Thief Of Souls

into Winston’s ear. “You are a great being. Don’t let the others take that away from you.”

Okoya left as quickly and quietly as he had arrived, but the book remained, balanced on the spear tip of the iron rail. It seemed almost to float there, as if it had no substance, and the wind could lift it off the ledge, send­ing it spiraling into the sky. Winston sensed the book was not the only thing perched on the edge of a prec­ipice. He, too, was there, and if he leapt, would he fall or fly?

“You are a great being,” Okoya had said. Winston had always been afraid to admit it—but why such fear? If the Almighty saw fit to make him closer to his own image than most anyone else on earth, why should he not accept that? And wasn’t false humility in the face of all he knew himself to be, a kind of arrogance in itself?

If this book indeed contained wisdom that set him a plane apart from the other Shards, why not seize that as well?

If I am great, then let me be great. With a power­ful lunge of will, Winston reached forward and took Okoya’s book into his hands. The volume felt warm and far heavier than it appeared. Winston cracked it open. Its pages were easy to read in the dim red light of dusk, as if it had its own crimson glow.

The book was true to Okoya’s promise, and from the very first page, he was gripped. The words fell to­ gether like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; the ideas put forth were filled with great insight and understanding. Answers to questions Winston never thought to ask— answers so perfect that they were beyond Winston’s ability to process . . . and so the words passed through his mind, and he forgot them instantly. Not a single thought could he remember. All he knew was that, what­ever he had read, it had fed him—satisfied his hunger for meaning in a way nothing else could.

He went to bed that night remembering nothing of what he had read, but feeling his own wisdom; his pro­found growth and enlightenment from his great feast of words. It swelled inside him, bloating his thoughts, and he began to wonder why someone as important as himself had wasted so much time hiding what he was.

***

Tory stole some time for herself, swimming laps in the chilly Neptune Pool. When she was done, the young woman assigned to her service—a former tour guide for the castle—wrapped her in a velvet robe, even be­fore she had fully stepped out of the water. Tory imag­ined this nameless girl, a cheerleader type, no older than twenty, had followed her back and forth by the side of the pool waiting for Tory to be done, as if Tory was now the central figure in this girl’s life. The girl fumbled with the robe, and its hem sopped in the pool as Tory tried to step out.

“It’s all right,” Tory told her. “I can put on my own robe.” Tory slogged over to a lounge chair, removing the wet robe that was now keeping her more chilly than the air, and laid back to receive the sun. The girl, with nothing to do, stood there, conspicuously inactive, which was even more infuriating.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the morning off?” prompted Tory. The girl quickly left, as if her freedom was an assignment. When she was gone, Tory closed her eyes, and cleared her mind, feeling the warmth of the sun. Tory hoped the sun would bring the hint of a tan to her skin, which sometimes seemed as smooth and pale as the Greco-Roman statues that stood around the Neptune Pool. Sitting there among the marble pil­lars and statuary, Tory could, for a moment, feel herself part of another place and time, somewhere, anywhere, far from Dillon and his mission.

When she opened her eyes again, Okoya was sitting on the lounge beside her. “Mind if I join you in wor­ shiping the sun?”

“I’m sure the sun will be kinder to you than it is to me. Skin like mine burns to a crisp in minutes.” But then Tory added, “Of course, what do I have to worry about? With us around, melanomas don’t stand a chance.”

“Perhaps the sun should be worshiping you,” sug­gested Okoya.

There was a clattering of metal, and Tory turned to see the servant girl returning with a silver tea caddy stacked with enough lotions, potions, and oils to fill a small boutique.

“I thought you’d like some skin creams,” she said.

Tory turned to Okoya. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I once asked for some body lotion, and they raided the mall.”

“No need to apologize.”

The girl made an awkward gesture, something be­tween a bow and a curtsy, and scampered away.

Tory turned her attention to her cuticles, pulling away the fraying skin. “I’m just not used to being served. It feels . . . unnatural.” And then Tory laughed. “Listen to me—who am I to talk about things being unnatural?”

Okoya grabbed her hands, looking at her fingernails. “You have such beautiful hands. Why do you pick at them so?”

Tory pulled her hands away. “Bad habit. There’s worse, I suppose.” Tory grabbed one of the various lotions on the tray, sniffed it, and began to spread it across her arms.

“It smells nice,” commented Okoya. “In fact, you always smell nice. The others might not notice it, but I do.”

“I could say the same about you. That cologne you always wear—what is it called?”

Okoya shrugged. “The name escapes me.”

“Maybe I could try it some time.”

“If you like.”

Tory smiled. For Tory, Okoya had become closer than any member of her family had ever been. Closer than her boyfriend in Miami, who had gone from putrid to pure before her eyes. Closer even than Winston, with whom she had come so far. Like the others, Tory had given up trying to figure out on which side of the gen­der line Okoya fell. Even now Tory couldn’t tell what was hiding under the loose shorts and colorful T-shirt Okoya wore. But that was all right, because it meant Okoya could be anything and everything. He could be a brother, when that was what Tory needed, or she could be a sister. Today Tory decided she needed a sister.

“Do you bathe a lot?” Okoya asked, in a way that made it clear she already knew the answer.

“You know what they say about cleanliness . . .”

“Yes, but why would you need to?”

Tory sighed. “I don’t know.” Tory figured it was all those years living under a layer of festering flesh, that made it impossible for her to feel entirely clean. The troll might be gone from beneath her bridge, but its memory lived on.

Okoya reached into her pocket, pulling out the small crystalline bottle of cologne that rested there. She pulled the stopper and dabbed a tiny bit of the pale pink fluid on her neck. It vanished as it touched Okoya’s skin. Tory thought Okoya might offer some to her, but she didn’t.

“Strange,” said Okoya, “that the Goddess of Purity can’t feel clean.”

Tory had a good laugh at that one. Goddess of Pu­rity? Well sure, why not! The Neptune Pool seemed a place lofty enough for such a fantasy. She didn’t mind entertaining it for a moment or two.

The wind shifted slightly, and Tory caught the scent of Okoya’s cologne. She breathed it in, feeling it deeply in her lungs and spirit, like a pungent aromatherapy.

“I know in time, you’ll be able to feel . . . purged,” Okoya said. “But then again, perhaps it’s the world that needs purging—perhaps that’s what you’re feeling; the need to burn away the chaff, like a smelting furnace, leaving behind only that which is pure. After all, the world could do with some human purification.”

Tory pushed herself up on her elbows, and turned toward Okoya, but the sun made her squint, and Okoya’s face was painted in dark silhouette. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I mean that you’ve spent so much time turning your gift of purification inward—but there’s nothing left inside you to cleanse. . . . Still you keep searching—sensing impurity that’s no longer there; subjecting your­self to boxcars and ragged clothes, as if you had to.”

Tory knew there was truth in Okoya’s words, but also knew that it was a dangerous truth.

“If you want to ease your compulsion,” Okoya ad­vised, “then set your cleansing power free. Use it, the way it was meant to be used.”

“I am using it.”

Okoya waved her hand in disgust. “Dillon is squan­dering your talent. Using your insights and taking the credit. Didn’t you tell me that you were the one who made that leap of understanding, and figured out the truth