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Ayo stood silently next to me, watching the
city with eyes that betrayed nothing.

“It’s horrifying,” I said, because I had to
say something, but the word was both too simple and too hyperbolic
to capture what I felt. I’d known the damage would be immense, but
it still hadn’t prepared me.

“I never saw much of it.” Ayo shrugged. “I
don’t even know where he lived.”

The commercial docks were mostly empty,
confirming our suspicions that those with access to watercraft had
abandoned the city. A surprising number of yachts remained in the
private dock of the pureborns, although several were out place,
having apparently been cut loose and allowed to crash into nearby
boats. A few leaned sideways against their moorings.

“What happened here?” Ayo asked.

“I’m not sure.” It seemed clear that very few
of the nobles had escaped, but why hadn’t anybody else taken the
boats that remained?

Getting the Miredhel into the dock proved
trickier than taking her out had been. I imagined Donato wincing as
his yacht struck the floating docks, but eventually we got her tied
up. We gathered our few belongings. I lingered at the door of the
closet, the liquid silk of the white robe rippling over my fingers.
It belonged here on the yacht, not in the day-to-day wreckage of
the city, but I hated the thought of some looter finding it. I
didn’t want it sullied by the hands of a thief.

The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on
me.

In the end, I took the robe with me, along
with what was left of our food, stuffing it all into Ayo’s small
bag, along with the rest of our clothes, and we left the Miredhel
behind.

We found the gate at the end of the ramp still
locked, although the lock was so battered, I feared for a moment it
would be jammed and we wouldn’t be able to get out.

“They couldn’t get through,” Ayo
said.

“Looks that way.” Which meant the only way
they could get to the yachts was if they swam, and I suspected very
few of the citizens of Lower Davlova were proficient swimmers. Even
fewer probably knew enough about boats or navigation to get
anywhere.

Once through the gate, we began walking slowly
south, through the first quadrant. Up close, it was easier to see
the extent of the destruction. Every single building showed signs
of damage. Stone buildings were charred, and those that had been
built of wood were mostly gone. Hulking piles of blackened wood lay
on many corners. An obvious effort had been made to clear the
larger roads, but side roads and alleys were mostly impassable.
Everything was black, and although the smoke was long gone, the
city felt hot and dry. I imagined I could feel coals still
smoldering beneath my feet.

Not surprisingly, Davlova stank too, not only
of fire and ash, but of death and decay. I wondered how many of the
collapsed and ruined buildings we passed still held the remains of
the dead.

The people we saw were like ghosts, silent and
somehow insubstantial. Some of them angry, but some had eyes that
seemed lost and vacant. Here and there, I saw groups working to
clear debris, maybe searching the ruins for remains, but other
people seemed oblivious, sitting lifelessly on burned doorsteps, or
hurrying about their business, their eyes darting fitfully from one
thing to the next, doing their best not to see the wreckage around
them. We were still in the first quadrant, but many of the people
we passed had the furtive, desperate look I’d seen far too often in
the trenches, and I kept my right hand close to the knife at my
belt.

But for all the damage it had sustained, the
first quadrant had been mainly commercial. As we rounded the
southeastern edge of the city and entered the fourth quadrant, I
had to fight back the urge to cry. On our right side, closer to the
wall, the buildings were made of white brick, albeit now stained as
black as coal. Here and there, glimpses of the white stone were
visible, glittering in the angled light of the late-afternoon sun,
but on our left lay utter devastation. Very little work had been
done here. Brick buildings stood like sentinels among the blackened
and flattened remains of the trenches.

It was utterly surreal walking through the
ruins of something that had once been so familiar. A part of my
brain rejected this new reality. I suddenly understood the empty
gazes of the people we’d passed. This was too much to accept. Too
brutal to fathom. It was like stumbling through a hellish
dreamscape.

I surveyed what I could see of the trenches,
picking out buildings I knew and alleys I’d once frequented. I was
too far away from Roxy Lane to get even a glimpse of Anzhéla’s
theatre, but I could imagine how it would be, the red brick pitted
and stained, the stone gargoyles on top leering and laughing at
their own blackened state. They were probably the only things in
the city that fit comfortably into this hellish landscape, hunched
like vultures over the ruin below.

