Suited (19 page)

As the door closed, my suit rippled. How long could it push against this wood before its strength failed? And if this was what it took to close one door, just one door, what hope would I ever have to do it again?

Fear for everything
.

How we needed the Keeper. How we needed him sane, and whole.

The door closed with a click, and with that my suit withdrew. I could not have stopped it if I wanted to.

I blinked against bright sunlight as the suit freed my face. An inglorious pile of rubble lay before me. I had even begun to smile when my withdrawing suit pressed against my abdomen. I could almost hear the sharpening of countless tiny, internal knives.

“Is it done?” Volski asked, behind me.

“Looks the same to me,” Tsana muttered.

I touched my stomach. I felt like my feet were welded to the ground, part of the stone.

“No,” I whispered to the silver and the squirming, kicking wire inside my blood. “I won’t let you kill it.” For a moment, my suit resisted, and I couldn’t move as we fought for control over my body. But the door had weakened it, and I was surrounded by the support of my critical circle, so I was stronger. This time. The suit sheathed its knives and withdrew.

“It is done.” I was able to turn, and to smile, and wondered at myself for doing so steadily. “You can rebuild the wall now.”

I was right, it only took them a moment. The rubble solidified, churned into blocks of smooth sandstone and grew into a wall. Nothing wavered; no invisible door weakened the very integrity of its foundations. The whole process appeared so normal, so simple.

“Strange,” Volski said, when the wall was finished and Zecholas was running his hands over the stone. Double-checking their work, searching for deep faults not immediately obvious.

“What is?” I asked. What wasn’t strange, at the moment?

“The pions, their behaviour.” He adjusted the buckles on his solid blue jacket, and dusted loose particles of sand from its thick weave. “This has been happening a lot, recently.”

My stomach was in knots. I tried to let none of the discomfort show.

“Don’t make excuses for your own incompetence,” Tsana snapped as she strode past us to inspect the wall. She clicked her tongue. “This will have to do, I suppose.”

I laid a hand on Volski’s arm as I felt him tense beside me. “Ignore her,” I whispered.

With a deep sigh, Volski nodded, but shook me off.

“Done for the day?” I asked, louder. “Surely you don’t have any more work to do on Rest.”

Tsana refused to even look at me. “Of course we don’t. This was a special case, after all.”

“Of course.” I turned back to Volski. “I was on my way to meet someone. Don’t suppose you have time to walk some of the way with me?” I tried for a winning smile.

Volski, of course, could see right through it. But he still said, “I’d be happy to.”

And as she stood there, inspecting the wall she had not helped build, Tsana’s ill-gotten circle left her.

Kitai gave me a smile as she left, the others – short Kieve, proud Nosrod, and even quiet and reserved Nikol – shook my hand, murmured that the circle was not the same without me, and watched as Volski and I went on our way. Savvin seemed to have disappeared. The two members of the circle I didn’t know hovered behind Tsana, evidently unsure what they should do next. Zecholas followed Volski and me and I was happy to let him.

“Tell me what has been going on,” I said, when we had turned enough corners and threaded our way down enough side streets to leave Tsana well and truly behind.

“You know about Llada, already.” Volski shook his head. “Sad business. She was not the centre you were, but she did not deserve to be pushed out like that.”

He did not need to know the truth about Tsana. Neither of them did. That matter was between me, her veche puppet masters, and the glass. So I said nothing.

“But I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about,” Zecholas said. Always a sharp boy.

“True,” I murmured.

“This is not the first Rest we have worked,” he continued. “And that fiasco at the market square was not the first time we have been dragged out to try and fix the impossible in the middle of the night. Something is wrong in this city. We know it is.”

I was leading them to Kichlan’s house, but not entirely sure why. Except that this was all part of one big bad puppet show that we seemed powerless to stop. Me, my collecting team, the Unbound revolutionaries, even my old circle and Movoc-under-Keeper herself. We were involved, whether we liked it or not. And I was tired of having my strings pulled.

“Is this a result of the debris emergency two moons ago?” Volski asked. “The one that forced the veche to evacuate the city, and cost so many lives?”

“In a way.” I wasn’t sure how much to tell them either. “Please, tell me what has been happening.”

