Julia Vanishes (21 page)

I pass the rest of the afternoon skimming through the long, dry, semi-comprehensible tomes. The first book, as best as I can tell, is all overwrought tales of the exploits of these winged wizards in the old days: taming dragons, battling sea monsters, corralling wrongdoing witches, and such. The Xianren have been in the thick of things throughout history, if these books are to be believed. Mrs. Och was advisor to the first emperor of Yongguo, Hna, and that empire, the book claims, has thrived for millennia on cooperation between humans and witches. It wins for longevity, in any case. Not to be outdone in the founding of empires, Zor Gen, or Gennady, married the Witch of Parna and together they started the Parnese Empire, which lasted three hundred years, but by then Gennady had gone off walking and swimming around the world, fathering kings and warriors here and there, battling enchanted bears and rebellious witches, as one does, I suppose, if one is an immortal thrill seeker, and the empire fell. The third book tells me that the Xianren joined forces and spent centuries looking for something called Ragg Rock, but, I quote, “they could never find it; they were not welcomed by Ragg Rock, and this showed them the limitations of their power.” The fourth book is largely preoccupied with the Eshriki Empire, second only to the Yongguo in lasting power. The Eshriki Phars were witches and wanted something called
The Book of Disruption,
a magical text the Xianren had divided among them. The Xianren were all imprisoned at various points and forced to give up their part of the text, but it turned out that the witches could not read it—only the Xianren could—so that settled that, and the Xianren won out in the end simply by outliving the empire. Points for immortality. The book deems this conflict a turning point for the Xianren in that it became obvious their power was waning dramatically. They remained influential, however, and Lan Camshe helped found the Sirillian Empire, the first great empire to outlaw witchcraft. Och Farya goes quiet. Zor Gen leads various rampaging insurrections around the world. The Sirillian Empire falls and Lan Camshe retreats to the Isle of Nago, off the coast of Sirillia. They all seem to stand back from the Magic Wars, the Purges, and the rise of New Poria. The letters are starting to blur, and I can find nothing to suggest why Casimir might want to kidnap a little boy or why he would ally himself with the likes of Agoston Horthy while Mrs. Och quietly rescues the odd witch from their clutches.

The house is cold, none of the fires set, none of the lamps filled for evening. I put the books away, fetch water from the pump, and light the stove to heat it, then lug firewood up the stairs to lay the fires. The smell of rotten flowers—Bianka's magic, as I've come to recognize it—is everywhere. I can hear Bianka, Frederick, and Theo playing hide-and-seek in the music room now, sounding quite merry, all things considered. They've lit the fire themselves, so I do not disturb them. I carry the warm water and a rag to the hallway upstairs, where I kneel down and begin to scrub Mrs. Och's blood from the walls and rug.

I slip out after midnight, cross the river, and walk through the Plateau to West Spira. The windows of the hotel blaze with light. The doorman stands outside in a long fur, his breath puffing out of him white. He recognizes me, lets me by. There is hardly anyone in the lobby, though someone is tinkling away at the piano for the entertainment of the guests who aren't there. The uniformed staff behind the desk huddle together and stare, but nobody stops me. It is a different man at the elevator than usual.

“Top floor,” I say. “Room ten. She's expecting me.”

“She isn't really a foreign royal, is she?” he asks me as the elevator goes
clank-clank
ing upward.

“Is that what they say?” I ask.

“They say all type of thing,” he says. “But she's paid for the whole top floor. Distant relation to the Magyar king, I heard.”

I laugh, and he looks offended, lets me out without saying good night. I'd forgotten coins to tip him with.

Pia opens the door as soon as I knock. She is fully dressed in her long boots, trousers, and fitted leather coat. I wonder when she sleeps,
if
she sleeps, what she would wear to bed. Impossible to imagine Pia in a nightgown.

“I didn't know how to send you a message,” I say.

She gestures for me to sit, so I do.

“Are you all right?” I ask her.

The goggles whir. She pauses a moment before giving a short, bemused laugh. “I am,” she says. Another pause. “And you?”

I shrug. Pia sits across from me, slings one leg over the other, waits.

I tell her, “Frederick is supposed to visit my family in the morning to find out more about me. But they aren't real, which he'll find out, of course, when he goes to see them.”

Pia smiles as if this is amusing.

