Boarding the Silkess proved simple. Karys followed the station attendants down to the rear entrance of the building, and was ushered along a covered pathway to the base of the creature’s crouched body. Close to the web, the air crackled with arcane power, making her hair stand on end. The spider itself was still as stone, and Karys received the unpleasant impression that it was lying in wait for prey.
Winola, despite her stated arachnophobia, walked cheerfully toward it. The other passengers seemed similarly unperturbed, engaged in their own conversations and barely sparing the spider a second glance. Karys tried to act like them, pretending that the unnatural monster was unremarkable to her.
The Silkess’s open mouth formed the entrance to the passenger lodgings, where the path cut between the spider’s huge chelicerae. More uniformed attendants smiled and welcomed guests inside. The temperature within was a few degrees warmer, and the air held a faintly acidic odour. A tall, milk-skinned man escorted Karys and Winola down the tract of the Silkess’s gullet. The flexible tissue of the creature’s mouth gave way to polished burr walnut floorboards. Crystal chandeliers hung from the dark ceiling of the corridor.
“We should reach our destination by tomorrow morning,” the man explained. “If there is anything you require, please don’t hesitate to call on myself or one of the other attendants.”
He explained the dining arrangements and safety regulations, which mostly prohibited attempting to leave the spider at any time after departure. Karys tried to pay attention, but she felt distracted, disorientated by the Silkess’s strangeness. Within the confines of its body, the Veneer lay flat and inert; like the creature was a hole in the fabric of the world.
“And here are your quarters, cas,” the man announced.
He opened a door off the main corridor. Beyond was a sumptuously appointed room; a large bed dressed in soft linen, plush red carpets the colour of new blood, woven tapestries hanging from the walls. A second door led to a private bathroom.
I’ll be staying here? thought Karys.
“If you’d like to get settled, we’ll be leaving in five minutes.” The man turned to Winola. “Your rooms are just this way, cas.”
Karys stepped inside the room and shut the door behind her. Covered-lamps coloured the walls in a mild, comfortable yellow, and fresh white roses stood in silver vases on each of the sideboards. The curtains were drawn over the window.
“It’s so clean,” she said aloud, without quite meaning to.
“Low standards.”
She started, then glowered at her shadow. Ferain raised his hands.
“It’s very nice,” he said, voice too-smooth.
“You’re mocking me.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Outside, a bell chimed. They were leaving Psikamit. Karys sat down on the edge of the bed. The floor did not seem to move at all. She had expected to feel the spider’s footfalls, but no. Not so much as a tremor. A crushing weariness settled over her limbs.
“I’m going to sleep for a while,” she said. “Will you wake me if anything happens?”
Her shadow leaned toward the window, peering through the tiny gap between the curtains. “Sure. Of course.”
Karys took off her shoes and her new coat, and lay back on the pristine bedding. The sheets were smooth and cool and soft—like being hugged by clouds, she thought—and she closed her eyes and immediately fell asleep.
She wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed, but when she woke she no longer felt thick-headed. Her shadow pooled on the floor next to the bed, as if Ferain was sitting on the carpet there.
“Winola slipped a note under the door,” he said. “Are you feeling better?”
Karys nodded, brushing her hair out of her face. With a groan, she stretched her arms above her head and cracked the joints in her shoulders. “I don’t know why I was so tired.”
“Last night can’t have been comfortable.”
“Even so. How did you know it was Winola outside?”
“I looked underneath the door. Don’t worry, I was subtle about it.”
Karys got up and padded across the carpet. She pulled back the Veneer a fraction. The folded sheet of paper on the floor had a little working stitched in; a Bhatuma derivation that caused the ink to sparkle. Nothing dangerous. She picked up the note and opened it. Winola’s handwriting was small and neat, her signature an elegant, shimmering flourish.
Dinner is at eight o’clock. Meet me there?
“Hungry?” asked Ferain, reading over her shoulder.
She was. Karys put the note down on the pedestal table by the door. “I want to clean up first.”
The bathroom was tiled in white and muted bronze, and the tub was surrounded by a ring of candles. A pitcher of wine rested on the basin, next to four crystal flutes. Before taking off her clothing, Karys checked her shadow. Ferain was already stretched right out the door.
For a Vareslian, his manners aren’t terrible, she thought.
She stripped out of her dust-stained shirt and trousers, and stepped into the tub, turning the taps. It was easy to forget she was inside a living creature; the floor did not move, and hot water ran clear and steaming from the faucet. Karys had no idea what kind of workings allowed for that, but it seemed a ludicrous extravagance; her ticket must have cost a fortune. Of course, chances were that the Second Mayor hadn’t actually paid the full amount in cret, but the fare still represented a whole host of favours and risks. It was uncomfortable: the idea that Marishka had gone so far on her account.
