Thornfruit Page 4

  A boy who claims he can read minds. That detail, nothing more than superstition for Mar, rang out like a bell for Alizhan. She sucked in a breath and nearly came back to herself. No, no, she wasn’t finished yet. She had to focus. She delved back into Mar’s mind.

  Kasrik had obviously been mistreated by someone. Mar would find out who was responsible and take care of it. And, in doing so, he’d clear Iriyat’s name of any ugly rumors Kasrik might have spread. If this got out, even in just a few of the most salacious and untrustworthy pamphlets that circulated the city, it would be damaging. Iriyat was a lovely, kind person who didn’t deserve any more suffering. Her life had been marked by tragedy, and instead of letting it ruin her, she channeled all her efforts into helping others. She did so much good for the city, and Mar respected her work and valued their relationship. She’d never be his intellectual equal, but she had wit. Iriyat was a gift indeed. But she didn’t possess the ruthlessness necessary to protect her own reputation from these rumors, so Mar would do it for her.

  Mar had explained all of this to the young man, but Kasrik was difficult to reason with and dead certain Iriyat was responsible. Concerned that Kasrik would take matters into his own hands without guidance, Mar had given him a task. It was a bit of misdirection, unrelated to the boy’s wild and horrifying allegations, but it would keep Kasrik busy and lay things to rest.

  Mar had asked Kasrik to sneak into Iriyat’s library and steal volume eleven of A Natural History of the World. He’d warned Kasrik that the book might be in Iriyat’s study instead. That was the source of his interest in what would otherwise be a dull volume listing the quakes, waves, and eruptions of two centuries ago. Mar had seen this very book lying open on Iriyat’s desk on two separate occasions in past months. Iriyat wasn’t a slow reader. Could she really be so interested in natural history that she’d reread the same volume within a matter of months? Mar didn’t think so. The book must be a cover for some other text.

  A small part of him wanted it to be a journal. To his knowledge, Iriyat had never taken any lovers. Why was that? Was it religion alone? Or did she have some secret reason for abstaining? She must know by now that she could have Mar if she wanted him. He’d never said as much to her, but she was no fool. Women, in his experience, were attuned to such things.

  It would probably come to nothing. Perhaps the book was exactly what it seemed. But Mar was curious, and Kasrik was eager to find evidence, and the theft would be simple enough. Mar would have Kasrik return the book after a triad or two, hardly any time at all, and no harm would be done.

  When Alizhan came back to herself, Iriyat was removing the tray of glasses from her hands. “You look a little ill,” Iriyat said, caressing Alizhan’s cheek. Iriyat was as soothingly blank as always. A rivulet of sweat ran down the back of Alizhan’s neck. Her heart drummed against her ribs. “Perhaps you should go sit down. One of the other girls can take over for you.”

  Behind Iriyat, Mar felt tight with concern.

  Alizhan had other things to think about: the boy, the book, the library. He was there now. Stealing the book. Reading minds. She turned on her heel, still wearing her slippers, and ran.

  Positioned in the center of the house and built without windows to protect the books from the elements, the library was a grand space lit only by the greenish glow of lamplight. Candles and books were a dangerous mixture, and Iriyat was wealthy enough to get her light by other means. Shelves of leather-bound books, some handwritten and some in more modern print, lined every wall. There was a large, round table in the middle of the room and two upholstered chairs in opposite corners.

  The room shivered with the eerie quiet of a place that had just been disturbed but now lay vacant. Books were strewn across the floor. A few had fallen open, spreading their white pages in the gloom. Alizhan knelt, closed them, and turned them over to check their spines: fourteen volumes of A Natural History of the World. Volume eleven was missing.

  Sloppy, amateur work. Alizhan rarely stole tangible objects, but when she did, she strove to leave no traces.

  If neither the thief nor the eleventh volume was here, then she had to check the study. A small wooden door tucked into the corner of the library connected the two rooms. Alizhan pulled it open as silently as possible, then slipped inside and found herself surprised.

  It wasn’t possible for people to sneak up on her. She could feel them coming, thinking about their families, their plans, their ailments, their desires, their next crushingly witty retorts. Even through walls, Alizhan could feel if other people were near her.

