Chapter 45
Just hours after returning from the Recordkeeper, Hela finds herself strapped into a jump seat on a shuttle bound for Cedre Station.
The station glows like the moon. Drum--shaped, hanging in the air like a drop of water in low gravity.
Red pinpricks of light trace its outline in the sky.
It’s massive, even from a distance, a marvel of engineering and an impossibility.
It was constructed long before the Fever, and just how that came about—-how the countries of Earth banded together to pour their resources into it, how they designed it to begin with—-has been lost to time.
She’s been there only once, for a job, but she remembers how the metal walls always vibrated no matter where you went.
She doesn’t mind the journey. She finds turbulence soothing, and there’s something exciting about watching her planet get smaller and smaller. Strands of fine hair float around her face from where they escaped her braid; she watches them drift.
She was almost too frantic, too desperate, to find success with the Recordkeeper.
She needed information about the Scout job involving the candlesnuffer, but she had nothing to offer in return.
Eventually, she gave him her suspicions about the impending attack on Cedre Station.
The Recordkeeper wasn’t likely to spill secrets to just anyone, and even if he did, the situation wasn’t likely to get worse than it already was.
It turned out the candlesnuffer job was filled by an old ex of Hela’s. Code name Evenhanded. Not the most exciting news Hela ever heard.
“So, refresh my memory,” Elegy says. “This is the ex--girlfriend who put all your old clothes into the compost bin, right?”
Across from her, Elegy is tense as a tightrope, her hands braced against her knees so all her muscles stand at attention. She keeps sneaking looks at Forint, like it’s a secret. Like he doesn’t notice—-which he obviously does.
“It was a trash can,” Hela says, “and she lit them on fire afterward. Vindictive.”
“Did you do something to provoke her?” Theren asks.
Elegy snorts.
“I was nineteen!” Hela says.
“Nineteen is old enough to know that you shouldn’t make out with one girl while you’re dating another.”
“She dazzled me with glitter.”
By the time they drift close enough to Cedre Station to be drawn in by its gravity, they’re all laughing, even Forint.
The Grasslands Dock sucks them in like water through a straw.
Her clothes fall against her body again, and she feels the landing gear engage.
The dock doors rumble as they close, and as breathable air floods the dock again, the ship’s hatch opens.
They get off the ship together. It’s one of General Thompson’s shuttles, so they’re in the military loading dock, which is simple, industrial. There are ships of all kinds perched beyond the oxygen barrier, Sparrows and Crows and even one Eagle, huge and shiny in the back of the massive space.
“Why didn’t we try to get a meeting room?” Theren asks Hela.
“Okoro offered, but I know Evenhanded. If there was even a whiff of military involvement, she’d be out of here.” Hela points over her shoulder with her thumb. “We have to play it cool. Somehow.”
An escort buggy arrives to take them to the tram, operated by a chatty technician named Haven who tells them all about her recent attempt at a blind date.
“I used to take this tram line to school,” Forint says, when they board the tram. He brushes his fingers over the graffiti--etched wall, and they sit.
The tram looked sleek from a distance, but it’s scuffed upon closer inspection, even aside from the graffiti: the screws holding the seats in place are rusted, the seats themselves are worn from the friction of too much fabric, too many people sitting and standing.
It smells like fuel and old french fries and body odor.
There are markets all over Cedre Station, but none of them are as big and grand as the TM—-the Tundra Market—-which has its own tram stop.
Anything a person could possibly want—-anything from home--brewed cleaning vinegar to tiny wind--up car toys—-is available there.
The tram eases to a stop, and the three of them stand to exit.
The doors open and the noise, the light, the crowd—-they overwhelm her.
The market is arranged in a perfect grid, but she can’t tell just by looking at it.
In front of her is a wall of people. Framing those people on either side are awnings protruding from market stalls, most of them heavy with wires and lights.
Above the crowd are projections of advertisements, each one a burst of movement that repeats every three or four seconds: a woman smiling; children playing; juice pouring into a glass.
They weave through the crowd on the right, past a flatbread stall that was, according to Theren, Isre’s favorite, and around the corner to a place called Tube Bar.
Whoever owns the place takes the name as literally as possible: decorating the ceiling are all manner of tubes, big and small, plastic and metal, bright and dull, functional and useless.
There are little rickety tables arranged beneath them, too close together for Hela’s comfort.
On the way here, she saw Elegy’s face on the screens at the center of the market—-a picture of her from her arrival at the Evacuation Day banquet.
But today Elegy and Hela are both wearing filtration masks—-not an uncommon sight on Cedre Station, given how careful the Cedrae are about viruses—-so no one seems to recognize them.
She’s glad. She feels jumpy even now, tucked away in Tube Bar.
Exposed, like being here in full view of other people is a mistake.
Hela stops outside the bar and takes an illicit Eye out of her pocket—-sealed up, its eyelid shut.
She rolls it between her hands, which light up with elixir, and the eyelid opens.
The Eye rises into the air, and Hela ushers it forward, into the bar ahead of them.
Evenhanded, the Scout they’re meeting—-and the pyromaniac ex--girlfriend—-sits at a table in the back.
She’s around forty, with long fingernails filed into points that light up when she drums them on the table.
