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He took a deep, trembling breath. And then
another. I stared down at my hands, wishing I could unhear the
things he’d said. My shoulders felt tense. My jaw was tight. I had
to force myself to move, to turn toward Ayo, who sat stone-still,
his face white as the laundry on the line outside.

“I’m sorry,” Lalo said, his voice quivering.
“I didn’t mean to go on like that.”

I shook my head, keeping my eyes averted in
order to grant him a moment to compose himself. I refused to accept
his apology, because he had no reason to be sorry. He hadn’t caused
the fire. He hadn’t pushed the trenches to their breaking point. He
hadn’t snuck rebels through the wall so he could kill his own lover
and start a war.

No. That had been me.

“I’m sorry,” Lalo said again a moment later,
sounding more like himself this time. He scooted his chair closer
and held his hand out to me, across his desk. “I’m glad you’re all
right.” He squeezed my fingers gently, then let me go. “I have more
girls than I know what to do with, but not a single male on the
payroll. I don’t suppose you’re here to work?” He glanced nervously
at Ayo as he said it, and I wondered if he was hoping Ayo wanted to
be a whore, or hoping he didn’t. Knowing what I did of Lalo’s
history, I suspected the latter.

“No. I left my things here.”

“Yes, I have them.”

“And I hoped we could stay for a night or
two?”

He winced. “I had to give your room away. The
whole upper floor is useless, and—”

“I understand.” Although that did leave me in
a bit of a bind. “Talia worked with Anzhéla. Do you know
if—”

But he was already shaking his head. “Whatever
ties existed died with her. I hear she’s one of the new governors,
though. I think you can petition to meet them, although given the
conditions in the trenches, I imagine the queue’s a mile
long.”

“She hasn’t asked about me or looked for
me?”

He frowned, pursing his lips in thought. “A
boy came by a day or two after the fire, asking about you, but I
haven’t seen him since.”

Lorenzo, probably, or any number of Anzhéla’s
den kids. A small spark of anger tried to ignite in my chest, that
Anzhéla would dismiss me so easily, but I squelched it. It wasn’t
her fault. Chances were she counted me as dead or missing, just as
Lalo had, but I regretted more than ever not being able to stay at
the whorehouse. Lalo’s friendship felt like the only thing I had
left besides Ayo.

I glanced over at him. He was so quiet, it was
easy to forget he was there. “I guess we’ll find someplace else to
stay,” I said, more to him than to Lalo. He nodded, but his eyes
gave nothing away. A lifetime of programming had taught him that
his opinions and his needs meant nothing. I wondered if he’d ever
overcome it, or if he’d spend the rest of his life calmly letting
me make every decision for him.

“Do you have money?” Lalo asked.

“A bit.” More than a bit, actually, but I
didn’t feel comfortable admitting it. “Why?”

“You’ll be able to find a room in the third
quadrant. As long as you can pay.”

***

I opted to leave my box of possessions with
Lalo until Ayo and I figured out where we were staying. There was
no sense in hauling it all over Davlova and back. We emerged from
the whorehouse as the temple bells rang the dinner hour. We headed
west, toward the plaza. The red rays of the sinking sun sliced
across the mountain peaks, turning the world into blood and shadow.
I had to squint to see at all.

Ayo reached out and took my hand. “Lalo? Was
that his name?”

“Yes.”

“He seems nice.”

“He is.”

“He loves you, you know. Not like I do. But in
some other way.”

He said it without a hint of resentment or
jealousy. I glanced over at him, but his expression was unreadable.
I thought back over our interview with Lalo. He’d hugged me when
we’d walked in, and taken my hand once, and as we’d said goodbye,
he’d held my hand again, and he’d kissed me. But the kiss hadn’t
been romantic or evocative. Only a chaste token, planted gently on
my cheek.

“We’re friends.”

“I know.” Ayo hesitated, biting his lip. “I’m
glad we’re not staying there. Not because of them, really. Just
because…”

“Because it’s a whorehouse?”

He glanced over at me, his eyes apologetic.
“It scares me. I worry it would go wrong. That somebody would find
out.”

I squinted into the blinding, slanted rays of
the sun, trying to sort out what he was saying. “About your
programming, you mean? About the pain?”

He nodded, but didn't speak.

“You’re afraid they’d force you to be a
whore?”

“They’d force me to like it. My body would
betray me, like it did with Donato.”

“That won’t happen.”

His cheeks flushed a deeper red. “I know. I’m
being silly.”

“No, you’re not being silly at all. You’re
being realistic. Lalo would never do that, but there are plenty of
other people in this city who aren’t so honorable.”

“Will it come to that? You told Lalo you have
money, but I don’t have anything, Misha.”

“We
have plenty. And no matter what,
you won’t have to whore for it, I promise.”

We were nearing Davlova’s main plaza now. The
fire had done damage here as well, but there were more signs of
recovery. The trenches themselves were still mostly a jumbled mess
of fallen beams and collapsed buildings, but the avenues leading in
and out of the plaza had been cleared. The businesses around the
periphery were in various states of repair, and the plaza itself
looked like the cleanest spot in all of Davlova. The cobblestones
were still stained, but with the detriments of years of use as much
as by the fire. There was no waste or litter. It was wide open, and
it felt nearly deserted. The area that had previously housed scores
of vendors hawking their wares, now held only a handful of carts.
There were long lines at two shops — the butcher and a fish fry —
but the rest of the peddlers sat with hunched shoulders and bowed
heads next to their carts. A man stood on an overturned crate in
the southwest corner of the plaza, holding court over a downtrodden
bunch of men and women. It reminded me of the days before the
revolution, when the men in yellow robes had preached the benefits
of revolution. I wondered what new political or religious agenda
this man promoted.

