Julia Defiant

by Catherine Egan

  “I am sorry we cannot find your magic treasure,” says Jun. “But I am glad you ask me for help.” He smooths my hair back from my face with soft fingers, and that touch ripples right through me, setting my skin alight. He is looking at me very seriously.

  “What you wish for?” he asks.

  “Doesn’t it spoil the wish if I tell you? Make it not come true?”

  He looks puzzled. “Writing wish is not like that,” he says.

  Looking at him in the moonlight, the dark leaves around his face, I almost want to tell him everything, open my heart like a box and take my secrets out one by one to lay before him. I can’t, of course—I can’t tell him my secrets. But I can tell him my wish, and so I do: “I wished for Theo to be safe.”

  He smiles. “You are good person.”

  That brings me all at once to the edge of weeping. “Not really.”

  “You are,” he says, nodding. “I make selfish wish.”

  “All right, what was yours?”

  He smiles that wicked smile again, the dimples coming out, and I hold on harder to the branch beneath me. “Every night since I meet you, I do not sleep enough. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because instead of sleeping, I am lying in my bed and wondering, What it is like to kiss Julia? I am trying to imagine it, and not sleeping, just imagining. So I wish for a kiss from Julia. Maybe if I know, I can sleep again.”

  “Waste of a wish,” I tell him, laughing, and the sky seems to tilt dangerously overhead. “You could have had that anytime.”

  I lean in to kiss him. He kisses me back with the softest mouth. I think of Wyn, but fleetingly. Jun’s kisses don’t allow my mind to wander far from the feeling of his mouth on mine. I pull him closer, fit my legs over his thighs, leaning back against the trunk.

  “You are strange girl,” he murmurs, which isn’t exactly the most romantic thing anybody’s ever said to me, but I don’t care. I’ll pretend he meant dazzling and it got lost in translation.

  “Hush. Get your wish’s worth.”

  He smiles that irresistible smile, leaning in so his lips catch mine again, his hand sliding round to the back of my neck, pulling me deeper into his kiss. The image of that antlered, fox-faced beast pointing at me across the steaming river in Kahge flashes through my mind. Lidari. But none of it can be true, not with Jun kissing me this way, not with everything I’m feeling right now. My longing expands, filling up with something else, something like defiance. I put my hands under his tunic and yank it roughly over his head, this hunger opening wider and wider. I surrender to it, let it root me in my body, my self. There is a tattoo over his heart, a Yongwen symbol. I run my fingers over it.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “It means luck,” he whispers, and I almost want to cry. Instead, I move his hands away to untie my own tunic. He lifts it over my head, and we let the tunics drop and tangle on the branches below, his eyes fixed on mine. I feel lighter and lighter—more and more real. His skin is brilliant in the moonlight, and he pulls me up against the length of his smooth torso, whispering to me in Yongwen.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying!” I laugh.

  It feels desperate and effortless at the same time, and I’m drinking in the sound of his laughter, the warmth of his skin. For a little while I am only Julia, and I think of nothing else.

  “What are you doing still up?” I ask.

  Bianka is sitting at the table, sewing by candlelight. She speaks softly, as if she doesn’t want to be heard: “Shut the door. Quietly.”

  I do as she says, put down my bag with the hook and lantern in it, and slide into the chair next to her. My legs are still wobbly, like I’ve got water in my knees. She’s making a new pair of trousers for Theo.

  “Any luck tonight?” she asks me. She’s still whispering, and so I whisper in reply.

  “I’ve just searched the entire Treasury. No Ankh-nu, no Ko Dan. It’s not looking good.”

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “Oh, fine.”

  I’m thinking that this has been the longest, strangest, worst, best, most terrifying, most remarkable day and night of my life, but I don’t say that, of course. Still, from the hope of finding Ko Dan this morning and then the rescue of Theo and the others from the monastery, to my encounter with Si Tan, then charging across the city with Pia, breaking into the Treasury, and making love in a treetop with beautiful Jun, I desperately need to get some sleep and then have a minute or two just to breathe and think.

