The crowded streets parted around our small debriscollecting team like weed-riddled water. I tried to ignore the affronted expressions, the touch of fingers to nose, the wrinkling of foreheads and the turning away. But still, I was glad when we stepped into Darkwater. The sublevel was a haven. Quiet, isolated and dark, with only sputtering lamplight flickering in from the windows near the ceiling.
I breathed in the memory of Kichlan's meal, and tension in my gut eased.
There in our space, we tarried as dusk fell in the world above ground. The thought of the ferry ride home during the night was less daunting than swimming through those crowds again. Instead, we pushed the furniture out of the centre of the room and arranged it so the fireplace was accessible. We discussed the possibility of more dawnbell suppers by ember-light. And each of us watched the windows, glanced at the glass-shadowed image of feet walking by, waiting for them to thin.
Sofia made the first move. She touched Kichlan lightly on the shoulder. "I have to go." Her free hand was on her stomach again, her cheeks still pale. What had happened when the debris had thrown her to the ground? Surely, if she was still hurting, she needed help? "I need my sleep."
I followed her, held her leather-lined coat with the embroidered floral buttons as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. It was so thick, and she so small, that she looked like a child in her parent's clothes. "Are you hurt?" I asked, voice low, glance deliberately shifting from her eyes to her hand.
She blinked away a moment of confusion. "Oh. No, Tanyana. I'm not."
"When you fell, when the debris hit you, it didn't, you know what I mean, hurt anything?" Now that really was my fault.
She must have seen it in my eyes. "Nothing to worry about." Her lips were also pale and they didn't reassure me, despite the rueful smile. "I made certain of that."
"Oh, good." Made certain? How much had that cost her? I itched to offer to pay for the healer, but I didn't even have enough kopacks for myself. "I was worried."
"I can tell." Sofia did the buttons on her jacket and tucked her scarf into its low neckline. The purple wool did compliment the jacket's green, I had to give her that. "I'd feel better if you'd worry about the hole in the ceiling."
I blushed, and muttered something that didn't sound like real words, not even to me, as she left the sublevel. Only Mizra, it seemed, had noticed our conversation and he, thankfully, was watching Sofia instead.
Natasha followed Sofia's example and was above ground a moment later. Mizra and Uzdal told Lad stories for another bell, but left as the large man began to snooze where he was sitting.
Kichlan didn't hurry. He lit two gas lamps on the walls, apparently able to ignore their noxious smell. He cleaned his pots with snow gathered on the doorstep and melted by a small fire. He brushed ash from the floor in front of the fireplace and took it upstairs to dump on the paving stones.
I sat on a couch, watching Lad sleep and his brother fuss.
"He likes you," Kichlan said when most of his chores were done, and the silence had stretched out so long, and so comfortable. "That's why he acted like that today. He is not a violent man, just easily confused. He thought that Pavel man was hurting you. He just wanted to help."
"I know. And I like him too."
Kichlan picked up an empty collecting jar and tapped it against his palm. "I would tell you to be careful, but I think Eugeny must have done so already."
"He has." I stood, carefully, slowly, so I didn't disturb the sleeping man opposite me. Lad had his hands tucked up under his chin and was drooling gently onto his knuckles.
"Eugeny has much to warn others about." Kichlan set empty jars in straight rows on the tables we had repositioned against the wall. They reflected the lamps like fireflies against a steel sky. "And he cares about Lad nearly as much as I do. He wouldn't want to see Lad taken away, he doesn't want him imprisoned."
I stopped, my hand hovering above the tension in Kichlan's shoulders. "Imprisoned?"
Kichlan sighed, and seemed to droop. To grow old. "That's why I have to be here, with him." He turned to face me. "Do you understand? Always with him. And that's why we need to avoid inspections, avoid missing our quotas or doing anything that could draw attention to our team. And to him."
Guilt caught in my throat again. Lad was a beautiful man. But said like that, with age and weakness and a broken voice, he could have been a chain. "What happened?"
Kichlan eyed me for a moment. What did he debate in his head, in that silence? "I wasn't there." He half-sat on the edge of the table. I fought the urge to cross my arms. "I was stupid. I thought I could leave him. He was-" with a frown, he mouthed numbers "-young. I don't remember how many years. But he was already large."
I waited as he paused.
"I still don't know exactly how it happened. Mother never would tell me. I tried once to pry it out of him. Took a sixweek and one before he forgave me. Didn't talk the whole time."
Lad twitched in his sleep and drew his knees up. A giant child on a small couch.
"I knew he liked the girl, I knew he followed her, smiled at her, gave her flowers. Weeds that grew between paving stones. I knew she was kind to him, indulged him, treated him like a large baby to be coddled." Bitterness crept into his voice. "She shouldn't have encouraged him and I shouldn't have let him talk to her. It was my fault. Do you understand, Tanyana? I always have to be there."
"What happened?" I asked again.
He shook his head. "I told you, I don't really know. But I returned that afternoon to find my mother insensible. She had discovered the girl. Lad had tried to hide her, like he hid toys and trinkets and shiny scraps of metal he found, in the space between the house and alley wall." He held up his hands, measured a foot or so. "It was only this wide."
"Other." I pressed my hands to my mouth.
Kichlan just nodded. "She was bruised, bloody, broken. But not dead. He didn't mean to hurt her, I think he-" a swallow "-tried to play with her. Like a doll. That's what I think, but I do not know. And the way he talked, you can't understand it, like someone had told him to do it. Like he had listened to a voice that wasn't there, and obeyed.
"The local veche wanted to incarcerate him. We had to fight for him, and in the end I was the reason they let him go. Because I promised I wouldn't leave him again, go out into that real world, that bright world, and let him loose in the dark. When I fe-" He broke off, looked away from me. I shuddered, from my head to the very end of my toes. "So you understand why Eugeny and I, why we have to be careful."
Together, we watched Lad sleep.
"You are a good brother, Kichlan." My words felt inadequate, but the silence was worse. "You have sacrificed more for him than he will ever know." More than Kichlan had even said. More, perhaps, then I wanted to guess at.
"I try to help him." Kichlan roused himself with a shake. "There are more ways than following him every where. Things to calm him, to help him think straight, to keep the v-" a hesitation this time "-the voices at bay. Don't get much time, of course. But I try." He gave a shrug. "Anyway, it's late. Don't you have a long way to travel home?"
Ah, home. "Don't remind me."
"Bit inconvenient, that."
"You noticed? Can't hide anything from you."
Kichlan shook his brother gently. With a widemouthed yawn and a stretch that nearly caught Kichlan in the face, Lad sat up. He blinked and grinned broadly at us. "Is it time for supper, bro?"
"Almost. We'd better get home or we might miss it."
Lad jumped to his feet. "Is Tan coming home again? Is she?"
"No, Lad. Not this time. Tan has her own home and she needs to go there."
Lad's face fell, but he still managed to squeeze the air out of me. "Have a nice day at home, Tan."