“The city is...” Volski hesitated. “Collapsing is not quite the right word.”

“Pretty close though,” Zecholas muttered.

“Well, things are falling apart. But slowly. Not like the last debris outbreak, this is piece by piece, wall by wall, system by system. And when they send us to fix it, we rarely succeed.”

Zecholas tightened the fine wool scarf around his neck. Thin veins of gold thread shone from its intricate weave in the bands of sunlight flickering through to the alleyway. “It’s almost like the pions are leaving us. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but–”

“It doesn’t,” I murmured, silencing him. “It’s exactly what I expected you to say. I have seen it: this city is rotting away from the inside, from very deep inside.” It made me shiver. “And we need to do something about it. All of us.”

I stopped outside of Kichlan’s door. This was not just a debris collectors’ problem, not any more. We could not fix it alone, either.

“I want you to meet a few people,” I said, and knocked.

“This is not just about us any more,” I said into a cold silence of crossed arms, stony glares, and general discomfort. “And really, it never was.”

I stood in Eugeny’s hallway with Volski and Zecholas at my back. The old man crossed his arms in front of me, flanked by Kichlan and Lad. Kichlan glared at me; I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. Lad watched Volski and Zecholas with curiosity, but had picked up on enough of his brother’s foul mood to remain subdued.

Eugeny wore disappointment and anger beside the scars on his face. His bruising remained only as a faint yellowing If I had not know to look for it I would not have seen it. But the cut on his cheek was still raised, angry and swollen, stained with his goldenroot concoction. I wished I was not responsible for the flint in his eye. The mistrust. But still, I pressed on, well aware that I might not be welcome again in this house, a thought that filled me with dread. But I was certain this was the right thing to do.

“The Keeper is failing, the doors are opening, and we cannot fix them all on our own. No matter how many Unbound you might gather in the streets of ancient Movoc-under-Keeper, this is bigger than debris–”

“Enough,” Eugeny bit off the word. “You should not have brought these people here. I thought you would know better, talking like that in front of pion-binders. I don’t care who they are.”

He had allowed me to get as far as introductions, to set foot inside his home, close the door, and explain who I had brought to meet him. But no further.

“They understand what is happening to this city, Eugeny,” I hissed back, angry for insult to the honour of the members of my circle. “Better than you and your Unbound friends do. They have to deal with the consequences of every door that opens, just as much as we–”

“Get out.” The old man would not listen.

I turned to Kichlan instead and wished for courage in the face of his stony expression. “Kichlan, please listen to me–”

“Why did you bring them here?” Kichlan interrupted. “I thought you were one of us now, not them. I thought you didn’t need them any more, because you have me. And Lad. Us. Is your circle still that important to you? Am I really – are we really – not enough?”

What was he talking about? He hadn’t even wanted to join the Unbound in the first place. Then I thought about following the technicians, spying for Fedor. Kissing him. Did he think I wanted the company of my old circle, more than him?

“You should listen to Tan,” Lad spoke so softly that I thought, at first, that I had imagined his voice. He watched us all with increasing intensity, with a firmness to his lips and a determination in his eyes that looked so very strange on his usually child-like face. This was the Lad who had cared for me so diligently, who took his responsibilities so seriously. Not the Lad who followed his older brother around like an infant.

“Lad?” Kichlan snapped, harsher I’m sure than he intended. “Be quiet.”

“No.” Lad didn’t shout. He didn’t lose his temper or begin to cry. Softly spoken still, but determinedly resolute in his gentleness, he met his brother’s furious gaze. “No, bro. We should listen to her.”

A horrible thought occurred to me. “Is the Keeper telling you to say that?” I almost breathed the words; aware that with each one I spoke, I took Volski and Zecholas closer to a place they could never return from. “Remember, he made a deal with us. You don’t have to talk for him.”

But Lad shook his head. “He is not here, Tan. I–” he hesitated. “This is what I think. Bro and Geny are wrong. They need to listen to you.”

I could have knocked Kichlan over with the flick of a finger, if he’d let me get that close.

Eugeny, however, was not so easily shocked and shook his head again. “Hush, Lad. You should not comment on things you do not understand.”

