City of a Thousand Dolls (28 page)

Tac had been inching closer, carrying Nisha as she talked, and now they were within touching distance of Zann.

“Zann,” Nisha said as gently as she could. “Who asked you to get the seeds? Who poisoned Jina?”

Zann’s fingers closed around the paper harp pick, crumpling it. “You’ll never believe me. No one will. It’s just my word against theirs.”

“I’ll believe you, Zann.” Nisha reached out one hand. “I promise. Just tell me.”

“No!” Panic had replaced the sorrow on Zann’s face, and she scrambled to her feet. “Stay away!” Zann lifted the sitt-harp over her head. “I paid too much for this. I won’t let you take it away from me.” More tears leaked from her eyes, and the crumpled harp pick fell from her hand. “Please go away. Please.”

She took a quick step, away from Nisha, and her foot turned on a loose piece of brick. She staggered and fell backward, the sitt-harp flying from her hands. Slowly, inevitably, the instrument bounced against the rim of the roof and fell out of sight.

Zann gave a single shriek that sliced through Nisha like a sword.

“No!” she cried. Then she ran toward the edge of the roof.

“Zann!” Nisha flung herself out of Tac’s arms. Her fingers touched Zann’s sweaty hand, her wrist—

Strong hands caught her just before she hit the rough brick of the roof, and her outstretched hands grasped only emptiness.

She heard a soft thump.

“Zann,” Nisha whispered as Tac pressed Nisha against him. He held her tightly as she stared into the cold, hollow air. “Oh, Zann.”

NISHA WAITED IN one of the low chairs in Matron’s study. Tac had gone to find Matron—or Josei, Nisha wasn’t sure—and she was alone. Through the open door of the study, she could see servants running back and forth, their faces focused and set, platters of food and jugs of wine in their hands, preparing for the masquerade.

Pavilion Field was full of people. Nisha had seen it as Tac carried her into the Council House. The sounds of music and laughing, the murmur of voices, the clang of staffs and swords. Everything Nisha had been waiting for. Now it seemed hollow, empty.

Her mind felt stuck like a cart wheel in mud. Zann was dead. If Nisha had done something different, said something different, could she have stopped it?

Mistakes
, she thought.
I am making mistakes and I am losing everything
.

She rubbed her hand over her face. Her leg ached and the blank eyes of the dead girls spun in her head.

Atiy.

Jina.

Lashar.

Zann.

Zann, stroking the sitt-harp like it was the most precious thing in the world, playing with the paper harp pick—

Nisha’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud argument in the hall. Peering through the door, she saw Kalia confront Matron. The woman’s usually spotless white asar was disheveled, and she held a girl by the arm.

Chandra.

Nisha held herself perfectly still. Instinct—and the sharp twist of Kalia’s mouth—told her not to move.

“You mean to tell me you know nothing about how my assistant got into your library?” Kalia hissed. “I told you, I don’t want her in there.”

She flung Chandra to Matron’s feet and the girl crouched there, quivering, her face gray.

The corners of Matron’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “Kalia, if you can’t control your own assistant—”

“I can’t control her with you undermining me! I know you let her into the library, and I know it was you who gave her that botany scroll I found under her bed.”

Matron’s expression didn’t change. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kalia stepped forward and grabbed Chandra’s arm again. “What I want is for you to stop interfering. Or maybe I’ll just take
your
assistant.”

“That’s not why you want Nisha,” Matron said. “You want Nisha because you want to take her away from me.” Her face took on a peculiar look of anger and regret. “You’ve wanted to take away something I cared about since I was appointed as Matron and you weren’t. We were allies, friends before.”

Kalia’s knuckles went white, and Chandra whimpered. “That was another time,
Madri
.” She spit out Matron’s given name. “Now the Council’s on my side.”

“Oh, Kalia.” Matron sighed. “Everything is about power with you. Power has always been the tar’Vay curse; you love it too much. I should never have given you more.”

The expression on Kalia’s face made Nisha shrink back in her chair. “You’re about to fall, Madri,” Kalia said. “Akash and I will see to it. And when you go down, Nisha will, too.”

“Enough.” Matron’s voice was a shard of ice, sharp enough to draw blood. She took three deliberate steps that brought her face-to-face with Kalia.

