SIX MONTHS AGO
Kochin stayed with his family for another week. In part, it was because he wanted to see the garden restored before he let his mother have her way again. And also, he was beginning to enjoy the nights when everyone returned from their corners of Chengton, with Bentri to his books and Vinsen bearing fresh haul.
But, truly, it was because he appreciated the quiet hours of Chengton. It allowed him to think. It allowed him to plan.
At the end of the week, he was off. While he’d done his best to avoid his family’s judgment, they walked him down to the railway station, a single track carving through a barren platform with a flap display schedule that never updated because it never needed to—there was Central Theumas in one direction, the western residential towns in the other, and that was it.
Kochin had little with him, just a handheld trunk. It was mostly filled with his family’s gifts, meals wrapped in waxed parchment, a few changes of clothes, and a couple novels he’d promised Bentri he’d read. Few others were gathered on the platform, awaiting the first train of the morning. With nothing to do but wait, Kochin was forced to face his family.
With a breath, he turned. “Ma, Ba, thank you for having me,” he said, dipping his head into a bow. “Bentri, Vinsen…”
He was disappointing his brothers, he knew, but in different ways. Bentri had never grown out of his boyish expressions, and his despondence was evident in his heavy frown, the droop of his brows. Vinsen, though, held a taciturn look, arms crossed over his chest.
“Come back soon, Kochin,” Bentri said, staggering forward as though he intended to hug Kochin. He must’ve thought better of it, because he swooped into a bow instead.
“I’ll write,” Kochin offered in lieu of a promise to return, though Vinsen looked unconvinced.
Kochin’s mother stepped up to him and cupped his cheek in her palm. The gesture was a quick one, but her heartsoothing pulled at him—full of longing, full of warmth, full of farewell. If he left his mother, with Nhika gone … it would be the last time he felt heartsoothing in a long, long time. Real heartsoothing, something more than his own.
“Don’t forget about home, okay?”
“I’d never—” he began, but a whistle of the train called their attention to the horizon, where a steam locomotive emerged from the forest. He watched it approach, stepping back from the edge as it rolled up to the platform.
The train exhaled as it came to a stop, and a conductor leaned out the door to announce its final destination: Central Theumas. Kochin grabbed his trunk in preparation to leave but bowed a final time to his family.
“Thank you again,” he said, straightening.
His family repeated their farewells, and through them, Kochin met Vinsen’s eyes. They shared a moment of quiet camaraderie—and melancholy, like they were both grieving two different things. For Kochin, it was the girl he’d left in Vinsen’s care. He promised himself the next time he faced that iron casket, it would be with an answer.
“Don’t let the months turn into years, Kochin,” Vinsen said, his eyes holding a warning. “And whatever it is you’re looking for in Theumas … I truly hope you find it.”
Kochin felt new remorse bubble up in his heart, and maybe if he set down his trunk, stepped away from the train, he could live here in Chengton, happy and surrounded by family.
But Nhika’s face swirled in the wisps of steam, and he tightened his grip around his luggage. No, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t bring her back, if he didn’t at least try.
So instead, he waved a final goodbye to Bentri, who leaned forward on his toes to holler a farewell. To his father, who held up a hand in parting. To his mother, whom he’d made cry again.
And to Vinsen, who knew what it would take for Kochin to return.
The conductor made his second call, and Kochin stepped into the train car. He found a seat in the back, a window facing the platform. When at last the train rolled forward, he could see his family still watching him from the railway station, gathered and close. There was a space there, between his brothers, where he could’ve fit. But he felt himself pull away from Chengton just as surely as the train pulled out of the station, drawn by the ring around his finger.
“You should’ve stayed in Chengton,” Nhika said, and when he looked back to the car, she was sitting on the bench across from him. “Family is … rare. Precious.”
That sounded like something the true Nhika might say. He knew of her family. Knew that she’d lost them much too early, and when she spoke about them, her eyes glowed with a distant softness, a youthfulness returned. Maybe she was right.
“There’s always something drawing me back to this city, isn’t there?”
“It’s a hard place to escape,” she rationalized. Nhika flashed her canines in an impish grin. “Well, hard to escape alive, anyway.”
