“See?” Izzi says. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“We still have to go back.”
Izzi doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks intently into the shadows behind me. I turn, searching them with her, listening for anything out of the ordinary. The only sound is of water slapping hull.
“Sorry.” She shakes her head. “I thought...never mind. Lead the way.”
The docks crawl with laughing drunks and sailors stinking of sweat and salt. The ladies of the night beckon to anyone passing, their eyes like fading coals.
Izzi stops to stare, but I pull her after me. We stick to the shadows, trying our best to disappear into the darkness, to catch no one’s eye.
Soon we leave the docks behind. The further we get into Serra, the more familiar the streets become, until we climb over a low section of mud-brick wall and into the Quarter.
Home.
I never appreciated the smell of the Quarter before: clay and earth and the warmth of animals living close together. I trace my finger through the air, marveling at the whorls of dust dancing in the soft moonlight. Laughter tinkles from nearby, a door slams, a child shouts, and beneath it all, the low murmur of conversation thrums. So different from the silence that weighs on Blackcliff like a death shroud.
Home. I want it to be true. But this isn’t home. Not anymore. My home was taken from me. My home was burned to the ground.
We make our way toward the square at the center of the Quarter, where the Moon Festival is in full swing. I push back my scarf and undo my bun, letting my hair fall loose like all the other young women.
Beside me, Izzi’s right eye is wide as she takes it all in. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says. “It’s beautiful. It’s...” I take the pins from her fair hair. She puts her hands to her head, blushing, but I pull them down.
“Just for tonight,” I say. “Or we won’t blend in. Come on.”
Smiles greet us as we make our way through the exuberant crowds. Drinks are offered, salutations exchanged, compliments murmured, sometimes shouted, to Izzi’s embarrassment.
It is impossible not to think of Darin and how much he loved the festival.
Two years ago, he dressed in his finest clothing and dragged us to the square early. That was when he and Nan still laughed together, when Pop’s advice was law, when he had no secrets from me. He brought me stacks of moon cakes, round and yellow like the full moon. He admired the sky lanterns that lit the streets, strung so cleverly that they looked as if they were floating.
When the fiddles warbled and the drums thumped, he grabbed Nan and paraded her around the dance stages until she was breathless with laughter.
This year’s festival is packed, but remembering Darin, I feel wrenchingly alone. I’ve never thought about all the empty spaces at the Moon Festival, all the places where the disappeared, the dead, and the lost should be. What’s happening to my brother in prison while I stand in this joyful crowd? How can I smile or laugh when I know he’s suffering?
I glance at Izzi, at the wonder and joy on her face, and sigh, pushing away the dark thoughts for her sake. There must be other people here who feel as lonely as I do. Yet no one frowns, or cries, or sulks. They all find reason to smile and laugh. Reason to hope.
I spot one of Pop’s former patients and make a sharp turn away from her, pulling my scarf back up to shadow my face. The crowd is thick, and it will be easy to lose anyone familiar in the throng, but it’s better if I go unrecognized.
“Laia.” Izzi’s voice is small, her touch light on my arm. “Now what do we do?”
“Whatever we want,” I say. “Someone is supposed to find me. Until he does, we watch, dance, eat. We blend in.” I eye a nearby cart, manned by a laughing couple and surrounded by a mob of outstretched hands.
“Izzi, have you ever tasted a moon cake?”
I cut through the crowd, emerging minutes later with two hot moon cakes dripping with chilled cream. Izzi takes a slow bite, closes her eye, and smiles.
We wander to the dance stages, filled with pairs: husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, siblings, friends. I shed the slave’s shuffle I’ve adopted and walk the way I used to, my head straight and my shoulders thrown back.
Beneath my dress, my wound stings, but I ignore it.
Izzi finishes off the last of her moon cake and stares at mine so intently that I hand it over. We find a bench and watch the dancers for a few minutes until Izzi nudges me.
“You have an admirer.” She gobbles up the last bite of cake. “By the musicians.”
I look over, thinking it must be Keenan, but instead see a young man with a somewhat bemused expression on his face. He seems distantly familiar.
“Do you know him?” Izzi asks.