Torian

I huddled on a low wooden stool in the middle of our room at the Cock & Bull, wearing nothing but my smallclothes. The sun streaming in through the window was sending energy coursing through my grid, but I shivered nonetheless.

This would work. This had to work. I refused to accept any other outcome.

When someone scratched softly at the door, I said, “Come.”

Darej slipped inside. The smell emanating from the deep wooden bowl in their hands was so astringent it burned the inside of my nose. They smiled a little diffidently.

“I’m sorry for imposing on your privacy, but this really goes on much better if somebody else handles the application of it. Besides, palms are usually paler than the rest of a person’s skin, and if you get it on your hands, they’ll be far too dark.”

I motioned them to approach. “It’s okay.”

They blinked. “Oh. K?”

My chuckle held an edge of hysteria. “It means the same thing as all right.”

Darej beamed. “Oh kay then.” They set the bowl on the table next to my stool and I eyed the deep brown liquid inside it with some trepidation. “We’ll do a test first, to see how many layers we’ll need. The inside of your upper arm is best. It’s not usually a place people look.”

Obediently, I raised my arm. Darej dipped their fingers in the viscous solution and spread a thin layer on a palm-sized section of my triceps, where it was immediately absorbed, turning my pale skin a dark ivory.

“Won’t it stain your hands too?”

They glanced up at me as they scooped another dollop and smoothed it over the first. “Of course. But soaking my hands in salted water with two parts vinegar to one part Mam’s laundry soap for ten minutes will get rid of it.” They smiled at me with a decided twinkle. “We’ve had a lot of practice with clawfruit rind stain. Clawfruit juice is the main ingredient in Mam’s winter solstice punch, and collecting enough for the year’s batch takes ages every autumn because the stupid things are mostly rind. If we didn’t have a way to clean it off, Maer, Lafi, and I would go about looking as though we’d dipped our hands in tar.” They studied their handiwork, head tilted. “Yes, two layers should do. There are enough Earth-born with skin that light that you won’t attract attention. You don’t want to go as dark as a Sun-born. That would catch a few eyes.”

“You’re the expert.” I wondered briefly why Darej and their family knew about this process as I peered at my arm and poked it with a fingertip. The dye was already dry, the skin now a light golden brown, similar to the artificial tans some of the Lab assistants maintained. “How long will it last?”

“It will fade gradually over a fortnight, but the change won’t be noticeable for at least three days.” They bit their lip. “This will go much faster if Maer and Lafi could help. Do you mind?”

I shook my head. “The faster the better.” After my time in the Lab as a combination sexual surrogate and test subject, my body shyness was negligible.

“I’ll just call them, then.”

Maer and Lafi must have been waiting outside the door, because they immediately burst in, swathed in canvas aprons, each holding another bowl of dye. As they hunkered down on either side of me, Maer looked up at Darej and shook her head.

“By the Earth, Dar. Use the cotton wool, not your fingers. You’d think you liked soaking your hands in that nasty cleanser.”

Darej’s brown cheeks pinked. “I forgot.” They pulled a handful of white fluff from their apron pocket. “I’ll do your face and arms while they work on your legs and we’ll move toward the middle. Okay?”

Lafi squinted up at Darej. “What are you on about, Dar? Are we reciting the alphabet now?”

Darej looked down their nose and sniffed. “Okay means the same as all right. Everyone knows that.”

Lafi exchanged a look with Maer, one I’d seen between Lab assistants when they were wondering whether to challenge someone’s statement or pretend they’d come to the same conclusion themselves.

But then Lafi shrugged and said, “Okay.”

While they worked, I hummed low in my throat, a martial tune from an ancient musical about rebellion and redemption, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

“Oh, please. I’m done with your face.” Darej held the soaked cotton wool in both hands, dribbling stain onto their apron and guaranteeing they’d be soaking their hands in caustic cleanser when we were done. “That sounds so wonderful. Are there… are there words?”

“Yes. Quite stirring ones, as it happens.”

All three siblings looked at one another and then at me, eyes pleading.

“Could you—” Maer said, at the same time Lafi said, “Would you—” and Darej said, “Is it asking too much for—” and they all said, “you to sing it for us?”

“It would be no trouble at all.” I smiled at each of them in turn. “You are doing so much for me, it’s a small enough thing to offer in return.”

I stood to give them all easier access, and as Darej sopped stain onto my arms and Maer and Lafi moved on from my legs to my torso, I launched into “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Before I reached the end of the first verse, Jocosa slipped in to pour a steaming bucket of water into the washbasin and then stayed to listen, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

It only took a couple of encores before they finished, dying my skin everywhere except under my smallclothes. We’d agreed that if it got to the point where anyone saw me there, I’d have other problems to deal with.

