sixteen

The clothes were the first normal things I’d worn in a while, and they fit well. And yet I still felt like an impostor, both in the mirror in my bedroom that evening and getting off the jet in Beijing, China, at four p.m. the next day. It was a private jet, of course, so no one bothered Drey or me within our ring of well-dressed security guards when we disembarked. But I still felt like a handgun hidden in somebody’s bag, not like a filthy rich kid from Liechtenstein flying around the world with my filthy rich dad and my purebred greyhound puppy. The ten-hour flight, plus the six-hour time difference, had done nothing to persuade my subconscious otherwise, even though Drey and I had gone over the plan about five hundred times on the plane.

Rich father and son were our pretend roles for now, Drey’s and mine, at least as far as the airport went. My shiny new Liechtenstein passport confirmed it for the customs official waiting on the tarmac just for us. I also had a passport with my real name in my backpack, complete with battered edges, dirt stains, and supposedly all of the right stamps in order for me to have trekked all the way from the Swiss Alps to Beijing, if Jiang felt like cross-checking the made-up facts of the other pretend story. Apparently, producing all sorts of forgeries on short notice to back up whatever lies they wanted to tell was no problem for the City Council, with the Word of Shaping on hand.

Keeping track of the lies was a different story. But I wasn’t planning on bothering for long.

This was only my second time out of Eden City, and most definitely the farthest away from home I’d ever been. As of yet, I couldn’t see much but a dusty haze hovering in the distance. But from the jet, the city had appeared endless. We were apparently about a half-hour drive from our hotel in the northeast of the city—close to where Jiang wanted to meet.

The air was crisper and drier here, and smelled … different. Sweet, but it was an artificial sweet. My hopes had better not be the same. I glanced at Drey as we made our way beyond the customs official to the waiting black limo, and I somehow managed to avoid tangling my legs in Pie’s leash as she bounded around me in her excitement to be off the plane.

“We won’t be cuffed together this time?”

“We might as well be,” Drey muttered out of the side of his mouth as the driver got out to open the door for us.

As in, if I escaped, it would be like it was with the cuffs—I’d be cutting off his hand, so to speak, and killing him. Our fates were pretty tied. But if anyone was going to lose any appendages, it would be me losing my thumbs. And I’d be freeing Drey along with myself.

Drey’s graying hair was slicked back, and he wore a ridiculous ensemble composed of a pale blue polo shirt, white cardigan, and pale plaid pants with matching visor. The platinum wristwatch probably cost more than every possession I’d ever owned combined. He looked like he was about to go golfing in Monaco, or maybe enjoy a cigar and a tumbler of brandy on his veranda. I wasn’t even entirely positive what a veranda was, but, in other words, he was a walking stereotype.

Under normal circumstances, I’d take advantage of this fabulous opportunity to mock him without mercy. But you had to have a sound-enough relationship with someone to mock them, and at the moment Drey and I were anything but sound.

We slipped into the back of the limo after Drey gave the driver the name of our no-doubt-swanky hotel. Behind us, our security guards followed in a black SUV … but they wouldn’t be within sight for long, especially not once we went to meet Jiang. And then I would be out of sight, once I got the monitors off.

The limo started moving and I got to watch the city rise around us through the tinted black windows. And what a city it was.

In Eden City, the neighborhoods were segregated, but here, the rich and poor were tossed together amid a patchwork of buildings—some that rivaled the best in Eden City, and some that were worse than the worst. People in sleek suits heading for private cars jostled with people in shapeless uniforms waiting for busses. Dirty carts with street food parked on the corners in front of sparkling high-rises.

I loved it. Pie was less interested in the view than she was in the leather upholstery, but Drey kept her from chewing on the seats while I stared out the window in awe.

There was writing everywhere: strung across banners, riding up the sides of buildings, hanging over shops, and even lining the street at some intersections. Tu had the same type of writing as on his back, revealing the Word of Earth inside of him, but now that I’d learned the English alphabet, these characters somehow looked far more incomprehensible than they had before.

“How can they know all of these symbols?” I asked, peering outside as we crawled through bumper-to-bumper traffic that stretched across multiple lanes. I knew I sounded like a dolt, but I didn’t care. “How do they remember what they mean?” I hadn’t noticed much of a discernible pattern in the complex slashes of script.

Drey shrugged. “It’s a difficult language. And yet they have a literacy rate higher than Eden City.”

So even the lower classes could decipher these symbols that I couldn’t even begin to understand.

I felt a rising desperation at being so close to freedom, but not quite able to touch it. I almost wanted to leap out of the car and make a run for it then and there. But I would have stood out more than a flashing neon sign. The monitors wouldn’t even have been necessary in tracking me down; people could’ve pointed the way to me.

At least that was the case until we made our way into what was clearly a rich section of the city and I saw an embassy flag or two. Foreigners of all shapes and colors began appearing. If I tried to lose myself in this crowd, it wouldn’t be as hard.

“Jiang lives near here?” I asked, my breath fogging the window. I practically had my face mashed against the glass.