  I lay my head on my arm. My skin is cool from the night air and my sleeve smells of sweat, and I can still feel everywhere Jun touched me and kissed me. I’m worn out but still hungry for him, his fingers and his mouth, and if I feel all this, then how can I be anything but a girl, the girl I’ve always been? A shudder of pleasure runs through me, but at the same moment my mind throws images back in answer—of my clawed hands in that burning city, those impossible beasts hissing “Lidari” at me. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “I’m awake because I’m waiting for you,” says Bianka in an odd voice.

  I sit up and look at her.

  “Professor Baranyi is here,” she whispers. “Frederick is with them. Mrs. Och asked me to tell her when you got back.” She pauses, and adds, “I’m just going to finish this row of stitches, and then I’d better let them know you’re here.”

  My blood cools rapidly. “Thank you,” I murmur, and she nods, bending over her sewing again.

  I go outside. The crack under the blinds is just enough. I am more confident, having done this before. I vanish, and aim myself for the dark corner near Mrs. Och’s bedroom door.

  Frederick looks downcast. His head is bowed, and he is silent.

  “You will find Silver Moya here,” Mrs. Och is saying to the professor, the two of them bending over a map at her desk. The professor looks very flustered.

  “Yes, yes,” he mutters.

  “If you are granted entry, you must ask in particular about Lidari,” she says. “We need to know for certain what became of him.”

  “Yes,” he says again. “Of course, yes. Do you think…? Well, we shall go at once.”

  Frederick looks up. “I’m to go with him?” he asks. He looks as if he’s been arguing for a while and is exhausted from it. “Is it dangerous?”

  “To be turned away is not dangerous,” she says. “But if you are granted entry, I do not know! I gave up on Ragg Rock a very long time ago. You should hurry. I want to know what we are dealing with before daybreak, if possible. I am trusting Julia with a great deal at the moment, and I do not like risk.”

  If Jun’s touch seemed to draw the rage and fear away from me, it comes back now in a rush, a metallic taste on my tongue, a bitterness in my throat.

  “I am sure she can be trusted,” says Frederick, but in a weary, halfhearted way, as if he doesn’t expect to be listened to. “She’s frightened. She’s…stars, you only have to talk to her for five minutes to see who she is.”

  “I seem to remember you vouching for her trustworthiness when she was posing as Ella the housemaid as well,” says Mrs. Och bitingly, and Frederick’s shoulders slump. “Your confidence does not reassure me in the slightest. It may be that she has simply traded one disguise for another, and I need to be sure.”

  Professor Baranyi is putting on his coat. He and Frederick go out together, past Bianka stitching by the fire. Frederick says good night to her, but she does not look up. Mrs. Och watches them go, and I go with them, vanished.

  They go to a little clock shop in the third tier of the Beimu Triangle, near the east gate. The shop is shuttered and closed for the night, but the professor knocks anyway, and at length an old man with a candle opens the door for them. They exchange a few words and are ushered inside. The clock shop looks quite ordinary. Through a door behind the counter is a workshop, dark and empty. The old man lights a lamp, and a tired-looking woman comes through the door, wrapping a robe around herself and nodding greetings. She as
ks something in Yongwen, and the professor answers very formally. She asks Frederick then. He confirms whatever it is she has said, and she indicates that they should sit at the broad worktable.

  Carefully, deliberately, she takes out a scroll of rice paper, a pot of ink, a small bowl, and a brush and lays them all out. Then she scatters some seeds across the table and fetches a bird from a cage hanging near the ceiling. Cages with sleeping birds inside hang all around the room. This one wakes up and begins pecking at the seed. The woman unscrews the back of her ink brush to reveal a little blade, then reaches for Professor Baranyi’s hand. She slices his finger and squeezes some blood into the tiny bowl. She pours some ink from the pot into the bowl, mixing it with the blood, dips the brush, and writes something on the page.

