NOW
Never in her life had Nhika just sat and waited.
Her fingers itched to do something—press snake oils, soothe, anything other than hide behind these silk gloves. Yet, all she could do was wait: for Trin to wake up, for Kochin to come home. Waiting for answers, when she’d always preferred prying them out.
The house looked different now that Nhika had learned it was a refuge from war—not so menacing, just … lonely. A little barren. Too big to be a bunker, but too empty to be a home.
At the very least, Mimi kept her busy. This time, it was to reveal the last of the Congmi secrets: their locked carriage house.
“Knowing you, it’s only a matter of time before you pick this lock,” Mimi was saying as they walked the path toward the carriage house. “So, I figured I should show you now before you hurt yourself.”
Mimi had been right. Nhika had planned an expiration date for that lock, and it’d been fast approaching.
“Hurt myself?” Nhika asked.
Mimi gave her a saturnine look. “It’s wartime. Our storehouses are a lot more dangerous these days.”
Nhika sucked in a breath and followed.
Mimi took her to the carriage house doors and unlatched the lock at the bottom. With all her weight, she cranked a lever and a pulley tightened, lifting the door. Inch by inch, the door revealed a dark storehouse, until Mimi ducked inside and switched on the light. The dim bulbs painted the machines in oily color.
They were automatons unlike any Nhika had ever seen before, built in the bipedal semblance of a human but not imitative of one. No, these were treaded metal suits standing twice her height, somewhere between armor and vehicle. At their sides hung segmented arms with claws and grappling hooks and … ammunition belts, which traced back to turrets on either arm.
These were war machines, all of them. This warehouse was lined with rows and rows of war machines. They were in resting positions now, their torso segments bowed, but she could see how intimidating they would’ve been if they had been standing upright, an untouchable soldier operating the machine from behind a gridded glass window, manipulating arms that housed turrets and spewed flames. Nhika walked up to one of them, taking a stepladder to peer within the cockpit, where she found a dashboard of controls. It looked so simple, like driving an autocarriage. GUARDIAN read the emblazoned letters across its arm. Yet, these machines looked built to kill.
“Striking, aren’t they?” Mimi asked, though her words didn’t match her somber tone. “My brother’s ingenuity knows no bounds.”
“Nem mentioned a secret weapon—one he thinks will end the war. Is this what he meant?” Nhika asked, placing her palm against the cool glass of the cockpit.
“Commissioner Nem,” Mimi chastised, sounding so much like Trin. “And no, the Guardians are no secret. We’ve already deployed a few earlier models on Yarong. It was terribly hard, designing treads that gripped sand, but Andao was adamant they be sent to Yarong.”
Of course. That’s where Trin had been stationed—and the name, Guardian, was self-evident. Perhaps these machines were made to save lives and defend Theuman soldiers. All Nhika could think about was how, with these cold metal suits, Andao had unknowingly created the perfect weapon against a heartsooth.
“Now that Trin is back from war, will Andao maintain his partnership with Nem?” Nhika asked.
Mimi looked like she wanted to reprimand the disrespect again, but she only said, “Yes. It’s becoming clear that Theumas needs every advantage it can get against a country with two—now three—occupied territories.”
“Yet, Nem sounded so certain we could win,” Nhika said, mostly to herself.
Mimi moved to the workbench, where she unfurled a blueprint of the Guardian. “If there’s anything I’ve learned since the start of this war, it’s that there’s no such thing as certainty. This is new for everyone. It feels like building an autocarriage while it’s in motion.”
Nhika didn’t like that answer. She needed certainty, and she wanted to believe Nem—because she’d awoken, having lost six months and a heartsooth, to a city at war. So, she needed something that might lessen the terror of it all, like adding sugar to snake oils. Otherwise, she might start to think about all those injuries her heartsoothing could never heal because she’d escaped the draft. She might imagine air raids over the Congmi villa—a fire claiming this family just as it had claimed hers. And she might wonder about a heartsooth, alone somewhere on an island she couldn’t reach.
This war … it was so much bigger than she was. Nhika had only two hands.
