Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  A distant explosion rattles the silverware. The two boys glance at each other. “Pia.”

  “Oh, dear.” Madrina pats my shoulder. “Do sit. I won’t be a moment.”

  She leaves the room. As the wolf-boy turns to stare at me again the scaled boy steals a chunk of meat from his plate. The wolf-boy growls and stabs his fork into the dead eel, sliding it from its plate and onto the white tablecloth. The scaled boy stabs it as well and the two of them wrestle over the eel, dragging it back and forth over the table as they playfully snap and hiss.

  The green-eyed girl slides away from her plate of leaves. She wears long gloves the same color as her gown, reaching from her fingertips to just below her shoulders, like an odd pair of evening gloves. “Please excuse them, siorina.” She rolls her eyes at the grappling boys. “These utter barbarians are Lorenzo and Lyudmil, better known as Renzo and Milo.” She dips a sweeping curtsy. “I am Beatriz Rabazino.”

  I curtsy as well, though not nearly as gracefully. “Belle, Belle Fr—”

  The boys’ shouts interrupt me. “Andreas!”

  They drop the eel and dash to the door, sending their chairs tumbling over. I turn to see a traveling bag hovering in midair. A tracing forms around it, turning from a white silhouette to glass, and then to the fully-formed figure of the red-haired young man I saw last night.

  “It’s you!”

  The young man’s head snaps about to face me. He is clearly the same, but no longer soaked and bedraggled. Now he is properly dressed, wearing a traveling coat and brown kid gloves, his curling hair combed. But there is still a sickly cast to his face. His gray eyes seem somehow too bright, too shining.

  He is ill.

  The wound. The black slime that dripped from it.

  Poison. It must have been some kind of poison…

  The young man’s eyes dart over me. A crooked, foxy smile spreads over his face. He shrugs. “It’s me.”

  His eyes sharpen. I take his meaning. Keep quiet.

  The boys tackle him, hugging him around the waist. A flash of pain crosses his face. He disentangles his right arm as Fiorella drifts from the table and goes to him as well. She tugs his coat. “I’m four next week.”

  “How could I forget?” Andreas sets down his bag and scoops her up with his uninjured arm. “I do believe you’re a full, hm, twelve inches taller than when I saw you last.”

  Fiorella pouts. “You’ve been gone for months and months.”

  “Only six. That’s not terrible, is it?” He laughs. “I’ve made it home in time for Mascherata.”

  Renzo pulls away from him. “Where did you go?”

  “Oh…” He lets out his breath, looking off into an imaginary distance. “Granada, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Antarctica, Mars…”

  Fiorella turns to me. “Andreas is a spy.”

  Andreas rolls his eyes. “I’m no such thing.”

  Fiorella nods solemnly. “You are so.”

  Milo rolls his eyes back at him, or at least I think he does. His voice is high and whispery. “Everyone knows you work for the—”

  Andreas lets out a meaningful cough, letting Fiorella drift away. She revolves in the air to face me. “When I’m big I’ll be a spy too.”

  “Well, you’ve fifteen more years to change your mind.” Andreas straightens his coat and gives his head a dramatical toss to flick a loose curl from his forehead. He turns to me. “Deepest apologies, siorina. I’m usually far, far more gracious. And dashing. Mustn’t forget dashing.” He bows. “Andreas Greiff at your service.”

  “I…”

  Jette’s words halt me, an echo of her voice. You must never say that name!

  I hesitate. I am among Unnaturals. They have already introduced themselves to me. It would be rude not to do the same. It cannot hurt...

  Can it?

  I dip another curtsy, this time a bit more smoothly. “Belle Frankenstein.”

  A silence slams down. Andreas’ smile slips away. The children gape at me.

  Renzo’s collar shifts as he swallows. “Are you a reani—”

  Beatriz jabs her elbow into his side. Even Fiorella stares, looking between me and Andreas, confused.

  Heat rises in my face. The quailing I felt in the corridor squeezes me, worse than before.

  I bow my head. “Please excuse me.”

