City of a Thousand Dolls (15 page)

“I’ll risk it,” she said. “I don’t have much choice.”

Matron nodded. “No, you don’t.” Something that might have been compassion touched her eyes; then she bent her head. “I’ll speak to the Council this afternoon. Good luck, Nisha.”

Nisha bowed and left Matron’s study.
I’m going to need it
, she thought.

Jerrit joined Nisha in her room as she changed back into her gray asar.
I can’t believe she agreed to that
.
But what about Atiy?
he sent.

Nisha paused. She had resisted connecting the deaths, too busy reassuring herself that Atiy’s death wasn’t her fault even if it was suicide. That there was no way she could have stopped it. The idea that it might have been murder made a chill ripple over her skin.

I don’t want to start there
, she sent. She tried to keep the fear out of her words, make it sound like a rational decision.
Let’s rule out Jina killing herself first
.

All right
, Jerrit sent.
How?

Nisha frowned.
Well, we want to know what poison she took. The best people to ask about poisons are the healers at the House of Jade
.

THE HOUSE OF Jade was the quietest place on the estate. With the warm greenhouse on one side and an immaculate meditation garden on the other, and always smelling of herbs, ink, and old scrolls, the House of Jade exuded tranquility. The novices moved quietly, trying to imitate their teachers. No one ever raised her voice. Here Nisha was always treated with detached courtesy.

Jade’s perfect rows of miniature trees in the meditation garden were beautiful, but unsatisfying, making Nisha long for tangled vines and wild spaces. Her favorite place in the House of Jade was the rehabilitation courtyard around the back, where the healers taught their craft by tending injured animals.

Sashi was in the back courtyard, kneeling beside a red deer with a broken leg. The doe lay on her side, panting softly, her pupils dilating and shrinking. Three of the other novices held the deer still, and one of the healers stood to the side.

Nisha paused in the archway. She watched as Sashi’s sure fingers set the slender bone. The deer trembled and jerked with every adjustment, but Sashi’s touch was gentle, and she seemed to make no mistakes. Once she had set and splinted the deer’s leg, she rose.

“Let her up,” Sashi said. “Let’s see if she can stand.”

The novices let the doe go and the animal struggled to her feet, holding the bandaged leg off the ground.

The healer walked around the deer, her calm eyes missing nothing. “Excellent work, Sashi,” she said. “Once we have found you an assistant to help you with sighted tasks, you will be a credit to your teachers.”

“Thank you, healer,” Sashi said. “I appreciate the confidence.”

The healer patted Sashi on the shoulder. “You will repay it; I have no doubt.” She turned to Nisha, acknowledging her with a nod of the head. “Be welcome, Nisha.”

“Nisha?” Sashi turned. Her face was flushed with pleasure, her unfocused eyes warmer than they had been the last time Nisha had seen her. “How long have you been standing there?”

Nisha was so proud of her friend she couldn’t help herself. She ran forward and threw her arms around Sashi, hugging her tightly. “Long enough to watch the best healer-in-training I know. That was wonderful.”

“It was routine,” Sashi said, looking suddenly uncomfortable. She fidgeted. “Just a broken leg. But surely you didn’t come here just to tell me that.”

“I don’t think you need me to tell you,” Nisha said. She lowered her voice. “But I did have some questions for you, if you have the time.”

Sashi turned her face in the healer’s direction. The woman’s mouth tightened. She gestured to the watching novices.

“Sashi, I will see you later,” the healer said, inclining her head. “Good day to you, Nisha.” She walked away, trailed by the novices.

A servant in a pale-green tunic touched Sashi’s arm, then put a wet towel in her hands. Sashi turned away from Nisha, wiping the blood off her fingers. “What do you need?”

Sashi always responded better when she felt like people were being honest with her. And Jina
had
been a Jade novice.

“It’s about Jina,” Nisha said directly.

Sashi bent her head, her dark hair falling over her face. “It was a sad event,” she said. “But grief is another emotion we must clear from our minds if we are to be free. Why are you asking about her?”

“I knew her. And I want to understand what happened. What kind of poison killed her? Where did she get it?”