“It’s a duty,” Mimi said, and for a second, Nhika thought Mimi had read her mind. “This immense power. Six months ago, all our machines did was sell paper, or serve tea, or play strings. Now, they might turn the tides of war. I don’t think Theumas would remember us kindly if we turned our backs on that possibility. Well, if Theumas falls, then I doubt they’d remember us at all.”
“Do you want to be remembered?”
“Yes,” Mimi answered haughtily. “Before the war, I thought that was a guarantee. At this moment I’m not so sure.”
Nhika wanted to be remembered, too, but not by all posterity. Just by a heartsooth—it’s what she died for. Now, she’d been given a second life, and she had to wonder if it was wasted here, with her hands behind silk. Surely, with her many gifts, there was something more to be done.
She blinked out of her stupor just in time to catch a rag, which Mimi had tossed at her. “What’s this?”
“A job—help me polish all these models, won’t you?”
“Excuse me? You’re making me work?”
Mimi gave her an unsympathetic look. “If I must work, Nhika, so must you.”
“That’s how I know the world has turned upside down,” Nhika muttered, starting on the first machine. “Congmi Mai Minlan is doing manual labor.”
Together, they polished. These automatons had been stored for quite some time, so their shiny finishes had already begun to tarnish in the dust and dampness. Mimi was a mean employer, making Nhika polish until she could see herself in the metal.
“If these things are going to war anyway, why are we cleaning them?” Nhika grumbled.
“Commissioner Nem has requested a few models to showcase at his upcoming exhibition,” Mimi said. “It’s going to be an entire event—all these sponsors and politicians congregating in an airship for the weekend. We have to bring our absolute best.”
“Am I invited?” Nhika asked. She’d always wanted to ride on an airship.
Mimi blew out a strand of hair from her face. “Trust me. You don’t want to go. Two days of smiling, talking, selling. Lying to people that our machines can save this city.” She shook her head. “I’d much rather stay home with Hendon.”
“Then stay home.”
Mimi let out a light laugh. “It’s an upside-down world, isn’t it? Congmi Mai Minlan no longer gets what she wants.”
They were just finishing up when someone knocked on the side of the building, drawing their attention. It was Hendon, hands clasped behind his back. “Someone has arrived for you.”
“I’ll be right there,” Mimi said, pulling on her gloves.
“I should’ve specified—she’s here for Nhika.”
Nhika exchanged a wary look with Mimi. “Er, who?”
“She said her name was Numathai Lanalay. I’ve invited her to the parlor.”
“You know her?” Mimi asked.
“Only by name.” But Nhika couldn’t pretend she wasn’t dying to know more.
Hendon led the way. Nhika hadn’t expected to ever see Lanalay again—had assumed she’d made away with the commissioner’s secrets. But when Hendon dropped her off at the parlor, there Lanalay was, walking a finger down the spines of Mr. Congmi’s books.
Her outfit was, in a word, bold. She’d foregone the Theuman customs of long sleeves and long pants, opting instead for a simple dress with short sleeves and a slit at the thigh that revealed the skin of her legs. A winter shawl wrapped her shoulders, but it was too small to cover all her skin. Nhika couldn’t help but notice all the social blunders where she might never have before. At least Lanalay knew to wear gloves in Theumas, but they ended at the wrist when they should’ve traveled the arm.
She had cuts along her arm—scars, some still red. Nhika’s heart fell, knowing that if Lanalay were a heartsooth, all those wounds would be healed. Her arms, too, had muscle, and it set her apart. She didn’t look like a socialite. She looked like a soldier.
“Are these books yours?” Lanalay asked.
“They belong to the late Mr. Congmi.”
“Well then, he had a fondness for Yarongese stories,” Lanalay said. She tipped back one of the books to expose the cover. “This is a translation of the tale of Talahun. One of our most famous.”
“I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s about the tragic lover Talahun who looked upon a noblewoman and fell in love. When she asks for proof, he has nothing to offer her—except a severed finger. And each time she doubted his loyalty thereafter, he’d give her another finger, then a hand, then an ear—until he’d cut himself up into little pieces for her.”
