Aliyah

The tea, it turned out, was strong and spiced and surprisingly good. Laurent had left the pot with her, telling her to refill her cup as she wished. She sipped at it while perched awkwardly on a bench in the corner of Silas’s workshop, watching him stitch papers together. He was not a talkative man, and he paid her no heed as he worked, which suited her just fine. Laurent had gone upstairs a while ago, presumably to work on adding warding enchantments to the rental room—he’d been muttering something about chalk and runes and spiral-sigils.

Late-afternoon sun spilled through the windows, blazing orange-red through warped glass. It traced the contours of the hulking, cast iron device in the corner and tinged the feathery tips of Silas’s brushes as if they were candles aflame. It was only just getting dark, and Aliyah already felt tired. The tea was helping, but not much.

The shopfront bell tinkled, startling her. Tea threatened to spill over the rim of her cup. Silas swept over to the workshop doorway and peered out like a bird-of-prey.

“Your friend has returned,” he announced, before returning to his sewing frame.

Aliyah set her cup down carefully—well away from any of Silas’s tools as he’d warned her—one of very few things he’d said since Kionah had left—and hopped off the bench just as Kionah came in, dragging two packs lashed to a large case on wheels.

“Argh,” Kionah said, unhooking the protection pendant from her neck. She looked slightly worse for wear; traces of exhaustion lined her face. “Finally made it. Bloody shuttlebuses pieces-of-crap. Silas—give this back to Laurent, won’t you? I swear it’s giving me a headache.”

There it is, Aliyah thought with a guilty sting of self-righteousness. Probably still concussed.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Silas remarked, not looking up from his sewing. “Return it to him yourself; he’s probably finishing up by now. Third room on the left.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Kionah dragged the luggage forwards, teeth gritted all the while, and clattered upstairs. Aliyah followed, more hesitantly—perhaps out of due caution after what had happened at Shasta’s place. She hoped that there wasn’t another Mutt up there, let alone more weapons laying around.

What awaited them at the top of the stairs was nothing more than the inside of a largely unremarkable apartment. It reminded her of some of the rooms she used to clean, though with more books. There were books displayed on low shelves and little vitrines—beautiful, leather-bound ones clearly wrought from Silas’s craftsmanship—but no evidence of Laurent’s profession, no sleek death-machine sitting in wait on a tabletop.

Laurent popped his head out from a room down the corridor. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “Just in time.” He ducked back into the room and re-emerged with a toolbox in one hand, dusting coloured chalk off the other. “Adjustments are up, wards are running. Make yourself at home.”

“Here,” Kionah said, holding out the wooden pendant. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “Bathroom’s at the end of the corridor. I’ll be down at the Academy tomorrow, but let Silas know if you need anything.”

Kionah nodded at him as he went before dragging the luggage into the room. The room looked like an ordinary room—a bed against each wall, two small dressers and a chair at the window—save for the lines of purple chalk scribbled onto the ceiling. Symbols swirled overhead, interwoven with twisted glyphs, magic circles the colour of twilight. It was an artwork, almost; something about it reminded Aliyah of a field of desert-violets in full bloom. Little runes skittered there on tracks outlined by the chalk, half-translucent and almost invisible in the low light.

Kionah only gave it a cursory glance before dumping one of the packs over to the bed on the left.

“Dibs on this one,” she said. She plucked a paper bag, seemingly out of nowhere, and tossed it over onto the other bed. “Your dinner, too. I’m going to sleep. Don’t be loud.”

“Uh,” Aliyah said. “Okay. Thanks…?”

Kionah left her luggage at the foot of her bed and burrowed under the covers. Aliyah retreated to her side of the room. The paper bag contained a savoury meat pie, still warm. It was ambiguous as to whether Kionah had paid for it, but Aliyah was too tired to care. A bunch of faeries had just tried to kill her, and a false Magician, too. Following strict moral guidelines set by the Magicians themselves was a little laughable after what she’d seen back in Shadowsong, even if she did agree with the overall principles. Perhaps she was sliding into criminal villainy by accepting Kionah’s gift—but she was already the worst kind of traitor in the kingdom’s eyes, so what did it matter?

