Ty sets the tray on the table beside the bed, and a delightful smell whiffs up my nose. Peanuts, roasted tomatoes, and ginger. It reminds me of home, of the East Market, of Rudjek. Another pang. This one is a different kind of longing, an ache stirring in my heart. He’ll be mad that I haven’t written, but whenever I leave this gods-awful place, I’ll make him understand.
My stomach growls and Ty’s smile widens. She’s brought two bowls of soup and a ball of seeded bread to split between us. For a while we eat in silence, Efiya’s cries tempering the mood. The soup is the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in days.
“Why does she cry all the time?” I ask Ty, who looks up from her bowl at my question.
Ty points to her mouth and when I don’t understand, she taps one of her teeth.
“She’s teething?” I grimace. Even with the evidence in front of my face, I never thought of Efiya as going through the normal stages of childhood. Koré said that time was finicky in Kefu, but Arti and Efiya must somehow be manipulating it.
Ty nods as she takes a stylus and paper from the pocket of her apron and writes a message. “Reminds me of you. You were a fussy baby.”
“Don’t compare me to that thing.” I drop my spoon against the porcelain bowl and the clank echoes between us. “She’s nothing like me. She’s hardly even human.”
Ty shakes her head and puts the note in her pocket. We pass the rest of our dinner in silence, and after she’s gone, I spend my evening reciting the two rituals in my mind. The box of scrolls had been missing from underneath my bed when I checked after waking up. I should’ve hidden them, but it doesn’t matter. I had enough sense to bury the ancestor bones before I went into the desert. I still need to break the curse on my father. With his curse broken, he’ll be able to help me slow Arti down until the edam can come.
I fall asleep with rituals teeming around the edges of my mind and the sound of Efiya crying in the background. In the twilight hours, I’m startled awake by a sudden presence. Someone curls against my back and buries their face in my hair. The touch is so comforting that sleep almost lulls me back into its grasp.
My breath catches in my throat as I turn over, moaning from the pain ripping through my muscles. A girl peers at me with pale green eyes full of curiosity. Her wiry hair sticks up every which way. Efiya. She’s grown again—a child of six or seven now.
“I saw you before.” Efiya climbs to her knees, then feet. She bounces around the bed, her hands balled into little fists as she jumps higher and higher. “You were some place you weren’t supposed to be.”
She must be talking about the vision, when she traveled into the past, long ago—when I first sold my years. The magic that clings to her now is even stronger than it had been then.
“You . . .” The word grinds against my raw throat.
Efiya blinks at me, then reaches down to touch my neck. “Is that better?”
The pain fades, leaving the taste of blood in my mouth. “How much time has passed?”
“Time?” She puts her hands on her hips. “Time isn’t important here, silly.”
“How are you aging so much,” I ask, frowning, “when I am not?”
“Because I want to,” Efiya answers. “Mother doesn’t let you and the others succumb to the whims of time.”
“So you really are six?” I ask, hesitant.
“Seven!” She grins. “Since I woke you up a year has passed for me while it’s only been moments for you.”
I can’t wrap my mind around it, but it’s true. She’s a little taller, her cheeks a little less round. The change happened in the blink of an eye.
I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t cooperate. It never does at first. It takes a while for the stiffness to leave my bones.
“I don’t know anything about you.” She points at my forehead. “I can’t see inside your mind, not like the others. I know their spoken and unspoken words, but you . . . you’re different. Why?”
“Go ask Arti,” I spit, “and leave me alone.”
“Mother doesn’t know,” Efiya says. “I can see everything in her mind.”
“Does it matter, then?” I snap.
“I don’t know yet.” She frowns. “Do you want to play in the gardens?”
“Does it look like I can play right now?” I glare at her. Only this evening she was a baby still in Arti’s arms and now she’s a little girl. A little girl with endless questions like any other child. Eyes as bright as lightning bugs. A smile so . . . so pure that my mind struggles to connect her to the horrible ritual in the Temple—to her making. A child, but for how long?
At the pace she’s growing, I won’t be able to do anything to stop her. For now she hasn’t harmed anyone. I want to believe that Heka’s vision was wrong, that there’s another way, another possibility, but I’m not a fool either.
“I can fix you!” Excited again, she bounces on the bed. “I know how.”
Every bounce sends a shock of pain as her magic slams into my spine. “Stop,” I yelp. “Please!”
The room door flies open and Arti rushes across the space. She grabs Efiya from behind—the girl kicks and screams in protest. “I was fixing her!” she says. “Let me fix her.”
“Stop it!” Arti’s tone is sharp, and Efiya ceases her hissy fit at once.
Arti puts her down. “I told you not to use magic on her. Why did you disobey me?”
“She needed fixing.” Efiya furiously twirls her trousers’ string around her finger. “I only wanted to help.”
Arti’s magic crackles in the room and she cuts a look so dangerous that Efiya falls still. “Never go against what I say, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mother,” she answers, her bottom lip trembling.
“Good girl.” Arti pats her shoulder, and Efiya offers a shy smile in return. “We have work to do.”
“Get her out of my room!” I manage to croak, tears masking my rage.
I’ve failed again. I fail at everything. I can’t stand the sight of either of them.
Arti raises an eyebrow at me and holds my gaze a beat too long. She looks like she’s going to say something; instead she puts a hand on Efiya’s back and walks her from the room.
I’m so angry that my whole body shakes. I can’t keep lying around doing nothing. I can’t keep hoping that the edam will save me, and stop my mother and Efiya. I grit my teeth and sweep my legs over the side of the bed. A dull ache spreads down my spine, but the pain is bearable for the first time since breaking my mother’s curse. I take a step, stumble, and catch myself against the wall. Sweat streaks down my forehead as I try again and again and again. I keep trying as time in Kefu flashes from night to day to night in a matter of moments. In that time, walking becomes natural again. For what it’s worth, Efiya’s magic did help, but I don’t know why she even bothered.
I stare at my gaunt face in the mirror. I have dark circles and lines that weren’t there before. My skin is ashen, and there are still scabs on the bridge of my nose, healing over from sunburn. Bruises cover my arms and from my aches, they must cover the rest of my body too. I look like one of the charlatans in the market. I am a charlatan. What will it cost when I do the ritual again to free my father? How soon before there will be nothing left to pay?