  I start for the door. Andreas’ footsteps follow me. “Belle, wait. Belle…”

  I leave the lunarium. The imprint of their stares lingers on my skin. I stop in the middle of the atrium, in the center of the shaft of moonlight. My heart bangs, the volta around it throbbing with every beat.

  “Belle.”

  I whip around. Andreas stands there, his face worried. “They’re only children. They don’t know their manners.”

  Tears prickle the corners of my eyes. “You aren’t a child.”

  A flush rises beneath his gray-tinged skin. “No. I’m not.”

  “Why do you fear me?”

  “No one fears you.”

  His gaze is direct now, his voice firm, but we both know the lie behind it.

  “It’s my appearance. It’s these, isn’t it?” I raise my hand. The stitches are plain in the moonlight. “And my name.”

  I lower my hand. “What’s wrong with my name?”

  Andreas’ face grows completely blank, though I can sense the wheels spinning wildly in his head.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he says. “And there’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Tell me the truth.” I am tall enough to look directly into his eyes. “Please.”

  “It’s not my place to—”

  “Please!”

  “Belle, this won’t do you any—”

  The last of the color drains from his face. He staggers, clutching his arm.

  “Andreas!” I run to him. He thrashes free of his coat, revealing his injured right arm. A spreading dark blot stains the sleeve of his jacket. “I’ll find—”

  “No!” He catches my arm. “No.”

  I pull free. “You’re hurt!”

  “A flesh wound. Not uncommon in my line of work.” He plasters a sickly grin onto his face. “Invisibility isn’t invulnerability.”

  “I saw your wound. You know I did!” I take his arm. “You mustn’t hide this. You need help.”

  “I doubt there’s anyone in the world who can do that.” He gathers up his coat. “My thanks for your assistance, dear siorina. If you’d be so good as to pardon me…” He bows. “I’ll take my leave.”

  “Andreas—”

  He evaporates. His footsteps echo on the marble floor, retreating as he leaves the atrium.

  I must tell someone.

  He is ill. He may worsen. And he will have no help if he does.

  But why did he insist so? Why does he want to hide?

  What do I do?

  I pull the vial of chimerical illusion from beneath my collar. There is only one thing I have the power to do now.

  I run across the atrium. Ayanda. I ought to find her first. She must know the city. Surely I can ask her the way to the Academia.

  I follow the marble staircase until I come to the corridor that leads to my room. I pass doors that I did not notice earlier, all with glyphs shining on their thresholds, arranged to form names penned in calligraphy. Beatriz, Lorenzo, Pia, Lyudmil, Andreas, Fiorella, Ayanda. Faint candlelight shines from beneath the door of the last.

  I lift my hand to knock. For a moment my nerve fails me. I must force my knuckles to rap once against the door. “Ayanda?”

  The door creaks open. Two candles perch atop a desk. Their light falls upon a spread of papers.

  I cross the room and take up a page. For a moment I cannot understand what it is that I see, but then the charcoal drawing resolves into a shape that makes me fling the paper back onto the desk.

  The sketch is of a horrible scene, a butchered body lying on the paving-stones, so mangled that it may be an ani
mal’s carcass. Its chest is broken open. Its face is ripped away. Sheared-off scraps of skin lie around it, scattered across a pool of blood.

  My stomach lurches into my throat. Why would anyone draw this? How could anyone bear to even look at that thing long enough to—

  The candlelight sways. Its light flows over the sketch, revealing a detail that I did not notice. A drawing of a girl with white hair, an overlarge coat, a black staff ready to strike.

  Jette.

  I snatch up the sketch. It is plainly her. She brandishes her staff like a sword, her face taut, her eyes wide with horror.

  “What are you doing?”

  I whirl about. Ayanda stands behind me, dressed in a maroon gown and mantle. In her ordinary hand is a bonnet and in the metal one a brass spyglass. She stares, her eyes flitting from me to the sketch in my hand.

  “You have no right!” She throws the things onto the bed and rips the drawing from my hands. My fingernails catch on the paper, tearing furrows across the ruined corpse. I jerk my hand away. “What is this?”

