CHAPTER SIX #3
There’s a confused “I thought you said it would be empty!” spoken in fluent Persian by a man with a low voice, gravely like a desert storm.
There’s a flash of silver light followed by two resounding thumps.
From my hiding place, I note the unmistakable sight of two bodies splayed on the floor, feet from me.
Everest’s boots turn to face me and he says, far too cheerily, “You can come out now.”
Elbows scraping against the rough floor, I drag myself out from under the bed.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, looking at the two strangers lying unconscious on the ground.
They’re both dressed for the resplendent evening Ender described; the man in a bright ochre pajama-style pant that fans against the ground, and a woman in a complementary green lehenga choli.
A gauze dupatta is pinned to her hair with bejeweled clips.
Ender and Beam are already hovering over them, studying the fine embroidery on the woman’s skirt.
“What would you have had me do?” Everest asks. “Hide under the bed, like you?”
“Yes!” I yell, all while trying to drown out the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my chest. This is bad.
This is so, so bad. We have directly interfered with the timeline in a way I’ve never even come close to in the past. I half expect the room around us to fall away, or the thread wrapped around my hand to disintegrate.
I sway dangerously, but Everest steadies me with a touch to the shoulder.
“Breathe,” he tells me gently. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Plan?” I wheeze. “What plan?”
He runs a finger down the thread of time that runs along the floor, then gives it a tug. He looks up at me and smiles. “Patience. Get changed into her clothes.”
He couldn’t possibly mean…
“You want me to swap places with her?” I squeal, looking between him and the woman, half-wondering if their fainting spell is infectious. How can he stand there so calmly, asking me to put on her clothes?
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to see you in this shade of green,” he says pleasantly. “It’ll bring out your eyes.”
“I’ll bring out your–”
“It’s called making use of an opportunity,” Everest continues, spotting his demise sketched across my face. “Do you have a better idea?”
The back of my neck prickles under the weight of premonition. Just then, footsteps sound at the other door. I tense, prepared to leap to…I don’t even know where, when Everest tiptoes across the room. Beam and Ender flock to me, but to my horror, Everest goes towards the door.
There’s a muffled voice outside, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. He reaches down, touching the thread where it snakes under the doorframe, and there’s a shimmer of power there. The voices fall silent, and all I can hear is my heart hammering against my ribs.
“What is he doing?” I whisper. Beam crouches behind my leg, and Ender shivers next to me.
“Everest,” I hiss, panic rising in me as if we’re in a locked room that’s steadily being filled with water. “Everest, what are you–”
He ignores me and opens the door.
Outside, a white man stands, looking dazed and confused. He’s wearing a dark-green cylindrical hat paired with a matching cassock, ornate gold buttons down the front.
“Please, come in,” Everest says, as if he’s hosting him for tea. He closes the door behind the priest, directs him to lie down next to the unconscious pair of court attendees, then bends to swap the thread wrapped around his hand with the one on the floor.
“We’ve got maybe thirty minutes before they come to their senses,” he says casually, starting to unbutton his shirt. “I suggest you get changed.”
“What did you just do?” I ask.
Everest shrugs. “It’s not interference if we take their place. And in the meantime, they’ll hold on to our timeline for us.”
He swapped our timeline with theirs.
“I didn’t know you could do that.” Anger spikes in me, hot and volatile. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Do you want me to share an eternity’s worth of my tricks with you?” he asks, dragging the man behind the stone screen.
“Yes!” I say. “That’s exactly what I expect when you come along with–”
“Less talking, more doing, doc,” he says, disappearing behind the screen. “I’m only here to preserve your modesty, so if you would please hurry up.”
I’m stiff as stone. All of this feels so wrong, the same way that the tip of an iceberg spells a mountain of terror underneath.
The carousel is sentient, as is time, and the coincidence of the line ending with a person, of being walked in on by not one but two people, feels like a message that I can’t begin to decode. “I’m not going to do this.”
“Then I’ll do it alone!” he calls. More clothes hit the ground. The woman is lying there, her face a pleasant mask.
“Maybe you should listen to him,” Beam says gently. “I don’t know if we’ll get to the object otherwise, and this way, we’ll have an entry point.”
“But how are we supposed to blend in there?” With how long we’ve been doing this, I’ve developed fluency in most languages, but I still can’t embody a native. “We don’t know the customs or the people; we’ll stick out right away. We can’t just walk out there.”
