Chunks of crystal glowed softly in fixtures along the street and buildings. No one else seemed around, but the lights would continue radiating their gentle rays. I’d never learned quite what made them glow, but it was welcome enough. The street wasn’t bright, but Hei should be able to see. I called it a “street,” but it was more like one of the old pieces of the city design that had fallen apart and mostly grown over with makeshift structures, a few repurposed buildings, and an array of open spaces dotted with glow-stones. Almost certainly not a market, but one of the quirky hideaway spots that some denizens made their homes. No one seemed to be about now, not even the odd wandering ghost one usually expected. One of the buildings, which looked like an old bathhouse, opened easily enough when I fiddled with the door. I gestured inward, and Hei followed without hesitation.
Inside, the place was more like a bar, empty and dark except for cheerful pink stones glimmering around the windows. It looked clean, anyway. Probably this was a quiet little watering hole that may even be fairly frequented, but everyone seemed to be out enjoying the food stalls.
Without speaking, Hei sat on a bench lined up against the wall. Though it may have been more accurate to say he drooped. Back bent, hands scrubbing over his face. Fatigue all but wafted off him like steam.
No helpful words emerged from my mind. I paced back to what looked like the bar and peered around the side. There we were—various spirits and wines sat in decanters in the shelves, along with clear fluid that could be water. A sniff confirmed—I brought the flask over to him. “Thirsty? It’s plain water, nothing hard.”
He frowned up at me for a few moments. The possibility hung heavily that he might start to cry, reveal more of that frightening vulnerability. But he simply accepted, swallowing deeply.
I hugged myself, feeling a sudden chill. The urge arose to take him in my arms again, as if catching him during an entirely different kind of fall. But the implications of that seemed hazardous, charged. I had no right to touch him.
He emptied the bottle and set it aside. “Thank you.” The words were faintly breathless. “I didn’t say that before. Thank you. For...saving me.”
The urge grew stronger. I chewed my lip. “You don’t have to thank me.” Then a new urge bubbled up, a curious one. “You don’t have a blood-giver chain. Did you...?”
He seemed to intuit my meaning. “No. I haven’t ever wanted to donate. I still don’t.” The emphasis on the last sentence felt like a warning. I nodded, perhaps a bit too vigorously.
Silence fell over us like rainwater, pooling at our feet. I couldn’t deny it to myself anymore—I wanted these meetings with this mysterious youth to mean something. I wanted for him to be real in my head. I wanted a face in the river’s flow to mean something to me. I had no one else. Not Tamueji, not even Kadzuhikhan.
I wanted to know why he’d come here, if not hunting forbidden thrills. I wanted to know something that mattered, see the outline of mountains shaping the wind.
But what I asked, without thinking, was, “Do you have memories?”
Hei blinked at me. He answered without wavering. “Yes. All of them. Except, well, the memories everyone loses. I know where I came from. Everything.”
Everything. God, to have that back. “Well. If you want it to stay that way, I strongly advise you think twice about trying to make money off Lord Umber. It all looks like a fair trade on the surface, but I wouldn’t trust him.”
Hei’s eyes narrowed. “Why? I know he sells amnesia. But I don’t even know how that works.”
I sighed. “Do you know what a godhood is?”
His nod was tentative, cautious. To be fair, it wasn’t a promising segue. Godhoods were rare moon-soul virtues. Unlike the cat-step or dove’s pitying, only a few moon-souls could use them. And if Umber’s was any indication, that was a very good thing.
“He bears the drowning godhood. Can drink your memories straight out of your veins—sees right into you. And you lose whatever he sees.” I’d once tried to calculate how many times he may have drunk from me by the money I had, but it didn’t tell me much. Nothing had ever surfaced of my first exposure to him, what had led up to him taking it all, and he apparently did not guarantee recall of the transaction itself. “Most of the blood-givers who sell their memories want relief from pain, I think. Want something inside them killed. But it’s not worth it. Too much else dies with it. And here’s the thing—I’ve only been an amnesiac for two years, as far as I know, and I still have no way of being sure that he didn’t take more memory than I actually wanted to sell. How can you even measure that? Memories aren’t like water, so you can pour out a liter here, a liter there. So he might offer you a fortune, but my advice is to just stay away. You probably are better off knowing what your pain is.”
I wondered what Tamueji would think of me saying that. I was standing in almost perfect opposition to her view. She had also had a much longer time to adjust to her emptiness.
A hardness appeared in Hei’s eyes, in the line of his mouth. It restored some of the poise and calm he’d exhibited before. “Understood.” A pause. “Is there a way to undo it?”
Somehow, that was always the first question everyone asked, despite the agreement that amnesia was worth buying. You’d think no one would even think to want it back. “Supposedly. Some older living-again used to say that drinking the blood back from the person who took it would restore the memories they drank, but I know from experience that sure as hell isn’t the case. A moon-soul being truly killed is meant to end their godhood, but who knows whether that would reverse anything. It doesn’t matter. Most people seem fairly happy giving the past up.” I almost added, I must just be hard to please. No need to dump my angst on him.
I knelt down so we were eye to eye. His composure was definitely returning. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave him. After so long serving Umber, having openly warned someone away from him felt treacherous, but relieving. As if I’d finally taken a breath. It was good, after long last, to admit out loud how deeply I distrusted him, despite the story always having been that I had never been anything but a willing client.
There was probably nothing I could do to help Hei. Not really. Let alone all those who I’d fed to the bowels of Serenity like beached fish, thinking my care enough to protect them. Even if I could ever get my identity back, would it matter? I’d spoiled too much of what was left.
Hei slipped fluidly down to his knees, so that he was gazing up into my eyes. I balked, face heating, but shifting away felt like the wrong move. His breath tickled me; a second passed in which it felt like he’d frozen me, my attention held as if by magic. The smile had returned to his features, lighting them with an uncommon warmth. A rush of starlight and winter wind, of body heat and laughter, filled my mind. Of holding him and flying. He looked like that moment had felt. Like he’d been lightened too. The curve of his mouth was gentle, generous.