  They sit there silently for a bit. She smiles apologetically, raising her shoulders in a shrug, and asks Frederick if he is willing. He does not look as if he wants to try, but he offers his hand and lets her slice his finger. She does the same as before with a fresh bowl, and again they all sit there awkwardly. Then she gets up, puts away the writing implements, and takes the little bird back to its cage. I don’t know what I’ve just seen. Professor Baranyi and Frederick look rather relieved, I think.

  The professor asks something politely, taking a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. He unfolds it and shows it to the woman. She looks at it and shakes her head. I look over her shoulder and give a start. It is the picture of me, Mrs. Och, and Bianka that has been circulating, and he is pointing at my picture, asking her if she’s seen me before. Frederick looks quite miserable. Professor Baranyi tucks the picture back into his pocket, thanking the woman, and we all go back to Mrs. Och’s house, where Bianka is still sewing by the fire, looking like she’s about to fall asleep over her needlework.

  Mrs. Och is in her room, a candle burnt down to nearly nothing on her desk, her back rigid.

  “It didn’t work,” says Professor Baranyi.

  “Frederick, make the professor a bed in the servants’ quarters so he does not have to go back to Xihuo tonight,” she says, sounding angry. “I am going to bed. We will visit the count in the morning.”

  “And Julia?” asks Professor Baranyi. “Silver Moya claimed not to have seen her.”

  Mrs. Och hesitates. “We will have to trust her for now,” she says at last. “We can’t do it without her. Not without attracting a good deal of attention, anyway. I hope you are right about her, Frederick.”

  Frederick and the professor go to the servants’ quarters, and when Mrs. Och closes her door, I reappear, startling Bianka.

  “Well?” she asks me.

  “They’re suspicious of me, but I don’t know why,” I say, and I tell her what I saw. She is as baffled as I am, and for a few minutes we say nothing, puzzling it over.

  “I’d better tell her you’re back,” she says at last. She goes and knocks on Mrs. Och’s door.

  “Julia is here,” she says when Mrs. Och opens it.

  “Ah. The Ankh-nu?” she asks me eagerly, swinging the door wide.

  I shake my head, trying not to let my anger show on my face.

  “Worse and worse,” she mutters, and gives me a long look, like she’s not sure she should believe me. “Go to bed. We will speak in the morning.”

  “I’m going to sleep as well,” says Bianka. She squeezes my hand. “Coming?”

  “In a minute,” I say.

  She nods and goes into the room we share with Theo. I find Frederick in his room in the servants’ quarters, sitting on the edge of his narrow cot with his face in his hands.

  “Did you find it?” he asks me, looking up.

  “No.”

  “Well, we will have to hope that your Count Fournier has some leads for us tomorrow. Oh stars, it nearly is tomorrow.” He hesitates, and I can see he is trying to decide what to tell me, who to betray.

  I spare him the struggle and say: “Why has she got you going to some witch in the middle of the night? What was that about? Who’s Silver Moya?”

  He gapes at me and then lets out an unhappy laugh.

  “I wish she would agree to talk to you directly,” he says. “There’s obviously no point trying to keep anything from you.”

  “Don’t tell her, please,” I say, suddenly frightened at the thought of what she might do if she knew I’d been spying on her.

  He sighs. “I won’t,” he says. “Only because she’d be furious. But I’d be very glad if my life contained less Don’t tell hers, on both sides.”

  “I need to know what’s going on. It isn’t fair to keep it from me.”

  “Silver Moya is a witch,” he says. “Or, a kind of witch. There are hundreds of her particular sort around the world. There is one in Spira City, as a matter of fact. They are called in adolescence—I am not sure of the details, but my understanding is that they begin to have visions of Ragg Rock and may then choose to accept the role and the name of Silver Moya. Only they can make a request of Ragg Rock. As for Ragg Rock—well, I am not sure if it is a place or a creature…or what exactly. We know only that a number of witches throughout history claim to have had entry to some in-between place via a Silver Moya. She did not ask us for money, only a bit of blood.”

  “I saw,” I say.

  “You were there?” He looks torn between amusement and annoyance. “Well then, you know that nothing happened.”

  “But what does Mrs. Och want? She told you to find out about Lidari.”

