SIX MONTHS AGO
By the second day of the week, Kochin’s father and Vinsen returned to work and Bentri to school, leaving Kochin at home with his mother. He spent the morning in the garden before the heat could hit, then started making a home of his room again.
All he truly needed of the room was the bed. It was a child’s bed; the last time he was here, he’d been Bentri’s age. Still, there was more room here than on the houseboat, and he felt he owed his family his presence. Yet, his thoughts were not in Chengton.
They were in Theumas.
In particular, they were in the private study of a delicensed doctor, whose walls were hung with photographs of vivisections and whose shelves bent under the weight of unethical Daltan texts. He’d perused those texts after Santo’s house had been cased by the constabulary, but they had not been able to answer the question Santo had been researching, the question Kochin wondered now: Could a heartsooth bring someone back from the dead?
A knock came at the door, and Kochin didn’t have time to respond before it opened. His mother arrived, a plate of sliced mango in her hand, which she placed on his bookshelf.
He smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Ma.”
Taking that as an invitation, she strutted into the room, pushing past him to fling open the curtains. “So dark in here, Kochin,” she scolded as dust billowed into the air.
“I don’t mind it.”
“I do. Look how pale you’ve become. You look more like your father every day,” she said, shaking her head. She opened the window to let in a breeze and fan out the dust, then paused to ask, “Did you like your job?”
“It had its pluses and minuses.” Kochin didn’t mean to be so reticent, but he feared opening up a line of questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. Questions about why the home visits had stopped when the money hadn’t, why he was returning now. If he talked about those things, where did he stop? Did he stop at Santo, the strings Kochin had tied himself in? Did he stop at Mr. Congmi, an industrial titan felled by a physician’s aide? Or, did he stop at Nhika, a girl who died in his stead because he could take but he could not give?
“Must’ve been a busy job, studying and working all the time,” his mother continued, voice goading him to reveal more.
He halted his packing and turned from the door. “I suppose it was. Everyone there is trying to climb the ladder, just like me, and it was easy to forget about anything else. It’s my fault, really. I just got caught up in the city.”
“You know, if you went by train instead of houseboat, it’s a shorter trip home.”
“It was hard to find time even then.”
“Were you ashamed of us, Kochin?” his mother asked, turning from the window and dropping the pretense of tidying.
“No,” he said, shaking his head fervently. “Never that.”
“You fell in love, then. Was it Nhika?”
“I—” Kochin didn’t have the words to deny it, but it wasn’t what she thought. “I didn’t forget about family, Ma.”
“Then why, after all this time, no telegrams or visits, just money and a single letter … Why now?”
That was the question he feared. Desperation gleamed in her eyes and Kochin knew that if he didn’t give her an answer, she would assume the worst: that he didn’t care for his family. That, after having drained his mother’s love and father’s pride to escape to the city, he hadn’t once thought about coming back. Nothing had been further from the truth.
And he could’ve told her the truth. Santo had been imprisoned; there was no more danger to Kochin’s family. But now, it wasn’t fear that stayed his tongue. It was guilt—he was here because another heartsooth had died in his stead. And not just any other heartsooth, but Nhika. If he put it into words, voiced it aloud, he feared it might break him.
“Theumas trapped me,” he said instead. “I was in a bad situation. But now I’m out.”
“Was it debt?” his mother asked. “You should’ve asked for help, and you didn’t have to send us the money. We could—”
“No, Ma,” he said, waving off her concerns. “Please, don’t worry about me.”
His words were only gasoline to a fire.
“I am worried about you. It’s my job to worry about you—I’m your mother. You came back, Kochin, but you’re so quiet and unhappy. You don’t smile anymore. You’re thin as a twig. You tell me not to worry, but what worries me most is when you don’t tell me anything at all. Then I’m just left to wonder,” she railed, hands planted on her hips.
If only she knew. Kochin’s lips parted, as though he were brave enough to reveal that her assumptions could not come close to the truth. For all his life, he had considered his mother’s love unconditional, but he wondered if he’d merely lacked the imagination—how could he have foreseen the crimes he’d commit? Instead of the truth, he said, “I lost something important to me in Theumas, Ma.”
“Suonyasan Nhika?” his mother asked.
He nodded.
“Who was she to you, Kochin? She was more than just a friend, wasn’t she?”
Again, he nodded.
“She broke up with you? That’s why you came home?”
His throat closed—he would take that reality over the truth—but he shook his head. “No, she didn’t.”
“I don’t understand, then. What happened?”