Kochin reached Central Theumas’s Grand Terminus as the mountains pulled the last of the sunlight from the sky. In its place, the glow of the cityscape bled toward the stars as electronic lights and gas lamps flickered to life. He grabbed his trunk and departed, hopping onto the last trolley to the Pig Borough.
When he’d quit his job, he’d used some of his saved money to clean the shophouse: selling the animals, fumigating the smell. He’d almost considered listing it for sale but was glad he hadn’t; now that the houseboat remained in Chengton, he’d have to use this address as a true residence.
When he shimmied the lock open into a cold, barren living room, his heart sank. Silver moonlight cast the silhouettes of his furniture in blue, the floors in gray. Silence threaded through the rooms and settled like dust in the corners. When Kochin fumbled out a hand to dial up the lights, the sparse cobwebs made themselves apparent, wisping along his chandelier and strung across his ceiling.
This had never been a home for him. It had always been a hidden blemish, the place he collected the secrets of his heartsoothing: the animals snuck into the Theumas Medical Center in his pockets, a coat hook for his fox mask and Butchers’ Row attire. Then it had become his first wrong move, the initial thread in the tapestry that wove Nhika’s death—because he never should have let her go with him.
“It’s not so bad,” Nhika said, appearing in the corner of the space. “It’s just missing … plants. And maybe a little light.”
It’s missing you, he wanted to say. Instead, he tipped off his shoes and dragged his trunk to the bedroom.
It had a bed, but he’d mostly been using the space for storage. The majority was medical equipment that he’d collected over the years, apparatuses from past research experiments or boxes of defective medical kits, unusable at Santo’s office. Scattered among them were personal items, relics from a time when he’d intended to make a true home here—wall decorations, clay pots never used, hanging glass terrariums, all abandoned. Discarded medical orders and drafted schedules littered the desk. He pushed all that aside to clear space for a planner, which he opened in the center of the desk.
He’d returned to this city for answers, and as much as it boiled his blood to acknowledge it, there was one person in this city who might be able to supply them. One person who had spent years studying the possibility of resurrection, long before Kochin had ever considered it. He’d spent three years trying to escape this man, but now he’d make an appointment to visit him—hopefully on the other side of prison glass.
Kochin needed to speak with Santo.
Kochin had never been inside the Central Theumas Penitentiary before, though he’d always imagined there was a cell here with his name on it. It was an austere and minimalist place, its waiting room just a row of chairs and lockers for personal items. Two officers stood guard, hands clasped behind their backs and pistols on their belts. Automatic security mechanisms topped every door and window, a series of levers, locks, and shutters prepared to bar all exits in case of lockdown.
He was alone in the waiting room, the only sound the insistent tick of the clock, time pressing forward. Time that Kochin despised wasting.
At last, an official, dressed in a smart navy uniform, entered from the visitation hall. “Mr. Ven Kochin?”
Kochin stood and followed the official out of the waiting room. They passed a hallway adjacent to the visitation room, an open space for convicts and their guests to talk around tables. Santo wasn’t among them—instead, the officer took Kochin to a hallway beyond, lined with a series of closed visitation boxes. His was the one at the far end of the hall.
“Here you are,” he said, giving Kochin his privacy and closing the door behind him.
There was no one on the opposite side of the window until the door in the back opened. In stepped Santo, flanked by two guards and hands cuffed. Imprisonment had not treated him kindly; his back, once bent with the gentle lean of an older gentleman, seemed bowed under the weight of his numbered days. The prison had given him a walking stick, and he sported a limp on the side Trin had shot him—still healing, Kochin thought. His white hair, once so trim and respectable, had overgrown; he hardly looked recognizable as Santo Ki Shon.
The only things that hadn’t changed were his eyes, holding a familiar dark cunning as he took a seat across from Kochin. Despite the reinforced glass between them, Kochin’s shoulders tensed. He’d told himself he held all the power here, yet when he looked at Santo, he was sixteen again, new to the city and already approached by a research director. That pearly shine revealed itself to be the gleam of fangs soon enough.
“Ven Kochin,” Santo greeted. “I see the days have been treating you just as kindly as they have me.”
In the glare of the lights above, Kochin could see half his face mirrored on the glass divider, the bags beneath his eyes and his unstyled hair. “I didn’t come to be belittled by you again, Santo.”