  Except if those people were blank.

  Before she’d been slapped with this sight of this person—this boy, Kasrik—Alizhan had thought Iriyat was the only blank person in the world. But she felt nothing from Kasrik. And yet he was indisputably there. He was skinny, with the too-long limbs of adolescence and black hair sticking up from his head in wild tufts.

  She could read neither his thoughts nor his expression. Alizhan didn’t usually feel her faceblindness so keenly. Reading faces, as opposed to minds, had always struck her as a primitive, inferior practice. But now that the book of Kasrik’s thoughts was closed to her and her only option was to decipher his face, she found herself illiterate. Stranded in a foreign land.

  What was Kasrik thinking? Had he seen her? He hadn’t moved. The book was open on the desk under his hands, and he was reading it, his fingers tracing across the lines of text.

  If Alizhan couldn’t feel Kasrik, could he not feel her, either? She hovered in the doorway and held her breath. He must be able to hear her heart beating. How could he not know she was there?

  There was nothing unusual about the book. Volume eleven looked like its fourteen siblings, bound in brown leather with black printing-press letters marching in formation across thin, cream-colored paper. It wasn’t even a one-of-a-kind manuscript, but a printed book with many other duplicates in the world. How important could it be?

  Kasrik was on the opposite side of the desk from her. She could leap forward, wrench the book from his hands, and run back into the library. He might chase her. He had longer legs than she did. But she had the advantage of knowing the house.

  He exhaled, slammed the book shut, and looked up.

  From the length of his stare alone, Alizhan would wager that Kasrik was as surprised by her presence as she’d been by his. More evidence that he was like her. She darted forward, put both hands on the book, and tugged.

  Kasrik let go. “You’re one of us,” he said. “Why are you working for her?”

  Alizhan couldn’t make him understand all that Iriyat meant to her, so she said nothing. She clutched the book to her chest and backed toward the door.

  But one of us. What did that mean?

  “I can’t let you take that,” Kasrik said. He vaulted over Iriyat’s desk and suddenly Alizhan was up against the wall and his hands were on the book. Very close to her hands. Her stomach churned with anticipation. If they touched, would it hurt?

  “Mar’s playing you,” she said. “He doesn’t think this book has anything to do with your story.”

  “I know,” Kasrik said. People usually protested more. But Kasrik must already have known what Mar thought. “He’s lying to himself. Iriyat’s playing you.” He pulled, and Alizhan clung to the book. “She hurts us and has us killed. You’re a traitor if you keep working for her.”

  A traitor? Who exactly was Alizhan betraying? She hadn’t known there was anyone else like her in the world until a few moments ago. And how did Kasrik know she was like him? Was Alizhan blank, too?

  Her whole life, Iriyat had let Alizhan believe she was alone. And yet here was Kasrik, saying us. Alizhan wasn’t alone. She was just like Kasrik.

  Kasrik, who could read minds. Kasrik, who was blank.

  Was it possible? Was blankness how people like her—people like her—recognized each other? Even the possibility was a punch to the gut.

  “Iriyat is one of us,” Alizhan said. She didn’t mean to s
ay anything. The words and the thought were simultaneous.

  Kasrik was almost as shocked as she was. “Wha—”

  Alizhan had to know what was in the book. She jerked it out of his grasp, slid to the side, and dashed into the library. Her jaw slammed into the floor a second later as Kasrik tackled her and she went sprawling into the pile of Natural History volumes. The pain rattled her bones. But there was no skull-splitting bombardment of thoughts and feelings. It was sharp and startling and new: a normal kind of physical pain, the pain of being hit and trapped between the corners and spines of books and the bony weight of a human body.

  There was no time to reflect on the novelty of touching a stranger and remaining conscious.

  Alizhan clutched the book beneath herself and tried to crawl forward and buck him off. He held fast. She could feel him reaching to the side, and an instant later, something heavy hit the back of her head.

  Light hurt. Air hurt. Existing hurt. Alizhan was in bed. She kept her eyes shut. What had happened? How had she gotten here? It felt like her bed. She couldn’t remember coming to her room.

  Where had she been last shift?

