The Cage(65)

Maybe it was a museum of stolen artifacts from Earth and other planets, but from the way the Kindred argued in that flat way of theirs, she got the sense that transactions were happening. It was certainly like no store or supermarket Cora had been to. No one carried baskets or bags, so where did they put their purchases? Did they use money?

“For once in your life,” he said, “obey what I tell you. Or else someone will question why you are here.”

He led her deeper into the chaos, veering abruptly left and right, as though he saw some sort of organized system that she didn’t. A few Kindred slid their black eyes to her, but their faces registered no curiosity. They were like automatons, masked and unfeeling. Three in the crowd wore Cassian’s same black uniform, but most wore a simpler variation of the uniform the Warden had worn, with a row of knots down one side, though some of the Kindred—both male and female—clothed themselves in white robes with a single knot at the shoulder. They kept their eyes low to the ground and did not speak.

No other colors flashed among the crowd, except a shocking blur of red: two figures who might have been normal height if standing upright, but whose backs were so hunched that they couldn’t be more than five feet tall. They wore dirty rust-red jumpsuits and masks that fractured their eyes like insects’, and they had an odd way of walking, a little fast and jerky. No patch of skin or face or hair was showing; there could be anything under those jumpsuits, but the way their backs twisted so unnaturally screamed that they weren’t human.

She nearly collided with someone while trying to study the insect-masked creatures. She started to apologize but froze. A man’s leather belt was directly in front of her, at eye level. Her head pitched up, and up, until she was looking into the face of a creature—a man, as far as she could tell—with startlingly green eyes and skin a watery shade of gray. He had to be eight feet tall. He ruffled fingers at her that were long and willowy as water reeds, and she gasped.

Cassian dragged her away by her wrist cuffs.

“That was an alien!”

She supposed her words sounded ridiculous—Cassian was an alien too, but she had never really thought of him that way. Her eyes ran over his features; they had looked so foreign to her at first, but compared to the other creatures, he seemed strikingly close to being human. As his dark eyes cut to hers, she felt a kinship she knew she’d never feel with the other species. At least he had eyes . . . who knew what was underneath those masks.

“That was a Gatherer.” His tone was flat. “And they, in particular, do not like to be observed. They especially do not like to be bumped into by lesser species. If you must stare, the Mosca could not care less.” He jerked his chin toward the two hunchbacked figures in insect-like masks. “All they care for is unloading their wares, consuming alcohol, and falling asleep in some hallway.”

Cora gave the two Mosca a wide berth as they passed. The sea of cerulean-clad Kindred moved so stiffly around them, their heads held high, as though to show that they were superior. Most of the booths were run by Kindred, but a few were manned by more of the Mosca in masks and rust-red jumpsuits. They tended to huddle on the floor, their voices droning in fits and starts behind their masks.

Cassian led her past a stall stacked high with comic books: some in French, some Japanese, a few English. A short Kindred man—only six feet tall—stood stiffly behind the table, dressed in a uniform with only two knots on the side, with a jean jacket slung over his shoulders and sunglasses perched on his nose, looking so strikingly out of place that she had to stare.

She ducked to read the title of his comic book as they passed. Aquaman. A date was stamped on the bottom left corner. She did the math quickly—the comic book wouldn’t come out for another two years.

Her head started to throb. How was that possible? Had they been gone from Earth for two years? Or did the Kindred have the ability to manipulate time even more than she thought?

Cassian kept walking so fast that she barely had time to think. She tried to turn to see the comic book again, to confirm she hadn’t imagined it, but they were too far past the stall. “That comic book. The date—”

But Cassian shot her a cold look, to be quiet.

Cassian stopped abruptly as two Kindred soldiers in identical black uniforms approached. They exchanged words with Cassian that sounded harmless, though Cassian’s fingers dug into Cora’s arm like a warning. She looked over her shoulder amid the crowd, half expecting to see Fian’s creased face bearing down on her.