Julia Defiant

by Catherine Egan

  “I ought to stitch it,” she says. “Not sure I’m up for another spell.”

  “Please don’t. I’m so sick of being sewn up.”

  “Well, it’s going to be a whopping scar,” she says, and Wyn says, “It’ll suit you, very piratical.”

  I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. Wyn fetches me a clean cloth, which I hold to the wound. Mrs. Och bangs on the table with a fist, her voice turning angry.

  “Is he going to help?” Bianka asks me in a low voice. “Can he help?”

  I don’t know what to say. “It’s a little complicated,” I mutter.

  Even though I’ve done what I set out to do, I know it’s a flop; the way to help Theo has slipped away from us. We crossed the world to find this man, and for nothing. The things Si Tan said keep turning and turning in my mind. Marike took Ko Dan’s body. Marike, wearing the monk’s body, made the deal with Gennady, put the Book into Theo, and disappeared again with the Ankh-nu. Years before that, Marike-as-Ammi went to Ragg Rock and brought Lidari across to the world with the Ankh-nu. Somehow she then defeated Casimir and had a child—me. And the creatures in Kahge sensed Lidari’s essence in me.

  Suppose it’s all true. Suppose my mother is Marike. Then she did not drown, it was not her on that boat at all, but someone else in another discarded body, for if my mother is Marike, she was in Sirillia working a terrible magic less than two years ago. And if we’re to save Theo, somehow we have to find her.

  I feel dizzy. I don’t know if it’s joy or fear making me tremble. I don’t know if I should believe anything Si Tan said. I need to talk to Dek.

  “Why is he taking so long?” I say without explaining who I mean, but Wyn nods at me, his forehead creased with concern. Ling plays peekaboo with a restless Theo. She seems calmer now. And then Jun emerges from Mrs. Och’s room, taking in the crowd of us.

  I leap up, my cheek throbbing. He is a little pale, but upright and moving and still beautiful, his arm and shoulder wrapped in a sling. Whereas, I—well, if ever he thought I was a little bit pretty, I am not now. My chopped hair, my eyes swollen with tears shed and unshed, my face still streaked with mud and now with a great ugly gash across it—I must look a horror, and I see the shock register in his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I ask stupidly.

  He nods, easing himself into a chair by the hearth, and doesn’t ask me if I am all right.

  The conversation in Yongwen is carrying on more calmly now, and so Bianka boils eggs and butters bread for breakfast, poor Theo complaining bitterly about the sash. Ling puts on a kettle for tea, as if she’s at home.

  At last, Mrs. Och says in Fraynish, “No matter what, we cannot stay in the city. But Bianka, Theo, Frederick, and I will not go back to Frayne quite yet.” She looks at me. “You will go your own way now, Julia. Wyn should join the others at the farm immediately. They will leave by nightfall, and they will be safer if he is with them.”

  I wonder if she knows—if Ko Dan understood what Si Tan said about my mother.

  “What about Dek?” asks Wyn.

  “If he’s not here soon, I’ll go find him,” I say. Trying to push down the fear.

  “We’ll stick together, you and me,” Wyn says to me. But I shake my head.

  “You should go. Gregor and Esme can shoot straight, at least, but Mrs. Och is right—it’ll be better if you’re with them. Get the princess back to Frayne in one piece.”

  “I want to help you,” says Wyn. “I want to get you and Dek back to Frayne in one piece.”

  “This is how you help,” I say. “I’m going to get Dek out of here. I’ll take him by vanishing, and it’ll be easier if it’s just him. The others could use you.”

  He looks downcast, but he nods. I don’t want to say goodbye to Wyn, but I want him safely out of here, and I need to save my strength for Dek. I don’t reckon we’re going back to Frayne yet either. Mrs. Och may think she can shrug me off now, but if she is about to go off looking for my mother, she’s not doing it without me.

  “How are we going to get out of the city, if the gates are locked and the Ru are everywhere?” asks Wyn.

  “You’ll need my help,” I say to Mrs. Och, but she shakes her head at me.

  Jun pushes his plate away. He keeps looking everywhere except at me. “I take you,” he says to Wyn. “I know some way out. Secret way.”

