by L. Penelope
Once arrayed in a warm—if utilitarian—woolen coat, Lizvette led them on foot to the nearby arts district. Her plan was to find a costume shop to purchase the type of heavy makeup that would cover Tai’s tattoos. A wig for him and one for her own distinctly Elsiran hair color would help, as well. But as they crossed deeper into the neighborhood of colorfully painted shops, they found it nearly deserted. Stores that should be open at this time of the morning were barred with the windows shuttered. Trash lay piled up in cans that had not been emptied in weeks, from all appearances. The arts district seemed dead. They turned a corner onto Theatre Row. The marquee of a single hall was lit, but it advertised a photoplay. Experience the Talkie Revolution! proclaimed the poster in bold script.
Lizvette looked down the desolate street. The wind whistled through the air, blowing bits of trash from the overflowing cans. She shook her head. “Perhaps we’ll have to take our chances disguising ourselves with Earthsong. It doesn’t look like we’ll find what we need here.” She wrung her hands, both in frustration and to bring warmth to her frozen fingertips. She should have purchased gloves.
Darvyn’s grim expression didn’t change. He was coiled tight with tension, and her heart went out to him. But Tai tilted his head to the side. “Do you hear that?”
Lizvette closed her eyes but only made out the sound of the wind.
“There are people in that theatre over there,” Darvyn said, pointing across the street.
The lights on the marquee were dark, but the lettering advertised, A SIDE-RIPPINGLY HILARIOUS ROMP. NIGHTLY.
“We could get what we need from the theatre’s makeup supply. If they’ll sell to us,” Lizvette said, leading the way across the street.
The front doors were barred, but she could hear music now, coming from around the side of the building. She turned down the narrow alley next to the theatre only to be stopped short by Tai’s hand on her shoulder.
“Not so fast there, duchess.”
She shivered from his touch before steeling herself and turning around.
He looked down the dark alley with suspicion. Whatever unsavory things might be hiding nearby could certainly not stand up to the fiercely protective look in his eye. He stepped around her so that he was in the lead.
They marched down the alley. Other than being perilous to the cleanliness of her hemline, it held no visible threats. Behind the theatre’s side door, loud music played. She knocked and waited a minute, but no one came. She was raising her hand to knock again when the door swung open on creaking hinges.
The young woman on the other side was about her age with straight, black hair that fell past her shoulders. Violet eyes took up half of her heart-shaped face. Lizvette saw the exact moment she caught sight of Tai. Her eyes, at first filled with vague curiosity, widened, tracking him up and down, no doubt taking in the dusting of hair on his chest, exposed by the way he insisted on unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt, regardless of the temperature.
Lizvette cleared her throat, bringing the woman’s attention back to her. “Hello. We’re so sorry to bother you, but we’re—”
“Come in,” she said, speaking only to Tai.
Lizvette shot an annoyed glance over her shoulder. Darvyn appeared to be holding back a smile. She was glad someone found this so amusing. Meanwhile, Tai’s eyes twinkled. He unfurled a roguish grin upon the woman, who ushered them into a chaotic room beyond the door.
Two dozen people lounged about a cluttered space littered with wardrobes, tables, boxes, discarded furniture, and contraptions she couldn’t identify. The front half of an automobile lay next to a miniature cardboard replica of the city’s skyline. The music was courtesy of a phonograph blaring from the corner.
In the center, an enormous bearded man was engaged in a very bawdy jig with a voluptuous blonde. Others gyrated suggestively with partners or alone. Everyone here was in a costume of some kind—colorful breeches, fur-covered jackets, formal gowns. One man even wore a boar’s head over a tuxedo.
Lizvette clasped her hands in front of her, taking it all in.
“I’m Brigit,” the woman who’d ushered them in said. “Are you here for the party?” Once again, she had eyes only for Tai.
Lizvette fumed. “No, we’re—”
“I’d never pass up a good party,” Tai interrupted, his smile broad.
