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  “Didn’t you come all the way across the ocean with a book you couldn’t read?” Thiyo asked. “She must have thought there was something important inside.” He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the dissipating memory. Only one character was clear enough to decipher. “That book was about wai. Liquor made from medusa venom.”

  For some reason, Ev froze and Alizhan went sickly grey.

  “Is there a wai trader in Laalvur? Was that the trader’s home?” An islander far from home might have brought a book with him. It was still forbidden, but at least it explained the book’s provenance.

  “People… drink that stuff?” Ev asked. What did these two know about medusa venom? What was horrifying them?

  “It’s a rare delicacy,” Thiyo said. “And this gives me an idea for how we can get you through the wedding feast. Wai will dampen your gift.”

  “So my choices are to drink poison or keep hurting us both?”

  “What choice?” Thiyo said. “Just because I thought of another option doesn’t mean you can stop practicing. And it’s not poison. It has a pleasant burn, that’s all. Now tell me what happened when we touched so we can make it stop.”

  “I don’t know! I was just sitting there!”

  “You weren’t expecting me. You weren’t prepared. Good. What else? What were you thinking about?”

  Alizhan had hardly looked at him the whole time they’d been in the dressing room. Her gaze wandered aimlessly and it was easier to ignore it. But even when she was staring into space, her features still jumped and stretched and moved with her emotions, and Thiyo saw an instant of recognition pass through her eyes, followed by horror.

  “Ev. I was thinking about Ev before you touched me. I was thinking about—” Alizhan closed her mouth and her eyes at the same time. Thiyo guessed the end of the sentence without any further help: touching Ev. Was Alizhan embarrassed? She didn’t seem the type. Ev, on the other hand, was shifting behind Thiyo, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at the floor.

  “Well,” he said, all too aware of the three people crammed into this tiny room. “Don’t do that this time.”

  “This time? How many times are we going to do this?”

  “We do it again until we don’t need to.” But touching her again meant exposing random snatches of his life. She’d already seen—lived—something that made him heartsick and vulnerable. And what he’d experienced of her life didn’t leave him eager for more. Thiyo knew how to protect himself, but that would defeat the point of the exercise. Alizhan had to touch someone who wasn’t guarding their thoughts. “And this time, you practice with Ev.”

  8

  Liquor Will Fix That

  ALIZHAN ARGUED LONG AND HARD against Thiyo’s plan. “I don’t get announced,” she said. She always overemphasized words in moments of strong feeling, as though she couldn’t understand why everyone around her hadn’t instantly intuited all her thoughts, and had concluded they must all be simple. Alizhan gestured sharply at the bright bolts of cloth stacked in Erinsk’s shop and the incomplete dresses draped over tables. “I don’t get looked at. I sneak in.”

  “You’ll do plenty of sneaking,” Thiyo promised.

  “A map,” Alizhan scoffed, responding to something unspoken in Thiyo’s thoughts. “I don’t need a map. I can see into people’s minds, in case you forgot what we just spent hours doing. This whole plan is unnecessarily complicated. Just let me find a servant’s entrance and slip in. I’ll get the book and get out.”

  “You forget this plan isn’t only for your benefit,” Thiyo said. “I have goals of my own.”

  “Yes, yes, you want to find out who betrayed you,” Alizhan said, as though everyone had known this information for ages. Thiyo must have been thinking about potential suspects. It was taxing, following a conversation that was half unsaid, but Ev was getting a lot of practice. “I still don’t see why I have to go. Take Ev with you and let me do what I do best.”

  “Close but not quite. A rare miss for you, Alizhan,” Thiyo said. It didn’t seem to bother him that Alizhan was eavesdropping on his thoughts. He was no longer hiding from her. Ev supposed they’d already discovered his most pressing secret. What could be left to find?

  “Oh,” Alizhan said.

  Ev made the connection a moment later. “You want Alizhan to find out who betrayed you.”

  Thiyo smiled. Alizhan looked considerably less happy about this development. “You want me to stay in a huge crowd of people for hours, reading hundreds of minds. Do you have any idea how hard that will be? Mala taught me a little, but crowds will never be easy for me.”