  “Good,” says Mrs. Och. “But leave quickly. More and more routes will be shut to you the longer we wait.”

  This sets us all in motion. Bianka fills gourds with water from the pump, and I pack them some bread and dried fruit. Wyn just sits there looking stricken until Jun takes his pistol, which Wyn has left on the table, and tucks it into his belt.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” says Wyn, coming to life.

  “I should have gun, not you,” says Jun. “In case we meet trouble.”

  “I was thinking that I should have the gun in case we meet trouble,” says Wyn.

  “You are not good shot.”

  Wyn’s mouth quirks a little. “I’m a very good shot,” he says.

  “You miss when you shoot at me.”

  “Oh, that. Well, that was more of a warning shot.”

  Jun pats the pistol at his belt, as if making a final argument. Wyn looks torn between anger and amusement, but he shrugs, then shoulders the bag of food and water.

  “Take care of them,” I say to Wyn. “Get them home.”

  “I will,” he says. “Don’t do anything foolish, Julia. Come home safely.”

  He pulls me into his embrace. I let my arms go around his too-familiar frame, his heartbeat against my ear, my dear, beautiful boy. But my own heart feels like a stone in my chest. Jun stands in the doorway, watching us with no expression on his face.

  “Let’s go,” says Jun. “Before too light.”

  “Wait.”

  I follow him out onto the steps.

  “What will you do?” I ask him. “I mean, after.”

  “I am not decided yet,” he says.

  “You could come with us,” I say, knowing as I say it how stupid it is.

  He lifts an eyebrow. “This is my home. Greatest city in the world.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s just…” Don’t be such a coward, Julia, just say it. “One night with you doesn’t feel like enough.”

  Something in his expression softens a little. “I do not understand many thing about you, Julia,” he says. “It is too much for me to not know. I cannot love girl who changes into monster. But I am wishing luck for you.”

  He touches a hand lightly to his chest, where the tattoo for luck is hidden beneath his shirt.

  “I’m so sorry…about Count Fournier,” I manage. “It’s my fault.”

  “Not your fault,” he says, and then he leans forward and kisses my cheek, under the gash, and I nearly crumble right there. He turns and walks away across the courtyard.

  “Hold up,” says Wyn, behind me. “Did you and he…?”

  “Go on, hurry,” I say, giving him a shove. He gives me a cockeyed look that might have made me laugh under different circumstances, but he goes after Jun, waving from the gate. And then they are gone. I feel something ease in me. The more people I love who get out of here, the better.

  I go back into the main room, where Ling is offering around tea. Mrs. Och waves her away impatiently, but Ko Dan takes a cup and raises it to his lips, nodding gratefully at her.

  “We part ways here, Julia,” says Mrs. Och to me. Something awful in her expression. So much we are not saying. Marike’s name, for starters.

  “Dek is meeting us back here,” I say. “I’ll leave with him, and not before that.”

  But where is he, where is he, where is he?

  She scowls and turns back to Ko Dan, directing a sharp question at him in Yongwen. He puts his cup down, and fear flashes across his face. He looks at Frederick, his mouth open but no sound coming out.

  “What is it?” asks Frederick, leaning forward.

  Ko Dan touches a han
d to his chest. His eyes go wide, and he begins to shake. It happens so fast. Foam on his lips, veins bulging at his temples, eyes turning crimson as the blood vessels explode. He falls sideways, rigid and shaking, Frederick and Bianka at his side, shouting. I can’t move. Mrs. Och says in a cold, tight voice: “Poison.”

  It takes only a few seconds, though time feels slowed down horribly: his purpling face, his body convulsing and then falling still. My heart is thumping so loudly in my chest that Bianka’s screams seem distant, and my thoughts are moving slowly, like underwater thoughts: Doctor. Too late. Poison. The teacup on the ground—green tea spilling onto the floor.

  Ling.