Unbidden, an image of the dead rabbits returned to Karys’ mind. She shivered, and her eyes wandered back toward the entrance of the bathroom.
“Ferain?”
“Yes?”
“When the explosion went off at the embassy, why did I survive?”
He was quiet for a second, not moving. Then he asked: “What do you mean?”
“I was less than ten feet from Petresk. He was gone, completely, and I was—” She faltered, and her voice dropped. “I was too close. I think I should be dead.”
Her shadow twitched, like a ripple cast by a stone on still water. “Sometimes it’s just luck. Who lives, who dies.”
She reached to close the tap. “This was different, I was too—”
She paused, her hand outstretched.
“What is it?” asked Ferain.
The Split Lapse scar that had previously sat squarely in the centre of her palm had shifted across the base of her hand, covering a little of her wrist crease. She drew her arm back toward her, studying the mark. It looked identical otherwise, the same ghostly impression of tiny glyphs and described permissions, but it had slid up half an inch. She wasn’t sure when that might have happened.
“Karys?”
She shook herself and turned off the tap. “Never mind.”
The dining room was small, but lavish. Painted wooden screens divided the tables, and rings of tiny copper lanterns hung above them. The chairs were shaped from solid blocks of wood, and the knotholes worked with bronze so that the tree rings shone. Winola was already seated at a table set out for two, swilling a glass of white wine between her fingers. She was wearing her earlier guise, but had changed into a different outfit: a black and mauve one-piece with a high neckline and shimmering gold beadwork across the shoulders. Karys warily sat down opposite her, conscious of her own shabby clothing. Winola replaced her wine glass on the table.
“Have you recovered since we left?” she asked. “You seemed exhausted earlier.”
“I’m fine now.”
“Good. That’s good.” The scholar paused as an attendant materialised with two bowls of amber-coloured broth. The woman set them down on the table with a small flourish, and then retreated. Winola waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again. “I think it would be wise to avoid discussing your condition in too much detail. The Silkess, after all, being owned by certain interests…”
Karys couldn’t help smiling.
“I’m not stupid,” she said.
The scholar coloured instantly. “I didn’t think you were.”
Karys dipped her spoon into the soup. She guessed it was some sort of seafood—but when she tasted it, the flavour was like rain and clean air, like she had placed something sacred on her tongue. She tried not to let her surprise show, carefully laying the spoon down again.
“So you’re friends with Busin?” she said.
Winola’s blush deepened by a few degrees.
“It’s a terrible stereotype, really,” she said, “but you know how Toraigians are all supposed to know one another? Everyone related to everyone else?”
Karys nodded. It was the subject of many crude Mercian jokes.
“Well, his uncle was my father’s mentor about forty years ago, which makes us honorary cousins. Not that it matters much outside of home—and there aren’t many Toraigians in Psikamit, so we all know one another anyway.”
“And he told you where to find me.”
“He contacted me unexpectedly after our conversation yesterday, and warned me to be careful around you. I found that disturbing, so I went to see him in person after today’s morning lectures. One thing led to another.”
Karys still struggled to believe that either Busin or Marishka could have suggested Winola follow her to Varesli—let alone that the scholar would actually do it. From the chamber next door, she could hear cooks moving around the kitchen. She picked up her spoon again and turned it over between her fingers.
“You look worried,” said Winola.
Karys shook her head. “Mostly confused. I don’t know why you’re here.”
“I told you: I think I can help.”
“Well, I’m confused why you would want to.”
“Because it feels like the honourable thing to do, I suppose.”
“Right. Your moral code.” Karys took another spoon of the broth. “You see me as some kind of charitable cause?”
“No.” Winola moved her hand to the bridge of her nose as if she wanted to adjust her glasses, despite the fact that the guise wore none. “It’s more that I need to live by certain principles in order to justify myself. On some level, my actions are entirely selfish.”
“Justify yourself?”
The scholar had an ironic smile on her face, something slightly crooked. “It’s complicated. But yes. If I have the power to use workings to help someone, I consider it my solemn duty to do so.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“Most of the time, I find it fulfilling.”
“So she’s clever, pretty, and admirable,” whispered Ferain, and Karys made a mental note to triple her travel expenses.
“I still don’t understand what you mean by justifying yourself,” she said.
Winola sighed. She looked down at her soup for a moment.
“I guess it’s a displaced sense of obligation,” she said. “I abandoned my home to pursue my ambitions. I want to believe the choice I made was right, so I need to … prove that. By my actions.”
“You feel guilty?”
