Hands Like Secrets, page 21
“What about you?” I say.
“They won’t sense me this far out unless they’re searching, and they’ve no reason to be.”
“Will...will I see you again tonight?” I try to keep my voice casual.
“If Grisen is cooperative, perhaps,” Rafel says darkly. “I wish there was time...” He trails off, and sighs. “If you haven’t heard from me by the time your party ends, go back to Aschamon. I will figure out the rest and contact you by sorarc. Okay?”
I nod.
“Go on, then.”
Without waiting for an answer, he slips further back into the shadows and vanishes in a ripple of color.
I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly, then skip across the street to join the people walking up to the house. I spot Fien on the porch by a pillar, their eyes scanning the street. When they notice me, they run up to enfold me in a hug, and my chest loosens to be back in their familiar presence.
“So how did it go?” they demand, unwinding my shawl from my neck and draping it over their arm. “Ugh, I should slap that boy. All that sneaky alone time and you aren’t the least bit mussed.”
“Fien!” I protest, rubbing my naked arms. The last thing I need is a mental image of Rafel mussing anyone.
“Well, surely you didn’t sit in that cab just talking,” they say without a trace of embarrassment. “But you can tell me later, come on.”
We pass through the arched doorway into the house, a grand place that the economic hardships afflicting Aschera clearly haven’t touched. A servant appears out of nowhere to take the shawl from Fien and, just as quickly, disappears again.
“Valene’s parents are well-off,” I comment.
“We try not to hold it against her.” Fien looks at my face and chuckles. “Don’t be dour. Valene’s a sweetheart; I’m sure I’ve introduced you before. Let’s find her.”
We walk through a massive foyer, where a grand staircase sweeps up to the second floor in a lazy curve. Exquisite Moonlily parade masks hang on the walls, the faces meticulously picked out with jeweled scales in a riot of colors. Where hair would grow on a person’s head, firebird and psittacine tail feathers sprout in waves.
It’s hard to tear myself away; each is a priceless work of art.
The foyer flows into a round room with a raised stage. The floor is real cinnus wood, rare and expensive, and some of the furniture has the same rich brown hue. I breathe in the sharp aroma; like spicebark, but earthier.
We see knots of talking students and professors, but no Valene. So, we backtrack, and pass Prof Matvey on the stairs. He nods to us as Fien flounces up to the second floor.
We finally find Valene in one of the upstairs sitting rooms, surrounded by a small horde of Aschamon students, only a few of whom I recognize. Food is laid out on a low table here: finger-sized egg salad sandwiches, herbed bread, indigo moorberry clusters.
After a tedious round of introductions and a sandwich or two, Fien asks which Moonlily street float Valene’s family is sponsoring this year. I munch on moorberries and try to listen, but I’ve always had trouble following conversations among large groups. I find myself staring around the room instead.
Valene says something that earns a laugh from everyone else.
Their easy camaraderie, combined with the loveliness of this room and the whole house, is such a stark contrast from Rafel and his dingy, dusty safehouse that, despite knowing I’m safe here, I can’t fully relax.
I can’t stop wondering what Rafel is doing at this very moment.
Fien shoots me a pointed look from across the room, tapping their fingers against their knuckles. “Watch your hands,” that gesture means. I reel in my thoughts and realize I’ve been absently and noisily running a hand over an upholstered chair for some time now. Several other students have noticed and are staring.
I stand up, grab another sandwich, and stalk to the window. My hands tremble, and I know my face is flushed. Fien means well, and normally I do appreciate them making sure my nervous quirks don’t embarrass me in public. Normally, I can control myself better than this.
But I suppose normally, I haven’t come to a party from an interrupted lesson in rashas qi, and with the knowledge that there’s another Cowl cell in Aschera.