  “You got hit on the head.” Iriyat’s voice.

  Of course. There was someone sitting on Alizhan’s bed, and everyone else would have been thinking loudly.

  She was safe, in that case. Alizhan exhaled, and Iriyat stroked her fingers through Alizhan’s hair. The gentle pressure of fingers playing over her scalp was a comfort so simple, pure, and rare that Alizhan would’ve let herself get hit on the head much sooner if she’d known this could be her reward.

  “What happened?” Alizhan remembered standing in the kitchen with Yiran and stealing an olive. If Yiran had been preparing food, there must have been a party. Alizhan opened her eyes and looked at Iriyat, who was still dressed for a party in purple silk and heaps of jewelry. Had she not slept?

  “You went after a thief,” Iriyat said. Between her thumb and her forefinger, she rolled a sprig of tiny purple flowers back and forth. Lavender shadebloom, one of Iriyat’s own breeds. Behind the blond crown of Iriyat’s bent head, a mottled burst of green leaves—six towering potted plants—dominated Alizhan’s bedroom. All the Great Houses had fabulous gardens, signals of wealth and taste, but only Iriyat took such a passionate interest in hers.

  “And the thief hit me on the head,” Alizhan guessed. The void in her memory scared her. She’d never forgotten anything so completely. “I’m sorry. He must have gotten away.”

  “Shh,” Iriyat said. “You’re hurt. I’m sorry he hurt you. One of the guards heard a noise in the library and found you on the floor. He says he thinks you were only out for a moment or two, but it was long enough for the thief to get away. I had the guards bring you here. I’m afraid the stress of being touched caused you to pass out, and then I let you sleep. The shift of the Honeycreeper just started.”

  Iriyat’s parties always took place near the end of the Lyrebird shift, which meant Alizhan had slept through the shift of the Rosefinch. Eight hours.

  A thief could get a long way in eight hours.

  Still. Shouldn’t Alizhan be able to recall what had happened an hour or two before she’d been hit on the head? The time in between being in the kitchen with Yiran and getting attacked? Not knowing was an itch in her mind. She’d never catch the thief if she couldn’t remember him.

  Something Iriyat had said nagged at her. I had the guards bring you here. None of the guards liked to touch Alizhan. The feeling was mutual. Iriyat was a small woman, but Alizhan was even smaller. Iriyat could have carried her. That would have been safer and easier, since Iriyat was blank.

  Blank. Yes. That was important. But why?

  Iriyat had said they’d found Alizhan in the library. From these details, Alizhan began to trace the outline. There’d been a boy and a book and a fight. He’d said something. What had he said? Why couldn’t she remember?

  “You look like you’re concentrating,” Iriyat said. “Take your time. You need your rest. I don’t want you to exhaust yourself.”

  Alizhan didn’t want rest. She wanted to remember. She wanted to catch the person who’d left this dark hole in her memory. Her body could still feel the sharp points of his elbows and knees from when he’d tackled her. Alizhan searched for something more useful. A name. “Kasrik, I think?”

  “Kasrik,” Iriyat murmured. “He hit you on the head with volume fifteen of A Natural History of the World. An index to the whole series, a list of every known quake, wave, and eruption and their dates—quite a thick book.”

  The incident came back to her in pieces. Another detail leapt to the surface. “He was working for Mar.”

  Iriyat sighed. “Of course he was. You know Mar’s never had any sense when it comes to me. He probably thinks this is a great game. I will tell him that I do not appreciate him hiring street urchins to break into my home and attack my staff. All for an inconsequential book.”

  “I’ll get it back,” Alizhan promised.

  “When you’re feeling better,” Iriyat said. “You should rest first.”

  Alizhan had broken into Solor House before to spy on Mar’s business dealings or his mistresses. The house sat at the tip of Hahim. It was a challenge, scaling the Nightward side of the cliff and then climbing up to the second story balcony, but she could do it. It wouldn’t be any different than the other times.

  Except—

  “Iriyat,” Alizhan said, a detail suddenly coming back to her. “Kasrik. I think he was like me.”

  Iriyat’s hand stopped moving through her hair for a moment, and then resumed its steady pattern, stroking from the crown of her head on down. “That vicious, conniving rat? No, my little shade-blooming flower, he wasn’t anything like you at all.”

