He took his time as well, but then seemed to realize what she was doing. Face reddening, he saw to the last of his tools with an impatient clatter and stormed out the door, flinging a glower over his shoulder as he left.
Mara replaced her tools and, as an afterthought, straightened up his as well.
“Something on your mind, Miss Lijar?”
Wansi considered her from beside the open windows, her hands tucked into the ample sleeves of her robe.
“No, mistress.”
The Binder met her denial with a smirk and dancing eyes. “Might Mister Ruhj be more forthcoming?” she asked, a familiar lilt in her words. “He seemed in rather a rush to be gone today.”
Mara’s cheeks warmed.
“Simply a matter of the heart then,” the woman said, stepping to her own workbench and picking up the unfinished tri-aperture she had there. “Forgive my intrusion.”
Mara remained where she was. She had trained as a Spanner for nearly all her life; she could hardly remember anything from before she came to Trevynisle. Her early years on Kauhi, with her parents and brothers, were a blur of isolated images and sensations, inchoate and distant. She wondered if her talent, her ability to Span, was the source of the odd displacement that had plagued her all day. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to be here, not in this room, not in this palace.
But did she dare confess this to the Binder, who had placed a loupe over her eye and was calibrating a portion of the device? Delvin had all but called Mara mad when she described these sensations. What would Mistress Tovorl think? The same thing, probably.
“You have nothing on your mind, and yet there you stand as if in a trance. I can almost hear your brain working.”
Mara bit back a smile.
“You should either say something, or leave. They won’t be serving midday supper forever, and I doubt that your fellow trainees will think twice about eating your rations once theirs are gone. Mister Ruhj in particular seems always to be hungry. Has there ever been a meal at which he wasn’t first to finish his rations?”
Mara did smile at this. “I don’t think so.”
“Nor do I.”
Mara sobered. “I feel like I don’t belong here,” she said.
Mistress Tovorl removed her eyepiece. “You’ve been with us for a long time, Miss Lijar. Isn’t it a bit late to be questioning such things?”
“Is it? I never had the chance when I was younger.” Mara shook her head. “Besides, that’s not what I mean.”
“You’re speaking in riddles.”
“I know. I feel… out of place. Or like everything else is out of place and I’m the only one who belongs.” She grimaced. “I know how that sounds.”
“We all have moments when everything seems to be wrong. It’s not all that unusual, especially at your age.”
“No, it’s not that. I’ve never felt this way before.” Mara blew out a breath. The Binder’s expression had knotted into something resembling Delvin’s from earlier. She wasn’t handling this well. “You’re probably right,” she said with false brightness. “It’s just my mood. I should probably go and eat. And apologize to Delvin.”
“Perhaps.” The Binder set the loupe to her eye again and peered down at her work. “Or maybe you should take a bit of time to work out exactly what it is you’re feeling. When you have, you may return here, and we’ll speak of it more.”
Mara made no effort to conceal her relief. “Thank you, mistress.”
“Now be on your way. I have things to do.”
Mara stepped to the door, but as she pulled it open the Binder spoke her name. She halted.
“Travelers have an awareness of our world that goes beyond that of most. Sensations of the sort you describe are not to be taken lightly. Nor are they to be spoken of without care. If you must confide in others, do so with some caution. Do you understand?”
Mara wasn’t sure she did, not entirely. She nodded, though, and let herself out of the chamber.
She cut across the empty courtyard and made her way to the refectory. Over the years, she had learned to accept the soldiers and winged Belvora as normal parts of her life, fixtures atop the stone walls, or in the skies overhead. Usually she ignored them.
Not today. She knew guards watched her, and she had to keep herself from staring up at them. Her skin prickled; she felt as though the soldiers had their muskets trained on her back. When she reached the refectory, she released a held breath.
Most of her friends had already finished their meals, and she was too preoccupied to eat much. She grabbed some cheese and bread before the palace stewards could remove the last platters from the tables, and she carried the food outside to eat. She kept to the covered walkways, where fewer guards could see her.
Following the meal, she and the other senior trainees attended their lesson with the Master of Finance and then their classes in protocol and language. She tried to concentrate. Their term exams were scheduled for the coming ha’turn, and she took pride in her status as one of the palace’s top students.
But her mind wandered. If anything, the feeling of displacement grew stronger as the day wore on. Delvin wouldn’t look at her, but his anger lingered, a palpable presence at her shoulder. She gave much thought to the Binder’s warning. Who might take notice of what she said about not belonging here? The soldiers, of course. Perhaps the chancellor. Why would they care? What did Mistress Tovorl think it meant?
By the time her last lesson ended, the sky over Windhome had darkened to a steel gray, and a stiff wind howled through the courtyards. Belvora perched like white buzzards on the highest towers of the palace, wrapped in their wings.
Mara ate little more at the evening meal than she had at midday. She spoke to no one, and ignored the conversations around her. After supper, she studied for two bells. She tired of her work early and left the quiet of the common room in Windward Keep for the upper courtyard. Part of her hoped she would find Delvin. Despite their fight, she didn’t wish to be alone. Still, she wasn’t entirely surprised to see him with his arm around the shoulders of another girl – Hilta Craik, of course. Hilta was pretty and smart, skilled with a blade, though not so good with a pistol. Mara had always hated her. She’d said as much to Delvin many times. He was punishing her.
