Chapter 11
Inkiri and Lissir left me and Vergis to ourselves while they went to coordinate with Hove. I freshened up in the bathroom off the living room.
When I came back, Vergis had spread out the cushions so he could lie on his side. He was scrolling on his phone.
“You don’t have Wi-Fi here.”
He looked up. “Oh, really? Huh, that didn’t occur to me. So kind of you to let me know.”
“I just mean…what’re you doing?”
He put his phone away. “Are you going to get dressed at all?”
I looked at my clothes. “Well, everything was muddy, and Inkiri said they’d wash it. They left us these in the room, but I have no idea where my clothes are.”
Vergis stood. “There’s a laundry here. They work pretty fast, so it should be done. We can go and pick them up now. That’s more useful than just sitting around and staring at the walls.”
“You were looking at your phone.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Because I don’t like staring at the walls. Are you coming, or do I have to carry your stuff back here by myself?”
“I’m coming. Uh, do we leave a note for the others?”
He stretched. “Do you really think you’d get lost? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you kind of stick out.”
Vergis was probably having a bit of a day, given the situation with Aragis, so I gave a shrug and played innocent. “Do I really?”
He heaved a sigh. “Let’s go, Princess. Maybe try not to attract any dangerous wildlife.”
“I never try to attract anything.” Which was the absolute truth, and whenever I had attracted something, it hadn’t worked out all that great. Apart from Inkiri, but he’d come with the mate call.
“That’s what the honey said to the fly.”
He headed out of the room, and I picked up my pace to keep up. We went down the hallway, then took a left. I was pretty sure that was the opposite direction from how Inkiri and I had gotten here last night.
“You haven’t had your coffee today, have you?”
“No, because I’ve been hopping back and forth between the veils, and I don’t have a mate who does everything for me.”
“Well, sorry about getting mated off by some magic stone.” I reached for his hand. “Is…is Kinnek going to be okay? With Aragis?”
Vergis deflated faster than the tent I’d once tried to set up when I was in fifth grade. “I guess.” He licked his lips. “He wants to take him back to Earth. Back home.”
I nodded like this was news. I didn’t want him to feel as if I were spying on him.
“Isn’t that, like, good? I mean, your place is pretty safe, and quiet, and that kind of environment is probably what Aragis needs now, right?
With what he’s been through. Not that I can even begin to know what he’s been through at all.
You could show him your rooftop man cave. ”
Vergis shrugged. “I guess.”
“It’s a nice man cave, Vergis.”
“It’s not a man cave.”
I snorted. “Whatever.”
He gave me a sideways look. “How would you even know what a man cave is?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. “I mean, I watch things. I used to, at any rate. I’ve seen man caves.”
He cackled. “Wow. Your worldly wisdom is impressive.”
“Excuse me, but everything just sort of took a bad turn before I could get some.”
His cackling intensified, and I went the specific shade of cooked billet beans. Why did we turn colorful when we were embarrassed? Why were humans not more like octopi, who had camouflage? I’d have loved to become one with the background right about now.
“Get some wisdom, I mean! That’s all I meant.”
He snorted. “Oh yeah. Everyone wants to get some long, girthy wisdom these days.”
My cheeks were getting hot enough to cook pancakes on. “There are kids here.”
“They don’t speak human.”
“Well, some of them are learning.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Do you have to be this negative?”
“Absolutely. We’re here.”
We’d come to a part of the Raiken that was similar to the garden outside the baths, only here, the garden was actually used to hang up the washed clothes to dry.
I spotted plenty of Raikengana wearing different colors, either hanging the clothes or carrying them back to a set of rooms on our right in baskets much like the ones we’d placed them in.
I looked around. “Does everyone do shifts here?” A copper-clad bagu draping some black protector pants over the clothesline looked up from his work curiously.
“I guess so. It’s not like I know how this place works. I never went here.”
“Right.”
I followed Vergis into the room on the right.
There were lots of tables here, all of them high enough to work at while standing.
The ceiling was vaulted and echoey, and I wondered whether this place had always been the laundry or whether the mages of long ago had mixed their magic potions here.
