The Memory of Fire

by Callie Bates

  His house sits in the middle of the block; he rents upper rooms from a widow. With a concentration of magic, I jump up to his rickety balcony. Not quite as light as a cat: I bark my knees hard against the wood. The thump reverberates through the quiet street. I fling myself facedown on the balcony, trying to slow my heaving breath.

  Silence.

  I crawl into Pantoleon’s rooms, passing through the slatted balcony doors. The main room is a dim muddle of strewn books and paper and empty unwashed cups that his landlady would, no doubt, find mildly horrifying. I push myself upright. Every inch of me aches.

  Pantoleon snores quietly in the closet-sized bedchamber, separated from the living area by nothing more than a curtain. I tug it aside.

  Faint light seeps through the bedroom window, illuminating Pantoleon’s rumpled shape. I whisper his name and then, when he doesn’t wake, I whisper it directly into his mind.

  He startles at that. He wakes up with a soft, muttered curse.

  Then he registers my presence in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

  This is somewhat less enthusiasm than I had hoped for. The tension thickens between us. Perhaps I should apologize for what I said the other night. But perhaps it’s Pantoleon who should, for airing our secrets to the world.

  So I just say, “I’m looking for Elanna.”

  “Elanna?” He sits up, apparently muddled. “Your witch? They brought her from Eren yesterday.”

  “Yes. And one of your sorcerer friends replaced her with a stick. A simulacrum, in fact. It was fairly clever.” Or it would have been, if I hadn’t fallen for the trick myself. And if I knew where Elanna was, and what happened at Aexione.

  He rubs his forehead. “Jahan…Why the hell do you think I have friends who could do something like that?”

  “You’ve made friends with Bardas Triciphes! You told Argyros all our secrets. Bardas and Empress Firmina are planning something, and you can’t pretend you don’t have even the slightest idea.”

  He stares at me, openmouthed, then smacks the coverlet. “You have no right to be angry! You ran off to Eren and started a revolution so magic could be practiced openly. We’re sending our refugees to you—”

  “But I am here. Trying to achieve peace.”

  His mouth closes. The light has brightened: He takes in my torn, dirty clothes, the riot of my hair. “And look how well that’s working out for you. His Imperial Majesty took the opportunity to reaffirm his intent to annex Eren, I assume?”

  He has no right to throw this in my face. “I had to at least try—”

  “No. You didn’t. You could have joined us. Sent us supplies and help from Eren. Come back here and looked me up. It couldn’t have taken too much intelligence for your Ereni to discern what we’re trying to do. But instead you waltz back to Aexione as if nothing’s ever happened!” He’s shouting now. “What did you think Alakaseus Saranon would do, Jahan? The man’s not stupid.”

  “Oh, as I suppose I am?”

  “In this matter, yes! Your damned secrets matter more to you than logic or even doing what’s right!”

  He stops, breathing hard. My hands are fisted against my chest. We stare at each other across the small room.

  Several thumps sound below. We both startle.

  “And now you’ve woken my landlady,” Pantoleon says darkly.

  “I wasn’t the one shouting.” She must have heard us despite the magic I put in place—or maybe I forgot entirely to muffle the sound of our voices. I run my hands through my hair. I’m losing so much control. I need to stop; I need to think.

  And out of nowhere, Madiya’s voice breathes into my mind. Jahan.

  All the gods! Why won’t the woman leave me alone? It’s as if she knows I’m fraying. That soon I’ll have no friends left, no allies, no recourse except her.

  I will never answer her summons.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Pantoleon demands. “Did the bells and stones send you mad?”

  “I’m sorry.” I put my back to him. “I won’t impose on your hospitality—such as it is—any longer.”

  “Damn it, Jahan!” he exclaims, exasperated, and I hear him throw back the blankets and follow me out of the room, floorboards squeaking. “That’s not what I meant. Where the hell are you going?”

  “To beg pity of the gods,” I say sourly. “Unless they, too, have decided I’m not worth their notice.”