Mara was sure he spotted her at the same time she spied them. That didn’t stop him from leading Hilta toward the bench at the end of the courtyard. The bench Mara and he usually shared.
Tears blurred her vision, making the light of the torches at the courtyard gates shift and slide. She whispered a curse and swiped at her eyes with an impatient hand. It was her own fault. The Binder was right: some people couldn’t be trusted with confidences. It just hadn’t occurred to her to doubt him.
She watched Delvin and Hilta retreat into the darkness, sadness and jealousy squeezing her heart like taloned hands. When she could no longer see them, she left the upper courtyard and followed the covered walkways to the lower sections of the palace. She passed soldiers every so often and kept her gaze on the pathway before her, refusing to look at them, resenting their presence as she never had before.
The guards wouldn’t let her out of the palace, so she simply walked, her arms crossed over her heart. After passing more guards in the walkways, she turned onto the grass. They could watch her from the walls, and Belvora were said to see well at night, but in the darkness she wouldn’t have to see them.
A cool drizzle fell once more, slicking her robe and dampening her hair. After circling the lower courtyard, she wandered back to the middle. She wasn’t ready to retreat to the dormitory. Her thoughts were too roiled for sleep.
“This isn’t as it’s supposed to be.”
Mara whirled, her heart vaulting into her throat.
She was in a remote, shadowed corner of the courtyard, away from the walkways. A child stood nearby, her face shining with the glow of distant torches. Mara didn’t recognize her. She was dressed in tatters – worn breeches like those of a street urchin and a loose tun
ic of some light-colored cloth. She should have been chilled in the rain and wind, but if she was, she gave no indication of it. Considering her, Mara recovered somewhat from her initial fright.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Are you new to the palace?”
The girl shook her head. “No. I’ve been here longer than you have.”
“I don’t mean tonight–” Mara broke off, frowning. The girl’s expression bespoke loneliness, confusion, deepest fear. “Are you lost?”
“We all are,” the girl said.
“What’s your name?”
“Droë.”
Mara took a step in the girl’s direction, but Droë backed away. Mara held up her hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember? Have we met before?”
The girl shook her head. She was beautiful, but haunting. Even in the darkness her hair shone like spun gold, and her eyes were so pale Mara might have thought her blind had the girl not followed her every movement. There was a delicate perfection to her features.
“You wouldn’t remember me, but you should remember him.”
A shiver dropped the length of Mara’s spine. “Who are you talking about?” The first words Droë had spoken reached her at last, an ominous echo of her own perceptions. This isn’t as it’s supposed to be. “What did you mean before? How are things supposed to be?”
The child answered with a solemn nod. “You feel it, don’t you? I can tell. You’re not a Walker, but you feel it anyway.”
Mara gaped, unsure of what to say. Some among the masters and mistresses of the castle knew that she possessed time-sense in addition to being a Spanner. Dual talents like hers were uncommon among Travelers, but not unheard of. Nevertheless, she had never spoken of her second ability in front of other trainees. It would have sounded like bragging, and it wasn’t as though she could Walk. Yet inexplicably this strange child knew. Mistress Tovorl’s warning sounded in her mind again.
“Who are you?” she asked a second time, whispering the words.
“I’m Droë,” the girl repeated. “I wonder if he ever mentioned me to you.”
“Who is it you keep talking about?”
“Tobias. You’ve forgotten him, but you love him very much. Almost…” She bit down on whatever she’d meant to say.
Mara recalled another feeling she’d had earlier: her sense that she wasn’t supposed to be with Delvin.
“What happened to him?” Mara asked. “Did he… Did he die?”
“I don’t know. He’s not here anymore, and I don’t know how to find him. That’s why I’m talking to you. I need your help.”
“How can I–”
“You’re attuned to time. I know you are. There are no Walkers here, but you’re close. You’re all we have.”
“I– I don’t understand.”
The girl took a step toward her, eyes wide in the murky light. “Look at me.”
Mara stared, seeing naught but a pretty young girl. At that moment, though, a gust of wind stirred her robe and the child’s rags. An odd, sickly sweet smell reached her – the fetor of decay and death.
“What–”
Before she could form her question, the girl opened her mouth in what might have been intended as a grin. Her teeth were bone white and as sharp as tiny blades. Mara backed away, raising her shaking hands as if to ward off a blow.
“What are you?”
“I’m Tirribin.”
“A time demon?”
“A human term. That’s not a name my kind use.”
Mara glanced back toward the nearest keep, looking for a path to safety. She even thought of shouting for the soldiers. She’d heard of time demons; they preyed on human life.
“If I’d wanted to feed on your years, I would have already,” Droë said, sounding hurt. “Before he left, he made me promise that I wouldn’t.”
Mara eyed her, hands still raised, heart pounding.
“You’re being rude. I’m not going to hurt you. I need your help.”
“I can’t help you. I don’t understand what you want.”
