The galley was narrow and dirty, used plates and cups piled around the sink, jostling each other whenever the ship turned, lit by strips of white light that kept fluttering like they were about to go out; everything made of the same dull metal, dotted with bolts. He waited as Cisi scrubbed the little table between the two countertops, and dried it with a clean rag. His arms ached by the time he put Cyra down.
“Akos, I can’t read Shotet characters.”
“Um . . . neither can I, really.” The supply cabinet was organized, all the individually packaged items in neat rows. Alphabetical. He knew a few of them by sight, but not enough.
“You’d think after all that time in Shotet you’d have learned something,” Cyra said from her place on the table, slurring the words a little. Her arm flopped to the side, and she pointed. “Silverskin is there. Antiseptic on the left. Make me a painkiller.”
“Hey, I learned a few things,” he said to her, squeezing her hand before he got to work. “The most challenging lesson was how to deal with you.”
He had a vial of painkiller in his bag, so he went out to the main deck again and hunted for it under the jump seats, glaring at Jyo when he didn’t move his legs right away. He found his roll of leather—made of treated Armored One skin, so it was still hard, not exactly a “roll”—where he kept his spare vials, and found the purplish one that would help Cyra’s pain. When he went back to the galley, Cisi was wearing gloves and ripping packages open.
“How steady are your hands, Akos?” Cisi asked.
“Steady enough. Why?”
“I know how to do the procedures, of course, but I can’t really touch her, because of the pain, remember? At least, not as steadily as she needs me to; this is delicate work,” she said. “So I’m just going to tell you what to do.”
Dark streaks still traveled up and down Cyra’s arms and around her head, though they were different from the last time Akos had seen them, dancing on top of her in jagged lines.
Cyra croaked from the table, “Akos, is this . . . ?”
“My sister?” Akos said. “Yeah, it is. Cyra, meet Cisi.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Cyra said, searching Cisi’s face. For resemblance, if Akos knew anything. She wouldn’t find it—he and Cisi had never looked much alike.
“You too,” Cisi said, smiling at Cyra. If she was scared of the woman beneath her—the woman she had heard so many rumors about, all her life—she didn’t show it.
Akos carried the painkiller to Cyra and touched the vial to her lips. It was hard to look at her. The stitching cloth that covered the left side of her throat and head was deep red and crusted over. She was bruise-stained and worn through.
“Remind me,” Cyra said as the painkiller kicked in, “to yell at you for coming back.”
“Whatever you say,” Akos said.
But he was relieved, because there was his Cyra, jagged as a serrated blade, strong as Deadened ice.
“She fell asleep. Well, that’s good,” Cisi said. “Step back, please.”
He gave her some room. She was dextrous, to be sure; she pinched the stitching cloth with all the delicacy of someone threading a needle, careful not to brush Cyra’s skin, and pulled it back. It came away from the wound easily, wet as it was with blood and pus. She dropped it, one soaked strip at a time, on a tray near Cyra’s head.
“So you’ve been training to be a doctor,” Akos said as he watched her.
“It seemed like a good fit for my gift,” Cisi said. Ease was her gift—always had been, even before her currentgift came around—but it wasn’t her only one, he could see that. She had steady hands and an even temper and a sharp mind. More than just a sweet person with a good disposition, as if anyone was just that.
When the whole wound was clear of the useless stitching cloth, she poured antiseptic all over it, dabbing at the edges to get rid of dried blood.
“I think it’s time to apply the silverskin,” Cisi said, straightening. “It acts like a living creature; you just have to place it properly and it adheres permanently to the flesh. You’ll be fine as long as you can keep your hands steady. Okay? I’ll cut the strips now.”
Silverskin was another innovation from Othyr, a sterile, synthetic substance that, as Cisi said, almost seemed to be alive. It was used to replace skin that had been damaged beyond repair, mostly burns. It got its name because of its color and texture—it was smooth and had a silver sheen to it. Once put in place, it was permanent.
Cisi cut the strips with care, one for the section of skin just above Cyra’s ear, one for behind it, and one for her throat. After a beat or two of thought, she went back to make the edges of silverskin curved. Like wind through snow, like iceflower petals.
Akos put on gloves, so the silverskin wouldn’t stick to his hands instead of her, and Cisi handed the first strip to him. It was heavy, and cold to the touch, not as slippery as he’d imagined it to be. She helped him position his hands over Cyra’s head.
“Lower it straight down,” she said, and he did. He didn’t have to press it in place; the silverskin rippled like water and buried itself in Cyra’s scalp the moment it found flesh.