“I may have been forced into my role as Nisha’s protector,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it seriously. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Not even if it’s the only way to save the Houses?” Kalia asked in a silk-and-daggers voice.

Matron didn’t answer.

“I thought so. As for you,” Kalia said, hauling Chandra to her feet, “you and I are going to have another
talk
.”

Kalia dragged her shrinking assistant away, Matron staring after them. Then she turned and saw Nisha through the open study door. For a moment, her face looked old and sad. Her smooth mask then dropped into place, like the closing of a window. She walked into the room to stand across from Nisha.

“I heard about Zann,” she said.

“How could you do it?” Nisha cried. “How could you let that woman take Chandra away? Kalia could kill her!”

“Kalia has never seriously hurt an assistant before,” Matron said, sounding far less sure than Nisha would’ve liked. “What happens to one girl is not my biggest problem right now.”

“What if that girl were me?” Nisha asked quietly.

Matron flinched. “Nisha, try to understand. I have to think of the greater good, the survival of this estate.”

“This place doesn’t deserve to survive!” Nisha said. The anger felt good and drove out the grief she’d lived with for days. “I don’t understand how you can stand to lead the City. All the manipulation, treating girls like pieces on a game board. Stefan was right about you.”

“So you saw your uncle?” Matron’s voice held a curious twinge of satisfaction. “What did Stefan have to say?”

Nisha gripped the arms of her chair. “He said this was an evil place. And I think he’s right. There’s nothing good here.”

“Nothing?” Matron pointed at Nisha, her thin, bony finger aimed straight as any dagger. “There are almost a thousand girls here, girls we feed and clothe and keep safe. Do you know what people were doing with their baby girls before the City of a Thousand Dolls? They were leaving them to die. Infants still wet from afterbirth were left in the forests for the wolves to eat. Children barely old enough to walk were killed by their own parents, smothered in the night and burned in the cremation fires.” She pulled out a scroll from her shelves and slapped it on the desk.

“Do you want to read about it? It’s all written down, the stories passed from matron to matron so we never, ever, forget why we are here.”

Nisha stared at Matron as the woman went on ruthlessly.

“Do you know what will happen in the Imperial Court if the City falls? The citizens of the Empire accept the two-child law only because we tell them that the City of a Thousand Dolls is a safe place for their daughters. If there were no City, the Emperor might lose the support of the people. That’s what our opponents in the Imperial Court don’t understand: opponents who don’t like the money spent on the City, and opponents who oppose what we do. Shut down the City, and you open the doors to war.
Another
war.”

Nisha felt as if Matron’s words were a river, sweeping her away. Was this what the world was like? Pain and anger on every side and no way to find a right answer for any of it? Were there no certainties anywhere?

“I understand your questions, Nisha,” Matron said, her voice gentler. “But we do good things here. We are the only people in the Bhinian Empire who dare to take a child born in one caste and train her for another. We’re the only ones
allowed
to.”

Matron waved a hand. “This place takes money, Nisha. Raising all these children, feeding them, training them as novices, all of it requires money. And we get it from the clients who pay for these girls. Some girls are sacrificed for the greater good. I understand if you have a hard time accepting that. But don’t you dare sit in judgment on it unless you’re ready to accept the alternative.”

Nisha couldn’t find words to respond. It was true—she’d always known this. The City of a Thousand Dolls took in those no one else wanted, gave them a caste, a home. These walls had sheltered Nisha from the danger that had killed her parents. Here, girls born into lower castes could marry royalty. Even Sashi, who might have been rejected for her blindness, had had a future because of the City of a Thousand Dolls. A good one.

If Nisha could save it for her.

She jerked back to the present. “Matron,” she said, ”Sashi isn’t the killer!”

Matron looked sharply at her. “What?”

“I saw someone at the quarry, just before the boulder fell on me. It had to be the murderer stopping me from asking questions. There’s no way Sashi could have done it.”

“If someone pushed that rock onto you, it would clear Sashi,” Matron agreed. “But how can you be sure someone was there at all? Perhaps the boulder just rolled over on its own. It could have been a terrible accident, Nisha. The quarry is a dangerous place.”

Nisha frowned. “No, I’m sure it was pushed, and I know I saw someone. A shadow—someone close to my size.”