  Alizhan had sat on a ledge above Temple Street for hours, waiting to find someone—a priest named Eliyan Matrishal—who could help them smuggle nineteen orphans out of Laalvur. But that had been life and death. This was Thiyo’s personal vendetta.

  “You practiced for the last half-shift,” Thiyo said.

  Ev’s head still ached from it. Alizhan hadn’t knocked her unconscious the way she had with Thiyo, but each touch, no matter how light and darting, had raked through her thoughts. Alizhan had hated hurting her, despite Ev’s assurances that it was worth it. And while it had hurt, and a ribbon of dread had twined through Ev’s gut every time she waited for the next strike, Ev would offer up her bare skin again right now if Alizhan asked. Practice, even painful practice, was the first step to something better. She wanted that something better enough to suffer for it.

  “And when we’re at the wedding, you’ll have wai to take the edge off,” Thiyo said. “And I don’t need you to read hundreds of minds. Just a few select minds. I’ll give you their descriptions.” Alizhan and Ev shared a laugh, and Thiyo’s brows drew together. “Shit,” he said, remembering. “You can’t tell people apart.”

  “It doesn’t stop me from getting things done,” Alizhan said. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Thiyo was still working through his revelation. “That little memory was so brief—Mah Yee, I didn’t think about the implications. So you don’t know what I look like?”

  Of course that was his first question. Ev rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t even know what I look like.”

  “We’re both gorgeous,” he said. His grin had a rakish slant to it, which only Ev could perceive.

  “Well, I know that,” Alizhan said. “But if I’m not looking at you, I can’t remember how far apart your eyes are, or how long your nose is, or what shape your lips are, or any of eight thousand other little tiny details that everyone else seems to notice immediately and retain forever.”

  “So how do you know we’re gorgeous, then?”

  “Same reason I don’t need a map,” Alizhan quipped.

  Ev, uncomfortable with the topic at hand, said, “Can we please get back to the plan? What are the two of us going to do, if Alizhan is doing all the work?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, it will be very diverting.”

  “Perfect,” Thiyo murmured, his lips brushing the shell of Ev’s ear. He’d practically draped himself over her body, and draped was the right word, given the lavish gown he was wearing. Erinsk had several gowns waiting for Thiyo—or Lan, was she supposed to think of him as Lan now?—and this one was a shimmering golden green with luxuriantly long, ruffled sleeves and skirts that whispered over the smooth stone floor. The color of the silk suited Thiyo’s tan complexion, and if Ev hadn’t watched him rub creams and powders into his face for an hour, she might think he had a natural, healthy glow about him. He made an astonishingly beautiful woman.

  “Just like that,” Thiyo said. “Look stiff and unhappy and like you don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  Woman or not, beautiful or not, Ev didn’t trust their new companion any more than she had in the prison. She hated everything about this plan, from Thiyo’s ostentatious touches to the echoing stone antechamber where they were standing in line to be announced before they entered the main hall.

  While Thiyo was still close enough that no one else could hear, she hissed,
“I thought you said Nalitzvans considered men and women touching in public an affront to decency.”

  “They do,” he said, with relish. “And I have a reputation to maintain.” Then he kissed the side of her neck just below her ear. His teeth grazed her skin.

  Ev’s mind went blank for an instant. Then she came back to herself with a flurry of half-formed thoughts. That was so—he was so—her neck—no one had ever—smoke and fucking fire, they were in public. Her cheeks heated. Why was her heart beating so hard? Had she… enjoyed that? No. Absolutely not. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have. Thiyo was unbearable. He just wanted to embarrass her. She clenched her thighs together.

  Breathe, she told herself. She held her arms at her side and resolutely did not rub her fingers over the spot where he had kissed her. Bitten her. The skin was still tender. Why was he like this? Why was she like this?

  “You’re irresistible,” Thiyo murmured.

  Now he was mocking her. What an awful smirk. Ev might not be a great beauty—certainly not right now—but he didn’t have to tease her about it. And Thiyo could easily have warned her that Lan was famous not only for her moods but also for her scandalous public displays of affection. But of course he hadn’t. Did he have to be an asshole in every possible way?