A memory caught him like fingers around his throat: the glow of Nhika’s flyaway hairs, illuminated by the surgical light as she bent over him; her lips crushing against his, so sweet only because he’d thought they’d be the last thing he tasted; her body in his arms after, impossibly cold and light as the last trace of her warmth disappeared into his chest. A scar still remained, not fully healed; Nhika had used the last of her energy to place her ring in his fingers instead. Kochin couldn’t remember how long he remained on that table, holding her against his body as though that could return her gift of life.
By instinct, he turned her bone ring around his finger. If he thought, real hard, about what had killed her, he found it wasn’t the gunshot to her shoulder, nor the cut in her abdomen, nor the bruise against her temple. The events that had led to her death had started far before that night in the operating suite. They’d started the moment he’d taken off his mask.
So, because he should’ve done the same with Nhika, because the world had punished him for hoping, he simply said, “Things just didn’t work out. The city holds bad memories for me now. That’s all, Ma.”
And as though it were a second skin, that physician’s aide mask slipped easily over the grooves of his cheekbones again—wooden finish over his eye bags, theater paint on all his cracks. He could tell he was breaking his mother’s heart from the look in her eyes, but he could live with that. Kochin had broken Nhika’s heart the same way, and he should’ve left it broken.
When he had no more words to offer her, his mother backed toward the door. “Okay, Kochin,” she said, accepting the answer for now. “I’m just glad you’re home.”
Kochin didn’t respond, not wanting to give her any reason to linger, but it still killed him when she closed the door.
No one could’ve prepared him for the loneliness—when the one person who’d always known him best no longer understood him at all.
It came down to the brain.
Kochin had soothed enough corpses to know that, on their own, organs might push and pull blood, and the lungs might hold and release breath, but it was the processes of the brain that brought it all together. But Kochin had never been so adept at soothing the brain—had always avoided it, lest his patients feel him. Even with Hendon, during the accident that killed Mr. Congmi, Kochin hadn’t been able to heal the collateral damage.
Nhika had done that. She had, somehow, repaired the pathways that allowed Hendon to get out of bed, to walk and talk and laugh again. But to create those electrical pathways out of nothing was like drawing water from air.
Kochin’s knife slipped, as he was so lost in thought, and the edge sliced open his finger. He sucked in a breath and drew back, keeping blood off the vegetables he’d been cutting for dinner. Only then did he realize he’d been dicing the tomatoes, when it should’ve only been the onions—so absentminded lately. His thoughts weren’t in the kitchen, as quaint and warm as it was. They were in his houseboat, at Nhika’s side, one hand on her arm and his influence mired somewhere in her cranium, trying to create a spark that might keep.
“Here,” came a voice: Vinsen, emerging from behind to pass Kochin a napkin.
Kochin accepted it and squeezed it around his finger. “I thought you were on the river today.”
“The fish were disagreeable. We’ll try again tomorrow morning.” Vinsen looked him up and down, then proffered up a hand. “Need a calorie?”
It was a habit from when they were children because Kochin was always taking calories to soothe—second nature, but Kochin had spent so long soothing in secret that the offer stunned him.
“What, don’t tell me you don’t even soothe anymore after Central,” Vinsen said.
“Of course I do,” Kochin said. It wasn’t something he could ever give up easily—no matter how hard Santo had tried to make him hate it. The doctor had almost succeeded, but Kochin had just needed a reminder—a girl, too smart for her own good, who’d pried apart his mask with bloody fingers. Proof that heartsoothing was beautiful, and it was kind, and it was forgiving.
When Kochin still didn’t take the offer, Vinsen stuck his hand back under his armpit. “You were up early this morning. Earlier than me.”
Kochin had gone to the houseboat. Santo’s machine was enough to keep the decay at bay, but he was still terrified—like he might come back one day to find her unsalvageable. “I was exploring Chengton again. I’ve been away for too long.”
“Yeah,” Vinsen agreed easily, and his eyes bored into Kochin. “You know, I found Ma crying, earlier. You have anything to do with that?”
Kochin stepped back, looked away. He’d made her cry when he left; he made her cry when he returned. “I guess I just didn’t come home in the way she’d hoped.”
Vinsen’s expression darkened, like he wanted to say something biting, but he only shook his head. “You’re leaving at the end of the week, right?”
Kochin nodded.
Vinsen let out a sardonic laugh, something disappointed hiding behind his dry smile. “Well, I’d say you never really came home at all.”
He clapped a hand against Kochin’s shoulder—a fraternal gesture, but this one felt cold and distant—as he left, and for all Kochin’s heartsoothing, the cut in his finger still bled.