  I whirl around, but she is gone. The gate is swinging in the courtyard. I snatch up Solanze’s sword and go over the wall. She is running down the road, around the corner. I catch her easily and slam her into the wall. She gives a little cry, like a kitten mewing. I pull her back and slam her into the wall again. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s too late, of course. I grab her wrists, pinning her to the wall, screaming “Why?” at her—but my question is answered for me. The dirty bandage on her wrist. Even through the fabric, I can feel the heat. I tear it off her.

  She has gone limp against the wall, sobbing. There, in her wrist, that little disk of metal, the burnt skin peeled back around it. Casimir’s contract.

  “You work for Casimir,” I breathe.

  Of course she and Dek didn’t just get away from Pia. But he told her Mrs. Och’s address. How long do we have? I hold the sword to her throat. “Where is Dek?” I grind out.

  She tilts her head back a little, as if daring me to cut her throat, and says in Fraynish: “Safe.” Then she asks me a question in Yongwen. It takes me a minute to understand that she’s asking if Ko Dan is dead.

  “Yes!” I shout. “Of course he’s dead. You’re a liar and a murderer! We’ll all be killed now!”

  Hounds, the look on her face. I lower the sword and step away.

  “My sister,” she says in Yongwen, and her voice cracks. She tries to grab the sword from me, but I yank it away. She lets out a laugh that sounds more like the yelp of an animal caught in a trap. Then she starts biting at her wrist until she gets that metal disk between her teeth. It must be burning her lips, but she doesn’t stop. She pulls it loose, her face contorted and gray. A silvery thread follows. She pulls and pulls with the fingers of her other hand now, the bright thread spooling out of her, slick with her blood.

  I don’t want to watch, but I can’t tear my eyes away either. One more sharp tug, and something like a bloody jewel the size of a baby’s tooth comes slipping out of her wrist. She drops it with a shuddering cry. Behind it stream countless tendrils, several inches long. They move and flail, then find the ground like hundreds of tiny legs. The little jewel comes crawling toward me, gathering speed. It skitters for my leg, and I jump away, shouting inarticulately. Quick as anything, Ling grabs a loose stone from the ground and brings it smashing down on the thing. The tendrils go limp. She raises the rock cautiously. Whatever it was, it is just a wet red blob on the street now.

  “His contract,” I say.

  Ling looks up at me, and words start pouring out of her, about Dek and Mei and a rich man and the Imperial Gardens, but I can’t follow, and her wrist is bleeding badly, her face turning a disconcerting ashen color.

  “You need to see to that,” I say, picking up the dirty bandage I tore off her.

  I wrap it around her bleeding wrist. She stares at me with such a defeated expression, but she lets me bind it. I may not understand her fast Yongwen, but I can read the whole story in her face—I know this story, because it was my story too. A talented girl in a big city, stuck, and then something comes along that could really change things. A big chance. In my case, a heap of silver. In hers, maybe the promise of a way to the Imperial Gardens. For both of us, it was a poisoned promise, but how were we to know? By the time we knew for sure that we were working for the wrong side, it was too late. She’s killed a man, and I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet, just like it took a while to hit me that I’d kidnapped a child.

  I ask her in Fraynish because, honestly, I can’t think straight enough to even try in Yongwen: “They threatened Mei, didn’t they?”

  I don’t know how much Fraynish she understands, but I think she can see in my face everything that I can see in hers. We crouch there in the road together, and she nods. The bandage is already turning dark with blood. I’ve done a lousy job, but I don’t have time to take care of Ling, and I reckon she knows how to take care of herself.

  “Does Pia know where the house is?” I ask her. She looks at me blankly, so I point down the road, and put my fingers in goggle shapes around my eyes. She nods again. I need to get back there right away. I start to rise, and she catches hold of my sleeve. She is saying something about Dek, her eyes gone hard and bright. I only understand the word sorry.

  “I’ll tell him,” I say. “Get your sister safe. Hide.”

  Go where Casimir can’t find you, can’t reach you. I see my own story written so starkly in her miserable expression that it makes me feel ill. We both look at the little blob in the road; then she locks eyes with me one more time, gives a small nod, turns, and starts running. I dash back to the house.

  The gate is wide open. Frederick is alone, slumped on the floor next to Ko Dan’s dead body. He is chalk-white and limp, his eyes half-lidded. I skid to my knees beside him and grab his shoulders.

