OUT OF ALL THE habitats, Mali liked the beach one best.
She sat in the shade of a red-and-white umbrella, toying with a deck of cards. Lucky’s shiny aviator sunglasses were perched on her face. She scrunched her nose, trying to get used to the feeling of the sunglasses. She’d only ever heard about them from other captives she’d been with before, with her series of private owners or the two menageries she’d been in or the other enclosure. Now, as she wrinkled her face and flipped another card, she found them itchy.
A tingle began on her arm. She slid up the sunglasses to watch the hair rise. In another second, footsteps sounded on the boardwalk. Cassian sank into the deck chair opposite her, which groaned under his weight. He wore his dark uniform with knots down the side to show his rank. Five, now. When he’d rescued her three years ago, it had been twice that number. He had never told her what happened that led to such a demotion, but she could guess: he’d always let his fondness for humans get in the way of his duties.
She slid the sunglasses back over her eyes. “I am like you now.” She tapped the dark lenses. “Black eyes.”
He leaned forward, picking up a few cards that had fallen off her lounge chair. He handed her the cards, and she swirled the pile on the table. She folded her lips in a smile.
“Go fish,” she said.
Though, like those of all cloaked Kindred, his face betrayed almost no emotion, Mali had learned to read subtle shifts in his features; that flinch meant he was almost smiling. Out of all of them, Cassian had the hardest time suppressing his emotions, but she liked him all the more for it. Go fish was a human game, but the Kindred had a soft spot for anything human, and she had convinced Cassian to play before. Their world—the public one—was so harsh. Sharp angles, sterile rooms, everything a monotonous shade of cerulean. It was only in their private lives that they revealed their true personalities. It was there, in the pleasure gardens and menageries, that the Kindred uncloaked their emotions. Their society had evolved to be so sterile that they had lost the ability to create music and entertainment for themselves, so they borrowed culture from humans instead. The quirks of humanity were all the rage in the menageries; the Kindred dressed like humans, listened to their music, played card games like this one.
Cassian patiently took the hand of cards she offered him. “I will play if you tell me how you are adjusting to the dynamic of this cohort.”
Mali scowled beneath her sunglasses. Sometimes she wanted cards to just be cards. Sometimes she wanted Cassian to just be Cassian, and not her Caretaker, and not ask so many questions. “There is no dynamic. There is no cohesion. Leon does not even sleep in the house. Nok and Rolf do not leave town. They fear the habitats.”
“It is a difficult adjustment. It is never easy for any of the human wards. In time, they will learn that we are not to be feared.” Cassian studied his cards methodically. “Nine.”
Mali shook her head. “Go fish.” She studied her own cards. “I want to know why this enclosure is different. Why you dress them in human clothes and give them strange food to eat.”
“It is the Warden, trying something new.” He took a card from the pile. “We will not harm them, of course.”
A darkness wormed its way into the pit of Mali’s stomach. Like most of the Kindred, Cassian often talked about his kind in the plural form. She did trust him; he had saved her life, even at risk to his own. But she didn’t trust them. Not the Kindred. Not as a whole. Certainly not any of her previous owners, and not the Warden, either. Mali had heard rumors about the Warden, but had never known his name—Fian—or met him until Cassian had taken her from the menagerie where she lived and told her she had the chance of a lifetime, to join the grand new enclosure. Fian had insisted on inspecting her first; examining her teeth and ears and hands, then asking Cassian if he was confident that any human males would find such a damaged ward appealing.
There was one thing she had learned, living caught between the human and the Kindred world. It didn’t matter what race you came from: there were good and bad among every species.
“Seven,” she said.
He handed her a card and drew another. “The stock algorithm has predicted that Boy Two will grow into the group’s leader. He will welcome you into the group, but these things take time.”
She set down the pair of sevens. “Lucky is more interested in escape than in being a leader. He is more interested in Cora.”
It was Cassian’s turn to ask for a card, but the cards stayed in his hand, untouched. “There is a history between them.”
There was a strange tone in his voice Mali had heard only a few times before. She slid the sunglasses on top of her head and reached into the pocket of Rolf’s military jacket. She held out the lock of Cora’s hair.