The theatre was brick and would still be
standing, but what about inside? Had she been gutted by the flames?
And what about the underground den beneath her floor? Had Anzhéla’s
kids survived? Or had they been baked like fish in the
coals?

I wasn’t ready to face it. It had housed me
for thirteen years of my life, but it hadn’t been my home for the
last couple of months.

“Here,” I said, stopping outside of Talia’s.
Like every other white stone building, it was stained with soot.
The shingled roof was mostly gone, but the door had been scrubbed
clean and painted with a new coat of bright red paint.

The whores were still in business.

I’d never been through the front door before.
That was for customers. I led Ayo around the back, into the charred
ruin of the back garden where wet laundry hung on a line. The clean
white blouses and bloomers seemed strangely out of place, ruffling
gently in the breeze, like flags flying in the face of
defeat.

“What is this place?”

“A whorehouse.”

“Is this where you worked?”

“I was only ever a whore for Donato, but yes,
this was where I lived. Hopefully Talia will let us stay for a few
nights.” Or at least until I came up with some kind of
plan.

The white-washed back door had a hand-written
sign tacked to it announcing that there were no positions
available. I led Ayo through the door and into the whorehouse’s
large, airy kitchen. The smell was at once familiar — fried fish
and fresh-baked bread — but familiar or not, even this didn’t feel
like home. I’d never really been more than a visitor
here.

Several girls sat around the rough wood table.
Conversation stopped as every head in the room turned our way,
their mouths making small circles of surprise at our
intrusion.

“Misha,” one of them said, standing. It was
Lilja, one of the women who’d sometimes helped prepare me for my
evenings with Donato, and one of the few who’d escaped Benedict’s
raid. “Where have you been?”

“In Deliphine.”

“We thought you were dead.”

“I…” I stopped, unsure how to respond. I’d
wondered how my friends had faired, but it hadn’t occurred to me
that my own fate might be as much of a mystery to them. Did they
all assume I’d perished? “I just got back.”

“Are you looking for work?”

“I need to see Talia.”

Every girl at the table winced. Every pair of
eyes suddenly turned away from me to stare sightlessly down at the
table. I didn’t need them to tell me what that meant. Somehow,
Talia hadn’t survived.

“Who’s in charge now?”

Lilja almost smiled. “Second floor, second
door on the right. It should be open.”

The stairway was narrow, forcing us to walk
single-file. The white walls on both sides showed signs of having
been scrubbed recently. “Misha?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be a whore.”

“You won’t be.”

“I don’t want you to be one,
either.”

“Don’t worry.” I’d never wanted to be one to
begin with. I certainly didn’t plan on falling back on it now. If
my money ran out, I’d go back to picking pockets before I turned
tricks.

I found the room Lilja indicated. It was
almost identical to the room I’d had during my stay. It was cramped
but clean. A small window looked out over the sooty street. The
difference was in the furnishings: instead of a narrow cot in the
corner, I found a rather cluttered desk, and Lalo sitting behind
it.

“Misha!” He crossed the room in three long
strides and wrapped me in a tight hug. “I can’t tell you glad I am
to see you.”

I happily returned his embrace, nearly
overwhelmed by the surge of warmth that filled me. “It’s good to
see you too.” The simple sentiment didn’t convey the depth of my
feelings. My relief at seeing Lalo safe and healthy raised a lump
in my throat. I could have stood there in his arms all night. For
the first time, I felt like maybe I’d come home after
all.

He stepped back to look me over, holding me by
my shoulders. “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “You left that night,
and nobody’s seen you since.”

“We fled to Deliphine. I wanted to come home
sooner, but…there were complications.”

He laughed. “Well, now you’re back, you’ll
wish you’d stayed away.”

He turned then to Ayo, and I introduced them.
Lalo shook his hand warmly, but I caught the curiosity in his eyes
as he glanced my way.

