Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She’s run away from the circus and her parents. She came to me after leaving but wouldn’t take me up on my offer to stay. She’s been staying with someone, but he’ll be leaving soon. I don’t want her on the streets, so I approached her again. She agreed when I told her she could work for her board.”

  “She seemed truthful to me, for what that’s worth,” Drystan said, mouth full. I think he delighted in having rough table manners, after the rigorous etiquette training he must have had as a youth. I, however, could not shake my upbringing, holding the cutlery just so.

  “She could be a very good liar,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “She’s a truthful girl,” Maske said, the edge of his voice sharpening. “I used the Augur and she didn’t lie. Now, please leave it.”

  I stabbed a piece of overcooked beef.

  There would be so many opportunities where we might make mistakes. Even three months later, newspaper articles about us still appeared, reminding citizens of the potential reward. There was no longer anything about Lady Iphigenia Laurus, but I knew people were still searching for her, too.

  Drystan and I had gone to watch the apartment tenement where we had last seen the Shadow, but saw no sign of him. We began to doubt he even lived there.

  We had to find him to find a way to be rid of him.

  I tossed and turned that night, jumbled dreams jolting me awake more than once. Drystan was restless, but not crying out in his sleep. I sighed, giving up on rest long before the sun rose, hoping that we were not making a terrible mistake by hiring this girl named Cyan.

  She arrived at noon. Yesterday she had been cool, calm, and collected as she performed. Now, she looked nervous, younger, standing on the threshold of the theatre with a large carpetbag, the hood of her coat up against the cold.

  We invited her in and introduced ourselves.

  “I’m Sam,” I said, holding out my hand to hers.

  “Amon,” Drystan said, nodding.

  “Well met.” She inclined her head.

  She was perhaps around my age or a little older. We had hidden all personal possessions and we wore Glamours beneath our Temnian silks. Of course, she knew full well that we were not Temnian.

  “Are you going to turn off your Glamour?” she asked. “You’re not Temnian.”

  “No, they’re not. Don’t rush them, Cyan. You’ll see them when they wish to show you their true faces. Though I hope, for the Glamours’ sake, that it’s sooner rather than later.” Maske gave us a pointed look as he passed her a mug of coffee.

  She gave him a smile, her nose crinkling. “Thank you,” she said as we clustered about the kitchen table. She held the cup in both hands, warming her fingers. Her hair lay in a shining plait over her shoulder.

  “I’ve made up your room,” Maske said. “May I take your things?”

  “If it is not too much trouble, yes.”

  Maske took her bag. “I’ll bring this up and let you three become acquainted.”

  “My thanks,” she said.

  Maske left us. The lull in the conversation stretched to an awkward silence.

  Her expression was polite and impassive, but even beneath the nerves her eyes were lively, as if laughter could erupt at any moment. Through my suspicion, I found myself growing curious about her.

  “Have you been in Ellada long?” I asked. Yesterday we’d kept up the Temri accents, but that day, we left them behind.

  She broke into a smile, and it was so open, I found myself warming to her, despite myself. “I was born here,” she said. “My family is from Southern Temne, near Muyin and Chinsh.”

  “Do you ever go back to visit?”

  She nodded. “Every few years or so. My mother is very close to her side of the family.” Her smile faltered. Something had happened with her parents, especially the mother. She fingered a ceramic bead at the end of her plait.

  I knew with certainty that she was running away from something. She looked at me sharply, as if she guessed my thoughts.

  “How long have you known Maske?” Drystan asked.

  “Since I was a child. He knows my parents. My mother was a great admirer of his when he was a magician.” A twist of the mouth, tinged with bitterness. I kept the frown from my face.

  “You must find it a little silly, that we pretend to be Temnian,” I said. I felt protected by the illusion cast by the Glamour. She saw a stranger.

