The stairs were a challenge, which she navigated in short bursts of energy and movement—a few steps all in a rush and then a pause to breathe, to let the world stop spinning around her still-thick head.
All the while, the voices rose and fell below her, growing clearer as she descended, until she could begin to make out what they were saying.
“. . . need her! This is complete nonsense! I don’t give a three-throated whisper if your brute here found her flinging shit against the side of the Council’s building; she is my charge, my responsibility! That’s just all there is to it.”
“A beast to break must find no quarter here.”
Kindred felt nausea ripple through her abdomen at that voice, those voices. While she hadn’t yet recognized the first speaker—an older man, she thought, maybe—she knew without a doubt who spoke second, those singsong voices threading through one another. If harmony could achieve discord, it was in the music of those voices.
The Word.
The older man spoke again.
“A beast? What a ridiculous idea. They’re just people—she’s just a person, and a citizen now, too! And this nonsense business of keeping her here for ten days just won’t do. It won’t do.”
“A tool, her purpose writ by your own hand.”
“What are you even saying? You sound like the riddle-speakers back home.” A new voice, one Kindred recognized as Cora the Wraith’s, joyful even in her criticism.
“Riddles is right,” came the older voice. “There’s simply no talking with you. Riddles and nonsense. I’m taking Kindred as soon as she’s well, and that’s all there is to it. I won’t let her be locked up here just because Barque swings first and speaks later. And the only way we get this city moving again is if we unlock those hearthfires, and I can’t look after the ships and work down there.”
Kindred stepped down the rest of the stairs until she stood in the main room of the first floor. She slowly took in the scene there.
The Word, their ropy hair tied artfully around their heads in matching swirls and loops, stood next to the front door, a thin staff in his hand, a blade of tarnished metal in hers. They smirked at exactly the same time as Kindred came into the room, their mouths quirking into identical slants. Beside them was Barque, his eyes downcast, the buds dotting his skin once again closed, returned to being tightly curled grey promises.
Seraph stood on the other side of the room, his wispy beard sticking out at odd angles, grey hairs converging into tangles and snarls. He still wore messed, dirty robes, and Kindred wondered if unwashed, unkempt existence was the norm for him.
Between the two parties, reclining on the floor with her back against the wall, was Cora the Wraith. She sipped from a small cup of water and waved at Kindred.
“We speak and she arrives, a beast so tam’d,” The Word said. Kindred felt her dizziness returning as she watched their mouths move in concert. They offered a nod to Seraph before turning and leaving.
“I have other business in this ward. I will return later. Councillor,” Barque said, nodding to Seraph.
“Yes, yes,” Seraph said, flapping his hands at Barque and turning toward Kindred.
Barque offered Kindred a glare before following The Word. Kindred noticed that the bloom and its vine she had seen below his eye had receded and curved now around the swell of his neck.
“Sorry if we woke you,” Seraph said, taking a few steps toward Kindred. “How are you feeling?
“Like someone hit me in the head with a cudgel,” Kindred said, feeling a sweep of nausea as she spoke.
“That big idiot,” Seraph said, shaking his head and scowling out the door. “I tried and tried to get you all assigned to a different ward, but The Word was insistent. I’m sorry. I feel completely responsible.”
Kindred sat down next to Cora, letting the floor do the work of holding her up. She felt some surprise when Cora shifted away slightly but did not get up. She didn’t want to sit next to Kindred but was willing to sit near her. It was a start.
Seraph dropped down next to them.
“I blame those green-haired piss-poets,” Cora said, sipping her water again. Kindred suppressed as best she could the chuckle that rose in her chest, sensing the pain it would cause. But still, she smiled—she’d missed Cora’s sarcasm and wit. “They must have something out for us, huh?”
Seraph nodded, looking glum. Despite being an older man, Kindred realized, he had the spirit of someone much younger.
“He is no great lover of Arcadians,” he said. “Many here are not. They say the Arcadians began this slow-war we’ve long been in.”
“That’s not true,” Cora said, sitting up straighter.
Seraph held up his hands, palms out.
“I’m not saying it is—just explaining that there are those here who believe it. Long ago, they say, before Arcadians grew fearful of the wilder grasses—the Roughs, I think you call it—sailors from your island ventured further out and came upon the Once-City. The stories go that these Arcadians saw resources for the taking—ships, food, knowledge, culture. And so they stole from us, from the Once-City, which up to then had only moved occasionally.”
Seraph looked between Cora and Kindred, the lines of his face composing kindness.
“The Word, Barque, all of them—they believe Arcadians are why the Once-City first began to hide in the endlessness of the Forever Sea, and they believe, too, Arcadians are to blame for us eventually ending up here, stuck, hiding right where anyone could find us.”
Kindred let that sink in. Was it different from Cantrev and his hatred for anyone other, his commitment to any history that justified his hate?
“That’s insane,” Cora said, though even she sounded slightly unsure.
Seraph shrugged and looked down at his dirty, dusty hands.
“Probably,” he said, the dark cloud falling away from his face as he looked back up, smiling now. “But there’s no need to worry ourselves about that right now!” He turned to Kindred.
“We have some exciting work to do. Have you ever dealt with morning’s breath petals in a hearthfire? I have a few to show you that I think you’re truly going to find fascinating.”
It was as if his disagreement with The Word had never happened. Kindred listened in amazement as Seraph transitioned from a morose recitation of a generations-long war to hearthfire theories and speculations. This was a man unwilling to let his skies be darkened for long.
“Hold on, hold on,” Kindred said, interrupting him and holding up her hands as if they were shields.
“Right, sorry, too much,” he said, nodding and taking a deep breath. His eyes settled on her hand. “Oh, my. What happened to your hand?”