So much death. I knew it was happening—I’d heard the stories. The rebels attack, the armée retaliates, back and forth, blood in the jungle. But this is not a story, and these are not rebels. I can’t get the images out of my head—the bobbing backs and bloody limbs and the hair of a girl, drifting round the cracked porcelain of her shattered skull.
I should have killed Jian myself. Bootless too.
The anger is like a flame inside me, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Instead Leo and I stumble through the trees, away from the murdered village of Dar Som, though the smell follows me. It may never leave. I forget to scan the shadows for the flash of white fur, the ripple of silvery scales, the eyes that shine green in the dark. But the next time I hear the ke’cherk howling, they are farther away—back where death tempts them like souls to the god’s lamp.
I shiver as I walk, but I tell myself it’s only the cold night air. As we press through the jungle, moonlight barely penetrates the thick greenery, but the spirits are bright. Where Leo hesitates, I lead the way; in following the soldiers, he had tied strips of white cloth to branches at eye level, torn from the tail of his shirt.
His jacket is ruined now too, stained with blood that seeps from the wound on his chest. His own pants are soaked with the filth from the ditch, plastered to his legs—he must be cold. His face is pale, but he keeps pace with me until we’ve gone far enough that I can no longer hear the howling. Still, the scent of smoke clings to my hair like a dark crown. But we stop—just for a moment—to catch our breath. I am nauseated, and my head is pounding; Leo must see it on my face. “Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, not trusting myself to nod, and he sags back against a tree, as though relieved—or exhausted. “You?”
His lip curls, dismissive. “I’ll be fine. I’m just . . . tired.”
“Let me see.”
“I don’t know how you can see anything in these shadows.” He turns toward me, letting his head fall back against the tree and his eyes slide shut. Peeling back the blood-soaked linen of his jacket, I inspect the cut by soullight—a deep slash, just below his collarbone: pale skin, red flesh.
“You’re going to need stitches,” I say, but he only nods. Still, his jacket is filthy—it hasn’t been washed for days. “Infection is the real risk.”
“Can’t do much about that out here,” he says grimly, but I frown, scanning the trees. Under the leaves, the souls swirl and dance, a cloud of vana buzzing in the bromeliads, the spirit of a moonrat lingering over a fallen piece of jungle fruit. They illuminate a winding fall of heart-shaped betel vine, crawling across the earth.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I reach out, stripping a handful of leaves from the vine. “Here.”
He takes them between his bloody fingers. “What are these for?”
I cock my head. “You need to make a paste from the leaves,” I say slowly, but his look is blank. “Chew on them a bit.”
“Oh. Oh!” Leo grimaces, but he tucks the leaves into his cheek. “You know, I like our way better.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What way is that?”
“Alcohol.”
“Next time, arrange to be rescued by a dancer,” I say loftily, and he tries to laugh as he chews. The leaves are a good antiseptic, and a natural painkiller. But what to use for a bandage? I reach into his breast pocket, where I’d seen him tuck a handkerchief before—was it only days ago? When I pull it out, it’s already soaked through. But behind it, the gleam of silver . . .
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something to cover the wound,” I say, but he shrugs his jacket shut, putting his hand over the cigarette case still tucked in his pocket.
“It can wait.”
I want to ask him what’s the matter—why he’s glaring at me like he’s afraid I’ll steal his silver. But there is pain in his eyes, deeper even than the cut on his chest. So I don’t press the issue. Instead, I toss the bloody handkerchief aside and unwind the cloth belt from my sarong—only a little dirty. “Here. Use this.”
As I offer him the folded cloth, he spits the paste almost delicately onto the fabric. Then he hisses through his teeth as I press the cloth against the wound. “This isn’t some kind of joke, is it?”
“Like how the Aquitans think we eat bugs as a delicacy? No. Take off your jacket,” I add. “I need to tie this over your shoulder.”
He narrows his eyes, but he obeys, slipping his left arm free, and I wrap the cloth around his chest, up over his shoulder, down under his arm, making a bandage of my belt.
“No one ever taught you these things?” I say as I move behind him to tie off the fabric.
“My mother wasn’t very traditional,” he says softly. Then he sighs, shifting his shoulders under the silk. “But I learned other lessons.”
My hands still . . . not only at his tone. I might not have noticed it, if not for the light of the souls, but there is a mark on his back, just over his left shoulder blade. Nothing fancy, just a line and a dot—the symbol of life—in blue ink under his skin. But it takes my breath away. “I thought you didn’t follow the old ways,” I say softly.