Darvyn looked considerably less amused now. His jaw was locked, eyes scanning the partygoers, arms rigid at his side. His single-minded focus on rescuing his Kyara had kept him tied in knots since the day before.
Lizvette stared at Tai, trying to communicate to him that they needed to hurry, but his attention had been captured by Brigit.
“What are we celebrating?” Tai asked.
“The end of our fair theatre,” she replied with a dramatic curtsey, designed to allow Tai the optimal angle to see down her dress, no doubt. “Our last show is tonight, and then we go the way of the rest.”
“What happened to them all?” Darvyn asked. His voice sounded strange and tinny. Perhaps the communications amalgamation around his neck was running out. Lizvette made a mental note to pick up a new one after they left. If they could get what they needed and get out.
Brigit shrugged. “Ticket sales have been down for months. Everyone wants to see the talkies instead. But a few days ago, word came down from on high that all government allotment for the arts has been pulled. Without those stipends, we can’t pay the bills here.”
Lizvette watched the revelers more closely. Though they laughed and danced and acted cheerful, careful inspection revealed gloomy undertones.
“What will you do?” she asked. She had to repeat the question as Brigit was staring at Tai and didn’t hear her the first time.
“Take jobs in the factories, I suppose. They’re on a hiring kick. No one turned away. Production is way up.” She took a step closer to Tai, tilting her head. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”
Tai laughed as if her question was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Lizvette rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth when Brigit looped her arm through his and dragged him over to a table laden with food. Red clouded Lizvette’s vision.
“Let’s get what we need and go,” Darvyn said tightly.
Lizvette couldn’t have agreed more. She tore her gaze away from Tai’s broad back and looked around. Thick, black curtains indicated where the stage was. They stood in the backstage area, and far on the other side was a hallway.
“Dressing rooms are most likely through there,” she said. From being in a few productions at school, she knew the basic layout of a theatre.
Darvyn motioned that she should lead the way. They skirted the edges of the rowdy affair. No one seemed to pay them any mind.
“Why do you think the Dahlinean government is pulling funding from the theatres?” she asked, thinking out loud.
“And increasing production at the factories? Maybe they’re diverting the money there,” Darvyn said. “More amalgams on the market … it must be significant somehow.” He shook his head.
Soon they were in the long hallway, peering through the doorways. The first led to a storage closet, but the second appeared to be a dressing room.
Lizvette quickly found a blond wig for herself and stuffed it in a paper sack that had been lying on the ground. A pair of tinted spectacles would do to mask the shade of Darvyn’s eyes. It was Tai who stood out the most and would need the most work. Lizvette sighed as she opened jar after jar of heavy, tinted face paint. “If he were here I could better match his tone, but this will have to do,” she said, choosing one she thought would work. She grabbed a black wig to cover his blue hair, then left a few coins on the table so she didn’t feel like they were stealing. With their supplies now procured, they headed back to the party.
Tai and Brigit were on the dance floor, where the latter was rubbing her considerable cleavage on him like a cat in heat. Lizvette crossed her arms over her own more modest chest and sighed.
When Tai looked over
, she pointed to her wrist, though she wasn’t wearing a wristwatch. He had the nerve to grin at her and swing Brigit around one more time before whispering something in her ear that made the woman blush redder than an apple. Then he disengaged from her and approached them.
“Having fun?” Lizvette snapped.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked, oblivious to her mood.
“I think so, though if you end up looking chalky it’s only because I couldn’t match your coloring with you out here … gallivanting.”
“Gallivanting?” He chuckled in the most irritating way and plucked the paper sack of supplies out of her hand. “After you,” he said with a bow. Lizvette marched toward the door. She thought that Brigit would stop their exit, but they made it back outside without incident.
“I’m surprised you weren’t roped into a full bacchanal before we could leave.”
Darvyn lengthened his stride, now in the lead. “I sang a small spell to avert everyone’s attention.”
