‘I know, my love.’ Adena’s face was serene, if a little ethereal. Very faintly the texture of her skin altered, tiny patterns moving just beneath the surface.
‘What happened after that?’ Fulcrom asked.
‘My soul was trapped beneath the city, just like every other soul who wasn’t burned on a pyre and set free.’ She chuckled. ‘I suppose it means the Jorsalir priests were right about something. And you know what, there are a surprising number of us down there, and not just criminals who aren’t allowed to have their souls freed — although even most of them say they were innocent anyway. So we are all there, underneath Villjamur, doing what we’ve done for as long as any of us can remember, and Ulryk manages to gain entrance to wherever it is we were… I want to say living, but that’s not quite right, is it?’
Fulcrom was amazed at how light-hearted she was taking all this. She never did take anything seriously, even when she was still alive — Snap out of it, idiot. This doesn’t prove anything.
Adena continued. ‘Ulryk gave his best religious mumbo-jumbo to set us free, but I think he meant to some kind of heaven. He did some spells, I think, from a book which he was carrying, and I’m not sure what happened, but we all just followed him right out of the underworld and through some strange passageways and up to the city. It took us a while, but previously we’d never been able to leave the underworld. All of us were trapped there, somewhere under Villjamur.’
Fulcrom tried to process all of this, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous it all sounded. Worst of all was that he was inclined to believe her.
‘I came straight to see you,’ Adena said, ‘though at the moment I only appear in mirrors. Some of the others are able to move about the streets — I’m hoping maybe I can, too. So then, tell me all about Lan.’
Fulcrom turned away. ‘I don’t want to talk about Lan.’
‘Why not? She’s important to you, and you’re important to me.’
‘I just don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Oh, come on, I don’t want us to argue on my first night back. That’s all we used to do towards the end.’
Fulcrom was hurt. ‘We did not.’
‘You probably don’t remember, burying yourself in your work. My memories are preserved, once they returned to me. They say, in the underworld, that the living have a habit of killing reality. As soon as something’s happened, it’s distorted from what it used to be.’
Maybe she was right. He was always forgiving her for something or other, always letting her get away with whatever she wanted. He was a pushover, and he remembered now.
‘Are you just stuck there, in the mirror?’
‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘For now I can’t go any further than this. You don’t just appear back in this world, apparently — you make slow transitions. Perhaps I can take more of a physical form soon.’
‘And who exactly gives you such information?’ Fulcrom asked, exasperated. ‘Is there a clinic you all go to where you have a nice chat about coming back to life?’
‘Now don’t be sarcastic, sugar. You were always a perfect gent when I was alive.’
Again a sigh, again staring at the floor, the wall, anywhere but at the girl he’d tried hard to let go of for all these years. Eventually he faced her only to say, ‘I need to sleep.’
‘Of course you do — you go ahead, and I’ll be back soon.’
‘Knock before you do,’ he replied, but her image was already beginning to ebb away. The room suddenly lost one chill when he noticed another from the window by his bed — and he walked over to close it. But, just before he did, he swore he could see a couple of pale-glowing figures progressing across the bridges.
He couldn’t be bothered to explore that. He was tired, upset, and he was struggling to suppress his memories.
Lan lay awake on her side, glancing out of her bedroom window. Huge columns of snow drifted across the sea, like white banners floating in the breeze, and behind that slate-grey skies extended into the distance.
Despite the weather, she was in a good mood. No, a great mood, in fact. Last night, with Fulcrom, she felt as though she’d overcome a major obstacle on her journey through life. No matter how organized and skilful he was as an investigator, with her he seemed just as useless in the arts of being a couple as she herself felt, which made everything seem so normal.
She washed her face in the basin in the corner and got changed into the black outfit of the Knights. Her finger traced the encircled silver cross, their symbol, the one she’d noticed graffitied on walls near Caveside, like a warning. The same symbol that was featured on banners and flags drawn up for sale at the Emperor’s request, that little girls were stitching into their own costumes as they pretended to be her.
For a moment Lan paused in the mirror, brushed her hair and, with a pair of scissors, she straightened her fringe. A little make-up next. Without the bustle of the show, without other women around her, she enjoyed these little morning rituals. No awkwardness, no glares loaded with meaning.
After she finished, she headed out of her room, where she found that the boys were up, dressed and eating oats for breakfast.
‘What, no women this morning?’ Lan asked, strolling past the large window overlooking the sea.
‘Turns out,’ Vuldon said, in between mouthfuls, ‘that Tane’s conversational skills are a bit of a contraceptive at times.’
Lan didn’t even want to know what he’d said.
‘How did it go with your lover boy?’ Tane leapt up off the chair and sauntered to her side, his tail swishing playfully. His irises flared with a feral streak. ‘Did you let him… you know?’ He wafted a hand towards her loins.
For some reason Tane’s blunt charm completely circumvented any awkwardness, and it didn’t hurt to think about it when he was so matter-of-fact. ‘I’m not going to let your lack of personality ruin something nice,’ she said. ‘But no, if you must know, nothing happened.’
‘Lan, you need to tell us if you two are intimate.’ Vuldon lumbered over to the corner to stoke the fire and add a couple of logs. ‘Just lay it straight. We need to know — conflict of interests and all that.’
‘We kissed, all right, there’s nothing else to say,’ Lan replied with a frown. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t let it get in the way of the job.’
‘Good, because we’ve got a heck of a task ahead of us today.’ Vuldon stood up and folded his arms. ‘Everyone who’s someone in Villjamur is going to be at this damn opening,’ he growled, ‘and all eyes are on us, seeing as though we’re the city’s darlings. Let your concentration fall, and you could fuck it up — which means we’re done for.’
‘I’m not going to fuck anything up.’ Lan wished he would show her just a little more faith sometimes. Was it the fact that she had messed up one night previously, or did he not trust women to do a decent job?
All along the Maerr Gata, the largest street on the fifth level of the city, people were stirring. Hunched in their shawls and cloaks and furs, under gentle flakes of snow, men and women trundled towards the new indoor iren, the first covered market installation outside of the caves. At first they came in ones and twos, the early trinket-seekers, and then they swarmed like beetles, scurrying out of cobbled passageways and across buckling bridges to join in with the main crowd.
The air was laden with expectation. This wasn’t just another iren, it was a statement against the ice age, a defiant gesture that life could go on. Not just that, but the grand opening had been hyped beyond all belief, so much so that the people of the city could well believe that they were about to witness an event on par with the birth of a god.
Boards advertising the event had been erected about the city; banners of new insignias rattled from metal railings; criers stood broadcasting against the tide of citizens.