The scholar’s gaze remained on her bowl. “It isn’t so clear cut as that. I left Toraigus because changing it demanded too much and compensated too little, and I wasn’t prepared to devote my whole life to the possibility of incremental progress. I wanted more, knew that I could offer more, but not behind the Wall. And there were other considerations, of course—it wasn’t only about the pursuit of workings. At home, I would have been expected to marry a man in order to further my family line, and the thought of that was, well…” A small shudder. “Not for me. Staying in Toraigus meant sacrificing both my intellectual ambitions and my personal desires, and, in the end, I was unwilling to stomach either. So I left. It might not have been the brave thing to do, or the right thing to do, but it was the choice I made.”
Her calm, level voice had gained a touch of defensiveness toward the end. Karys wavered for a second, then reached out and picked up her own wine glass.
“Suits me,” she said.
Winola laughed, and looked up. “Good.”
The attendant’s reappearance with their next course halted the conversation. Steaming florets of young broccoli; a flaked pastry stuffed with white cheese, leeks, sage, and quail; cumin-spiced lamb with a dark, sweetish glaze; bright orange squash seasoned with cinnamon. Karys’ mouth watered. The attendant smiled, apparently amused by the expression on her face, and returned to the kitchen.
“It looks good,” said Ferain wistfully.
Karys tried to restrain herself, carefully cutting into the pastry.
“What is Toraigus like?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
Winola wiped her mouth with the corner of a napkin. She seemed more relaxed now, her posture less upright.
“Next to Mercia? Small,” she said. “You can travel the length of the island in a day. The climate is a little cooler, and it’s more difficult to grow crops with the sea on all sides, but people manage; they look out for one another. The community is very close, very insular and tradition-bound, which can be comforting on one day and suffocating the next. That’s just the culture of the place.”
“I’ve heard that once you leave, you’re never allowed to go back.”
The scholar nodded. “Yes. In Toraigian, the word for the act of departing home actually translates to ‘self-banishment.’”
“No exceptions?”
“No exceptions.” She paused to take a bite of her lamb. “Once you leave the shadow of the Unbroken Wall, you leave it for good. Theoretically, the inverse applies too—if an outsider moved to Toraigus, they would be permanently confined to the island thereafter—but that situation almost never arises. The restrictions are intended to preserve the Wall’s sanctity; they’re taken very seriously.”
Karys pushed her food around her plate.
“Did you ever try to perform a working in Toraigus?” she asked.
“Never.”
The quail inside the pastry was perfectly cooked, tender and pale pink. “Were you tempted?”
“I wouldn’t have possessed the means, but no. The possibility that I might damage the Wall was always too frightening.” Winola’s expression turned rueful. “In all likelihood, I would have been far enough from the physical structure to avoid undermining the workings exclusion zone it generates, but there’s no way of knowing where those borders lie from the inside. As much as I found workings fascinating in theory, I would never have risked my home’s national security trying to perform them. Why the interest?”
Karys raised and lowered her shoulders, starting on her orange squash. “Trying to imagine what it would be like to live entirely without workings, that’s all.”
“Oh, it’s easier than most people believe,” said the scholar. “Besides, you seldom miss what you’ve never had.”
They both fell quiet for a while after that, but the silence was comfortable. Karys ate everything on her plate; Winola did not quite finish her food. When the attendant returned to clear the table, the scholar thanked the woman, and told her that, although the meal had been lovely, she was too full for dessert.
“In that case, would you like us to package a serving for you?” asked the woman politely. “All food is included in the fare.”
“If it’s no trouble?”
“None at all.”
“Could you do the same for me, please?” added Karys quickly.
“With pleasure, cas,” said the attendant, again with a small smile. “I’ll have it delivered to your room.”
Winola finished the last of her wine, and they left the dining room together shortly afterwards. The scholar seemed thoughtful and a little distracted, toying with her bracelets absentmindedly as she walked. She did not appear upset, exactly, but Karys wondered whether talking about Toraigus had bothered her. Pressed against old wounds. They said goodnight in the long, wood-panelled corridor, and Karys returned to her own quarters alone.
While she had been at dinner, someone had lit the lamps on the bedside tables and rearranged the pillows. The room was warm and inviting; the walls radiated a subtle heat. Her coat hung neatly on a hanger in the wardrobe. Karys closed the door to the passage, and her shadow spooled out over the floor with a sigh.
“Before all of this, I really took food for granted,” he said.
Karys crossed to the windows and drew the curtain back. The world beyond was a grey and silver haze, a nowhereland outside mortal dimensions. She could see the long, hairlike setae of the spider’s abdomen, the thin black strands quivering in the grey.
“What do you make of Winola?” she asked.
Her shadow stretched like a cat, then fell back to her side.