She ate, looked through the items in her pack, and tentatively padded out to the bathroom to brush her teeth while glancing around the apartment. The quantity of books and display cases aside, there was nothing unusual about it. She returned to the bedroom and sat by the window to think. There wasn’t much of a view; the wavy glass looked out onto a fast-emptying street and the side of another shopfront, dull and water-stained and otherwise featureless in the dimming afternoon light. The barest sliver of horizon peeked over the jumble of rooftops crowding the skies.

Two days, Luxon had said. What could happen in two days? It was a small miracle she wasn’t dead yet.

She tried to think of happier things; laughing with Rana, eating street food together at the market, that one meltwater festival where neither of them had to work and they’d watched the dancers together. A pot plant as a gift, sunshine and a clear horizon, peach iced tea. New linens, free lunch for the sewing circle. Sticky-fingered baking on a quieter day, licking the sweetness off her fingers as the cute kitchenhand passed her a slice of syrup-cake. One brief tryst, innocent and bittersweet. A dainty, flower-shaped little bowl, gifted and cherished and broken by accident; she’d sipped soup from one of the petals. Rainy afternoons spent reading by the window, ripe berries smuggled in from hydroponics, skyfish-watching on the walls—safety, sanctuary.

The memories turned to ashes in her mouth. There wasn’t anything pleasant to distract herself with, because she’d left it all behind.

She missed Rana. She missed her so much that it was starting to actually hurt; the guilt formed a low ache deep in her chest. Excising Rana from her heart would be like trying to wrench taproots out of dry earth. She knew, because they’d done that together, once, weeding under the direction of a Weathermancer as punishment for climbing a tree and breaking a branch; it had been summer, and the dirt had been hard-packed. She could practically feel the sweat drenching her scalp at the touch of that memory.

Some of the roots just wouldn’t yield, no matter how hard she’d tugged; they’d chosen to snap rather than release their hold on the earth, leaving the very deepest pieces of themselves buried. The Weathermancer had clucked at her when she’d seen her fail.

“Be sure to get it all,” the Weathermancer had said disapprovingly. “Else they’ll simply grow again with the spring rains.”

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been trying. She’d pulled at the weeds with all of her flimsy child’s strength, determined to get them out, blazing with defiance. It just hadn’t been enough.

That was what it felt like now, sort of. There was just no way to stop agonising over leaving her one and only friend behind. It had seemed the right thing to do at the time, so she’d lopped off the leafy tops of her reservations and she’d done it to save Kionah and to save herself. But now she was far away and the rains were pouring down, soaking the soil where her darker thoughts grew. Fears and memories and self-loathing sprouted again, clawing skywards from hidden roots.

Both of their hands had been dusty and sore by the time the Weathermancer pronounced their efforts adequate. They’d taken turns massaging each other’s fingers afterwards, bickering and complaining and chattering on about whatever hare-brained adventure they were planning at the time. She felt weary remembering such things. She was alone now, and not a child anymore, and Rana was a kingdom and a Killing Field away from her. Possibly dead—no, don’t think about that. The anti-haemolytic would’ve worked. It must have.

She closed her eyes and pinched at the bridge of her nose. When she opened them again, it was to stare at the chalked wards on the ceiling. Runes drifted serenely, like dry leaves atop a pond.

Aliyah crawled into bed and went to sleep.

===

Aliyah woke, surging away from a tangle of familiar nightmares; red books, ragged skin, blood over salt and the taste of iron at the back of her throat. She wrenched herself upright, pushing what felt like a sea of sheets away from her neck and chest. The room was dark now, but for the whisper of runes above. A sliver of lamplight spilled in from a gap in the curtains, sure and still. The house was silent, but her heart pounded in anticipation all the same: faery-mark itching, every muscle tensed. She used her magic to sweep some of the tension away, forcing a sense of physiological calm to descend over herself.

She should have expected this, really.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, wondering if it would be alright to drink from the bathroom tap, whether running her itching forearm under a stream of cool water would do it any good. From the other side of the room, movement. She froze, before realising that it was only Kionah, stirring in her sleep.