The window affords a grand view of the property and surrounding neighborhood. Lawn lights twinkle in the darkness, as do the lights of Aschera proper, further out. My gaze travels over the rest of East Ridge’s rows upon rows of mansions, some clinging directly to the cliffs like expensive jewels in a brooch. The families in this part of the city own the regional farms and gausbird ranches on the northern plains, and rake in the marns by providing food for the military.
In the distance, I barely make out the rarely used Eastgate, and far to the north, I pick out the shape of the city Temple against the sky.
So perfect and unspoiled, this far away.
An abandoned, sagging mansion on the west corner of the street catches my eye. Steep Gables, the oldest house in Aschera; I recognize the steeply slanted roof and pointed arches, even shrouded as they are in darkness, and smile as I recall the ghost stories.
It’s been empty for decades; supposedly, no one even remembers who owns the house anymore. The Council talks about tearing it down every year, but they never get around to it.
Like everything else they promise.
I sigh, finish my sandwich, and flick a few white crumbs off the clean white windowsill.
This room, this perfect little world; they’re nothing but a pretty illusion. Rafel has finally forced me to accept that. I’ve spent too many years at Aschamon pretending if I just worked hard enough, I could change things...
But he’s right. I bite my lip. It’s going to take something bigger than either of us to save Verre from this never-ending war.
I want to be back with Rafel so intensely that my skin crawls with discontent. I want to be training, learning, working toward something worthwhile...not stuck in this pretty house full of clueless Mantles, waiting to hear from him.
I let the curtain fall across the window and move around the still-chattering students toward the door. I try to tell Fien I’m going for a walk, but they’re so engrossed in a debate with a spiky-haired boy that in the end, I just slip out.
I reach the top of the stairwell as a bell rings somewhere in the house.
Curious, I pause at the railing to watch a servant bustle across the foyer to the front door. He escorts several laughing guys from Tammar Hall inside. With a shock I feel all the way down in my toenails, I spot Yan amongst them. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might show up; had Fien not known, or had they not wanted to mention it? He’s wearing nice slacks and a white top, and he’s taken some pains to tame his normally unruly hair.
He looks good tonight.
I fold my arms on the rail, missing him more than ever. Should I go down and try to talk to him? Would he ignore me here too, in front of all his friends?
He and the other guys abruptly bend their heads together.
I lean further over the railing and see several dark bundles change hands, and they all wear shifty expressions now. I narrow my eyes, Rafel and my earlier musings momentarily forgotten.
The group disappears down a side hallway. Deeply suspicious now, I hang back for several minutes, then tiptoe down the stairs after them.
The hallway ends at a paneled den with no windows. I peek in and stagger back, choking and coughing. Acrid clouds of smoke creep across the threshold, and even the tiny breath I’d taken has set my energy nodes to tingling.
Burning tanathe weed. That’s a smell you never forget. I was afraid that’s what had been in those little packages.
Tanathe is a qi-aiding drug, made from the crushed leaves of a spiny, dark green plant of the same name. Taken orally in small doses, it boosts energy node capacity for a short time and makes it possible for a majahel to create bigger weaves than they would otherwise be capable of. The stuff is addictive, though, and too much can cause node burnout, leaving the majahel permanently unable to manipulate qi.
Teenaged majahel, like the ones in this room, sometimes mix the powdered drug with water and wheteseed starch, which they spread into scraps of paper to roll up and burn. Burned tanathe gives a particularly potent, hyper-focused high, which is what they’re after.
Mantle society has names for such delinquents, and none of them are nice. Smoker. Charhead. Repeated smoking is grounds for expulsion from Aschamon. Valene’s parents, and probably Valene herself, would be appalled if they knew this was happening inside their home.
I hold my breath and look again.
The smoke tells me they’ve brought a handful of sticks, and several students are already at work making more. Yan stands with two other guys around a table, mixing paste, lit sticks hanging from their mouths. The others laugh amongst themselves, obviously seasoned smokers, but Yan dissolves into a fit of coughing even as I watch from the doorway.
One guy smirks and comments. Yan snaps back, anger clear in his flushed neck.