“I acquire this for you. A present. For bringing me here.”
Cassian stared at the lock but made no move to take it. “You know I do not share the same primitive beliefs as the Gatherers and the Mosca. A lock of hair means nothing to me.”
Mali gave him a hard look. “It does if it is hers.”
Mali had been transferred to enough private owners and menageries to know that as disciplined as the Kindred considered themselves, they weren’t perfect. Among themselves, relationships between males and females were noncommittal; sex was for physical release, not for procreation or love. But sometimes deeper emotions did surface. Fondness, the Kindred called it. Sometimes for another Kindred, but sometimes—though very rarely and always forbidden—for a human.
Mali offered him the hair again. She did not care what Cassian’s predilections were; she just wanted to repay the kindness he had shown her. In fact, she liked the glimpse of weakness. It made him seem almost human.
He folded her fingers around the hair, pushing it away from him a little hard. He picked up the cards and shuffled them roughly. The waves crashed on the beach as the light changed one degree lower. Mali wished, not for the first time, that Cassian could show her his true eyes as easily as she could slide up the sunglasses.
“The others notice that you treat her differently.” Mali slowly replaced the lock of hair in her pocket. “They do not like it. There is an altercation this morning over breakfast. Everyone’s food is missing except for hers. It is dangerous. Food is a basic need. I do not understand why the Warden manipulates them—”
“The Warden did not interfere with their food. If so, I would know. It must have been one of the wards.”
Mali gave him a hard look. He had rarely lied to her before—why was he lying now? “Is the Warden changing things because of the rumors. Because he thinks that humans are showing signs of percept—”
“No.” He cut her off hard. “And you should not speak thusly. You know what the Council did to Anya when she started saying such things.”
Mali could feel sweat running down the sides of her face. She could still remember Anya’s big round eyes, her blond hair the same color as Cora’s, only it had been stick straight. They had shared a private owner, a high-ranking Kindred official, who had cut off two of Anya’s fingers to give to a Mosca he’d lost a bet to. He had tried to cut off Mali’s too, only she’d fought back. Cassian had found them ten rotations later. She’d never forget seeing him for the first time; the door sliding open, fear making her stomach knot, expecting the official’s squash-nosed, broad face. But it wasn’t the official. It was a young enforcer, a strikingly handsome one, who had taken one look at their tiny cages and smashed the locks open with the hilt of his communicator.
Do not fear me, he’d said. I am not here to hurt you.
He looked like the dazzling hero in the stories Anya used to tell her, but Mali knew better than to believe anything the Kindred said. She’d clawed his face when he’d reached into the cage, and hissed at him. It hadn’t been until his guards had tranquilized her, and she’d woken up in a medical unit with fresh clothes, that she’d known she really had been saved. When the medical officer had come to repair her wounds, she’d asked for the scars on her hands to stay, as a reminder. Cassian had come to check on her, and she’d climbed off the table and wrapped her arms around him. It was only later that she learned of Anya’s death. Despite the rescue, Anya had never recovered from the abuse. In another ten rotations, she was dead.
Anya, like Cora, had been very perceptive.
Cassian looked back at his cards.
Mali squinted at the ocean, trying to imagine herself back on Earth. There was so little she remembered. Camels. Hot tea. A carpet laid out over sand. If she concentrated very hard, she could picture her mother’s light brown eyes.
“Cora should not be here,” Mali said. “The Warden is right. She does not have the correct temperament. She is determined to return to her previous life.”
“Did you tell her?” Cassian asked quietly.
“Tell her what.”
His boot scuffed on the boards. At his side, his fist was clenching and unclenching. “That there is no other life for her. For any of them.”
“No.” Mali set down her hand of cards. She was tired of games.
“Do not tell them, at least for now. It is too large a concept for their limited minds to comprehend. It will take time before they are ready to hear the truth about their home.”
Mali slid the sunglasses back over her eyes. She dismissed that wrinkle of annoyance she felt whenever he gave her orders. As long as they let her stay in this paradise where she could eat as much as she wanted and play games all day, she would do whatever the Caretaker asked her to do. She had found, long ago, around the time a Kindred had tried to cut off her fingers, that it was best not to question them. Ever.