The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark #2)(30)

“Whatever will help you,” I say.

“I wondered if you could let me into your memories,” she says. “If I used my currentgift to see them, maybe I could get some peace, for a little while.”

“Oh.” I hesitate. I don’t have that many good memories to choose from. The ones from my childhood are tinged with sadness, because they’re all building up to Eijeh and Akos being taken, or my father dying. The ones from after, where I’m trying to pull Mom back from constant distraction, aren’t great, either. It wasn’t until I reunited with Ori that things lightened up more often, and that was partly because I was getting to know Isae. . . .

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, it’s an invasion of privacy,” Isae says.

“No! No, it’s not that,” I say. “I was just thinking that a lot of my good memories involve you and Ori, and I wasn’t sure if that would be uncomfortable.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “No, that’s . . . fine.”

I move to her bed, and sit on the edge of it, where the blanket is still smooth and tucked under the mattress. I pat the space next to me, and she sits down, angled so she can look me in the eye.

“Give me a tick,” I say.

“A ‘tick.’” She smiles. “That’s one of my favorite Hessan words.”

I close my eyes, then, so I can remember. It’s not just about thinking of when I met her, or when I felt like I was really her friend—it’s about the details. What the air smelled like, how cold it was, what I was wearing. And that’s not so easy. I was in school, so I was always wearing my uniform the first few times we spent together, a thick robe that covered my clothes so they wouldn’t get plant dust and bark and stems all over them. . . .

“Go ahead,” I say, as I remember the smell of peeling skin from a saltfruit, green and tangy.

She’s used her currentgift on me before, when we were getting to know each other better, so I know to expect her hand on my face. Her fingers are cold and a little clammy, but they warm up fast on my cheek, and anchor at my jaw. Then we’re moving together into the past.

I stood behind a rope barrier with a crowd pressing against my back. I didn’t mind it then because it meant warmth, shelter against the wind and snow. I still had to curl my hands into fists inside my mittens to keep my fingers warm, but I didn’t feel that chill, that deep chill that makes your teeth feel brittle.

We stood there for a long time before the ship appeared above us, lowering without swerving to the landing pad. The ship was small and humble, a Hessa transport. The people around me gasped when they recognized it, the battered metal, the heat vents that keep the engine from freezing. To me it seemed like a message: I am one of you, just a simple Thuvhesit. It was a manipulation.

The Hessa ship landed, and the door opened, and a woman in black stepped out. Her face was covered, of course, from nose on down. But she wasn’t wearing goggles, like the rest of us were, so I could see her dark eyes, with their narrow slope, eyelashes pressed up into the skin above them.

At the sight of her, everybody cheered. Not me, though, I was trying to figure out if I was seeing things. Those were Ori’s eyes, but I hadn’t seen her in years, and she was . . . well, she was Ori.

A tick later, another woman stepped out behind the first—the chancellor’s sister, I assumed, only I could have sworn I was seeing double. She was the same—same height, same coat, same face covering. Same eyes that scanned the crowd without feeling.

The women walked shoulder to shoulder toward the building. They didn’t stop to grasp hands. They lifted gloved hands to wave; their eyes crinkled in smiles that we couldn’t see. One’s gait was smooth, like she was rolling over the ground on wheels. The other’s was buoyant, making her head bob up and down as she moved. When they passed me, I couldn’t help it; I pulled my goggles down so I could see their faces better, see for myself if this was Ori or not.

One set of eyes found mine. Her steps faltered, just a little. And then they were gone.

Later that day, I heard a knock.

I lived in the dormitory just next to the hospital, connected to it by a covered bridge. Sometimes I leaned my forehead against the glass and stared down at the iceflower fields from there. I could only see smudges of color from up here, where the buildings of Osoc dangled in the sky like chandeliers.

My rooms were small and packed tight with objects. Fabric, mostly. Paper—and as a result, books—was a luxury on a planet without many trees, but we spun fabric out of iceflower stems, and treated it with purity petal essence to make it soft. We dyed it all kinds of colors, muted and bright, dark and light. Anything but gray, which was what we saw all the time. I hung fabric across shelves, to hide what was on them; I draped it on the walls to cover up where they peeled. Mostly my room was a kitchen; I had little burners here and there with something stewing on them, and the air was full of steam or smoke, depending on the day. They weren’t clean rooms, but they were warm.

They weren’t fit for the company I got that day, though. I wiped my hands on an apron and opened the door, sweat wetting my brow. A very tall, thick man stood right in front of me, looking gruff.

“Their Highnesses of the family Benesit request the honor of your hospitality,” the man said. He wasn’t a Thuvhesit; I could tell by how he left his shirt buttons open at the throat. He was wearing pale gray, which meant he must be from the Assembly, and his formal tone confirmed it.