Page 33 of Immortal Longings
After she awakens from a restless sleep, Calla calls a meeting with August. Or rather, she summons him to her, demanding his presence within the hour, or else. She doesn’t know what the “or else” is; she just knows that August will come.
She awaits in the Magnolia Diner, already on her third cigarette. From behind the register, Yilas waves her hand to disperse the smoke, wrinkling her nose.
“What are you so nervous for?”
Calla glances at Yilas with a start, stubbing her cigarette out. “Who said I was nervous?”
Yilas picks up a dishrag. Eyes narrowed, she wipes away the ash that has dropped on the counter. “I was your attendant for many years. I do know your tells, believe it or not. You always had those weird habits.” She prods Calla’s elbow, asking her to move as she wipes. “The others thought you believed in rural superstitions, but I knew you were just strange.”
The door to the diner opens, and Calla swivels around fast, her body tensing. Her reaction is an overkill. It’s only a little old lady with dark-purple eyes, pausing to type her identity number into the turnstile.
Calla sighs, adjusting on her seat again.
“I’m half-afraid that I’ll be hauled in at any second,” she admits.
“Didn’t you resolve that issue? With the Weisanna who knew your identity?”
Calla resists the urge to light another cigarette. “Someone else knows now.”
“You’re not very good at this, are you?” Yilas baits, a quirk to her lip.
“It’s not my fault,” Calla grumbles. “I’m recognizable.”
Her former attendant watches her for a long moment, her expression turning very serious. Then: “You could ditch the body.”
It’s not the first time Yilas has suggested this. In the palace, Calla’sapprehension against jumping was the norm, in line with the belief among elites that their bodies were sacred. It was an insult to themselves if they jumped into normal civilians and an insult to their fellow nobility if they were to borrow each other’s bodies. After she fled the palace and sought her former attendants’ help in San, however, her refusal to jump became a topic of contention. Yilas couldn’t understand why Calla wouldn’t commit to this new identity when she was putting Chami at risk by using her number. Take over another body—or buy an empty vessel, if she didn’t want to invade someone already occupied—and the palace would never find her while she lived as Chami. Her eye color would be the last marker of her identity; given that others in San-Er have similar hues, it would be near-impossible to use that alone to prove she was Calla Tuoleimi.
“I’m not ditching the body,” Calla says wryly.
“Cal—”
The door opens again, this time bringing in an unfamiliar man holding an umbrella, which is hardly necessary in San. Most rain gets caught along the sides of the buildings before it drizzles down to the ground, but anyone who walks the streets ends up mildly damp anyway from the leaking pipes.
The man looks up. For a fleeting moment, Calla sees his black eyes and is certain that Anton Makusa has come to hassle her again. Then she remembers that Prince August has an identical color from afar, and walks to meet him just outside the diner’s turnstile.
“Come for a walk,” August says simply, inclining his head toward the door. He turns and exits without waiting for an answer.
When Calla emerges from the diner, there’s someone else waiting with August, an umbrella in his hand too. The rain is so light, Calla hardly feels it.
“Galipei,” she crows, throwing an arm over his shoulder. In his birth body, he is taller than she is, so it is a formidable task, but he has always been large, and Calla has always been willing to irritate him. “I haven’t seen you in an eternity. Of course, someone with very familiar eyes did try to attack me a while back…”
Galipei tries to shrug her off. Calla’s grip tightens.
“August,” he croaks in complaint.
“No, no, don’t look at August,” Calla says. “You were so tough when you were running from me—”
“I only sent him to confirm your identity,” August cuts in. “He never intended to attack you. Leave him be.”
Calla purses her lips, then glances at Galipei. She brings her arm down and threads it around his. “Shall we walk?”
August leads them past the row of shops while Calla makes Galipei increasingly uncomfortable. By the time she’s exhausted a list of his family members—rattling off all the Weisanna names she can recall until Galipei has a bead of sweat coming down his face—most of the commercial district has been left behind, and San has settled around them.
Calla lets go of him abruptly and joins August under his umbrella. August doesn’t startle at her sudden movements. He is very rarely startled.
“I gather you got your wristband back?”
She lifts her arm, showing him the evidence. “I’ll give you one guess as to who took it.”
