Ink in the Blood

by Kim Smejkal

  Arm in arm, Celia and Anya approached the main square. Their footsteps slowed, their chins dropped, their heartbeats dimmed, the temple and terrible statue casting its familiar heavy blanket over them. Even so late into the night, the perpetual hive of activity proved that those serving the Divine never paused for sleep. The lamplight throughout the square reflected off the damp cobblestones and lengthened the shadows of the rushing crowd.

  How fast people moved showed the temple pecking order. The long-robed mistico—​the holiest and most powerful of the Divine’s workers—​walked as if they waded through water, graceful and composed. They could travel with their eyes closed and not bump into anything; paths cleared for them. Everyone else who contributed to the maintenance of the temple, such as guards, cooks, and servants, strode around with purposeful steps, no-nonsense. At the bottom of the hierarchy, inklings such as Celia and Anya scurried like mice, weaving around those destined to walk in straighter lines. Inklings possessed the only real magic in the world, but that didn’t count for much. They had only enough of it to prop everyone else up on their backs.

  On the bright side, being so low meant not having to wear a uniform. The temple relied on clothing donations for inklings, and as a result of a healthy benefactor rivalry, inklings were probably the sharpest-dressed underlings in the world. If Celia ever had to forfeit her top hat for a robe, that would be the last straw.

  Celia and Anya didn’t walk any faster once the crowd swallowed them. A small cluster of apprentice inklings passed, each sporting dark circles under their eyes and balancing a stack of books and papers with tired arms. “But can the tattoo change size once we send it to the receiver’s body?” one asked. The others were too tired to answer his desperate questions. They must have been the oldest eight-year-olds in Illinia.

  “Celia!” A raven-haired apprentice trailing at the back of the group lit up, shrugging their shoulders and bobbing, trying to wave a greeting without the use of their arms. “Celia! Celia!”

  Anya chuckled and lifted her hand in a wave. “They were frantic earlier,” she said, and called out, “Hey, Wallis. Yes, we see you!”

  Wallis was torn, clearly debating whether they should abandon their group. Their gaze swung with the beat of a metronome between their friends and the two older inklings.

  Celia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. For whatever reason, small, bubbly Wallis liked her. “You’d better study hard, Flea!” Celia called, gesturing for them to keep moving. “Off you go.”

  Walking backwards to keep eye contact, Wallis nodded. After only a brief hesitation Celia crossed her fingers and held them up to her chest, exactly what Wallis had been waiting for. Their entire face stretched into a wide smile before turning around to catch up with their group.

  Looked like Celia was telling bedtime stories to the fleas again. Whereas full-fledged inklings slept alone in small, stark rooms, apparently needing no company except their Divine, the apprentices still had communal dorms. They were a rapt audience for Celia to unleash her imagination on.

  And somehow that particular flea had a keen ability to wheedle story time out of Celia more often than not.

  Anya delivered Celia all the way to the doors that led to the workroom. “Tomorrow might not suck,” she said with a sarcastic smile. So casual, as if she hadn’t had to break a dozen rules in order to make sure that Celia answered the summons that night. Celia didn’t believe in the Divine, the all-knowing, and she highly doubted Diavala, the pitiful step stool, but if she stretched her imagination, she could believe in angels and devils; for years, Anya had been too good to be true.

  Celia inhaled deeply and straightened her top hat (again). Only a little vomit still clung to her boots—​just enough to scandalize whoever noticed it, but not enough to get a full reprimand.

  The line between what they could and couldn’t get away with had taken ten years to sketch out, but both she and Anya had it perfectly memorized.

  Chapter 2

  Set deep in the back of the temple, down tight hallways and as isolated as possible, the inkling workroom had high ceilings, rows of tables, and endless bookshelves. For functionality, the three exterior walls were entirely made of glass to allow as much natural light as possible given Illinia’s cloudy climate, but it also made the space aesthetically beautiful. Something Celia suspected rankled the mistico daily.