“The healers don’t know where she got it,” Sashi said. “But we do know what it was.
Gunia
seeds. There were a few mixed in with the seed mixture she was eating when she died. One seed alone can kill you. More than one—it would have been fast. Painful, but very quick.”

“Is that … is that a common choice for suicides?”

Sashi looked up, her forehead creased in thought. “Not that I know of. The herbal books say most people use an overdose of sleeproot or ladydeath. Those make you drowsy, send you to sleep, and you just never wake up. Besides, the
gunia
seeds are locked up, like all our poisons. Only the full healers have the key.”

Nisha shuddered at the words
all our poisons
. “So if Jina had wanted to kill herself, she’d have had to break into the poison cupboard?”

Sashi nodded. “And no one broke the lock. The healers checked. The cupboard hasn’t been opened since we mixed up a batch of red paint a couple of days ago for the girls at the House of Beauty.”

“You make poison paint?” Nisha asked.

Sashi’s studied calm cracked, and she smiled grimly. “Not exactly. Ground up,
gunia
seeds are a bright, vibrant red. We add some clay and herbs to neutralize the poison before mixing the paint. You wouldn’t want to drink it, but you won’t die if you get it on your skin.”

Nisha scratched her forehead. If Jina had killed herself, she would have researched the poison first. Why would she have chosen this one?

“Thank you, Sashi,” she said. “Can we keep this between us? I don’t want Matron to know I’m asking questions outside of my regular duties.”

“Of course.” Sashi eyebrows flashed up in surprise. “I’m surprised you have to ask.”

It was true—no one could pry a secret out of Sashi. Why had Nisha felt like she had to ask Sashi to keep quiet? Her mind spun with the new information she’d learned—she wasn’t thinking clearly.

The healer appeared in the doorway of the main building. “Sashi, it’s time for your study period.”

Sashi gave Nisha a forced smile. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later—over tea, perhaps?”

The servant took Sashi’s elbow, guiding her over the small step. The healer stared at Nisha for a moment, then followed Sashi inside.

Nisha went and sat down heavily on a bench in the meditation garden. Unlike the other garden spaces in the City, there were no riots of flowers, no sheltering trees. Instead it was a calm, open space, dotted with stretches of sand that rippled like a river. Benches sat on pools of moss, and the miniature trees were carefully and precisely trimmed. It was the perfect place to consider what she’d learned.

Jina hadn’t killed herself. Nisha knew it in her gut the way she knew hunger and sleep and danger. The girl with the clear-eyed smile, the girl who had to know everything, wouldn’t have chosen to spend her last minutes in that kind of pain. Someone had scattered those deadly seeds into her food on purpose. Someone had murdered her.

The last time anyone had access to the cupboard was when the healers made the paint—but Nisha couldn’t believe a Jade healer could have killed one of her own. Besides, someone with a healer’s knowledge could kill in subtler ways. They wouldn’t use a clumsy poison like
gunia
seeds and make Jina’s death a spectacle in the center of the City.

Could a few whole
gunia
seeds have accidentally been mixed in with the paint before going to the House of Beauty? But that didn’t make sense either. The House of Beauty and the House of Jade hardly ever overlapped. The House of Jade considered the worship of physical beauty to be a shallow and unworthy pursuit, even if they did make kohl and who knew what other concoctions for the Beauty girls. And Nisha had heard the Beauty girls dismiss the House of Jade as being boring and cold. But dislike was not a reason to kill.

Nisha watched a tiny black spider crawl across the soft sand near her foot. The more she found out, the more confusing everything became.

Nisha spent the rest of the day crossing items off the list Rajni had given her. She easily found kohl for the girls’ eyes and the ribbons. But not all the girls had extra hairpins to share, and those who did were willing to give up only a few. Each time she got a handful, Nisha delivered them to the House of Beauty and tried to talk to one of the girls in private. But Beauty girls—more than any of the other girls in the City—hated to be alone. They slept in groups, ate in groups, and moved in crowds like herd animals. Once Nisha learned from one young novice at exactly what time the red paint had been delivered to the House of Beauty, she started trying to figure out where the girls were at the time.

It wasn’t difficult to get the girls to talk. They were all buzzing about the upcoming masquerade, and most of them were spending all their time getting ready. All Nisha had to do was fix them with wide eyes and ask questions.

