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The room had closed in on her, and it was too small and filled with his voice and his calm reasoning and all the things they would never say. She opened her mouth to breathe, made a noise like she’d been punched in the stomach, turned as much as she could to shield her face. This wasn’t for Magnus; this wasn’t his fault or his payment; she just couldn’t breathe, that was all, it got so hard to breathe sometimes.
The front door closed so quietly she barely heard it beside the drum of her pulse, but when she was alone, she sobbed her throat raw. Eventually there was nothing left but the sound of it and her trembling shoulders, and a little behind her were the phantom footsteps she’d know from anywhere as Hakan’s, whenever he was passing her open office door while she was at work, looking in on her to make sure she was all right.
× × × × × × ×
Bo was waiting for her outside. “Blackout,” he said, as soon as she was in hearing. Suyana didn’t trust it—just because Li Zhao had told Bo he was off-line didn’t mean she wasn’t gathering evidence as fast as she could—but that was a problem that could be negotiated later (exclusives could always be reassigned to another agency), and in the meantime you could convince a snap to be loyal to you, same as anyone.
She nodded. “Good to see you.” She said it every time, felt slightly like a fool every time. But he was an asset, and she’d say it until it wasn’t true.
He fell in beside her, moving half a step ahead to help her cut through the crowd, and steering her away from any streets that didn’t have escape routes. They didn’t talk much; she suspected he wasn’t naturally chatty any more than she was, even if Daniel’s ghost wasn’t hanging in the empty space between them. Bo had talked about him once or twice, and Suyana had tried to smile, to encourage him, but then Bo stopped mentioning him and there had been nothing since.
Fair enough. If it hurt, she wouldn’t make him; if it was her turn to talk about Daniel, she couldn’t. She could operate in silences as well as any snap.
Bo left her at the edge of the perfume department, so stoically pained by the olfactory overload that Suyana spared him a smile. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“I’ll find you.” From him it never sounded like the threat it would be from anyone else.
The old steadies that ringed the wall of the perfume section were comforting, even if it made her feel silly to notice them—it had been a year, not ten. The new scents were scattered among overwrought displays that featured pristinely white models and Elysian scenery and die-cut tendrils to demonstrate just how much of spring could be yours if you wore Lily Soleil.
Suyana had never much been interested in spring. She sniffed two that smelled like citrus, which was better, and one that smelled like a fired gun that she set down too quickly.
She was trying to decide on one that smelled like a forest floor and reminded her of graves when a voice at her elbow said, “Morbid, but I understand.”
Zenaida was somehow shorter than Suyana remembered, but her eye was keener, and she looked Suyana up and down with an assessment so frank Suyana had to resist the urge to reach up and see if the makeup had dropped off her under-eye circles. (Zenaida noticed the ring—her eye lingered on it two seconds too long—but she said nothing.) Suyana steeled herself and waited for the judgment, or the joking smile.
But none came. Zenaida shook her head slowly, and then at last she said, “My girl, when Onca said you’d asked for me, I didn’t—it’s so very good to see you.”
It was a technique: designed to make Suyana miss her, to build trust again, to force Suyana into the first overtures of affection so she would remember why she’d belonged to them once and maybe even come back to the fold; so she wouldn’t betray Chordata to the Committee and do to them what she was capable of doing. But Suyana didn’t care, and when they embraced, Zenaida hugged Suyana back hard enough that her knife wound stung.
She let it go on as long as she dared. Then she collected herself and smoothed her coat. (She was on camera eight hours a day now, minimum—wrinkles were something she couldn’t afford.)
“I hope you have some information for me. I’d like for us to be on good terms, but I have a new position, and you owe me.”
“Yes, Lachesis.” Zenaida’s smile was polite, with something else beneath it. “I’ve been told.”
It’s Aurelia now, Suyana almost said; I swallowed the cruelty, and now I’m invisible and hide a hundred stings. But there was so much comfort in the old name from a voice she thought she’d never hear again.
She only said, “And they’re unhappy?”
“I’ve been told.”
Suyana thought about being the sort of person who got sought out, who let people think you were loyal because it suited them. She half smiled, like it was an accident. “I see.”
Zenaida’s smile only got bigger, and she picked up the glass bottle and let the scent of the forest floor mist around them. “You should get this,” she said. “Heaven knows you have the money, and it must be useful to smell like you’ve been burying enemies.”
Suyana picked up the box and followed Zenaida to the next display like a trail of smoke. The smile was still on her face. It barely hurt.
“So,” said Zenaida, peering at a perfume that looked like a wedding in a bottle, “I have a list of things I’m allowed to tell you, but I think we can agree that it’s easier to just be honest, between ourselves. What would you like to know?”
Everything, Suyana thought, and began.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is, as books tend to be, the product of more people’s love than just the author’s. Thanks to Navah, whose enthusiasm for Persona and its characters made this book possible. Thanks to Joe and Saga Press for championing it. Thanks to my agent, Barry, for his advocacy and advice. And deepest thanks to Stephanie, Elizabeth, Kelly, Libby, Sonia, and Nora, who were selfless in contributing their time and thoughts to Persona and Icon; it means more than I can say.
GENEVIEVE VALENTINE is the author of Persona, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, and Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, which won the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award and was nominated for the Nebula. Her short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards and anthologized in best-of-the-year collections. She has written nonfiction pieces for NPR, the AV Club, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Visit her at genevievevalentine.com.
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Text copyright © 2016 by Genevieve Valentine
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Valentine, Genevieve.
Icon / Genevieve Valentine.—First edition.
p. ; cm.
Sequel to: Persona.
ISBN 978-1-4814-2515-5 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4814-2517-9 (eBook)
I. Title.
PS3622.A436I29 2016 813’.6—dc23 2015027931