by Heidi Heilig
“What’s so funny?” my brother asks.
“Nothing. Just . . . eat your congee.”
Akra stirs the porridge with his spoon, though he doesn’t take a bite. Steam rises from the bowl, and for a moment, he looks so much like Papa. I avert my eyes; they fall on the booklet Leo brought back to me. Picking it up, I page through it—they’re all here, the souls of my fantouches, if not their bodies. The thought comforts me in a way that even the food did not. Then I pause, pulling something else out from between the pages: an envelope. Inside it, the letter from Theodora.
I stare at the paper; it seems years ago I’d first seen it. Why had Leo given it back to me? It might be the exhaustion—or the fact that after all this time, the privacy of a letter seemed like such a little secret to share—but I unfold the paper.
As I read, the laughter of children floats across the village, but the food sits like mud in my belly. Les Chanceux is not the only cure. I read the line again and again until the words seem burned into my mind. When Akra speaks, I jump.
“Why were you going to leave without me?”
Blinking at him, I stuff the letter into my pocket. My brother sets his congee down between us. The bowl is still full. “What do you mean?” I ask, buying time.
“That boat was going to Aquitan.” He takes a deep breath, wincing, as though the question hurts to ask—or maybe it’s only his ribs. “Did you even send a note?”
“A note?” I stare at him as fragments from his own missives scroll through my head; the armée food, bland enough for the Aquitan soldiers, the blisters from the new boots—we always went barefoot in Lak Na. And the way we waited for months for a letter that never came. “We thought you were dead.”
“What?” His expression is appalled. “Why?”
“We haven’t heard from you in nearly a year!” I throw my hands out, flustered, frustrated. “Why did you stop writing?”
“I didn’t! Every quarter, I sent letters with my pay!” On his face, confusion gives way to anger. “They never arrived.”
My mouth opens . . . shuts. “No.”
“Salauds!” He spits the word. “Bastards!”
“The rebels?” I ask him, trying to make sense of it. “People say they waylay the post—”
“The damn armée,” he mutters darkly. “The white tort à dieu who hire us to die. I heard my men complaining they were being shorted of their wages. That the armée was skimming their cash to pay for the war machines. I told them they were liars.” He curses the armée again, in their own tongue. “I knew I should have left earlier.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I say then, my voice soft. “Why didn’t you come home?”
Akra clenches his jaw, that scar twisting his old smile into something cruel, but there is a haunted look in his eyes. He looks at Maman then, and back to me. “It isn’t so easy to leave,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow, incredulous. “You think the general would have tracked you down in Lak Na?”
“Maybe not,” he murmurs. “But just because he wouldn’t follow doesn’t mean I can escape. Everyone there would have known where I’d been. What I’d done. And I can’t forget either.”
There is a bitter taste on the back of my tongue. I look again at his scars—more painful than tattoos, remembering the words of the rebel who’d found us. How had he made capitaine? “What is it you did, exactly?”
“Besides,” he says, pointedly ignoring the question. “I thought it was better for you. With the extra money I was sending, and one less mouth to feed. I started hearing stories about the troupe—that you were doing so well. . . .” His voice trails off into silence, and I know then what he’s going to ask. “How did you manage that, Jetta? With just the three of you? Some of the stories I’ve heard, of your shows . . . and back at the workshop. How did you make that bamboo scrap heap fly?”
I look to Maman, as if for permission. Of course she says nothing—though I hear her voice: never show, never tell. But this is Akra; this is my brother. Still, the words do not come. So instead I take the book of souls and untie the ribbon binding it together. Finding one—the hummingbird—I slip it free and fold it into a butterfly. “Up.”
For a moment, the paper wings flutter on my palm, then lift into the air, dancing in the space between us. Akra’s brows dive together as I send the page spiraling above my open hand, trembling between us. A child runs by the open side of the sick house, and I snatch the paper out of the air.
Akra jumps. The afternoon light is reflected in his wide pupils, but awe creeps over his face. “Is it magic?”
“Magic?” I turn the word over in my head as I tuck the folded paper into my pocket. “I suppose so. But it has to do with spirits, not spells.”