“And I know who sent the Gethin,” I add, feeling somehow that I owe her information. Not owe it in the sense that she is paying me for it, but owe it to
her.
She did save my life, and I suppose I am asking her to save me again. I am terrified of what Mrs. Och will do when she finds out the truth about me. “It was Agoston Horthy. He came to the house today.”

Pia's goggles whir in and out rapidly.

“What did he say?”

“He gave them until sundown tomorrow to hand over Theo and Bianka, but Mrs. Och kicked him out. I suppose he doesn't know about you yet. There was a creepy-looking fellow with him, one yellow eye and an eye patch.”

“Ah,” says Pia.

“That's all? Ah?” I say. And then, rather pathetically: “Anyway, I'm out. I can't go back there. She'll murder me.”

“Bring me the boy, and you never need to go back again.”

I have never been to sea, but I imagine this is what it feels like to be on a ship that is going down, and no land in sight to swim to.

“What's going to happen to him?” I try to keep my voice calm and steady.

“That is not my business,” she says. “Nor yours.” And then she is next to me, cupping my face in her cold hand as if she is going to kiss me. “Put it out of your mind, Julia. You are bound to your part.”

“I'm not,” I say, pulling my chin out of her hand. “I didn't know it would be kidnapping. I never agreed to that.”

Pia taps her fingernails against her knife, surveying me blankly. “You took the job and some money in advance and now you must complete it,” she says. “The boy will go to Casimir or to Agoston Horthy, in the end, and my own guess is that he will fare better with Casimir. Your Mrs. Och cannot protect him, and you might ask yourself if that is truly what she intends. It is far too late for second thoughts, Julia. There will be a hackney waiting for you at the corner all morning tomorrow.”

“There are probably soldiers watching the place now,” I say desperately.

“I'll make sure there aren't any tomorrow morning.”

We just stare at each other for a moment, and then with a rapid hiss of metal against leather, Pia draws her knife and holds it to my throat. I try to pull away from the sharp edge of the blade, but her other hand has closed around the back of my neck.

“You have two choices left: silver or death,” she says into my ear. “Do not attach yourself overmuch to one little boy, Julia. Do you weep for every child who meets a hard fate in this city? You have until noon tomorrow to bring him to me. If you do not, I can assure you that he will die by Agoston Horthy's order, and for a hundred nights to follow, you will find the fingers, toes, ears, and noses of a hundred little boys turning up on your pillow. They will die, those little boys, the ones you do not know or care for, because of your failure to obey me. And when I am done, I will find
you,
Julia, and I will show you how good I am with this knife, how long I can make dying last.”

She rises and puts away the knife, striding over to the window, hands clasped behind her. She speaks with her back to me.

“What do you think? Is he worth a hundred children? Is he worth your own life? Is it enough, or shall I add to the cost of mutiny?”

I am shaking so hard, I cannot speak. I manage to nod my head a little.

“Answer me out loud, Julia. If you don't care about little boys, I can find other means of persuasion. Shall I choose girls your own age to cripple and mutilate? Shall I burn down the Twist, one house at a time? Shall I butcher your employer, Esme, and make you watch? There is no limit, and the only alternative is obedience, for which you will be paid. Tell me when you agree.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I cannot hear you.”

My voice is a strangled thing, barely a voice. I push the words out: “I'll bring him.”

“Good. I will expect you in the morning.”

I get up and leave. Pia must have sent down a message, for the doorman has fetched me a motor cabriolet.

“I've no money,” I say.

“I'll be paid,” he answers, so I get in. He drives me back to the Scola, but when we turn down Mikall Street, the house is not there.

“Which one is it?” he asks, puzzled.

I'd laugh if I weren't so exhausted and terrified. The houses are all familiar, with their forbidding gates. There is no gap where Mrs. Och's house was before; it is simply gone, as if it had never been there at all. Alazne's Blind.

“I'll get out and walk,” I say.

I half hope that I will not be able to return, that Mrs. Och's strange spell will lock me out forever and this impossible choice, not really a choice at all, will be taken away from me. But once I am on foot, I come to the house immediately. The spell does not apply to me, I suppose, any more than the rhug considered me an intruder. I stare at the house, all its windows dark, and I cannot go in. I turn around and head for the Twist.

I let myself into our flat. The room smells like stale liquor. Dek is snoring in his little bunk, under a mound of blankets. I climb the ladder to my own bunk, where I haven't slept in weeks. I pull the blanket over me, and for a brief moment I feel like a small child again, home and safe. It only lasts a moment, though, and for all that I'm bone-weary, sleep takes hours to come.