  She throws the paper into a drawer and slams it shut. “It’s not your concern!”

  “Not my concern? That’s my friend you’ve drawn!”

  “What?”

  “Jette! We escaped the Scholomance together! Now—"

  “The Scholomance?”

  I ball my hands into fists. “Yes! Why have you drawn her?”

  “I…” She presses her lips together, steeling herself. “I saw her. In a vision.”

  “A vision? Is that your power?”

  Her eyes harden. “I don’t know.”

  I cannot hide my bewilderment. How can one not know their own…

  "What was it, then? This vision?”

  “She fought off the Dead creature that murdered this man. It let her escape. That’s all I saw.”

  She attaches the spyglass to a belt around her waist. “Where are you going?” I ask.

  Ayanda sets the bonnet on her head and ties the ribbons under her chin. “To find the masked boy who saved us.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  “I must find Jette!” I catch myself before I can stomp my foot. “She’s Unnatural like us. I know where to find her. The Academia Alchemica.”

  “The Academia? Are you…that’s where every alchemist in Venice is headquartered! Their laboratories are there!” She throws up her hands. “What can you possibly want there?”

  “Well…” I tug at the cord around my neck. “We meant to rob it.”

  She stares at me. I shrug.

  Ayanda shakes her head. “It isn’t curfew yet. The Naturals are everywhere. You’ll be seen.”

  “No. I can hide myself with this.” I hold up the cord, letting the vial of chimerical illusion dangle at its end.

  “What is it?”

  I unstop the vial. Jette explained how it works. Concentrate on how you wish to appear, as precisely as you can.

  I pour half of the liquid into my mouth. It has no taste at all, only the tiniest sting.

  I close my eyes. My hair is Natural enough, I suppose. It is my eyes, my skin, and my fingernails that I must hide. And the stitches.

  I concentrate, forming an image of myself, catching the memory of the reflection I saw. I imagine color washing over my skin, a shade halfway between Jette’s and Ayanda’s, staining the stitches, lightening at my fingertips to cover their shine. I picture my eyes, contracting their blackness, filling their edges with white.

  A prickling sweeps over me, a swarm of ants marching over my skin. I open my eyes. My hands are the shade I imagined. The stitches are stained the same hue, invisible. My fingernails are long but pinkish now, their metal concealed.

  My throat tightens. I want to scrub the colors off.

  I face the mirror on Ayanda’s vanity. Someone else stares back at me. She has my hair, my shape, my features. But her eyes are…

  This is not me. This is…I do not know what it is, but it is not—

  “That’s brilliant,” Ayanda whispers. “What is it? Where did you get it?”

  “From Jette. She invented it, I think.” I tuck the vial back below my collar. “A half-dose will last two hours.”

  Ayanda bites her lip. “The Academia isn’t far from the opera house.”

  “You search the opera house. I’ll search the Academia,” I say. “We’ll find them both.”

  She narrows her eyes, considering me, and nods. “Very well. Let’s be off.”

  Chapter Eight

  Yurei

  HANDFULS OF STOLEN FOOD burn my fingers as I peer out from around the corner, faded, searching for an opening in the crowd. The Naturals chatter happily, Venetians and visitors meandering about the square, gazing in wonder at the church and La Filomena. Flame-bright colors spin about me, ones I’d never dreamed existed before I came here: yellow gaslight, billowing skirts the color of every jewel, faces of every hue. Their voices fill the air with more colors, tinting the clouds and waning mistlight. The air tastes of snow.

  I ready myself. One pause, one wrong footing, one passing touch, and I’m lost.

  Eyes. Eyes gleaming, teeth baring, my weapon whipping the air as they surround me—

  No. It’s over. They failed. We lived.

  A gap opens amidst the crowd. I dash for it, dodging, ducking, twisting, never slowing.

  I reach the steps and dart to the right, sprinting to the canal that runs past the opera house. I bound into an empty gondola and leap, slipping through the side door and into the backstage. I crouch in the doorway and bite into the suppli. The meat-stuffed balls of rice sear my mouth but I swallow them still. I devour the roll and the apple, crunching through its core. When I’m done I lean against the wall to catch my breath.

