Julia Defiant

by Catherine Egan

  “All right,” he agrees.

  Bianka puts her head in her hands and moans. “I feel awful.”

  “Did she take your strength?”

  “Didn’t even ask. Just grabbed my hands, and—yes,” says Bianka.

  “She was very weak when we got back—she’d been shot,” says Frederick. “And she didn’t want you running around the city when your likeness is all over the place and the Ru are out looking for you.”

  It’s a bit halfhearted, I think, compared to his usual defense of Mrs. Och.

  “I knew you’d never just leave one of us behind without going to look for us,” says Bianka to me rather fiercely.

  “And were the roles reversed, Julia might even have found you and been able to assist you, and I would have agreed to let her try,” says Mrs. Och, coming back into the main room with an envelope in her hand. “But the idea that the two of you would be able to find her, let alone rescue her, was simply ludicrous. Julia is more than capable of taking care of herself—and here she is.”

  I want to tell her that today I was not so capable of taking care of myself…except I don’t want to tell her about Pia.

  “Count Fournier thinks Ko Dan is imprisoned somewhere in the city, possibly in the Imperial Gardens,” I say. “We could still get him out.”

  “Perhaps,” says Mrs. Och. “But if Si Tan is aware of our presence and our designs, then we are running out of time. When it was only Pia, I thought we could hold out awhile. She hunts us alone, in a city unfamiliar to her, a city where she has no allies. Si Tan controls this city completely. We cannot stay hidden here if he is looking for us—not for long. However, I still intend to meet with your count first thing in the morning. He may have more information about Ko Dan, and I would like to get Princess Zara to Frayne as soon as possible.”

  “Do we have…time for that?” asks Bianka uneasily, and I can see she is worried that, having failed to find Ko Dan, Mrs. Och is shifting her interest to the princess.

  “Princess Zara is the key to a Frayne that will be safe for you,” says Mrs. Och. “Removing Agoston Horthy from power will diminish Casimir’s influence in Frayne as well. It will turn the tide in our favor. These are matters far more important than…” She stops, and for an awful moment I think she is going to say Theo’s life. But she doesn’t say that. “Mere trivialities,” she finishes.

  It hits me like a thunderbolt, and then I feel a true idiot. “You knew Princess Zara was in the monastery,” I say. “We didn’t come all this way just for Theo. You came for her.”

  Horror breaks across Bianka’s face. Mrs. Och doesn’t bother to deny it.

  “If all goes well, we will return to Frayne with the heir to the throne, The Book of Disruption safe from Casimir, and Theo safe too,” she says.

  I have a horrible feeling she may be listing these goals in order of priority.

  Mrs. Och holds out a piece of paper to me. I try to hide my shock when I see it. She has drawn a picture of the double-spouted pot—the one I saw my mother holding when the witch was sorting through my memories, the one painted on the wall in the Imperial Library.

  Her eyes narrow. “You recognize it?”

  “I saw a picture of it in the library,” I say, taking the paper and showing it to Frederick. “Do you remember?”

  He nods.

  “It is called the Ankh-nu,” says Mrs. Och. “It dates back to the beginning of the Eshriki Empire—you see the hieroglyph on its side, the symbol for life. There are a few physical objects in the world that have magic written deeply into them, like the bells of Shou-shu. The Ankh-nu is far beyond any of them.”

  “What does it do?” asks Frederick, examining the picture.

  “This is what Ko Dan used to put Gennady’s fragment of The Book of Disruption into Theo. At least, that is what the impostor told me, and I believe it must be true, for there is no other way it could have been done. It is for transferring a living essence from one physical vessel to another. The essence is what some might call the soul, the spark of life, whatever it is that animates the mind, holds the memory, makes us who we are. The Ankh-nu can lift the essence of self from its physical bindings and put it into another body, another vessel. It is said that Marike created it for the purpose of bringing the Gethin from Kahge into the world, although where their bodies came from is still a mystery. There are even stories that she extended her own life to near immortality by means of the Ankh-nu.”

  “How would it make someone immortal?” asks Bianka.

