Nightvine Read online

He desperately wanted medicine, but couldn’t risk it. There was still too much to do.

  “You must forgive Liyet—the girl—her hesitation,” Erinsk was saying. “She’s new here and doesn’t know all my clients yet. But she’s an excellent assistant, brilliant with numbers, and perfectly discreet. Madam Zhenev found her for me and you know her standards. You can trust Liyet as you trust me.”

  Liyet took her leave with a nod and walked to the back of the shop. There was something funny about how she looked at him, but through the haze of pain, Thiyo had difficulty placing it. Perhaps it was that she didn’t stare at him like he was a curiosity in a cage, the way everyone else in Nalitzva did. But she couldn’t possibly have recognized him. There were only two full-blooded islanders in Nalitzva—Lady Lan and an elderly wai trader—and he didn’t look like either of them. Not with his face bruised and his hair shorn.

  Thiyo swayed on his feet. It was a wonder he hadn’t passed out in front of his new companions yet. They were standing behind him, hovering in the threshold of the tailor shop. The big one, Ev, was still and looming like a statue of some ancient warrior goddess. Even knowing that she cared about justice or kindness or nobility of spirit or whatever other boring selfless traits, and that she’d never hurt him unless she had cause, Thiyo felt a little chill.

  He shouldn’t have provoked her as much. But she made it so easy. Her reactions were a tiny pleasure, and he’d been starved of pleasure for a long time. Thiyo had, perhaps, been meaner than he should have. Suffering cruelty had made him cruel. He regretted that.

  The little uheko one—Alizhan—was practically bouncing behind him. She’d looked ragged after taking out the prison guard with a touch, but she seemed to have recovered. Her gaze jumped from the bolts of cloth to the unfinished outfits to old Erinsk himself. The short, rotund tailor produced the city’s finest gowns and he always dressed to showcase his own talents. He’d appreciate the attention to his gold-embroidered scarlet coat, even if Alizhan was sure to offend him soon enough.

  Erinsk was still talking. He wasn’t the only brilliant tailor in Nalitzva, but he was the only brilliant tailor who had no qualms about fulfilling Thiyo’s unusual requests. As far as Thiyo knew, Erinsk had been both loyal and discreet, which was something of a miracle, considering how chatty he was. Thiyo forced himself to listen. What if Erinsk knew something useful? The man loved gossip. It was why they got along so well.

  “What happened, darling? We thought you had run off, you know, no one—and I mean no one—knew where you went. I kept working on all your orders, of course! I don’t give up so easily. And you entrusted me with so much—well, anyway, I don’t mean anything by this, so please don’t get offended, but I thought you might have gone off in a huff to sulk somewhere. I know how you get, with your feelings. You’re a delight, of course, I wouldn’t change a hair—well, I would change that mess you’ve got on your head now, but you know what I’m talking about.

  “But then Zhenev’s girls happened to mention to me that all the book peddlers were selling something really spicy, something forbidden, and I went out to have a look for myself. Don’t look so horrified, I might be old but I’m not dead yet. And I would know you anywhere, darling—oh all the gods above and below, your hand!”

  Erinsk reached for Thiyo’s broken right hand. Thiyo recoiled.

  “You need a doctor.”

  “I can’t go to a doctor.” Erinsk knew that.

  Then Alizhan interrupted in Laalvuri, “We know someone who would help you. She’s a healer on a smuggling ship, so she’ll keep your secrets.”

  Thiyo liked Alizhan. She fascinated him. The brutality of his life in prison had been so simple. Monotonous. Either they were beating him or he was waiting to die. Despair was boring. Thiyo hated being bored. But now he was free—and free to entertain himself—and Alizhan could cure what ailed him. She was such a puzzle. All the uheko at home were trained from an early age to cope with their own powers. They often remained eccentric even after their education, depending on the nature of their gifts. But they were never allowed to go untrained. That was a disaster waiting to happen.

  She couldn’t have been in Nalitzva very long before someone had noticed her. That was probably why she’d been thrown in prison, although it didn’t explain the presence of her ungifted friend. The Nalitzvans feared magic too much to let an uheko with no control—and with such obvious and overflowing power—wander among them. They were wrong in their violent solutions, but their fear was justified. Thiyo had seen what Alizhan could do with her hands.