“Then what did you come for? To mock me? To curse my name? To gloat?” Santo leaned back in his seat with unbecoming weariness. “Have your fun; I don’t care. I already lost everything when that bloodcarver took my son from me.”
He’d sympathized with Santo’s loss before; this time, he couldn’t find it in himself to care at all. Giving Santo no soapbox to whine upon, he said, “I’ve come for answers.”
At that, interest shifted in the doctor’s eyes. He leaned back in his chair, looking thin and small between his two guards. “Ah, so you need my help,” he goaded.
Kochin continued anyway. “Where did those Daltan texts come from?”
“I figured you would pay me a visit sooner or later, but I didn’t think it’d be over Daltan texts, of all things.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Why are you interested?”
“It’s none of your concern.”
Santo leaned back in his chair. “Let me guess. You want a story about my evil. You want to use my smeared reputation to elevate yourself—when we both know who should really be in this cell.”
Kochin’s eyes flicked to Santo’s guards, but neither showed a reaction. “I’ve no interest in having my name spoken in the same sentence as yours,” he said. “All I’m interested in is how you thought a bloodcarver might possibly bring back your son.”
Realization lit in Santo’s eyes and his apathy turned into predaceous curiosity. “Oh, I see what this is about.”
“Where are they from, Santo?” Kochin reiterated.
“This is about her, isn’t it? Because you two both entered that operating room, but only you walked out—so, who was it, then, who truly killed her?”
Kochin set his jaw with anger.
Santo continued, undeterred by the death in Kochin’s stare. “I see you for what you are, Kochin. A hypocrite.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Kochin replied coolly.
“Don’t act so brave just because there is glass between us,” Santo spat. “When it was my loss on the line, those texts were evil, subversive, unholy. But now—now that Ven Kochin has something he wants, suddenly those texts are permitted, aren’t they? Now that Ven Kochin has lost someone, suddenly he can find it in himself, with his half-formed gift, to heal? Isn’t that just so convenient?”
Kochin’s eyes narrowed with malice. He glanced at Santo’s two guards, wondering if they were trying to make sense of Santo’s nonsense. Still, Kochin didn’t fear Santo’s words anymore, not when he was a disgraced doctor and Kochin looked as Theuman as any other.
“You’re growing old, Santo.”
Santo met Kochin’s livid stare with one of his own. “You’re growing audacious. That was her doing, wasn’t it? Now, you think you can do anything, maybe even bring back the dead. We know you never could, Kochin. I, for one, am glad she’s gone. Potential wasted, but another bloodcarver rid from this—”
Kochin stood abruptly, the scrape of his chair against stained concrete loud enough to halt Santo’s words. He had to leave soon; any longer, and nothing would be able to stop him from breaking through the glass and revealing himself as a bloodcarver.
He took a breath to calm his pounding temples and said, “If you aren’t going to tell me anything, then I’ve wasted my time here.”
He moved to exit the cubicle, but Santo leaped to his feet. “Where do you think I got them from?” Santo said, and Kochin sensed his desperation—anything to keep his physician’s aide at his beck and call. But Kochin was no longer the boy who had been beaten and weathered by Santo’s abuse. Now, he was bleeding from a greater wound than Santo’s brambles.
Slowly, Kochin turned back toward the glass.
“You act as if I’ve been withholding information to torture you. Despite all you’ve done to me, I don’t hate you. When I first met you, I even thought you were so much like me.”
“You were wrong.”
“Was I?” Santo said in a tone Kochin didn’t enjoy—not because it was cold or derisive. Simply because it was earnest. “So, if I tell you where I found those texts, you won’t pursue them? And if I told you it was possible, you wouldn’t give anything just for the chance?”
Something unpleasant tugged at Kochin’s cheek. Santo must’ve read his answer plainly on his face, because he only barked out a laugh.
“I’ll tell you, then. Where else would those texts have originated other than the Daltan base on Yarong itself? So, go on, Kochin. Try to find them for yourself. I’m excited to see where it lands you.”
“What a change of heart,” was all Kochin said before he headed for the exit. He’d almost hoped for an easier answer, even if it was a perverted one. But to learn that those texts came from an island under Daltan rule, governed by isolationist policy … that was almost worse than if those Daltan experiments had taken root somewhere in Theumas.
