“I don’t care about the right people,” I breathe. “I’m just so happy to be here with you.” I keep remembering how she said she would burn the world for me, and I’m so ready to set at least a few small fires—together. I keep noticing more things, like the way some of these older buildings look influenced by Xiosphanti architecture, but with cruder decorations and other kinds of rock painted to look like whitestone. I whisper and point, and she nods.
I can tell we’re getting closer to the Knife, because bright lights shine from every building, and I hear the thumps and whistles of a dozen kinds of loud music in the distance. Argelan dance music is like Xiosphanti ragtime, only much faster and with more drums.
“Maybe we can find some students to hang out with,” I say in her ear. “People our age, who are studying the same things that we were studying. Having the same conversations we were having. I bet there are some groups like the Progressive Students here.”
She shrugs. “I’m not interested in spending time with a bunch of naive students. We’re going to need powerful friends to survive in this city and achieve all our goals. You heard Ahmad, that’s how it works here.”
I still feel the bracelet pulling me in the opposite direction, but it only bothers me if I pay attention to it.
“We’re finally here, in the place we always talked about back home, the city where anything can happen,” Bianca says. “We’re young, and we’re free, and our city tried to kill us. Let’s make some noise!”
I would burn the world for you, I hear in my head.
“Yeah. Let’s make some noise.” I clasp her hand tighter.
We round a steep corner on this potholed street, and then we’re standing at the hilt of the Knife. I’ve never seen so many colors in one place: every nightclub and bar has a sign that glows pink, or red, or a color between blue and green that I don’t even know the name of. The sharp edge of the Knife curves away from us, along a street paved with reflective stones that look like candies. Each building has a different style and texture, from burnished steel beams to whitestone columns to a huge transparent cube, and out front, a sea of young people sways and drifts from place to place, holding drinks or gnarled pipes. Most of the people in the crowd are only a little older than Bianca and me, and they wear sheer clothing that exposes parts of their bodies. The sky looks just as gray as ever, but everyone’s face is bathed in a hundred shades of orange and green. I can’t help gasping at this radiance, this decadence, this liberation.
I stop resisting and let Bianca pull me into the throng. Every time the scent of perfumed sweat and the view of squirming exposed flesh start to overwhelm me, I look at Bianca. Her whole face is bright and open as she points out each new thing, and everything shines with more beauty because she’s showing it to me.
mouth
Mouth didn’t know how long they’d been in Argelo. Long enough for the money to start running out, and for all the prices to rise again. She was already sick of overhearing pretentious Argelan conversations about living in harmony with nature, and whether the unchanging canopy overhead granted liberation from all constraints, or merely required a greater exertion of individual will to keep sleeping, working, playing, and eating in their right proportions and intervals. And so on. People could talk forever here.
At least back in Xiosphant, Mouth had known what people saw when they looked past her camouflage: a foreigner. Here in Argelo, somebody might see an enforcer for one of the Nine Families, or a mercenary, or an escapee from the undercity. Everyone squinted at Mouth and wanted to know which compartment her ancestors had occupied on the Mothership (the nearest guess was usually Ulaanbaatar) or, worse, to speculate about her scars. People kept propositioning Mouth, for business or sex, and she just scowled until they went away. You could do whatever you felt like in Argelo, but so could everybody else.
* * *
Mouth visited every bakeshop in the city, looking for those little cactus-pork crisps that Alyssa ate. Something about almost losing Alyssa reminded Mouth of all the other deaths she’d seen, which led to thinking about the Citizens, which in turn led to remembering that she would never know how to mourn, because all the rituals were stuck in a book in a vault in a damned Palace. But at least there was one person left alive for Mouth to treat to fried food.
The cactus-pork crisps were still hot, still carrying the tart scent of the tiny bakeshop near the bottom of the Pit, when Mouth got them back to the apartment. Alyssa barely needed her cane to get around anymore, and her energy seemed to be back. Mouth was about to say that Alyssa needed rest, then realized that they weren’t alone. A short, elderly man sat in one of the big rattan chairs, holding a chipped cup full of coffee in one veiny, pale hand and a huge stack of books and notepads in the other.
“There you are,” Alyssa said. “I’ve got a surprise for you. I hunted and hunted, it took forever, but this was so worth it.”
Mouth just stared at the old man, who had a thin mustache, tiny glasses, and a threadbare muslin suit. “I brought you a surprise too.” She held up the greasy bag.
“Oh yum. We’ll all share them.” Alyssa bustled to the kitchen, fetching plates and brushing off Mouth’s attempts to handle kitchen stuff. “Mouth, this is Professor Martindale. He teaches at the Betterment University, up on the morning side of town. He’s a professor of religious studies.”
“I’ve enjoyed talking to Alyssa,” Martindale said, taking a plate with a cactus-pork crisp on it with a smile. “I haven’t met a Jewish person in quite a while. There’s only one temple left in Argelo, as far as I know. No offense.”
“None taken,” Alyssa said. “But never mind about me. Professor Martindale, tell her.”
“So … Alyssa tells me you were a member of an itinerant group called the Citizens,” Martindale said. “I’ve been studying them my whole career, both before and after they vanished. I used to interview their leader—her name was Yolanda, correct?—and several other members. I have a section of my archive devoted to them.”
The floor was unsteady, like this building could have been set adrift on the Sea of Murder. “What did you say?”
“I’ve been studying the—”
“Alyssa,” said Mouth. “Can we talk in the kitchen?”
“Uh,” Alyssa said. “Sure. We’ll be right back.”
They crammed into the tiny kitchen, which was only separated from the rest of the apartment by a flimsy partition. “What’s up?” Alyssa said, pouring herself more coffee.
“I don’t want to talk to this guy.”
“What do you—”
“I don’t want to hear some outsider tell me about the Citizens, or what some ‘expert’ figured out. They were my family. My community. I’m not interested in what some fancy professor has to say.”
“But he talked to them. He interviewed that Yolanda woman over and over. He can tell you—”
“I don’t want to know!” Mouth was shaking, light-headed. Seeing flame trails. She tasted salt again. “I don’t want to hear somebody’s stupid, overeducated … I don’t want my people to be his specimens that he dissects. He probably wants me to share more of the secrets. It’s none of his business. It’s none of your business.”
“I see how it is.” Alyssa choked down her dark water and then poured some more. “You were willing to sacrifice all of us to get your hands on that stupid book, because you needed answers and closure. But here’s the guy who can give you answers and fucking closure, you stupid bitch. He’s sitting right there, in our living room, because I turned this whole city upside down to find him.”
“I’m sorry.” Every word Mouth spoke was colored by weeping. “I’m sorry. I know I’m selfish. I try not to be. I brought you the crisps.”
“Never mind the fucking crisps. Let people do for you. Let me do for you. I found that professor guy to help you. Those nomads died before you even finished puberty, right? You never got to know them as an adult. I know you’re scared that you’ll taint your memories of them, but I can tell you it doesn’t work like that. You’ll only add to your understanding. That’s all.”
“Okay.” Mouth hugged Alyssa with a ferocious strength. “Okay.”
Maybe you don’t get to choose how you make peace, or what kind of peace you make. You count yourself lucky if peace doesn’t run away from you.
“Let me do for you,” Alyssa said again. Mouth nodded.
Then Alyssa was back out in the front of the apartment. “Sorry about that interruption,” she was telling the professor. “Mouth wanted to remind me that we have better plates than these, and we always save them for company, and then the one time we have company over we forget to use them.” Hearing this, Mouth reached to the top shelf in the kitchen and pulled down all three of the good plates.