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I flew above the fence and lay my horse-blanket shawl over the concertina for the men to safely scale. Once on the other side, Raja explained we’d first head to the house of a producer named Astoria, the friend who’d hidden him during the siege, and who’d be sympathetic to us contacting General Özdemir.
We lowered our heads against the wind and followed Raja through the rocks and into wet grabbing grass. The downpour subsided and the wind stilled and we met clear skies at the valley’s rim. The city’s bowl was crowned with wavering battlements of rain, the red lights of seeding drones high and equidistant atop the seamless ring of clouds.
We hiked an hour along the ridge before coming upon the first home, an elegant fortress constructed entirely of massive concrete tubes, spotlights illuminating the gold banners adorning its walls. Raja kicked a trail through a grassy meadow that led us past a mansion of heavy timber, with great arched windows that revealed an interior of dark wood and crystal chandeliers.
Raja told us it was where Nalli Sandoval lived, that she was a friend, and that maybe we’d meet her soon though it wasn’t safe to stop here now. Dewey nudged me because she was the star of Mama’s favorite movie, The Wind That Took and Gave. I was disappointed to see the grounds of her house bivouacked with gold tents topped with white flags and a white shuttle on a landing pad.
We scampered over a jumbled stack of boulders and onto a ledge where for the first time I glimpsed the city center, the lightless streets curving between the black boxes of buildings and the sporadic lights in windows standing out like campfires on a desert plain.
So much darkness, so much quiet: a dead city.
A ghostly ribbon of road lay just down the rocky slope. The road wound up the steep embankment and across a ravine where tucked into the mountain’s face, incongruous to the jagged terrain, nestled a house of warmly glowing glass.
“We made it,” Raja said. “We’re here.”
* * *
THOUGH NEAR TO THE SIGHT, the descent to the road was long and harried. Raja convinced me to put him on my back and fly him down. He was small enough I was able to haul him in short bursts over the trickiest portions of the climb. Dewey was too heavy to lift, so I flew above him, offering encouragement and an occasional steadying hand.
We’d hiked throughout the night, were weary and cold. The morning sun had climbed the wall of the seed-born storm, infusing light into the tops of the clouds and transforming the buildings in the valley from their darkened shells of night and into an effervescent city of gold.
I became shamefully aware of my filthiness and blanket shawl as we slogged up the cobblestone lane to a high iron gate shining with gold filigree. Raja stepped to a security pad mounted on a post. He tapped the screen, and a voice said hello.
“It’s the captain,” Raja said, peering off at the gate.
The moment stretched long. I stared at the gate, resisting the urge to fly over to see what lay on the other side. At last, a buzzer sounded and the gate’s massive halves slowly parted.
We wound up the drive between rows of gnarled black olive trees. The house was expansive, the far wing an arboretum containing a grove of golden-leafed aspen. Beyond the exterior glass, the interior halls appeared to be made of billowing white silk. The trees of gold, so much glass and silk, I’d never seen a home so beautiful.
Two women in white robes waited under the portico. The smaller of them pranced barefoot down the wet drive, her perfect face smiling as she clutched Raja in an embrace.
The taller woman lagged behind, her arms crossed, her silver hair short and slicked. She shook Raja’s hand, impassively regarding Dewey, then cast a judging glance at my sagging wings.
“We’ve had a hell of a time,” Raja said, suddenly on the verge of tears. “I’m so glad to be among friends.”
“Friends, indeed,” the silver-haired woman said, without a hint of benevolence. “Let’s hurry you all out of this damp.”
IN A SUBTERRANEAN ROOM of sweating rock walls, Dewey sat at the edge of a natural-spring pool, his feet in the milky water that steamed and smelled of sulfur. I relaxed in a bamboo chair beside the heavily made-up woman, whose name was Yuzu, and who sucked a straw in a glass of cucumber water and eyed my wings while telling stories of how she’d done costumes for the movies.
The Stallion of York, Venus Nights, Travel Boy Six. She’d worked everything from cheap horror films to period dramas, knew all the stars, went to all the parties. Fiona Abbasi would use no other stylist but her, Yuzu claimed. Pat St. Tourangeau, too.
