Well. If that was going to happen, I wanted it to be under different circumstances.
“Cisi,” Akos said. He was also staring at the pile of clothes. “Maybe you should help with this part.”
“Thank you,” I said to him.
He smiled. “It’s getting really hard to keep my eyes on your face.”
I made a face at him as he left.
Cisi came in, and peace came with her. She helped me undo the chest binder. It was, as far as I knew, a uniquely Shotet design, made not to enhance my shape but to hold my chest steady beneath rigid armor. The replacement she handed me was more like a shirt, made for warmth and comfort, the fabric soft. The Thuvhesit version. It was too big for me, but it would have to do.
“That gift of yours,” I said as she helped me fasten it. “Does it make it difficult to trust people?”
“What do you mean?” She held up the towel so I could change underwear with some privacy.
“I mean . . .” After pulling on the underwear, I stepped into the first leg of the pants. “You don’t really ever know if it’s you they want to be around, or your gift.”
“The gift comes from me,” Cisi said. “It’s an expression of my personality. So I guess I don’t see a difference.”
It was, essentially, what Dr. Fadlan had said to my mother in his office, that my gift unfolded from the deeper parts of me, and it would only change as I changed. Watching the shadows wrap around my wrist like a bracelet, I wondered if their shift meant that I had awoken a different woman from that interrogation. Maybe even a better one, a stronger one.
I asked, “So you think causing people pain is a part of my personality?”
She frowned as she helped me guide my head and arms into the clean shirt. The short sleeves were far too baggy for me, so I rolled them up, leaving my arms bare.
“You want to keep people away,” Cisi said finally. “I’m not sure why pain is the way your gift accomplishes that. I don’t know you.” Her frown deepened. “It’s strange. Usually I can’t speak this freely with anyone, let alone someone I just met.”
She and I traded a smile.
In the living room, where Isae still sat with her legs folded to one side, her ankles crossed, there was a small stack of cushions already ready for me. I sank into it, relieved, and pulled my wet hair over one shoulder. Though the table between us was broken—it had once been made of glass, so glass pebbles covered the wood floor around us—and the cushions were dirty and low to the ground, Isae looked at me like she was holding court, and I was a subject. Now that was a skill.
“How’s your Thuvhesit?” Isae said.
“Very good,” I said, switching languages. Akos jerked to attention at the sound of his native tongue coming from my mouth. He had heard me speak it before, but it seemed to startle him anyway.
“So,” I said to her. “You came here for your sister.”
“Yes,” Isae said. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know where she’s being kept. But eventually, he’ll have to move her. That’s what you should plan for.”
Akos set a hand on my shoulder again, this time standing behind me. I hadn’t even noticed the currentshadows beginning their movement again, I was so distracted by all the other pain.
“Will he hurt her?” Cisi said softly, taking a seat at Isae’s side.
“My brother doesn’t inflict pain for no reason,” I said.
Isae snorted.
“I’m serious,” I said. “He is a peculiar kind of monster. He fears pain, and has never enjoyed watching it. It reminds him that he can feel it, I think. You can take comfort in that—he’s not likely to hurt her senselessly, without cause.”
Cisi wrapped her hand around Isae’s and held tightly, without looking at her. Their clasped hands rested on the floor between them, fingers interlaced so I could tell Cisi’s skin from Isae’s only by its darker shade.
“My guess is that whatever he intends to do with her—which we can reasonably assume is execution—it will be public, and it will be intended to lure you to him,” I said. “He wants to kill you, even more than her, and he wants it to be on his terms. Trust me, you don’t want to fight him on his terms.”
“We could use your help,” Akos said.
“My help is already yours,” I replied.
I set my hand on top of his, and squeezed. Like a reassurance.
“The trick will be persuading the renegades,” Akos said. “They don’t care about rescuing a Benesit child.”
“Let me handle them,” I said. “I have an idea.”
“How many of the stories I’ve heard about you are true?” Isae said. “I see how you cover your arm. I see what you can do with your gift. So I know that some of what I’ve been told must be true. How can I trust you, if that’s the case?”
I got the feeling, looking at her, that she wanted the world around her to be simple, including the people in it. Maybe she had to feel that way, carrying the fate of a nation-planet on her shoulders. But I had learned that the world did not become something just because you needed it to.
“You want to see people as extremes. Bad or good, trustworthy or not,” I said. “I understand. It’s easier that way. But that isn’t how people work.”
She looked at me for a long time. Long enough for even Cisi to fidget where she sat.