NOW
After her shower and meal, Nhika found a change of clothing sitting on her bed, though it wasn’t the dresses and silk pants she’d worn in this company before. Instead, it looked more like what she’d worn when she was on her own, a loose tunic thrown over a thin bodice, trousers, and a sash to belt it all together. After she’d donned the pile of clothing, she realized Mimi hadn’t bothered to leave her gloves. Despite how simple the attire, it was an aristocrat who looked back from her mirror, and she appeared more familiar than she should’ve. The well-rested eyes, uncracked lips, brushed hair … There was a welcomeness to Suon Ko Nhika, like soothing out the last bit of discomfort after a wound.
When she was done, Mimi awaited at her bedroom door. At the sight of her, Mimi smiled hesitantly, as though afraid of being too optimistic. “You look much better.”
“I can work wonders with a meal.” She’d just eaten, but she already felt hungry again, having spent all her calories on fixing the little flares across her body, the things that didn’t feel quite right—a tight muscle here, a patch of numbness there. There was still a foreignness in her own skin, but she wasn’t sure if it was anatomical or if it was due to the recovery from a near-fatal wound.
“Would you like another?” Mimi asked, as though reading her mind. “Hendon just prepared lunch. Everyone is excited to see you.”
Nhika’s heart leaped at the thought of lunch, and more so at the thought of seeing the Congmi household again—Trin, Andao, Hendon. Grimly, Nhika realized she hadn’t expected to wake up from her last stunt.
“Mimi, what happened at the medical center?”
Mimi turned her cheek, looking evasive. “Well, what do you remember?”
“We bested Santo. You went to call the constabulary, and I went to find Kochin. And when I found him, he…” The words choked back down her throat, but she pressed through. “He was dying. And in that moment, I just remember feeling like … like I would give my life to save him.”
“I know,” Mimi said softly. “I know you would.”
“I thought I did,” Nhika admitted with a sheepish laugh, suddenly self-conscious about her own melodrama. “I just don’t understand how I’m here, because there weren’t enough calories to save us both. So … what happened?”
Mimi gave her an uncertain look, and something dreadful curled around Nhika’s stomach. Her mind went to the worst—that they hadn’t both been saved, that her being here meant something she would not be able to bear. But Mimi only said, “You know I don’t understand heartsoothing enough to explain it. Can we talk about it at lunch?”
“I—”
“Follow me.”
Mimi whirled and fled down the hall, leaving Nhika no choice but to follow.
As Mimi took her through the house, it dawned on her that she didn’t recognize these hallways at all. They looked like they belonged in the Congmi manor, all furnished with stately wallpaper and dark wood. They meandered through the parlors, full of lacquered furniture and bright ceramics, and she didn’t recognize a single room. She knew the Congmis had multiple homes in Theumas. She just wasn’t sure why they’d moved her to this one.
“Nhika?” Mimi said, calling her back. She’d stopped before an entryway that must’ve been the dining room, judging by the aroma of ginger from somewhere within. When Nhika turned the corner, she found Andao and Hendon already seated.
It was a homely, square chamber dominated by wood-paneled windows, but the view was just as beautiful: the curve of a cliff, gray stone buffeted by foaming water, and fields peppered with flowers. Where the Congmi manor was grand, this was idyllic like a cottage, and she wondered if the seeming isolation was any part of the reason she’d awoken here rather than the manor.
When she looked back to Hendon and Andao, she found them staring at her like she was an automaton that had gained sentience. Something had changed about both of them, very subtly. Though Andao wore the same style of suit, she could’ve sworn he had grown taller, or perhaps it was just the over-straight way he held his back now, shoulders squared. It was … confident. A good look on him. Hendon, too, seemed so much healthier than when she’d first healed him, weeks ago. The fat had returned to his cheeks, the life to his eyes, but when he reached for his napkin, his hand still trembled. Two more place settings sat on the table, Mimi’s and Nhika’s. Wordlessly, Nhika took her seat.
“Nhika,” Andao breathed, drawing her attention back to the table. “I … I can’t believe that you’re up, sitting at the table.” He said it with a sense of cautiousness that made her feel like a skittish animal, one he was afraid of overwhelming.
“Me neither,” Nhika murmured beneath her breath. Those swallowed questions returned, but one bubbled to the surface first: “Did you take everything to the constabulary? Did Dr. Santo go to jail?”
“Life imprisonment at the Central Theumas Penitentiary,” Andao replied as if by rote. He waved to the dishes on the table. “Please, eat.”
Only because she needed the calories, and not because she had an appetite, Nhika spooned herself portions of each dish. It was then she realized the meal had started, and yet … “Won’t Trin be joining us?”