  The young woman herself was direct. After a year of courtly euphemisms, Thiyo found her refreshing. She was a singular creature, rough around the edges and all the more charming for it. But it was a shame, the way her gift had been allowed to grow wild and overrun her life. Even in the scant hours they’d spent together, it was clear how she yearned for and feared touch.

  They’d part ways soon enough, but perhaps Thiyo could teach her something before then. Solving that puzzle might distract him from the wreckage of his own life.

  “And who are your friends,” Erinsk was saying, but Thiyo was having trouble concentrating on the words. He needed that healer, or medicine, or maybe just to lie down. He could close his eyes. Erinsk wouldn’t let him die. Think of all the revenue he’d lose if Thiyo died.

  Alizhan and Ev introduced themselves in the briefest possible way. There was a buzzing in his ears.

  “Alizhan, watch out, he’s going to—”

  “Darling, sit down.” Erinsk switched from Nalitzvan to accented Laalvuri. “Yes, good, help—help my client to a chair.”

  Someone’s hands closed around his shoulders. He was slow to react. The touch was unexpectedly gentle. Were they going to hurt him again? No, no, he wasn’t in prison anymore. He was in Erinsk’s shop, being guided toward a chair. It couldn’t be the funny little untrained uheko touching him, so it had to be the other one. Not gifted, but no less unusual.

  Thiyo himself wasn’t eccentric, despite the way Nalitzvans gaped when they encountered him. He was very simple: interested in pretty things, pretty words, and pretty people, and utterly lacking in ambition or direction outside those three categories. His mother had always told him he’d never go far in life.

  Alone in a cell an ocean away from home, Thiyo’d had ample time to contemplate those words. Technically, she’d been wrong.

  Someone was wrapping his good hand around a glass of water and guiding his arm upward until he drank. The water splashed clean and cool against his throat, a momentary distraction from the angry blur of sensation somewhere at the end of his other arm.

  Perhaps Thiyo would eventually have the chance to tell his mother how wrong she’d been, now that his death by torture or starvation or execution—secret or public, which would be worse?—was no longer imminent. Thiyo blinked, realized three people were staring at him with concern, and focused on their faces for an instant. Who were they, again? Oh, yes: Dyevyer Erinsk, Ev, Alizhan.

  Names. Names were important. He couldn’t remember why.

  They were still staring, and he wanted to tell them it was fine, he was fine, he was going to stand up and explain everything in just a second. He had a plan. It was an excellent plan. He couldn’t think of the words to describe his plan right then—or any words—but it was going to make everything better.

  Instead, he managed half a smile. He was grateful to them. For the water. For the chair. For postponing his death. He was especially grateful that Alizhan had enough ability to consider him trustworthy, but not enough training to find him totally transparent. But he was floundering now, so maybe she could see through him after all. Was this how it felt to be floating in dark waters, hovering just above the faint glow of a giant medusa? To be in the presence of something beautiful, feral, and deadly? Thiyo had never wanted to sail out into the ocean and find one of the monsters, but that was how he imagined it. Awe and admiration at the same time.

  Alizhan was much cuter than a giant medusa.
So little. And funny. Thiyo would keep her if Ev wouldn’t kill him for it.

  That was cute, too, the way they cared for each other. There was no one in the world who cared about Thiyo like that. Not anymore.

  The pain was making him maudlin. He wanted to close his eyes, but there was something he needed to remember. Little by little, it floated up from the depths and came into the light. Darling. My client. Erinsk hadn’t said a name yet. He hadn’t said any pronouns, either. Mother Mah Yee bless Dyevyer Erinsk with smooth seas and good hunting. Thiyo was going to pay him double for everything. Triple.

  Thiyo was safe. Right now, that meant only one thing. “I want to lie down.”

  The prisoner had lied to them. Not the kind of lie evil people told to cover up their wrongdoing, but the kind of lie that terrified, hunted people told to protect themselves. Alizhan could treat that kind of lie gently. She watched the old tailor and Ev—mostly Ev—help the prisoner out of his chair. He stood unsteadily. Ev waited behind him, her arms ready in case he fell.

