I opened the firebox of the stove and stuck more kindling into it. ‘Who?’
‘Sandor! He came back over the river to lay claim to a vaccination shot.’
That did make me smile. ‘Did he get one?’
‘Sure. Why not.’
‘What’s he up to?’
‘Schemes.’
‘Naturally.’
‘He looked like he was doing all right—smart clothes, good hair cut.’
‘Also, naturally. What schemes?’
‘He’s found backers to set up a ferry service between here and Cityside. He said to say hello and to give you this.’
She handed me an envelope.
I peered inside. ‘Cash? What?’
‘Said he owed you. That you’d given him some a while ago?’
I laughed. ‘I did. I should invest in his ferries.’ I held it out to her. ‘But actually it’s your father’s. You should give it back to him.’
She frowned in mock disapproval. ‘Absolutely not. It’s yours, yours and Lanya’s.’
I thought about that. ‘Okay. I’ll keep it.’
After she’d gone up to bed I put it away in a drawer where it sat in the dark like Schrödinger’s cat in its box, biding its time on the question of life or death.
Mid afternoon I was sitting at the table trying to reconstruct an old radio from bits I’d found in the shed. Someone came through the front door without yelling Hello!—which meant it was either an intruder or my father, who never announced his presence because he’d spent all those years on the run.
Since it was unlikely to be either of those, I got up and went to see.
I was wrong. My father came down the hall like he was home, in one piece and with a rare smile on his face. I stared for a second, then I met him halfway.
In the kitchen he studied me while I put water on to make tea.
‘You’re well?’ he said.
‘Yeah, I didn’t get sick at all.’
He nodded, and wiped a hand over his face. ‘I didn’t know what had happened—about Tasia, about you—until I got here half an hour ago. I went to the infirmary. Thought you might be there.’
‘Lanya’s there.’
‘I know. I had a word with her.’
I blinked at him. ‘You what? She’s awake? Since when?’
He laughed. ‘Well, very recently, I suppose.’
Awake. My heart was thumping and my words rushed out. ‘How was she? Is she okay? Can I see her?’
He held up both hands. ‘Surely. I don’t know. You can ask.’
I was locking the back door and heading for the front. I thought about waking Fyffe, but decided that could wait.
We walked to the infirmary; running would have been better, but walking I got to hear what had happened on the other side of the river.
‘They’re setting up the inquiry at last,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a lot of talk before everything becomes clear. Your agent friend, for example…what’s her name?’
‘Dash.’
‘She’s accused of insubordination, but being insubordinate to a superior who’s trying to perpetrate a war crime is, well, complicated.’
‘And Jono?’
‘That depends. He will face questions about his unauthorised access to nerve gas and threatening a civilian with it, but he could be a key witness against Frieda. Like I said, it’s complicated.’
‘What will happen to Frieda?’
‘Once the inquiry is over, chances are she’ll go to trial.’
‘Alone?’
He nodded. ‘Probably. She’ll be loyal to the end. I don’t know what that end will be but I don’t think she’ll be taking anyone with her. That’s her way.’
‘And all those people who were escaping to the Dry, what’ll happen to them?’
He gave me a wry smile. ‘What always happens. They’re busy proving they knew nothing about any of this. I don’t know if they’ll get away with that; there’ll be a trail to follow, but whether a judge will be dogged enough to pursue it, we’ll have to wait and see. They’re powerful people.’
‘And peace talks?’
He smiled again. ‘There will be peace talks. At last. We haven’t talked yet, but we’re setting up the conditions for talking. It’s slow going, but it is going.’
‘Better than shooting.’
‘In every way, better than shooting.’
The medic on duty said, ‘Five minutes, no more.’
I tiptoed in. Lanya’s eyes were closed; her face was still. Her braids had been unplaited and her hair lay spread out on the pillow. The disease had done visible damage: her face was scarred, there were pale streaks on each cheek and across her forehead, and she was waif thin, even by Moldam standards. She opened her eyes, drowsy and heavy lidded.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Nik,’ she murmured. ‘Hi.’
‘How are you doing?’
She gave a small smile. ‘Didn’t die.’
‘Nearly did.’
‘Only nearly. You?’
‘Didn’t even get sick.’
Her smile widened. ‘Cheat,’ she said softly, and held out her hand for me to take.