  “The essence is bound to the body,” says Mrs. Och. “It lives and dies with the body, but it is the body that grows old and decays. If the essence can be transferred to another body, it will continue to live in that one. And so as one body began to age and die, Marike would choose another. She would switch, in other words, leaving her victim inside the body she was leaving behind and taking possession of the new body. It is said that until the Sirillian emperor captured and executed Marike, she had changed bodies more than three hundred times. Indeed, there are those who believe that she lives still, that she was never caught.”

  “But it’s not really possible, is it?” exclaims Frederick.

  “I have never seen the Ankh-nu myself,” says Mrs. Och. “They say the greatest witches in Eshrik gave their blood and their lives to assist Marike in its making.”

  “Why would they do that?” cries Bianka.

  “It may be only a story,” says Mrs. Och. “But Marike was very good at persuading others to do things for her, even to give their lives for her. I remember her. She was…” Her mouth tightens suddenly. “It was not that she was so powerful, even, for a witch, but she was clever, charismatic, and she knew how to manipulate people.”

  “But if the Ankh-nu is for the transferring of a living essence—Ah, I see, The Book of Disruption is alive, in a sense, isn’t it?” says Frederick.

  “Yes,” says Mrs. Och. “The Book has an essence of its own. In the beginning, it was text, but certainly alive. Later, after the Eshriki Phars tried and failed to read it, the Book began to change form, trying to unmake itself and become part of the world, part of nature, as the spirits had done. I hid my own fragment underground. It took root and grew into a huge cherry tree. Casimir lived then in a great castle in the foothills of the Parnese Mountains. His fragment became a brilliant green lake that swallowed the castle. Gennady traveled the world, carrying his fragment with him, and it became an implike shadow, clinging to his back—it rooted itself in him, since he would not let it root itself in the earth. But Casimir’s witch Shey has been able to return Casimir’s fragment and mine to their original form, I believe. Ko Dan—the real Ko Dan—used the Ankh-nu to transfer Gennady’s fragment to Theo’s body and bind it to his essence, to live and die with him. He made the fragment mortal.”

  “While I slept,” Bianka mutters, and her eyes narrow dangerously. I think that it would be much better for Gennady if he never sees her again.

  Frederick asks Mrs. Och: “How did Ko Dan come to have the Ankh-nu?”

  “They claim it has been in the monastery for centuries,” says Mrs. Och. “I don’t know. The Shou-shu monks have acquired some remarkable treasures, but this…well.”

  How did my mother come to have it? What was she doing with it? The vision of my mother with the Ankh-nu, those creatures in Kahge pointing at me and hissing “Lidari”…My heart is thundering in my chest now, a terrible thought beginning to take shape. I need to see Dek. Oh hounds, I need my brother. My hands begin to shake.

  “If the true Ko Dan is to take the text fragment out of Theo without harming him, he will need the Ankh-nu again, I believe,” says Mrs. Och.

  And perhaps it is a sign of how much of a natural thief is left in me, but I feel something close to relief break through my panic when I realize what she’s saying.

  “You want me to steal it,” I say. “It’ll be in the Treasury.”

  I’ll have a reason to break in there after all.

  “Yes,” says Mrs. Och. “I
want the Ankh-nu, and I want the princess, and I want Ko Dan, and we have very little time in which to find all three.”

  I shovel the last few bites of food into my mouth and get up. “All right,” I say. “I’m feeling better.”

  A faint smile plays around the edges of her mouth.

  “I am glad. First you will take this letter to Professor Baranyi. I would like him to attend the meeting with Count Fournier tomorrow morning. Esme should come as well.”

  “Your tree pipit could deliver a letter,” protests Bianka.

  “This is important. I must know it has reached his hands.”

  “At least you trust me more than a bird,” I say, too exhausted and wound up to watch my mouth. I put the drawing of the Ankh-nu in my pocket and take the letter as well.

  “I too was worried for you,” Mrs. Och says stiffly. “I must choose the most prudent course, but I hope you do not see it as a lack of concern for your safety.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” I say, surprised by this little pronouncement. I rather do see it as a lack of concern for my safety—I have never thought Mrs. Och was particularly concerned for my safety—but I don’t say that.

