False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(76)

Using every security measure I can think of, I bring Ensi’s scanned notebook to my implants.

His handwriting is almost impossible to read, so tall and slanted. Each appointment is only a few letters and a time, perhaps a first name. Last night’s entry was only “XNDU,” presumably shorthand for Xanadu. There’s nothing over the next few days, but Wednesday has an entry: “D/O. MM.” I flip through the rest of the pages, wondering who the names are. On the last page of the book are various scribbled notes. Up in a corner, I spy “MM.” Next to it is a phone number, strange enough in itself, and it brings me up short.

I recognize it.

It’s the number for the emergency line at Mana’s Hearth.

I looked it up, after we left, after the surgery. When, despite everything, I was homesick. So many times over the years, I had turned on my implants, ready to input the number. I wanted to see if my parents were all right. If the Hearth was all right. I was too afraid, and I never pinged.

My throat tightens with unshed tears. It’s not totally unexpected, but it’s still a shock. We knew there might be a link between the Ratel and the Hearth when we discovered Vuk was Adam. We still don’t know what the connection is, exactly. Is Mana-ma sending people to the Ratel, and if so, why, and to what purpose? Is Mana-ma working with Ensi? That means interacting with someone Impure, and having a connection with the world she always taught us was evil.

I flip back to Wednesday’s entry. D/O. Drop off. Sure enough, Wednesday is the 15th—the date Tila and I used to look forward to. The date that the supply ship would come from the far-off shiny city of San Francisco. I guess, even ten years later, it hasn’t changed.

MM stands for Mana-ma.

“Fuck,” I whisper, wondering if I’m reading the signs wrong. Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see. I flip through the calendar. Every two or three months, right on the 15th, there’s an entry with “D/O. MM.”

Why? When I lived there, people didn’t die more than once or twice a year. Has Mana-ma started making more disappear? Or is there something else the Hearth has that Ensi and the Ratel want? The hairs on my forearms stand up straight. I’m still missing something.

What?

How long has this been going on, whatever it is? At least ten years. That’s when Adam disappeared. I have a feeling it’s been longer.

I take a deep breath. Nazarin comes into the kitchen and I send everything away, hiding the scans deep within my implants again.

He nods at me in greeting and grabs the SynthGin. It’s early in the day.

“Did it go badly?”

He pours liquid into the glass, bringing over a second one for me. “No. I’ve been promoted. He’s going to Test me, make sure I’m trustworthy. It’ll be different to yours, as he’s not using me for lucid dreaming, but I imagine it’ll be along the same lines. I guess we’re celebrating that somehow things didn’t totally go to shit last night.”

“Did you know what was going to happen?” I ask him.

He takes a swig. “No. I knew Leo was going to try something, but I thought he was months away from actually doing it. I guess he didn’t trust me enough to include me in his plans.”

“If he had, would you have sided with him?” If he had, would the end result have been different?

“No. Too dangerous. If there’d been even a hint I was involved, I’d be as dead as the others.”

“Right.” I sip the SynthGin. “Did you know Tila is sleeping with Ensi?”

“She’s his canary?” he asks. “No. I most definitely did not know that.” His eyes ask the question I don’t answer.

I take another gulp. “What does that mean, to be his canary? Malka called me that, too.”

“Tila is—you are—his newest pet. His newest toy. He’ll play with you for a time, like a cat with a canary.”

“Then, what, he’ll eat me? Is that what he does with the others?”

“Sometimes. If they displease him. If not, he lets them fly away, and then finds another.”

“Right. He’s been with her before. Tila. I got the feeling it’d been more than once. He seemed to … care.”

Again, the question with his eyes. I sigh. “I didn’t sleep with him. I almost did but we were … interrupted by gunfire.”

“Right.” He takes another sip. “How did the Test go?”

“It was horrible,” I say. “If you’re going to be Tested, I shouldn’t tell you about it.”

If he knew it wasn’t real, it’d alter the readings to the electrodes. And, in any case, the Test for him could be completely different from mine.

“And if I fail, I’m stuck as a Knight or a Pawn for good.” Or worse. Nazarin’s heard of the odd Pawn or Knight disappearing after their Test.

We’re silent. I slosh more drink in the cup. I’m drinking too much. Before all this, I hardly ever touched the stuff. At least my liver will be safe. Whoo.

“So what does the SFPD want our next step to be?”

“I take the Test. We keep playing our roles. Kim’s been perfecting something she thinks can help us gather evidence.”

I let out a slow breath. “How soon do you think she’d be able to do this?”

Nazarin perks up. “Why?”