Santo laughed, and Kochin halted with one foot out the door. “It’s not the kindness you believe it is. I’ve learned this world is not kind to those who try taking more than their due—and you should know best, shouldn’t you? Asking for more than you could ever give?”
Enough of this. Kochin turned his cheek. “This is the last you’ll see of me, Santo. Enjoy solitary confinement.”
As he left, Santo rose into a fury. He slammed his fists against the glass, screamed bloodcarver accusations—anything to keep Kochin for one moment longer. Kochin didn’t dignify him, closing the door before Santo could try any other cheap bids for his attention. The officer escorted Kochin back the way they came.
“Is he still talking about bloodcarvers, that Santo?” the officer asked, and Kochin made a noise of acknowledgment. “He’s been prattling about them to anyone who will listen.”
“It seems he’s truly lost his mind,” Kochin said.
With a murmur of agreement, the officer deposited Kochin back into the waiting room, where he collected his items from the lockers. Though Kochin had never thought himself one for vengeance, there was sweetness to this, seeing Santo so powerless without his reputation that he could throw around such loaded accusations and not be believed. As Kochin left the penitentiary, a weight lifted from his shoulders—this was the last he’d ever see Santo, and it was he who walked away with his reputation intact.
The disgraced doctor had been useful for one thing: The answers Kochin sought were on Yarong, in the naval base where Daltanny had performed their twisted research. As ironic as it was, because of how Daltanny burned and cut through so many heartsooths, perhaps the greatest documentations on the limits of the gift remained there, behind concrete walls on an island locked by a warmongering country. The only question was how Kochin would get there.
But Santo had been wrong about something, too. They were nothing alike. Santo had let his quest consume him beyond reason. Even when his son was nothing more than dead skin pulled over bones, even when there was no more chance, he’d still persisted. That’s why the world had punished him.
But that’s where Kochin differed. He had bloodcarving, where Santo had only those texts. He had time, where Santo had only a corpse. And Kochin would succeed where Santo had failed.
There was nothing that could stop him.
In the morning, Kochin took himself down the street to the public telephone booths. With his bag of coins and his purposeful strut, he must’ve looked like a recent graduate on a desperate job hunt. It was around this time of spring, when the university terms were coming to an end, that the workforce saw new blood.
His task was nothing so simple.
With a half-chem coin, he paid for his first call: Mr. Aom, whose industry manufactured underwater seafaring. He considered simply purchasing a vessel himself, but such a voyage would require a crew, and who else would sail to Yarong with him? Who else would have reason?
The line hummed to life and a moment later, a noise clicked on the other side. “Aom Rang Yatsuu. Who’s this?” It was a gruff response, and Kochin wondered if he’d called Mr. Aom’s personal line at an inopportune time. For a moment, a bout of social anxiety returned to him, an artifact from the life he’d lived before Theumas. Even his short stint in Chengton had been enough to draw it back.
He cleared his throat. “It’s Ven Kochin,” he said, his voice adopting a charismatic silkiness. “Poor time to call?”
“Kochin!” In a moment, all hostility left Mr. Aom’s voice. “Not at all. I just hadn’t expected you. Last I heard, you’d left the city.”
“You can take the boy out of Central, but you can’t take Central out of the boy,” Kochin responded smoothly. “The country couldn’t keep me.”
Mr. Aom returned a heavy bout of laughter. “I could’ve told you that and saved you the trip.” A silence precipitated and Kochin knew what Mr. Aom was thinking, what he was too afraid to ask.
Kochin offered it freely. “As you know, my previous employer, Dr. Santo, is no longer on good terms with the law. So, I’m looking for new horizons.”
“Ah, Santo Ki Shon. A tragedy of man and a travesty of medicine,” said Mr. Aom. Kochin anticipated his next question: “I’ve seen the news, but I suppose you would know best—was it all true?”
“Which part? That he’d been compelled to murder, or that he’d been interested in Daltan vivisections?” At the moment, Santo’s entire reputation was scandal, not only his crime but also his interests. Once the reporters had gotten wind of that, his name had been dragged through the mud.
“Both, I suppose.”