  Thiyo’s green silk headscarf brushed her cheek as he extricated himself from her, after lingering in the embrace a moment longer than necessary. He seemed to be taking great pleasure in her discomfort. But as he pulled away, their eyes met, and his expression changed. He stopped smiling.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Oh what?” Ev snapped, still whispering.

  “I didn’t think—I didn’t intend—” he started. “I won’t do it again.”

  “Good.”

  “But if I behave too properly, people will be suspicious.”

  “Fine.” At least he wasn’t asking her to smile. That would have stretched her acting ability to its limit. But she could look stoic and taciturn for a few hours while Thiyo pretended to flirt with her. Then she and Alizhan would get out with the book and never see Thiyo or Nalitzva again.

  They had to keep their conversation to a whisper because he’d demanded that she play this stupid role in Adpri, of all things. Ev’s grasp of her father’s native language was childlike at best. If she wanted to say anything to Thiyo in Laalvuri, she’d either have to whisper it in his ear like a lover murmuring sweet nothings, as Thiyo had, or adopt a foreign accent. She planned to use the second option from now on.

  In line behind them, Alizhan shifted from one foot to the other, impatient and even more uncomfortable than Ev. Ev resisted the urge to turn around and check on her. There was nothing she could do for Alizhan now.

  Thiyo reached up with his good hand and adjusted the silk scarf that disguised his short hair. A little fringe of lustrous black hair at the edges and an artful curl or two at the ears were all that could be seen. Apparently, Lady Lan used to keep her shiny black hair in beautiful waist-length waves and was known for her elaborate, trend-setting styles. But the prison guards had hacked off Thiyo’s hair so that only an inch or two remained. There hadn’t been time to secure a convincing wig, so the scarf served as a solution. Erinsk had loudly lamented this loss in Laalvuri for Ev and Alizhan. He’d discussed at length how much better all his designs would have looked if Thiyo still possessed long hair, until Thiyo snapped at him.

  “I’ll tell them it’s an islander custom to cut off one’s hair in a period of mourning,” Thiyo had said. “They’ll love that.”

  “Won’t they ask about what you’re mourning?” Alizhan said.

  “Mourning what could have been.” Thiyo softened his voice and put his good hand to his heart, staring wistfully into the distance. The gesture and the words were theatrical, but the change in his voice was subtle and convincing. Little differences in pitch, volume, intonation and accent combined into a transformation. Thiyo never sounded foreign, but Lan did. That was when Ev had begun to understand how he’d fooled all of Nalitzva for a year.

  The most complicated part of Lan’s ensemble was not, to Ev’s surprise, the corseted undergarment with false breasts. One was ready in the shop, and Erinsk had laced Thiyo into it with efficiency. Thiyo’s sides were covered in dark, ugly bruises, but he didn’t complain. He grimaced once as Erinsk was tightening the last of the lacings, and that was all. Nor was the most complicated part the hip pad meant to emphasize his artificially tiny waist, or the mountain of petticoats required to achieve the desired silhouette.

  The real pain and difficulty had come later, when Thiyo had insisted that they remove Mala’s splints and bandages so that he could fit his hands into gloves.

  “I can’t very well tell anyone that Lady Lan of Hoi just spent weeks getting tortured in prison,” Thiyo had said, when she’d expressed reservations about his plan. “How else do you propose we explain this horror?”

  Then he’d shoved his broken hand toward Ev’s face. It had taken an effort to remain still, faced with his injuries, but Ev hadn’t wanted to prove his point.

  Erinsk had looked at Ev with sympathy. “Is stubborn,” he’d said in Laalvuri.

  The white gloves the tailor had found didn’t match the gown or each other. The right one had to be a larger size to accommodate the swelling, and so it was in a different style with no lace trim at the edges. The long sleeves of the gown mostly covered this imperfection, and with some care, no one would notice.

  Currently, Thiyo’s right hand was resting lightly in the crook of Ev’s elbow while they waited. She wanted to fidget, but she didn’t want to jostle his injury.

  She might, if he tried to kiss her again.

