“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said with a groan, but took her advice. Toweling vigorously at my face, I proceeded up another flight of stairs. There was little I could do to stop looking a mess, but I combed fingers through my hair anyway, tried to wipe off as much rain and grime as I could. You’re not supposed to keep Aranth’s most important people waiting past the final Hour of Waking, and I’d already taken far too long with the drunkard and the books.
Asteria waited for me at the next landing, and she was beautiful. If real daylight ever found its way into Aranth, the kind that was as golden as butter and warm like a mother, and wrapped itself up all graceful and purposeful like a woman, it might resemble the goddess.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind,” she said in a voice as soft as sympathy, her color-shifting hair floating around her despite the absence of wind. I watched as the strands changed from a soft purple to honey orange to star-yellow.
“Changed it right back.” This wasn’t a demotion, she had said. Protecting her daughter was just as important as patrolling Aranth’s borders, if not even more so. I needed rest, was all. And Asteria was right—I’d been away from the city for far too long. “My apologies. It won’t happen again.”
The goddess studied me carefully, and I forced back a twinge of anger. I hadn’t traveled all the way here, relinquishing both my position and what bits of my pride had survived with me, for misplaced commiseration. I hadn’t ended the day dumped by a pretty girl and nearly shanked by a drunken prick, only to endure her pity.
“Attend to Odessa first,” she finally said. “For now, you are to officially take up lodgings at the Spire. We can talk more later.”
“As you wish, Your Holiness.” Odessa, the mysterious child of the Spire. I knew Asteria’s daughter had a strange disease, one that none of the other Catseyes could heal. I was told she’d never left the tower her whole life, that the only time the other Devoted saw her was during the Banishing. Even then, I heard, she kept her distance, like her illness was contagious.
“Odessa is a sweet, compassionate girl. She’s enthusiastic about books, and she’ll likely talk your ear off over those. I hope you’re well-read.”
“I’ve opened books a time or two in my life.”
It sounded just this shade of impertinent, but Asteria laughed. “I think you’ll get along.” She moved down the hallway, stopping before the closest of two doors. “Odessa,” she called, knocking lightly on the wood. “Tianlan, your new Catseye, is here.”
The hinges creaked, and a girl stormed out. “I don’t need another guardian, Mother. Catseye Lenida was dull as dirt, and nothing she did ever cured my—” She stopped abruptly and gaped at me.
I gaped back.
Her name was Ame. She had gorgeous gray eyes and a gently rounded face, but it was her hair, coal black and wind-wild, that had drawn me in that first time. It hung down her waist, curled and loose against some unseen breeze. From behind a pile of books she had glanced up at me, her smile curious and sweet, and I was lost.
Later, I’d gone to sleep without nightmares for the first time since returning to the city.
The tiny bookshop was right beside the orphanage, and she was often there, browsing, when I visited the latter. I had come to look forward to those weekly trips, to watch her eyes light up as she chattered on about history, or romance novels, or any other book that struck her fancy. It took weeks to work up the courage to ask her out; weeks to believe, day by passing day, that a sabbatical from ranging wasn’t so bad after all.
She tasted sweet; a soft, eager mouth beneath mine, her arms laced around my neck as I tipped her nearly into the bookcase, as greedy as I always was.
But she’d never shown up for dinner earlier tonight.
And why should she? Her name wasn’t Ame; her name was Odessa, and her hair was an infuriating mess of colors like her mother’s instead of the lovely midnight black I knew, and apparently she’d never even been out of the damned tower, so the girl at the bookstore must have been my goddess-damned imagination this whole time.
I’d propositioned the goddess’s daughter.
I’d propositioned the goddess’s daughter.
Ame—no, Odessa—was turning pale.
“I have some matters to finish,” Asteria continued serenely, unaware of the tension. “Tianlan, see me in my study later. Odessa, please don’t give your new Catseye any more headaches like you gave the last one.”
Her daughter nodded wordlessly. Asteria left, and I followed Ame—no, Odessa—to her room, where she sat down hard on the bed and stared at her feet.
“So,” I said after a while, really, really wanting to break the silence with something spiteful, but also all too aware that she was my liege. I didn’t want to be fired on my first day. “This was why you stood me up.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered; still not looking up, face a fiery red. “You said your name was Lan.”
“It’s short for Tianlan. Never liked how formal it sounded.” And because I couldn’t completely bottle up my anger, I added, “Unlike you, I was being completely truthful.”
“I”—she twiddled her thumbs—“I’m not”—she looked out the window—“I really wasn’t planning on”—her gaze drifted everywhere but at me. “I’m sorry. I thought I could sneak out, but—”
“You thought you could sneak out?” It was difficult to keep the disbelief out of my voice, and the sense of betrayal. “The point is you weren’t who I thought you were.” Everything she had told me was a lie. She wasn’t the shy daughter of a strict fruit seller, she was Asteria’s daughter and a goddess in her own right. “Was that the only reason you never showed up, Ame?”
She looked away, and my throat closed up.
“I guess that’s my answer, then.”
A low, hurt sound escaped her, and it killed me that even after all her falsehoods, she could still get to me. It no longer mattered what her reasons were. The dynamics of our situation had altered the instant she became my charge.
“It’s fine,” I said roughly, though it felt anything but. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m just the new Catseye, here to see to your health. I don’t know how you used to sneak out of the Spire, but that ends on my watch. Understand?”
She nodded meekly. “But I want to explain why I—” She broke off abruptly, caught up in a fit of coughing.
I was by her side immediately. Whatever we were before, whether or not she’d lied to me, I should have taken her condition into account.
“Lie on the bed.”
Aether-gate healing is a magic made of sensations rather than sight. I could pinpoint wounds and illnesses based on an innate sixth sense that not even I could fully explain. Just as with the drunkard, the patterns of Aether gathered in areas where she required healing, guiding my actions accordingly.
There was nothing visibly wrong with her. She was at the peak of health, more so than the other denizens of Aranth below us. And yet the shadows gathered at a spot above her heart, pulsing with some unknown ichor. There was no reason for her to be coughing, no reason for her to be tired or even exhausted. Nothing within her explained these symptoms.