Julia Defiant

by Catherine Egan

  I have never heard of this case, and apparently neither has Gregor. Si Tan has stopped pretending this is a conversation. It is a test, and he wants us to know it.

  “His defense?” says Gregor faintly.

  Csilla is getting a wild look on her face.

  The professor can’t bear it anymore. “I remember taking notes on his trial defense for you, sir,” he interjects. “You took a rather surprising position on it, as I remember. That he was not trying to save his life, but to offer a new way of looking at Crown and temple. He believed he would be executed for saying that the temple was the root of the tree and the Crown was the trunk, the people of Frayne the branches. But, in fact, the Crown rather liked the metaphor. Perhaps a poor understanding of botany allowed them to take it as a compliment…”

  Si Tan turns his gaze slowly to the professor, who trails off a bit at the end. He has done Gregor no service here. We are all silent. Then Si Tan rises.

  “It has been a pleasure meeting all of you,” he says with chilling politeness.

  He goes to his table, writes something on a scroll, and stamps it with his seal. We all just sit there, frozen. He rolls up the paper and, pointedly ignoring Gregor, hands it to Professor Baranyi.

  “Here is my seal and permission,” he says. “A man named Fan Ming will call on you tomorrow. He will be your guide and take you to the library. There are no restrictions—you may enter any part of the library and examine all the records you wish to see.”

  He bows to the professor and then to Esme while a stunned Gregor scrambles to his feet and bows back. I feel a little ill. He’s figured us out completely, including who is really in charge here.

  “Now, please, stay awhile, enjoy the view. I will ask someone to bring you dinner.”

  With that, he walks away from us, his elaborate robe trailing on the ground behind him. Esme shoots me a look from the corner of her eye. I pop one last wafer into my mouth and disappear in his wake, following him down the path and into the red building across the way. He walks down a corridor that opens into a room all hung with silk, so it looks like a bright cocoon. Reclined on something that is half seat, half bed, resting against a pile of cushions, is a tremendously large old woman, her white hair coiled snakelike upon her head. Her piles of thick, brilliantly colored clothing give an impression of utter shapelessness, as if there is no human form at all beneath them. Her face is powdered to a ghostly white. A hand with clawlike gold fingernails emerges from the mass of silk. She uses this hand to hold the long tube of a hookah to her lips, inhaling languorously and blowing out plumes of blue smoke that fill the room with their sweet smell.

  Si Tan waves his hand in front of him to clear the smoke. He enters with no ceremony and sits himself down next to the woman. I follow him into the smoke of the room, willing myself not to cough. He leans close to her, murmuring in her ear. She smiles a little, like he is telling her something funny, and answers in a rasping voice, speaking out of one half of her mouth. The other half of her face is immobile.

  I curse my terrible Yongwen. What good am I as a spy when I can’t bleeding understand anything anybody says? Then, to my surprise, this powerful, elegant man lays his big head in her lap and closes his eyes. She strokes his hair distractedly and carries on smoking.

  I lie in bed listening to Bianka’s breathing, Theo’s breathing, the screech of cicadas in the trees outside. I try to relax, sleep, but my mind is galloping on and on so fast I can’t bear to be still. I sit up before I’ve really thought it through, slip my nightdress off, and creep over to where my tunic and trousers are folded in the corner. I am halfway dressed when Bianka’s voice comes out of the dark: “What are you doing?”

  “Can’t sleep,” I whisper. “I’m going to go poke around the monastery.”

  I’ve had an idea. A bad idea, but I can’t shake it.

  Bianka sits up, watching me in the dark as I pull my boots on, wrap the straps around my calves, and fasten my knife to my right leg.

  “Shouldn’t you check in with Mrs. Och before you go running off?” she asks.

  “She’s asleep,” I say, which may or may not be true and is not really an answer to her question anyway. “I won’t be long.”

