Masquerade

by Lam, Laura

  If she was lying, she was a master actor. I thought of her son again. His hairless head, the dark green skin, the shimmer of scales. If Pozzi had done this without her consent to her child, that would make her despise him to her very core.

  And if the rest were true? Pozzi told me he’d found me as a baby, left on his doorstep. If that was truly what had happened, had my birth mother, whoever she was, left me there because she knew Pozzi had done something to me during her pregnancy? What about Cyan? Riley and Batheo was often based in Imachara, never travelling as much as R. H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic. Had Pozzi, or a doctor in his employ, treated Cyan’s mother during her pregnancy? So many questions that we’d probably never know the answers to.

  I reached out tentatively to Cyan and Drystan, shielding my thoughts as best I could.

  What do you think?

  Cyan’s lips thinned. I honestly have no idea. I want to believe her, but what if she deliberately crafted a tale that would win our sympathy? And if he wants to destroy Chimaera, why is he also creating them? Creating . . . us. Cyan shivered.

  Drystan’s thoughts were hesitant, still uncomfortable with the fact that we could hear him at all. It’s a pretty tale, and I think much of it is true, but not all of it. She still has secrets she’s keeping from us. Too much to hope that you did pry deeper into her mind, Cyan?

  She narrowed his eyes at him. I told her I wouldn’t, so I didn’t.

  We both heard Drystan’s mental sigh. Moral codes are so inconvenient at times.

  I shot him a look. I think we need her help, but, like pretty much everyone else in our lives, we won’t trust her.

  Joy, Cyan thought. More balancing acts. She sent an image of her juggling eggs, and then them all breaking on the ground with a wet splat.

  Cute. Drystan’s thought was wry with amusement.

  Lily watched our silent conversation, her face impassive.

  ‘All right,’ I said, speaking for the group. ‘We’re in. Where do we start?’

  Lily smiled and leaned forward. ‘Oh, my sweet dears,’ she said in the affected voice Lily Verre had used when we first met her, before returning to her normal voice. ‘I thought you’d never ask. Next time you’re at Pozzi’s, you need to steal some Elixir.’

  Drystan laughed.

  We turned to him.

  ‘Just doesn’t seem that easy, is all,’ he said, though a smile still played around his mouth.

  What is it? Was he amused because Anisa had instructed us to do the same?

  Later, he replied, with the slightest glance at Lily.

  ‘It won’t be,’ she said. ‘I’m always in the room with Frey now when I visit. I wish now, so much, that I’d kept spare Elixir, but Pozzi made sure I’d run out. I don’t like to leave him alone with my son. I don’t have the chance. But you could do it. You wait with Micah sometimes, don’t you, Drystan Hornbeam? I’m sure you could spirit some away.’

  He stiffened at the use of his full name. ‘Don’t call me that,’ he said, his voice tight.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘Of course, you were stricken from the family tree. Must have slipped my mind.’

  I didn’t like the power play between them. Drystan’s face was blandly polite, but underneath he was furious. She had so carelessly played another card in her hand, showing that she knew, and probably had known for quite some time, exactly who Drystan was. His family still had a case open for finding him, though he was the estranged son they were ashamed to speak about. I wanted to comfort him. Scaring him like that was not a smart move on her part. He’d never warm to her now.

  And I worried what else Lily knew that she hadn’t yet shared. How much she knew about me. ‘Why do you want us to steal it?’ I asked. Anisa wanted much the same thing, though in all my visits, I hadn’t seen a way to open Pozzi’s cabinet of curiosities without him knowing.

  ‘I have someone who might be able to tell me what’s in it. If we can find a way to recreate it, then we can break our dependence on Pozzi.’

  ‘Or you can discover if it’s making things worse,’ Cyan said.

  Lily met her eyes. ‘Yes. Frey has powers, like both of you. They are very strong, and sometimes they can overwhelm him.’

  ‘What can he do?’ Cyan asked.

  ‘Telepathy,’ she said, with a nod at Cyan. ‘Telekenesis. The ability to affect the weather, sometimes, or at least so I suspect.’ Her features were pinched tight.

  ‘My powers are stronger after I’ve been dosed,’ I said, slowly. ‘You think he’s making that happen deliberately?’

