Текст книги "Irregulars "

Автор книги: Astrid Amara

Соавторы: Nicole Kimberling,Ginn Hale,Josh lanyon
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

Chapter Two

Agent August pocketed his cell phone and stared. His glance traveled up Deven’s body, eyes locking with his. “The report I got said your eyesight is shit.”

“It’s better.”

“Well then, why don’t you use those pretty green eyes and take a look around?”

“I don’t need to. I already know most of what I need.”

August’s mouth formed a hard line. “Explain.”

Deven felt inexplicably nervous. He picked up a leather cord threaded with thorns that had fallen near a body outline and held it out to the agent. “Do you know what this is?”

“You’re the Aztaw expert. You tell me.”

“It’s a ritual bloodletting cord. It means someone here performed an Aztaw spell.”

“No shit. The question is, what for?”

“The smoke patterns on the walls make me think someone summoned a vision serpent.” Deven started moving around the room and August followed him. “You see these snake-shaped scorch marks? The vision serpent isn’t really a conscious organism, more a force, and it burns its will into everything—surfaces and beings. The ritual bloodletting with the cord could be for numerous spells, but these markings are the clue that they wanted to see something hidden.” He crouched and picked up a shard of jade. Turning it in the faint apartment light, Deven was able to make out the broken image of a serpent glyph. “And this was a token to break the spell and send the serpent back into hiding.” He handed this to August as well.

Deven felt self-conscious because he’d spent so much time in the last year being told how things worked. It was rare for him to be the expert in anything. He had to remind himself that this was what he was being paid to do—advise the Irregulars on a culture and magical system they knew next to nothing about.

“Are there ways to end the spell other than breaking this token?” August asked.

Deven nodded. “The spell itself can run its course. The duration of the vision is dependent on the amount of blood used to conjure it. They initiated the curse by pouring their blood in here—” He bent down and retrieved the dented copper bowl. “—and then soaked a paper offering, which they burned to send to the underworld.”

August frowned at the jade in his hand but didn’t respond. He looked at the other pieces of jade on the carpet.

The silence stretched. Deven felt he needed to continue. “The quail worry me,” he admitted. “Quail are watchbirds for certain lords of the Aztaw. Common Aztaw citizens, the soldiers, they don’t have magical powers of their own, and they don’t control watchbirds. The quail suggest the perpetrator was watched by a lord. And the fact that the birds are dead means the murderer doesn’t want his actions carried back to the Aztaw lord who dispatched them.”

“Who would the message go to?” August asked. He still stared intently at the shards on the carpet.

Deven shrugged. “I can’t say. There used to be nearly a hundred lords of Aztaw. But now most of them are dead. The few remaining lords have had their house powers broken and live in hiding.”

Deven realized he’d just summarized over five years of complex Aztaw political history in three sentences, but August seemed not to notice.

He picked up another shard of jade. “Do you know which lords use quail as watchbirds?”

“Not anymore. I’ve been away from Aztaw for nearly a year. It might help, though, if we took a look to see what happened here,” Deven suggested.

August’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Deven shrugged. “I brought my mirror. We could see the last few seconds of their lives, at least.”

Now everyone in the room watched him. Deven swallowed. He was slowly readjusting to human culture but often became nervous in public situations. He set his duffel bag down on the blue carpet and rooted around until he found the cloth-wrapped shard of his obsidian mirror.

As he held the shard in his hand, a pang of deep regret filled him. He thought of Jaguar, the Aztaw lord who had given this to him, along with his greatest power. Now Lord Jaguar was dead and Deven had done nothing about it. Reflected in the mirror, Deven saw the pen he kept wrapped tightly in his black hair and reached up to touch it as if that would make everything better.

“Hey, Narcissus,” August called from behind. “Care to explain what the hell you are talking about? How would we see what happened?”

“Can we turn off the lights?” Deven asked. August closed the window shades as another agent hit the light switch, but it was still too damn bright. Pure darkness was nearly impossible in this world, but at least curbing the sunlight cut down reflections. Deven noticed that August carefully avoided stepping on the outlines of the dead bodies. He’d seen this done on television as well. He wasn’t sure if this was common crime-scene caution or a human gesture of respect for the dead, but he mimicked the actions anyway.