  She doesn’t argue with me. I shoulder my bag with the hook and rope and slip out into the main room. The house is dark except for a light under Mrs. Och’s door. Surprised, I creep closer and press my ear to it. I hear the low murmur of a male voice. It sounds like Professor Baranyi, but I can’t make out what he is saying. I stand there for a moment, bag over my shoulder, undecided. Then I go outside, sliding the door shut as quietly as I can behind me, and vanish—two steps back—by Mrs. Och’s window. She keeps the paper blinds lowered, but they are uneven enough that I can peer through a crack at the bottom. Mrs. Och is at her table, hands folded in front of her. Frederick and Professor Baranyi are seated opposite her, leaning forward.

  I take a shaky breath. I’ve been practicing vanishing, it’s true, but still, there are things I am not confident of being able to do with any finesse. If I can see a place, I can move myself there by vanishing—kind of like jumping out of my body and jumping back into it somewhere else—but whether I can do it without alerting Mrs. Och is another question. It’s risky, but that’s never put me off before. I’d like to know what they’re talking about so secretly in the middle of the night and why Bianka and I were not invited. I put down my bag and pull back, out of my body.

  The courtyard scatters below me. I can hear the chickens breathing, can feel the warmth of the goat, his heart thudding comfortably behind sturdy ribs. I find the crack of light beneath the blinds, and the three people in the room. As soon as I focus on the opposite end of the room, the dark corner where the sliding door leads through to Mrs. Och’s sleeping chamber, everything turns around and I am somewhere over the room—no, I am in the corner. I can never leave my body behind without terror, and the panic is so physical that it’s difficult to stay vanished. I draw myself back against the wall, comforted as soon as I can feel my body again, the wild galloping of my heart—I’m still here, I’m still me, though vanished two steps from the world. They are blurred and their voices are muffled, but in the quiet of the room, I can just make out what they are saying.

  “I’m honored.” This from Frederick. “I’ve spent half my life dreaming of going to the Imperial Library!”

  I stifle a laugh. I’ll bet he has. Typical Frederick: when other boys were fantasizing about sailing the seas or joining the army, he was dreaming up library visits.

  “We will need to tread very carefully,” says Professor Baranyi. “Si Tan may have granted us permission only to see what we are really going to look for in the library. It might be best if Frederick and I go alone, acting as representatives of Lord Heriday.”

  “No,” says Mrs. Och. “The permission is in Lord Heriday’s name. Gregor needs to be there. You should take Esme and Julia as well, in case it is a trap.”

  “May I suggest that we tell Julia what I am doing there?” says Frederick. “She might be able to help. I should like to ask her questions.”

  “Not yet,” says Mrs. Och. “Let us see what we find first.”

  “If I’m to research her power, surely she will want to know more about it as well, and she could provide useful details….”

  So that’s it. I bite down on my lip hard, a stream of nasty names I’d like to shout at Mrs. Och running through my head.

  She cuts him off: “Not yet. Do not make me repeat myself.”

  His mouth hangs open a moment, and then he closes it.

  “The only recorded case of any creature crossing from Kahge to the world is that of the Gethin army,” says Professor Baranyi, jumping in awkwardly. “We know that the first Eshriki Phar, Marike, brought the Gethin into the world three thousand years ago, but we do not know how. So you should begin your research with the Gethin and with Marike, but cast a wide net. Any texts dealing with Kahge—there will surely not be many—should be useful.”

&
nbsp; My knowledge of history is shaky at best, but even I know about the Eshriki Empire and Marike, the witch who founded it. It is a cautionary tale in Frayne of the evil days when witches ruled the civilized world. As for the Gethin, I know more about them than I’d like. In Spira City, I was hunted by the last of that tribe, and I shot him through the heart.

  Frederick removes his spectacles and rubs his hand across his face. He looks exhausted.

  “Are we sure that she disappears to Kahge?” he says. “Whether the Gethin truly came from there is a matter of dispute, after all. Whether Kahge exists is a matter of dispute.”

  “If only we could ask Gennady precisely what he saw when she took him there,” says Professor Baranyi.

  “We could ask Julia what she sees,” says Frederick, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. Oh, Frederick, I’m going to have to buy you a present or something.