Nhika clucked her tongue. “And here I thought romance was dead.”
Lanalay didn’t laugh. Nhika found herself missing Kochin—even if he antagonized her, it was still entertaining. Instead, Lanalay gestured to the chairs, an invitation to sit, but Nhika still wasn’t sure why she’d been asked to meet. From anyone else, Nem or Ngut or Santo, it would’ve put her on edge. Right now, she was only curious.
They sat across from each other. “I thought you’d made it pretty clear you didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” Nhika said.
“I need another favor,” Lanalay said, but it sounded more like a demand.
“Oh? The one I gave you at Nem’s party wasn’t enough?”
Lanalay shifted her jaw, like she finally saw Nhika as a person, rather than a tool. “Right, I suppose I owe you a thank-you.”
“And an apology.” Nhika threw a glance toward the door, just to make sure they were alone. “What were you doing sneaking around the commissioner’s home?”
Lanalay’s expression darkened. For a moment, Nhika almost feared Lanalay might actually be an undercover agent, and she’d made a blatant accusation—political subtlety had never been her strength. But Lanalay said, “It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me what it is, and I’ll decide.”
“I … can’t.”
“Then we have no business, Ms. Numathai.”
Lanalay pressed her lips thin. “You know important people. You even know one of the commissioners. Commissioner Nem has an upcoming exhibition in the sky, and I need to be there.”
That stalled Nhika. This exhibition—the same one Mimi had mentioned—was starting to sound important. But Nhika saw no reason for a translator from Yarong to be there. “I’ve been warned it’s a dreadful affair.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s everything to me.”
“I’ve seen the shining lights, Ms. Numathai. Trust me, they’re not worth it.” Nhika’s story was a cautionary tale: called by the gold, killed by the cave-in.
Lanalay leaned forward, hands bunched in her lap. For the first time, she looked desperate, not so cold, nor contemptuous. “Your commissioner has something that belongs to me,” she blurted, and only after did she check if someone else might’ve been eavesdropping. When she found no one, she added, “I need it back.”
This seemed earnest. “What is it?”
“The last memory of my grandmother on this earth,” Lanalay responded. By instinct, Nhika’s hand went to her sternum, but her bone ring wasn’t there. There were other Yarongese customs of remembrance, but she didn’t know of any that might interest a commissioner.
“Why would Nem have it?”
Lanalay drew closer. “I don’t know. My guess is that he believes it will win him this war.”
Nem’s secret weapon—he’d been so confident. “Well, can it?”
For a long time, Lanalay kept Nhika’s gaze. Then she said, “If it could’ve won wars, then Yarong never would’ve fallen to Daltanny in the first place.”
“That’s what you were looking for in his villa, wasn’t it?” Nhika figured.
“Yes. But it wasn’t there. I realized it must be in that airship, waiting for the exhibition. So, I need to be there. You can help me.”
“I don’t remember making promises,” Nhika said quickly. “I’m not even invited.”
“But you know the Congmi family,” Lanalay pressed. “You could whisper into the ear of the commissioner himself. Some of us would die for that honor.”
And Nhika had died for the honor. In Lanalay’s words, she saw a shadow of the past: herself, months ago, watching a certain physician’s aide traipse among stars and wondering how he could take the night sky for granted.
But Lanalay wanted something from Commissioner Nem. She might’ve even wanted something he considered a weapon. To get Lanalay on that airship would be nothing short of criminal espionage—and worse, it would put Lanalay within Nem’s crosshairs. The girl didn’t even know how to match gloves with her dress. Nhika could not steer her toward a commissioner who bullied and drank and had pressed Andao beneath his thumb.
Just like that, she was Kochin at the wake, watching a Yarongese girl from across the room accept a business card from a diabolical doctor. She was Kochin over the phone, wishing that girl on the line wasn’t so damned persistent about climbing into her own grave.
And she was Kochin with heartsooth books in his hands, wondering if it would be such a terrible thing to help her in her quest.
Nhika knew how that tale went. She had a bullet wound in her shoulder to remind her of the ending.