“The vana, the arvana? Like Maman talked about?”
“Yes . . . but . . .” I hesitate—how to explain? I watch the little souls around us. They drift and flutter through the sick house. “You remember the story of the Fool Who Could Not Die?”
“Of course,” he says. Then he frowns. “You met the spirit maiden?”
“No . . . I . . . no. But . . .” My hand creeps up toward my shoulder, the rippled burn hidden now under the uniform. Then I clench my fist and drop it back to my lap. My scars are not half so bad as my brother’s. “I faced the trials he did. The three deaths.”
Akra straightens up in bed, concern in his eyes. “What happened?”
“I don’t remember the first two. But after you left, there was an accident on stage.”
“How bad?”
“No one died. But the scrim caught fire. I hadn’t tied it right. I wasn’t careful enough, all by myself. Too impatient.”
He gives me a rueful look. “That sounds like you.”
“Well.” I make a face. “Ever since then, I see them. The spirits. Like the fool in the story.”
“And . . . you talk to them?”
“I can tell them what to do,” I say. “Once I give them new bodies.”
“Mon dieu, Jetta!” Akra shakes his head; on his face, awe mixes with fear. Then he jerks his chin at Maman. “What does she think about all this?”
“She hates it,” I say, slipping the book under my pillow. Then I frown. “You know why.”
He picks up the bowl again with a sigh, dragging the spoon through the porridge. Still he doesn’t eat. “It’s one of my first memories, you know. Meeting Meliss. Holding you. Papa saying I had a new sister.”
I lean close—eager for the story, though it doesn’t feel like mine. “Tell me.”
“I hardly remember myself. I wasn’t even four, and you were . . . new. But I asked Papa about it a few years ago.” Akra pauses, his voice going distant. “He told me we were in Nokhor Khat for a show when the coup happened. The capital was in upheaval. We fled, and Maman came with us, though I do remember she was just Meliss back then. He never told me exactly what she was running from. And I didn’t know that after all these years she’d still be trying to get away.”
“She told me we were going to find a cure for me,” I say softly. “Les Chanceux. The healing spring.”
But in my mind, the words repeat: Les Chanceux is not the only cure. Akra raises an eyebrow. “What do you think is more dangerous?” he asks me. “Le Trépas, or your malheur?”
I open my mouth—the answer should be easy. The killer of children, the stealer of souls, the nécromancien who terrorizes the country even now, behind the walls of his prison.
But what about my actions on the ship—the servant I’d threatened, my certainty that I alone could stop a dozen rebels, Leo’s words to me? This is madness. I do not have a response to Akra’s question. But it wasn’t Le Trépas’s fault that Eve was dead or La Perl was lost or that we’d left Papa alone with a gun in the bowels of Hell’s Court.
Act 3,
Scene 32
Legarde’s offices at the fort. Painted maps of the country cover the wall; smaller versions of the city and the surrounding areas are scattered. LEGARDE is seated at
the table, staring at the schematic of the city, when THEODORA bursts into the room.
She is dirty, disheveled. Still wearing her work clothes. But her eyes are shining.
THEODORA: You asked for me?
LEGARDE: Sit.
She doesn’t.
THEODORA: Vertical lift! Do you know what we could do with that power?
LEGARDE: I have some ideas.
LEGARDE watches her as she paces around the table.
LEGARDE: You say one of the machines was stolen.
THEODORA: One that shouldn’t have been able to fly.
LEGARDE: Who were the thieves?
THEODORA: Three people—including one of yours. A capitaine.
LEGARDE frowns.
LEGARDE: Chantray?
THEODORA: Maybe.
LEGARDE: The Chakran?
THEODORA: Yes. Why?
LEGARDE: He broke the others out of Hell’s Court. The girl with him was a wanted criminal.
THEODORA: Well, they all are now, aren’t they?
LEGARDE: How did you say they flew your machine?
THEODORA: I don’t know yet. That’s why I need a new workshop. I need to rebuild the one they took—
LEGARDE: Where did they go? The thieves?