After dinner, he took to the dinghy again—this time, bringing one of the mice that had gotten stuck in his mother’s traps. Vinsen’s words were still crawling under his skin—but Kochin told himself he’d be home, truly, soon. Just one last task, one final chain to cut free from: his failure to pull his heartsooth out of Theumas alive. Then, and only then, could he find those ideals she’d promised him.
Peace. Freedom. Love. For a night, he had those; in a night, he’d lost them.
When he neared the houseboat, he found something immediately amiss: another skiff tied to the railing. He hurried, rows digging water, and didn’t bother to tie the dinghy down before hauling himself on board and shoving his way into the cabin.
Inside, he found Vinsen standing before Nhika’s casket.
Kochin left no space for explanations. He just rushed up to Vinsen and shoved him aside, harder than he’d intended. With a cry, Vinsen crashed against the shelves, toppling books in his grapple for balance.
“Did you touch anything?” Kochin demanded, and Vinsen winced at his tone.
“Kochin, I—”
“Did you touch anything?”
Vinsen stared at him, brows lifted and eyes horrified. The way he was looking at Kochin now, it was like they weren’t even related—like nothing more than empty space and strewn books connected them.
“Who are you?” Vinsen asked, his voice hollow. “You look like my brother, but you’ve come back empty. You sound like him, but your words don’t mean anything anymore. And now this … this…”
“Did you—”
“No, I didn’t touch a damned thing!” Vinsen snapped, and his anger devolved into an incredulous laugh, like he couldn’t decide between horror and disbelief. “So, this is where you’ve been spending all your time. Mother, Kochin, please don’t tell me … don’t tell me you…”
“Don’t tell you that I what?”
In a strained voice, Vinsen finished, “That you killed her?”
Kochin’s eyes flared. “No.” But he might as well have. He turned toward the casket, just to ensure Nhika was still within—untouched, unaltered. “Leave, Vinsen.”
“What?”
“Leave. Forget what you saw.”
“Not until you explain this to me. Why is there a dead girl in your—”
“She’s not dead,” Kochin interrupted, and the bite of his words startled Vinsen back toward the shelf. “Not alive. But not dead, either. Somewhere in between, with this machine taking over the function of her organs and my heartsoothing keeping her warm.”
“By the Mother, Kochin … are you planning on…” Vinsen shook his head. “So, all this time you’ve spent in the city, it’s just been to break the natural order, test your limits.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kochin took a step toward him.
“Well then, enlighten me, Kochin.” Vinsen matched the challenge.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?” Vinsen demanded, and Kochin realized how close they’d gotten, eye to eye. “Because I never left Chengton? Because I couldn’t possibly be as smart as Ven Kochin, boy genius?”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you haven’t spent these past three years gallivanting across Central, seeing the world, while the rest of us were stuck here. Tell me you don’t want your name in the stars like all those other Theuman trailblazers. Tell me … tell me you’re not trying to bring a corpse back from the dead.”
“And so what if I—”
Vinsen shot out a fist, and knuckles cracked against Kochin’s jaw. Kochin stumbled against a chair, cool palm cupping his flaming cheek, and for a moment, all either of them could do was stare at each other in stunned silence.
Then Vinsen said, “When will it be enough for you?”
That wasn’t a word Kochin liked, enough, so he didn’t answer. Following Kochin’s silence, Vinsen continued, “You were gone for three years, not a word back until now. Finally found somewhere fast enough for you, not a care whose feathers you plucked to make your wings—and when you do return, it’s with a science experiment.”
That jogged some sense back into Kochin’s skull, though he still reeled from Vinsen’s punch. With the back of his hand, he wiped spittle from his lip and mumbled, “She’s not a science experiment.”
“What?”
“I said she’s not a science experiment. Her name is Suonyasan Nhika,” Kochin enunciated, and drew himself up, scraping together what remained of his dignity. “In Central, I worked for a terrible man. I wanted to come home, but he never let me. He extorted me. Blackmailed me. And I went down a dark, dark path.”
Mr. Congmi’s murder came to mind now—a raised pistol, something to spook the horses. The gun had been meant to place distance between himself and the unforgivable act, but he’d pulled the trigger all the same.
And after that, his world had gotten so much narrower, and so much colder—like he could no longer take that fox mask off, and all the light he could see came filtered through its taunting jeer. Until Nhika.
He drew up to her casket. Lifted the lid. Dropped his hand into his pocket, where the mouse squirmed—and soothed. Those microscopic cracks across her bone sealed, and he squeezed out the clots in her thickening blood, and everything seemed to let out a long breath.
“I did terrible things in Central, Vinsen,” he said, and his throat nearly closed at the words. “But she never judged me. She helped me leave. But it was … the last thing she ever did. She gave her life to me. I held her in my arms as she … as she…”
This time, the words wouldn’t come out. Kochin bowed his head over the casket, shut his eyes—but to no avail, because the memory came like a bat to his skull. And each new breath was a growing fracture, until he was sure his head might split into two.