  “I told her about those things in Kahge calling you Lidari, as you said,” he tells me. “She was disturbed.”

  “She thinks I’m connected to them,” I say.

  “I don’t know what she thinks. She has not shared any theories with me. I’m not sure she has any.”

  “And she thought I might be…what, visiting Ragg Rock myself?”

  “Perhaps. Mainly she wanted to know about Lidari. What had become of him.”

  “Frederick—did you know that Mrs. Och wanted to come to Yongguo for the princess?”

  “No. She doesn’t take me that far into her confidence.”

  “The professor must have known.”

  “I imagine they spoke of it. But you mustn’t think Theo’s safety is not important to her.”

  “Oh, I believe The Book of Disruption is important to her,” I say, not very nicely. He looks unhappy but doesn’t argue. Suddenly I remember that I’ve got Gangzi’s letter in my pocket. I take it out and hand it to him. “Look, Wyn got hold of this today. It’s a letter from Gangzi to…somebody.”

  He reads it and raises his eyebrows. “It’s addressed to some minor official in Gumao—a city bordering Rossha, in the north. I’ll show this to Mrs. Och in the morning. She’ll be glad to have a clue, at least.”

  “What does it say?”

  “See this symbol?”

  He shows me the letter. I hadn’t picked it out among the Yongwen characters, but there is the Eshriki symbol for life—the ankh. “He is asking this official to conduct a search of the city. He describes a double-spouted pot with the hieroglyph on each side.”

  “So the Ankh-nu is in Gumao?” I say, confused.

  “See if you can get a few more of these,” says Frederick.

  I rest my head against the doorframe and feel myself drifting toward sleep, everything that has happened today a tangle in my mind: the stars, Jun’s hands on me, the taut muscles of his arms and chest, Si Tan’s horrible smile, Cinzai’s head coming off—I raise my head with a jolt. Frederick looks concerned.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Exhausted,” I say, which isn’t the half of it.

  He hesitates and then says, as if he’s been trying to work out the phrasing and hasn’t quite got it: “Whatever we find out…about Kahge and all that…it doesn’t really change who you are, Julia. You must believe that.”

  “I do,” I say. But I’m lying.

  A tugging at my scalp wakes me up. Theo is busy with my hair, knotting and matting it.

  “Oh, Theo, what
a mess!” I cry, feeling my head. It is sticky and smells of honey. I must have been sleeping like a log.

  “Lala umma ebby ebby sump,” he says cheerfully.

  The early-morning sun is filtering through the curtains. I pick him up and hurry outside, still in my nightdress. Bianka is washing her face at the pump. Mrs. Och sits on the steps, looking bent and ancient.

  “Did Frederick show you Gangzi’s letter?” I ask her.

  She nods.

  “Well, what do you think? He’s lost the Ankh-nu, hasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve sent a pipit instructing your brother to get some more of the letters,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” I say, and it’s true. I don’t know how long I slept, but it was a deep sleep, and now I’m hungry. I put Theo down, and he runs to Bianka, who scoops him up and kisses him.

  “Good,” she says. “Eat something, and we will go see your Count Fournier.”

  She retreats to her room, and I boil myself an egg, glad to see there is still bread as well, a little stale, but we have some butter that will make it edible. The honeypot is nearly empty and full of small, dirty fingerprints. I bring my breakfast outside to eat in the sun.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” says Bianka, coming and sitting with me on the steps. Theo clambers up onto her shoulders, singing to himself a gibberish song.

  “I’m sorry.” I dread to think what I might have been saying. I think of Jun and fight my smile. Oh Nameless, the look on his face! Only an acrobat could manage the things we did in a treetop. Just thinking of it makes me shiver.

  “Sounded like you were fighting all night,” she says. “I’m surprised to see you so well rested, to be honest.”

  “I’m on edge. I just hope the count has something useful to tell us.”

  She avoids the subject and says instead: “What on earth has happened to your hair?”

  “Your son,” I say dryly. “I don’t think it’s going to comb out.”