  ‘It could be. You’re an experiment as well. He wants to know what is possible. No matter who he has to hurt to find out.’ Lily’s lip curled. ‘And he won’t get away with it.’

  There was a call from the other room. ‘Mum!’ The feeling of warmth from that room strengthened in my mind.

  We all froze.

  ‘You may as well come and meet him.’ Lily went to the bedroom, opened the door. We followed her. Unlike the unremarkable and sombre lounge, the bedroom was cheery, full of bright colours. There was a bookshelf, plenty of toys and framed artwork, presumably by Frey.

  Frey was in his wicker chair, his scaled fingers holding a crayon as he coloured. No, he wasn’t colouring – he was practising his alphabet and writing simple sentences.

  His eyes turned to us. They were a luminous green in the dim light of the lounge. I felt his power come off him in waves.

  ‘Hello, sweet,’ Lily said, her voice softening.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ Frey said. His voice was soft, but sounded different to a normal voice. Almost as if it had a built-in echo.

  Like Anisa.

  ‘I’ve finished,’ he said, proudly holding out his paper. Lily read the sentences copied from Hestia’s Fables, and praised the illustrations he’d done in the corners. The handwriting and drawings were both much better than I could have achieved at his age.

  ‘It’s lovely, Frey,’ she said, taking it from him as though it were precious.

  Frey looked at us, wary but not fearful. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, his voice barely audible.

  ‘Frey, this is Micah, Cyan, and Drystan. Remember, I told you that you might see them today? They’re here to help me, and help you. You might see them around now and again. You needn’t be frightened.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said, but one hand went to his cheek, and he turned from us as though ashamed. How many strangers had he ever come across without being heavily veiled?

  ‘Can I have more paper?’ he asked.

  Lily passed him a few more sheets. He began to write and draw again, as though we weren’t there. Lily rested her hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. He did not respond, but as we left the lounge, he looked up at us. I gave him a smile. One corner of his mouth quirked before he went back to his paper. It was something.

  ‘He’s shy,’ Lily said when we were back in the lounge. ‘You’re the first new people he’s met in quite some time, so he wasn’t sure what to make of you. I have to keep him hidden. Especially after what happened at the Celestial Cathedral.’

  ‘I understand.’ I felt sorry for poor Frey. Locked away in that bedroom, no matter how bright and cheery it was. Never meeting anyone. Just like the Princess. And it was all possibly because of Pozzi.

  It made me pity Lily, too, much as I didn’t want to. But how difficult it must be, to raise a child who required a lot of caring on her own – or almost on her own.

  ‘Who helps you with Frey?’ I asked.

  ‘I used to have a girl come to help me, but she married a merchant and they moved to Northern Temne. I’m here for him most of the time, but if I need to go out, I ring for Pozzi and he sends an assistant to help out.’

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked, though I suspected I knew the answer.

  ‘His name is Kai. He’s a student at the university and helps him from time to time. I don’t trust him a whit, but he is good with Frey.’

  Interesting. It was another way to keep tabs on Lily and
her son between sessions, and a way to observe an experiment subject regularly.

  ‘How can you stand to look at Pozzi?’ I asked. ‘How can you look at him and be civil, knowing what he might have done?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know how I manage,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I fear I’ll snap and attack him. But I feel keeping him close is the wisest course. Find out what he’s up to. Find out his weaknesses. And then take the bastard down.’ She looked at us, grave. ‘I am truly sorry for lying to you. For pretending to be someone I’m not. I didn’t have much of a choice. I know it will take a lot for you to forgive that, if you ever can. But you have an ally in me.’ Another pause. ‘I ask that you not tell Maske that I am a Shadow just yet. I feel it should come from me.’

  ‘Does he know . . . everything?’ I asked, unsure how to phrase the question.

  One of her eyebrows twitched. ‘He knows everything except that I am a Shadow and that I have Frey. I have not lied to him about my past, and he has embraced it just as Andrea did. I am lucky to have him in my life, and I am aware that he does not deserve my lies. Sometimes life makes liars of us all. I can only hope he will forgive me.’

  ‘We won’t say anything,’ Cyan said. ‘But you should tell him sooner rather than later.’

  ‘I will try. This I promise.’ She led us to the door.