  She didn’t even like him. But Ev was Ev, and she wasn’t going to let a wounded man drop unconscious on the floor in front of her. When Erinsk pointed toward a set of stairs at the back of the shop, Ev took one look at the prisoner and scooped him up. They made a funny picture, since the prisoner was almost as tall as Ev and his long, slender legs hung over her arms.

  Having nothing better to do, Alizhan followed them up the stairs. Long falls of drapery in every texture and hue—Alizhan could reach out and touch one in pale, gauzy pink and another in flowing, satiny blue—were spread over all the tables and dress models she passed. They looked like things Iriyat might wear, if she dressed in the Nalitzvan style. Erinsk’s clientele must be rich.

  The prisoner had left himself out of his own story, but he’d obviously lived at court with all the people he described. He’d have to possess that level of wealth to frequent a tailor like this. And Erinsk was obviously a trusted friend. He’d been very concerned with the prisoner’s secret.

  People said “deepest secret.” Sometimes that was the case, and forbidden thoughts were buried under layers. But often enough, people caressed their secrets. They brought them out of the dark, like a rich man opening his safe every triad to make sure his gold was still there. Erinsk was worried about the prisoner—and unaware that he’d been in prison—and extremely concerned about the two strangers he’d brought to the shop. Erinsk didn’t yet trust Alizhan and Ev. That was why he couldn’t say the name Lan.

  He couldn’t say it, but it flew high in his mind like a flag in the wind. Erinsk was wringing his hands as he labored up the stairs after Ev, thinking to himself: what happened to Lan?

  Lan. The woman in the prisoner’s story. That was the lie.

  Alizhan ought to have put it together herself. She’d met Prince Ilyr once, three years ago. He’d been an anxious mess at Iriyat’s party and she’d found him outside in a hallway, trying to slow his breathing. They’d talked just long enough for her to offer him a drink in secret. But she’d learned something about him in that moment: another secret so important that its holder kept it in his thoughts at all times. Ilyr had been upset at the party because he didn’t want to marry Ezatur’s daughters. He didn’t desire any of the women there, not Sideran or Iriyat, no matter how beautiful or charming they were, and no one would leave him alone about it. His whole life was a series of invented excuses and polite refusals and he was tired. He’d never wanted a woman like that and he never would. It would mean his death and shame for his family if he said so, but he was firm in his thoughts.

  Ilyr didn’t like women. He’d never bring home a Lady Lan from the islands for a secret affair. And he wouldn’t be jealous if she slept with Princess Aniyat.

  But the prisoner, under that explosion of purple and green bruises and that layer of grime, was a well-made man. Alizhan couldn’t tell what his face looked like, but with a little work—clever tailoring—that long, slender body of his could pass for feminine.

  And Dyevyer Erinsk had lamented the loss of the prisoner’s hair.

  Ev laid the prisoner on a downy white bed while Erinsk thanked her in Laalvuri. Alizhan walked right up to the bed. She should kneel or take the prisoner’s hand or do something sweet and reassuring like Ev would, but she couldn’t touch him and it would be better just to get things over with.

  “You’re Lan.”

  His eyes flew open and he jerked up, fully awake now and reeling from the pain of moving. He reached out, not to touch her but to gesture expansively. “No, no, you don’t understand—”

  “You’re your ‘sister.’ You’re Ilyr’s lover.”

  She hadn’t touched him, and yet he winced. “Former lover.”

  “So I do understand,” Alizhan said, breezing past that painful admission. When she’d first spoken, Erinsk had moved closer to her as if he could protect the man in the bed, even though Alizhan was just standing with her hands at her sides. But now he took a step back. “And it’s okay. We’re not going to tell anyone else. Ilyr doesn’t like women. I feel silly that it took me so long to remember, really, but we’ve been busy escaping from prison and I passed out and all that, so it wasn’t that long when you think about it. Anyway, I don’t care and neither does Ev. You helped us and we’re going to keep helping each other and I just thought you should know.”

  “Maybe you can tell us the real story after you rest,” Ev said.

  “It was real enough,” he said, his voice quieter now that he was lying back against the pillow.

  That shocked Ev and she was about to have some kind of outburst, but Alizhan raised a hand and shook her head, and Ev choked back her surprise.

