Howl holds up my room assignment. “Argue with Root. It says right here that I’m supposed to be your new roommate.”
“Get out!” Rosebud mouth pinched into a frown, the girl jabs a finger into his chest, making the bones laced into a bracelet around her wrist clack against one another. They aren’t carved into beads or anything, just bones. I rub my wrist as if the bones are touching me instead of the girl, the last bits of some dead thing up against my skin.
I think she means to push Howl right out of the room, but he doesn’t move, trying very hard not to laugh instead.
Before I can intercede, a soft giggle has me spinning around to see another girl sitting on the other bed. She looks about my age, brown hair cut in a close outline around her face. Her light brown eyes are cutely pretty over a flat nose.
Both girls are caked with dirt.
I clear my throat. “I think he means I’m your new roommate.”
Howl’s lips purse in confusion, “No, I don’t mean that at all. I’d be a terrible babysitter if I let you stay here by yourself, Sev. Don’t you remember? I’m responsible for you until they decide you aren’t dangerous.” He turns to the blonde, a snarl still wrinkling her nose. “Which she is, actually. So I’m planning to stay.”
“Sev?” The blonde flicks a muddy strand of hair out of her face, eyes now focused on me. They’re blue. “You’re Jiang Sev.”
Unease splashes over me like a bucket of ice water. Before I can answer, she spins back to Howl. “That would make you . . .”
“Howl,” he says, nodding. “I’m not surprised you’ve heard of me. Most people have.”
She shrugs. “No. I was going to say—”
“—that your name is?”
She blinks at him, not even remotely charmed. “Cale. And my roommate is Mei. Menghu, Fourth Company.”
She smoothes her long coat down over her hips, a twin to the one Helix was wearing, dirt and all. Same tiger and number four, except the embroidery on hers is red. Mei jumps up to stand at her shoulder, which is as far as she comes. “She wants you to tell us how amazing we are. She spent years training to be a scout. And now she’s training me.”
“Are you important enough to get a ration of soap? I think Sev is going to start purposely spreading skin diseases if we don’t find some soon.” Howl raises his eyebrows at me.
“You’re a fighter?” Cale’s fingers brush the tiger on her collar as she looks me up and down. “I thought ‘Jiang’ was a dirty word in the City. If I were a Red, I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near the army.”
“How do you know who I am?” I press my lips together before the less-polite questions brewing in my throat can come out. If she can slaughter four people in under a minute like Helix, I can stick to polite for now.
Mei answers, full lips framing a very wide mouth. “Your mother, of course. Jiang Gui-hua is a legend. She stood up to the City. Tried to open the walls so Outsiders could have Mantis.”
“That isn’t exactly the story they tell in the City.” I walk out without waiting for a reply.
Footsteps behind me mean Howl is following. After a minute, I turn and wait for him. “Where are we supposed to be going?” The telescreen on the wall flashes a crude pink smiling face, as if it can sense how annoyed I am and is trying to calm me down.
“Right now? How about in here.” He grabs my hand and drags me through a doorway. A dusty bunk bed covered by a pile of threadbare quilts is the room’s main occupant. Howl pulls a chair down from a stack in the corner, sliding it over to me. “You’re upset.”
“I’m fine. Let’s go get lunch; I’m starving,” I say.
“Look, Sev.” Howl unfolds another chair and sinks down into it with a sigh. “I didn’t tell you about your mother’s connection to the Mountain.”
I pull my eyes up from the floor. For some reason I thought walking in here would be new. That fitting in would be easy. Just another refugee. But she was here first. “I didn’t ask. I was afraid of what you would say.”
Howl glances down at the chair I have yet to occupy. “Do you really hate her that much?” Something in his voice makes me sit down and look at him. There’s a razor edge hidden under there somewhere, something rattled. “She wasn’t the monster they paint her to be in the City. And . . . she’s your mother. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
I can’t meet his eyes. It does matter. But some things matter more. “She was my mother. But she chose something else.”
“Well, she isn’t going to go away. She’s a hero to these people. She even gave you a . . . a Mountain name. Her ties must run back before you were even born.”
Then all the accusations against her must be true. Asleep for betraying the City. She chose the Mountain over me. Named me for these people, then left me behind, sick from a disease she gave me.
Howl’s hand settles on my knee. “Look at me, Sev. We’re still on the same team. On our own side. Walking in here didn’t change anything. But give this place a chance. I’ll walk right back out with you if you decide that you can’t stay.”
“You want to go live Outside? Smelly tent, rocks in our sleeping bags, and a Seph to keep you company? And best of all, no soap.” I shake his hand with mock severity. Like I can pick up and leave when I’ve got SS waiting just on the other side of my skin. “I’m in. Wood Rats until we die.”
“I’ll cook if you clean. We’ll build a tree house.”
The banter twists the anger out of me. “I wasn’t lying about being hungry,” I say. “Can we get something to eat before I turn into a crabby old lady?”
Mock horror splashes across his face. “Let’s run.”
CHAPTER 21
“NEI-GE, JIAOYANG, ZHUANJIA, YIZHI. AND Menghu you already know about,” Cale informs me in a bored voice, watching as I take a bite of apple. The names of the collectives all sound as if they’re words I should know but have forgotten, each with an ancient sort of twang. “This is the kitchen, if you haven’t figured that out.” She shoots a look at Howl that clearly implies how unexcited she is to be babysitting me. That, if more babysitting is required, the consequences will be bloody.
“Right, I could just show her . . .” Howl trails off at Cale’s glare.
“That isn’t what Zhuanjia asked for. They said I was supposed to give her a tour. I’m giving her a tour.”
The kitchen ceiling is high, one end a counter that opens into the Core, where plates are being handed off to people waiting in line. I take another bite of apple and set my empty plate down next to a sink, dodging a group of brown-clothed workers cutting vegetables into bite-size pieces.
“You’ll end up in here at least once a week for service.” Cale points over to the soapy mounds of dishes. “Zhuanjia oversees the actual cooking, of course. They do all the technical work around here. Cooking, gardening, maintaining the transports and telescreens. Some things everyone can help with, so they just supervise. Like in the kitchen. But don’t expect service duty in the Heart or anything.”
“The Heart?” I smile at her, but she just rolls her eyes.
“The control rooms.” Cale points up toward the high ceiling, where all the windows and walkways poke out through the shiny rock walls of the Core. “All the defense systems, transports, telescreens, and patrol communications sync back there. Even the lights have a grid up there, so they can see where problems are and fix them. Nei-ge offices are also up in the Heart.”
As we walk out into the Core, I catch a girl in yellow frantically gesturing toward her ear, pointing out my birthmark to her friends. Mother’s birthmark. I sigh. Different people, same reaction.
Cale leads us across the Core, rose-colored evening light filtering in through the skylights. “Nei-ge is partly administrative, but all the leaders are elected from each of the collectives.”
“And the other two? Jir-something?” I ask.