  Behind her, Alizhan sighed in frustration. It brought Ev no comfort that Alizhan was even more miserable than she was. Thiyo had insisted that he could get them both into the wedding feast this way, with fancy clothes and fake names, as long as they would let him do the talking.

  Ev snapped to attention as they stepped over the threshold into the great hall with its high white vaulted ceiling, easily the most massive room she’d ever seen. Chandeliers hung with glass globes of lamp fluid and decorative crystal lit the room with a soft glow, reflected in the gleam of the smooth white stone. Hundreds of other, smaller lamps festooned the edges of the room. Ev had never seen such a display of wealth, and she hadn’t even begun to catalog the array of dishes on the tables, or the gowns of the guests, or the fleet of servants dressed in discreet grey uniforms.

  She was so distracted that she almost missed the herald calling out, “The Lady Lan of Hoi, Ambassador of the Islands and esteemed guest of His Highness Prince Ilyr, and her companion, the physician Djal Udborum of Adappyr, and her dear friend, the honorable Lady Yiran Selevi of Laalvur.”

  The exact cultural significance of these names—their positions in various social hierarchies and their resemblances to any real people—had been the subject of fierce bickering in Erinsk’s shop.

  “I don’t see why I have to go as a man,” Ev had said. “Why can’t you go as a man, since you are—”

  “The plan relies on me being Lan,” Thiyo had said, his patience obviously wearing thin. “I haven’t been seen in court for weeks. Rumors are flying. Everyone knows that the prince and I were close, but we haven’t been seen together recently. I absolutely cannot show up at the prince’s wedding alone.”

  “You won’t be alone! There are two of us!”

  “People don’t care about friendship here,” Thiyo had said, with finality. “Not when there’s sex to gossip about. I would, of course, be thrilled to take you as you are, but that’s not how Nalitzva works. We can’t both be women. And Alizhan will eventually be needed elsewhere.”

  Then Alizhan had turned to Ev and said, in her utterly matter-of-fact, Alizhan way, “You were never bothered by pretending to be a man with me.”

  The expression of delight on Thiyo’s face at those words had made Ev want to dissolve into a puddle and seep into the cracks in the floor.

  “
You have experience,” he’d crowed. “Wait, with that figure?” The look he gave her was analytical, rather than leering. After a moment, he’d said, “What did you do about your hips? I have the hip pads and the petticoats, and I changed the way I walked, and even now, I still don’t feel I’ve perfected it. But you’d have an entirely different problem.”

  He’d given every impression of being truly interested in her answer, and Ev had found she didn’t know how to respond when Thiyo was being sincere. “Nothing, really. Just a change of clothes. People see what they want to see.”

  “That they do,” he’d said and smiled. “Excellent. This won’t be difficult at all. I’m also going to need you to pretend to be Adpri.”

  “What?”

  Unfortunately for Ev, he hadn’t been joking. At least she didn’t have to wear stays. Dressing as a man from Adappyr allowed Ev to wear loose trousers and a tunic in a bold red geometric print. The cut was only slightly different from what she wore every triad. She was also wearing a long red overcoat in a thick fabric—Thiyo’s suggestion to hide her hips, although “hips” wasn’t the word he’d used—and a matching cap. She’d bound her breasts flat, but that was a familiar kind of discomfort, and only a mild one. Ev had reluctantly permitted Thiyo to rub all sorts of mysterious powders onto her face, and she had to admit that in the end, the effect was fairly convincing. There was even a faint suggestion of facial hair. She still looked like herself, but… different, somehow. Heavier brows. A more angular jaw.

  Alizhan hadn’t been so lucky. Nalitzvan fashion for women looked hellish. All those heavy petticoats and skirts, no room to breathe, and you practically had to put your tits on a shelf for display. They weren’t much for embellishments or embroidery, Nalitzvans. It was all soft hues and softer textures, perhaps to make up for the dramatic, wasp-waisted silhouettes that were in style. Alizhan’s pale blue silk gown had a fashionably low neckline that revealed the shallow dip between her small breasts, which Ev hadn’t noticed and wasn’t thinking about at all.