“I didn’t look that closely,” she said as she wiped her brow with the back of her arm. “It didn’t mean anything. Twenty, or fifty, maybe.”
The next day it finally rained again, washing out the oppressive heat like the dirt from clothes strung through a river.
THE CLOSER THEY GOT, THE HARDER IT WAS TO SLEEP. ORY spent the hours after dinner in one carriage or another, double-checking Imanuel’s inventory. It seemed important—that they be able to present an accurate account to whoever or whatever might be in New Orleans. He worked so late that Ahmadi and Malik had started coming to find him in the carriages once it reached midnight, to tell him to stop and sleep at least a few hours before they had to be up again.
“You need assistants,” Vienna said once as she studied Ory from behind her father’s shoulder. The soldiers who had wandered conspicuously close to catch a peek at his progress all wandered twice as quickly away.
“I’ll manage.” Ory smiled. “I’ll count, you scout.”
“Good deal,” Vienna said. She saluted. “Go to bed, before your head falls off.”
HIS HEAD STAYED ON, BARELY. THE SOLDIERS HAD STARTED whispering about the dark circles under his eyes, and he didn’t help his case when he fell off the carriage the next day while trying to climb up the ladder. “Mondays, eh,” Ory said as he dusted the ass of his pants off. They chuckled, but the concerned looks returned.
“General, you need a break,” Original Smith finally said. “Not that I’m giving you orders.”
“I know.” Ory nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll have a break once we get to New Orleans. We’ll all have one.”
“Amen to that,” Original Smith said.
Ory made it safely onto the carriage that time, and settled in for the long ride.
That night he was in the middle of cataloging a biography stack when the knock came on the wooden door of the carriage, as usual. He opened it to see Ahmadi standing there, for once without her bow. She looked odd without it. Friendlier.
“Midnight already?” he asked.
“Eleven-thirty.” Her voice was not soft, however. There was an extra layer of guardedness to her tone, as if to make up for the lack of her weapon. Of all the people in the army, she was the most frustrating. She had loved Paul and Imanuel, too. He wanted to grow close to her because of that—the way he’d become with Malik, Vienna, the Smiths—but it seemed like the more he got to know Ahmadi, the less he felt like he actually did.
Ory realized she was looking at the small stack of books beside his feet. “What’s that?” she asked.
He looked down. It was a pile for Max. Every night that he spent in a carriage organizing the books, he couldn’t help it—he set aside a few that he thought she would like the most. Just for a few hours, while he worked. Then he’d put them back in with the rest, scattering them so they were as unfindable as she. But for that short time he kept them for her, he felt like Max was there again. “Nothing,” he said.
Ahmadi shrugged. “Well, good. Because it’s lights-out.”
“Okay. Almost done for the night.”
“Ory.” She sighed, a warning note in her voice.
He set the clipboard down and rubbed his eyes. “You know, why does everyone else around here get to go by their last name like a badass, and I have to go by my first name?”
“That’s how you were introduced to us,” she replied, and shrugged. “Imanuel and Paul went by their first names. Using last names was just a Malik thing for the troops—a holdover from his time as a cop before the Forgetting. He started calling the soldiers by their last names during training, and it caught on.”
“Am I not one of the troops?” Ory insisted.
“You’re the General.”
“A general might be the head of the troops, but still a part of it,” he argued.
“Vienna goes by her first name,” Ahmadi said.
“Well, that’s because then we’d have two Maliks. And she’s just a teenager.”
Ahmadi threw up her hands in surrender. “You want to be Zhang, Ory?” she asked. But he saw that the eye roll she threw him was joking, not annoyed. “Fine, you can be Zhang. Hand over the flashlight, Zhang. Don’t make me fight you for it.”
He knew she was serious about him stopping working, but she also had been smiling as she said it. The silly argument had put them both in a rare good mood—there was a hint of nervous teasing in her voice he hadn’t heard before. Ory realized he was smiling, too.
Zhang. He considered it again as he picked up the flashlight, weighing his options. He tried not to look at the small stack of books. Ahmadi waited just outside the carriage, grin still lingering. Her dark eyes studied him intently.