  That night, a small swarm of inklings worked under the dancing flames of the lamps, flickers reflecting off the windows like fireflies. Quiet breathing and the scratching of quills on skin created a melancholy music. They all diligently ignored Celia, Yusef at the neighboring table flushing rose red from the effort. She didn’t blame them; someone who got into trouble as often as she did made friendship with her a perilous idea.

  Another inkling, Dante, shot her a full-body eyeroll when he took in her disheveled appearance.

  Stupid Dante. His smug face made Celia want to break all the rules at once. After making sure no one else was looking, she took out her favorite finger, just for him. He pretended not to notice.

  High Mistico Benedict—​who’d personally poured the water over Celia’s face earlier, adding a cloth to create an extra good seal—​moved around like a wraith: inspecting, humming, clenching his jaw, frowning. His bald head, light eyes, and pallor, contrasted against the midnight black of his robe, made his face glow like a searchlight. His sharp, handsome features looked as if they were carved from the same marble as his Divine, too perfect and cold, as though the sculptor had forgotten that people had flaws. There was only one High Mistico at a time, the position passing from one to the next in a closed-door ceremony that ended with the previous High Mistico literally dying at the feet of the new.

  If you were a believer, every message from the Divine to her people passed through him like a conduit from the heavens to earth. His hand wrote out every order for inklings to convey through a tattoo, but he had nothing to do with the content. He was the highest authority on Profeta, the most revered and respected, the only one who could hear the Divine’s will and speak for her.

  If you weren’t a believer, he was someone who read a lot of reports, listened to a lot of complaints, and issued a lot of commands. A manager, but the most powerful one in Illinia.

  Celia and Anya were in the nonbeliever group, but they were the Illinian minority, and what they’d always found most troubling about Benedict is that they weren’t sure which category—​conduit or manager—​he would have placed himself in.

  Either way, it was a station for the most devout and fervent, and Benedict was the youngest High Mistico in Profeta’s history. Everyone under him was afraid of him, which meant that everyone was afraid of him. Yusef turned even redder as Benedict hovered behind his chair.

  Dante returned to tattooing his upper thigh, the side clasps of his tight trousers unbuttoned to expose his skin, his hand moving in sweeping arcs as he created his newest masterpiece. Most sketched on their own arms or legs. If an order demanded a back, neck, or (shudder) rear-end tattoo, people inked on their partners. One couple in the corner, Allea and Ferrin, worked on a lower-back tattoo, the inker dipping precariously low on his subject. As much as Celia loved Anya, she was grateful they’d never had to go that far south on each other, but Allea and Ferrin were by far the oldest inklings at the temple, well past middle age, and Celia supposed modesty only lasted so long.

  High Mistico Benedict’s iron gaze bore into Celia as she approached him. He was probably debating whether to lecture her now or later. Finally, with a stoic nod, he handed her the Divine order for Fiona Jenoah of Asura—​someone she didn’t know, but would now mark for life—​before continuing his patrol.

  Celia exhaled hard, willing her heart to resettle so she could work.

  Below a list of Fiona’s personal details, the note said: “Her vanity will kill her marriage. Her wandering eyes will force her children to wander down her same path.”

  A big part of inkling training was deciphering prose: Fiona of
Asura wanted to leave her partner. The Divine wanted her to know that this would ruin her family.

  Celia now needed to translate the warning into art, something this stranger would understand. She tapped her raven quill on the table and bit her lip.

  How to ink the omen?

  She pressed the quill to her forearm, ignored the slicing pain as the magic took hold under her skin, and drew.

  A hand mirror slowly took shape on Celia’s arm.

  The tattoo would transfer to Fiona only when Celia commanded it. And it would appear line by line, exactly as Celia had drawn it, so she planned each stroke with precision. After receiving her own inked omen in the dead of night, Celia knew that execution was part of the show.