  “What happened?”

  “They left.” It is barely a whisper.

  “What?” I scream.

  “She said…there was no time.”

  “She—who?”

  “Mrs. Och.”

  “Mrs. Och,” I repeat. “Mrs. Och took Bianka and Theo. Where?”

  “Leaving…the city.”

  Without Frederick. Without me. She wanted to get out of here without me. But there is no way out of the city, Si Tan said.

  “Bianka?” I manage to ask.

  “She took my…force and…Bianka’s too. Left her just enough to…walk. So fast. She said—no time.”

  Maybe she means to get them away safe, but I don’t believe it. Where is the tipping point? I asked her, and she told me to bring her Ko Dan. But now he is dead, was not the right man anyway, and if there is no way to get the text out of Theo, then the surest way to keep the Book from Casimir is to destroy it. To kill Theo, who is himself becoming dangerous. Ally herself with the most powerful empire in the world.

  My panic is rising fast. I squash it down, trying to clear my mind, trying to think where they would go, how I can find them. They can’t have gone far; it has been only a minute or two. If I go now, I can still catch them.

  A voice from the doorway: “Is it your blood or someone else’s you’re covered with this time?”

  I look up, and there is Pia.

  Frederick is struggling to get up. I pull back, out of sight, but Pia is ready for that. She yanks Frederick to his feet, her curved knife at his throat.

  “Stay where I can see you,” she snarls. “And drop that sword.”

  I reappear and do as she says. She drags Frederick with her from room to room. He almost looks like he’s asleep, except that he’s so pale.

  “Where is the boy?” she calls to me.

  “I don’t know. Mrs. Och has taken him, and I’ve no idea where. I told you—I don’t work for her anymore.”

  “And yet here you are.”

  “She left us behind.”

  “Who is the corpse?” she asks, jerking her head at Ko Dan. My stomach clenches. I found him for this. To be killed within the hour.

  “Ko Dan,” I say.

  “Ah,” says Pia. “Then you found him.”

  “I thought…he was a witch. But she poisoned him.”

  “There are poisons that work well on witches,” she says. “Or well enough. The girl succeeded in that, at least. We weren’t sure if you had him or not.”

  “Ling was working for you all along.”


  “For Casimir,” she corrects me.

  “For how long?”

  “Since you arrived in Tianshi. But this house was harder to find than we’d expected. Your brother didn’t give Ling the address until today, and I had to pretend to capture her and threaten her life to pry it from him. She was supposed to get the little boy and bring him to me.”

  My heart stutters, thinking of Ling playing peekaboo with Theo. But Bianka had him tied to her. Oh, Bianka.

  “You threatened her sister if she didn’t go along with it, didn’t you?” I say.

  “Her sister, her grandmother, her uncle, her little cousin,” says Pia casually.

  “She took the contract out,” I say. “That…thing. She pulled it right out of her wrist.”

  “Ah,” says Pia, and her goggles whir. “It hadn’t fully attached yet. If it had, I wouldn’t have needed to threaten the sister. It takes some time. Where has she gone?”

  “No idea,” I say, relieved that it’s true. “Will they be all right?”

  “They are no longer useful,” says Pia. “We are done with them. But the contract must have been quite far along. Pulling it out at this stage…I can’t say what the damage will be.”

  She was able to run, I tell myself. If she could run, she must be all right. I wonder what rejecting Casimir’s contract will mean for Ling’s dreams of the Imperial Gardens. But I don’t have time to think of that—of what she might have lost. There’s no winning any game with Casimir, whichever side you’re on.

  “You really don’t know where Mrs. Och has taken the little boy?” asks Pia.

  “No.”

  “Disappointing. I was going to offer you a trade. The little boy for your brother.”

  It takes everything I’ve got not to snatch up the sword and try to stick another hole in her. My voice shakes badly, but I manage to ask her: “Where is he?”

  Pia lets go of Frederick, and he slides to the floor, gasping. She spreads her hands—I’ve seen her make that gesture before, a Lorian gesture, the acceptance of mystery.