HOWL MOVES SO WE AREN’T touching anymore, staring down at the shirt as if he’s not sure how to put it on with only one functioning arm. He won’t look at me, but the fact that it takes him a moment to speak makes me think he’s still rearranging himself inside the way I am, trying to find a way to talk when just a moment ago neither of us was much interested in talking at all.
“What do you mean, you can’t give it to us? You want to?” Howl finally asks. “If this is some kind of backhanded attempt at showing me you are my brother, then you can stop. It’s clear enough to everyone in this room what’s most important to you and the rest of the people in this place.”
Luokai turns to force the door shut, ignoring Howl, then pulls the pack from his shoulder. “Most of your possessions were added to our inventory here, but I managed to save some things that I thought you might like to keep.” He settles onto the floor in front of us and pushes the pack toward me.
June’s smaller bag is there, with the book Howl gave to me back in the Mountain zipped inside it. The story of the sleeping princess. There are other things he saved for us: a small bag of dried pears and Tai-ge’s electric razor. The gore tooth Luokai gave to Howl before he left the Mountain. I guess the pointed end has been rubbed smooth enough that it doesn’t constitute a weapon anymore.
“So, you know where the cure is. Were you going to tell us, open the door, and let us get shot down while we looked for it?” Howl awkwardly pulls the shirt over his head, groaning as he puts his good arm through the sleeve. He waves me away when I move to help, pulling the other side of the shirt loosely over his arm in the sling. He takes the tooth from the bag, sliding it open with one hand to find the link still inside. Carefully reassembling the pieces, he loops the leather string around his neck.
Luokai pulls the case from his back, opening the clasps to reveal the erhu I heard him play in Cai Ayi’s trees. Light glints off the reptilian scales of the instrument’s belly, the two strings slack against its neck. “We have medicine here”—he gestures to Howl’s shoulder, the spicy smell still full in my nose—“but nothing for SS. No Mantis. Whatever makes up the ingredients for your mother’s cure, I doubt we have the materials or capacity to make it here. We didn’t know what it was she brought to us, and she didn’t take time to explain.”
He folds his legs underneath himself so he’s kneeling, balanced on his heels, his back almost unnaturally straight. Setting the round belly of the erhu on his thigh, Luokai twists the tuning pegs until the strings are tight. When he gives one string an experimental pluck, June’s eyes jolt open at the sound, making me wonder how long she’s been awake, the foreign sound of the erhu finally registering danger. She pushes back from Luokai, crashing into my knees, her breaths coming fast through the iron grate of her mask.
Luokai doesn’t look at her, examining his instrument with unbreakable focus until she stills, sitting with her back up against me. Once she’s settled, Luokai picks up the erhu’s bow, holding it loosely in his hand. “If quarantines fail, Port North will fall.” He looks at me. “If we give those Reds the cure, then we sign ourselves over as slaves before they even attempt to set foot on our shores.” He gives the erhu another experimental pluck, then twists one of the tuning pegs. “And I’m afraid that if there is a way to shed the manacles I’ve been bound with for most of my life, I’m not going to turn my head while it sails out the door.”
“I thought Speakers made decisions that were best for everyone.” I raise an eyebrow, even as hope roars to life inside me. He wants the cure, and Gao Shun is about to give it away. So he came to us.
“I do not think my wants and Port North’s needs are mutually exclusive, Jiang Sev.” He runs his fingers down the erhu’s strings, breathing slow. “Reds will come here eventually whether we give them those papers or not.”
Howl glances at me, the air sparking between us with the promise in his words. I lick my lips, choosing each word with care. “Anything we find in those papers, any cure we come up with, we would share with you.”
“I’d like to believe you would make a cure and bring it back to me.” Luokai’s smile presses at his cheeks, his smooth skin bending to either side of his mouth.
Howl leans forward, his eyes going hard. “What do you want, Luokai?”