I’d learned through the years to always be on
guard in the plaza, but it hardly seemed necessary as Ayo and I
started slowly across the open space.

“It’s nice here,” Ayo said. “Nothing like
those markets in Deliphine.”

In many ways, he was right. There were no
crowds and no animals, and therefore there was very little stink.
It was also the one place we’d seen that wasn’t full of rubble. It
echoed with the rhythmic, industrious pounding of hammers from a
group of workers repairing a nearby rooftop. But I knew how the
plaza was supposed to be, bustling and loud, with lots of yelling
and bartering, while clan kids worked the crowd. “It’s
empty.”

“So it hasn’t always been like
this?”

“No.” I laughed sadly. “I feel like I spent
years of my life here, picking pockets. But the marks have all
gone.” And with them, the clan kids. A glance around the echoing
marketplace revealed only a handful of watchful children hiding in
the shadows, not hunting for pockets to lift from, but keeping
their wary eyes on the man on the crate. There were no cops walking
their weary beats around the plaza’s perimeter.

Of course the most glaring change had nothing
to do with the people. The thing that drew my eye over and over
again was the enormous gaping hole in the wall that had once held
Plaza Gate. For as long as I could remember, it had stood sentinel
over Upper Davlova. Only those with the tattoos of nobility or
valid work permits had been permitted past it. But today, that
portal stood wide open. I wondered briefly if Anzhéla was somewhere
on the other side of that wall, in the part of Davlova previously
forbidden to us.

I’d have time to find out tomorrow.

The businesses along the western edge had
clearly fared far better in the fire than those on the south and
east. This row of inns, taverns and shops marked the boundary of
the third quadrant, and more of its buildings were stone or brick,
rather than wood or mud. It seemed some trick of wind and fire had
driven the flames east, into the trenches and toward the docks,
while sparing much of the western side of the city. I noticed
missing roofs and a few scorched walls, but fewer buildings here
had been consumed completely. In fact, it almost seemed that all
the businesses lining the west side of the plaza had been
repainted, although not well. Their fronts were covered with
strange patches of white and gray and yellow.

I realized my mistake as we drew closer. What
I was seeing wasn’t paint at all. It was paper. Hundreds, if not
thousands, of pieces of paper tacked to the walls, each bearing one
word scrawled across the top: MISSING.

I stopped, my heart sinking as I scanned the
nearest fliers.

Chaya Rinald, beloved mother and
wife, age 34

Last seen near the temple in the
second quadrant wearing a blue dress and a black bonnet.

Yessika Rija, age 7

Hazel eyes, red dress

Another, scrawled on the back of one of the
yellow fliers that had incited the revolution:

Edsel Josaf, age 56,
blacksmith

Went through the wall and never
returned

One slip of paper after another, plastered
from my knee to as high as I could reach, running almost the length
of the western side of the plaza, each one searching for a missing
loved one. Below them, candles and one-eyed dolls and wilted
flowers had been laid, a sad, heartbreaking tribute to those who
couldn’t be found. The entire western edge of the plaza had become
a shrine.

“They’re all missing?” Ayo whispered. “But…
How? I don’t understand.”

“Lost in the battle,” I said, fighting to keep
my voice even. “Probably burned. Buried in the rubble. Maybe a few
left on the boats that never came back. But most of them are
probably dead.”

“There’s so many!”

We turned left and followed the sidewalk
south, moving slowly, reading notices here and there as we went. It
was a humbling sight.

“Is your name here somewhere?” Ayo
asked.

“I don’t know.” But I’d been wondering the
same thing. Had Anzhéla or Frey or Lorenzo bothered to tack my name
to the wall?

“Mine isn’t,” he said. “I know that
much.”

No, his wasn’t, because only a handful of
people in Davlova had even known he existed. And of those, only
three had cared. One was dead. One was on the run, somewhere on the
main continent.

That left me.

About half the businesses on this side were
boarded up. The other half were open, although without customers.
One tavern boasted the last barrel of whiskey in Davlova, but there
was only one taker inside, drinking alone in the corner with the
studious intent of a man who wanted nothing more than to be left
alone. The tavern owner stood in the doorway, smoking a fag and
glaring toward the man on the crate.

“Wish the bastard’d find someplace else to
piss and moan,” he grumbled to me. “He’s scarin’ away the few
customers I might’ve had.”

Now that we were closer, I could see the
speaker wasn’t alone. Two goons stood behind him like bodyguards.
“Who is he?”

“His name’s Tino.”

“Tino?” The name rang a bell. He’d been head
of a clan back before the revolution, but he’d always been
small-time. “Is he making a name for himself now that the wall’s
come down?”

“Aye, he’s trying. Likes to think he’s a big
boss man, now that all the real bosses have given themselves
promotions. He actually came around here last week, demanding I pay
him protection money. As if I need protectin’ from anybody but
him.” He spit pointedly onto the sidewalk. “He was a worthless
bastard before the fire, and he ain’t no better now.” The tavern
keeper inhaled another lungful of smoke and eyed me up and down
with obvious suspicion. He wasn’t tall, but he was big, with broad
shoulders and arms roped with muscle. He could probably lift full
barrels with one hand while cracking skulls with the other. His
skull was shaved clean, and the fingers holding his fag were thick
and scarred. He squinted at me through the smoke. “Do I know you?
You seem familiar, but I know you’re not one of my
regulars.”

I pointed to the charred remains of the
abandoned laundry, directly behind Tino's makeshift podium. “Do you
remember the day Benedict’s men raided that place?”

The man eyed the building, then me, his
guarded expression becoming more friendly as he remembered. “You
were the one who warned me.”

“I was.”

He finished his fag and ground it out beneath
his worn boot toe. “How’d you know, anyway? About the raid, I
mean.”