“I’m sorry,” Nhika said. “I … I can’t get you on the airship.”
Disbelief drew Lanalay’s brow. A muscle twitched in her jaw. “You’re the only familiar face I’ve seen since coming to this city-state. I thought … I thought you might understand.”
That one struck deep. Nhika felt the guilt in her sternum, right where her bone ring might hang. “I do, but—”
“You’re Yarongese, aren’t you?”
Nhika swallowed. “I’m Yarongese-Theuman.”
“Do you know what a heartsooth is?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer in a way that might satisfy Lanalay. Suddenly, she didn’t even know what it meant to be a heartsooth—because she soothed only in the way her grandmother had taught her, in the way that survived in Theumas. That was nothing like the heartsoothing on Yarong. “I’ve heard of it.”
“You may be more familiar with the Daltan term, bloodcarver. It’s the gift of healing passed through my culture—our culture. My grandmother was a heartsooth. When the Daltans came, they destroyed the gift and anyone who might pass it on. They invented a new word for it, bloodcarving—that’s the name Theumas uses, too, isn’t it? They pillaged graves because they believed our corpses might give them the same gift they despised about us. They’ve tainted the very memory of heartsoothing.” Each word drove the blade deeper into Nhika’s chest, and Lanalay’s glare walled her in. “It’s your history, too. Don’t you care to preserve it?”
She did—and that’s why she couldn’t walk Lanalay to her death. Keeping the legacy of heartsoothing alive simply meant surviving, and Nhika had failed that once already. Now, the only other heartsooth she knew was somewhere on Yarong, and she didn’t even know if he was alive. So this time, she had to be the one leveling the gun on the girl in the shophouse, telling her to leave everything well enough alone.
“Nothing on that airship is worth making an enemy out of Theumas’s most powerful man,” Nhika said—her final answer. It haunted her just to say it.
Disappointment drew across Lanalay’s expression, and the coldness returned. “I see,” she said. “I thought we might see eye to eye. It seems I was mistaken.”
She stood, paused a moment—like she was giving Nhika a chance to change her mind. But Nhika remained silent, tight lipped as she stared at the floor, and Lanalay left the room. Nhika let her.
Mother, she didn’t know how Kochin had done it—seeing someone so much like himself yet purposefully driving her away.
Then again, he’d never been able to pull the trigger.
Nhika was still thinking about Lanalay that night—all the things she should’ve asked, should’ve done. She wondered if Lanalay herself was a heartsooth. She wondered what that meant on Yarong. But in the end, it was for the best she never asked. That was where Kochin had failed—he hadn’t been able to keep away.
Piece by piece, she changed out of her outfit and into a nightdress. She wasn’t sure when she’d started wearing the aristocratic getup every day, the high collars and the pleated pants and the … gloves. But she doffed them, and they came off like ink spilling down her arms.
As Nhika went to unclasp her dress, her elbow bumped the full-length mirror. It swiveled, catching the glint of moonlight off something behind her bed. Nhika stalled with her hands behind her back, still reaching for the zipper, and squinted at the reflection—a metal chain and something silver at the end of it, indiscernible within the shadow of her bed.
Urged by curiosity, she crouched down near the head of her bed, arm clawing behind her frame for the catch of metal. She found it, her fingers closing around something firm and familiar: her ring. There was something else there, both of them caught on the woodwork of her bed frame. She gave a firmer yank; something gave, and Nhika drew out her ring on her palm.
Some long-rooted anxiety released from her chest as she saw her bone ring, the familiar matte of its onyx and the jagged crack through its bone segments. It must’ve been caught on the trelliswork of her bed frame all this time. If she’d known it had been with her, she might’ve looked for it, but Nhika had expected it to be with …
Brows knitting, she turned the necklace over in her palm. She’d always kept it on a cord of woven rope, but now it was on a metal chain, stained with a sediment like rust. Alongside it was something else, something she took a moment to recognize.
It was a pair of those oval-shaped ID tags, the kind collected off dead soldiers. The tarnished engraving on this one spelled out a name:
VEN KOCHIN.