“This is an obsidian mirror,” Deven explained, holding it in his right hand and tilting it up so both he and August could see. The shard was slightly bigger than his hand and about seven inches in length, unevenly edged where the mirror had been broken during a battle with Lord Jade Shield’s soldiers. The surface, at the moment, was nearly opaque, revealing nothing but the reflection of those looking into it.

“It refracts time,” Deven said. “We can catch a glimpse of the last few moments of Agent Rodriguez’s life, assuming we’re able to pull a clear image from an object in the room.”

There was a muscle in August’s pale jaw, Deven noticed, that pulsed when he ground his teeth. “What do you need?”

“Blood would be best.”

“Does it have to be fresh?”

“No.”

August crouched beside the large chalked outline. He touched the shape almost reverently. “This is Carlos’s blood.” His voice sounded rough. “This is where he died.”

Deven nodded. He knelt beside August and the outline, then reached in his back pocket for his knife.

He switched open the blade and scraped chunks of crusted blood out of the carpet fibers. He piled these in his palm. When he glanced up, everyone was staring at him again.

Maybe it wasn’t normal to collect blood in your hand?

“Uh...here,” someone said, handing him a plastic specimen cup.

“Thanks.” Deven poured the flakes of blood inside. It was too dry to spread so he spat in the cup and stirred the mixture with his fingers, forming a thick, chunky paste. Deven smeared this on the mirror shard, then crouched in the darkest part of the room, in the corner near the bathroom door.

Even the whispers in the room ceased as everyone watched him intently. August’s hard expression faltered and he looked almost anxious. “Should I stand by you?”

“If you want to see,” Deven said. He held out the mirror.

August crouched beside him, his long legs making him resemble a crane at the edge of a pool of water. He smelled like leather and some sort of pine soap. His thigh brushed against Deven’s as they huddled to look into the mirror.

Deven spat on the mirror. The cloudy haze cleared and through the glass emerged an image, as seen from Carlos Rodriguez’s eyes.

The first image that arose was the smoky contours of a vision serpent looming against the apartment window. Smoke trailed from its coiling body, but even through the dirty mirror Deven saw the serpent’s two distinct heads, one looking into the real world, and the other fixed on the supernatural.

But before the serpent even turned to reveal what it saw, something distracted Agent Rodriguez’s attention and he spun to face the apartment door.

Several unnatural, flying female creatures burst into the apartment, bodies dark with sagging skin. They looked identical—skeletal spines and skulls with living, shining eyes, bright as stars, set inside deep eye sockets. The paper-thin, bluish-hued flesh that hung off their limbs like wrinkled shawls ended in clawed limbs more resembling the talons of birds than any human hand or foot. Their breasts sagged above thin grass skirts and serpents slithered like writhing phalluses from between each creature’s legs.

Behind them, Rodriguez quickly glimpsed the tiny quail following the creatures, but then he crumpled. The vision clouded over and disappeared.

Deven sat back, feeling a little shaky. He’d expected to see Aztaws, which look nearly human, other than their visible, glowing bones and skull faces.

But these female spirits were new to him. He’d never seen the like, but he had heard descriptions of such malevolent creatures and who they worked for.

It’s not possible, Deven thought. Even in Aztaw, everyone knows he’s gone.

Deven spat on the mirror again. He wiped the blood off its surface with the hem of his T-shirt before remembering that wasn’t acceptable here. He turned to see if August had noticed, but August was frozen, staring straight ahead with a look of shock.

“Agent August?” Deven asked.

The man didn’t speak. He hung his head for a moment. It seemed like he was gathering strength. When he finally did collect himself together and turn to Deven, his look hardened.

“What the fuck were those?” His voice was rough, angry.

“I’m not sure,” Deven said. He wasn’t going to voice his suspicion until he had more proof.

August didn’t ask for clarification. He stood, quickly wiping at his eyes, before he turned to bark orders at the others in the room. The folks who had been watching in silence burst into activity, collecting the remains of the ritual and tossing the broken birds into a large plastic bag.

Deven leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. The journey from Seattle had taken over ten hours of flying and he was hungry and thirsty. But he pushed these sensations from his thoughts and instead concentrated on the legends he remembered hearing regarding tzimimi, taloned night spirits.

They came at the bidding of the Trickster. They served his needs and hunted at night, feeding on the bones of children.

And they had been exiled over a thousand years ago.

So what were they doing in the human world? And what had they prevented the vision serpent from revealing to Carlos and Beatriz Rodriguez?

