11.

 

Two days after she left Bau, Ayae walked up the three creaking steps at the front of Red Moon, the hotel where Zaifyr was living.

The information had been delivered to her the evening before by a thin, neatly attired sandy-haired man who had knocked upon her door. He held an envelope in his hand and, after handing it to her, said, “Compliments of Lady Wagan through Captain Heast.” Inside, in neat handwriting, was all the information she needed. She had not spoken with the Lady Wagan directly, but it appeared that no conversation—no apology—was necessary.

Inside the hotel, a large man sat behind a long desk. A painting of a naked, dancing white woman was on the wall above him, reds and blacks swirling around her. As Ayae drew closer, the man placed down a block of wood, a carving knife following it, and smiled, revealing the empty left side of his mouth. “Welcome,” he said, pleasantly. “We have rooms to rent, at discount prices if you are hired under Captain Heast and if you are part of the mercenary units here to defend the city.”

“I’m not here for a room,” she said. “I’m here for the man in room nine.”

“That’s a man who smells of awful things, if I may say so.” The man picked up his shapeless block of wood, revealing knife cuts across his hand. “If you’re looking for him at this moment, you’ll find down in the public bathroom, but I cannot promise that he is alone there.”

She smiled despite herself. “That’s very subtle of you.”

“We get all kinds here.” His unharmed hand picked up the carving knife. “I take it you’re not here on business?”

“Not that kind.”

He nodded to the hall to his left. “There’s a sofa on the second floor. He’ll pass it on the way to his room.”

She thanked him and began climbing the stairs.

She did not have to wait long. Zaifyr appeared after she had found the old leather sofa and sank into its dented cushions. He was wearing black linen trousers and his bare feet moved lightly on the wooden floor. A faint half smile creased his lips as he approached her, towel and soap in hand. “This is a surprise,” he said.

“Is it?” she counted.

“It has been a while since a woman called upon me.”

“Do you remember your manners, then, and are you going to invite me in?”

He held out his hand.

Ignoring it, she pushed herself up. After a brief walk down the hall, she stepped into his room. There was a bed, a table next to it, a chair, and an open window. There was a smell, also, a ripe one that was a blend of rotten garbage and burned clothing. It was strong enough that she glanced at him with an upraised eyebrow. With his faint smile turning embarrassed, he said, “I was wondering if there was a smell.”

“It’s why women don’t call on you often.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly. “The last few days have been rough on my clothing.”

“Have you been rolling around in garbage?”

“To a degree.” He motioned to the chair before the window, the moon’s pale light held back by the lamp hanging there. “You’re best to sit here while we discuss why you’re willing to make enemies out of Fo and Bau so quickly.”

At the open window, the smell was barely noticeable. Easing into the chair, she said, “Is that what I’ve done?”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?”

“The Keepers have their own way of doing things.” Zaifyr sat on the edge of his bed and, from the table next to it, took a copper chain and began to wind it around his wrist. “The evolutionary path of a god is not one that you can find in a book, after all.”

“Do you believe that?”

“That I can find it in a book?”

“That you’re a god.”

His thumb pressed against the end of the chain. “No.”

She leaned back in the chair, her fingers lacing together in her lap. “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “I have been told so many things—about curses, about gods, about life. Even you. They told me your name was Qian.”

“Once.”

“And that you were mad.”

He picked up a long copper chain and repeated, “Once.”

“Should I discount what they say?”

“If you want.” The chain wrapped around his knuckles. “I don’t have any answers either, if that is what you’re looking for. I don’t know why you’re cursed. I don’t know why the man at the front desk isn’t. All I know is what time taught me: I will live a long time, which I am thankful for. As for the rest, well, I was once Qian, I once ruled one of the Five Kingdoms, and at the end of it, my brothers and sisters locked me in a madhouse for a thousand years. After that—”

“You will tell me there are no answers?”

“No, there are answers.” His green eyes met her own. “But you come by them by removing every other choice, until there is only this choice for this moment.”

“Will you help me?”

She saw his hesitation, as if the bluntness of her question and the unadorned way she presented it surprised him. It surprised her as well. He was not the opposite of Bau: he was no more sure of his creation or his purpose than the Healer was. But neither was he Bau. When she met his gaze she saw her youth, her innocence and potential, and her promises that lingered like the smoldering beneath her skin. But she saw too his age, that length of a life that was so long that she could not begin to understand what he had seen, the changes he had lived through and the tiredness it had born. As she held his gaze and felt on the verge of knowing a small, vital part of the man who, having once been a god, now wrapped himself in the ancient charms of the long dead, he smiled his half smile and the sly, cynic’s humor returned, leaving her with but a glimpse of him.

“Yes,” he said.