While Maer and Lafi washed their hands and Jocosa, still sniffing, left with her bucket, Darej held up a mirror, their fingers stained nearly black. “What do you think?”

I studied my face, tilting my chin up to inspect my throat. The color was smooth and even, not in the least blotchy, and my solar grid—which the siblings hadn’t mentioned—stood out less. I’d seen people in Market Spinney with skin this color, although I’d never seen anybody with gray eyes. I’d have to hope nobody would get close enough to spot the anomaly.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Maer nudged my shoulder to make me sit on the stool again. “Not quite perfect. We have to braid your hair.”

I winced. “Even braiding it won’t make its length any less apparent.”

Jocosa bumped the door open with her hip and re-entered, a bundle of cloth in her arms. “Never you mind. We’ve got something for that, too.”

While Maer plaited my hair so close to my scalp I thought the skin on my temples would split, Jocosa bustled across the room.

“My sister’s a tailor,” she said. “Makes the livery for the servants in the best houses, including the House of Mages. Shirt.” She teased a spotless white linen shirt with ties at the neck out of her armful and tossed it onto the bed.

“Mam!” Lafi protested as she retrieved it and shook it out. “You can’t crease it. Those House folk are always neatly pressed. The mages insist on it.”

Jocosa simply hmmmphed. “Waistcoat.” She handed Lafi a black knee-length garment, subtle gold and red embroidery edging its open front and followed it with close-woven russet trousers. “Breeks.

I reached out and fingered the fine fabric. “I thought the House of Mages livery was red and yellow?”

“That’s the guards. Servants are different,” Jocosa said. “Stockings.” They were also blindingly white. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze shifted to the boots tucked halfway under the bed. “Those won’t do, though.”

“I’ve two other pairs. In my pack.” I pointed to the satchel on the hook next to my cloak.

“Stop fidgeting,” Maer said, “or your plaits will be crooked.”

“Does that matter?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jocosa said, “because we’ve also got this.”

She held up the last item in her arms, some kind of knitted, pouch-like article, something dark coiled within it, visible between its loose stitches and weighty enough to make it swing in her grip.

My eyes widened. “Is that…”

“It’s not anybody else’s hair, if that’s what you’re worried about. That would be sacrilegious.”

Maer snorted. “Like you care about that, Mam.”

Jocosa glared at her daughter. “I might not, but others do.”

“Why is it sacrilegious?” I asked, wishing again that the Infomancers had paid more attention to social customs and community life and less to their next gene splice.

“When a citizen dies, before their body is given to the Earth, their braids are always shorn and given to the Sun. Then those ashes are part of the fire that sends them back to the Earth.”

Burial rituals. Something so intrinsic. How had the Infomancers missed this? The obvious answer was that they hadn’t bothered to look, but now that I thought of it, I’d never seen a graveyard. Even Zal had apologized about burying Edric at first, before I’d used a different method of disposing of his body.

“This is carded wool that we braided and coiled inside the snood,” Jocosa said. “But to attach it to your head, your braids have to be seated close to your head, tight enough to bear the weight.”

“Fair enough.” That didn’t keep me from wincing as Maer finished her work.

Jocosa pronounced my ankle boots acceptable, especially since they were clearly new. They all helped me dress, although the other three deferred to Lafi, who made sure every part of my outfit was as perfect and unremarkable as possible. The snood was an odd, unfamiliar weight at the back of my head, the pins that held it to my braids pulling whenever I turned my head.

“You can’t wear your cloak,” Lafi said flatly.

My fingers twitched, an abortive reflex tied to the protective subroutine I’d burned into my short-term protocols.

If surroundings=public then conceal=true.

To keep my danger proximity alarms from pinging continual false positives, I disabled the command, although that raised a security vulnerability warning which I also had to suppress.

Because it made sense—a liveried servant running an errand in the capital wouldn’t be garbed for travel, especially since the weather was so mild here.

“Don’t worry,” Darej said. “I’ll bring all your things to you outside the city walls. Zal’s cloak, too.” They met my gaze with their trusting brown eyes. “For when you succeed.”

I held out my hands and they placed theirs, stained palms and all, in mine. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger.”

They shook their head. “I won’t be. I can even leave through the main gate. The guards are used to me out and about to forage for Mam’s herbs and such like. They won’t look at me twice.” They waggled their fingers. “Especially with these. Nobody likes harvesting clawfruit, but they all want to drink the punch, so they’re happy to let me pass.”