“Unfortunately, it’s every bit as true as the reporters have said. It’s one of those things that you look back on in hindsight and wonder how you missed the warning signs,” Kochin lied, building up intrigue in the anticipation of a trade: his gossip for passage to Yarong.
“Like what?”
“He always did have a penchant for hiring Yarongese.”
“I always thought Santo was so brave for that. Deny their vacation and they might carve you for it, right?” He said it as a joke between two Theumans, with the belief that bloodcarving didn’t exist anymore, so it was nothing but a jibe. Kochin had heard variations of this joke throughout this society; it no longer came to surprise him. Now, it only reminded him of how little he truly belonged.
Kochin mirrored his close-lipped laugh humorlessly. “Exactly. I was actually calling about something related. Ever since I heard about Mr. Congmi and Dr. Santo, guilt has been eating me up. It’s a lot to unpack, a man who I’d once admired turning out to be a felon.” Kochin put on his best act of a tortured physician’s aide. In a way, he didn’t have to act much.
“It’s not your fault, Kochin. You couldn’t have known.”
“It’s why I’ve been trying to escape the city. I was wondering if you had any charter trips on your vessels. Somewhere out of the city, somewhere I can use my talents philanthropically.” Kochin released a breath. “Somewhere like … Yarong.”
A silence fell over the line until Mr. Aom clucked his tongue. “You’d want to go to Yarong? Is this to atone for Santo’s wrongdoings?”
Kochin’s eyes flashed to the street; he’d thought he’d seen Nhika turning the corner, but it was just a different girl in the crowd. “Something like that.”
“Kochin, I commend your selflessness—really, we should all be giving more to the Yarongese during this time. And I’ve got cruises to Simbal, or the Daijonas, or Chilmea. But you know I can’t get you into Yarong. Not with the travel restrictions.”
Kochin wasn’t sure what answer he’d been expecting, but he didn’t let his disappointment show. “That’s completely understandable, Mr. Aom.”
“If you’re intent on taking your mind off Santo, perhaps a change of employment? My office doesn’t have any openings, but I could refer you somewhere, if you’d like it.”
The conversation had turned to pity; travel to Yarong through Mr. Aom was a futile endeavor. “I greatly appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to decline. I’m sorry to take your time, but I hope you’re in good spirits and this terrible news about Dr. Santo hasn’t put you off.”
“Nothing of the sort! It’s just a reminder that even the best of us aren’t above folly.”
Folly. A choice word for murder and malpractice.
“Well put, Mr. Aom,” Kochin said. Then, as much as he fought it, the instinct to maintain good relations compelled him to say, “When next I’m looking for employment, I’ll be sure to give you another call. I’ll let you return to work now—any longer and I’d feel inclined to compensate you for your valuable time.”
Mr. Aom rounded out a laugh. “All right. Talk to you soon, Kochin.”
The line clicked.
With a huff of defeat, Kochin crossed Mr. Aom’s name out in his notebook, then slotted another half-chem coin into the telephone.
It went this way for the next couple hours, with Kochin placing calls that only ended with etched-out names. Ms. Giom, who manufactured powered aircrafts a few years back, hadn’t developed a solo-craft that could survive the trip across the water and back. Mr. Ngut, whose hydrogen-powered dirigibles rivaled the Congmis’, couldn’t manage a crew that dared fly to Yarong. Even Dr. Peva, known philanthropist, who had aided many conflict zones before, refused to set foot in Yarong for fear of drawing Daltan’s attention. He called the city’s wealthiest, its engineers and researchers and savants, who’d put metal in the sky and seas, whose medicine rivaled the heartsoothing of yore, whose inventions had elevated Theumas from a forgettable city-state to a technological empire.
And yet, none of them would take him to Yarong. None of them had reason to.
With his purse of chem dwindling alongside his hope, Kochin hung the receiver back onto its cradle, taking a moment to lean against the glass of the telephone booth. What must people have thought of him, slumped over this telephone for hours on end?
He thumbed open the notebook, the names dwindling. Kochin had run out of viable connections half a dozen calls ago. Now, these were just numbers of those he knew, those who would truly have no reason to go to Yarong.
As his finger grazed the final name, he sighed and drew another half-chem coin from his purse.
Nem Boch Kenyi.
