47

Izza lay restless through the night on her rooftop bed. Stars stared down like Penitents from the sky. When morning threatened, she rose, bought—bought!—a cup of coffee to burn off the cobwebs of undreamt dreams, and walked the seashore. She felt Kai moving in her heart.

The surf rushed and gurgled like Margot’s dying breath. She remembered her home long since abandoned, remembered how blood ran from the cut on the priestess’s neck. She remembered the joy of running, and the sick fishhook feeling when she heard Sophie had been taken. She remembered the Blue Lady’s scream.

She wanted out. She did. But her every step tied her more deeply to Kavekana and its people. Even to Kai, the lost priestess. Who she still did not quite trust.

She threw rocks into the waves, but the waves kept coming.

Two hours after daybreak, she gave up, and went to the warehouse.

Cat was packing. She’d brought little with her, and acquired less on the island. Silver chalk, the clothes on her back, a change of clothing she rolled up for use as a pillow. She folded the blankets, stuffed her few possessions in a sack, and swept the surrounding rubble into a semblance of undisturbed mess.

“You’re leaving,” Izza said from the hole by the door.

Cat smiled when she saw her, as broad and open and easy an expression as Izza’d ever seen on her face. “I hoped you might come. I would have gone looking if you hadn’t.”

“What’s happened?”

“Time to go. Next day or two. Not longer, I hope, or else I’ll have to get myself all moved in again. Say your good-byes, if you have any left. We’ll need to move fast when the time comes.”

“Yeah,” Izza said, and even she could tell that her own voice sounded flat.

Cat stopped sweeping. “Are you okay?”

Izza should have gone to her when the poet died. When the pain still bled like a wound. Now the scab had formed, and tearing it open again hurt more. “No,” she said.

“What happened?”

“Margot died yesterday.”

From how hard the words were to say, she expected them to hit Cat harder. The other woman closed her eyes and breathed and opened them again. “Shit.” Cat slumped onto a blackened, half-rotten crate. The boards sagged, but supported her. “What happened?”

“The cops did it. The Penitents. They’re all—” She broke off. Better to keep quiet than speak in that quivering quavering tone. Telling Kai had been easier. Izza knew Cat, and knowing her she felt the need to be strong in front of her.

“Tell me.”

“A Penitent came for him. He fought.”

“You saw it.”

“I did.” She paced angrily among rusted wires and broken barrels until she could come up with more to say. She didn’t say, I need you, would not admit that even now. “They killed him. They’ll go on and kill my friends. I can’t leave until they’re safe.”

Cat’s grip tightened on the broom, and she stared down into the scrapes its bristles left in the dust. She growled in that tongue Izza did not know, with words like breaking rock. Then she let the broom fall. It clattered on the floor. She stood. “It won’t be safe,” she said. “Not ever. If they killed Margot, they’ll hunt for anyone connected with him. That’s you. That’s the kids. Hells, that’s me. You should have stayed away.”

“I have a…” Gods, what should she call Kai? “A friend trying to help me find out what happened. To get to the bottom of this. Figure out what made the Penitents go crazy.”

“And then what? You can’t stop the Watch.”

“You could.”

Cat’s laugh was harsh, humorless. “One at a time, maybe. You’ve already seen how well two at a time goes for me.”

“What, then? We run away? Leave the kids in danger?”

“They always were in danger. You know that. They should all leave. But they have to figure that out for themselves.”

“And what about Margot? He was killed. He deserves justice.”

That drew a smile from Cat, but it wasn’t a kind one. “I’m not here as a cop, Izza. I had to leave all that behind.”

“I don’t want a cop.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to help me.”

She’d shouted. She hadn’t meant to. Broken wood and rusted metal, fallen ceiling and shattered stone, should have eaten the echoes of her voice, but she heard them still, or heard her words in the silence their passage left. She heard the crackle of a burning village, heard the scream she’d been screaming for five years.

Cat watched her with green eyes like jade, like water.

Izza stood taut and sharp in the decaying room she’d chosen for her palace.

Cat walked toward her slowly. “You told me you wanted to leave. That you didn’t want to be responsibile for this island, for these children. You don’t have to.”

She was too close. Izza couldn’t move.

“I know that look in your eyes,” Cat said. “You want to make a difference. You think if you push hard enough, you can fix this damn island, and once you’re done with that, why not the whole world? But gods and Deathless Kings are bigger than you, kid, and they’re bigger than me, and when folks like us play their games, we get lost so fast. Ideals twist, and one day you find yourself down a dead end, breaking ten oaths to keep one. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Izza said.

“Weeks back you said you wanted to save yourself. I can help you do that. I will. But you have to choose. I’d hate to see you choose wrong. There’s a whole world out there. This place isn’t worth you.”

Cat touched Izza’s shoulder, and Izza didn’t run, didn’t break her hand. The touch felt unreal, as if Cat wore her quicksilver skin again. Or as if Izza herself wore a skin. As if she’d been wearing that skin all along, since the day she ran through brambles and desert trees away from a rising pillar of sick oily smoke.

Cat drew her into her arms, strong and warm. Izza moved slowly.

She didn’t cry even then. She ground the sobs to dust between her teeth.

“Stay here,” Cat said. Her body felt stiff against Izza’s. She wasn’t used to these movements—to tenderness and human touch. “With me. If we need to run and hide, we run and hide together. And then, when the time’s right, we’ll leave.”

Izza wanted. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted. But she set her hands against Cat’s ribs, and pushed her away. The woman’s arms parted slowly.

“I should go,” Izza said. “I need to take care of some things. Before we leave.” She did not know if the last part was a lie.

“Okay. Okay.” Neither repetition seemed to satisfy Cat. She stepped back. “If you want. And if.” She didn’t say, if you change your mind, but Izza heard it anyway. “When the time comes, you can meet me back here. As fast as you can—I won’t be able to wait for long.”

“How will I know when the time comes?” Izza asked.

“You’ll know.”

Izza turned away. “Fine.”

“Kid,” Cat said, and she stopped. “I wish I could do more.”

“Me too,” Izza said, and left.