THEODORA: Over the ridge, a ways north but not far. I damaged their wing with a lucky shot. I need to figure out a better way to mount the guns—
LEGARDE (cutting her off): But they were alive when last you saw them?
THEODORA: Yes, Father. Why?
LEGARDE: I want them back. Send in my adjutant on your way out.
THEODORA: Did you hear me about the workshop?
LEGARDE: Did you hear me about the adjutant?
THEODORA: Yes, Father.
Pursing her lips, THEODORA breezes out the door. LEGARDE takes a pen and scribbles down a note on a piece of paper. A moment later, the ADJUTANT comes in.
ADJUTANT: Sir?
LEGARDE: Take this to the dovecote. Have it copied and sent out on every pigeon that will take a path north.
The ADJUTANT frowns, taking the paper, reading the message.
ADJUTANT: To what town?
LEGARDE: Any of them. Now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The hours pass, the sun crawls. I am restless. But when I get up from my pallet and try to leave the pavilion, I run into the docteur, and he ushers me back to bed. I don’t know what my status is—prisoner, or patient? So I obey, at least for now.
“How are you feeling?” he asks me. He is an older man, his black hair salted, his eyes lined with wrinkles. Kind eyes, like Papa’s.
“Better,” I lie.
“Good. You still need to rest. Eat and drink.” He moves on to Maman then, kneeling beside her pallet and pulling back the mosquito net. “You’re awake.”
Surprised, I glance over. Maman’s eyes are open, and the relief I feel is like balm on a wound. “Maman?”
“How are you feeling?” the docteur says, but she gives no answer. He looks at me. “Can she speak?”
“Yes, of course,” I say, waiting for her to prove it, but Maman says nothing.
“You need to drink water,” the docteur tells her, his voice soft. He offers her a cup. I hold my breath—at last she takes it. “Good,” he says gently. “Good.”
She drinks slowly, in silence. When the cup is empty, she hands it back and lies down on the pallet again. Her movements are mechanical—a fantouche held by an unskilled puppeteer. The docteur refills the cup and sets it down at her bedside. “Keep drinking. Try to eat if you can.” He looks at me again. “Let me know if there are any changes.”
He moves on to Akra then, fussing over his ribs and warning him not to get out of bed. But I roll over to face Maman. Her eyes are still open, but I can’t tell what she sees, or where she is in her mind. Back in the temple? With Le Trépas, or with Papa?
Slipping a hand under the netting between us, I take her fingers loosely in mine. “Thank you,” I whisper. “For saving us. For saving me.”
If this were a play, they would be the right words—she would turn to me and smile. But she just lies there, staring upward. I squeeze her hand one more time, and let it go. “Don’t give up now,” I say softly, turning back on the pillow.
By the time the docteur is finished with Akra, Cheeky has returned, this time without Leo. But instead of staying to chat, she only drops off the bowls—one for Maman, one for me, the last for Akra—before she practically flees the hôpital.
But despite the docteur’s orders, I am not hungry; besides, the man is nowhere to be seen. So I put my bowl aside and follow her. “Cheeky. Cheeky!”
She turns, then, her face still red—this girl, so worldly, tongue-tied at the sight of my brother. For a second, part of me wants to laugh . . . but I have more important things to do. “Cheeky, I need to talk to Leo.”
She cocks her head, and then her wicked grin returns. “He’ll be glad to hear that. I’ll send him right over.”
“No . . .” I glance back at the pavilion, where Maman is still lying on the pallet, staring up at the rafters. “I need to talk to him in private.”
One eyebrow goes up. “Oh, sure. Talk. I get it.”
“Cheeky . . .”
My voice is strangled, but she only laughs. “Come. Lots of privacy at the river. It’s about time you had a bath, anyway.”
I follow her through the camp, and at first my legs are still weak. But as we walk, the groggy feeling lifts like mist, burned away by the brightness of the setting sun. Little golden vana drift between the tents; in the thatch of the roofs, the breeze whispers. The mud squishes between my toes, cool and comforting. We pass an open kitchen, where a pair of women are plucking soft feathers from a brace of pigeons. “Aren’t those messenger birds?”
