Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(11)

“The world changes, Florihn,” I said, amazed at my own audacity. “The things we assume will last forever go away like the Beacon.”

“That is the city,” said Florihn. “That is not us. The Lani must stand by their ways. No mother can have four daughters.”

“Perhaps Vestris would help?” said Rahvey. “She’s rich, connected—”

“Do you see her here?” snapped Florihn. “Your precious sister has not come to see you for how long now?”

Rahvey said nothing.

“You should forget her as she has forgotten you and the place where she grew up,” said Florihn.

I bristled at this, but kept my mouth shut.

Rahvey, meanwhile, seemed to crumple inwardly and, as she began to weep in silence, nodded.

“But she is still your daughter—,” I began.

“The matter is closed,” said Florihn. “I suggest you leave us to our ways, Anglet. You aren’t Lani anymore.”

“What?” I exclaimed. She had said it like it had been on the tip of her tongue for years and she had waited for the necessary anger to say it aloud. The accusation awoke a new boldness in me. “Look at me!” I said, sticking out my arms. “Lani through and through. Like the people I have worked with every day since I left the Drowning.”

“Steeplejacks!” Florihn sneered. “What kind of work is that for a Lani?”

“Common,” I replied.

“Urchin work,” she shot back. “City work.”

“Compared to what?” I returned, fury sweeping away my usual diffidence. “Growing a few onions on the edge of a swamp? Mending pots and pans? Peddling folk crafts to people who think they’re quaint? Panning for gold in a river of filth?”

“I will not defend our customs—our heritage—to a … a kolek!”

Even in her rage, she had to steel herself to say the word. A kolek is a type of root vegetable. Its skin is brown, but the flesh within is white.

If she had not been three times my age, I would have hit her.

She saw me flinch and a flicker of cruel satisfaction went through her face, spurring her on. “But you are not even a kolek,” she said. “If you were, the chalkers would treat you better. You are not one of us. You are not one of them. You are not one of the blacks. You are nothing, and your opinions mean nothing here.”

I reeled as if struck, and the sensation was not just anger and outrage. Her words were a match touched to the powder in my heart, and now it blazed with a hot and poisonous flame: a part of me thought she was right.

There was a long, stunned silence while I gathered my thoughts, and when I spoke, it was quietly and with conviction. “I will take the child,” I said, thinking suddenly and painfully of Berrit, who the world had already forgotten. “She is beautiful. She has been born on the same day Papa was taken from us. She should not grow up unwanted.”

The room fell silent again.

“You?” asked Florihn.

“Yes,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt.

“By yourself? With no husband?” Florihn pressed.

“What use has Sinchon ever been in the raising of your family?” I asked my sister. She looked away. “I will come for her tomorrow, but you can tell the elders that you want to keep her. Make them talk about it. If they won’t change their minds—” I faltered, but only for a second. “—I will keep her. And if I can’t, there is always Pancaris.”

Florihn stared, her mind working, and Rahvey watched her, wary and unsure, like a cornered weancat.

“Tomorrow?” my sister repeated.

“Yes.”

Rahvey looked pale, uncertain, suspended between feelings, but when she felt Florihn’s eyes on her, she nodded.

“This requires a blood oath,” said the midwife, picking up the knife. “You must swear by all we hold true and precious. Hold out your hands.”

I stared at the knife, and the scale of what I was doing crowded in on me so that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. “Not my hands,” I said. “I have to be able to work.”

“Your face, then,” said Florihn, her eyes hard. “There may be scarring.”

I blinked but managed to shake my head fractionally. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Very well,” said the midwife with a tiny, satisfied smile. “Kneel down.”

I did as I was told, feeling the quickening of my heart, as if the blood that was to be let were rising up in protest.

“Anglet Sutonga,” she intoned, “do you swear you will take this child, this fourth daughter, from your sister Rahvey and raise her as your own or, failing that, find suitable accommodation for her, so that she grows up in a manner seemly and fitting for a Lani child?”

I opened my mouth, but the words didn’t come out.

Florihn’s eyes narrowed. “You have to say it,” she said.

“Yes,” I managed. “I swear.”

And without further warning, Florihn slashed my cheeks with her knife, first the left, then the right.

The edge was scalpel sharp, and I felt the blood run before the pain sang out, bright and hot. With it came shock and a sudden terrible clarity.

What have I done?

Florihn methodically took up one of the towels she had brought and clamped it to my bleeding face, gripping my head tightly and staring searchingly into my eyes for a long minute.