A taupe-clad maker came over when he saw Vergis and me, and they talked.
My attention was caught by something in the back room though, where steam was rising up with a hiss. I couldn’t see exactly, but it looked as if they had some way to iron clothes here.
Vergis turned to me. “Do you remember your number?”
“My number?”
He crossed his arms. “You put a tag on the basket when you leave it for the laundry. Do you remember the number on the tag?”
“Oh. No. It should be in the room though.”
Vergis sighed and turned back to the bagu, who ended up jogging to the back room and hollering something over the hiss of steam. Then he came back and said something, and Vergis nodded.
The bagu headed off into a second room in the back.
“He says they remember your dirty, stinky human clothes.”
“Well, sorry they got muddy.”
“And these poor people had to clean them for you.”
My cheeks heated again. “I’m sorry about that, okay?”
“You did turn out your pockets before handing them off, right?”
Had I? No, I hadn’t. I tried to remember whether there had been anything in them. One of the au pairs had taken it upon herself to teach me life skills, despite the fact that we’d always had a cleaning lady, and I knew not to leave tissues or change in my pockets, but…
“Uh, I think I maybe didn’t? Can you tell them sorry?”
Vergis looked at me like a large murder cat who’d just found a juicy mouse. His grin made his eyes crinkle. “Sure, I’ll tell them.”
He wasn’t going to, was he? He was going to say something else, and I had no way of checking. I really, really needed to learn the language. At least that way, all the trouble I got myself in would be of my own making.
The bagu Vergis had been speaking to and one other came back, each of them carrying a basket. I spotted my clothes—the hand-me-down shirt from Kinnek and the shorts, as well as my scarf. The other basket was all black, so they had also found Inkiri’s stuff. That was a relief.
“Al-lesh!” I said before Vergis could even open his mouth. It was a polite thank you and pretty much the only thing I remembered in the moment.
The second bagu, this one dressed in black, smiled warmly and nodded before saying something while he handed me my stuff.
“He says they scraped the mud off with a shovel. It was work the kind they only have to contend with once in a generation.”
I narrowed my eyes at Vergis. “No, he didn’t.”
The two bagua chuckled and exchanged a few words. They seemed pretty chill, at most lightly entertained by Vergis and me. A few of the other people in the room were also turning so they could listen to us.
“He might’ve said that. They might’ve used a shovel. You have no way of knowing, Princess.”
I straightened and attempted to square my shoulders. “Al-lesh.” This time, I tried to sound more certain of myself.
Both the bagua laughed, and the taupe-clad one handed the other basket to Vergis while saying something to him.
Vergis sighed. “They say they did their best to get your clothes clean although you brought a good chunk of Earth here with you from the rescue mission. Everyone’s so impressed with the rescue mission.”
“Well, they can keep the bits of Earth. We still have plenty. And besides, Aer is a nice place for it.”
Vergis rolled his eyes. “How are you always this sappy?”
“I’m not.”
“Whatever.” He spoke to the two bagua, hopefully translating what I’d said with at least some accuracy.
I repeated my al-lesh, and we headed out.
“Uh, can you hold my basket for a sec?”
Vergis groaned. “Sure. Put it on this one.”
I piled my stuff on top of Inkiri’s things and pulled my scarf free to wind it around my neck.
Yes, I felt a lot better with it back in place.
Was I dramatic for that? Maybe. But I was also a newlywed, and even if my feelings about scarves were going to change at some point in the future, I’d enjoy wearing them now.
“Seriously?”
I shrugged. “It feels nice, you know?”
Vergis shook his head in exasperation. “You’re worse than Charles and Kinnek, and they’ve been at it for years. They’ve been in love for forever.”
As soon as the words were out, his lips pressed together in a thin line, and he frowned, his gaze going into the middle distance.
I put a hand on his forearm. I wasn’t good at reassuring people in situations like this, but I could try. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He snorted. “Don’t try acting like a crystal ball. Stick to being a dispenser.”
“I told you I don’t like it when you call me that. Maybe…dispensomancy? Dispensomancer?”
I was treated to a good dose of Vergis’s side-eye. “No.”