“Everything alright?” came the murmur. Not asleep, then. “You were sort of…screaming, earlier.” Kionah shifted, then rolled over onto her side and propped her chin onto the heel of her hand in one sleek movement.

“I’m fine,” Aliyah said. “Just a bit worried after all that—well you know, everything. The mark was bothering me.”

“Relax.” Kionah gave a muffled, lazy yawn; Aliyah wondered if her nightmare-throes had woken her, and a stab of guilt and unease burrowed into her stomach.

“Laurent used to contract for spire-builders,” Kionah continued. “It’s hardly the best, but this place has as many wards as I can afford. And if worst comes to worst, Silas was a dungeonrunner before he settled down. I’m sure we’ll be fine—I’ve thought this through somewhat, I promise.”

“Right, right.” She hesitated. “It’s just, the Magician—I just don’t understand.”

“False-Magician,” Kionah corrected. “He used Breaker magic. Very confusing, I agree.”

“But you worked with Alhena,” Aliyah said slowly. “Surely you know more than I did. Even if you didn’t seem um, fond of her.”

“Alhena? I doubt she had anything to do with this. Besides,” Kionah narrowed her eyes, sclera glinting wetly in the window light. “What does my level of fondness have to do with it?”

“Nothing,” Aliyah said, even as unease ate at the base of her skull. “It’s nothing. I just thought, since you did court stuff—”

“Hah,” Kionah said. “Is this about the whole…” She made a loose, chopping motion with her hand. “About my relation to your harpist princess? They tell me she was well-liked.”

“I—I just had a bad dream about the execution,” Aliyah said evasively.

“Hm. Well, I wouldn’t say that Alhena and I were close.” Kionah spoke slowly, expression unreadable in the low light. “She was my employer, and employers die; I grew up with mercenaries, see. Not very good ones. Most of them ran out of business on account of all their clients dying, and so drank themselves to early, penniless graves. It’s the nature of the business, not caring. Normal here. I am not exceptionally cracked in the head. Does that assuage your concerns?”

Aliyah flinched. “I didn’t say—”

“It’s fine. You were thinking it. How unsettling, that a princess might die and that a so-called consort would not shed a tear.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “If I were in your place, I’d be wary too. What kind of times are these, where a common street rat might walk the court and spin a new life as spymaster? It was on Alhena’s good graces, of course. Long may she rest.”

“…Okay,” Aliyah said carefully. An edge had crept into Kionah’s voice; it would probably be a good idea to steer the topic away from such matters. “And the kingdom? What about them? Because if that…Magician…person…isn’t involved, then I have no idea why the faeries would want to kill us.”

“Mm,” Kionah said. “We did stumble into the foundations of their encampment. Possibly they were rivals of Glister Hive, schismatist-dissidents planning something. Perhaps you’re a threat now. Who knows?”

“I’m not a threat,” Aliyah said, scratching at her arm. “This is ridiculous. Why even go to all this effort to kill me?”

Kionah laughed again, softly this time. “You’re a Healer. Of course you’re a threat. Some might say that your abilities border on godlike—that is, if they believed in them.”

“Godlike? What? No, that’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. “I’m not even—maybe a real Healer can live a perfect life, or do some dangerous stuff with their magic, but I’m not like that. I still get sick and stuff.”

“Yeah? But you can recover in an instant.”

Aliyah’s thoughts faltered for a moment, tripping over themselves in frustration. No matter Shasta’s reaction back down in Whistle House, the magic was hardly a cure-all.

“But that still isn’t,” she started, shaking her head. “Healing sickness is harder than wounds, for me. I still get sick. I’m still like, mortal. I still get, um, sunburnt and stuff. Maybe not here, but summer in Shadowsong, definitely. I mean, I could stop the effects of getting sunburnt, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Kionah turned her gaze away and shook her head. “Luck was with you when you were made apprenticeling. I would have asked you to teach me, if I thought it could have ever worked. Shasta was about to.”

“Oh,” Aliyah said. “Right. Well, you’re right, I don’t think I could.”

A trickle of ice crept down her back as she spoke. Much as she’d have liked to believe that it was all just diligent study and Zahir’s books that had got her all this way, the memory of the Higher Library lingered on the edges of her mind like wisps of a Killing Field. Deep down, she suspected that it had something to do with that. Unlocking, with blood and pain and hunger-yearning. It was an old concept, and probably not a wholly false fable.

