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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Fenlia

F ransen’s body is burned, and his ashes are let loose on a breeze which carries them over the wall surrounding Kreuzfurt. For a week, even the Givers wear black out of respect for Fransen’s death. They trade stories and memories in his name, and Fen finds the sudden integration between the two Houses both alarming and welcoming. She had never bothered to get to know the Reapers of Kreuzfurt before. They were embodiments of Death , and she had wanted nothing to do with them. But here, now, she finds herself chatting with them and learning their names.

Cat mostly avoids the mourning period, scowling and walking in the opposite direction when he sees the Houses mingling. ‘It’s antithetical to how he perceives what death means,’ Elena explains when Fen asks her about it. ‘In this, I’d suggest just letting it go.’

She does, but only with great reluctance.

When the mourning period is over and she can reclaim her white uniform, she is surprised by how comfortable it feels after so long in black. She is surprised, too, by how much white there is now that her attention has been drawn to it. ‘How many Reapers are in Kreuzfurt?’ she asks Zinnitzia over breakfast.

Her mentor shrugs, then says, ‘Marina would know exactly, but perhaps thirty or so. Forty at most.’

‘That’s it?’

‘You’re welcome to go to Alelune to fetch more,’ Zinnitzia mutters, tearing into a freshly baked roll. ‘Sun knows they have enough of them.’ Then, seeming to think her words would be taken as an invitation, she wags her bread in Fen’s face. ‘Do not do that.’

‘I’m not stupid .’ Besides, one Alelunen Reaper is more than enough. Cat is special. He’s a good person. She’s not willing to extend a hand of friendship to all the rest. ‘Papa once said that the number of Givers and Reapers is pretty stable. That it never really goes up or down much. Do you think a new Reaper will come here, now Fransen is gone?’

‘Hard to say. Don’t try to rush Death into making any decisions. Whoever the new Reaper is, Death will know before any of us. There is no point in anticipating it.’

‘So, who died before I came here?’ Fen asks.

Zinnitzia purses her lips. She butters her roll. She says, firmly and stiffly, ‘Don’t be impertinent,’ and nothing more for the rest of the meal. Fen finishes eating, then goes to the library to meet Cat. Elena’s still doing rounds about the House today, but no one has replaced Fransen as Cat’s chaperone. Fen wonders if it is an oversight. If it isn’t, though, it seems at least Marina thinks Cat won’t try to do something untoward.

Cat’s curled up in one of the window seats next to Elena’s usual mess of a workstation. He has one of her anatomy books held open on his lap, and he drags one finger along the words, mouthing each one as if he is not entirely certain he’s guessing them correctly.

‘How’s it going?’ she asks, peering over his shoulder. A large drawing of a chest cavity has been carefully etched onto one page. On the other is the swirling, looping script of Lunae. ‘That’s not practising . You already know Lunae.’

‘Not very well, apparently,’ he mumbles, fingers tightening on the book as if he expects her to pull it away.

‘Another reason to keep working on Soleben. If you have to improve one , then you might as well improve that. Besides, Soleben is easier. It’s phonetic and you can sound it all out. I don’t know how Alelune came up with that alphabet but none of your letters make any sense at all. It’s a swirling mess. The urom has five different pronunciations! It’s all memorization. It’s insane.’

‘I like memorizing things.’ He’s insane too. She doesn’t tell him that. That’s rude.

‘Have you at least been practising writing too while you’ve been at it?’

‘Why bother?’ he asks. ‘Who would I write to?’

‘My brother,’ she suggests. ‘I bet he’d like that.’ And she could put that in her own report too. Evidence of her good progress. ‘You could tell him about what you’re doing.’

‘He brought me here as a prisoner.’

‘Well, tell him you forgive him and thank him because now you’re my best friend.’ Reforming an Alelunen Reaper might go a long way towards encouraging Elician to get her out of here even sooner. He shrugs noncommittally, and she shakes her head. Sometimes he is truly hopeless. Drifting closer to the table, Fen reads a few of the notes Elena had left behind for the experiment she wants them to conduct. Several candles have been set out and they’ll need to angle a few mirrors to increase the light source on the specimen Elena has prepared. ‘I wish we could use blue stones for this,’ she muses. ‘The smoke gets so annoying.’

‘You have blue stones?’ Cat sits up straighter, closing his book as he meets her eyes.

‘Hm? Yeah, course. Well, I don’t have any. And there aren’t a lot here anyway. Just to power the lifts if they’re needed. But the palace has a lot of them. They light all the halls, and they warm the baths, and they’re amazing in the winter when it’s almost too cold to breathe. We barely need to use the cocklestoves at all. There are some fancier establishments here or there that have them too, but it is really expensive to use them – there’s a tax. Most people can’t afford the luxury.’ She waves her hand towards Elena’s experiment. ‘Probably why we don’t have one for this, but it would make things so much easier.’ Cat’s lips twist unpleasantly. ‘What?’ she says in response. ‘They’re wonderful. You can’t deny that.’

‘Blue stones don’t belong to Soleb, they’re Alelunen. Only the Blue Palace can decide who keeps them.’

