Of Metal and Wishes (23 page)

My eyes keep flicking toward Melik, even though I keep my head down. Finally Vie slaps my hand. “I have no idea why you’re trying to be shy about it. Half the compound saw you with him the day of the explosion. Lati said it was disgusting.”

“Lati is disgusting, so I hardly think he has the right to judge,” I snap. And then, because the silent strain of the last few days has simply been too much, I stand up and brush my hand over my shoulder at her. Vie’s mouth drops wide open at the insult, and she doesn’t recover before I walk away. Melik and I lock eyes as I stride from the cafeteria, and I relive the seconds I’ve spent in his arms. It’s enough to carry me straight to Bo’s altar. Because of what’s at stake. Because
everything
is at stake. I kneel in front of it.

“I’m ready to keep my promise,” I say. “But I can’t come to you.” I’m quite sure I wouldn’t make it without being gutted by the spiders.

“Meet me, then,” he whispers through the grate, and it sounds like he’s right there, close enough to breathe in my ear. He gives me my instructions, and we make our plans.

I feel grimly powerful as I continue to dig through the rubble in Mugo’s office this afternoon, because I am protecting what is mine. Bo has promised not to harm the people I care about as long as I visit him, and it is the one thing I can offer the Noor, this protection. It might be nothing, and it might be everything. It really depends on Bo.

I am in the depths of these thoughts when there is a knock at the entrance of Mugo’s office suite. I look up to see Melik walk in, his jaw set. Mugo emerges from his office to see who’s arrived. “What do you want?” he snaps. “I’ve already received your stupid demands.”

Melik’s brow furrows. “You sent for me.” He holds up a note, and it looks exactly like the ones I deliver all the time to various unlucky workers. But I didn’t deliver anything to anyone this afternoon.

Mugo puts his hands on his skinny hips. “I didn’t send for you, idiot, so get back to your dorm.”

Melik frowns. “But it says—”

Mugo snatches the note from his hand. “I don’t care what it says!” he shouts. “Do I look like I have time to help you figure out where you should be?”

Melik looks down at me, his eyes full of questions, but I can’t answer any of them. I shrug helplessly.

“Quit looking at Wen like she knows more than I do!” Mugo rushes over to me and pulls me up hard by the arm. It hurts too much for me to keep silent and still, and I try to wrench myself away, but that only seems to anger him more. He slaps my hip.

Melik steps forward so quickly that Mugo flinches. “Let her go, now. You have no right to hit her.”

“Get out!” Mugo shrieks, and his fear is apparent to all of us, which completely enrages him. Droplets of spittle fly from his gaping mouth. Veins stick out on his forehead. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t transfer you by morning! Get! Out!” he roars.

But he’s let go of me, and I scoot out of his reach. Melik looks at me like he’s afraid to leave, but I nod him away because Mugo might transfer Melik right now if he doesn’t obey. These demands . . . the workers are simply trying to get what’s fair, but as soon as Mugo finds his balance sheets and their signed contracts, he’ll have proof of their debt. A strike may only make it easier for him to sell them to the camps.

Melik reluctantly backs himself out the door. The underboss’s fit has drawn the attention of the workers cleaning up the last of the boiler explosion debris. They stare at Melik as he pivots on his heel and walks away, and then they all turn their heads to me and Mugo.

“Get back to work!” Mugo shouts. His face is as red as a beet. “Get back to work or you’ll be fined for inefficiency!”

That clears everyone out pretty quickly. And fortunately for me, Mugo seems too upset to deal with me and disappears into his office, slamming the door again. I finish my shift and tiptoe out, grateful to have escaped with only a bruised arm and hip.

I wipe myself down with a wet cloth, trying to rid myself of the plaster dust and ash. I change into my deep purple wool dress with grape leaves curling along the sleeves and neckline. This is one of my last untouched dresses, and maybe I shouldn’t even be wearing it, seeing as I might need to sell it to Khan sometime soon, but I don’t want to go to Bo looking like a servant girl. I want him to see me well, because I think that is what is best for him—and everyone else in the factory.

My father is in his clinic when I descend the stairs. “Going out?”

“For a walk,” I say, surprised at his attention. He and I have barely spoken to each other since that night in the square.

He doesn’t look up from his medical text. “How was work?”

His play at fatherly concern sends a hard jolt of anger through me, and I finally say the words that have been eating at my heart. “It was a transfer, wasn’t it? Mugo threatened to transfer you to a labor camp if you didn’t allow me to work for him.”

That brings my father’s head up. His mouth opens and closes a few times. “How did you know about the transfers?”

“Melik told me.” My fists are clenched. I would never want my father to be sent to a labor camp—but knowing he was willing to sell my virginity and maybe my future to avoid that fate
hurts
.