A dour mood fell across the table, like she’d unstoppered something noxious. But Andao’s tone was measured as he said, “He’s in Central for the time being.”
His wording prompted her to look out the window, and she realized something was missing from that view. If they were in Central Theumas and the mansion faced the water, she would expect to see the dockyards—or even the hint of maritime commerce. But there was nothing but white-faced bluffs, fields, and endless horizon of blue, which begged the question—
“Where are we?” she asked, pushing her chair back with a harsh screech.
“I should’ve mentioned earlier,” Mimi said remorsefully. “We’re in Western Theumas.”
Western Theumas. Nhika had been here before. Kochin’s hometown was somewhere out here, too, in the rural parts of the city-state. But to have moved her all the way out here, then … “How long have I been out?”
Mimi swallowed. “Months?”
The word drove through her like a bullet. “Months?” Nhika shook her head. “No, no, that can’t be.” Everything was bearing down at once, like the firmament was dropping out of the sky, because she’d just awoken in a house she didn’t recognize, missing months of time, with two of the most important people in her life absent without explanation—and all those questions only multiplied, each one fighting its way up her throat until she felt she might be sick.
Andao leaned over the table. “Nhika, I know it’s a lot, but—”
“Tell me.”
“What?”
Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Tell me exactly what happened at the medical center.”
Swallowing, Andao pushed silverware around his place setting, like he was making room for his words or avoiding them altogether. “I wasn’t there, but as I understand it, you and Mr. Ven encountered Santo at the medical center. And … he shot you both.”
The wound in her shoulder flared with an ache. It was a little unfair, she thought, that she could heal any wound yet still fear the pain of that night.
“Yes, I remember,” Nhika responded, a little bitterly. “He took me to a coffin. He’d been keeping his son’s body in some machine to preserve it—had all these plans to bring it back to life. It’s why he’d been trapping Kochin, but a heartsooth can’t bring a dead body back to life.”
They were staring at her like she’d just come back from the Butchers’ Row again—not quite sure what she was, treating her with padded gloves.
“What?” she asked.
Mimi shook her head. “Nothing.”
“So, you freed me from the coffin. Trin shot Santo through the leg. I went into that operating room.” Nhika closed her eyes. She remembered that moment with a surgeon’s precision, ribs lined with a scalpel and chest cleaved in two. She could even retrace every moment that drew her toward her decision: the grief, the hopelessness, and her … bone ring. On that table, she’d truly accepted her ring; giving it to him had been a bid for remembrance. But Kochin understood such customs—since she lived, he should’ve known to give it back.
Unless he hadn’t had the chance. Nhika looked up, met Mimi’s eye. “Did Kochin make it off that operating table?”
“Yes,” Mimi answered immediately, and Nhika felt her heart loosen.
“So, I healed him.”
“Yes.”
“And he saved me?”
“… Yes.”
“How is that possible? Heartsoothing requires energy, an exchange, and there was only enough to save one of us.”
Mimi shook her head. “I can’t explain the heartsoothing to you—you know I can’t. But Kochin left you to heal with us. He planned to return when you were better.”
“But he’s been gone for months.”
“And it’s taken you months to recover.”
Mimi wasn’t wrong—but there was something not quite right, either. Nhika’s stomach soured when she realized the discrepancy: The Congmis would never let him back into their lives. He’d assured them he’d leave Central Theumas forever.
“Was Kochin … sentenced?” Nhika asked. Perhaps she’d misjudged the Congmis. Perhaps, in her absence, they’d decided to enact justice for their father, after all.
“No,” Mimi said, almost too quickly. “We wouldn’t do that.”
Nhika turned to Andao. “Is that the truth?”
He met her gaze without wavering. “Yes,” he said, and he was either telling the truth or, some time in the missing months, he’d gotten far too adept at lying.
“Stay, Nhika,” Mimi said. “I know this sounds like we’re keeping you from him—and believe me, I wish I could—but he left you with us. So, shouldn’t you stay here until he returns?”
Mimi’s eyes bored into her. Nhika remembered Mimi in her fierceness, her anger, her adamancy. This was something different—something vulnerable, desperate, honest. All that youthful entitlement gone, replaced by a genuine concern.
“Okay,” Nhika relented, and something fidgety fingered its way underneath her skin. She’d never stayed in any place for so long, and she wondered how long she could bear it, staying without even knowing if Kochin was alive. “I’ll stay. For now.”
Mimi’s brow melted with relief. “Thank you,” she said, but Nhika didn’t know what remained unspoken.
Nhika would stay until she learned just why the Congmis were lying to her.