Four Dead Queens(33)

I put my hand through the woman’s mouth and wiggled my fingers out the other side.

“Stop that,” Varin hissed at me.

I studied her bland, perfect features. “Seems like a waste of technology to me.”

Varin turned away as though I’d embarrassed him. Did Eonists feel embarrassment?

“You are now arriving in Eonia’s first precinct,” the holographic woman announced.

Varin stood. “This is our stop.”

I hesitated before stepping through the holographic woman. Her face distorted as my body passed through.

“Weird,” I muttered.

We exited the commuter. And though no snow fell from the sky, Eonia was easily twenty degrees colder than Toria. While I couldn’t see where the city ended, I knew if we continued on the commuter to the end of the line, we’d reach nothing but white. Snow and ice.

I shivered, cursing my decision to steal the Ludist dress, and tucked my hands under my arms. I cast a sideways glance at Varin, wishing I had a dermasuit, but he was focused straight ahead, his arms and legs moving uniformly, almost robotically.

Few people remained on the streets at this time of night. Everyone on the right side of the street walked in one direction, while everyone on the left walked the other. The pavement was clean. Polished. Organized. A man dropped a Ludist pastry, which must’ve been purchased at the Concord, but before he could reach for it, a woman dressed in a white dermasuit swept it into a dustbin.

“Everyone has their place here,” Varin said under his breath as I watched the woman scurry away to her next cleaning emergency. “Everyone plays their part.”

“And if they don’t?”

He glanced away. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

But I knew the answer. Mackiel’s henchmen were a perfect example of not fitting in. They were dead to Eonia. Or at least, Eonia had wanted them to be.

Varin’s apartment was on the twenty-eighth floor in one of the needle-thin skyscrapers. Inside, it was small, but not oppressive. I’d thought Varin would sleep inside an icebox, or a coffin, but was surprised to see a narrow white bed pushed into an alcove in the far corner.

I ran my hand over a sleek metal kitchen bench. It set off some sensors: a trash can appeared below, a sink rose from the middle, and a drawer opened at the end of the bench, revealing stacks of Eonist food bars and sachets of vitamin replacements.

Varin sighed, then swiped his hand back over the bench to return everything to its place. I moved toward a collection of paintings along the left wall that stood out in the otherwise featureless white room. One painting depicted a section of the colorful Ludist canals, another, the Torian harbor at night, and there was also a wide vista of the Archian mountains. All the other paintings were of the palace’s dome. I was drawn to the middle frame, illustrating a gray day, the muted palace dome glistening with rain. I ran my fingers over the golden brushstrokes, marveling at the texture.

“Pretty,” I murmured.

“Stop touching things,” Varin said. He pressed another button, and the paintings slid behind a cabinet.

“It’s my job to touch things.” I gave him a smirk, which he thoroughly ignored.

Aside from the paintings, there was a white couch placed against one wall and a small white table with one chair arranged in the middle of the room. With the paintings now hidden, the most striking thing about the apartment was the floor-to-ceiling window stretching across the far wall. The skyscrapers were alive with lights, appearing like a vertical gray sky. There was no such view in Toria; the streets were too narrow, the buildings too short.

“We should get started,” Varin said from behind me.

I hadn’t realized I’d migrated to the window, my hands pressed to the glass.

“It’s so beautiful,” I said without turning.

“It is, but it’s not why we’re here.”

I glanced at him, wondering if he could really see the beauty in it, but he’d turned away.

Even with such a prominent view and solar heating to ward off the winter winds, I’d rather have been back in my parents’ narrow cottage. I even missed my mother’s fish stew brewing on the stove, sending wafts of tomato and spices throughout the house. And while I hated sailing, I loved the briny smell that came with it. Whenever the salty scent would flood in from the front door, I’d know my father was back, ready to spin tales of seafaring and turning tides with such skill it sounded like song.

I’d have given anything to hear his voice again. Now I never would.

“Ah,” Varin said, drawing me from my memories. His face distorted in discomfort, his shoulders shifting a little. “I have to change before we can begin.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I replied facetiously.

A slight crease formed on his forehead. “I don’t have another room.”

“Where’s the bathroom, then?”

“Keralie.” He said my name as though it were a sigh. “I need you to turn back around.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s rude to watch me change.”

I laughed. “I meant, why do you need to change? I thought your wonder-suit did everything for you . . .” I scrunched my nose. “Eww. Is that why there’s no bathroom? It does do everything for you.”

He held up his hand to cut me off. “No. There’s a compartment over there.” He pointed to a section of his wall. It probably popped out like parts of the kitchen. “But there’s not enough room to change, and this suit needs a break from being worn.” He pressed a panel by the side of his bed, and a rack of two identical dermasuits sprung out. “The organisms need time to rest.” The muscles in his shoulders shifted beneath the black suit. “I can feel their exhaustion.”