Everest emerges from behind the screen, and if I weren’t filled with such broiling anger, I would have burst into laughter at the sight of him in the Jesuit uniform.
“It’s best if you follow, not lead,” he says smugly, completely oblivious to how I’ve got panic oozing out of my every pore. “Now, are you coming or not?”
I’m going to kill him later.
The only thing worse than the idea of going out there dressed in a hypnotized dancer’s outfit is the thought of sitting in the room while Everest is unleashed upon this unsuspecting court.
I start having trouble breathing the second we step out into the carved hallway, and the last dredges of control slip away.
The corridor shrinks and the godforsaken blouse I’ve squeezed into cuts off my circulation.
Everest walks a few feet ahead, telling me to stick by Beam and Ender.
I’m bristling from the order, but my body won’t obey my commands anymore.
I’m starting to dissociate. The shadows on the floor creep at my heels like tailing assassins, and my throat feels as though there’s a blade at my neck, a nick away from letting me bleed out on the floor.
“It’s okay, Ryka,” Beam assures me. She’s doing her best not to touch me – Ender, too – but the hairsbreadth between us is useless. I need air, I need to leave, I need to–
We step out into the court and I drown in an ocean of sensation.
I can’t even pinpoint when I’m swallowed by the crowd.
We’re surrounded by droves of people in splashes of red, orange, and yellow, kohl-lined eyes viewing me through organza dupattas, and painted lips shaped into words I can’t discern.
A few feet from us, a group of dancers moves to a percussion-heavy rhythm, so alluring I nearly lose a step and trip over a passerby’s foot.
“Sorry,” I say in Persian, my pronunciation rusty enough that it draws a suspicious glance from a woman. My chest tightens and I spin, searching for Everest, who’s vanished from sight.
“Ender’s with him,” Beam says, her cold touch pressed to my side. “Watch the string; see, it’s glowing there by your feet.”
I follow her instructions, grateful for the shining blue threading across the room.
As I trace its path, my gaze falls on the emperor, who looks like he’s wearing molten gold.
His throne is equally exquisite, exerting an aura nearly as formidable as Calliope.
I anchor my thoughts to the dragon, thinking of the hypnotic blend of colors in her eyes.
I can do this. I can get out of this situation. I just need to follow the string, locate the object, and find Everest.
The music ends abruptly.
I still. Beam freezes next to me, as does everyone else.
“Thank you all for attending our celebrations this evening,” the emperor says.
His voice is melodic, soft like honey. To my horror, I find Everest lingering dangerously close to the ruler.
Ender floats near him, and upon capturing my gaze, points furiously to his right.
I follow his indication to see a telling sparkle of blue leading right up to the emperor’s closest advisor.
My heart feels as though it’s been trampled by a baby elephant.
“We will continue with the proceedings shortly, but first, my advisor has an announcement to make.”
His advisor steps forward, and it’s unmistakable: the string dips straight into his pocket.
“Let’s go,” I whisper to Beam, before starting to snake my way through the back.
There’s a low chatter throughout the chamber, so no one pays us any mind as we curve along the room until we’re able to find a clear path forward.
I don’t know how we’re supposed to get to the advisor, not when he’s that close to the emperor, but the string around my hand is tightening, digging into my calloused palm.
“We have information that an assassin has infiltrated the palace this evening,” the advisor says, and I stop in my tracks. Beam crashes into me and my body gives an involuntary shudder that would have caught everyone’s attention if commotion didn’t break out at the advisor’s words.
“Where’s the killer!” someone cries.
“On this holy night,” another exclaims. “May God deliver them the greatest punishment.”
Across the room, Everest’s face does something funny, wearing an expression I’ve rarely seen on him. Fear.
“What is he doing?” I whisper to Beam amidst the chaos.
She swallows, watching with me as Everest jerks his head to the right. “I think he’s telling us to leave.”
Ender swoops towards us. “You need to leave,” he confirms, giving Beam a small push. “Everest will meet you back at the room, but something is not right.”
Just then, the advisor cries, “The assassin is there, the one in the green lehenga!”
And as luck would have it, he’s pointing right at me. Every eye in the room turns in my direction. I take one step back, then another.
Ender gives me a corporeal shove.
“Run, Ryka!”