  I wished Cyan, Drystan, and I could trust her. But we only trusted each other.

  Back in the Penny Rookeries, everyone went to our bedroom. I took Anisa’s Aleph and brought her forth. The early afternoon light filtered through her transparent body.

  ‘Why did you laugh when Lily said we needed to steal Elixir?’ I asked Drystan.

  ‘I stole some already,’ he said, a little sheepish.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I stole it twice, to be precise,’ he clarified.

  That didn’t help. ‘When?’ I asked.

  He gazed between us. ‘The looks on all your faces are absolutely priceless.’ He spoke to me. ‘Remember when we searched Elwood’s, and we found that box of what you thought was Lerium?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Hold on.’ He went to his trunk, rummaged around, and then held out a vial. ‘I liberated him of one.’

  I licked my lips. ‘Because you thought it was Lerium?’

  He gave me a stern look. ‘Look, I obviously haven’t smoked it or injected it, so I didn’t steal it for that reason. It didn’t look . . . right, and I thought it might be important.’

  Cyan frowned at us, not quite understanding.

  Can I tell her? I asked Drystan.

  A tiny shrug of one shoulder, which meant I could, but he wouldn’t relish more of his secrets being spilled.

  Drystan used to be a Lerium addict, I told her, and she gave a nod.

  I didn’t know much about that period of his life, and he didn’t like to speak of it. But the fact he’d stolen what could have been a drug without telling me made me nervous. What if he had taken it? Would one hit be enough to send him into full relapse?

  ‘You said you stole it twice?’

  ‘When I took you to Pozzi because of your fever. He asked me to leave so he could talk to you. I grew curious. My fingers accidentally slipped and opened his spirit cabinet.’ He shrugged. ‘Oops.’

  He took out another vial, this time filled with little rocks of raw Elixir. ‘I just took a bit from a nearly full vial. I figured he wouldn’t miss it, unless he weighed it religiously.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us when Anisa asked us about it last time?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t trust you, Anisa,’ he said, bluntly.

  Silence fell.

  Anisa’s face was impassive.

  It was more than that, I thought. He didn’t want to admit to the stealing. He wanted to keep the secret to himself for a time, to see if he could solve it.

  ‘I was trying to figure out how we could find out what it is first,’ he said, confirming my suspicions. ‘Have it tested on my own, then show it to everyone. But I haven’t had much luck. There’s plenty I could ask, but none that I would trust.’

  ‘Are you going to let me see it now?’ Anisa asked.

  Drystan shrugged. ‘Might as well, I guess.’

  He set it down on a small table and Anisa went to it. She held her palms over it, closing her eyes and concentrating.

  ‘It’s Vestige, naturally, but it has . . . a lot of components,’ she said. ‘Too many memories and impressions for me to make sense of.’

  ‘What a surprise,’ Drystan said, taking it back. Anisa’s gaze turned steely.

  I couldn’t help but agree with him. Oftentimes, it was when Anisa’s powers would have been the most useful that they didn’t work; or so she said.

  ‘So are we going to give it to Lily? See if she can find anything?’ Cyan asked, trying to break the tension.

  Drystan shrugged. ‘I don’t think we should just yet. Get to know her a bit better. Observe Pozzi this weekend at the palace, see if there’s anything else we can discover. I still want to try to find out more about Lily Verre, and her alternate past as Alban Verani.’

  Drystan slipped the vials back into his pocket. I didn’t like him keeping them. I was high after my injections, and at the end of each week, I craved the next dose. The Elixir Drystan stole could have the same effect, or be even stronger on him. And he wasn’t Chimaera – what if it was extra dangerous for him? Yet if I took them away from him, he’d think I didn’t trust his ability to remain clean. And it’d been years. I had no way to know if he would fall hard and fast again. It felt traitorous to doubt him.

  Elixir. The Princess. The Kashura Foresters, and a growing fear of Chimaera. The Royal Physician perhaps creating Chimaera. A grave robber stealing corpses, perhaps of other Chimaera. Lily Verre and her son. Anisa’s prophecy. My mother. The pressure sometimes threatened to crush me. It was too much.

