I dart back into the trees, hauling on Sophocles’s leash. Whatever was happening wasn’t my business. I pull Sophocles along the path back to the Telemanus estate. At the side door, I’m moving so fast I run straight into someone and almost fall down. I look up into narrow, cold eyes. A woman with a face like tree bark stares down at me. She’s Gray and built thicker than any man in Lagalos. I’ve seen her twice before, always quiet and in the shadows of things. The servants say she’s a Howler, and before that, a Son of Ares. Her eyes turn to me as if she could sense me watching. A chill goes down my spine at standing so close to a bloody Gray. I feel like I’m back in the mine as I mumble apologies. She steps past me and continues down the hill.
Feeling twice as small as I did before, I pull on Sophocles’s leash and make for the estate.
—
I find Liago curled over his botany desk like a long length of old ivy. He’s an old Yellow, maybe seventy? People age slower outside the mines. They use crèmes on their faces. Injections. Laser therapy. Makes some of them look positively deranged. In the mines, you wear your age proudly. You got white hair? Bloodydamn fine for you. Must be quick on your feet. Proud thing, that.
Liago seems to agree very much with my people. His face wrinklier than my father’s knuckles. All crags and fissures and little patches of scaggleweed facial hair. The top of his long-jawed head is crested by great plumes of white hair. Nimble hands prod the base of a slim, violently orange flower. He doesn’t hear the howling of the kettle on his small electric stove.
“Dr. Liago?”
“Lyria!” He wheels around. An odd piece of tech secured by a clear plastic strap around his head covers his right eye, magnifying the pupil hilariously. “By Jove on high, you scared me half to death, sneaking around like that.”
“I’m not sneaking. You’re just deaf as a rock.”
“What what?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You people are so light on your feet.” He looks me up and down. “But not for long. You’re looking pudgier by the day!” His voice takes on an annoying conspiratorial tone. “Found the key to the cupboards, did we?”
“The valets say you’re mad as a sack of cats,” I say very quietly. “And your head is jealous of your ears because they stole all its hair.”
“What what?”
“I asked if you want me to pour your tea?” I ask sweetly.
“My tea?” His eyes widen. “Yes. I was meaning to get that. Like it extra hot, you know! And pour one for yourself too. It’s my favorite green tea from Xantha Dorsa. Martian, like us. You like tea, yes?”
“I’ve had tea with you four times.”
“Really? Of course you have. It was a test.” He stares at me shrewdly, though I’d wager a good pair of boots that he’s thinking about what sort of jam he’ll have on his midmorning toast.
“Can’t today,” I say. “Bethalia would lash me. Got extra duties.”
“Nonsense. She runs you ragged. Spare a moment with me.” He winks. “She’s got a soft spot for old Liago. I can get away with murder.”
If anything, it’s the other way around. Liago dotes on the old Pink like a lovesick drillboy, sending her flowers he designs personally for her. That would have done the trick on you, Ava. Personal flowers. I let Sophocles off the leash to sniff around the floor and I bring Liago his cup of tea, glancing at my reflection in the shining silver surface of one of his medical machines. My cheeks do look a bit plumper. Not a bad look, that.
“What’s that?” I ask, gesturing to the flower Liago’s bent over. Its stem is pale white and slender. A deep violet stains its buds, which are shaped like human dancers.
He looks lovingly down at the flower. “This? Oh, my dear. This is my pride and joy. Thirteen years it’s taken me to perfect the supple grace of her genetic code. And a lifetime of research. Which is why my greenhouse back in Zephyria is littered with infant renditions. It’s the echo of a woman I once knew.”
I tilt my head and draw close to the plant. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s poisonous,” he says. He smiles when I don’t recoil. “I designed it to sense kinetic reverberations in the air. Reach out…touch it gently.”
“How poisonous? Enough to make me sick up? Or will I get a rash?”
“A rash? Ha! Death, this one courts.” Now I flinch. “Don’t you trust old Liago?”
“No farther than I could throw you.”
“What what?”
“You first, Doc.”
With a lone finger, he touches the stem very carefully. Its pale, fleshy skin ripples indigo and a deep purple. The plant arcs into his hand, like a cat being scratched. Sophocles watches from the floor, cocking his head. “It invites gentleness,” Liago says. “But if you rush your hand upon it…” He takes a length of unsliced cucumber from the remains of his breakfast and hits the plant. Small spines erupt from the feet of the dancer buds and the cucumber begins to shrivel and blacken, filling the room with a rotting stench. Sophocles backs away.
“Cellular death!” he announces.
I laugh in genuine delight. “Wicked. What do you call it?”
“Nyxacallis.”
I sigh. “Is that Latin?”
“It means Night Lily.” He’s lost in thought. I’d ask him who the woman was if I didn’t recognize the pain on his face. Maybe that’s why I’m so fond of the old bat. He’s the only one in the Telemanus estate who wears his pain in his eyes. Rest are all playing games.
“So you brought me another sample?” he asks after a moment. “Let’s see.” He opens the plastic container and takes a deep, satisfied whiff of the scat before slipping out of the greenhouse to a small silver machine in his lab. I follow behind. After a sample has been inserted, numbers and symbols flow from a small holoprojector in the machine into the air.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Those?” He’s confused. “Of course, curious cat. How would you know? Those are chemical notations. That is skatole, hydrogen sulfide, mercaptan, and that…that is carbon. That is in every living thing that is, was, and will be. It’s in me. It’s in you. It’s in the Night Lily.” He watches me grasp the idea. “You know what I like about you, Lyria?”
I glower, knowing it’s with pity that he looks at me. The same pity that fills the eyes of the other servants, and has driven me to isolation. They pity my manners, my poor haircut, and pity that my family was butchered. Here, surrounded by so many people, I’ve never felt more alone. More alien.
“Not really,” I mutter.
“What do you mean ‘not really’?” he says, aghast. “What kind of way is that to think about yourself?”
“I mean, no one’s talked to me like you have, except Lord Kavax, and some of the dockers. Everyone else talks slag behind my back, but they’re too scared to lay it out plain eye to eye, because they’ve never been in a tumble.”
Liago clucks his tongue, thinking he’s not like them, but in a way he is. I’ve seen how he watches me when I leave, when I enter. Like I’m going to explode into tears at any moment.