Lizvette stopped in her tracks, mouth agape. “You couldn’t have done that when we first went in?”
With a furrowed brow, he motioned to Tai. “He didn’t give me a chance.”
Tai spread his arms out, not looking remorseful at all. “What?”
She reached into the sack he held, pulled out the black wig, and tossed it in his face. Then she stomped down the alley back to the street.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The mountain villagers praised the good fortune brought by the Hunter long into the night. Man-With-Voice-Like-Nightbirds sang a warbling melody with many verses. Though darkness hung like a cloak, Ayal felt a sliver of longing—joy such as this was infectious. She wished it didn’t have to end.
—THE AYALYA
Darvyn winced as the stench of exhaust from the factories became impossible to ignore. Metallic and rotten, it soured the meager contents of his stomach. He sang a bubble of fresh air around their heads whenever the stink became too much.
The factory district was bordered on one side by a placid lake and on the other by a wide highway that cut through the city. They’d taken a cab to the edge of the district, then walked the streets on foot, unsure which factory to enter.
The buildings were concrete behemoths, each taking up an entire city block. There were no names over the doors, no indications of what types of amalgams were produced inside. Just pockmarked streets and sidewalks separating enormous structures, each at least seven stories tall.
“Maybe we should just pick one at random and knock on the front door?” Tai asked, though his voice held no confidence in the suggestion. He’d applied the face paint in the taxi and looked a bit plain with his tattoos covered.
Anger still rolled off Lizvette in waves, and she had not yet spoken up with any proposals of her own. Tai’s performance with the woman in the theatre was unfortunate, but Darvyn clearly sensed the fear and longing within Tai when he was around Lizvette. Those two were going to give him a headache with their volatile emotions.
Darvyn rubbed his forehead as an image of Kyara tethered in chains played in his mind. They were close to her. Though he could never sense her with his Song, some other knowledge he couldn’t define made him certain.
A lightning bolt splintered the sky far ahead of them. The city’s smog obscured the weather conditions, and Darvyn felt no storm in the vicinity. Although the day was cloudless above the haze, another strike of lightning fell to the earth, and a dark cloud spontaneously formed amidst the smog about a kilometer away.
During his time in Yaly, he’d learned that the Physicks were able to command the weather with their amalgam magic, but the tiny storm they were witnessing appeared random and uncontrolled. It reminded him of his own early experiments with his power as a small child first learning the limits of his Song.
When another flare of lightning flew sideways, Darvyn picked up his pace. Something wasn’t right. “We need to see what’s causing that.” The others followed without question. Soon they were running through the barren streets, tall, graceless factory buildings towering over them.
Another strike hit quite close to their party, sizzling the pavement in front of them. They raced along until the road ended at the edge of the lake. The asphalt of the ground crumbled into a gravel shore of the murky waters. Several dozen paces away, clouds roiled and spun, dumping rain over an area no wider than Darvyn’s arm span. Huddled in a wet mass on the rocky coast was a shivering figure dressed in black.
“Hello?” Darvyn called out. He spoke in Lagrimari from force of habit, then winced. No one in Yaly knew that language, and he hadn’t yet replaced the dead communications amalgam around his throat with the new one they’d purchased.
He was digging in his pocket for the thing when a voice answered in the same tongue. “Who’s that?”
Still too far away to see the figure clearly, Darvyn’s heart leaped. An Earthsinger! He prodded with his Song and found it was a teenage boy, cold and frightened but uninjured.
Where had he come from and what was he doing here?
Tai and Lizvette thundered up behind Darvyn to stop a few paces from the boy. A cloak covered him completely, the hood obscuring his face. His dread was palpable, but mixed with a cautious relief, probably at meeting another Lagrimari.
“My name is Darvyn ol-Tahlyro. I’m also known as the Shadowfox.” He thought announcing himself would calm the young man, but it did nothing. There was no recognition flowing through him. How long had the Physicks had him in their clutches? Certain that he spoke to an Earthsinger, Darvyn stumbled backward in shock when the teen pulled down his hood to reveal red hair and freckled cheeks.
