broccolifloret

  The upper floor was crowded with cardboard boxes all piled up and slightly moldy at the edges. The singing came from the other side of an open door. On this side, not much of interest other than a wall full of knotted threads hanging from nails and papers tacked on a cork board—receipts, newspaper articles, other things I didn't have time to identify. Because that's when I noticed the woman.

  She wore a dark green shirt and work pants and looked like one of those century-old trees. Much like them, too, you got the feeling a hurricane would barely ruffle her. Suddenly I felt like a kid who'd kicked his ball into the scary neighbor's backyard.

  "Are you Nina?" I asked in Khachimik, because it felt friendlier.

  "Who asks?" Her voice was deep and rough, carrying the accent from the provinces north of the equator. Her greying hair fell loose past her shoulderbdes. I guessed without much confidence she was in her mid-fifties.

  "Azul Mamani. Amankay sent me," I hastened to add.

  "Oh, you've found your way here? Good."

  My scalp crawled.

  These people weren't locked up in their corner of the industrial district. Somehow they'd found out about all the noise I'd been making in the shopping district that afternoon—unless they'd found out when those guards stopped us. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but it was more than I'd suspected.

  Careful now. I still needed them on my side.

  "Looks like I missed my chance to make my introduction." I managed to sound far more carefree than I felt. "Could you tell me who are you, then?"

  "Pilgrims, come to pay our respects to Heruj Awki's ruin where Tomenedra once touched the sky."

  That wasn't what I'd expected.

  Once Tomenedra had been the capital of the Khachimik Empire, one of the greatest and most beautiful cities in the world, right there with Rel Valin and Mar-nat-nas of the terraces and Pelsivón the jewel of gardens. Breath of the Empire, the city crowned by dawn. Once Heruj-tepuy had been the middle one of the Tepuy Trio, the rgest one. Before the Megarchon and the Protectorate and the Imperium. Now there was no Empire and no Heruj-tepuy and no Tomenedra.

  Do you know why High Tomenedra is called that? It's because it rises over the dust of what Tomenedra once was.

  I hesitated for a moment. "Sorry for your loss" felt really awkward. We were talking about something that happened centuries before this woman was born. And yet, it wasn't really wrong. It had been her loss, and my loss, and everyone's loss.

  "Would you allow me to present my respects too?" I asked.

  "What's that to you? Everyone's been dead for centuries."

  Was she reading my mind, too? No—I'd never heard of anybody who could do that, but even if there was someone, I hadn't felt magic between us. She was probably cold-reading me. Trying to knock me off-bance, so that I'd say something revealing.

  "You're really Nina, aren't you?" I asked, because I'd realized I'd allowed her to lead me to that assumption.

  "Yeah."

  "I see. Well, I was just being polite, I guess. Though I can't bme you for not trusting a stranger. I'd never go to the guards or anything, but I can't really prove it."

  "Bring the guards here if you want to. They won't go very far."

  It was her indifferent tone that made my tongue stick to my pate. Maybe she was bluffing. Even if she was, though, she was believable.

  "I know you're helping the, um, the people not working." I didn't know the word for 'strikers' in Khachimik. Nina snorted at that. "What do you need? Money, or maybe someone to peel veggies and wash dishes? I'm good at that."

  "Don't you have an aircraft to board the day after tomorrow? Wait, no. It's already Monday."

  I really wanted to scratch my scalp, but I restrained myself. "If you know so much about me, you should know if I'm useful to your group. Am I?"

  "Go get some sleep and come back tomorrow."

  I was going to protest, but all the exhaustion of my busy day and my ck of sleep fell on my head like a cartful of bricks. I checked my pocket watch, the one I still couldn't remember I owned. As Nina had said, it was past midnight already.

  She'd said I could come back. That was a good sign, right? It better be a good sign. I wasn't in any shape to discuss anything.

  I opened my mouth to say goodbye, but something felt off to me. The singing had stopped. I turned to my left.

  Someone was standing on the doorway. One of those skinny people who look like dry sticks. He didn't have big eyes, but his lean face made them look bigger than they should. The only vibrant thing about him was his shoulder-long hair, shiny bck like obsidian.

  "You surprised me," I said.

  "What about it?" he replied. He hadn't been singing earlier, that was for sure.

  "I knew he was there," Nina unhelpfully said.

  I couldn't keep ignoring how tired I was. My head was feeling fuzzy. Soon I'd be a liability to myself.

  "Anyway, you're right. I should get some sleep." Despite myself, I yawned. And remembered I'd gotten way off track trying to follow the necromancer's trail. Maybe Valentino could find the way back, but I wasn't sure. He'd been paying more attention to me than to our surroundings. "Just wondering, would you be so kind as to show me how to get to the Luxury Heights Hotel?"

  "But of course. You don't leave a guest to fend for himself." Nina turned to the open door. "T'ika!"

  "Move your ass, will you?" someone asked from behind the skinny man's back—also a voice too high-pitched to belong to the singer. He moved away, but slowly, making clear how little this all meant to him.

  T'ika nodded at me, not very interested in my presence. I nodded back. She wasn't very remarkable—neither tall nor short, maybe in her thirties. Like many people in there, she wore faded work clothes. But she did have one of those round faces that feel friendly in almost all situations. At least she banced the other guy.