“Maybe for the armée.” Cheeky shrugs. “Generous, aren’t they? Not only do they send us news to intercept, but dinner too.”
“News?” I glance over toward the women again. One is staring back at me, her arms covered in blood and down. I nod a greeting, but she only frowns, tearing another handful of feathers from the pale pink skin. I wet my lips. “What sort of news?”
“We can ask, if you like.”
“Maybe later,” I murmur. Cheeky catches my tone, glancing over to the woman, returning her glare with a wave and a brazen smile.
“It’s only the uniform making her nervous,” she murmurs to me as we walk on.
I look down at the clothes I’d stolen from the soldat. “I suppose I can’t blame them.”
“Me neither. That thing is frighteningly filthy. Don’t worry, I have something you can wear instead.” She winks at me then, coaxing back my smile. “Let me take you back to my place.”
She takes a sharp turn, leading me on a detour to a little canvas tent at the end of a row. “Wait there,” she says, ducking inside.
I peek in through the open flap. The tent is as messy as the dressing room at La Perl. Garter is there, coiled atop a nest of lace and silk. The boa writhes as Cheeky starts to paw through piles of clothing. Pieces go flying against the sides of the tent. Finally she emerges with a rough-spun towel around her neck and a scrap of fabric in her hand.
“Here,” she says with a grin. She shakes it out—it’s a little dress in creamy white, trimmed in lace. Practically a slip. “War rags.”
“Is that one of your stage costumes?” I say incredulously.
“I grabbed what I could carry.” She looks down at the tiny thing. “If you crumple this up, it practically fits in your fist.”
“You say it like that’s a good thing.”
“I have a shawl too, if you absolutely must.” She draws a length of raw pink silk out of the tangled pile. Then she holds up something else, shining like a net of stars. “Oh! Or this one’s floor-length, but it’s dripping with rhinestones.”
“Cheeky.” I tilt my head to catch her eye, trying to make sure she’s looking at me and not at her wardrobe. Then I gesture at the mud, the drifting smoke, the ramsh
ackle tents. “I can’t wear any of that here.”
“Well, those need washing,” she says, pointing at my sooty, muddy uniform. “Or maybe burning. Besides,” she adds then, her voice going wistful as she runs the soft silk between her fingers. “Sometimes it’s nice to remember what things were like, before.”
I take a deep breath. Now I understand. “Of course. You’re right. Thank you,” I say, holding out my hand, but she snatches the dress away.
“You’re not touching this till you wash.”
Breezily, she starts off toward the river, the tiny dress in one hand, the towel in the other, and the pink shawl thrown across her neck like a highwayman’s scarf. Laughing, I follow. We walk downstream in the twilight. Little vana glimmer in the mud of the bank, and the arvana of fish glow in the water. Under the bubbling music of the stream, the sounds of camp fade. Finally we reach an area where bathing pools have been dug out of the riverbank—one of the Tiger’s projects, no doubt. Huge stones divert water in one side and out the other, and the pools are lined with a bamboo screen for privacy.
Seeing the water makes my scalp itch; the dank filth of the prison still clings to my skin. Suddenly I don’t care what I’m wearing, as long as it isn’t the uniform. I pluck at the buttons as Cheeky folds the silk dress onto a flat rock along with the shawl and the towel. “I’ll go get Leo.”
“While I’m bathing?”
“He can scrub your back!”
“Cheeky—”
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell him to wait on the respectable side of the screen. But if you shout, he’ll come,” she says with a grin. “Or maybe it’s the other way around.”
She disappears through the curtain, her laughter lingering. As I pull the shirt over my head, I vow to think of some way to tease her about my brother.
Next, I shimmy out of the pants, feeling self-conscious, but the evening is quiet—there are no other bathers nearby, not this late. I can see why when I dip a toe into the water. Chills race up my spine and gooseflesh skitters across my skin. I draw back, but at this point, the feel of the grime is worse. And I’ll have to bathe quickly, anyway. How long will it be before Leo arrives?