“Well, I wouldn’t underestimate her,” he said. “The guise she’s wearing is close to flawless. At the Foreign Ministry, they have been trying to produce similar temporary appearance modifications for years—from what I understand, it takes considerable skill to work something even half as effective.”
Should you be telling me that? “You think she’s dangerous?”
“I think she’s very good at workings. That could be dangerous, and it could be useful.” His tone turned arch. “What did you think of her?”
Karys let the corner of the curtain drop. “I’m not sure.”
“Are you going to start talking about long-term investments again?”
She gave her shadow a withering stare, and then walked away from the window, sitting down on the bed and kicking off her shoes.
“I believe Winola wants to help,” she said. “I just don’t know if she can.”
A knock on the door signalled the arrival of an attendant bearing her dessert, beautifully packaged in ivory card and bound with a cream-coloured ribbon. Karys took the box, and the man withdrew, bidding her pleasant sleep. She set it down on the sideboard, touching the end of the ribbon.
“Pretty,” remarked Ferain.
“The Silkess fare must cost a fortune,” she muttered. She carefully untied the knot and opened the flap. Inside were two perfect, identical tarts: golden pastry shells filled with segments of glazed tangerine half-submerged in a pale orange cream. Curls of yellow spun sugar domed the top of the dessert.
“Seems like they’re trying to provide your money’s worth,” said her shadow.
Tiny beads of icing dotted the peak of each sliver of tangerine, bright white and shining. Too lovely for me to eat, Karys thought. She shook herself, and quickly closed the box again, feeling oddly flustered.
“If you were part of the diplomatic retinue, then you’ve seen Toraigus?” she said.
Ferain did not seem perturbed by the abrupt change of topic.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “There’s a meeting ground for trade in the Wall’s shadow, where Toraigian representatives can talk to outsiders without banishing themselves. That’s where we were docked.”
“Stay long?”
“About a month. It’s an interesting place: old, ceremonial. When we arrived, everyone in the retinue had to partake in a three-hour fellowship ritual before we were even allowed to speak to their delegates.” His voice softened. “They treated us kindly, though. Invited us to return—this was only the preparatory trip; Ambassador Corbain intended to establish a permanent Vareslian office in the trading ground. Everyone was in high spirits when we left. Now … now they’re gone.”
Karys said nothing. Ferain shivered, and seemed to gather himself.
“Sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t what you asked, I—”
“Can you write your Ministry a letter?” she interrupted. “Or tell me what to write; I’ll do it.”
The angles of her shadow lost their tension. Ferain breathed out.
“You’re willing?” he said.
“Nothing that identifies me, nothing that mentions me at all. We can send it from Miresse via Worked Dispatch tomorrow.”
“Of course. No mention of you at all.”
Karys dropped backwards onto the bed. Her shadow stretched and settled against the wall, completely at odds with the light in the room. The wrongness stuck out at her like a thorn lodged underneath her skin, irritating and faintly repulsive.
“It could start a war,” she said. “What New Favour has done. I can see that.”
“The Ministry will want to stop the situation from escalating.”
“Out of the goodness of their hearts?”
“Out of the fear that Varesli would lose.”
She snorted, but found herself glad that Ferain had not denied the danger outright. She knew that he held his own agenda, knew that he must be desperate to send word of the attack to Varesli—he had originally offered the Split Lapse for nothing but the hope she might carry his warning to the embassy. It was important to him. And yet he had not pressured her about the issue since, not once.
On the one hand, she respected his restraint. On the other, she had the sneaking suspicion he was simply getting better at manipulating her.
Getting softer every day, she thought. Well, if she couldn’t go home, if Ferain was her gamble, and she was committed anyway … Karys scrunched up her face, and pressed her hand to her forehead.
“The scar moved,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
Still flat on her back, she raised her other arm, turning it palm-side up. Ferain shifted closer.
“I hope you have a good theory about this,” she said. “Because I don’t.”
He was silent for a few seconds. A finger of shadow touched the mark, and although Karys didn’t feel anything, she still flinched.
“When did you notice the change?” he asked, drawing back a little.
“Before dinner. Seems bad, doesn’t it?
“Seems … strange. Does it hurt at all?”
“No.”
“Strange,” he murmured again, like he was talking to himself. Karys dropped her arm back to the bed.
“You really believe your father can fix this?” she asked.
Ferain considered the question.
“I don’t think we’ll get the Lapse open without him,” he said. “Or at least, not without his notes.”
“But that’s only half the problem. You’ll still be dying.”
“True. But solving half the problem’s better than none of it, right?”
Karys sighed.
“Eludia is our best chance,” he said, and it sounded like he was smiling. “I believe that.”
Certainty would have been nice, though. Karys sat up again.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me what to write to your Ministry.”