“Wake up, sunshine,” Agent August snapped, yanking on Deven’s arm. “Time to go to the funeral home.”

“What for?”

“I want to look at Carlos’s body.”

Chapter Three

The sunlight outside seemed even more powerful after hunkering in the shadows of Beatriz’s apartment and Deven had to pause at the curb and shut his eyes. He fumbled in his duffel bag for his sunglasses. Someone yanked the bag from him and, a moment later, slipped the glasses into his hand.

“Here.” August sounded annoyed. “Hurry up.”

“Is the body likely to walk off somewhere?” Deven snapped. Once he had the sunglasses on he opened his eyes. He turned and followed August’s long legs up to his face. He didn’t wear sunglasses. His pale blue eyes stared down at Deven.

“Okay?” August asked. He sounded as if he’d prefer the answer to be no.

“I’m fine.” Deven yanked his duffel back over his shoulder.

August walked briskly to another black sedan, a few cars down the road. He slid into the backseat. Deven followed him.

“Morgue,” August told the driver.

The man said nothing as he pulled the car into the street. Agent August sank back against the cold leather and rubbed his eyes.

“So that vision serpent,” August asked. “It was to see those flying things?”

“No, they were sent to stop whatever it was Agent Rodriguez and his sister were trying to see. The vision serpent shows you hidden layers of the world, things made invisible by magic.”

August didn’t ask any further questions.

“You were friends with Agent Rodriguez?” Deven asked after a moment.

August stared out the window and didn’t answer.

That was Deven’s one attempt at conversation, he decided. He leaned back and closed his own eyes, hoping to get some rest.

After several minutes of silence, August spoke. “You have knives in your pockets.”

“Yes.”

“What for? You’re a consultant.”

“Habit.” Deven wondered how much the Inter-Realm Refugees Office had told the agent. “If we’re dealing with Aztaw magic, there are going to be Aztaw lords.”

“So?”

“Aztaw lords and I don’t get along.” Understatement of the century, really, but it seemed to sate August’s curiosity and he let the subject drop.

The car eventually pulled up in front of the funeral home. Despite the central location in the city, the building had a lov-ely garden in the front, which Deven assumed was supposed to soothe grieving souls.

He didn’t understand why flowers were supposed to make death less painful, but he didn’t voice this thought out loud.

Inside, Agent August spoke quietly with the mortician, who then led them down to the morgue, where two corpses were laid out, covered in white sheets. Deven wondered why the dead needed sheets to cover them—were they cold?

Deven glanced at the mortician, unsure if he knew why they were there. Very few people were privy to the operations of the Irregular Affairs Division, let alone the presence of other realms and extra-human beings. It was one of the reasons Deven found himself a reluctant employee of NIAD—regardless of his feelings toward the agency, they alone had an inkling of his past experiences. He found himself drawn to those who knew the truth and now wondered how much information this guardian of the dead was privy to.

“Juan is with us,” August told Deven, as if reading his mind. “You can speak freely.” August cleared his throat, then pulled back the sheet covering Agent Rodriguez.

He had been a handsome man in life, Deven decided. His features were rugged and hard, but there was a softness to his expression, even after having died in fear. The back of his head was obliterated, caved in, collapsing the frontal lobe around the man’s right ear. His right eye bulged out from the pressure.

The rest of his body was white with death. Several scars marked his arms and chest, but these were old, healed and raised over time. His genitals were purple and nearly buried under his pubic hair. He had wide, thick feet and ugly toes.

But that wasn’t what he was looking for, Deven chastised himself. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to find.

When the sheet was removed from Carlos Rodriguez’s sister, Deven noticed August avoided glancing at Beatriz’s face as he examined her body.

“What’s that?” the agent asked, pointing to a red bruise just below her heart. Her skin had turned gray in death, but the bruise stood out, red and garish.

The bruise wasn’t large, about the size of a quarter, but it was perfectly circular, as if made with a cookie cutter. Deven checked the dead agent and saw he had the same marking.

“He has one too.”

August turned. He reached out and touched Carlos Rodriguez’s bruise, which was directly over his heart.

“I’ve seen a few bodies with these markings before,” the mortician told them. “I assumed ringworm, although the skin isn’t scaly like a fungus.”

“Does it always appear on the chest?” August asked.

