The lone house at the end of the road floated a little ways off from the rest of the bobbing street, tethered only by two long chains and a hazardous floating walkway made of badly spaced planks.
Rin stepped gingerly over the planks, then rapped on the wooden door. No response.
She tried the handle. It didn’t even have a lock—she couldn’t see a keyhole. They’d made it impossible for Kitay to keep visitors out.
She pushed the door open.
The first thing she noticed was the mess—a sprawl of yellowing books, maps, and ledgers that littered every visible surface. She blinked around in the dim lamplight until she finally saw Kitay sitting in the corner with a thick tome over his lap, nearly buried under stacks of leather-bound books.
“I’ve already eaten,” he said without looking up. “Come back in the morning.”
She cleared her throat. “Kitay.”
He looked up. His eyes widened.
“Hello,” she said.
Slowly he set his books to the side.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
Kitay stared at her for a long moment before waving her inside. “Fine.”
She shut the door behind her. He made no move to get up, so she picked her way through the papers toward him, taking care not to step on any pages. Kitay had always hated when anyone disturbed his carefully arranged messes. During exam season at Sinegard, he’d thrown temper tantrums whenever someone moved his inkwells.
The room was so cramped that the only empty space was a patch of floor against the wall right beside him. Taking care not to touch him, she slid down, crossed her legs, and placed her hands on her knees.
For a moment they simply stared at each other.
Rin wanted desperately to reach out and touch his face. He looked weak, and far too thin. He had healed some since Golyn Niis, but even now his collarbone protruded to a frightening degree, and his wrists looked so fragile she might snap them with one hand. He had grown his hair out in a long, curly mess that he’d bunched up at the back of his head, which pulled at the edges of his face and made his cheekbones stick out more than they already did.
He didn’t remotely resemble the boy she’d met at Sinegard.
The difference was in his eyes. They used to be so bright, lit up with a feverish curiosity about everything. Now they were just dull and blank.
“Can I stay?” she asked.
“I let you in, didn’t I?”
“You told Moag to keep your address from me.”
“Oh.” He blinked. “Yes. I did do that.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. She knew him well enough to know that this meant he was furious with her, but after all these months, she still didn’t know precisely why.
No—she did, she just wouldn’t admit that she was wrong about it. The one time they’d fought about it, really fought about it, he’d slammed the door shut on her and hadn’t spoken to her until they reached dry land.
She hadn’t let herself think about it since. It went into the chasm, just like every other memory that made her start craving her pipe.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m under house arrest. How do you think I’m doing?”
She looked around at the papers splayed out across the table. They littered the floor, pinned down with inkwells.
Her eyes landed on the ledger he’d been scribbling in. “She’s kept you busy, at least?”
“‘Busy’ is a word for it.” He slammed the ledger shut. “I’m working for one of the Empire’s most wanted criminals, and she’s got me doing her taxes.”
“Ankhiluun doesn’t pay taxes.”
“Not taxes to the Empire. To Moag.” Kitay twirled the ink brush in his fingers. “Moag’s running a massive crime ring with a taxation scheme that’s just as complicated as any city bureaucracy’s. But the record-keeping system they’ve been using so far, it’s . . .” He waved his hands in the air. “Whoever designed this didn’t understand how numbers work.”
What a brilliant move on Moag’s part, Rin thought. Kitay had the mental dexterity of twenty scholars combined. He could add impossibly large sums without blinking, and he had a mind for strategy that had rivaled Master Irjah’s. He might be grumpy under house arrest, but he couldn’t resist a puzzle when presented with one. The ledgers may as well have been a bucket of toys.
“Are they treating you all right?” she asked.
“Well enough. I get two meals a day. Sometimes more, if I’ve been good.”
“You look thin.”
“The food’s not very good.”
He still wouldn’t look at her. She ventured to place a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry Moag’s kept you here.”
He jerked away. “Wasn’t your decision. I’d do the same if I’d taken myself prisoner.”
“Moag’s really not so bad. She treats her people well.”
“And she uses violence and extortion to run a massively illegal city that has been lying to Sinegard for twenty years,” said Kitay. “I’m worried you’re starting to lose your sense of scale here, Rin.”
She rankled at that. “Her people are still better off than the Empress’s subjects.”
“The Empress’s subjects would be fine if her generals weren’t running around trying to commit treason.”
“Why are you so loyal to Sinegard?” Rin demanded. “It’s not like the Empress has done anything for you.”
“My family has served the crown at Sinegard for ten generations,” said Kitay. “And no, I’m not helping you with your personal vendetta just because you think the Empress got your stupid commander killed. So you can stop pretending to be my friend, Rin, because I know that’s all you came for.”
“I don’t just think that,” she said. “I know it. And I know the Empress invited the Federation onto Nikara land. She wanted this war, she started the invasion, and everything you saw at Golyn Niis was Daji’s fault.”
“False accusations.”
“I heard it from Shiro’s mouth!”
“And Shiro didn’t have any motivation to lie to you?”
“Daji doesn’t have any motivation to lie to you?”
“She’s the Empress,” Kitay said. “The Empress doesn’t betray her own. Do you understand how absurd this is? There’s literally no political advantage—”
“You should want this!” she yelled. She wanted to shake him, hit him, do anything to make that maddening blankness in his face go away. “Why don’t you want this? Why aren’t you furious? Didn’t you see Golyn Niis?”
He stiffened. “I want you to leave.”
“Kitay, please—”
“Now.”
“I’m your friend!”
“No, you’re not. Fang Runin was my friend. I’m not sure who you are, but I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Why do you keep saying that? What did I ever do to you?”
“How about what you did to them?” He grabbed for her hand. She was so surprised that she let him. He slammed her palm over the lamp beside him, forced it down directly over the fire. She yelped from the sudden pain—a thousand tiny needles, pressing deeper and deeper into her palm.