Oh, Yan...you know better than this.
I’m one of only a few who knows Yan was a charhead when he’d enrolled at Aschamon. Tanathe highs were his escape from dealing with his brother’s death and soon became his addiction.
It had taken countless nights of sitting with him while the highs wore off, of washing his clothes repeatedly to get the smell out, of hiding tanathe in his sock drawer or burying it in the courtyard before dorm inspections, and finally a regimen of enforced abstinence to get him to kick the habit.
Our second year together at Aschamon had been rough, but it had forged our friendship. He’d been clean, and we’d been inseparable ever since.
Gods, how long has he been backsliding? Was the drama I’d put him through this last half-moon responsible?
I’ve got to do something.
I clench my jaw, suck in a breath, and march up to him. He cocks his head and looks me up and down in a very un-Yan-like manner. His gaze is intent but unfocused. My cheeks flame under the scrutiny.
“You,” he grumbles in a voice as unfocused as his eyes.
I snatch the stick from his mouth, grab his arm, and haul him out of the room. I then spin him around to face me.
He blinks a few times.
“What in the six strands do you think you’re doing?” Worry makes my voice sharper than I intend.
He jerks his arm away. “What do you care?”
I tamp down the urge to slap him, but only because it wouldn’t have the appropriate impact in his current state.
“I care because the Yan I know doesn’t do kark like that anymore.” I gesture at the smoky room. “I care because you’re my friend!”
His gaze focuses on me with an almost physical pressure. “Am I?”
“Yes, you brainless...ugh!” I throw up my arms. “How can you even say that? I snapped you out of this habit seven years ago, and by Isasar, I’ll be damned if I let you take it up again.”
Yan, infuriatingly, only rolls his eyes.
“Where’s your pretty boy tonight?” he asks in a nasty voice. “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring him. Could’ve shown Pretty off to everyone.”
Pretty? Rafel? Okay, that is going too far. But I refuse to take the bait.
“Stop it, Yan.” I lay a hand on his shoulder. “This is the tanathe talking.”
He glares, and I pass a hand over my face.
“I’m sorry about the stupid note, okay? I should have just told you what I was doing. I don’t know what else to—”
“No, you stop!” He jerks away from me. “Stop pretending you don’t know what this is really about. Stop pretending you haven’t played me for a sap. Because I’m sick of it!”
I recoil at the venom in his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“You were already seeing him!” he roars. “Fien told me. When I made a fool out of myself in the infirmary that day, you’d been seeing that city boy for an entire moon!”
I blanch because suddenly, I see it. I see the piece I’ve been missing all this time, the reason Yan has been so implacably angry for so long.
The timeline I gave Fien, to make it seem like I’d known ‘Aeden’ for longer than two days! It was such a trivial piece of the overall lie I’d spun about Rafel that I’d honestly forgotten all about it.
Yan rages on.
“Can you imagine what it was like to hear it through Fien?” He turns away and presses his fists against the wall. “I can accept that you don’t have feelings for me. It breaks my tipping heart, but...” His voice cracks. “It is what it is.”
He whirls back to me.
“But you should’ve told me about your beau right then. That’s what a friend would have done. And this whole time, you keep acting like it’s no big deal! Like I should just get over it.”
I look away in shame, tears pricking my eyes.
Strands, why hadn’t I figured this out before? In Yan’s eyes, deceiving him to get that note was the final, terrible piece of this whole ‘Aeden’ thing, not the start of it! He assumes my deception was simply another attempt to keep him from finding out I was seeing someone.
The worst part is this is all a huge misunderstanding! There is no Aeden; I hadn’t been seeing anyone when we talked that day. But the only way out is to tell Yan the truth about Rafel, and I can’t do that.
“I’m...I’m sorry, Yanka.” The words sound shallow and empty even to me, but I don’t know what else to do.
As usual, I’ve been a blind idiot.