The doctor shrugged. “They are always on the torso but not consistently in the same place. There are so few cases, I considered it an environmental anomaly, maybe some form of rash. It’s never shown any evidence of relating to the death of the individual.”

August stared hard at the marking on his partner’s chest. He pulled out his phone and took several photos of both Carlos’s and Beatriz’s markings.

“Know anything about this?” August asked. It took Deven several seconds to realize the question was addressed to him.

“No,” Deven said. “Never heard or seen of any circular bruises on bodies.” Deven tilted his head, considering. “Of course, there’s little known about the tzimimi so it could be related to their attack, although I don’t see how.”

“Tzimimi?” August asked.

“Malevolent female night spirits,” Deven said. “I’ve heard of them only in passing. The way they’ve been described fits with the creatures that attacked your partner. But they’re supposed to have been exiled from Aztaw thousands of years ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because I wasn’t sure they’re really tzimimi. I’m still not. They were exiled with the Lord of Hurricanes to the realm of light and there would have been no way for them to come back here. It doesn’t make any sense. No one has seen or heard from the Lord of Hurricanes or his minions in generations.”

August turned back to examine the bodies once more. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out what looked like a pocket utility knife. Deven felt a moment of camaraderie.

But it was quickly apparent this was no normal army knife. It had strange attachments and Agent August frowned as he poked through the various options before picking out a screwdriver-shaped metal prong. He scraped this prong across the bruise on Agent Rodriguez’s chest, collecting a strip of skin.

“What’s that?” Deven asked.

“It’s for spectral analysis,” August said. “I can run a check on other-realm signatures when I get my equipment at the hotel.”

Deven wanted a closer look at the knife. He’d heard that many Irregulars agents used enchanted technology in place of magical powers but had seen little of it in person.

But by the time he drew near August had already closed the blade and pocketed the tool. He quickly replaced the sheet that covered Beatriz but paused as he did the same to his partner.

“See you on the other side,” August whispered. For a moment his eyes looked almost glassy. He drew the sheet over his dead partner’s body and strode out of the room, forcing Deven to rush to catch up.

***

Outside the morgue, the sun was setting and for that Deven felt grateful. It had been a stressful day and darkness always brought him comfort.

Of course, all darkness was relative. Here on earth, he could see perfectly well at any hour, because even without the sun, there were stars and moonlight and street lamps and a thousand other sources of ambient light.

During the decade that he’d spent in Aztaw, darkness had defined everything. The Aztaw themselves navigated perfectly well in the dark, but for the few humans who visited, only the glowing luminescence of Aztaw bones provided contrast on the jet-black backdrop of the flat, endless terrain of the Aztaw realm.

The utter lack of any starlight hampered human interaction with the underworld and had probably contributed to his father’s eventual madness.

Agent August sat next to him in the taxi’s backseat, silent once more. His body was completely still, eyes shadowed, and Deven would have thought him asleep if it hadn’t been for the chronic twitching of his jaw muscles as he ground his teeth.

“Have you been to Mexico City before?” Deven asked, not because he cared particularly, but because it was the question Agent Klakow had asked and therefore he assumed it to be a safe, normal conversation to have.

August nodded. “I vacationed here with Carlos and Bea a few times.” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye. “I’ll have to tell Teresa when I get home. God.”

“Teresa?” Deven asked.

“Carlos’s girlfriend.” August sighed loudly.

“She doesn’t know yet?”

“There hasn’t been time. I only heard of it this morning and came via the Fisherman’s Wharf–Mercado Sonora portal.” August ground his teeth and changed the subject. “Commander Carerra in San Francisco will want a report about your little trick with the mirror.”

“All right.”

“That’s something I’d heard of but never seen demonstrated.”

“There’s a lot of Aztaw magic that could be useful to the division.”

“Does the mirror work only for those who’ve died?”

“No, anyone can use it,” Deven said. “It can even tell the immediate future, but that’s rarely useful since it shows only a few seconds, and those seconds are usually just putting the mirror back in your pocket.”

August smiled at that. Deven was startled by how such a small gesture could transform the man’s face, how it made him look, for one moment, beautiful.

But August’s smile vanished as quickly as it came. “I’m surprised the Irregulars have allowed such a gap in knowledge about another realm to exist.”

“Aztaw isn’t very forgiving to human beings. There would be little opportunity to collect data.”