Both Lizvette and Tai gasped to see the Elsiran. So many emotions were flying around now that Darvyn couldn’t parse them all out. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Roshon ol-Sarifor!” Tai exclaimed, relief loosening the man’s shoulders. The boy’s head snapped over to Tai, and his jaw dropped.
“Tai?” he said, incredulous, at the same moment Darvyn asked, “You’re Jasminda’s brother?”
Roshon jumped to his feet and ran for Tai, embracing the man. His fear was immediately replaced by amazement and a flood of hope. “What are you doing here? How did you know? And what happened to your face?” Tears escaped his eyes, and he ruthlessly scrubbed them away.
Tai chuckled and thumped Roshon on the shoulder a few times. His reply was cut off by a deep, ear-piercing horn blowing from across the lake. Darvyn turned toward the origin of the sound and noticed the island in the middle of the lake for the first time. On it stood a small stone castle with no shortage of turrets and spires. The structure was older than anything he’d seen in Dahlinea.
Men in black coats gathered on the island’s shore outside the exterior walls of the castle. Roshon took a hasty step back.
“They’re looking for you,” Darvyn said, already certain.
Roshon nodded, eyes round and full of fear. “My family is still inside.”
“And we will get them out,” Tai promised.
Darvyn stared at the stone structure again. “Are there any other prisoners? A woman—”
The horn sounded a second time, drowning out his question; the lake water began to churn and froth, as if it were being heated from within. White, bubbling foam seeped onto the gravel beach, making the rocks sizzle. Darvyn and the others scrambled away, dashing back from the boiling waters and out of sight behind the nearest building.
The lake grew more and more violent; across the water, the black-clad men were now splitting into groups. Large metal-plated boats pulled around from the back of the island. They must be starting a search.
“We need to get out of here,” Tai said.
“But my brother … and Papa…” Roshon whispered.
Tai clutched the boy’s shoulder. “I promise we’ll come back for them, but we’re vastly outnumbered right now and staying here isn’t safe.”
Roshon nodded. “We have to hurry. Varten is so sick, and I don’t think
Kyara can last much longer, either.”
Inside Darvyn’s mind, all went silent. The earsplitting horn and the stewing lake ceased to exist. “Kyara,” he mouthed, at once grateful for the confirmation that she was there and unwilling to leave now that he was so close. How had the boy escaped? And what did it say about Kyara’s condition that she had not?
Something jostled him. Tai grabbed his upper arm and hauled him down the street. Darvyn shook away the paralysis that had gripped him at the mention of Kyara’s name and increased his pace. As much as it hurt to move farther from her, they needed to regroup before they could save her and the others.
They raced down a street lined with the bleak faces of factories. Tai grabbed Lizvette’s hand, helping her along when she fell behind. Up ahead, a pair of massive steel doors creaked open. The empty street was quickly flooded with black-coated men, all larger than the average Yalyishman.
“Security,” Roshon whispered.
Each man wielded a cudgel about the length of Darvyn’s forearm. He flinched. They looked just like the weapon Absalom had used on him, the one that had shattered his bones with the force of concentrated sound. He could only hope none of the men was carrying anything like the netting that had drained his Song so quickly.
It didn’t take long for the small army to spot the only other people on the street. The leader wore a gold band around his upper arm. He spoke a few words into a curved cone before replacing the device at his hip.
“You there!” the man shouted. “Stay where you are.” He raised the cudgel and it discharged a blast of sound, though far weaker than what Absalom had unleashed. Expecting such an assault, Darvyn had pulled the air tight in front of his group, creating an invisible wall, much like the barrier he’d used against the deadly palmsalt gas. It stopped the force of the noise before it could harm them.
Alone, he could protect them from the sound weapon, but with another strong Singer, perhaps he could neutralize all the men at once, slowing their heart rates until they all fell asleep.