“Wen, I . . .” He closes his eyes and rubs his hand over his face.

It’s enough. As good as a confession. Unable to spend another minute with him, I storm out of the room.

I WRENCH THE STAIRWELL
door open, and instead of going down, I climb. Bo reassured me that there are no traps on the upper floors, so I move quickly. He told me to meet him for the dinner hour, and it’s just started. I open the door to the fourth floor and walk across a narrow room lined on both sides with huge pipes. I reach a door that takes me to another staircase, this one rickety and metal. The air is cool here, and I’m glad for my wool dress and overcoat.

The next door opens onto the roof. There is a railing along the edge. I tread gingerly and am careful not to look down. I love the smoky open air, which is fresher than the stale killing smells inside of the factory, but I do not want to see how far I could fall. As I approach the rear of the factory, where the smokestacks jut into the sky, the roof flattens out and opens up.

I can see all of the Ring from here, and it is beautiful in the smoggy sunset, just starting to glow in the evening dim. I understand why Bo likes being up here. I look around, expecting to see him.

He’s not here.

I turn in place and spot a table and chairs nestled at the base of a smokestack. I can tell they are Bo’s. The chairs are beautifully wrought, all metal, of course, but there are plump cushions on each of them, probably lifted from the textile factory. I sit down in one of them and look out on the Ring. The streetlamps and pink lights are flaring to life. Decorations from First Holiday hang from every post and pole, the red and green and yellow garlands, the papier-mâché dragon heads that ward off the evil spirits that come with the cold north wind.

I shiver and pull my overcoat tight around my body, wondering if Bo could have forgotten me. When I can’t sit still any longer, I get up and stroll to the edge of the roof, bidding my good-byes to the view so I can go back inside and take a hot bath, and prepare myself for whatever’s coming late tonight when the strike deadline arrives. If something happens, my father’s clinic will fill up quickly, and no matter how I feel about him, I will help him take care of the injured.

A door slams in the distance and hard-heeled footsteps clomp along the rooftop. Bo stops when he sees there’s no one at the table, but then he spots me and jogs over. His metal arm is encased in a shirtsleeve tonight. He’s wearing slacks and a dark button-up shirt, like he’s one of the bosses’ sons who live on the Hill. But when he turns his head, his black eye glows within his metal half-face.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. “I was working on something new, and the time got away from me.”

“It’s all right,” I say. “I needed to get out of the clinic anyway.”

“Did Guiren have a particularly gory patient?” He draws a deep breath and clicks his metal fingers together. I shudder because it reminds me of the spiders, and the clicking stops.

“No, that kind of thing doesn’t bother me.”

Bo chuckles. “You are a very unusual girl. I was talking to Guiren the other day, and he’s got it in his head that you should go to medical school.”

I scoff, but really, the mention of medical school stings. “My father is a smart man, but not a very practical one.”

“He said you have the mind for it.”

“But not the money. Didn’t he tell you? Mugo owns him. He threatened to transfer my father to a labor camp.”

“You think Guiren sold you.” Bo’s black eye nearly blinds me with its light as he turns to me. “You’re wrong, Wen. Mugo didn’t threaten to send your father to the labor camps.” He nudges my chin up with his fingers. “He threatened to send
you
.”

I reach for the railing as my understanding of my father shifts on its axis. “Me?”

Bo nods, and the moonlight bounces off his metal face. “Guiren agonized over it. Mugo gave him a choice—you as his secretary or you shipped to a labor camp at sixteen.”

I am choking on my guilt. I can’t speak.

“He wanted to keep you with him. He decided this might be the lesser of two evils, though truly, I think he might regret it.”

“Why?” Because I am such a brat? Because I only think of myself, and not what this is like for my father? Who could blame him if he thinks that?

“Because he has to watch you go through it. Every day he wonders if Mugo will ruin you. He’s been waiting for it. It’s killing him, but he doesn’t want to burden you with his own fear. He doesn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

I cover my face with my hands. I cannot bear the weight of this on top of my own terror.

“Neither you nor Guiren should worry. I promised you I would keep you safe,” he says fiercely, but it isn’t enough for me, only another reminder that the danger is real, that the clock is ticking.

Bo is quiet. I think he’s waiting for me to look up, to thank him, to relax, but I can’t. Then he sighs and says quietly, “I love this view.”

He has changed the shape of the conversation in exactly the way I need.

I slowly remove my hands and gaze out at the Ring, only patterns of yellow light in the darkness now. “It’s lovely.” I look up at his human side, at the warm smile on his face. “Do you ever think of actually . . . going out there?”

The smile dims. “I think of it, sure.”

“And where do you dream of going?”