“You survived it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not particularly better off for the experience.” Deven was quoting his therapist, since he had no idea whether or not he would have been a different person had he not moved to Aztaw with his father.

August studied him. “Is that where you had your throat cut?”

“Yes.”

“Who did it?”

“Lord Jaguar.”

“Why?” August asked.

Why was such a strange question to ask about anything, really. “I was his hostage. He decided to sacrifice me for my blood.”

“How did that happen?”

“My father was the first and last NATO Irregular Affairs ambassador to Aztaw and I moved there with him when I was ten. We were under the protection of Lord Knife, who was the most powerful of the lords at the time, and my father established lucrative trade agreements with Lord Knife’s house.”

“What did they trade?” August asked.

“Human blood in exchange for Aztaw-enchanted weaponry. My father thought it would reduce the number of humans kidnapped from the natural world and dragged down to fuel spells.”

“Did it?”

“I was too young to know at the time. And within two years Lord Knife’s supremacy was challenged. War broke out between him and Lord Jaguar’s dynasty, and Jaguar took me hostage and threatened to kill me if my father didn’t end his allegiance with Lord Knife and trade with him instead.”

August no longer looked sleepy. “What did your father do?”

“He told Lord Jaguar he’d rather have me killed than betray his allegiance with Lord Knife. He said it presented him an opportunity to prove his loyalty.”

August blinked. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“That’s pretty shitty,” August finally said.

Deven shrugged.

“So Lord Jaguar ordered your execution?”

Deven nodded. “I was held at his feet by a soldier and he slit my throat.”

August didn’t look at Deven with sympathy, which was a relief. Deven told this story to few people, and when he did, it usually led to displays of pity that made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want pity for something that wasn’t his doing.

“But you survived.” August eyed him keenly.

“Aztaws move slowly. I was able to kick the soldier restraining me and break free. I pulled his ankle and by luck he fell off the sacrificial dais, cracked open his skull, and died. Lord Jaguar was impressed with my reaction and speed and decided my life was worth more than a sacrifice in his ritual. He stopped my blood loss with a time trap and spared my life.”

“Is he still alive?”

“No.” Deven swallowed. “I regret I lost my opportunity to avenge his death when I fled Aztaw.”

August’s eyebrows came together. “He cut your throat and you feel guilty about not avenging his murder?” He snorted. “You’re more messed up than I thought.”

Deven felt his face flush with anger. “He was a great lord and I owe everything I am to him.”

“And what is that, exactly?” August’s mouth curved into a sneer. “You’re clearly not just an Aztaw magics expert. You keep reaching for that knife in your back pocket.”

Deven realized he was reaching for his knife and quickly let go, resting his hands in front of him.

“You’re a soldier then,” August continued, “or, worse, an assassin. When you are uncomfortable your instincts are violent. And clearly you lack the skills to blend in to normal society, otherwise you wouldn’t be taking shit consulting jobs for the Irregulars.” He shook his head. “You ever hear of Stockholm syndrome?”

Of course he had heard of Stockholm syndrome. His therapist had told him all about it. “You don’t know anything about me,” Deven said, his anger rising.

“True. Nor do I care,” August said coldly. “All I care about is finding out who killed my partner and my friend. If you have skills that help me, then you’ll be useful. If you’re just an under-socialized nut job who the division’s taken on as a charity case, I don’t have time for you.”

“I’m not a charity case.”

“Then why were you included on the guest list of the annual under-socialized nut job Christmas cookie-making party?”

Deven opened his mouth to respond, but August held out his hand. “We’re here.” He jumped out of the car before the driver had even put it into park.

Deven followed the agent out of the car, rage pulsing through him, deep and irrational.

For one thing, he’d hated that cookie party. It had felt demeaning.

And he despised it when anyone said anything about Lord Jaguar. He was too great to even be spoken of by the likes of these people.

He recalled his therapist’s shocked face when he’d first broached the subject of Lord Jaguar’s kindness to him. Everyone here saw him as a monster. They didn’t understand that, in a world of monsters, Jaguar had been Deven’s only friend.

They entered a mundane, industrial-looking L-shaped hotel. “Welcome to the wonders provided by government per diem rates,” August commented.

The Bristol Hotel was a nondescript cement structure overlooking a roundabout with a phallic statue in the center. The outward appearance resembled some sort of institution, but inside the hotel was clean and utilitarian. Tiled floors and white-painted walls lent the space an open air.