  "Give him a token to the shopping district." Nina turned to me. "Carriages-for-hire are avaible at all hours."

  "Yeah, that works," I said.

  T'ika took a dried leaf from the leather pouch around her waist and blew on it. Magic crawled across my skin. So strong! The leaf hovered in the air, fluttering like a strange insect.

  "Don't dawdle," T'ika said. "The spell won't st too long. It's safer that way."

  "Thanks." I plucked the leaf from the air. The silly thing still tried to get away, single-mindedly bent in achieving its only purpose. "See you tomorrow."

  I'm pretty sure the skinny guy would've preferred it if I didn't show up anymore, but I made a point of not looking at him in my way out, so that he'd be left gring at the air.

  I meant to retrace my steps to the point where Valentino had left me, but I found him quietly awaiting me in the shadows a block or so before that point.

  "Sergeant Vargas, my good man! Thank you so much for waiting. I'll invite you to as many dinners as you want."

  He turned to me, smiling. "Well, I can't reject such an offer, can I? Did you find them, Your Excellency?"

  I stuck my hand on my pants pocket and felt for the cardboard ticket. Carefully, I took it out. No stream of dust motes. Spells stamped on cardboard don't st long.

  "I think I did, but that's all for today. I also got someone to lead us back, but we'd better hurry."

  After many a snaking street and alley no doubt designed by a drunken urbanist, we did reach the shopping district. Most shops were closed, but the marquees of cafés and bars were alight, and the streets didn't look any less busy. I checked my watch: a bit after four. Well, this crowd dressed like they could afford to stay in bed as long as they pleased. I wasn't going to compin, though, at least not this time. It was because of their presence that we hired a carriage before long.

  And, to be honest, I wasn't really in the mood to walk to the hotel. I sank on the plush seat, wrapping up my jacket around me, stretching out my tired legs before me. My eyes felt so heavy, I couldn't keep them open any longer. It's not as if there was anything I cared to look at in the streets. The carriage's movement rocked me gently, and the shouts and rattling of wheels was a distant murmur.

  "People are inherently selfish." A familiar voice. "It's a byproduct of the inherent drive of the human animal to survive. Only a few can rise above. Only them can become more than animals."

  I felt like a child again: toes that barely touched the floor as I sat on a fine armchair, starched cravat gripping my neck, gleaming gold cufflinks. A bed big and soft like a field of warm snow, having to climb the stairs to reach the highest books in the library and always being told that was too dangerous, I was going to fall.

  Nobody saw me as a child, though. I was a child back at home. Here I was a small adult, smart and patient and a bottomless ocean of emotional understanding. I was a ridiculous novelty in my tailored velvet suit, like a costumed dancing bear in the circus.

  And yet, I couldn't stop being a child, tiny next to the perfumed and bejeweled cohort looking down on me, barely old enough to shape my own useless spells, far too weak to push any of them away. I wasn't safe there I wasn't safe something bad was going to happen to me something bad—

  The night screamed all around me: carriage wheels rolling and ilimec hooves clopping, drunken shouts, an unknown bird shrieking. I was perched on the edge of the carriage seat.

  Valentino looked at me sympathetically. "I'm sorry that st curve woke Your Excellency up."

  I felt like a rug prickling with static electricity. Even so, I managed to smile back at him. I never knew how I could do that. Sometimes it seemed as if, the more I wanted to crawl in a hole and die, the more I smiled and acted normal.

  Normal? What was normal?

  "It's fine." It didn't look weird that I was all sweaty, right? People react poorly to their dreams all the time. "You'd have to wake my up when we reached the hotel, anyway."

  He looked away, into the distance studded with the glow of light globes. "My bad. I should've asked Your Excellency if you wanted to be awoken."

  "Well, I really don't think you'd be able to carry me all the way to our room without waking me up, anyway. But consider my permission given."

  I sank into my seat again, but this time I found no comfort in it. I remembered Vanth carring me in his arms. Had that happened only a couple of nights ago? He knew when I was in danger, or even when I felt endangered, like with Valentino and the Tekitekis in El Meandro. Did he feel that st nightmare? I hoped not. At least I hadn't summoned him. At least this time nobody had noticed anything out of pce.

  One thing at a time. I was too tired to worry about any nightmares. Hopefully I was so tired I'd sleep the entire morning with no dreams. I dragged myself across the almost empty hotel lobby and yawned at my reflection in the elevator doors. Valentino still stood straight as a ruler, and I felt bad for him. Didn't he want to slump? I bet they whip that out of you at the Academy.

  Well, that's what happens in the smutty novels I read from time to time. Of course, even underground literature made sure to protect itself from the Department of Decorous Behavior by setting such stories in the early days of the Protectorate, and having the evil professors ousted and the academy in question reformed at the ending. I always thought that was a really boring way of concluding the book, but it's not as if I was reading them for the plot anyway. As for what really happened, I had no clue. I wasn't going to ask Valentino about it, though. It'd make me sound real silly.

  As I opened the door to our room, I was greeted by a devastation of packets ripped open and drawers thrown on the floor. Before I could back away, a hand closed around my wrist and pulled me inside.

  broccolifloret