I’ve never been to the Redeeming before. It must be so exciting. How do you even prepare?

Oh there’s so much to do. Yesterday I had to spend the whole morning giving myself a lemon-and-cucumber mask, because I woke up with a pimple. And then I had to go a dance lesson, and finish painting my display teacup and—

But every girl Nisha talked to had been attending a lesson or had been with two or three others who could vouch for her. She wandered into the art room and picked up a bottle of fresh red paint. She peered through the cloudy glass. There was no sign that any stray
gunia
seeds had gotten into the bottle, and the seal was still unbroken. The seeds couldn’t have come from this paint.

Nisha was tired and discouraged, and a headache tugged just above her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to go back to her room, but instead she grabbed a quick lunch and went back to the House of Jade.

The Jade girls seemed glad to finally talk about their dead friend. Nisha didn’t even have to ask questions. She only offered sympathy.

I’m sorry about Jina. I wish I had known her better
.

Those words opened the floodgates, even from the most disciplined Jade novices.

She was so kind
.

Not an enemy in the world
.

Everybody loved her
.

It made Nisha wish she really had known Jina better. The thought filled her with a peculiar sense of loss, as if she were mourning something that never had a chance to be. When she felt tears gather in her eyes, she knew it was time to leave.

On her way out, she sat down on the steps of the House of Jade and took several deep breaths. Everyone agreed that Jina had no enemies and no rivals, so her death probably wasn’t personal. She’d been killed from a distance, like someone would poison a pest.

But why?

Nisha remembered Jina’s mischievous grin.
There’s a shelf of restricted scrolls in our Mistress’s private study.... Maybe the Shadow-walkers got her
.

An ice-cold chill skittered down Nisha’s spine. Jina had been convinced the Shadow-walkers were real. Had she seen something in those scrolls she wasn’t supposed to see? Was someone willing to kill to protect her secrets?

Matron was reading a scroll but looked up when Nisha walked into her study.

“Nisha, hello. I took your message to the Council, and they agreed to hold off on selling you for now. Akash was surprisingly open to the idea, though he made it clear the buyer is very impatient.”

Matron’s voice was dry with suspicion, but Nisha didn’t care. She had bought herself time. And with time, anything was possible. Maybe Devan would speak for her after all. The Council would never dare to turn down a nobleman’s son. If Devan could convince his parents before Akash or Kalia found out … Or maybe, if she had to, she could find the courage to escape.

Matron interrupted Nisha’s thoughts. “So what have you learned?”

Nisha sighed. “The poison that killed Jina came from Jade.” She repeated what Sashi had told her “But Sashi also said that only the people who made the paint had any access to the
gunia
seeds. I want to find out more about what Jina was working on. She said she was researching love poetry, but I’m not sure if that was all. I have a suspicion … that she might have been killed because she knew something she wasn’t supposed to.”

“Jina was known for her curious mind. I’m sure it never occurred to her that there could be something in the world that you’re not supposed to know,” Matron said with a wry smile. “It’s certainly a point worth pursuing.” She paused. “Do you think she found out about anything in particular?”

Nisha hesitated. If Jina was uncovering secrets in the Houses, one of the people who could have stood to gain by her death was Matron. Matron could have arranged for Jina’s death easily, could have agreed to let Nisha to investigate just to throw suspicion off herself.

But Matron was the only thing standing between her and life as a bond slave, and Nisha had to trust her. She did trust her.

“Jina told me something interesting the day before she died,” Nisha said. “She hinted that she’d sneaked into the House Mistress’s study and read the restricted scrolls there.”

Matron’s eyes widened. “Those scrolls are forbidden to novices. They’re for the House Mistress’s private use only.”

“But why?” Nisha leaned forward. “The whole point of being a scholar at the House of Jade is to learn the truth.”

“Knowledge isn’t a game of dice, Nisha,” Matron said, her words as sharp as the point of a knife. “You don’t win by finding out more than everyone else. Knowledge is dangerous. Certain … aspects of the Empire are dangerous. Girls might learn those secrets too, in time, but they will learn them under the tutelage of scholars who can guide them.”