“Even Nalli Sandoval,” she added proudly.
“Nalli Sandoval?” Dewey said, turning his glance to me. “Do the thing, Mazzy.”
Freakish and insecure in my mud-streaked clothes and drab spotted wings, I replied, “I don’t think so.”
“What thing?” Yuzu asked, smiling.
Dewey lifted one leg out of the water, half turned his body. “She can do a whole scene from a movie. It’s great.”
“Oh, I’d love to see that,” Yuzu said.
I glared for Dewey to leave it alone.
Yuzu’s lip hung in a pout, so I explained The Wind That Took and Gave was Mama’s favorite movie. I’d memorized a speech as a sort of gift to her, the scene when Nalli Sandoval, as the girl who’d been sailing solo around the world, and had survived a terrible squall at sea, stood on the ravaged deck of her boat and yelled at the sky, chastising a silent God.
Yuzu was pleased. “Astoria produced that. She’s produced lots of great movies.”
The houseman, Quay, a gaunt old man who wore a gold suit and white gloves, brought in a tray of cheeses and fruit. Raja trailed the houseman. The actor picked a slice of pear from the tray, and asked Yuzu if he might have a private word with me. Yuzu wrinkled her nose, but gathered her robe and towel and left with the houseman.
Raja asked Dewey to give us a minute. Dewey looked to me. I nodded it was okay. He hopped down into the pool and waded out into the steam.
Raja sat in Yuzu’s chair and leaned so close I thought he might kiss me. He spoke just above a whisper, said he and Astoria had been discussing what to do with me. “Would you be up for meeting some people? An audition of sorts?”
“Audition?”
“Justifiably, the general’s a bit skeptical of our claim. Surely, you understand they’ll need to see you fly.”
“Fly? For the general?”
“For his lieutenant, but yes.”
“The general won’t be there?”
“Özdemir’s a very cautious man.”
I didn’t know what I thought would happen, but this house, these people—I didn’t belong here and everything inside me screamed no. “What’re we doing here, Raja?”
He cocked his head. “We’re getting you to the general, to find your sister.”
“Auditioning for Pearl lieutenants?”
“You’re nervous,” he said. “It’s understandable, all things considered. I’m nervous, too, as I’m sure you can imagine. It’s not always clear how to be on the right side of history, but honestly, my concern is how to be on the right side of alive.”
“Are you saying they’ll kill me if I don’t fly?”
“I’m saying you make decisions to protect yourself, and your sister. Can we agree that’s all that matters?”
“It’s not all that matters.”
“What else?” he said. “Integrity? Loyalty? To what? To what do you owe your life? Your sister’s life?”
“Forget it. Dewey and I’ll leave. We’ll take the boat and make our own way.” I called to Dewey in the hot spring. He turned in the water and wiped his face and asked what I needed.
“Be smart, Mazzy,” Raja said, quiet but serious. “The Pearl know about you now. They won’t just let you leave. Save yourself, save your sister. All you have to do is fly.”
I loathed the thought of performing toward Novae Terrae mercy, but knew he spoke the truth. “This will get me to Ava Lynn?”
Raja hesitated, but nodded. “On my honor.”
* * *
THE WALLS that looked like silk were sculpted in marble, the bedroom’s only furniture a mattress on a concrete pallet, the bed so perfectly made, linens so crisp, I was hesitant to lie down.
A Pfarlier V-compad sat on my pillow. I pressed a fingertip to the pad and a note appeared in perfect script on the screen: Kindred spirits, from my heart to yours. The note was signed by Astoria.
The room’s virtual reality grid switched on automatically. The retinal scan’s beam rose a red grid up the marble wall and across the ceiling. Then I was inside the movie, the story projected onto the back sides of my eyes.
It began with the screech of gulls. Waves pounded a stony beach. I was inside the perspective of a girl scrambling up a rocky spit, chased by boys. One boy grabbed her ankle, but she kicked free and clambered into the rocks. Huffing and scared, the girl eyed the biggest boy, a freckled bully who hollered from the beach they’d stay there until she came down or the tide came in.