About a month later we hitched a ride on the back of a truck trundling up the hill to the ruins of the HQ. The site was busy with workers deconstructing what was left of the big main building; thousands and thousands of bricks were piled high across the hilltop. The guys at work there stopped and said hello to us, but they looked at Lanya with nervous glances. Her beaded braids were back and so was her dancer’s long-limbed, straight-backed stance, but the scars on her face made people look twice. They made me think of the warpaint a warrior puts on to go into battle or the bodypaint that shamans wear to make themselves safe when they go into their trances. They would fade, but never completely.
The day was still and grey with not even a breeze off the river—one of those days when the city and river and sky blend one into another and you see the whole landscape together in all its shades of silver. The crashing and banging of the demolition retreated as we walked down to the graveyard.
Levkova’s grave was six weeks old and there was no riverstone to mark it yet. Lanya knelt beside the mound of earth and was silent for minutes on end. At last she wiped her face on her sleeve, blew out a breath and scooped up a handful of soil. She whispered a prayer, then sprinkled it across the grave and chanted a Pathmaker’s farewell, wishing Levkova a safe journey.
We walked back to the graveyard entrance, pausing by the old house to dip our fingers into the rainwater in the stone vases by the steps and shake our hands dry, the way we had on the night of the rocket attack when Lanya told me that’s what you do when you’re moving from the place of the dead back to be with the living.
We climbed up to the perspex map of the Cityside skyline and sat on the bench looking out over the river and the cityscape.
‘Dammit,’ said Lanya. ‘I’ll miss her.’
‘Get in line,’ I said.<
br />
‘Do you think she’d want revenge?’
‘Levkova?’
‘Wasn’t that your plan? That’s what you told me, down by the river the night all this started.’
She gestured towards the demolition crews. ‘Revenge for Sol, you said.’
I thought of Jono throwing her into the basement of the Marsh because he was convinced I’d taken Fyffe away from him.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve seen revenge.’
She nodded. ‘What’s your plan, then?’
‘Plan? Well, CommSec is in pieces over there and Levkova’s gone, so I don’t have a workplace or a boss.’
‘You know what I think?’ she said.
‘Hardly ever.’
She laughed, then got serious again. ‘All those weeks I had lying in bed, I made a plan. And I was thinking… you could come with me, if you want.’ Her face was solemn but her eyes sparked.
My heart lifted and a smile burst out of me.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
She opened her arms wide. ‘Moldam, Southside, the city. To rebuild!’
I looked across at the piles of bricks and rubble and down to the half-burned shantytown and the ruins of the bridge. ‘That’s big,’ I said.
‘Yes. I’ll need help.’
‘Count me in.’
She held out her hand. ‘I will. I have.’ Then she leaned over and kissed me—a gentle, warm, amazing kiss.
‘We’ll need other help though,’ she said as we set off down the hill. ‘Who else? Your father, obviously.’
‘And Fyffe,’ I said.
‘Dash.’
‘Commander Vega,’ I said. ‘When he’s recovered.’
‘Jeitan, too,’ she said.
‘Nomu,’ I said. ‘And Raff.’
‘Do you think they’ll stay around for a while?’
‘I do.’
‘Mr Corman?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about Sandor?’ She was smiling.
‘Good luck with that,’ I said. ‘But maybe. My father’s friends, Anna and Samuel, in Bethun, definitely.’
‘And Fyffe’s parents—what about them?’ she asked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Macey?’
‘Or his daughters.’
‘I have forty-six cousins,’ she said. ‘Let’s count all of them in.’
‘Then there’s the twenty thousand people who walked the vaccine to Moldam with us,’ I said.
‘We don’t know their names.’
‘Yet.’
‘The One City hackers.’
‘The minister at St John’s.’
We were still naming names as we reached the bottom of the hill and turned into the road west past the shanty towards Levkova’s house. We stopped at our old spot on the riverwall and stood looking across the water.
Lanya leaned close. ‘Are you humming?’
‘You don’t want to hear me sing.’
She laughed. ‘What are you humming?’
‘It’s this old song about two people on the bank of a river they can’t cross.’
‘How does it go?’
‘The water is wide, I cannot get over. And neither have I wings to fly…That’s all I know.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What do you think happens to them?’
‘I think they find a way.’
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to everyone who helped this story take shape. I am especially grateful to my editor at Text, Jane Pearson, whose comments throughout have been clear-sighted and immensely helpful. Heartfelt thanks to Joanna Orwin, Kath Rushton, Barbara and Graeme Nicholas, members of the Hawkey D’Aeth and Campbell families, and to Niall Campbell, in particular, for his bright idea at just the right moment. Thanks, always, to Paul, who listened to many drafts and with whom plot conversations are a delight. This book is dedicated to my parents, with love and gratitude.
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