  Celia imagined Fiona sitting up in her bed, sleep-mussed and confused about the pain at first, then realization mixing with fascination as she peered at the image forming on her skin. Celia always tried to make it as flawless a performance as possible. No long pauses to draw out the suspense. No unnecessary lines to confuse the image. Clean and pretty. It would stain Fiona’s skin forever, so it was the least Celia could do.

  An hour later, as a final touch, Celia inscribed—​Family is everything—​inside the face of the mirror. A sentiment Celia wholeheartedly agreed with, thinking of Anya, but still, if Fiona had some other view of the world, who had the right to tell her otherwise? In Illinia, Profeta did.

  Dante hovered over her shoulder, his pants all buttoned up, his work done for the night. Celia didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, and she didn’t much care. “You leave too much room for misinterpretation,” he whispered. He would have drawn a couple holding hands or embracing, something more literal, to keep Fiona from leaving.

  Exactly, she thought, assessing the finished image. “Thanks for your unwanted opinion, Dante. It’s something I can always count on.”

  A smile slowly crept over his face, cocky and abrasive and screaming Your stupidity is breathtaking, Cece, and they stared at each other for a beat before he turned away. If they were fated to be allies and enemies at the same time, that meant they were nothing: the good and the bad canceled each other out. Still, it was exhausting.

  She sighed, her gaze lingering on her inked initials: CS. Small, subtle, and disguised enough within the artwork that she wouldn’t die for them. Hopefully.

  Tiny as they were, those letters meant something big.

  An innocent conversation with one of the cooks had given Celia the idea a couple of weeks before. Teresia, chopping and slicing so fast Celia didn’t understand how she still had all her fingers, had divulged a secret with a merry wink as the earthy smell of turnips surrounded them. “I put a drop of honey in everything I prepare. Though you’ll never taste it, it reassures me to know it’s there, a little kiss in your bellies. My apology for whatever unpalatable monstrosity Chef Foureta makes you choke down that day.”

  Teresia had laughed it off as the foolishness of old age, but Celia knew that any honey in the pantries would be reserved for mistico and important guests. Those were stolen kisses. Something little meaning something big.

  And like a drop of honey in a pot of turnip stew, Celia’s initials said, I’m sorry your skin has to be my canvas. Forgive me for marking you up and affecting the course of your life.

  This new habit of signing her work made her nerves hum.

  She waved her sore arm toward High Mistico Benedict. He nodded after inspecting it, then intoned the same benediction as always. “The Divine has spoken—”

  With his monotonous voice droning on, Celia willed the image on her arm to transfer to Fiona. With nothing more than a thought—​a nudge to channel the tattoo from inkling to recipient—​they became two strangers connected by inky magic. Celia watched the hand mirror disappear as the ink moved to Fiona’s skin.

  When her arm was bare and unmarked once more, Celia severed the link, releasing her remaining hold on the magic. She ignored the brief flash of euphoria that always came afterward; it felt disturbingly as if the ink was excited to be allowed into a new body.

  “—​the people will listen,” he finished.

  Mistico Benedict’s unnecessary blessing only ensured that a mistico had the last word, but it was a ritual Celia quite appreciated, because it meant that they didn’t have time to see beyond the landscape of her art to the tiny, sacrilegious details. Like alternate meanings. Or initials.

  As she walked out of the workroom, the exhaustion after completing a job already taking hold, Celia gave her own benediction. Fiona Jenoah of Asura, I hope you wander wherever the hell you want. Make some mistakes. That fresh ink is just a picture to appreciate however you’d like.

  “Inkling Sand?” High Mistico Benedict called after her.

  Quills stilled as every inkling in the room looked up, faint traces of alarm lighting every face. Celia stopped and closed her eyes for the briefest moment before turning slowly. Her artistic rebellions were already balanced on a hair-thin wire, but signing her initials was risky to another degree. One of these days the wire would snap . . .

  “It took you over an hour to answer the summons.”

  She nodded and kept her head bowed. Right. She’d almost forgotten the first transgression—​being tardy seemed so insignificant compared with heresy. She gestured at her boots for authenticity, glad that relief could look so much like deference. “I was quite ill, Solemn Mistico. It has passed.” With groveling body language, she gave him what he wanted. “It won’t happen again.”