  The sun set, the golden glow resting on the cracked plaster of the walls. I leaned against the windowsill. The sky was aflame in orange and yellow, the clouds tinged dark purple and red. The flecks of mica in the granite buildings sparkled in the low sun and tinged the grey with dusky pink.

  I turned from the bright sun just as the door opened.

  My brother, Cyril, entered. ‘Maske said you were in here . . .’ he began, and then his voice trailed away. He wasn’t looking at me, but beyond, at the transparent figure of Anisa, the damselfly ghost.

  I tried in vain to come up with an explanation that didn’t sound completely ludicrous, but my mind was blank.

  ‘Hello, Cyril Laurus,’ Anisa said, shattering any hope of me pretending she was a projection from the circus, unable to speak or reason.

  His mouth dropped open comically.

  ‘I’ll explain,’ Anisa said, clearly relishing his shock. ‘I am called Anisa. You recognize me from the circus, where I played a monster in that ridiculous pantomime play. Your brother-sister knew what I truly was, or at least a little, and he took me from the circus when he fled. I am a Chimaera, and have lived more lives than you can possibly imagine.’ She smiled, but it was the furthest thing from reassuring.

  ‘Gene?’ my brother asked me, slipping back to the name he’d grown up calling me. ‘What in the world?’

  ‘Cyril,’ I said, weakly. ‘There are certain things I must tell you.’

  13

  THE HOSPITAL

  When a child under twelve is injured, it’s common practice for any child present to “call upon the fairies” to help heal them. The other child or children will circle the injured child thrice, chanting “sprites, take flight, we need your might to spite the blight!” Sometimes the child will kiss the other on the forehead; a target for the fairy to know where to sprinkle their magic dust.

  — A History of Ellada and its Colonies, PROFESSOR CAED CEDAR, Royal Snakewood University

  I turned off Anisa, and Cyril’s eyes bulged as the Phantom Damselfly turned to smoke and disappeared back into her disc. Drystan and Cyan wisely went to the lou
nge to leave me to speak with my brother alone.

  Cyril looked at me, hurt I’d kept this from him.

  ‘I’m different,’ I began.

  Cyril frowned. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I don’t just mean my . . .’ I gestured to the area between my legs. ‘You know I was never sick growing up. Rarely hurt myself, and if I did, it healed quicker.’

  Cyril nodded, slowly. ‘I remember.’

  ‘It’s even more than that. I’ve started having . . . abilities. And the first time I realized was when I saw the Phantom Damselfly in the circus.’

  Cyril opened his mouth, but I held up my hand. ‘Please. This is hard. Let me get it out all at once, and then I’ll answer any questions.’

  ‘All right.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘When I saw her, she was in a haunted tent, and they ended up closing it down because she frightened people so much. But she didn’t terrify anyone as much as me. When I saw her, she spoke, calling me a Kedi. No one else could hear her. I thought I’d gone insane. When she was in the circus pantomime she stared at me every night, as if waiting for me to ask her all the questions I had. When I left the circus, I had to take her with me. It was almost as if I didn’t have a choice.

  ‘I learned more about Anisa. She’s Chimaera, Cyril. From the Alder age. She’s ancient. She knows so much, though she keeps a lot of it to herself. She frightens me, but I think I do trust her. She has her own agenda, but she cares for me, Cyan, and even Drystan and Maske, in her own way.’

  I paused, sending a thought downstairs: Can I tell my brother about you?

  A few heartbeats of silence. If you think he’ll keep it secret.

  He will.

  ‘Then Cyan came. And she’s different, too. Cyan and I . . . we can read minds. Her much more so than me. I can only glean a little, here and there. We’re Chimaera too.’

  Cyril didn’t blink. But as promised, he didn’t interrupt. I knew he wanted to, the questions building, but he pressed his lips together so they wouldn’t escape.

  I told him the rest – how Anisa had sent me visions from the past, how she feared the Chimaera that re-emerged could be targeted and hurt. Someone was trying to destroy us, and she feared that, like last time, the world itself could burn. That we had to stop this blurred man she’d seen in her visions, though we did not know how. I told him about my growing illness, how the doctor who gave me to our parents turned out to be none other than the Royal Physician and now I had to see him every week. As I told the tale, Cyril’s eyes grew rounder until they were nearly bulging. When I finished, I was strangely deflated. I pressed my own lips together.