his jacket over broad shoulders.
She turned her eyes back to the grisly corpses. The smell of roast pork filled her nose, with the sharper reek of burnt hair and clothing beneath it. “Were these the only dead?”
“Less than half. Some were too mangled to keep and some have already been claimed by their families.”
“You let them take the bodies so soon?”
“Wealth has ever sped certain processes along.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Wealth enough to demand retribution?”
“Oh, yes. There will be arrests.”
“Appropriate ones?”
Asheris smiled with the not-quite-cruelty of a cat cornering a bird. “As appropriate as we can make them.”
“Of course.” Isyllt leaned against a cold metal tabletop, tracing the scratches where gore or rust had been scoured away. The corpse stared up at her, face eerily whole, though his body was a shriveled crisp. She touched his stiffened arm; skin cracked, char-black flesh flaking away to reveal seeping red tissue. But his eyes, milk-clouded and sunken, were still intact, and that was all she needed.
She leaned over the dead man, laying a careful hand on his face to steady herself. The heat had singed his receding hair.
“What did you see?” she whispered.
His dying vision unfolded in his eyes, wrapped around her.
And Isyllt stumbled, even the memory of the explosion enough to rock her on her feet.
Asheris caught her elbow. “You saw something?”
She leaned against him for an instant, trying to decide how much to tell him. But he’d led her this far-perhaps he could take her further still.
“Yes.” She feigned a catch in her voice, let him steady her more than she needed. His shoulder was a pleasant warmth in the chill room. “I saw the man who did it.”
“Can you show me?”
Her hesitation this time was real, but after a heartbeat she nodded. She had been trained by the best, after all.
Asheris laid a hand on the side of her face. Isyllt closed her eyes and summoned up the image of the shop, locking the rest of herself deep away where he couldn’t reach. She expected him to intrude, to search, but his presence in her mind was controlled, constrained, as if he feared to touch her.
A brief contact and a deft one, but as he slipped away she caught a flash of something else-sand and fire and wind, the desert’s fury. Her eyes flew open to see him recoil, dark face draining ashen.
“Forgive me,” he said after a moment, inclining his head. “That was…unexpected.”
Curiosity defeated tact. “What did you feel?”
“A great deal of nothing. I don’t envy your magic, my lady.” He straightened his coat, brushing imaginary dust off the embroidered sleeves. “But thank you for your assistance. Even though the man responsible is dead, this helps us track down his accomplices. Perhaps we can find them before anyone else dies.” His tiny shrug spoke eloquent disbelief.
Every time Zhirin closed her eyes, she saw bodies crumpled on the street, smelled smoke and blood and fear. Before long she gave up and lay staring at the ceiling until night fell and the house grew quiet.
She should have tried to help Isyllt and her master, but she couldn’t stand to watch them pore over details of the attack. As though it were a mathematical equation or a difficult translation to be solved. As though a dozen or more people weren’t dead, for nothing more than deciding to buy a lamp today.
As if that was just something that happened.
Finally she rose and straightened her clothes. For a moment she contemplated counterfeiting a sleeping form with pillows and slipping out the window, like she and her friend Sia had done when they were young. She restrained herself; nineteen was old enough to come and go as she pleased. Better to save the sneaking for when she really needed it.
But she didn’t find her master or Marat and tell them she was going either, only slipped down the stairs to the dim first floor and let herself out the back. Crickets chirped in the darkness of the garden and hibiscus bushes whispered in the breeze. The house-wards recognized her and stayed quiescent as she left through the garden gate.
She didn’t know where to go. Not home-her mother would ask too many questions. Would make Zhirin ask herself too many questions. A councillor’s daughter, rich and fattened on Khas money while people died, and what did she think she could accomplish by playing at revolution with the Tigers? Would she even have joined the Tigers a year ago, when Fei Minh was still a member of the Khas?
Zhirin shook her head, eyes stinging. Jabbor might have reassured her, but he was on the North Bank, and she couldn’t go that far for comfort, even if she had remembered shoes tonight. She had few other friends in the city, and none she could trust with this. Not for the first time, she wished Sia had remained in Symir instead of attending the university in Ta’ashlan. But Sia could no more have stayed than Zhirin could have followed her.
As Zhirin crossed the soaring Bridge of Sighs, whose lace-carved stone drew voices from the wind, she realized she was going to the temple. It had been too long.
She walked the edges of the Floating Garden, where moonlight rippled silver over black water and night- blooming lilies glowed milk-blue in the darkness. Trees rustled in the breeze, bobbing in their anchored wooden tubs. Webs of moss embroidered the surface, soon to be washed away when the rains came and the river rose. The night was too quiet; the few people she passed moved quickly, hunched as if expecting a blow.
The River Mother’s temple was always open, though at this hour it was all but deserted. The candles and lanterns had gone out, but witchlights glowed in the elaborate spiraled channels that covered the center of the floor. The drip and murmur of water echoed in the vaulted chamber.
A curtain rustled and a veiled priestess emerged from an alcove, lantern in hand. Zhirin curtsied and the woman inclined her head. Eyebrows rose above her veil, a silent question.
Zhirin had thought perhaps to light a candle and sit in peace for a time, but now she realized she needed more than that.
“May I use the pool?” she asked softly.
The priestess hesitated a heartbeat, then nodded, gesturing with her lantern toward the far end of the hall.
Zhirin still knew the way, though it had been years since she’d used it. She still dreamed of the temple some nights, dreamed of her imaginary life as a priestess. Her mother had been intent on sending her to university with Sia, the first of the Laiis to attend. Apprenticeship at the Kurun Tam had been their compromise.
At least she had met Jabbor.
The priestess opened the antechamber door and lamplight rippled across the low domed ceiling. A small room, with benches and racks for clothing and a shower; acolytes scrubbed the pool at least twice daily, but courtesy suggested one track in as little grime as possible. The veiled woman found towels and a robe in a cabinet and set them on a bench, and cocked her head in another question.
“That’s all I need, thank you.”
She nodded and closed the door, leaving the lantern behind.
Zhirin paused as she unbuttoned her shirt-for a moment she feared she’d have to hurry after the priestess to beg a comb, but no, she still had one tucked into her pocket. She set it aside as she stripped and folded her clothes. Her toes curled against the cold marble floor, gooseflesh crawling up her legs.
The water from the tap was cold too, and she stifled a yelp as it splashed over her shoulders. She worked the braids and knots from her hair, watching long strands slither down the drain. When all of her was cold and wet and