“I do understand.” Lad pushed past Eugeny. He shook off the old man’s clutching hands and even Kichlan, as they both tried to stop him. He stood beside me. “He – the Keeper – needs help, and you want to help him. That is good, but he didn’t ask you to. He asked Tan.” He wound his fingers with mine and gave a reassuring squeeze. “He needs me and he needs Tan. Everyone else is just–” he looked up at the ceiling, searching for a word “–they are extra.”

“Lad–”

But again, Lad cut through Eugeny. And I was so proud of his calm, of the words he used with such straightforward, Lad-ish eloquence, that I squeezed him back. “He trusts Tan. If you want to help him, then you should listen to Tan. Stop making it difficult with ‘those people’ and ‘us’. Just listen to Tan.”

“Oh, Lad.” Kichlan sniffed loudly and rubbed at his face. “Lad.” He seemed to be having trouble with his words, with his breathing, his eyes. I stared at the floor, rather than embarrass him.

“Fine.” Eugeny spun, and stalked into the fire-glow and food-smell of his kitchen.

I glanced at Volksi and Zecholas, and mouthed an apology. Wearing identical and utterly confused expression, they shrugged together.

Kichlan had not followed Eugeny. He was watching his brother with trepidation and awe, and Lad shifted uncomfortably beneath the scrutiny. “You said that very well,” Kichlan murmured with a smile that seemed to tremble on his lips. “Very well.”

“Not angry?” Lad whispered, his hand so tight around mine.

“No.” Another sniff. A small cough to clear his throat. “Not at all.”

“Not angry at Tan?”

Kichlan shifted his gaze to me. I fought the need to look at my shoes again, to touch my belly, to apologise, to turn around and leave and never come back.

“No, Lad,” Kichlan answered. “Not angry at Tan. Just a little confused.”

When we entered the kitchen Eugeny was standing before the fire, glowering as it silhouetted his face and stroked faint touches of crimson light in his eyes. Arms still crossed, he cut a dark and commanding figure. Lad slowed at the very sight of him. It took a squeeze and a tug on his hand to keep him moving.

“Explain, then,” the old man grated, his mouth a shadow.

Kichlan sat at the table, indicating for Volski and Zecholas to do the same. They did so with obvious misgivings. Lad and I remained by the doorway, between Kichlan and Eugeny.

I glanced at Volski, hoped he could see the apologies and the plea for patience in my eyes. “Please tell them what’s been happening in the city.”

By the time Volski explained walls they could not fix, streets falling in on themselves, buildings condemned by a single, unaccountable fault that no circle centre could find, Eugeny had unwound his arms and was rubbing at his temples.

“Fear for everything,” I said, and Eugeny’s rubbing ceased. He lifted his head, his expression haunted in the flickering reflection of flame. “I know you know what that means.” My eyes felt grainy in the smoke haze, my clothes too heavy and warm this close to the fire. I tried to ignore it, to focus. “Your Unbound friends might be slightly delusional, but they’re right. We need to do something about the state of this city. We need to stop more doors from being built. But did you listen to what Volski said? This is bigger than any binder can fix. Likewise, this is too big for debris collectors, or Unbound. Alone, we are helpless. We need to do this together.”

He shook his head. “This has always been the realm of the Unbound. Collectors. Whatever you want to call them. It is your role to serve the Keeper. Your place to help him. Not ours.”

“What about you?” Kichlan watched his fingers as he spoke. He traced the whorls and patterns in the wooden tabletop. “You’re helping the Unbound, aren’t you?”

Eugeny sighed. “Just because I have seen the truth doesn’t mean you should turn around and trust every pion-binder out there.”

Trust. Another word I was coming to hate.

“What’s the difference?” Kichlan asked.

“These are not random people I picked off the street, you know,” I muttered.

“The difference is I don’t use my binding skill, not any more.” Eugeny pointed to Volski and Zecholas. “Could you really say that even if they knew the truth, if they understood the consequences, that these two would be able to live without using theirs? No light, no heat, no clothes, no food… Nothing that has been made with the manipulation of pions.”

“Well, that’s a little hard to say.” Zecholas rolled a smooth beat into the wood with his fingertips. “Without knowing what this supposed truth is.”

“And who this Keeper is either,” Volski added.