“What do you mean?”
“Tattoos are for monks.” I step back, confused, but he turns, quickly, as though to hide the mark from me.
“Tattoos are for sins,” he corrects softly.
“Is life your sin, Leo?” I ask the question without thinking, and see the answer on his face. But he pulls the jacket shut again.
“It’s every bastard’s sin,” he murmurs, staring through the trees. Then he shakes his head, laughing a little. “A moitié man.”
“What?”
“The recherche. ‘A moitié man,’ it said. But Xavier saw me, driving the roulotte. My brother,” he explains at my look. “The capitaine. He didn’t list my name.”
“Do you think he was trying to protect you, somehow?”
For a moment, a wistful look crosses his face; quickly, he mars it with a grimace. “There are few things he cares about more than doing the right thing. The family name is one of them. That’s all he was protecting.”
“Ah.” What else can I say? I search his eyes, his pale face, the bandaged wound, still bleeding. His rambling worries me. “We should get back,” I say, and he doesn’t argue.
It is only another hour till we see the smugglers’ hut under the pearl-pink light of dawn. When I see the clearing through the trees, tears come to my eyes; all I want to do is go inside and sleep. But I take a deep breath, hesitating in the shadows beneath a stand of elephant ears. “Don’t tell my parents.”
“Don’t tell them what, exactly?”
At first, the answers come not in words, but feelings—the red rush of power as I watched Jian struggle to breathe, the sickening spray of blood as it spattered the wall of the hut. The girl’s hair in the muddy water, drifting like ribbons in the wind. “About how bad it was. In the village.”
“D’accord,” he says softly, rolling his wounded shoulder with a grimace. “But when we get to the main road I’m sure they’ll put it together.”
“What do you mean?”
He nods at the little hut. “Nuriya and Das fled. They won’t be the only ones.”
I pause with one hand on the door to the roulotte, remembering the families following the armée, pushing wheelbarrows full of bedding and valuables. And the crowd on the docks in Luda after the last attack. How many people will be traveling south to try to avoid the fighting? “We better hurry to the capital, then.”
I am rummaging through the back of the roulotte for a needle when my parents come boiling out of the house. Papa rushes toward me, but there is a grim look on his face, and Maman has tears in her eyes. “Are you all right?” she murmurs into my hair. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” I murmur back, letting her hold me close even though my skin is crawling. “It’s Leo who needs help.”
“What happened?” Papa says.
“They won’t bother us anymore.” Leo sinks down on the back step of the roulotte. Wincing, he shifts his weight, pulling the recherche out of his pocket. “But they won’t be the only ones looking.”
Papa takes the paper gingerly—it is wet and stained from Leo’s tumble down the ditch—and I take Maman’s arm. “Can you get some clean water?” I say, but she hesitates, trying to watch as Papa peels the folded paper apart. I squeeze her wrist gently. “He risked his life to bring me back, Maman.”
At last she nods. “There’s some morning glory growing on the side of the house,” she says. “I’ll brew some tea. Come, Samrin. Bring the paper.”
Together they go to the house, leaving me to pick through my supplies—silk and steel, needle and thread, and a long strip of clean cloth from my once-best dress. By the time I have what I need, Maman has brought the fire back to life, and the water is starting to steam. She pours a little into a bowl and adds a handful of morning-glory seeds to steep. I toss some rags into the pot to boil as Leo balls his jacket into a pillow and lies down to rest his head.
Papa is still holding the poster, but his eyes are far away. At last he puts the paper down with a sigh. “What do we do?”
“Just keep going.” Maman uses a long pair of chopsticks to lift a piece of steaming cloth from the pot. “Stay on the back roads. Out of sight.”
“What about when we get to Nokhor Khat?” Papa says. “There will be soldiers at the gates.”
Gingerly, I take the hot fabric, letting it cool for a moment. Then I peel away Leo’s bloodstained bandage and squeeze the clean cloth out over the wound. Red water drips across the skin and through the bamboo flooring; Leo grits his teeth but makes no sound. “We could split up,” I muse. “The poster doesn’t mention you, Papa. They’re less likely to recognize us if you and I go together, and Leo goes with Maman.”
“It could work,” he says slowly. “But what about the roulotte?”
My hand stills as I consider it. The description is unmistakable—and I have never seen another roulotte like ours. Papa built it himself, along with his brother, when they were both young and had just begun to tour. They carved and painted each frieze with their own hands.