  High Mistico Benedict didn’t acknowledge her apology. As the silence stretched on, Celia’s initial wave of relief soured. As stony as she’d become over the years, droplets of sweat pooled on her skin, her shoulders shook, and her heart did that funny thing where it skipped around. Unbidden, she began fiddling with the slim leather cord around her wrist: a gift from a long-dead friend, a reminder of reality. The Book of Profeta clearly laid out punishments—​calculated dagger cuts, water torture, executions—​but you never knew where your crime fell on the spectrum according to High Mistico Benedict.

  That morning, she’d delivered coffee to a mistico council meeting. At one end of the table, Ruler Vacilando blustered about the upcoming Ascension celebration and how it had to be perfection incarnate. She’d ruled Illinia for the last forty years, and the evidence lingered all over her body: full sleeves of tattoos, undulating images across her back, and just as many likely covering the front. One crept up her neck, enveloping the left side of her face like a bad rash.

  At the other end of the table, the mistico council, led by Benedict, nodded agreement to everything that fell from Ruler Vacilando’s mouth. A strange relationship, either symbiotic or parasitic or both, and confusing enough that Celia was never sure who was truly in charge of Illinia.

  She should have paid more attention to her task instead of observing the scene playing out in front of her. She should have remembered that Ruler Vacilando liked her coffee black, not sugared.

  For her coffee mistake she’d received water torture, so what would she get for taking her time answering a summons? As she manipulated her worn leather bracelet—​turning, rubbing, turning again—​it warmed under her fingertips.

  But High Mistico Benedict only flicked his wrist, dismissing her. Starbursts of relief flooded her vision. She knew the line; she hadn’t crossed it. But just before leaving the workroom, Celia glanced back to see that he was still watching her.

  Her heart rioted all over again, and she knew she wouldn’t sleep well that night.

  * * *

  Even before Benedict had risen in rank, he’d been Celia’s personal demon. Ever since her first day at the temple he’d followed her around with those hard eyes. She’d stood in the large square, stone everywhere, and waited to be assessed with a bunch of other wide-eyed six- and seven-year-olds. The heavy clouds dripped sporadically, hinting at the deluge they would eventually unleash.

  With a cool, strong wind blowing, she’d curled into herself for warmth as the big p
eople in robes hovered and discussed. She counted the cobblestones at her feet. Watched trickles of water race between the cracks.

  A tiny river of rain led to a pair of little black shoes tentatively creeping into the empty spot beside her. When Celia looked up to see who belonged to those shoes, she saw a child with huge dark blue eyes fringed with long lashes. “What’s your name?” the child whispered, keeping her eyes trained on the mistico.

  Startled—​were they allowed to talk?—​Celia could only respond with a gap-toothed smile.

  When she got a smack on her arm as repayment, Celia squawked, “What was that for?”

  “Do you even know what’s going on here?” So this other child was a know-it-all.

  “Yes. We’re going to be inklings.” It was the first time the word had fallen from Celia’s tongue. She’d been chosen by the Divine herself, the proof of it in the fresh tattoo on her ankle.

  “We’ll never see our families again,” the child said with heat, and then Celia understood that her new friend’s shaking was not nervousness, but anger.

  “That’s not true.” Celia hit her back. “My name’s Celia. It means heaven. What’s yours?”

  “I haven’t picked it yet.”

  Most children didn’t choose their names until they were older, but Celia had been impatient. She didn’t like her mothers calling her Kid, as there were a dozen Kids on their street already.

  Her old street, anyway.

  Old worries.

  Celia studied her new friend’s tenor—​the glinting frame around the face, shoulders, and chest—​and saw quite clearly that she was the proper pronoun for her right now. Celia’s own tenor held enough bronze flickers to make her wonder if someday she might use they pronouns, or maybe she’d swing between using she and they pronouns as time passed. “I’ve always liked the name Anna—”