  “Be careful,” says Frederick. “If I have to worry anymore, I might turn into a mother hen.”

  “You’re quite close as it is,” teases Bianka. “Those red feathers.”

  She tousles his hair. He laughs and takes her hand, their fingers twining together. At first I’m startled, but then I feel foolish not to have seen it before—how close they were becoming. Of course, they’re shut up in this courtyard much of every day together. I feel a little pang—not jealousy, not really, only everybody seems to have a hand to hold but me. Stupid thought at a time like this.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I say, fetching my bag with the rope and hook. I put a small lantern in it, and matches, and hurry out into the evening. As soon as I’m away from the house, I open Mrs. Och’s letter. She has written it in some foreign language I can’t read—not even in Yongwen, for which I might have found someone to translate. My heart sinks. There is no reason for her to write to Professor Baranyi in a language I can’t read—unless she doesn’t want me to know what she’s written.

  I deliver Mrs. Och’s letter but don’t stay long to chat with Esme, though I can tell she wants me to come in. In the doorway, I fill her in quickly on the false Ko Dan and on Mrs. Och’s plans. When I ask after Gregor, she tells me he is still having tremors and is quite ill from lack of drink but has not asked for it once.

  The trolleys stop at sundown, and the sky is already a rich orange in the west, so I say goodbye and run for the second tier road. It is dark by the time I get to Dek’s place. Mei is making supper, and Wyn has set up an easel and is working on a Yongguo-style ink-brush painting. No sign of Dek, though the trays and bowls and flour from the dumpling making are still all over the table, attracting flies.

  “Bleeding hounds, where does he go all the time?”

  “Enjoying the freedom he has here,” says Wyn, shrugging, but I think there is something else in his expression.

  “Why do you look that way?”

  “I think I look the way I always look. Don’t I? How do I look, darling?” he calls to Mei.

  She answers in Yongwen, and he shrugs cheerfully.

  “How do you even talk to each other?” I ask.

  “We don’t,” he says. “It’s beautiful. I should have found a girl I couldn’t talk to ages ago.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “I don’t mean that,” he says quickly. “Look, Dek is going a little wild, but then, he won’t be able to do this when he’s back in Spira City, will he?”

  “If you’re worried he’s overdoing it, he must be on a terrible binge.”

  He laughs. “Well—it’s not the booze and roaming around that worries me. It’s this girl and how attached he’s getting right before we’re planning to clear out. But I reckon he knows what he’s doing. Look, Brown Eyes, I’m sorry about this morning. I was out of line. Friends?”

  “Of course,” I say, relieved.

  “So how did it go today? Have you got Ko Dan?”

  “It wasn’t him. Things are a bit of a mess right now.”

  “Maybe this will help.”

  With a flourish, he hands me a piece of paper shut with a red wax seal. I’d almost forgotten about Gangzi’s letters, but I am very glad to have one in my hands now, when we desperately need a lead. I break the seal open and look at the letter, but I can’t read it, of course. I fold it up and slip it into my pocket.

  “Thanks. I’ll show this to Frederick.” I point at his painting, which is a fair imitation of a landscape, with a mountain furred with trees, and say, “This is new for you.”

  He grins. “Watch this.”

  With a few deft strokes, he paints an enormous frog peering over the mountain. The perspective shifts, and it is not a mountain at all but a mossy rock. I laugh out loud. “That’s clever.”

  “How’s this for a character reversal?” he says. “Dek’s off carousing, and here I am at home studying art. Informally. You know, if I lived here, it wouldn’t matter about my being an orphan or a crook. If I could show I had talent, they’d give me a grand house in the Imperial Gardens and I’d live like a king, drawing pictures all day long. It doesn’t matter what you come from here, it matters what you can do.”

  I think of what Jun said—how the most downtrodden have no time to pursue things like painting and poetry, how their skills are not prized by Tianshi’s elite.

  “You don’t want to stay, do you?” I ask Wyn.

  “Not bleeding likely. I miss Spira City. Don’t you?”

  I nod.