I glanced at the window where the sun was dipping toward the roofs of nearby houses at the same time that gray clouds were boiling up to meet it. I didn’t want Zal to endure a night in gaol—I knew too well what that was like. The need to get started, the urge for speed sparked under my skin like fireworks.

I looked at my hands, touched my face. “Will this fade in the rain?”

Jocosa scoffed as she poked at the edge of my snood. “What rain?”

I jerked my chin toward the window. “The rain in those clouds.”

“It won’t rain until after midnight,” she said, seating a pin more securely.

“You’ve a weather sense, then?”

She frowned at me as though I were simple. “It never rains during the day.”

I stilled, stopping myself before I could launch an archive retrieval query, because that was clearly at odds with the meteorological patterns of the planet that the Infomancers had maintained for centuries, not that many paid attention to it anymore. “What, never?”

“Think how hard it would be on the merchants in the Square if they had to keep their goods dry while still on display, or folk shopping with water dripping in their eyes.” She gestured to Maer, who approached with a covered basket. “Rain isn’t your concern. These are.” She handed the basket to me. “Dulaberry tarts. The guard on duty can’t resist them.”

I accepted the basket, sniffing appreciatively at the aroma of browned pastry and sugar and tart berries. “How do you know?”

“He’s my sister’s husband’s cousin’s boy. Quite the snatch-pastry he was growing up.”

“But how do you know he’ll be on duty?”

She shrugged. “It’s his shift. But not for much longer. Change happens two hours before sunset. Once he takes these into the ready room to eat, you’ll be able to slip downstairs to the cell block.”

“But Gerd’s office is down there. What if I run into him? Or another guard or one of the clerks?”

She waved that away. “It’ll be deserted. After the Judgment Day announcements, the Congress of Mages and Seigneurs will be hearing petitions all evening, and the clerks’ll be busy recording it all.”

“Petitions for leniency?” Maybe I should have considered a more procedural way to free Zal rather than this extremely risky plan, which, according to the data at my disposal, had less than a nineteen percent chance of success.

Jocosa’s expression darkened. “Not always. Depends on the crime. There’s some as wants sentences to be harsher. But that’s why you need to go now.”

“Yes. Right. Of course.” I glanced between Jocosa, Lafi, and Maer, who’d be staying behind at the inn, and Darej, who’d be accompanying me part of the way, to show me the best route. “Thank you. All of you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

Maer and Lafi both giggled and blushed. Jocosa snorted and looked away, but I could detect that telltale shine in her eyes. Darej just smiled, a little wistfully.

There was something I could do for them in return, something that wouldn’t take long, but hopefully would remain long after Zal and I had gone.

“Would you like to learn a song?”

Maer’s eyes widened. “You can teach us? To sing? All of us?”

I shrugged. “I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to carry a tune. Not everyone can.” From what I’d seen, nobody on this planet had bothered to try. “But the words, yes, and what the melody should be.”

They all nodded eagerly. So I did it.

I taught them a song.

As Darej and I made our way down the stairs, the notes of “Frère Jacques,” in a shaky, off-key round, followed us across the empty tap room and out the door.

“This way,” Darej said, and led me farther into the worker’s quarter at a brisk walk that was almost a trot, through tangled streets and narrow alleys and unexpected courtyards that, even with my mapping system fully online, I struggled to capture.

“Are these streets always deserted like this?” I panted, hard pressed to keep up with Darej even though they were half a head shorter.

“Not always. Most folk will be at the Square, either waiting to present their petition or else shopping at the market stalls. Besides,” they gestured to the dingy walls of the buildings that pressed in on either side of this narrow cobbled street, “visitors don’t come this way. This is for us as live hereabouts.”

“I see.”

When we reached the next corner, they put out a hand, stopping me. “This is as far as I can go.” They pressed a flat wooden disc into my hand. “Remember. Give this to the guard at the side gate behind the tanner’s guild hall.”

I peered at it. “What’s it for?”

They smiled crookedly. “It allows you to leave by that gate without a barrow full of shit.”

A laugh caught in my throat and I pocketed the token. “Then I thank you deeply.” I gazed down at them. “Not only for that. For everything you and your family have done.”

They met my gaze, their eyes shining. “You’ve given us something too, something that no one can take away, so the debt is ours.”

They hummed the first bars of “Frère Jacques” and then held out their arms, clearly asking for permission.

I stepped into the embrace and they squeezed me tightly for an instant before releasing me and stepping back.

“I’ll see you outside the walls, at the place where the main road meets the path off the mountain. Earth keep you safe.”

And they were gone.