Or, as he was now known, Commissioner Nem. The election had been finalized weeks ago, when Kochin had no reason to follow politics, but the results had been easy to foresee—especially when Mr. Nem promised safety and defense against Daltanny, while Mr. Ngut was just a shadow of the late Mr. Congmi.
There was no reason for Kochin to call him, but he found his fingers dialing the number of their own volition. The line ran, and Kochin let out a breath to steel himself when audio clicked on the other side.
“You’ve reached the office of Commissioner Nem,” said a young voice. “How can I help you?”
“This is Ven Kochin, Dr. Santo’s former aide,” Kochin said. “I was looking to speak with the commissioner, but I can call another time if he’s busy.” He almost hoped Commissioner Nem was, because he wasn’t sure what he was calling for, anyway.
“Hold one moment,” said the assistant, and the line fell silent.
When next someone spoke, it was Commissioner Nem. “Good morning, Kochin. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I was just calling to offer my congratulations,” Kochin said, easing himself into conversation. Before Nem became a commissioner, his industry lay in armaments: antiaircraft artillery, treaded combat machines, mortars. The kinds of inventions retired during periods of peace, and certainly not anything that could get him to Yarong.
“Thank you, Kochin. It has certainly been an adjustment. As I am preparing to move to a new office, hire new staff, I have some positions open—if you were interested. After all, your previous employer…”
“Yes, a shame, what happened to him,” Kochin said curtly. Again, he was being offered positions, which he would’ve once leaped at as a university student. But he had just untied himself from Central; he wasn’t yet prepared to bind himself again. “Unfortunately, I’ve decided to take a break from employment, do some self-reflecting.”
“I wish I’d done the same at your age,” Commissioner Nem said with a huff. “Was there any other reason for your call?”
Kochin hesitated. With each call, Yarong felt more and more impenetrable—this island that his mother and so many like her had tried to escape, and all he wanted was to return. But, if not even a commissioner could get him there, then perhaps it was a lost cause. “No,” he said at last. “Just wanted to congratulate you and wish you a prosperous commission. Bye now, Commissioner, and I won’t forget your offer.”
Kochin was about to hang up when Commissioner Nem’s voice stalled the phone at his ear. “Kochin, one more thing, before you go.”
“Yes?”
“If you have family out of the city, I suggest you spend time with them while you can.”
“While I can?”
Commissioner Nem cleared his throat. “Don’t make a habit of sharing what I’m about to tell you—I don’t want to cause undue hysteria—but … war is coming. Simbal is on its last legs. If it falls, Theumas will become Daltanny’s next target; I guarantee it. A boy like you is at the ripe age for a draft. If there’s nothing keeping you in Central Theumas anymore, I would suggest you spend the next couple months with those you love.”
For a second, Kochin didn’t respond, the receiver limp against his ear. At last, he found the words to say, “I’ll keep that in mind, Commissioner Nem. Thank you.”
“Farewell then, Kochin.”
“You too, Commissioner.”
The line went silent on the other side.
War. Kochin spent a moment in the ensuing silence, hanging his head with the receiver still in his palm. War was the topic on every mind, the storm front on the horizon. Some called it a tragedy, others an inevitability.
Kochin, however … he wondered if he could call it an opportunity. A question pricked at him—What if? What if Theumas declared war against Daltanny? What if they rolled up onto Yarong beaches with submarines turned warships and dirigibles turned bombers?
What if Kochin reached Yarong on the tides of war?
“Don’t be stupid,” Nhika said, appearing on the other side of the glass, her back to the booth. “You heard the commissioner. If war breaks out, you’re at the ripe age to be conscripted.”
“What are they going to do, send me to Yarong? Oh, the horror.”
“That’s only if Yarong is their first target. I can think of a hundred other places they might deploy you.” She tilted her head. “Besides, wasn’t it a bullet that nearly killed you the last time?”
She was right. He hung up the receiver, squeezing the bone ring around his finger. War was not the opportunity he was looking for—too many unknowns. He’d have to get deployed to Yarong rather than the Theuman-Daltan border. They’d have to win the naval base. He’d have to find the research. And, after all that, he’d have to find a way to escape deployment and return to Chengton.
Yet, the idea wouldn’t leave him: What if, what if …
What if.