  “I think about it all the time, what I’ll do when we get back.” He puts down his brush. “We’ll go to Reveille and hear who’s playing. I miss Ma Fole’s hot cakes, Fraynish coffee at the riverside cafés. Hounds, I even miss my drafty little room and feeding pigeons on the roof. If we’re back by summertime, we’ll go dancing at the village festivals and drink good Fraynish wine—no more of this shijiu rot.”

  Tentatively, like probing a nearly healed wound, I think about how it used to be when we did those things together, coming back after midnight and falling laughing into bed, his hands unlacing my dress, his breath hot on my neck. I’ve never been happier. Mei comes in from the kitchen with plates of overcooked meat and vegetables, nodding at me with a stony expression. There is hardly space on the table, but she shoves some of the clutter aside and puts the plates down at one end.

  “D’you want some?” asks Wyn.

  I shake my head. “I’ve just eaten. You won’t believe the day I’ve had, Wyn—”

  The door bangs open, and Dek and Ling come in.

  “Lost my crutch,” he rasps. He is leaning hard against Ling, who looks like she’s going to topple over from the weight of him. I jump to my feet to help. They both smell of liquor. Mei says something sharp to Ling—she’s speaking dialect, and I doubt even Dek understands her—but Ling doesn’t answer. The two of them collapse into chairs at the filthy table. He looks greasy and unwashed. His hair is still tied back.

  “Where’ve you been?” I ask crossly.

  “Gambling,” Dek says, and laughs. “You ought to come next time, Wyn. It was the strangest place. I’ve lost all our money, I’m afraid! Oh! Did you find Ko Dan?”

  “It wasn’t him,” I say.

  “No? Stars. Too bad.” He shoves at a dirty tray so that he can put his elbows on the table. “What a mess. We’ll have to fire the housekeeper.”

  He winks at Ling, who is chewing ferociously at a fingernail on her bandaged hand. The bandage is looking grubby and frayed.

  “You used to be so good about cleaning up,” I say. It occurs to me only now that I never really helped with the cleaning, that Dek always kept our room spotless.

  “I used to be trapped in a flat all day,” he replies.

  Mei stacks the dirty trays and bowls from the morning with a good deal of angry cl
anging and banging, staring hard at Ling. Ling keeps working at her fingernail, her eyes cast down until Mei goes back into the kitchen. Then she smiles at Dek. It’s a luminous smile, and he smiles back like he can’t help it and puts a hand to her cheek. She leans into him, sighing. They look happy as anything, if a bit drunk and worn out. She’s bitten her nail so badly it’s bleeding.

  “I need to talk to you.” I’m trying to sound measured but it comes out like I’m yelling. “Things are very bad right now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We need to talk in private. But first you need to wash. You stink.”

  Wyn and Dek exchange a look, and Wyn goes back to his painting.

  “All right,” says Dek, getting up. “But the well water is freezing. I want you to know I’ll be cursing your name the whole time.”

  “That’s fine,” I tell him. “Curse away.”

  Half an hour later, we are climbing the narrow steps up the city wall. There is a walkway along the top of the wall, and the view over the city is spectacular. Bats swoop among the trees, and the rooftops make a sea of dark tiles, pointed like waves, around the walls of the Imperial Gardens. Behind us, the fires on distant Tama-shan are coming out. Without his crutch, Dek has to hang on to my shoulder and sort of hop and shuffle along, something that would have wounded his pride terribly not so long ago, but now he doesn’t seem to mind.

  We perch on the ledge of the wall, legs dangling over the city below. Before leaving the house, I told them about the false Ko Dan and my confrontation with Si Tan and the empress dowager. I didn’t want to ask the obvious question in front of the girls, but now I do: “Listen. Ling and Mei told you about the fake Ko Dan, and Ling gave you that picture. There’s no way they could have known, is there?”

  “No,” says Dek firmly. “It was general gossip. Ling drew the fellow she saw, but there was a whole crowd watching him return to the city and go up to the monastery, people following the whole way. Everybody believed it was him. Besides, the girls aren’t connected. They’re nobodies in this city.”