“Perhaps you did,” Matron said. “But that’s not a lot to go on. With Zann’s death, we cannot afford any more mistakes.” A spasm of pain crinkled her eyes. “What happened on that roof?”

Nisha closed her eyes. Her words came from a leaden place in her chest.

“Zann stole the seeds for whoever poisoned Jina. She gave them to someone in exchange for a Music asar, so she could sneak into the House of Music. But she wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

Matron folded her hands in front of her. “Nisha … is it possible Zann herself killed those girls? She snapped.”

Nisha looked at Matron. “You should have seen Zann on the roof. She was so tormented just for getting those seeds. Someone manipulated her.”

“But Nisha, how can you be sure?” Matron asked. “Zann had clear motive to hate the City. She had free run of the House of Jade. It would have been very easy for her to put the poison in Jina’s seeds. And she could have pretended to be running errands, sneaked into the House of Beauty, and stabbed Lashar.”

“And Atiy? Why would Zann kill a girl she’d never met?” Nisha shook her head. “No, I can’t let you put this on Zann. Not when she can’t defend herself anymore.”

“Nisha, without someone else to take the blame, the Council won’t drop the charges against Sashi,” Matron said, each word as blunt as a mallet strike. “At the very least, Akash will insist that we throw her out of the City.”

“Sashi is innocent!” Urgency made Nisha’s voice high and harsh. “If you turn her out, she’ll have no way to survive!”

“Quite possibly,” Matron said, meeting Nisha’s eyes. “It’s a pity that Zann couldn’t have confessed to the killings, isn’t it? Then we could know with certainty that Sashi wasn’t involved.”

Nisha felt a stubborn flame rise inside her. Zann might have resented her and have stolen the seeds that killed Jina, but Sashi had been right when she said Zann hadn’t hurt anyone. Nisha had no intention of seeing either of them take the blame for three murders. Besides, if Nisha said that Zann was the killer, she would be damaging more than Zann’s memory. She would be leaving the real murderer free to kill again.

“I won’t give up,” Nisha said, meeting Matron’s eyes without blinking. “I will find out who did this.”

Matron looked away. “Very well,” she said. “But in the meantime, I need you. The masquerade is tonight, and we’ll be shorthanded without Zann.”

The change in subject startled Nisha. “But … I can’t go like this.” She waved at the heavy cast on her foot. “That place will be full of Flower caste.” Her eyes blurred at the memory of Devan’s cruel words.

Matron’s eyes fell on Nisha’s foot. “You can sit at the Redeeming table and take fees. Your foot will be under the table covering, and no one will see it.”

Nisha grimaced. The Redeeming table was set up in the House of Flowers foyer, at the base of the marble staircase. Someone from the Council House took Redeeming fees for the girls bought throughout the evening. Nisha had always volunteered for the kitchens to avoid the Redeeming table.

But as long as Matron needed her for something, the Council might leave her alone. If Nisha agreed, she would be safe, at least for the evening.

The only thing she had now was time, and not very much of it. She would save every second, no matter what she had to do.

“I’ll do it,” she said. She looked down at herself. She was still wearing the skirt and blouse the Kildi had given her, and they were dirty and smudged from the long trip through the forest. “But I have to change.”

Matron nodded. “You have a few hours. I’ll send someone for you.”

Nisha turned to see Tac in the doorway.

“Get some rest, Nisha,” Matron said. “You’ll be very busy tonight.”

This is what the Lotus Throne decrees:

First: No girl in the City of a Thousand Dolls shall be judged by her birth. Upon entering the City, each girl will be considered casteless until she is spoken for, at which time she will receive the appropriate caste mark and be given a place in the Bhinian Empire.

Second: Let all who would claim a girl pay an agreed-on price, to compensate the City for her training. No girl shall be spoken for without the formal exchange of coin.

Third: If a man pays in advance, the girl shall be trained as he specifies. If he comes to claim her and finds her unsatisfactory, he may demand the return of his money or ask to be given another girl instead.

Fourth: Once a year, the City shall host a great Redeeming Ceremony. The girls shall display their training and beauty so that all who come may honor the wisdom of the Lotus Throne in creating and maintaining such a city. At that time, any who seek a wife or apprentice may choose from the available girls.