  She smiled, holding a hand in front of her mouth. “It is, a bit. So many Elladans dislike us, yet find us fascinating. It grows tiring. The fact that you’d court that is… odd, but I know others who did that, even in my circus. And your accent is terrible. Though I can at least teach you the curse words.”

  We smiled weakly.

  There was an indignant meow. Ricket, the little calico, investigated Cyan’s skirts. “Hello, small cat,” she said, holding down her fingers for him to investigate. He sniffed her suspiciously. She passed the inspection, and he rubbed his face against her hand before pouncing into her lap. She stroked his back. His purr rattled into the silence as he kneaded her legs.

  Determined not to let the small silence relapse into awkwardness, I spoke.

  “We’re both new to Imachara. I’m from Sicion,” I said. “But Amon here is from a town so small you’d never have heard of it.”

  We planned our whole make-believe lives to the smallest detail – what our parents did, our fictitious siblings, old addresses, friends, and the like. My fictional father was a luminary, selling Vestige glass globes and gas lamps, and my mother was a seamstress. Drystan, as Amon, was an orphan whose parents had drowned on a fishing boat, and had been raised in the tiny fishing village of Neite by his aunt. Drystan softened his accent to sound as though he were from there.

  She nodded. “I’ve been to Sicion for the circus, but never as far as Niete. How do you like working in magic so far?”

  “I imagine it’s much the same as the circus, except you don’t move around as much,” I said.

  “Have you been to see Riley and Batheo?” she asked us.

  We shook our heads, too quickly.

  “You should see it sometime. It’s something to behold.”

  I made a noncommittal sound, unable to speak.

  “New people just joined, I heard,” she said. “They came from Ragona’s Circus after the ringmaster died.”

  My breath caught in my throat, almost choking me. “We heard about that,” Drystan said. “Terrible.” How could he sound so calm?

  “It seemed so. The people who joined were still broken up about it. Couldn’t believe it.”

  Did she know? Was she threatening us? She didn’t seem to be, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Sometimes you think you know someone and realize you know nothing at all,” Drystan said. I bit the inside of my cheek until my eyes watered.

  Cyan took a sip of her drink, petting Ricket with her free hand.

  “What is your favorite sound?” she asked us.

  I was taken aback, but relieved, by the abrupt change in conversation.

  “I was just thinking,” she said, stroking Ricket, “how the purr of a contented cat is one of my favorite sounds in the world. There’s something so comforting about it, isn’t there?”

  “I suppose there is,” Drystan said, bemused.

  “So what are your favorite sounds? I’ll give you some others of mine. The first birdcall of morning. The whistle of the kettle. The sound of far-off singing not quite heard.” She lapsed into silence, as if embarrassed by the sudden outpouring of words.

  I considered. “The sound of waves washing along the beach. The rustling of wind through the trees. The steady sound of someone breathing peacefully.” I looked at the floor when I said this. It had become one of my favorite sounds only lately, when Drystan slept without nightmares.

  Cyan nodded. “All excellent sounds. And you, Amon?” she then asked Drystan, polite but her face alight with curiosity.

  “The c
rackle of the fire,” he said, and I knew he was thinking of the bonfires at the circus. “The ethereal sound of the chorus in the Celestial Cathedral on Lady’s Long Night. It fills you up until there’s no other thought left. The crunch of walking on fallen autumn leaves.” I smiled at him, and promised myself that we would go to the cathedral on Lady’s Long Night in a month’s time.

  “All very good sounds. And intriguing.”

  “Intriguing?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled at us widely. From our answers, she suddenly seemed much more at ease around us. I wondered what we had unintentionally given away.

  The magician returned. “I’ve turned out your room, Cyan, if you wish to go and investigate. I’ll lead you to it.”

  “Of course, that would be wonderful,” she said. As they walked out of the kitchen, I heard her ask: “It’s been a while since I’ve asked you, Mister Maske: what are your favorite sounds?”

  As they walked away, I could not hear his answer.