The wind cold through the girl’s thin sweater, she was trapped. The girl shivered watching the waves crash against the spit below. String music gently swelled and the film’s title appeared across the darkening sky: The Wind That Took and Gave.
I’d seen the movie so many times I knew it by heart. The girl would stay in the rocks all night and into the morning, and even when her father called from the beach, and even when the entire town gathered, and even when the boys themselves were marched out to apologize, she’d refuse to leave her post.
I felt around me to find the bed, then laid myself down. My wings folded warmly around me, the film played like memory in the theater of my mind.
* * *
THE RAIN cascading over the near hills, but the noon sun a blazing torment overhead, I toed the bluff’s ledge. The glass house lay far below, the golden buildings of downtown but radiant smears in the distance. Yuzu had dressed me head to heel, everything in gold and white, a gold cloak over a white backless top, long white gloves, and pearl combs like fronds adorning my hair.
I was no actor, but I was a soldier, and followed my orders as given. I leaped from the ledge to soar a loop over the glass house and olive orchard. White birds fluttered up from their nests in the cliffs. I passed above them as they rose, and then we were flying in tandem, and I wasn’t a woman but a bird gracefully descending out of the flock to softly set foot on the flagstones of the arboretum patio.
A willow-thin man in mirrored sunglasses and the white uniform of the Pearl stood with Astoria and Raja, both in their gold suits and white sleeves, Raja wearing a gold eye patch.
The Pearl lieutenant’s black hair stark against his ghostly pale complexion, he circled as if I was a horse he was considering for purchase. He traced a cold finger from the base of my spine to where the skin of my back met the knuckled joint of a wing. As he backed away, my unsmiling face shrank in the lenses of his glasses.
“A miracle,” he said, and turned to the others.
Astoria bowed her head to the lieutenant. “As promised.”
* * *
RAJA AND ASTORIA NEGOTIATED with the Pearl lieutenant in the arboretum. I remained on the patio, watching lightning pulse in the seeded clouds above the hills. Quay stepped out and motioned for me to come. The houseman led me inside and down a stone path through the paper-barked aspen. The path corkscrewed deeper into the grove, ending at the center and a ring of tawny grasses, in the middle of which sat a circle of marble benches where Astoria and Raja waited.
Raja patted the spot beside him for me to sit. Astoria lifted her face and called a command for rain. Mist hissed down from nozzles mounted under the glass roof. I felt a faint chemical sting in my nostrils, then the mist configured into a perfect circle of clouds in the exact diameter of the clearing.
A sighing curtain of rain fell around us, and I knew this conversation was not to be overheard. Raja, still in his gold eye patch, wistfully smiled. They’d gotten their meeting. A dinner tomorrow evening. He gently warned certain protocol must be upheld as General Özdemir was a powerful man and the Pearl had strict views.
“He’s a fanatic,” Astoria brusquely added.
She explained the general had hard-lined since the occupation. He was the only person known to have direct access to Jo Sam, and hardly anyone had access to the general.
“These are serious people,” Astoria said. “They want what they want, and nothing will deter them.”
“What about my sister?” I asked.
The general had agreed to help locate Ava Lynn so long as I pledged my undying fealty to Jo Sam. I swallowed my disdain, and told Astoria I’d do anything. She replied that was good because anything less than everything was unacceptable. These weren’t Hollywood players. The Pearl were genuinely dangerous.
“I’ve had my run-ins with the White Sleeves,” I assured her. “I know firsthand how dangerous they are.”
Astoria’s face drew taut. “You’re not fighting White Sleeves, my dear,” she said. “You are a White Sleeve. Or more appropriately, you’re a Novae of the Novae Terrae.”
I suddenly felt quite vulnerable. I was all alone and found myself thinking of the one person I could trust. “Dewey,” I said. “He comes with me to the dinner.”
“That’s not possible,” Astoria said.
“He comes or I don’t.”
Astoria smugly clucked her tongue. “And your sister? What shall we have the general do with her?”
I rose hard and stepped in front of Astoria. She stood, too, a few inches taller than me. I tried with my glare to convey the harm I could inflict on the woman.