Something solid settled on his shoulder: Vinsen’s hand, gentle and reassuring. “You never told anyone?”
Kochin met his brother’s eyes. “How could I? Could you imagine Ma seeing what I’ve become? I already make her cry.”
“She would understand. She loves you more than anything.”
Kochin shook his head—she couldn’t know. Because her heartsoothing was magic and light, while his was … wretched. And he still planned on committing the biggest taboo. “You can’t tell her, okay, Vinsen? Promise me you won’t tell her.”
Vinsen drew back, but his eyes were sympathetic. “Okay. But … where does this end, Kochin?”
“I’m going to bring her back.”
That sympathy morphed—into pity, Kochin realized.
“I am,” Kochin insisted, and it was the first time he’d spoken the goal aloud. That made it real, like he could no longer turn back. “I have to.”
“Kochin…”
“I can do it,” Kochin snapped—and almost worried Vinsen might punch him again. But he continued, his voice cracking. “My heartsoothing, the thing Ma gave me … It couldn’t save her. But it can do this. I know it can.”
It was like all his time in Santo’s service had prepared him for this—soothing corpses, inadvertently helping a man who wanted to bring back his son. But Kochin would succeed where Santo hadn’t because he was a bloodcarver, and so he’d carve Nhika out of a tombstone. He’d find some semblance of the girl he loved from this lifeless tissue and dull bone.
“It’s not … It’s not that I don’t think you can do it.”
Kochin met his brother’s eyes. “You don’t think I should?”
“You remember those stories Ma used to tell us, right? Of heartsooths who had done the same?”
“They’re just stories.” Kochin remembered the folktales: a shambling army bringing death because they could not have it for themselves, immortal children who called only for the sleep that their mother forbade them. Just as his mother had not raised him to believe in the Mother, Kochin did not believe in horror stories meant to scare children into bed at night. In fact, he dared the Mother to take more from him than She already had.
“And if they’re not?”
“What choice do I have?” Kochin shook his head. “The Mother can damn me to Hell, but the other option is I just … give up, and pretend it’s not a possibility. And that blood would never come off my hands, and I’ll always be haunted by the things I did in Theumas.”
If he buried her, no matter how beautiful the grave, Kochin knew he’d always hear that voice coming up from the dirt—her ghost, haunting him ever since she’d woven her life into his chest. A reminder that he could escape Santo and leave the city but still find himself wrapped in chains.
Vinsen settled back on his heels, arms crossed. “You really didn’t come home, did you? You’re still there—in the city. Itching to go back.”
His words sounded judgmental, but behind Vinsen’s biting tone was a somber expression—like he was just beginning to understand the extent of Kochin’s desperation. Kochin didn’t need him to understand it; he just needed his brother to accept it. To step back from Nhika’s casket and let him leave Chengton again. “I’m returning to Central. I’m going to bring her back. And you can’t change my mind.”
He studied Vinsen’s face. His eyes were forlorn, brows drawn with pity, and somewhere behind the frown was disgust—at what Kochin had done, at what he planned to do. He could read Vinsen’s thoughts, too: another punch loaded in his white knuckles, like that might rattle Kochin back to his senses. Instead, Vinsen stepped up to Kochin, grabbed him by his collar, and raised him to the balls of his feet. Kochin never had to fear true violence from his brother, and if Vinsen punched him again it was because he deserved it, but he still winced.
But all Vinsen said was, “I don’t know who’s a bigger fool—you, for trying to do this, or me, for deciding to help you.”
Kochin blinked in surprise. “Help … me?”
Vinsen set him back down, though his hands still clutched Kochin’s shirt. “I just want my brother back,” he said, and there was such sadness in his voice—like Kochin wasn’t even there, standing before him. Like he was begging a goddess, not his brother. “So, tell me what to do.”
There was no bitterness in his tone, only acceptance. Kochin mulled it over before saying, “Keep her safe for me. It’ll be hard to bring her back to Central. I’m returning to the city, and when I find my answers, I’ll let you know. This machine is all she needs—just don’t let it stop running. Can you do that for me?”
Vinsen let out a long sigh. “I have been doing that for you. This is nothing new. Just … Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“When this is all over, whether or not you find your answers, you come home, okay?”
Kochin closed his lips, not ready to make a guarantee. He wasn’t even sure what it meant for this to be over, because there was only one end to this he foresaw: bringing Nhika back. There was nothing short of that he’d accept, but all he said was, “I promise.”