He moves a little closer to me. “I dream of the seashore, and it’s all your fault.”

We laugh a bit, a few musical notes carried on the fog of our breath. “There’s nothing stopping you, Bo, not really.”

He makes a regretful sound. “Only the fact that I’m dead.”

I slip my arm through his because I do not want him to feel alone in this moment. “Surely a ghost who has done such amazing things can manage to resurrect himself.”

I gaze at his full face, and in the moonlight it is beautiful. Hesitantly he takes my hand, and his is warm and real, full of might-have-beens. “You make me want to,” he says. “You make me want too many things, Wen.”

It hurts him, I know, when I bow my head. I can’t say what he needs to hear: that I want the same things he wants. In another time and place, maybe, but not here, not now, not with Melik ruling my dreams with his jade eyes and the electric strength that rolls from him even when he is quiet and still. Bo has a different kind of power and is just as strong, but his is a restless and dangerous energy, too prone to cruelty, too childlike to make me feel safe.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He squeezes my hand. “I know,” he whispers, and lets me go, turning to look out at the Ring. “It’s late. You should get back.”

I am shamefully relieved that he is letting me go so easily, that he doesn’t require any more from me tonight. “Good night, Bo,” I say, and I leave him there, lit by the moon, and return to the clinic.

My father is still at his desk, hunched over something he holds in his hands. I pull off my overcoat and stand over him. “Can I make you some tea?”

He blinks at me. “That would be nice.”

I lean over and kiss his forehead, right on top of the worry lines that crease his brow. He sits back, and I see he is cradling a portrait of my mother. She smiles up at me—a heart-shaped face, a wide forehead and slightly pointed chin just like mine, and a winsome playfulness that I lack. She is beautiful, my mother.

She was beautiful.

“When she got sick, I offered to take a leave from this job to take care of her,” he whispers. “She wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want our debts to rise any higher.”

I swallow, and my throat hurts. My fingers flutter at my neck. That’s where the sickness was, the cancer, my father called it. It stole her voice and made it hard for her to breathe. Then, at the end, it was everywhere. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything but try to hold her moans inside. She wanted to keep her dignity. She wanted to be a fine lady to the end.

But I wanted to keep my mother with me. My father and I conspired to sneak each of her lovely dresses out of her bedroom while she was sleeping, selling them to Khan to buy her the dried reishi mushrooms and foxglove root and dozens of other herbs we hoped would cure her, as well as the opium to ease her suffering. My father sent me instructions, and I followed them to the letter, slipping medicine into her tea, making poultices and vapor baths. Still she didn’t get better. My father did take a whole week off right at the end, and until the last hour I believed he might save her, that he could do something I couldn’t.

“Could you have healed her, if she’d let you come earlier?” I’m whispering too. This is too painful to talk about in full voice.

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. And she wouldn’t go to the hospital. She never did like those places.” He chuckles sadly. “Rather ironic, I always thought.”

I touch his shoulder. “She wanted to be at home. She felt best there. She told me that.”

He strokes his thumb along her face. “She was a strong woman, and it was hard to stop her when she had her mind set on something. You are very much like her in that way.” His bony frame trembles beneath my fingers. “I miss her so much, Wen,” he says in a halting voice. His hand fumbles up to clutch my arm and pull me to him. “I feel like I’m failing her. And I know I’m failing you.”

I put my arms around him, trying to hold him together even though we’re both shaking with sobs we don’t want to let loose. “It’s all right,” I say, my voice cracking.

He lets out a wheezy laugh. “We both know nothing could be further from the truth.”

That’s how we’re standing, awkwardly hugging, when Ebian bursts into the clinic. He reeks of vomit and it’s dripping from his chin.

“Dr. Guiren,” he pants, clutching at his chest. “You have to come. I . . . just . . . you have to . . .”

My father stands up, hastily wiping at his eyes. “Of course, Foreman Ebian. What’s happened? Are you ill? Injured?” He pulls out his pocket watch and glances at it. I know why—it’s still a few hours to midnight. We didn’t expect violence before then.

Ebian shakes his head. His toasted-almond skin is almost green. “It’s not me. Not me.” His stomach heaves and he doubles over, retching. “You have to come.”

“Has there been an accident?” My father has grabbed the medical kit he takes with him on his rounds to dorms, but judging from the way Ebian is acting, I don’t think a few opium sticks and bandages are going to be enough. “Where are we going?”

“The killing floor,” says Ebian, already in the doorway.

My father gestures to me to grab the other end of the stretcher we keep for cases where we might have to transport the patient, and I obey. “I thought no one was allowed on the killing floor until midnight,” he says.

“No one is. It’s not one of the workers.”

We stare at him.

Ebian wipes his mouth and grimaces. “It’s Mugo.”