“I think I’ve seen proof enough that you’re cured.” Luokai nods to me. “I should have seen it. Here people are not so afraid of SS as they are in your mountains, but the moment I told you I was contagious, you were frightened for the other people here on the island. For your friend.” June curls in on herself even tighter, and I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her, the snarls of her mask pressing into my chest.
“But not frightened for you, Howl.” Luokai smiles his humorless smile, as if it can somehow cut the tension between the two of them. “So I assume it’s the both of you Jiang Gui-hua cured. But not her.” He points to June.
“Just tell us what you’re after. We don’t need to go into everyone’s medical history.” Howl’s shoulders are starting to sag again, as if sitting up for the last hour or more has taken all the energy he had stored inside him, only the last dregs holding him upright. He blinks, cringing as his uninjured hand cradles his arm in the sling. Guilt lances through me, remembering the way his arm was pressed into my ribs when we were kissing. I probably hurt him. Not that he was complaining. “And while we are bargaining, how much would it be to throw in a dose of Da’ard?” he asks. “Painkillers?”
Luokai’s smile warms a degree or two. “I can put something in your tea, but it would make you sleep. You should sleep. I’m afraid you probably shouldn’t be up and talking quite this much yet. However, I didn’t want to make you sleep without asking first.”
Howl blinks, as if he’s surprised. But then nods. “Thank you.”
“So you’re willing to help us get Mother’s papers in exchange for . . . something.” I pull my eyes away from Howl. “Tell us. We don’t have time to dance around this.”
Luokai’s eyes draw away from me, slow like a dribble of water falling from an icicle. “I can’t survive on hope, Jiang Sev. I need to know without a doubt you’ll come back here, and that you’d bring the cure. For the others afflicted by this disease. Against the chance that SS does spread, leaving us caged underground with no way to escape. But, most especially, I want to know you’ll bring back the cure for me. I need there to be a reason for you to come back that both of us believe in.” His gaze drips down onto June where she lies against my chest.
Her head comes up, the mask cloudy over her mouth as she stares at me. Green eyes glazed, she gulps down what sounds like a sob.
“You want June . . .” Howl sounds hollow. “June infected? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s not an option.” I wrap my arms around June, chin on her frizzy head. She doesn’t move, her stillness sending flickers of alarm up and down my chest. She twists away from me, her gaze a tight beam of focus on Luokai so intense, it must be only moments before he starts to burn. Her breaths wheeze further and further apart, calm overtaking her as she burrows down inside herself.
Howl inches forward until he’s a few inches in front of me, as if he can block June from Luokai. “We won’t leave her here.”
“If I fall Asleep . . .” June’s whisper is rough. “If I stay, you’ll give them the cure?”
Luokai inclines his head, sadness etched into the lines of his face. “Yes.”
“We aren’t going to leave you here. If he won’t help us, I know where my mother’s papers must be. If Gao Shun means to hand them over to the Reds, she’ll have them with her,” I cut in.
She pulls away from me, meeting Luokai’s eyes. “I would be safe?” The strain in her voice is palpable, even behind the metallic aftertaste of filters.
“We expect helis to start toward us within the next twenty-four hours, so we’ll have to move you . . .” He glances at me. “. . . all of you to a safer place. If Gao Shun has to shake the helis from the sky, we don’t know exactly what else will shake apart while they’re falling. We’d have people take care of you, June. The way they take care of me.”
I try to hold back the awful growl building in my throat, as if being so close to the gores Outside left some part of them inside me, waiting to take a bite of any threat, no matter how placid Luokai looks on the outside. There’s no one taking care of him now. No one to stop him if SS decides it wants our teeth making pretty lines on the ground.
Howl touches her shoulder with his good hand, looking toward Luokai. “Leaving June is an exchange we can’t make. There are other ways we might be able to offer—”
June slaps Howl’s hand away, and he breaks off in surprise. Her bright head bows down, blinking wetness from her eyes, the tear tracks gleaming against her pale skin. She reaches up to brush them away.
And rips her mask off instead.