There is a silence in the room. Maman lifts another strip of cloth from the bubbling pot, letting steam rise toward the ceiling. The water drips and drops from the fabric. I take the cloth in my hand—hot enough to redden the skin of my palm.
Finally Papa answers his own question. “We have to leave it behind.”
Leo’s eyes spring open, and I lift my head quickly. “Papa—”
“We would have had to leave it at the dock, anyway. We can pack the best fantouches on Lani’s back,” he says gruffly. “That’s all we’ll really need. The fantouches and the instruments and each other.”
Across the fire, Maman nods slowly, and though the thought hurts, I know Papa is right. Gently I dab at Leo’s wound, but in my mind, I am making an inventory. What we have to bring, and many more things that we’ll have to leave. But then Leo pushes himself up on one elbow, shaking his head. “No. No, we’ll find a way to bring it with us.”
Papa smiles gently. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“A secret entrance?” I say, hopeful, but Leo makes a face. “A lava tunnel under the city?”
“If there is, I don’t know about it,” he says, but Maman looks to Papa, and there is a soft silence between them—like the pause before a nervous actor says her line.
“Maman,” I start, but she shakes her head.
“It’s not wide enough for the wagon!”
“A hidden route?” Leo’s face is eager. “You have to show me.”
“I’m not going back there,” she says, her face ashen. “I’m never going back.”
“Then tell me and I’ll go,” he says, trying to sit up. I push him back down as fresh blood flows from the cut on his chest. “The location could be worth hundreds. Thousands—”
With a clatter, Maman throws down the chopsticks, pushing back from the fire and starting toward the other room. Leo looks to Papa, but Papa shakes his head; in his eyes, a warning. “Money doesn’t solve as many problems as you think.”
“Maybe not,” Leo says. “But Jetta will be safest if she can avoid the soldiers at the gate. They don’t take money, either.”
Though Maman doesn’t stop, she falters as she passes through the curtain. Papa gives him a long look. “We all need some rest,” Papa says. “Let’s talk about it when we wake.”
Before Leo can say anything else, Papa follows Maman, leaving us by the fire in a strange and fragile silence. I can hear Maman whispering behind the curtain, her voice strangled, as though her words are trying to escape, as though she cannot catch her breath. But Leo turns to me. “How does your mother know a hidden route out of Nokhor Khat?”
“I’m not sure,” I tell him, though my own imagination is aflame. I know so little about her past, and she had no family for me to ask—no sisters, no mother. Strange in our village, though not unheard of—not after the fighting that lead to La Victoire. But what if she wasn’t from the village? What if she’d left her own family behind in Nokhor Khat? Leo is still watching me. To cover for my racing thoughts, I pass him the morning-glory tea, dark and bitter. “Drink up,” I say, dabbing at the wound with the last warm cloth.
He takes a quick swallow and wrinkles his nose. “Ugh.”
“The worse it tastes, the better you’ll feel.” I chew my lip, watching as he drinks, waiting for the tension to ease from his brow, for his breathing to slow. It only takes a few more sips. The tea is strong.
I pick up Maman’s chopsticks as he takes the last draft; delicately, I close them around the needle and dunk it into the boiling water. “Could we disguise the roulotte?” I murmur, half to myself. “Paint it, maybe?”
“That won’t fool anyone,” Leo mutters into his empty cup. “They’ll be searching every wagon—especially one with so many carvings.”
“What if the rest of us went through the gate separately?” I say, lifting out the needle. “We could send Papa on ahead with the roulotte. Even if they search it, they won’t find us.”
“That won’t work,” Leo says, chewing his lip, but I frown.
“Why not?”
His eyes slide away from mine. “We could do so much with a secret route into the city.”
I let the needle drip into the pot. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Leo sets down the cup. In the silence, steam rises to the ceiling. A soul glimmers in the thatch overhead. I thread the needle with a length of undyed thread. No explanation comes. What is he hiding? Or is it only the blood loss, the long night, the village, the tea? “How’s the pain?”
“Less.”
“Do you want to wait a while?”
Leo shakes his head and leans back, adjusting the pillow of his jacket. As he does, the gleam of metal catches my eye—the silver cigarette box, peeking out of the pocket. “Best get it over with,” he says, closing his eyes.