Raja stepped to intervene. “It’s okay,” he said, his hand parting the air between us. “Dewey’s a good fellow. I’ll vouch for him. He’ll be fine.”
Astoria’s eyes flicked to Raja. “They must stay in their place. Any missteps will be on you.”
“Of course,” he said. “Of course.”
Astoria again looked at me. “At the dinner, you’ll speak only when spoken to. You and your friend will be agreeable at all times, no matter what’s said, no matter what’s done. Without General Özdemir, we have no access to Jo Sam. If we lose that access, we will do nothing more to help you find your sister. Let’s make this clear and direct: you’re to abide and protect the general at all costs. Nothing more, nothing less. Is that understood?”
The manufactured rain released a breeze that chilled me. “Kindred spirits, from my heart to yours,” I said, and lifted a hand to my brow in a tepid salute.
MY THOUGHTS rattled loose through the night. I tossed and turned, then finally left my room to find the kitchen and some coffee. Walking down the front hall, I peered out the house’s wall of glass at the day’s first light blushing the land, the olive orchard awash in a red-tinged gloom like a terrain not of this planet.
The figures in the trees were the first sign something was amiss. At a glance, I thought they were just workers, one shorter than the other, the two in an animated conversation. The shorter one hastened off. The taller one broke up the hill and quickly clarified itself as Astoria in a dark formless gown, almost unrecognizable out of her gold suit.
Astoria stalked onto the patio and paused, maybe catching her breath, gazing up into the sky above the near peaks. Then I saw what she saw, a vast boomerang of vessels along the nose of a great carmine cloud, drones like tugs hauling thunderheads out over the rocky slope, its shadow crawling row by row over the olive trees.
“Is there something I can get you?” Quay asked, the houseman suddenly at the end of the hall.
Startled, I turned. “Coffee. I wanted coffee.”
“Return to your room. I’ll bring it to you.”
“That’s all right, I can get it myself.”
Something like a grin twitched onto his stolid face. “Cream and sugar, ma’am?”
“Black is fine.”
“Very well, ma’am.”
The houseman waited for me to turn back toward my room. The creeping shadow of the storm darkened the hall. I risked one last glance out the window, the rain pattering the patio, and Astoria was gone.
* * *
YUZU SENT A BACKLESS DRESS of gold silk for me to wear to the dinner with the general. Dewey came early to my room. He showed me his pearl cuff links and playfully posed in his new gold suit. He said I looked amazing. I told him I didn’t feel amazing, had never in my life worn such a fancy dress and felt like a child playing dress-up.
It wasn’t just the clothes that pitted my spirits. I was racked with a sense of unworthiness and resentment. I apologized to Dewey for my mood, and said I didn’t know why I was the one who got the wings. I didn’t ask for them and didn’t want them, and didn’t know what it all meant because it had to mean something.
Dewey drew a flask from his jacket pocket. He swallowed a bump and opened wide his mouth to let out the liquor’s heat. Then he asked if I’d ever heard about the fish with magic skin.
“This is no time for jokes,” I said.
“It’s not a joke, and it’s actually not a fish. It’s called a cuttlefish, but it’s really a little squid, just a few inches long, with electric skin that can change to match any surface.”
Dewey said the cuttle could turn from white to brown to green, patterns, stripes, whatever it needed for camouflage. It glowed from the inside, created its own light. The military had conducted research on the cuttle’s skin, but even with all their money and scientists they couldn’t crack the code on that funny little squid.
“Do you think that cuttle worries how its magic skin works?” Dewey posed. “Or why it has magic skin when the other fish don’t? Or do you think it just swims and lives and does its best to not get eaten?” He passed me the flask, leaned to kiss my cheek. “You’re beautiful, Mazzy. Your wings are beautiful.”
* * *
RIVULETS OF RAIN streaked the front hall’s wall of glass. Outside it was nearly dark, with a pair of limousines parked under the portico heavily guarded by Pearl. Dewey held my hand and we followed Quay back into the mountain. The walls turned from glass into raw black stone. The corridor crooked and veered to the natural contours of the rock face and led us to the rear of the house and a round room topped with a glass dome.