Both were watching Eugeny with hard expressions. Not anger, although I would not have blamed them. Members of a nine point circle were not accustomed to being spoken to this way, and neither did they deserve such disrespect. No, they watched the old man with something closer to stubbornness, with strength born of hardship and experience. I couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of that. They were my circle members, after all.

I averted my face, unable to suppress a smug smile. Eugeny really had no idea who he was up against.

“But why would you even want to know?” the old man snapped. “You are comfortable, well-paid binders. If what Tanyana has told us is true, and judging from your bear badges, you are employed by the veche themselves. If you join us, like she is asking you to, then you risk losing all that.” Eugeny’s arms knotted themselves again, his shoulders hunched. “She’s not your circle centre, and she collects garbage for a wretched living now. Is it really worth risking all of that for her?”

“Just for Tanyana?” Volski said with a sad smile in my direction. “Probably not.”

“But we are not as blind as you think we are,” Zecholas continued.

“When Tanyana fell from the statue we were building, she told me she had been pushed. I did not believe her. I regret that now.” Volski caught my eye as he spoke. “There is something happening in this city that I cannot explain. Tsana has dragged us from collapsed wall to broken street to disintegrating factory, one after the other. We used to build masterpieces, now we’re lucky if we can complete a basic patch and repair. And it’s not only because she is a terrible centre–”

“Which she is,” Zecholas interrupted.

“Or that our skills are growing rusty. There are so few pions now, and the ones that we manage to gather aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing. So I’ve started wonder, the pions that Tanyana said she saw, the ones that pushed her off Grandeur, they weren’t doing what they should have been doing either. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss her. And then she shows up today, in the middle of another failed patch and repair job, and she knows what’s going on. She can help us do what no other circle has been able to do that successfully for so long. This is why we are following her. There is something going wrong in this city, and I think Tanyana can help us fix it.”

“Not to mention what this is doing to our careers,” Zecholas muttered. “I have never repaired this many walls, not even as a three point apprentice! Not even for practice. And I’m tired of it.”

“Fine,” Eugeny said again. “I see you will not listen to reason. Tell them what you want.” And he turned on his heel and left the room.

I disentangled myself from Lad and touched Kichlan on the shoulder. He seemed to be hovering on the edge of following Eugeny. “Can you explain it to them?” I asked. “What debris really is, about the Keeper, and the doors? I’m not sure how many times I can do that without losing my mind.”

Kichlan agreed with a smile, and my sense of relief was palpable. His expression was the brush of cool air on hot skin. “I’m not sure if I understand it all myself.”

“Me neither.”

But he consented, and I left Lad sitting next to him – keen to fill in any gaps, although I wasn’t sure how helpful he would be – and hurried after Eugeny.

I found the old man hiding in his forest of drying linen, of countless blankets strung up from the rafters in a fire-warmed room. How I’d grown to love the scent of damp cloth and trapped smoke.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said, before I had even brushed my way through the large cloth to find him.

“Neither do you,” I answered.

He stood before the low embers of his drying fire, anger lined in his face with heavy crimson and shadow. His bruises were clearer, as though the argument itself had deepened them. “The Unbound have been doing this since–”

I held up a hand, and was surprised when that managed to silence him. “There are no Unbound anymore, despite what your friends think.” I tilted the light on my wrist into his eyes. He squinted, and turned his face away. “See this? This makes me a collector. That is what we are now. And we need to accept that.”

“No–”

I released the suit just enough to coat my hand. Eugeny stepped back.

“This is the modern world.” The words felt like they did not belong on my tongue. Stolen from Mizra, Uzdal and Sofia they carried with them the burden of a decision I refused to make. “It doesn’t matter how things were done. They have been changed, torn from our control.” By the veche, by its puppet men. “We need to face the way things are now, the reality.” I shook my hand as I pulled the silver back in. “Your Unbound believe that by releasing the debris stored by the technicians they can reverse time. This isn’t true, Eugeny. The world will never go back to the way it was before Novski’s revolution. But that doesn’t mean we can let it continue as it is, and lead us into chaos and emptiness.”

“So what would you have us do?”

“Compromise. What Fedor is planning worries me; I must be honest about that. But, for now, it’s the best – the only – plan I have heard. So I want to help him. And we need Volski and Zecholas to do that.”