Putting the case out of my mind, I lean over his chest and start to sew. He tenses when I put my hand on his skin, to hold the wound closed, and again when the needle touches his flesh, but he suffers in silence, breathing deeply. At first I too struggle for calm—for focus. But as I sew, taking care to keep the stitching neat and straight and the edges even, my heart slows and I relax. It is no different than other fine work—except that I can feel his blood on my hands, his pulse under my fingers. As I tie the last knot, I glance up and see that his eyes are no longer closed. Carefully I cut the thread close to the skin. “Are you all right?”
He takes a slow breath, and when he speaks, his voice is thoughtful—dreamy. “You’re the expert. You tell me.”
“I think you’ll live,” I say with a smile. But he shifts his head, looking down at the wound with a grimace.
“I feel like I could use a little more paint and polish,” he says, and I laugh.
“It’s a bit more serious than paint can fix.”
“Sequins, then? Glitter?”
“Rhinestones, maybe.”
“That bad?”
“Might be best to scrap you. Start over.”
“If you do, build me better next time.” He gives me a wan smile—there is such sadness in his face. I reach out to put my hand on his arm; his other hand comes up to cover mine. It is tacky with blood and grime, but I do not pull away, not for a long while, not until his breathing is slow and easy. And as he sleeps, the fire burns low, but the light still gleams on the corner of the silver cigarette box.
What’s inside your violin case?
A violin.
But I have never seen Leo smoking.
So I slip the case out of his jacket pocket with my free hand, and slowly, gently, snap it open. Inside—no cigarettes. But there is a piece of paper, folded in thirds, then in half. This must be what he is smuggling.
My mind races through the possibilities. Secret plans for the next rebel attack? A map of the locations of armée camps or ammunition? A schematic for a new weapon? Gingerly, I unfold the page, making sure it doesn’t crinkle, but the paper is worn and soft, as though it’s been read many times, and when I tip it toward the dying light, I see it is a letter.
Dearest Leonin, it begins, in the precise, delicate hand of a lady. I was so saddened to hear of your mother’s death, and so is our father, though he’ll never admit it. And yes, I say “our father,” for you are my brother always, no matter what he says. . . .
My stomach flips; shame chases my eyes from the page. Hurriedly, I fold the letter and tuck it back into the case, sliding the whole thing under his jacket. After all he’s done—the risks he’s taken, the knowledge he’s shared, from the first day outside the theater when he opened his door to us. What is wrong with me?
With a sigh, I pull my hand free of his, but when I move, he stirs. “Where are you going?” he murmurs, eyelids fluttering open. I can’t meet his gaze.
“I need to get more betel,” I say, hoping the dark hides the flush on my cheeks. “Make a fresh bandage.”
To my surprise, he struggles up to his feet, searching his jacket for the gun. The cigarette case clatters to the floor; he grabs for it, but he is still wobbly from the tea, and it takes him two tries before he picks it up and tucks it back into the pocket. “You can’t go alone.”
I want to protest—then again, I did not know who might be lingering outside. And though I’d used the leaves as an excuse, it wasn’t a lie. He did need a new bandage. So I peek through the curtain at my parents; they are lying together on the makeshift bed. At first I think they are sleeping, but then I see Maman’s eyes, glinting in the glow of the firelight. “I’m just going to the garden,” I say, and she nods a little. By the time I turn back, Leo is waiting by the door.
I glance outside, but the clearing is empty save for Lani. Aside from the call of the birds, the jungle is quiet. Over the tree line, the rising sun is chasing away the shadows. So I step outside into the morning light, Leo right behind me. His hand is on his gun, but his steps are slow, tentative, and his focus is not on the trees, but on the roulotte. I do not know how well he could defend us, if he had to, but no one rushes from the jungle or bursts from behind the house as I make my way through the kitchen garden.
Past waving stalks of chive and the feathery fronds of carrots, there is a bamboo trellis sewn with a bright green betel vine. I pluck a handful of leaves and turn back to Leo, but he’s still staring at the roulotte, his eyes like glass.
“We have to find the secret route,” he murmurs, almost to himself. His words are slurred . . . his guard is down.
“Why is it so important to you, Leo?”
Emotions cross his face—shame, fear, frustration. “Can I tell you something?”
A knot forms in my stomach. “You’d better.”
Leo hesitates a moment longer. Then he beckons. I follow him to the side of the roulotte, where he kneels in the grass. I lean down, following his finger as he points between the wheels. Then I gasp. Beside the new axle, a dozen rifles are strapped to the bottom of the roulotte.