“You do understand. I know you do. This…” She gestured, a small movement of her hand that seemed to encompass the entire world, their very lives. “This isn’t right. You know what I mean. None of it is as it’s supposed to be.”
“Can you… Do you read thoughts?”
Droë shook her head again, golden hair lifting with another wind gust. “I read time. I read those who are aware of time. You’re not a Walker, and so you don’t have the awareness Tobias does, and you can’t sense what I sense. But you have some understanding. You know that something is wrong.”
Mara set aside her fear and considered what the girl – the demon – had said. Since waking up, she had interpreted her uneasiness as a sign that she didn’t belong in this place. She’d been thinking like a Spanner when maybe she should have been thinking like a Walker. Maybe her other ability was responsible for all she’d felt this day.
“Even if what you say is true, what do you want of me? What is it you think I can do?”
“I’m not sure,” the demon said, an admission. “But we need to change things back somehow.”
“For this Tobias you mentioned?”
Droë gazed at her, grave and lovely, her eyes ghostlike. “For all of us,” she said. “For the world as you know it.”
Chapter 19
18th Day of Kheraya’s Ascent, Year 647
Mara gawked, wondering if she’d heard correctly. For the world… “You’re saying that time has changed, that a Walker went back and altered the future, and as a result the world is in danger?”
“That’s a crude way to say it, but, yes.”
“How long ago?”
The demon appeared puzzled.
“The Walker. Tobias. How long ago did he leave?”
“A turn. Perhaps a bit more.”
“A turn?” Mara said, her voice rising.
The demon flinched like a child responding to an adult’s rebuke.
“You want me to believe,” she went on, softening her tone, “that I’ve forgotten someone I knew a turn ago?”
The Tirribin went still, her pale gaze riveted on the nearby pathway. An instant later, Mara heard it, too: low voices and the click of boot heels on stone. The demon retreated deeper into shadow and Mara followed, hugging the stone wall in uncomfortable proximity. The smell of rot was stronger here. Mara turned her face away from the girl, fighting an impulse to gag.
The soldiers drew nearer, a man and a woman. Mara prayed to the Two that the odor wouldn’t draw their notice. Strictly speaking she hadn’t violated any rules by venturing into the middle courtyard, or even before, when she was in the lower. Still, any encounter with the Oaqamaran soldiers could be dangerous, and she didn’t know what the punishment might be for speaking with a time demon.
The soldiers continued past. The sound of their footsteps retreated.
“They don’t like my kind,” Droë said, her voice low. “No one here does, but them especially.” She faced Mara. “To answer your question, yes, you’ve forgotten him in less than a turn. He went to Hayncalde, and he Walked for the sovereign of Daerjen and changed something. He left here one turn ago. That’s how recently this future became real.”
Mara wanted to shout a denial, to tell the girl this wasn’t possible. Even with her limited understanding of time, however, she knew better. She stared after the guards. “Who’s to say this future isn’t the one we’re meant to have? Who’s to say that other future wouldn’t be even more of a disaster?”
“I am,” the girl said, her tone free of irony. “And you are.”
“Me?”
“Tell me what you feel.”
Mara faltered, unsure of how much she wished to reveal to the Tirribin. The girl smiled, teeth catching the dim light. The expression in her eyes remained grim.
“You fear me still. And you don’t trust me.”
“I’m… I
’m confused. My time sense isn’t very strong.”
“No, it’s not. That’s why Walkers are valued so.”
Mara frowned. “Walkers are the least valued of all the Travelers.”
“That’s not true, at least it’s not supposed to be. Tobias left here because he was the only Walker available. I heard that Daerjen’s sovereign paid dearly for him.”
None of that sounded right. It had been years since the court at Daerjen had the influence or resources to do much of anything. And while Walkers were rare among the Travelers of Windhome, they were also the least in demand, in large part because the palace Binder – all Binders, for that matter – had been unable to create a device that would allow more than one Walker at a time to visit the past. The tri-sextants and tri-apertures that allowed groups of Spanners and Crossers to ply their trades at once had made simple chronofors as worthless as slingshots in a battle of flintlocks.
The demon’s remarks, implausible as they were, begged another question that should have occurred to Mara earlier.
“How do I know you haven’t done this to me?”
Droë’s eyes widened. “Done what?”
“Confounded me. Given me this… this sense of everything being wrong. Tirribin possess powers that go far beyond whatever time sense I have. You could have done this, made me feel this way. Maybe that’s why you were waiting for me here.”
“Confounded you,” the demon repeated, a silken chill in her voice. “To what end?” She shook her head. “I don’t know why he loved you. You’re nothing but a foolish human girl.”
Mara flinched at the insult. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more: hearing that she didn’t deserve the affection of this Walker she’d never even met, or having the child-demon call her foolish and a girl.
“I didn’t mean–”
“Yes, you did,” the Tirribin said. “I should never have come here. Your minds are too simple to perceive the things we do, and too closed to believe them even possible.”
She pivoted and walked away. After a few steps her form began to speed up and blur.
Mara strode after her. “Please don’t go!” she whispered with urgency.
Time's Children Page 20