  “I finally saw the Shadow this morning,” Drystan said that evening, as soon as we were alone in the loft.

  I sat up straight in the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t have the opportunity. I returned just as Cyan arrived. And I’m not entirely sure it was him. It was a man wearing that broad-brimmed hat he’d been wearing when he was sneaking around the circus. It’s not like he’s the only man in the city to wear that type of hat, but I was pretty sure it was him.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “I followed him, but he shook me.”

  My stomach dropped. “So he knows we’re following him?”

  “I was discreet. But I think he sensed someone following him. I’ve narrowed it down to the Brass Quarter. I lost him near the marketplace.”

  “Let’s go there tomorrow. All we need to know is where he lives…” He’d never entered that other apartment building we saw, so he must live somewhere else.

  “We’re close.” Drystan picked up the book of magic history by his bed but set it aside again. “I couldn’t find any signs of deception in Cyan today.”

  “She’s hiding something, though.”

  “Without a doubt. But I don’t think it affects us, at least not directly.”

  “I’m not trusting her.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Why was she asking us about our favorite sounds?” I asked.

  “It’s a Temnian thing. They ask about favorite sounds, favorite tastes, favorite textures and the like quite often in conversations. They say that it gives away things about a person, so they can make up their mind about them. Sort of like how Maske makes up his mind about someone in a séance.”

  “I wonder what we gave away.”

  “I don’t know. If she turns out not to be a spy, we can ask her.”

  We murmured our goodnights but, as usual, sleep evaded me. I was so tired of never feeling safe, always wondering who I could trust. I did not know this Cyan girl and whether she would grow too curious about us. It seemed inevitable that the Shadow would find us. I turned the Phantom Damselfly over and over in my hand. The metal thrummed under my fingers. I watched Drystan’s back rise and fall in sleep and listened to the rain drumming on the rooftop.

  I debated falling asleep with the disc in my hand again, but at the last moment, I set the disc aside, fearful of what I might learn.

  I need not have bothered.

  This is a memory that I do not wish to remember.

  Only fragments remain – like a jigsaw puzzle scattered on the ground, some pieces the blank brown of the backs, and others bright specks of color. But they are without context. I do not remember how long ago this was. A long time. If only I could choose to forget the rest.

  My charge was in the next room. I was in stasis. My real body had perished, and my new one of flesh and bone still gestated. For now I was all cogs and metal and crystal. Something triggered my warning mechanisms, and I found myself awake. In the next room, my charge was screaming.

  I ran through the door, trailing my false fingers against the smooth Venglass walls, and my charge – my boy – was dead. I do not remember the sight of his body. That is a puzzle piece with a blank front. Nobody was in the room, but the window portal had been left ajar. I rushed to the window, the glass glowing with the coming dawn, but saw no one. I went to the bed, cradled my hand against his face. I could not feel him through my false skin. To me, he had no more substance than a wraith.

  I believe I was there for a long while. It is impossible to know. I sent out my sensors over the ground, but all was quiet. The night flowers closed, and morning blossoms opened. The Venglass around us glowed brighter. The hanging gardens swung in the warm, summer breeze. I could not smell the flowers, though the old me, the me who had been real, almost remembered what they would have smelled like.

  Normally, I would be awakening my charge. But there was no way to do so. Blood had stopped dripping onto the floor.

  The Alder burst into the room. I failed them.

  “Did you do this?” they asked me.

  “No.”

  “Who did? Who did this?”

  “I do not know.”

  They accessed my memory banks. They did not believe me, and so they relived what I saw. But there were gaps in the data. They decided someone had corrupted me. Or I had corrupted myself. That I had been compromised.

  I was put to sleep.

  And I remained asleep for ever so long, my little Kedi.

  I awoke, bolt upright in bed. The Vestige was on the bedside table where I had left it. It was only a dream. Wasn’t it?

  In this dream, I saw inside Penglass. No one has ever been able to penetrate it. No one. It had been calming. As calming as that yearning I felt to touch Penglass on the Penmoon – as though it held the power to take away my troubles.