  Pantoleon explodes a sigh. “Need we be so melodramatic? Look. I’ll ask the people I know about your sorceress.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  He stares up from stoking the brazier. “No. I’m sorry, but you haven’t earned that right.”

  I’m so astonished that I laugh. “The right to meet your friends? Are you embarrassed by me?”

  “Rather,” he says frankly. Then, with painful gravity: “They are sorcerers who have spent their lives in hiding. But now, because of what you did in Eren, they’re ready to fight for the rights they deserve. And what have you done? Come back here and pretended that none of it really happened.”

  “To save Elanna,” I retort. “To save Eren.”

  “No,” he says, “to save your own reputation. To keep your damned secrets. So yes, I’ll ask about your sorceress. But I won’t let you meet anyone. Because as far as they’re concerned, you’ve betrayed us all.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN PANTOLEON GOES out, I follow him. Neither of us speaks, or has spoken since he accused me of being a traitor. I don’t see what there is to say. If that’s what he and his sorcerer friends think of me, then that’s what they think. I’ve been maligned far worse.

  And yet I can’t tamp down the guilt following on the heels of this thought. What if they’re right?

  At Nero Street, Pantoleon turns without a farewell toward the university. I continue on, toward the café on the next corner, burrowing my hands in the pockets of the overcoat I borrowed from Pantoleon. It’s too big, and the elbows are worn thin with use. With the floppy wool hat favored by students hiding my hair, I hope I look just like any other wastrel spending his parents’ money on obscure courses and late nights in academic arguments over beer. Besides, I’ve never been to this café, so I doubt I’ll be recognized.

  I pause at the stand on the street to buy a newspaper—this, too, with money borrowed from Pantoleon. I ran from Aexione with empty pockets. So this is another favor I owe my friend. Another debt I don’t know whether I can repay.

  “Big doings up at the emperor’s palace yesterday,” the vendor says, pocketing the coins I hand him. “They caught that Ereni witch.”

  “You see it?” I ask in my most careless student voice.

  “Nah. Hard to get out of the city.” A wistful look steals across his face. “I’d like to see me a real sorceress, though. I reckon she doesn’t look like us ordinary mortals.”

  I smile, careful not to show my relief. He didn’t bring up the Korakos. So my sorcery—and El’s disappearance—hasn’t hit the news yet. It would have happened too late last night to make the papers, and the morning is early. “Somewhere between us and the gods.”

  “Aye,” the vendor says, patting the stack of newspapers thoughtfully. “It must have been something, to see the sorcery she wrought in Eren.”

  Someone else comes up behind me, and I tuck the newspaper under my arm and make for the café. I need to craft a plan before the whole city wakes up in search of me.

  The warmth inside envelops me with a lover’s tenderness, and I’m reminded that I’ve scarcely slept recently. Perhaps I ought to have remained at Pantoleon’s apartment. But who needs rest? I’ll soldier on, gritty-eyed and undaunted.

  I surreptitiously check the café’s corners for familiar faces as I approach the counter. But there’s no one I know. An elderly couple sip tea while they read their newspapers, a w
oman marks notes on a stack of papers, and a group of young men cluster busily near the fireplace. Students, no doubt, judging by their matching black hats. Probably getting ready to save the world.

  Much good may that do them.

  I order a coffee—again with my borrowed money—and settle into a table beside the wall, where I should go unnoticed. I spread out the newspaper with a sigh, inhaling the heady aroma of roasting coffee beans and baking sugar from the kitchen. I have a little time, as I thought. My very bones seem to relax. I adjust my hat. Time, and a disguise. All I need.

  Then I hear the youths at the next table, talking.

  “If we needed any further proof of his tyranny, this is it!” The speaker, an excitable fellow with a pencil tucked behind his ear, shakes a copy of the newspaper.

  The others shush him, but I see their grins. I have never been that young.

  One of them sees me looking. Too late, I pretend to find something fascinating in my newspaper. My eye lands on a passage squarely in the middle: THE WITCH OF EREN EXECUTED BEFORE DAWN.

