Metallic shrieking filled the lightless recesses of Sena’s head. She was genuinely worried that he might snap. This was the moment that would decide how the rest of the night played out. Nathaniel’s howls slowly dwindled into whimpers that faded across the world.
“You can’t get out without me,” she said, hoping he was still listening. “St. Remora can’t speak for you. St. Remora can’t manipulate a pen. It’s you and me…”
But he was gone. What was he doing? She looked across the intervening miles to St. Remora for a sign. Had she had a heart, it would have been pounding. She looked south toward his stone house in the jungles. Nothing. She looked everywhere but he was powerful in insubstantial ways. In the numbers of nonphysicality, he was expert from long meditation at the edge of the abyss. He hid from her with puissant ease.
St. Remora ticked.
The jungles blew in a damp wind off the sea.
Sena waited, more afraid than perhaps she had ever been.
Fine.
It was a dry hiss, desiccated and startling inside her ear.
But I know about you. I know what’s inside you …
Sena’s stomach turned on itself. Her entire body went cold. “Oh? What’s that?”
Guilt. You feel guilty about what you’re doing.
“You’d have no remorse—”
No. I wouldn’t. That’s the difference between us. That’s why They chose you I think. They’re great connoisseurs of pain.
Sena didn’t dare upset him with another question. She would let him say whatever he wanted. She would do whatever he asked her to do. Because she could taste the end from here. It was within her grasp. Yet if he found out, if he suspected—
I think you’ve waited to make the ink because you have feelings for my nephew. Tell me I’m wrong.
“You’re not wrong.”
You feel guilty, so you want him to know. You need to apologize.
Sena touched the corner of her eye with one fingertip. The strain was written in her neck, in her jaw.
So go apologize to him. You have the tincture. I will give you three hours to say your good-byes. But I warn you. If you set one foot inside my house at Khloht—
“I won’t.”
The shade seemed to incline its head just slightly. Then it was gone.
From the basement of the restaurant came a bang, the sound of a metal door swinging full back. The tramp of feet descended. A light slowly infused the cistern.
Two Veyden men arrived at the bottom of a set of crust-caked cement steps and swung their lanterns over Sena’s form. Despite their great size and the weapons they carried, they looked at her with pale green faces and glossy eyes.
“You don’t want a light down here?” one of them asked.
“No.” Her small form had materialized silently in the middle of the room when their lights had struck it. They were Willin Droul. They wore the Hilid Mark. But they were not Lua’groc, which meant they could still feel fear. It was fear they enjoyed. The awe of the cult kept them invigorated and honest in their efforts to serve it, and it was also their reward. Sena knew this.
“Have the flawless come up?” asked one of the Veydens.
“No. I’m going down to them,” said Sena.
Both men shifted uncomfortably. They were terrified and giddy to the point of euphoria. “The Shradnae Sisterhood has arrived in the eastern ruins—as you predicted,” one of them said.
“Make sure they find the Grand Elesh’Ox.”
“Is that where the sacrifice will take place?” the first Veyden asked.
“Just do it,” she said.
Both Veydens bowed.
“Tell Ku’h,” Sena said, “that I want him to bring Caliph Howl to the tanks.”
The Veydens wondered why. Why bring the king of Stonehold down to her council with the flawless? Would he be an offering? Would the flawless eat him? But neither man would ask this question. They were both too afraid.
* * *
AFTER talking to Baufent, Caliph took a shower. The stall was plated in mirrors and pierced by recessed lights. Creamy pearls of gold-brown soap ejected automatically into his hand from a liquid dispenser hidden in the wall. The tacky spore-filled stink of the jungle slid off him. Only after that, he imagined, did the desert grit embedded in his pores come up too.
Under the lights, in the mirrors, Caliph looked at himself. Clean at last. He gleamed with uniform color save for a one-inch scar on his arm. He stared at it for a few moments.
Then he got out and toweled off.
He got dressed and went back to the room where Taelin and Baufent were waiting for him. He wanted to grill Taelin before Ku’h’s men returned, but she wasn’t talking. All she would say was that yes, Sena had talked to her, yes Sena had given her instructions, but that no she couldn’t talk about them.
This came as no surprise to Caliph. He expected this sort of nonsense.
“I don’t know whether you took advantage of her or not,” Baufent said as an aside. “But I think she’s suffering severe polymodal hallucinations. Multisensory. I’m not sure she can even tell what’s real anymore. She keeps claiming that you and she—”
“What?” Caliph came momentarily unglued. “Gods no!”
“I see. Well, she’s got a low-grade fever. I checked her, and her one arm is absolutely silver. She’s fighting it off thanks to the vaccine, I think she’ll make it, but … anyone she comes in contact with. Those Veydens for instance.”
“I’m not worried about the Veydens,” Caliph groused.
“Well, obviously they survived the plague here in Bablemum but … they might have stayed clear of physical contact. Taelin was all over that man—”
“I said I’m not worried about them.”
“I’m a doctor. It’s my job to worry about everyone.”
“If you knew what I knew, you’d feel the same. Trust me on that.”
“My stomach hurts,” said Taelin.
“Give her one of your tablets,” said Baufent.
Caliph rooted in a pocket for his bottle. What his fingers touched jarred him. He drew out a small cold steel flask, like a memento carried back from a dream. It did not belong here, in his hand.
Staring at it, Caliph forgot Dr. Baufent; he forgot what he had been digging for in his pocket. All he remembered was a little girl with cold fingers who smelled of sugar and glue and Sena smiling as if happy for the first time in her life.
He shook the flask but couldn’t tell if it was empty.
“What’s that?” asked Baufent.
He barely acknowledged her with a mumbled “Dunno. Some kind of tincture I guess.” He unscrewed the cap and peered inside. There was liquid, like dark tea, and a smell that made his mouth water.
He clenched his jaw and screwed the cap back on. What is going on? He slipped the flask back into his pocket.
“Everything all right?” asked Baufent.
“Fine.” But now, with all the things he’d read, he began to postulate, against his logical nature, what the dreams Sena had showed him might have meant.
He remembered the antacids and handed them to Baufent who took them with a growly look and gave one to Taelin. The priestess didn’t ask what it was. She munched it like candy.
A knock sounded from the door that led to the airship’s deck.
“Ku’h’s back,” said Baufent. Her voice held mild apprehension.
“You should be happy,” said Caliph. “We can go to dinner.”
CHAPTER
47
Umong was the name of a ruin that jutted like a rotten tooth fifty miles due north of Eh’Luhnah Usoh: Lake of the Sky. There were markers near the ruins—for the starline.