  I remembered the sound of dripping blood from the dream, and I shuddered, wrapping my arms around myself. In the dream, I had been the damselfly. All senses were muted. I could not smell and I could not feel. Sight and sound were strange – the colors lacking subtle shades, and sounds almost mechanical. My fingers had rested on a still cheek, unable to even kiss the boy goodbye.

  A sob caught in my throat. My eyes burned. My vision blurred. Grief for a young boy who may not even have been human tore through me, for a boy dead for centuries, possibly millennia.

  My gaze fell upon the small, innocuous disc. I did not even know if it was my grief, or hers. I picked it up, and the sorrow grew stronger. Another sob threatened to choke me. I walked to the stained glass window and opened it with a creak, preparing to throw the disc out onto the pavement below, where it would shatter and never bother me again.

  “Micah?”

  I flinched. Drystan was sitting up in bed. The open concern on his face undid me again. The disc thumped to the floor from my numb fingers. I sobbed, and not just for the long-dead boy. I cried for Iphigenia Laurus, for Micah Grey, for the boy Drystan Hornbeam had been and the young man he had become. I cried for Aenea, for Frit, even for Bil, the clowns, and everyone in the circus I had hurt. I cried for Maske. Everywhere I turned, there was nothing but fear and heartache.

  Warm arms wrapped around me. A tear that was not mine dropped on the back of my hand. I rested my face against his neck, his heartbeat against my lips. This simple touch was what we both needed without realizing we did. That it was alright for us to grieve for what we had lost. For what we had taken.

  When the tears dried, we each went to our cold, lonely beds. The next morning, neither of us mentioned it and we avoided each other’s gaze. By the afternoon, I almost wondered if it, too, had been a dream.

  11

  THE FORESTERS

  “We are the roots of society – we give them the soil and the water to help them thrive, but receive naught in return but promises and worms. It is time, my brethren, to step into the light and take charge of our own destinies.”

  Pamphlet of the Forester Party

  While I was
no less suspicious and still feared the knock of the Shadow or the policiers at our door, time passed, easing the worst of the rough edges from when I had torn myself in the circus.

  I still knew little about Cyan and what to make of her, even though Drystan and I had spent hours with her during magic lessons. She took to the lessons with glee, and her fingers were soon just as nimble as our own.

  “My merry magicians. I’ll be going for supplies from Twisting the Aces. Fancy coming along after lessons?” Maske asked one morning.

  We needed an excuse to go into town, and this seemed almost fortuitous.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Wonderful,” Maske said, finishing his coffee. “To the lessons.”

  We were learning to place needles in our mouths and draw them out, linked, on a piece of string. It was a fairly safe trick, but my tongue was still sore from dozens of minor pinpricks. I kept fearing I’d accidentally swallow a needle.

  I fought down nerves during the lessons, which only resulted in another few jabs of my tongue. Drystan mastered the trick easily, his arms crossed as Cyan and I struggled.

  Afterwards, the four of us set off into town, well-wrapped against the cold.

  The distant strike of a blacksmith’s anvil echoed as we walked toward Twisting the Aces, the wind whipping our hair into a frenzy. The bell tinkled as we entered.

  The store was much the same, with Lily behind the counter.

  “Hello, my dears, it’s been a time. So wonderful to see you again,” she greeted us, her eyes on Maske.

  He consulted the list of supplies, rattling off replacement machinery parts and their measurements, taking care to linger close to Lily. I picked out the smaller items – candles, invisible wire, magnets to conceal within clothing.

  Lily flitted about the shop. “I think the spare cogs are up here,” she muttered. Stretching up, she knocked something off the shelf. Out of reflex I caught it and passed it to her – a square of deep purple glass, set in a frame of lacquered wood of red and blue. The frame reminded me a little of the clown’s motley at the circus, and my gut twisted.