  My fingers go numb. I nearly drop the newspaper. No, it can’t be true. It must be a lie. El wasn’t really in that room—they had no one to execute, not even a simulacrum.

  Unless they did have Elanna. Unless the witch hunters did torture some poor sorcerer into crafting the simulacrum as a trap.

  Or unless the empress betrayed me. Maybe this has all been an elaborate trap to make me reveal my sorcery.

  “Come join us, friend!” the young man calls, and I startle. “Join the cause of liberty!”

  I tear my eyes away from the newspaper and the bold, unrelenting headline. The paper’s quivering; my hands are trembling. Maybe if I wasn’t so shaken I wouldn’t say it, but it comes out anyway. “Already done that, thanks. Once was enough.”

  He blinks, and I force a bland smile onto my face. Now his forehead puckers with confusion. Several of the others look over.

  Damn, damn, damn. I had one thing to do—go unnoticed. I let loose a little persuasion: Nothing to fuss about here. Just another student reading the paper. They mutter a bit but return to their plotting.

  I open the newspaper and pretend to be engaged with another article, but I can’t stop seeing the first. El, dead? Is it really true? Even though I saw the bald words, even though I stood in the Hall of Glass yesterday when the emperor proclaimed her sentence, it still seems impossible. Elanna Valtai, with her quick laugh and fierce temper and extraordinary magic, can’t be dead. The whole earth would be mourning. Wouldn’t it?

  “The revolution in Eren!” one of the students exclaims.

  I flinch and peer up. The young men are all hunched forward, the tassels on their black hats quivering. The one with the pencil is now using it to write an eager diatribe, which the others dictate to him.

  Once again, I’m noticed. Damn. Maybe my exhaustion is catching up with me, upsetting my talent for persuasion.

  Or maybe it’s the grief. But no. I can’t believe she’s dead. I won’t.

  I need to go. I need some proof before I’ll ever believe this.

  I start to get up—but a young man swaggers over and stops dead in front of me. He’s a scruffy type, his black coat worn at the elbows. He’s smirking a lot for someone so short, but there’s wariness, too, in his narrow dark eyes. I try to edge around him, but he mirrors my movements, blocking me. I glance from him to his friends. They’re all staring me down.

  “You like the emperor?” he asks me.

  They must think I’m a member of the city watch in disguise, here to report them to the crown. And they’re not going to let me go unless I give them a satisfying answer. I clutch the newspaper with its damning headline against my chest. “I can’t say he’s a particular friend of mine.”

  The young man barks a laugh. I eye him. If he decides I’m a threat, I can get out of here—but it would be hard to do it without causing a terrible stir.

  “I like you,” he announces, and pulls something from his pocket. “Here.”

  He shoves a leaflet at me. I scan the title. THE SARANON REGIME: CORRUPT, ANTIQUATED…

  I have no desire to read this castigation, even if the Saranons can die off any damned time and I’ll celebrate. I smile, though it feels like I’m pushing up the sides of my mouth by force of will. “Looks like good reading. I always enjoy revolutionary tracts.”

  Again, he laughs. Then he sticks out his hand. “Felix Tzemines.”

  I shake his hand, trying not to stare past him at the door. “Do you greet everyone in the manner of the Old Republic?”

  “It’s more honest than bowing,” he says. “It lets you test a man’s strength.”

  Ah. I squeeze his hand a bit harder—he hides a wince—and then release it. “I’ll remember that the next time I’m planning to wrestle someone.”

  He gestures at the pamphlet. “If you like what you read, join us at the Den on Aeodia. Dinner hour. You know the Den?”

  I nod, though it’s not as if I’m going to join them. The Den is the university’s most popular watering hole. Pantoleon, Finn, and I spent long hours there, years ago now, dreaming about the future.

  “Tell the barkeep the New Republic sent you.” He winks.

