Sparkers (18 page)

Azariah makes a sound of dissent.

“Of course they must've tried,” I say. “Before they learned we'd found one.”

Melchior rubs his chin with his knuckles, still skeptical. “The only possibility . . . Maybe they're afraid there won't be enough of the cure, and they want to heal the people they like first.”

I shudder as the Rashid brothers share a look filled with dread. I imagine they're thinking their family isn't among the Assembly's favorites.

“For that matter,” Melchior adds, “how much of the cure will there be in this first batch?”

“We're not sure,” Azariah says.

“A dose is only a spoonful,” I say. “I'd guess we'll have enough to heal dozens, but not hundreds.”

“You won't even be healing dozens holed up in here,” Melchior says.

I look down. I don't like to think that he's right.

“Our first objective is to save Sarah and Caleb,” Azariah says in a fragile voice.

“Caleb?” says Melchior.

“My brother,” I say.

Melchior looks at me again, his lips parting silently. Then he says, “I've been thinking about what you said yesterday. Isn't it true the cure won't be enough if those neutralizing spells aren't revived? The harmful magic will keep building up.”

“Let's worry about one thing at a time,” I say.

Melchior concedes with a tilt of his head.

“Have the police come back to our house?” Azariah asks.

“No,” says his brother. “I'll keep an eye out though. And I'll watch for you too. You
will
be coming home, won't you?”

“With the cure,” Azariah says fervently. “Maybe even tomorrow, if all goes well.”

Melchior rises. “I'll come back tomorrow morning. Then we can go home together.”

“I doubt we'll finish making the cure before tomorrow afternoon,” I say.

“I'll come early anyway. Just to check on you.” Melchior retreats into the corridor and adds, “Good luck.”

No sooner has he left than I reach for my notebook and Azariah starts fiddling with the little laboratory stove. In spite of everything, excitement sparks in my chest. The cure's going to be real.

We begin by pouring some water into the cooking pot Melchior brought us. While this heats on the stove, I compulsively check the original Hagramet text, mouthing the ancient words and searching for the slightest translation error.

A quarter of an hour later, Azariah says, “It's bubbling. Can I begin the first spells?”

I hesitate. The spells are the aspect of this whole endeavor that troubles me the most. Part of it is an instinctive distrust of magic. The other part is the fear that the spells Azariah learned aren't identical to the ones cast over a thousand years ago. But he's trusted me as a translator, so I owe it to him to trust him as a magician. Besides, at this point we don't have the luxury of avoiding risky gambles.

“Go ahead,” I say. “I'll start chopping the oxalis roots.”

We don't talk much as we work except to confer on particular points of the instructions or to allot ourselves tasks. The water comes repeatedly to a boil. First, we dissolve a generous measure of beet sugar into it. Later, we toss in minced oxalis tubers and sprinkle dried cub's foot into the pot. Azariah combines all the dry spices, including the ground cardamom, and performs some more of his layering spells over them, while I soak half the heavenly tea leaves in the perilla oil and the other half in the yellownut oil. We add all these mixtures to the potion at the appropriate times and allow it to simmer.

In some ways, preparing the cure feels like practicing for my audition. The fierce concentration is the same. So is the methodical nature of the work. Unlike when I was learning my Shevem solo, though, Azariah and I only have one chance to get through the whole recipe, and we can't afford to make a single mistake.

While the herbal brew bubbles gently, we peel the black eggs. I prick my thumb on a jagged fragment of shell and lick away the blood. Azariah cleans the knife Melchior supplied and slices the eggs, grimacing. “Yochanan called these a delicacy?”

What were once the egg whites do in fact look like dark amber, except more gelatinous, and the yolks are an unappetizing gray. Their sulfurous odor mingles with the acrid smells left in the wake of Azariah's spells. Despite our misgivings, we dutifully drop the slices into the pot at the right moment.

The next two hours involve depositing bundles of herbs into the cure and fishing them out again when they've steeped long enough. It all feels false, more like a science experiment than real medicine.

Near the end of the day, we reach the point where the mixture must cool and thicken overnight. We switch off the stove and set the pot under the window.

“I'm starving,” says Azariah. “Where are those dates?”

We fall upon the food Melchior brought us. Our stomachs filled, there's little to do but go to bed. The sooner we do, the faster morning will come.

“Good night, Azariah,” I say.

“Good night, Marah.”

Swaddled in cast-off blankets, I curl up against the relentless cold. Strains of the Shevem echo in my ears. Maybe somewhere far away the Qirakh judges are making a decision about me. With the high of my audition long gone, it's all too easy to fret about every flaw in my performance. I definitely messed up that last scale, and I've since realized all the mistakes I made in the sight-reading.

I have to get into that school. If I do, I'm sure everything will be all right. School is something normal, something stable to look forward to after this frightful time is over.

If only the night weren't so long.

“M
arah, come look!”

I fling off my blankets, gasping at the chilly air. The dawn light has just touched the rooftops across the street, and the windowpanes glitter with frost. Azariah is prodding the cure. He holds up a wooden spoon, and the golden syrup hangs down in ropes, flowing back into the pot.