“Come in,” Lalo said, gesturing toward the
rickety wooden chairs by his desk. “Sit down.”

I took a seat opposite him, remembering the
many hours I’d spent facing him across a chess board. Now, a mound
of paper occupied the space between us. Only one clear spot
remained on the desktop, directly in front of him. “I’d offer you a
drink, but with the shortage…”

“Shortage? On wine?”

“On everything, really. We have a bit of wine
left, and half bottle of whiskey, and a little brandy, but we’re
saving it for the customers.”

“You can’t buy more?”

“Not for any kind of reasonable price. So much
was lost in the fire, and the merchants from Deliphine haven’t come
since that night.”

“Nothing from overseas? What does that
leave?”

“Not much. Beef and mutton from the other side
of the island, but only if you can afford to pay outrageous prices.
There’s talk of rationing flour and eggs, but I don’t think there’s
enough of it left in the city to parcel out. It’s the same way with
soap, of all things. They damn near had a riot in the plaza the
other day over a case somebody found in an abandoned
laundry.”

“A case of soap? You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. It’s as good as gold right now,
because nobody can find it. People are raving about price-gouging
and hoarding, but there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s exactly
like it always was — either you’re broke and starving, or you’re
loaded and taking everything worth having.”

I remembered all too clearly the promises of
the yellow-robed men and their fliers. “So much for redistribution
of wealth.”

“Well, they claim that’ll happen eventually.
But there’s so much left to be done, and too few people to do it.
Thank goodness for the few fishermen who didn’t abandon us. They’re
keeping the city fed.”

“And yet,” I gestured around him, at his
cramped office, “you’re still in business.”

He laughed. “Funny, isn’t it? We’re as busy as
ever. You’d think those with money left would be more cautious
about how they spent it, but seems all they can think to do is
hoard beef and get laid.”

“But you’re not hiring?”

He shook his head, the amusement evaporating
from his face. “There’s so little honest work available around the
city. Nobody needs maids or cooks or private tutors these days. The
laundries all burned, and the seamstresses are no better off. I’ve
never seen so many people wanting to be whores. I still turn away
half a dozen each day, sometimes girls so young, they probably
haven’t even had their first blood yet. Some of them so old, I
don’t have the heart to tell them nobody would pay for their
services. I hired too many, in those first few days, before I
realized how it would be.” He shook his head again. He reached out
to place his hand on the top of his desk, as if reassuring himself
that it was real. “I’ve worked as a whore my whole life, but I
wasn’t really prepared for this.”

“You’re in charge now?”

“Yes,” he said, without looking up from that
scarred, cluttered desktop.

“And Talia?”

He swallowed. “The fire. There were two girls
on the top floor when the roof caught. She must have gone in after
them…” He wiped angrily at the tears on his cheeks. His hands were
shaking. I glimpsed a horrible emptiness hiding in his eyes — the
same emptiness I’d seen on the faces of the displaced residents of
the trenches.

“I’m sorry.”

He jerked his head in a semblance of a nod.
“Were you still here?”

“We left right as the city began to
burn.”

“Then you’re lucky.” He shuddered. “You have
no idea how lucky. It was chaos. I’ve never seen anything like it.
The whole city burning, and people running in every direction,
screaming and crying. People on fire. Horses burning alive in the
carriage houses. I could hear them. I
still
hear them,
screaming in pain.” He put his fingers over his ears, as if he
could silence them now. “There was a narrow strip in the middle of
the avenue. It felt like everybody in the city was trying to stand
in it. Nothing there to burn, so it felt like the safest place, but
the flames were like towers on every side of us. Buildings waiting
to come toppling down, and all we could do was hope they didn’t
fall on us. We were being jostled back and forth. I tripped, and
when I looked down, it was a girl. Just a little girl. Dead, with
all her hair and clothes burned away. And I remember some man with
a bucket, tossing water on his house, but it was only one bucket
full, and meanwhile, the entire Goddess-forsaken city was falling
down around our ears.”