  All the gods, they even have a name for themselves. I fold the newspaper into my pocket and step around Felix. A vibration is running through my body, but I tell myself again that Elanna can’t be dead. In any case, it’s time to get out of here. Felix Tzemines has gotten much too close a look at my face.

  “I’ll be there,” I say lightly, “as long as I can get one of those black caps.”

  Felix guffaws, and then the rest of “the New Republic” joins in. So reassuring to know they’ve been listening to our entire conversation. With a liberal grin, I stride past Felix to the door, trying to keep my stride measured, even though every step seems to say El, El, El.

  The door bursts open just as I approach. A tall woman in a red turban, with tawny skin and an academic hunch to her shoulders, rushes past me.

  “Tullea?” Felix says.

  “They’re patrolling the streets!” she cries out. “Something’s happened—the Korakos escaped from custody—and the Korakos is really a s—”

  The door slams on her final, damning word. I bolt into the street, hurrying back the way I came, nearly running straight into the newspaper stand.

  But the cobblestones are eerily quiet. My footsteps slow. A flower seller eyes me from the safety of her bouquets. Other faces peer out from shop windows.

  Then I hear it. Behind me, coming down the street.

  A bell, ringing.

  My heartbeat spikes into my ears. But I don’t run, though my body thrums with the need to. Instead I pace slowly, deliberately to the nearest storefront. Behind me, another bell joins the first. I hear horse hooves crunching.

  Then I’m inside, and the sound fades. Two startled booksellers stare at me from behind a counter.

  I pull out Felix’s pamphlet as though it’s a shopping list. “Histories of the Old Republic,” I mutter, and dive between the shelves. Because of course this is a bookshop, one I used to frequent with Pantoleon. I haven’t been here in years—and hope to all the gods no one recognizes me.

  They haven’t moved the history section. Another fellow stands in front of the shelves, pretending to examine a tome, though judging by his utter stillness he’s also listening for the sounds from the street.

  I retreat past him, deeper into the shop, and pull down a volume at random. Poetry by Cleïs. As if the pressure in my chest isn’t tight enough already. I hope no one is near enough to see my hand shaking as I turn the page.

  I should have known they’re patrolling the streets would mean witch hunters. But how are they in the university district already? Why would they even assume I’d be here? I should have stayed in that café—or never gone at all.
>
  I need to calm down. I try to read the first line of a poem, but all I can think is that Elanna really must be dead. They put out a call for me alone.

  Someone calls from the front of the shop, “They’ve gone past!” The man behind me slams his book back onto the shelf with palpable relief.

  But I can’t seem to move. My heart is somehow too full and too empty. Everything seems distant. Beyond the echoing in my head, the shop bell jangles as its temporary patrons flood back into the street. I become aware of sweat dampening my back. I’m roasting in Pantoleon’s greatcoat. But it’s little to bear compared with what’s happened to El.

  I need to find a mirror. But even if I called for her, how could she answer? She’s either been slaughtered by the emperor, or—and I have to admit to myself that this is unlikely—she’s been taken to the Ochuroma and surrounded by witch stones.

  Words march across the page I’m holding open. The moon has set, and the seven sisters. The hours stack upon each other, and I am alone.

  Just a few words, but my eyes are burning.

  The shop bell jangles again. I startle. A woman says wearily, “What’s this, now?”

  “City watch. They said to look for a young man, six feet, dark-haired, gray eyes, wearing a peacock-blue suit.”

  I freeze.

  “I’d be happy to find a man like that,” the woman says, and someone else laughs.

  “You think you could snag Jahan Korakides? Because he’s the one they’re looking for.”

  With cold hands, I replace the book on the shelf and quietly step toward the back doorway. At the shop’s front, everyone is exclaiming. Cushioning silence around my feet, I ease out the back exit, into an alley filled with some refuse and several stray dogs digging through it. I hurry down the alley, merging back onto the main street—

  Just behind two city watchmen. They’ve accosted several university students and are delivering a lecture on criminal sorcerers, as well as, apparently, the dangers of thinking too much.