go visit an old friend of ours.”

18

ISOKA

“There’s that look again,” Meroe says.

I stop pacing and turn to her. “What look?”

“The look where you’re thinking about something you ought to be telling me.”

We’re back home, inasmuch as “home” has any meaning anymore. Meroe, Jack, and I hurried to return to the crew’s ziggurat before nightfall, with Shiara promising doubtfully to try and work on Catoria. Now I’m waiting for the light to finally bleed from the sky. One more day gone. That makes a week since we’d arrived. Soliton could leave any time.

“I’m just…” I shrug, trying not to show my tension. “If our guess about the time-shift is right, it’s been more than half a year for Tori already. Anything could have happened.”

“It’s possible,” Meroe says calmly. “But I have a strong suspicion Tori is more capable than you’re giving her credit for.”

I snort. “You’ve never even met her.”

“I’ve listened to your stories,” Meroe says, then smiles. “And she is your sister. She can’t be that different.”

“She is different,” I say. “She’s better. It’s—” I shake my head. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.” Meroe sits down on our sleeping mat, looks up at me. “Better than wearing a hole in the carpet.”

She’s trying to keep my mind off my nerves, Blessed save her. I take a deep breath.

“She’s just … good,” I say. “She helps people. She doesn’t even think about it.”

“So do you.”

“That’s a recent development,” I grate. “Back in Kahnzoka, on the streets … it was an easy way to get killed. I’d watch Tori giving away our last crust of bread to some poor bastard in a gutter, or begging me to let an old man in out of the rain. I’d try to explain that, sometimes, people lied about what they wanted, especially to a pair of skinny little girls without anyone to care if they disappeared. But I hated myself for having to do it. She doesn’t deserve to be kicked in the teeth by the world.” I shrug again. “Once I could, I put her somewhere she wouldn’t have to be.”

“Was she grateful for that?”

“Of course she was grateful. You should have seen her, after a few months in that house. Clean, well-dressed, perfect. She was so happy.” Until I had to leave. Then she cried her eyes out. I start pacing again, feeling Meroe’s gaze on me. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, with one of her beautiful, unreadable smiles. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

Blessed One willing. I take a deep breath. “It’s probably dark enough by now.”

“Probably.” Meroe gets up. For a moment I think she’s going to insist on coming with me, and my heart lurches, but she only crosses the room to kiss me, gently. “You’ll be careful.”

“Of course.” I stare at her. There’s something in her expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She kisses me again. “Just thinking about things.”

“That sounds promising,” I mutter.

She makes a face at me, and I laugh. Strange princess.

The guards let me out onto the roof of the ziggurat, beneath the wheeling stars.

It’s another clear night. I can see the bulk of Soliton, still in its dock in the harbor, the flow of Eddica power unabated. The obelisks of the city are visible as knife-edged absences, outlined in flickering points of light.

I don’t know if this is going to work. But it’s the only thing I can think of.

I reach out, with Eddica, letting the strange ghost-gray power flow out of me. It merges with the streams that crisscross the Harbor, the network that underlies everything, and carries with it my message. Just one word: Hagan.