“It's thickened perfectly!” I say.

“Here, have an apple,” Azariah says jubilantly, ripping open the sack of provisions.

“We're not done yet,” I say, but I can't stop smiling.

In fact, there is still much to do. Though most of the ingredients have already been added, today's instructions prove trickier, with more precise temperatures and steeping times and more spells. More than once, we halt the entire process for as long as we safely can to consult the original Hagramet and discuss my interpretation again. By the time the cure has completed its final stretch of simmering, it's past noon. I've licked seven successive pieces of hard candy down to nothing out of sheer nervousness. But now, as we switch off the stove, searing joy wells up in my heart, almost as painful as sadness.

“We can bring it to Caleb and Sarah today,” I say, scarcely able to believe it. “It just has to cool a bit.”

“Shouldn't take long in this freezing house,” Azariah says, grinning.

Only over a hurried lunch do we realize Melchior never came.

“Do you think something happened to him?” I ask, feeling shaky inside.

“He can take care of himself,” Azariah says again, though he sounds less sure this time.

“Maybe he thought he'd be followed,” I say.

“Then he was right to stay away.”

The cure is still warm, so I make a pot of tea while we wait. As I gulp down my drink, a thought I've been pushing away nudges up against my mind again.

“Azariah . . . don't you think our homes are being watched?”

“What are you saying?” he says, an edge to his voice. “It's dangerous to deliver the cure, so we should wait?”

I press the hot tea glass to my cheek. “I was thinking last night. I know a way of getting to my apartment without going through our building door. But your house is isolated, and that road is so exposed . . .” His expression makes me falter.

“I don't care,” he says. “I'm going. Melchior said he'd watch for me, remember?”

We finish our tea in silence. Then we gaze into the pot under the window. The cure is golden brown and slightly viscous. It's translucent enough for us to see the unsavory sediment of blackened tea leaves, crumbled black eggs, and other herbs crusting the bottom of the pot.

“It looks revolting,” Azariah says. “What if we've done something wrong?”

“Have some faith,” I say, sick with anxiety myself. “We were very, very careful.”

I take the flask that once held the perilla oil and he the one for the yellownut oil, and we each scoop up a small amount of the cure. I make sure to take enough for Caleb and Leah.

“Come straight back,” I tell Azariah as he tucks away Sarah's dose. “After this, we have to decide how to get the cure to the rest of Ashara.”

We part ways in the deep snow outside, the wind choking off our voices. As I flounder around the block, the brittle layer of ice on the new snow cracks under my feet. A cart rolls past, followed by a few mournful pedestrians.

Guarding the flickering hope in my heart, I walk toward Horiel District. A swish of black catches my eye. I look up and duck my head again. A spectacled woman stalks past, her haughty gaze sweeping the street, her black coat rippling around her boots. Is she an ordinary kasir or a police officer in plainclothes hunting for us? I clutch the flask deep in my cloak and hold my breath until she's gone.

Finally, I near the Street of Winter Gusts, and though I'm burning to see Caleb, I make a cautious approach. With the hood of my cloak obscuring my face, I walk past our street and turn onto the next one. There are no kasiri in sight, no one who looks especially watchful, but my heart thumps nonetheless. I wait until the street is deserted and enter the apartment building directly behind mine.

In the entryway, I find the door to the basement and descend the dark stair. In Horiel, the apartment buildings' lower levels are all connected through a series of mostly unlocked doors. Caleb and I used to play down here among the boilers and the coal, exploring mysterious rooms and getting lost in the maze.

The basement is pitch black, of course, and I didn't think to bring a lantern. Feeling my way along the wall with one hand, I shuffle forward, skirting a pail, a few tools, a discarded chair. The obstacles seem endless, and I want to scream with impatience. In my blindness, I find myself reliving with terrifying clarity the futile race toward Father's steelworks. My legs twitch at the memory.

When I reach the wall opposite the stair, I sweep my hand across it till I hit a doorknob. The door swings open. I trip over the threshold into the basement of our apartment building. This is more familiar territory, and I swiftly find my way up to the entrance hall. From here, I pound up the staircase, wiping my blackened hands on my pants as I climb.

When I reach the fourth floor, I burst into our apartment, excitement and terror mounting in my chest. From our bedroom comes the sound of quiet singing. I nudge the door open.

“Marah!” Mother leaps from the edge of the bed as though she's seen a ghost.

“I have the cure,” I say, my heart twanging.

Caleb stirs and opens his eyes. I'm in time. This nightmare is about to end. I'm so thankful I could weep. Instead I draw the slender flask out of my pocket. In the bottle, the cure glows like honey.

“Bring him something to drink,” I tell Mother.

While she's in the kitchen, I sit on the edge of the bed and cradle Caleb's face in my hand. I can see the blue veins in his eyelids and temples. Mother reappears with a glass of lukewarm tea. My hands shaking, I uncork the flask and tip a mouthful of the cure into the glass, trying to forget I'm about to feed my brother a concoction invented by a long-dead civilization.