  “We will most certainly have a conversation with Julia when we know a little more,” says Mrs. Och, not bothering to hide her irritation. “I have no doubt of Kahge’s existence, nor do I doubt that Gennady would know it if he saw it. We—the Xianren—have always felt something beyond the world, something connected to our fragments of The Book of Disruption. I can feel the edge of things, and something beyond, but I cannot go there, as Julia claims she can.”

  I want to shout that I never claimed anything, but I keep quiet. I need to hear this.

  “The only serious study of Kahge on record was conducted by Yongguo’s philosopher-witches,” says Mrs. Och, addressing herself mainly to Frederick now. “You will find these in the library. When The Book of Disruption was split into three, it was like an explosion of magic, too much for the world to contain and withstand. We think of the consequences in terms of the disruptions it left in the world—witches, magical creatures and objects—but the creation of Kahge was arguably the greatest consequence. The force of the Book’s breaking created a kind of shadow—like an image imprint of the world—that we call Kahge. It lies apart from the world, and yet it is connected, and magic drains out of the world through Kahge, or so the philosopher-witches believed. I can say from my own experience that the world now is less magical than it was in the immediate aftermath of the Book’s breaking, and I accept the theory that magic is draining slowly away—fading, just as the Xianren are fading. As for Kahge, the philosopher-witches claimed that life arose there but that they were half lives, like a reflection of life here, insubstantial. Still, somehow Marike is said to have brought the Gethin from Kahge, making an otherworldly and nearly immortal army to serve her empire, and the Gethin, whatever their powers, were certainly corporeal.”

  She pauses, and I wonder if, like me, they are all remembering that night in her house in Spira City, the Gethin’s sad eyes, the way he felled us, one after another, and my lucky shot that brought him down.

  She continues in a softer voice: “Witches and others have tried to reach Kahge since Marike’s time, to access that overflow of magic, but none have succeeded. If Julia can truly move between the world and Kahge, I do not know what the implications are, for her or for the world. My inquiries about her mother before we left Frayne led nowhere. Everybody had a story about Ammi, but nothing to suggest that she was anything more than a clever and charismatic witch whose primary loyalty was to the Sidhar Coven. No, this is something unique to Julia herself, and I wish to know why.”

  I’m nearly choking on my fury now. That she is researching my abilities without telling me is bad enough, but investigating my mother and keeping it a secret too?

  “I will be looking for clues of Ko Dan’s whereabouts in the library,” the professor says to Frederick. “It will be up to you alone to see what you can find out about Kahge, any stories of creatures crossing over.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I trust you will be discreet,” says Mrs. Och, her tone icy, and I know she means, Don’t tell Julia. I stick my invisible tongue out at her.

  He nods. I suppose I can’t blame him—it’s not as if he didn’t try—but I’m annoyed anyway.

  “Go home, my friend,” she says to Professor Baranyi. “You will need to be well rested tomorrow.”

  Frederick and the professor bow to Mrs. Och and go out. I stay and watch her for a minute or two, but she just sits at her desk, not moving, hands folded in front of her. Lurking invisibly in her room is starting to give me the creeps, so I go over to the window and peer out at the shadowy figures of Frederick and Professor Baranyi in the courtyard. I fling myself out of my body again—oh hounds, but I hate this feeling—and the courtyard is expanding below me, if there is any me left, and yet I can hear Frederick’s voice as if he were whispering in my ear:

  “I do not like it. She should know about it, since it concerns her.”

  I return to myself by the corner where Theo likes to pee, jarred back into my body, vanished only one step from the world.

  “Mrs. Och is right,” the professor says. “I understand your feelings, but there is no point working the poor girl up until we know more. There is always the possibility that what we discover will be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?” asks Frederick.

  “I don’t know,” says Professor Baranyi wearily. “Let us see what we find, and then we will discuss it. Get some sleep, Frederick.”

  They bid each other good night, and Professor Baranyi goes clomping off down the road while Frederick goes back to the main house and lights a lamp. He’ll be up all night reading, I reckon. As for me, I am in a righteous fury, and more than ready to stir up some trouble.