‘How can a stone belong to anyone?’ Fen retorts. ‘They were mined from Alelune, sure, but that doesn’t mean they only belong there. They’re rocks. And they do so much good. Honestly, if you didn’t hoard them, all things would be better off.’

‘They aren’t hoarded ,’ Cat insists. ‘They’re freely given, as gifts. And no one needs to pay to use them in Alelune.’

‘Wait, you give them away?’

‘The Blue Palace gives them to the people, so everyone can live well.’

That does not sound right. Alelunens are harsh and unfeeling and don’t care for others in the least. Purposefully giving a source of heat and light and power to the population contradicts everything Fen knows. Again. Especially because the Blue Palace is not the seat of the monarchy in Alelune. Alerae is where the Queen sits, and it makes no sense at all for something as potentially lucrative as the blue stones to be managed by anyone other than the crown. She tells him as much too. ‘Besides, how would you know? I thought you lived in a cage?’

‘I lived near the mines in the Blue Lands before that,’ he replies sharply, the sharpest she has ever heard him speak. Sharp enough that it startles her. She blinks, stunned. It had never occurred to her what his life had been like before . Maybe that is how he died, crushed in a mine surrounded by glowing stones. That sounds awful. ‘The stones are gifts from the earth to the people of the Blue Lands, and only the Blue Palace can decide if those stones are allowed to be given beyond its borders. They’re gifts ,’ he insists. ‘They don’t belong in Soleb.’

‘Why not? Don’t we deserve to live comfortably too?’

‘Comfort gained from the theft of another’s labour shouldn’t be comfort received,’ Cat snaps back, fiercely determined about this of all things. Fen stares at him, startled beyond measure. For months he had placidly followed along, showing little care or consideration about anything at all. But this – this he argues over. ‘No one should be charged for a blue stone’s use,’ he insists. ‘Comfort isn’t a thing that requires a price.’

‘You should tell my brother that,’ she suggests awkwardly, trying to break the tension. She imagines Elician would agree with Cat wholeheartedly. Because it sounds half mad, na?ve, and filled with hope. A wish for a future or a world that glistens bright and perfect with no demons hiding in the corners. ‘He’d probably write back pretty quick if you explained this,’ she adds. ‘He loves getting into philosophical arguments.’

Slowly the tension leaves Cat’s shoulders. They slump forward and he sets his book to the side. For several long moments he seems to be rallying his thoughts, before he lets out a long stream of air and asks, ‘Would it even be allowed?’

‘I’ll clear it with Marina,’ Fen says with more confidence than she feels. ‘Besides . . . I’ve been waiting for him to write for ages now, and maybe if you wrote to him too, it’d prove we’ve both made some progress. He’ll have to respond quickly if you send him something, or it’ll be too impolite.’ She had not wanted to send her official report on Kreuzfurt to Elician by letter, but she has been giving him brief progress updates. The fact he has not yet responded rankles a bit, but she just knows he would say something if Cat wrote. He’d feel obligated .

‘Does he usually take a while to write to you?’ Cat asks, frowning at her.

‘Not really. Usually, he sends me a letter right away. It can take a while for them to get here, even with the pigeon post. But he’s never taken this long.’

‘How long has it been?’ he presses.

‘Since . . .’ Since before he left. The last letter they received from him was the one alerting Zinnitzia to his imminent arrival. Before that had been just an inconsequential response to a complaint Fen had made about the food served at the House of the Wanting. ‘Three months,’ she breathes out, struggling to get her thoughts into order. ‘Since he left . . .’

He should have checked in, telling them he had arrived at the front at the very least. Even if that letter crossed paths with her first missive, he likely would have asked if she intended to accept his mission. Find out if Cat is trustworthy, learn about Kreuzfurt. He would have wanted to know. Just to get the confirmation. But . . . nothing. Not a letter. Not a rote response. Not any kind of inquiry at all.

She knows this silence. She’s felt it before. When her papa had gone to Alelune on a mission for the King and had never come home.

Cat is looking at her, expression grim. ‘You should tell Marina,’ he advises quietly.

Fen shakes her head. ‘Tell her what?’ she asks, not trusting herself to speak the words out loud. She can’t. That will make it real. Elician is a Giver. It isn’t like Papa. He can’t die. Nothing can hurt him. He’s fine. This is just a mistake. A big mistake.

‘Fen . . . if your brother is truly all right, would he have written you a letter by now?’

Yes. Yes, he would have. She feels that answer deep in her chest. Written tightly on the folds of her heart. ‘What are you trying to say?’ she asks, voice breaking as her hysteria grows.

‘Ask Marina or Zinnitzia,’ he counsels again.

‘Why, Cat?’

‘Because something might have gone wrong.’ Cat won’t meet her eyes. His arms cross tight before his chest, smothering his belled wrist at his side.

‘What could have gone wrong?’ Fen asks.

‘I don’t know. But I was sent to kill him, and I didn’t. Someone else may have tried.’ The panic in her chest roars to an unbearable crescendo. She turns to the door and runs, leaving Cat and their lessons far behind.

She just hopes that, like all the other times before, Marina and Zinnitzia know more about what’s happening in the world than she does.