August gave their names to a young woman behind the counter. She smiled warmly as she handed over two plastic keycards. “You’ll be staying in room 210,” she informed them with a strong accent.

“We’re sharing a room?” Deven asked suspiciously.

August didn’t look very pleased himself. “Goddamn budget cutbacks!” He handed the receptionist his credit card. “Any chance it’s a non-smoking room?”

“All rooms are smoking rooms,” the woman told him.

“Of course they are.” August sighed. “I had my luggage dropped off here.”

The woman called someone in Spanish and a man returned with five suitcases.

“I had to bring equipment,” August snapped, seeming to think his luggage required an explanation.

“The branch office doesn’t have supplies for you?” Deven asked.

“I like using my own.” August nodded to the concierge, who wheeled his luggage to the elevator.

At the door to their room, August palmed the concierge a tip, grabbed his bags, and opened the door. He immediately threw his belongings on the closest bed.

Deven entered carefully, eyes darting to the corners and checking out the bathroom shadows. The carpet was a shocking purple. The bedspreads were plaid and there was a faux wooden headboard nailed to the wall behind each of the two twin beds. The beds themselves were separated by a narrow bedside table with only enough room for the massive lamp and a large-numbered alarm clock.

There was too much furniture for such a small room. Overstuffed plush sitting chairs were huddled around a large round wicker and glass table. There was a wicker counter with drawers and an old television perched on top.

Thick plaid curtains hung to the sides of the windows. Deven pulled these shut. He feared forgetting and having himself jarred awake by the unwelcome glare of morning sunlight pouring through the window.

August immediately began unpacking his belongings, so Deven followed suit. It’s what he always did when unsure of himself—imitate others. The technique had managed to convince most of the other humans living in his new home, Friday Harbor, that he was normal, if a little shy.

August had nearly a dozen tailored and pressed dress shirts as well as three complete suits. “You hanging anything up?” he asked, eyeing the paltry collection of hangers in the closet.

“No.”

“Good.” August grabbed all the hangers and began to organize the closet.

Deven unzipped his duffel and stared down at his two T-shirts, three changes of underwear, a pair of trousers, a razor, and his toothbrush. He hadn’t even brought toothpaste. He moved these into a bedside drawer, which opened with a loud protest.

The rest of Deven’s bag contained his weapons. He noted that August had placed a mage pistol on the bedside table, and so he figured it socially acceptable to place one’s weapons near the bed. He carefully unloaded his extra knives, some burning papers for sending messages to the underworld, as well as a sacred bundle of feathers, pieces of jade, a jawbone, and a segment of jaguar skin. For some reason, that had required a lot of documentation and negotiation with the Irregulars administrative staff to bring along.

Now that he considered it, he could have left it behind. It was really useful only for detecting the presence of his lord, but it had served like a talisman for so many years that he was loathe to be parted from it.

Apparently finished stowing his wardrobe, August unzipped another of his bags and took out a laptop with an external metal box. He set this up on the round table in the center of the room. He jammed the pronged tool from his utility knife into the box, shook out the small plug of skin he’d collected at the morgue, then pocketed the tool. Graphs started moving on the laptop, but August didn’t look at them. Instead he flopped dramatically back onto his bed, propped his head against the faux headboard, and started texting someone on his phone.

“You hungry?” August asked, in the midst of his text message.

“Starving,” Deven admitted.

“The taqueria a few blocks down the road makes great al pastor. I’ve never tried the hotel restaurant. It doesn’t look promising.”

“I’ll eat anything,” Deven said. It was true. He had spent most of his life without the luxury of gastronomic choices. Food had served the simple utilitarian role of keeping him energized enough to move.

Not that he wasn’t tempted by the smells he’d already encountered that day. Roasting meat, while conjuring some unpleasant memories, also made his mouth water. And he was still thinking of a fruit stand they had passed that sold watermelons. Deven had recently discovered a great love of fruit and wondered what something as large and green as a watermelon would taste like.

“Why do you wear that pen in your hair?” August asked suddenly.

Deven instantly reached up for the pen behind his ear, touched it, and let go. He knew it was absurd, and his therapist had been trying for the last two months to get him to forego it, but he couldn’t.

August’s eyes hadn’t left his phone screen.

“It means I deserve respect in Aztaw.”