The right side of her body is inked with fluorescent tattoos that glitter through her shirt. Her left side is bare.
She gives Hela a sour smile when she surfaces.
“Just heard whispers that the Hope of Cedre was in the Tundra,” Evenhanded says, ignoring Hela to focus on Elegy. “I confess it didn’t occur to me that you were here to meet with me. Tausia failed to mention it.”
“For security reasons, you understand,” Hela says. “How are you, Eve?”
Evenhanded ignores Hela and looks at Theren, instead. “And who are you? The enforcer?”
“He’s a friend,” Hela says. “Are you going to just pretend I don’t exist this whole time?”
“I’m considering it.”
“Aha.” Hela points at her. “I got you.”
Elegy sits across from Evenhanded, and Theren takes the chair beside her, leaving Hela to sit at the next table over. She feels that uneasiness again, with her back to the rest of the market.
“You could take off your mask, you know,” Evenhanded says to Elegy. “I’ve already recognized you.”
“No, thanks.” Elegy smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “So. It’s been a while.”
“Two years, I think. I’d have been nicer to you if I knew who you really were back then.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
Evenhanded snorts.
“Tausia said you wanted information.” She has a gap between her front teeth wide enough to fit a straw through.
Hela used to poke it with her pinkie finger, teasing.
She has no desire to do so now. “But I’m feeling reluctant to give information to a political figure, even if she used to be a Scout. ”
“Eve, I’m not a political figure.”
“A religious figure, then.” Evenhanded smirks at that, amused by her own joke. “I have a neutrality policy. They don’t call me ‘Evenhanded’ for no reason.”
Elegy opens her mouth to argue. Probably that neutrality with the Talusar is impossible, since Evenhanded hasn’t been infected with Fever, and the Talusar have a religious imperative to introduce people to their Fever god.
Hela watches as Theren reaches for her under the table, and sets his hand on Elegy’s leg.
It’s a presumptuous move, but it works—-Elegy’s eyes harden, but she doesn’t say whatever she was about to say.
“Don’t talk, then,” Hela says to Evenhanded. “Just listen. Several months ago there was a Scout posting asking for a candlesnuffer. You remember it, I’m sure.”
Hela doesn’t need Theren’s gift to read Eve—-she wouldn’t be giving Hela that sharp look if she didn’t know what Hela was talking about. If she didn’t remember doing a job for some Talusar army types.
Hela goes on: “You fulfilled the job, and you delivered the bounty to some Talusar.”
“I didn’t ask them who they were or where they were from,” Evenhanded says. “And they didn’t say.”
“Come on, Eve, you still knew,” Hela says. “And it doesn’t matter, nobody’s gonna do anything about it as long as you tell us what we want to know.”
“Don’t fucking threaten me, Tausia,” Evenhanded says.
Hela scowls. “I’m not threatening you—-”
“Everything’s a power play with you. Always has been.”
“As it happens . . .” Forint leans forward, his elbows on the table. “I am threatening you. Tell me about the Talusar who met with you, or I’ll escort you to the police station myself.”
“You’ll escort me,” Evenhanded says, and she draws a dagger from her sleeve, laying it flat on the table in front of her. “You say that like you think it would be easy.”
In clear Talusar, he replies: “It would be.”
Evenhanded stares at him. He stares back.
“I recognized something,” she says. “A symbol on one of their blades. It was a circle of vines—-Rava Vidar’s symbol.”
“The person carrying that blade—-what did they look like?” Elegy says.
“Tall, dark brown skin, wore her hair all piled on top of her head,” Evenhanded says.
“Nyx,” Theren says to Elegy.
“Did they say anything about how they were going to use the candlesnuffer? Or for what purpose?” Elegy asks urgently.
Evenhanded looks out at the market, her pointed fingernails drumming on the table again. She sighs.
“Some of them didn’t know I spoke Talusar. I heard them whispering,” Evenhanded admits. “They were talking about whether there was breathable air in the cargo hold. They seemed concerned.”
Hela feels an interesting, nauseating mixture of dread and triumph.
They were right. Rava’s big catastrophe, her alliance with Ykev, the dark cloud that’s been hanging over them for weeks, has all amounted to this: there’s a priest of the Fever on Cedre Station.
All they can do now is find them before the virus spreads.
“Got it?” Elegy asks Hela.
Hela holds out her hand, and her black--market Eye flies into her palm. She passes it to Elegy. Evenhanded glares at her.
“I’ll go to the data pool and send it to Okoro.” Elegy gets up. “She’ll make sure the Sword gets it.”
She rushes out of Tube Bar to the post office, which is right next door.
Quill messages are just text, so they can be sent by anyone, from anywhere, but footage from an Eye is too “heavy” for quill transmission.
Luckily, sending illegal data—-like what the Eye just recorded—-is as easy as paying off the postal worker and dropping the Eye in the well, which is right outside. And nobody bribes like Elegy.
Once Elegy is gone, Eve says to Hela, “You were fucking recording me without my permission?”
“Sorry, babe,” Hela says, blowing a kiss. “You look great, though. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”
Evenhanded stands, shaking the table with the force of it. Hela holds out a filtration mask, folded into a square.
“Trust me,” Hela says. “You want this.”