Page 7 of Immortal Longings
When Lusi stands, his movements are even and controlled. Lusi is not Lusi at all anymore, his consciousness stamped into the background, too weak to fight back. So his body turns on its heel and begins to walk.
Calla pushes on the door of the Magnolia Diner, ducking under the turnstile at the door and watching her wristband tick down. It’s late now, almost midnight. Almost time to report to the coliseum. Outside, San-Er is a series of loud clatters and clangs, pressing in through the open windows of the diner. The twin cities remain active at this hour, the restaurants filling orders and the brothels at their busiest, funneling people through the streets without pause.
Practically every street in San leads toward the coliseum grounds, because the Palace of Union is attached to the coliseum, and heavens forbid the palace be inconvenienced in any way. The marketplace that operates within the coliseum is the only outdoor market in San-Er, hawking the cheapest goods and unhealthiest foods, which Calla simply does not go near. She has spent a long time avoiding that part of the city. All these years, knowing that King Kasa stood nearby and she couldn’t act… it has broiled a hot anger inside her, forcing her to steer clear of palace grounds until the day came that she could play her hand. She didn’t think someone would recognize her outside of its vicinity. Perhaps she should have been more careful.
But she doubts that it was she who gave her own hand away.
“Yilas!” Calla tears her mask off, then calls out again without the muffle.“Yilas.”
The diner patrons hardly pay her any heed. It’s as crowded inside as it is on the main streets: old men in tank tops smoking their cigarettes, drippingwith sweat to add to the filth that leaves the floor slick. Booths line the walls, crammed with schoolkids without parental supervision, yelling over their card games. Only Yilas glances up from the other side of the diner. She closes the logbook she was writing in and pushes away from the register with a roll of her pale-green eyes.
“You could have walked over like a normal person, you know.” Yilas tightens the knot of her apron as she approaches, then nudges her dyed bangs away from her face. They’re red today, which clashes with her eyes, but Yilas is the sort of person to purposely match a leather jacket with a silk dress. Half of Calla’s wardrobe is borrowed from Yilas, so they look a matching pair with their dark-red coats, one size too large and draping down to their knees. “What are you in a fit about?”
Calla flashes a wide grin. “A fit? Me?” She twirls around to Yilas’s side, throwing an arm over her shoulder. The grip looks casual, but Yilas’s immediate wince speaks to the bone-crunching reality. “I’ve never thrown a fit in my life. Where’s your darling girlfriend? I have some matters to discuss with you both.”
Yilas looks up at Calla, chin tipped to accommodate their height difference. It’s a shock that Calla manages to blend so well into the city when she’s a head taller than average. Though Yilas scrunches her mouth a moment in thought, seeming to debate whether Calla has brought in a serious matter or only her dramatics, she does walk forward and take Calla with her, pushing through the kitchen door and then another into the diner’s cramped office.
“Calla!” Chami greets, perking up at their appearance.
Calla lets go of Yilas and slams the office door closed behind them. Her grin drops at terrifying speed; the room seems to go cold, too, in concert.
“Sit down,” Calla demands.
Chami’s brows knit together with concern. Quietly, she drops back into her chair. Yilas makes a slower job of the task, strolling over to Chami and perching on the desk, giving the slightest shake of her head when Chami turns a questioninggaze to her. Before they left the palace in Er, Yilas and Chami had been Calla’s attendants. And three years later, when Calla caused a bloodbath that soaked Er in red, she showed up on their front step asking for help. At the time of the massacre, Chami Xikai and Yilas Nuwa had long established themselves comfortably as civilians in San. Attendants used to come and go often—the Palace of Heavens was far less guarded than the Palace of Union is now. Hundreds passed through the walls in the three years between their departure and Calla’s massacre, with a considerable fraction assigned as Calla’s personal attendants. No one knew that Yilas and Chami had been her favorites, and so no one from King Kasa’s forces has known to come sniffing around—yet. Calla has been living as Chami, staying under the radar but using her number when necessary. The real Chami uses Yilas’s identity number, since the two are attached at the hip anyway. Take Chami away from Yilas for ten minutes, and she might spontaneously combust.
“Give me a list of everyone who has asked for your name recently,” Calla says.
“What happened?” Chami’s eyes grow unbelievably wide, the pink standing stark against her whites and even starker against the black ink she brushes over her bottom lashes. Even in the palace, Chami always looked pristine, as if she wrapped up her makeup at the end of each night and wore around her perfectly preserved efforts in the morning. “Did you take out a loan?”
Calla throws her mask at her, but Yilas’s arm whips out, catching it before it can hit Chami. Yilas shoots her a glare.
“No,” Calla hisses. “A Weisannafoundme.”
Yilas’s expression shifts from annoyance to horror instantly, an exact mirror of the immediate dread that drops Chami’s jaw.
“We haven’t said anything,” Chami hurries to supply before Calla can ask. “The diner has been operating per usual too. The same few Crescent Society members coming in at odd hours, the same few criminal patrons who come to swap change. Certainly no one has asked—”
Chami stops, cut to a halt when Calla raises her hand. Calla’s gaze isn’t even on her former attendant anymore. It’s pinned on the table behind her.
“What is that?” She marches forward, eyes narrowing. “Is that acomputer?”
A knock comes on the office door, interrupting Chami before she can answer. One of the diner waitresses pokes her head in, gesturing for Chami’s attention frantically, and when Chami turns back to Calla with a pleading look, Calla waves her off with a sigh.
“I reiterate,” she says when Chami hurries away. “Please don’t tell me that’s a computer.”
“It was cheap,” Yilas answers, pushing a button beneath the table with her shoe. The rectangular box starts to hum. When the screen of the bulky computer monitor flashes green, the box also starts to emit a sound, whining loud enough through the office space that Calla suspects the patrons outside must surely be able to hear it—
The noise stops. Calla drops the computer plug that she had pulled out of its socket, spitting a lock of long hair out of her mouth. Everyone in San-Er chases what is shiny. The poor mailmen have started complaining about electronic mailing, which Calla won’t register for since she’s a nameless criminal, but even if she could,whywould she trust the ether to pass along her correspondences?
“Hey!” Yilas complains. “I was—”
“You were turning on a data feeder,” Calla interrupts. She carries a pager, and that is the extent to which she’ll allow the tech towers to follow her around. Prices have lowered across the twin cities for all the larger monitors; ordinary people have scrambled to purchase personal computers instead of dropping into the cybercafes that litter every street, but Calla didn’t think Chami and Yilas were stupid enough to do so too.
“They’ll know that Chami isn’t registered! This whole thing is an identity—”
The door opens again, cutting her off. In that split second, Calla prepares toswitch back to a grin, baring her teeth as wide as they will go, but it’s only Chami again. Her face is pale. There isn’t a single spot of blood in her cheeks.
“Calla,” she whispers. “Come out here, please.”