“But—”
“No.”
I sighed. “Hand me that basket back. You didn’t happen to bring coffee with you so I can pour it down your throat, did you?”
“No. I was busy preparing for the attack we’re planning.”
He started walking without giving me my basket.
“Hey, I can carry one of them.”
“But you’re a frail human who can barely walk without a protector there to carry him places, Princess. What if you fall and break something?”
I opened my mouth to tell him there was no way I was going to trip, but I stopped. There were a lot of ways. I was simply not the most graceful person in the world, and he’d seen me after we got back from our involuntary excursion to the monster world.
“Accidents happen, okay?”
“Mm-hmm. To you. All the damn time.”
“I’m sorry.” I decided to give my eyelash batting another try. I was hoping it would soothe Vergis, maybe help take his mind off the Aragis situation.
A group of five older students walked by, and I felt vindicated when I heard some of them click and slow down as if they were ready to jump in if I needed anything.
Apocalypse survival eyelash batting for the win!
But it didn’t work on Vergis. He just snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’m not some protector who’s ever going to fall for that shit, Princess.” He walked on down the hallway, so I followed.
A flash of dark blue barreled toward us before Vergis could say anything else.
“Rory!” Sonyo said, then went right into another bit of rapid Lugarra and looked up at Vergis expectantly.
Vergis frowned. “Wait, you agreed to let the kid foster with you?”
I shrugged. “Ink kind of did, I guess?”
“Just great. First you get hitched, now you get a foster. Maybe teach him some civil disobedience while you’re at it, like sneaking into women’s changing rooms to get cat socks.”
I blushed and cleared my throat. “That’s not—I was never like that.
I really was only there for the socks, okay?
Besides, clothing isn’t gendered. For your information, I never even did drugs before you tempted me, so that makes you the expert when it comes to civil disobedience.
Which reminds me—he can’t go up to your man cave. Because of the drugs.”
Vergis groaned and rolled his eyes all over again. They were getting a nice workout this morning. “Kid wants to know whether there’s anything he should get the kitchens to pack up.”
“Uhm. I don’t know?”
Vergis got a kind of glimmer in his eyes and turned back to Sonyo. I didn’t catch everything, but one word I heard loud and clear, just before Sonyo nodded and dashed off again.
“Did you just tell Sonyo to get massa buns?”
Vergis shrugged. “You have to eat them. Especially if the kid got them just for you. It would be rude not to, and you know how children start crying over stuff like that.”
If I had to eat another massa bun in my life, I was going to cry. “Please tell me you didn’t use the kid to bring those things to Earth. For all we know, they might destroy the atmosphere and set the ice caps to melting.”
“Your kind already did most of that, human. Anyway, I’m going to the hatchery to get some sacrifices after I drop these at the room.”
I cocked my head. “Aren’t you going to use me? To, erm, do magic? You know, for dispensomancy?”
We rounded a corner, and a group of copper-clad kids made big eyes at us. Or rather, at me. They still bowed politely though.
“To dispense, you mean?”
“I don’t like that word.”
“And yet you dispense so well. But we’re taking a lot of people this time around, and we don’t want you too drained to close the veil to the monster place later on.
So sacrifices it is. You can come, but if you’re going to get all weird just because the ligua are fluffy, I think you should do something else. ”
I crossed my arms. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Stand in a corner and make doe eyes at all the protectors like you always do.”
“Hey! That’s just me blinking. I have dry eyes, you know.” I looked left and right. This place had something about it that made me want to explore. “Can I walk around a little? If I stay in the Raiken? Do you think that’s okay?”
He shrugged. “Sure, works for me. I think everyone here knows who you are, which means you won’t get lost easily. But if you end up accidentally promising mate-ship to another Raikenga, that’s on you.”
“I’m not the bagu who had at least three of them eating out of his hand back home.”
“Lissir’s doing, not mine, although it’s ultimately your fault.”
“Not my fault.”
“Your fault.”
We went back and forth a few more times, just as long as it took us to get back to the room. That was fine. Anything to get Vergis’s mind off the Kinnek and Aragis situation.