  “Lan’s not your name,” Alizhan said. Erinsk, who hadn’t said much, but who was following the Laalvuri conversation, was taken aback by this. Alizhan tilted her head toward him. “But that’s how your tailor thinks of you.”

  The prisoner said something genuinely apologetic and grateful to him in Nalitzvan, offering his good hand to Erinsk, who leaned forward to take it. Erinsk inclined his head in acceptance of the apology and let go of the prisoner’s hand.

  The prisoner switched back to Laalvuri and said, “Erinsk knows me as Lan because I always came here as her. He accepted me and kept my secret and I’m grateful to him. I didn’t give him another name to call me. He already knew enough for you to discover me.”

  The prisoner offered his good hand to Alizhan. What did that mean? He was friends with Erinsk, but he’d only just met Alizhan. Was it a gesture of apology? A confirmation of her suspicions? An offering? His hand might as well have been a venomous snake. She stared at it and didn’t move until he let it drop back to the bed.

  Alizhan was relieved. “It was noble of you to try to protect him, I guess, although maybe you were only protecting yourself. But anyway, I was going to ask what your real name is.”

  She still couldn’t understand much of what he was thinking or feeling, but underneath the raging storm cloud of his physical pain, there was a funny tinge of amusement and sadness. “As I said, I’ve been Lan for a year and it was real enough. But the rest of the time, I’m Thiyo.”

  Thiyo woke up in a soft, unfamiliar bed, with a soft, unfamiliar woman sitting next to the bed and touching his broken hand. Nothing hurt. He felt happy and peaceful. A lightness. An indescribable bliss.

  The woman was dark-skinned, wearing a long orange dress and a matching scarf around her hair. Probably Adpri. Older than him. Average height. Plump. She was making him feel better than anyone else, family or friend or lover, ever had. She should touch him some more.

  He smiled at her in invitation. “Come here, beautiful.”

  The woman smiled back at him with a little shake of her head and didn’t move. That was okay. He was comfortable. He closed his eyes again.

  Next time he woke up, after a while, he remembered he was in Erinsk’s apartment above the shop. Erinsk had been there with him at one point, along with the two women from the prison. They knew he w
as Lan. No one had killed him yet and that was good. He asked the Adpri woman who she was. Even to his own ears, he sounded dreamy and distant.

  She smiled at him again. Using a very soothing tone, she said several sentences he didn’t understand at all.

  That wasn’t right. Thiyo shot up in bed. Once his hand was out of her grip, pain flooded his senses and he gasped. He pulled his injured hand toward his body, as if he could protect himself from further pain. Some of his fingers were splinted. There was a linen bandage wrapped around his palm. His hand, though still bruised, looked cleaner than it had in a long time.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” the woman was saying in warmly accented Laalvuri. “I’m trying to fix your hand, but I’m not done yet.”

  “You gave me venom,” Thiyo accused in that same language.

  “So you do speak Laalvuri,” she said, surprised.

  “I do when people don’t drug me out of my mind.”

  “I didn’t, I promise,” she said. “My name is Mala. Our mutual friends Ev and Alizhan brought me here half a shift ago. ‘Here’ meaning the apartment above your tailor’s shop. You’ve been unconscious almost the whole time I’ve been here. If you let me touch you, the pain will get better. I can’t make you heal any faster, unfortunately, but I’ll do what I can.”

  So she was uheko, too. He didn’t immediately return his hand to her, even though he wanted to. He needed his wits.

  Thiyo couldn’t recall dreaming, but he’d woken up happy and relaxed, and that was cause for concern. He had nothing to feel happy or relaxed about. Thiyo vaguely remembered flirting with the woman. He wasn’t troubled by that so much as all the other things he might have said. “Did I say anything while I was unconscious?”

  “Not in any language I know,” she said. And then added, smirking: “I got the gist, though.”

  “My apologies.”

  “Not necessary. I get that a lot,” she said, and shrugged.

  He hadn’t offended her or accidentally revealed anything. That would have to be good enough. His hand was throbbing. He touched it carefully and then hissed out a breath of agony. Did it feel worse than before? Was that even possible? “What did they tell you about me?”