  3

  Touched

  EV’S THORNFRUIT THIEF FLITTED INTO the Arishdenan market, put a finger to her lips, and slid under Ev’s cart.

  In ten years of visits, she’d never done anything like this.

  Ev thought of them as “visits,” although she supposed that, technically, they were robberies. They’d happened every week for ten years, and Ev had never reported a single sighting to Varenx House.

  Her second encounter with the girl had echoed the first. The girl had passed by their cart in the market, still dirty and ragged and small and shivering, but not hiding under another cart this time.

  She’d skimmed her hand over the top of the basket of thornfruit, and before Ev could catch her by the wrist, she’d stolen a handful and slid out of reach. No one else had noticed her.

  The girl had smiled at Ev—so wide and toothy it was nearly feral. She’d let Ev witness the theft. The whole thing had been on purpose. Ev was sure of it.

  Every encounter after that was as fleeting, as silent, and as secret, by some unspoken pact. Ev and the thornfruit girl were participating in something illicit and thrilling.

  Ev could’ve caught her. Ev could’ve said something—asked the girl’s name or offered her own. Ev could’ve grabbed her or chased her. The girl was fast, but Ev had longer legs. And Papa had been teaching her to fight with a staff, so she could’ve tripped the girl.

  Ev never did. It was the only exciting thing about going into the market in Laalvur, wondering if her thief would show up. They’d developed a strange kind of friendship.

  She never told Papa or Mama or Ajee about the girl. They wouldn’t have understood. And Ev liked having a secret. Something she didn’t have to share. None of the other girls in Orzatvur had a thief-friend. None of the boys who spit on her and called her father a murderer had anything that exciting in their lives. And their parents, the shopkeepers and bakers and blacksmiths and cobblers and priests of Orzatvur, the ones who shook their heads and said can you believe her mother lets her wear her hair like that and what do you expect, look who she married when they thought Ev couldn’t hear them, not one of them knew the first thing about Ev’s little mystery.

  The girl was often as Ev had first seen her—filthy an
d dressed in rags—but not always. Over the years, she grew less terrified: more controlled in her movements, more sure in her expression. As her fear lessened, her hair and clothes became less unkempt.

  Ev tried very hard not to think of taming a wild animal, but the comparison was so easy. She’d lured cats and dogs into friendship with the promise of food. But it wasn’t nice to think of the thief like that. She was a person. A strange and intriguing person, but one who made her own choices, not a creature to be domesticated.

  Still, Ev was pleased and honored every time the girl came back.

  She never stole from anyone else, or if she did, Ev never saw it happen.

  Even when the girl no longer looked starved or terrified, Ev worried about her anyway. Her appearances were always brief. They never spoke. Who was she? Was she an orphan? Did she live on the street? Or had she gone back to Varenx House? And if she had, what was she doing out in the world?

  But when the girl—a young woman now, and taller, but only just barely—slid under Ev’s cart, Ev didn’t have time to ask any of these questions. The young woman put a finger to her lips and then disappeared into the shadows.

  Ev stacked the last wooden crate in her cart. Her donkey was already hitched. If he sensed the woman under the cart, he didn’t show it. Ev drew the sheet of burlap cloth over the cart and grabbed her staff.

  Two men, so heavily armed that they clanked when they walked, approached her just as she was turning around. “We’re looking for a girl.”

  It had been a decade since Iriyat ha-Varensi had said the same thing to Ev. A decade since Ev had watched the girl dive into the water and disappear. Papa wasn’t with her this shift, but she remembered his cool disdain for Iriyat ha-Varensi’s questions.

  “I’ve seen a lot of girls. The market is crowded,” Ev said. She didn’t like the way the two men raked their gazes down her body. Laalvur had a city guard, but it was a small force. The Great Houses and other wealthy citizens employed their own men to keep the peace, or so they called it. House guards started fights more often than they ended them. Regardless of the insignia on their tunics, they never made Ev feel any safer. These two men wore blue tunics embroidered with the insignia of Solor, the Great House that sat at the tip of Hahim. Not Varenx House, then.