“It keeps you safe, doesn’t it?” Kionah asked. “So long as you keep quiet about it around, ah, ‘persons of significance’ in general. Gratitude for your blessings, and all that. Such rare gifts are in short supply.”

Aliyah frowned. She wasn’t sure she’d call it a gift, exactly. It had not been handed to her on a silver platter. In the first lessons, the ones about reaching out with the magic to sense breath-heartbeat-metabolite, she’d crashed headfirst into full, proper awareness—all of it, everywhere and all at once.

Each twitch and stretch of her muscles, the production of blood inside her bones, the texture of living marrow, digestion glugging along, peristalsis, pancreas and glands secreting a myriad of substances, cellular metabolism, diffusion across membranes, transport and lysis, enzymes chewing. She hadn’t even known the words for it at the time. And there had been a thousand other things as well, moving too quickly or too subtly for her to grasp their meaning. With the awareness shoving itself to the forefront of her mind, she realised that she could map out the consequences if the chemical composition of her blood shifted even slightly, if oxygen saturation were to fall even a little, then this would topple, and so would that, and then the perfect loops would stop and it would cascade…

Her magic was the point-tipped weapon but her thoughts were the clumsy hand that guided it. Why, oh why did Healers choose this? The esteemed power to blend one’s own brain into soup, if one thought the wrong kind of thoughts?

It was like opening her eyes and realising that there existed entirely new colours that she had not been able to see before—and that monsters lurked in the shades of these new colours, creatures of which she had been blissfully unaware until now. They been lurking there all along, drooling over her shoulder, close enough to touch. The human body was a squishy and disgusting thing. Her lungs inflated wetly. Her tongue didn’t feel as if it fit into her mouth. Heavy tendons, flowing blood, hinge joints, breakable cantilevers. Warm and raw and glistening; red meat, everywhere, drowning out the world.

She’d had a panic attack right there and then from the sensory shock, and the pure knowledge given therein. Bodies were so fragile—so many perfect systems working together, dizzyingly delicate and so impossibly intricate that she wondered dizzily how anything worked right at all. This was what she was expected to live in? This web of nerves bootstrapped into a perpetually shedding-growing-dying meat-vessel?

Zahir had calmed her down with his easy assurances, eased her out of the horrible all-awareness with blithe quips and dark humour. He’d said it was like that for many new apprentices. It was only later, as she was gulping down a mug of tea to ease the headache throbbing throughout what felt like her entire brain and skull, that she’d remembered the justification for those intricacies of cell-organ-system-body, the whole reason she was here: not for her, perfection. Not perfect, at all.

But the exercise had been necessary to ensure she wouldn’t near kill herself a second time. From it, she’d learned to direct her focus, to narrow it enough to be able to parse the constant onslaught of magical-sensory information.

In the early days, though…she’d lain awake, hyper-aware of each heartbeat. Systole, diastole, and repeat. And just what was keeping it going that way, she’d wondered. Electrochemical magics? It didn’t seem—safe. She’d reached inwards with magic to trace the flaps of the valves in her heart, trembling and barely-touching, so fearful that the slightest wrong move would have her vomiting blood all over again.

Each piece had felt like a ticking clockwork bomb, a mechanism that could betray her at any moment, something that could run down or bend or snap when she desperately needed it not to. At least now, she had the tools for repair. She shuddered to think what would have become of her if the faery attacks had been sprung on her helpless past self.

Kionah was right, in part. The magic kept her safe. That was what she liked most about it: that it gave her some level of control. With it, she felt less as though she were flailing through the dark for an anchor. It was far more selfish than wanting to help others. It wasn’t like she minded helping others—she had been relieved to heal Kionah, after the fight—but she’d gone for so long without a means of relieving her own pain that it was more than welcome, after so many years of agony. Nowadays, she wondered how she ever lived without it.

“Yes,” she said eventually. “I am grateful.” There was really not much else to say.

Kionah yawned softly. “Go to sleep, Aliyah. We’re as safe as we can be, and you much more than me.”