  I start out at a jog, but soon I’m running full tilt down the empty streets, running so hard my legs and lungs ache. I am sick to death of reporting all my movements to Mrs. Och anyway, and if she’s undertaking investigations without me, I am more than able to do the same. My chest fills with something like the exhilaration I used to get when out burgling or just roaming Spira City with Wyn. I felt so free back then.

  The trolleys stop running at sunset, and so I have to cross the city on foot. I go over the monastery wall with my rope and hook and vanish next to the flagstone through which I saw the spy emerge two nights ago. I’m not in a waiting mood—far from it—and it’s only a hunch that the boy is a regular visitor to the Fraynish girl’s secret courtyard. But my hunch is right. It’s less than an hour before he appears, quiet as a shadow, in the alley. As soon as he bends to lift the flagstone, I step into view, placing my foot over it. He leaps away and pulls from his belt a stick sharpened to a ferocious point. I hold up my hands to show I’m not armed. I won’t deny I enjoy appearing this way, as if out of nowhere.

  “I’d like a word with you,” I say in Fraynish. I figure if he’s spying on a Fraynish girl, he’s likely enough to speak the language. But he doesn’t answer. He bolts. Blast. I take off after him. If I can’t catch him, this will have been fun but essentially pointless.

  I catch up to him as he reaches the east wall of the monastery. I grab him by the shoulder, and he hits me in the face with his elbow, sending me reeling backward. He is nearly flying up the wall. I pull back, out of my body and over the wall, landing a little too hard, breathless and queasy, on the other side. I’m waiting for him there when he comes over. I hold my hands up like I’m surrendering.

  “Hullo again,” I say.

  For a moment he just stares at me, his eyes round and terrified. Then he moves so fast that I don’t have time to react; he spins me around and slams me into the wall. He’s got me pinned, with the sharp stick pressed against my ribs. This is not exactly how I’d planned it. I’m realizing I hadn’t planned it very well at all. All this disappearing and reappearing has got me feeling very queasy, but this isn’t a position I care to linger in, so I pull away from the world again, vanishing out of his grip. He stumbles into the wall with a startled cry, and I return to myself a safe distance behind him.

  “Over here,” I say.

  He spins around and draws in a sharp breath, putting the stick in front of himsel
f defensively. At least he hasn’t thrown a jar of wasps at me yet. I rub my side where he jabbed me with the stick. He broke the skin, but it isn’t serious.

  The Yongwen words are clumsy in my mouth, and I hate to sound a fool at a moment like this, but I ask him: “Do you speak Fraynish?”

  “Who you are?” The answer comes in strongly accented Fraynish, thank the Nameless.

  “I’m sorry I frightened you,” I say. “I just want to talk. Without you trying to kill me with a stick.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know who you are and what you’re up to. And I’ll bet that now you’d like to know the same about me. I thought we might be able to help each other out.”

  When he doesn’t reply, I suggest: “We could get something to eat. I don’t suppose you know where a girl can find coffee in this city?”

  He lowers the stick slowly, and I try not to let my relief show.

  “You walk in front,” he says. “I tell you where to go.”

  There is no coffee. We sit on either side of a low table and drink tea from tiny, steaming cups. It is a hole-in-the-wall tea shop if ever there was one—just three tables, and a wizened old woman behind the counter. The place is empty, which is not surprising, as it’s closing in on midnight now. The old woman brings us bowls of white rice and little dishes with bony fish and steamed eggplant in a sweet sauce.

  The boy puts his pointed stick down on the table and lowers his hood. A long black braid hangs down his back, as is the fashion among young men in the city. His face is all sharp angles, his brows dark slashes over coal-black eyes, his full lips an incongruous softness in an otherwise rather severe countenance. He eats quickly with the two eating sticks they use in Yongguo, his eyes never leaving my face. I follow suit, somewhat clumsily. I’m hungry after all that jumping in and out of the world.

  “What’s your name?” I ask him.

  He hesitates a fraction of a second before saying: “Huang.”