  That’s enough. I won’t need to eat for another week.

  Footsteps judder through the floorboards. The cast and crew of Mircalla bustle past the door, throwing on coats and mantles, hurrying to leave before curfew. The smells of sawdust, paint and candle-smoke hang in the stuffy air as I slip out of the doorway. Pulleys creak in the distance as the riggers in the gallery raise the sheets. The screens of painted canvas ripple like sails, ready for tomorrow’s rehearsal of Mircalla.

  Mircalla. The opera premieres in less than a week. It begins on the first night of the festival they call Mascherata, a celebration when Venetians and visitors swarm the streets, dressed in costumes and masks. The windows of the maskmakers’ ateliers have been packed with their works for months.

  Masks. The Naturals have an entire festival devoted to wearing masks. On purpose.

  I pass the gas board, a metal wall studded with the wheels and valves that control the thousands of lights. The director and maestro stand further ahead, waving their hands as they argue over something or other. The principals wander about, the two sopranos comparing pages of music, the baritone and tenor drinking wine at a table in the corner. I edge around them and find a crowd blocking my way.

  A carpenter passes, muttering to another, “Cast’s in revolt.”

  The other man groans. “Again?”

  I stop behind two of the stagehands, Moretti and Zambreno. A throng of performers surrounds the wardrobe master, each carrying wrinkled costume pieces. Something’s wrong with them. Their once-bright colors are dulled, tinged with dirty gray.

  The prima ballerina Antoinette Deschamps corners him, red with fury. The wardrobe master attempts a smile. “Problem, siorina?”

  “Look at my dress!” Antoinette snarls. “Look what they’ve done to it!”

  She thrusts a costume at him. Its color is just as dingy. “It’s hideous! It’s revolting!"

  “Siorina, if you please…” The wardrobe master gulps, sweat gleaming on his forehead. “It’s alchemically treated. Fireproofed. It’s for your own safety—"

  “I won’t wear these rags! None of us will!” She pauses, her face smug. Silence follows her. She turns to glare at the b
allet corps. They quickly shake their heads.

  One of the chorus plucks at his faded costume. “I can’t say I’m fond of them either.”

  Antoinette brandishes a second dress, this one vibrant. “This is what I’ll wear! It’s perfect as it is and I’m perfect in it!” She rounds on the baritone in the corner. “Tell him, Pietro!”

  The baritone looks up from his wine. “What?”

  The wardrobe master wrings his hands. “The originals are incendiary! Do you want to end like that poor girl in Paris? Her corset melted to her flesh, for pity’s sake!”

  “What’s he on about?” Moretti mutters.

  “That death last month,” Zambrano answers. “Little dancer spun too close to the footlights. Went up in flames like a torch, poor lass. Nearly set the entire cast ablaze.”

  The crowd parts. I run through it, dodging Naturals until I reach the garret staircase. It’s deserted, easy to scale at speed. I bound up the steps, slip through the narrow door and into the space beyond. The stillness of the attic mutes the chatter, blanching the mess of color. The voices and footsteps melt away, finally leaving.

  My bandaged palms sting as I uncurl my fingers, reminding me. Jette.

  I shouldn’t have listened. I should have followed her. What kind of a coward am I, that I didn’t—

  A gust of wind whistles past the garret window. I go to it, hardly seeing anything beyond the glass.

  I’ll never find her now. Venice is a honeycomb of secret places, buildings stacked upon buildings, thousands of snaking alleys and tunnels. She may be anywhere. Lost.

  The clouds part, drenching the square in moonlight. The crowd below has thinned. Naturals hurry by, passing a lonely figure at the square’s edge, silhouetted by gaslight. She turns her head and the light falls fully on her face.

  The Unnatural girl with the golden arm.

  What?

  I slip through the window, twist in the air to catch hold of the eave and vault backwards onto the roof. The girl crosses the square to the opera house’s door and pulls at the locked handle. She leaves the door and begins to walk north along the wall, no doubt to search for another entrance.