“Yes, or at least he owns a flat in this neighborhood. He’s rich enough to abandon it, most likely, if we’re not what we seem. And here’s our hotel.”

We pulled up to the exact type of building I’d imagined: shiny, sleek, and towering, with what had to be a dozen golden doors facing the street. It would’ve looked nearly the same a half a world away in Eden City. Maybe all hotels for rich people were this cookie-cutter.

“There’s only time for me to change, and then we have to go,” Drey reminded me.

“I know,” I said, my stomach clenching.

It wasn’t dimmer outside only because of the tinted windows. It was nearing dusk when we stepped out of the limo. Drey didn’t give me much time to look around before he hustled me into the lobby and checked us in. I saw our room for nearly as short a time as he shrugged out of his clothes in favor of something less dorky, though the gray button-up shirt and black slacks still screamed of wealth. That was the idea, but he didn’t want to look like the exact same rich person who’d just flown in on a jet. We were supposed to have been hiding here for a couple of weeks, after all.

My clothes weren’t deemed remarkable enough to change, and Drey had been the distraction, anyway. He’d argued that the best disguise for me was one that drew no attention to itself.

“Pie needs to stay here,” Drey said, buttoning his cuffs. As if he sensed I was about to disagree, he added, “Jiang will wonder how you got her, and besides, she was seen at the airport.”

I was satisfied with my minimal preparation, which had involved finger-combing my hair and putting on deodorant, so I sat down on one of the king-sized beds in our suite. “Then I stay too.”

He dropped his hands to stare at me incredulously. “You’ll risk both of us just to bring her along? Tavin, she’ll be here when we get back. And she’d be frightened when you … you know. I think dogs can sense it. You don’t want to put her through that.”

I couldn’t exactly tell him that I wasn’t planning on coming back or using the Word of Death ever again, if I could help it. So I just said, “I’ll leave her outside. This flat of his is up in a huge building, with a lobby and everything, right? We can leave her down there.”

“And I’m sure whoever is watching the lobby will be overjoyed to babysit her.” He snatched up his black jacket and whipped it on. “No, she’s not coming.”

“Please,” I said, not needing to fake the desperation in my voice. “Knowing she’s there will help. And what if we have to run in a hurry?”

“We won’t if you stick to the—”

“Come on!” I damned-near shouted. “You’re making me kill someone … again! It’s a pretty small favor to ask in return, to have my dog right there to comfort me afterward, since you definitely won’t.”

“Keep your voice down!” Drey hissed. “Are you trying to risk everything?”

Yes. But I couldn’t say that either, so I just stared at him, my jaw clenched together.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m the only reason you have that dog in the first place.”

My voice came out cold. “You’re also the only reason I haven’t happily been the Word of Death all my life or blissfully ignorant as a trash boy. Because, trust me, either one would be preferable to this cosmic joke of a life that you’ve left me.”

Drey looked as if I’d all-out socked him. I felt this bump in my stomach, as if I’d been hit too—or maybe hit bottom.

It was like I’d been trying so desperately not to drown that I hadn’t even noticed I’d sunk so low.

“You can take Pie,” Drey said. He looked and sounded lost, as if he suddenly wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing anymore … kind of like the junkyard dog I’d gutted. He scrubbed his face, his voice wavering slightly behind his hands. “Gods, you can take Pie.”

It was probably the lowest blow I’d ever dealt anyone, never mind Drey—in the figurative sense, of course. But I didn’t apologize, because I didn’t want him to change his mind.

The cab ride to Jiang’s was silent. Even Pie was quiet, sniffing the air tentatively and looking back and forth from me to Drey, each of us staring out separate windows at the nighttime cityscape. It was as if she knew something was wrong—knew something was irreparably broken between us.

Drey already felt so guilty about everything that had happened to me, and I’d thrown it in his face just to manipulate him. But then, he’d been manipulating me into killing people.

Nothing was right with the world anymore. Everything was broken. The Words broke people. Godspeaking broke people. Why had the Gods done this to us? These were their Words, after all. They weren’t a gift; they were a curse, and the Gods must have hated us to give them to the world.

I only spoke once, without looking at Drey, as we passed what appeared to be the roof of a lit-up temple with upturned eaves, intricately painted trim, and red pillars—so different from one of Eden City’s cathedrals. “Do they believe in the two Nameless Gods here?”

“Not like we do,” Drey murmured. “They do think of the Words as aspects of two opposing forces: yin and yang. But they believe each Word originated with an immortal being of legend, and that various things granted these immortals their powers. Elixirs, enlightenment, divine blessings … ” He trailed off into silence.

So they had immortals instead of Gods. Other than the number of them, I didn’t see much difference. In the eyes of people here, the Words were still seen as good. Which meant they had it as wrong as everyone else.

There, in that dark, quiet car, I realized I hated the Gods. If I could have used their own Word to kill them, I would have. But maybe they were already dead. Instead, I was going to take this Word from the world—take it to my grave. I was going to escape, and no one would ever use it again.