Hesitantly, I brush a hand against the white cloth of his sleeve. He glares at my fingers, seemingly about to start yelling again, but then his gaze sharpens. He snatches my hand and holds the wrist up to his face.
I bite back a curse.
That was the wrist Rafel had grabbed, trying to make me angry enough to draw rashas qi. What I hadn’t noticed at the time is that he’d bruised me; finger-shaped marks that stand out stark and purple against my pale skin.
Yan’s voice goes deadly quiet.
“What is this?”
Chapter 25
“Nothing.” I try to snatch my hand away, but Yan doesn’t let go. His gaze is glued to that mark.
“Saeli.” He swallows. “Did Aeden do this?”
No, no, no, please don’t start thinking what I’m afraid you’re thinking...
“It’s not what you think!”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Yan’s eyebrows furrow.
“By Isasar—has he hurt you before?”
The impact of Rafel’s palm against my face, the night I first met him, flashes through my memory. I hesitate a moment too long before shaking my head.
Yan squeezes his eyes shut.
“You know, you never used to lie.” His voice breaks. Without warning, he turns to slam a fist against the wall, making me jump and cover my ears.
“I knew there was something off about that pretty smirk,” he growls. “Someone should teach that bastard to pick on someone his own size.”
His entire body quivers, his muscles so tight that veins bulge through his skin. Fear shoots through me. Yan looks angry enough to seriously hurt somebody.
“It’s not like that!” I say desperately. “It was part of...a lesson.”
Oh smart, Saeli, like that sounds any better.
Yan takes a step toward me.
“A lesson. Like how to give him some?” I gape in fury, but he takes it a step further. “Do you do that before or after he hits you?”
The next few moments are a blur.
My hand lashes out to collide with Yan’s face, and the hot surge of rashas qi floods my system. I don’t mean to draw it; I’m not even consciously aware of drawing it. I’ve just never in my life gotten so furious, so quickly, and I instinctively channel that rage in the direction I’d taught it to run that night: through my fourth node.
“Take. That. Back.”
Yan staggers away, holding his face, and stares like he’s never seen me before. He visibly sucks in a breath.
“What...Saeli, what are you doing?”
I choke and cut the flow of rashas. Because I remember now that he’s Anjahel, Anjahel, just like me...and in our last class together, Donnevan taught us to recognize the unique energy signature of a Cowl.
Gods, how could I have been so stupid?
“That was...that felt like...” he stammers.
And for a moment, I think maybe, maybe I could still convince him he hadn’t felt what he’d clearly just felt. He’s still half-high on tanathe, and off-balance from our fight, and we’d only learned the skill yesterday...but suddenly, I’m tired of trying to cover it up.
So what if Yan knows the truth? Can this get any worse? He’s already thoroughly disgusted with me.
“That was the lesson,” I say in a monotone.
“But that was...” Horrified understanding stains his voice. “He’s one of them. Aeden’s a Crimson Cowl.”
I press my lips together.
“Isn’t he?” he roars.
“Fine!” I yell back, my voice cracking. “He’s a tipping Cowl. And just so you know, he’s not really a beau at all. But I don’t imagine that’s enough to redeem me in your eyes, is it?”
“Should it be?” The bitterness in his voice stabs at me. Yan rests a fist against the wall again, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Okay, back up, Saeli. When did this truly start? Where did you meet the bastard?” he demands. “Was it the night you were spirited away by that—?”
He pauses, eyes wide, and breathes in sharply.
“Dear Isasar, of course. It was him all along.”
I simply nod; my throat is so tight, I’m not sure I can make a sound.
He shoots me a glassy look.
“Aeden’s just an alias, then?”
“Can’t exactly use his real name in public, can he?” I snark miserably.
This is not at all the way I imagined this conversation going during the few times I allowed myself to imagine it at all.
Yan leans his head against his arms on the wall. I glance into the tanathe-soaked den, but thankfully the students in there are too high to pay any attention to our quarrel.