Mother swirls the tea and raises Caleb's head, bringing the glass to his mouth. We watch in anxious silence as he drinks. After swallowing the last gulp of tea, he sinks back onto his pillow, his lips shining. His eyelids flutter shut. He looks just as he did before.

“Give it time,” Mother says, reading my thoughts.

It feels good to be sitting with her, at Caleb's bedside, the three of us together. Thinking Caleb has fallen asleep, I brush the hair from his forehead. He rouses at my touch, opening his eyes, and I gasp.

The darkness is beginning to fade from his irises. His eyes are still darker than normal, but they're unmistakably brown, a rich brown like the color of cloves.

“Mother,” I say in a hushed voice, though she's already seen. “It's working.”

Caleb gazes questioningly at us, bewildered by our excitement.

Your eyes are brown again
, I sign, tingling with joy.

I linger a few more minutes before rising from the bed. It's almost impossible to leave, but I must go to Leah now. Holding the corked flask in my fist, I edge toward the hallway.

“When will you be back?” Mother says, her haunted eyes following me.

“Soon,” I say. She knows as well as I do the battle isn't won, but what can I tell her when Azariah and I don't know what we're going to do next?

I leave the same way I came, through the basements, and emerge in the sunlight on the next street over. The coast looks clear, so I walk to the end of the block and peek around the corner. A tall kasir woman is striding down the avenue in my direction, and this time there's no doubt: a silver badge flashes on her coat.

I recoil and press myself against the bricks just underneath the street sign. If there are police in Horiel, they're looking for me.

I dart into the nearest apartment building. A young boy is in the foyer, fetching the mail.

“Who are you?” he says, his eyebrows dipping into a suspicious frown.

“I'm—meeting a friend.” I take long breaths over my galloping heartbeat.

The boy scowls, but he retreats up the stairs. I wait in the unfamiliar entryway for as long as I can bear. Then I start counting. Only when I reach two hundred do I dare crack open the building door.

Instead of returning to the avenue where I saw the kasir, I take a roundabout path through un-shoveled alleys to the Avrams' apartment. Gadi Yakov answers the door. At the sight of me, she goes very still. The hope and triumph I felt at home have disappeared, replaced by a feeling of deadness, like a thick fog.

“Come in, Marah,” she says at last, her voice brittle. “Are you in trouble? You're welcome here if—”

“No,” I say, confused. “I came for Leah . . . I came to . . .”

I make a sudden movement toward the corridor, but Gadi Yakov holds me back.

“Marah,” she says, her gaze filled with pain and pity, “Leah's gone.”

I draw an excruciating breath. No. It can't be true. I would have known. Like with Father. I would have sensed it.

“When?” I breathe.

Gadi Yakov closes her eyes briefly. “She died five nights ago.”

It's difficult to count back when we've been on the move so much, but I know that was the night Azariah and I went to the forest. The night Channah captured us.

“I want to see,” I say numbly.

“See what?” Gadi Yakov says, alarmed.

I brush past her, rushing to the end of the hall before she can stop me. The bedroom is empty.

“Marah.” Gadi Yakov is in the corridor behind me.

“I have to go,” I say in a voice not my own.

“If you're in any danger, we'll protect you,” Gadi Yakov says, sounding broken. “You're Leah's best friend. You're like another daughter to me.”

“I can't stay,” I say, clutching the flask inside my cloak. Leah floods my mind, memories, fragments of conversations. Leah laughing, holding Ari, tuning her violin. The images crowd inside me, and yet I still feel a vast emptiness.

I sway in the drafty stairwell, deaf to Gadi Yakov's parting words. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and Leah will be here. Part of me believes it. Part of me knows it's not true, knows I won't come back, knows Leah will never be anywhere again.

In the street, a bitter gust caresses my face. For once, the cold can't penetrate deeply enough. I want to feel it in the marrow of my bones, but I don't. I feel nothing.

At the sound of crunching snow, I look up and see billowing black coats. I hold still, almost convinced I'm invisible.

“Stop,” says a square-jawed kasir in a voice crisp with authority. He opens his coat to reveal the metal insignia pinned to his vest: the diamond-shaped badge of the First Councilor's Corps.

I glance up and down the street. Empty.

“She's the right age, and this is her neighborhood,” says his companion. I'm almost certain it's the tall woman I saw before. She keeps her gray-green eyes trained on me as she circles behind me. “Are you Marah Levi?”

I bolt. But the gap between the two kasiri that looked wide enough a moment ago snaps shut, and I run straight into the man's pillowy stomach. He grunts, staggering, but the woman seizes me by the upper arms, her hands like talons.

“Let me go,” I shout, even though I know anyone who hears me will take one look at the kasiri and draw the curtains across their windows. “My name's not Marah Levi.”

“Then why did you run?” the woman demands.

My mind scrambles for the right words. I can't afford another error.

“I was scared!” I bleat. Who wouldn't flee when accosted by two official-looking kasiri in the street? “I'm just on my way home.”

“What's your name?” asks the man, brushing off his coat.

“Leah Avram,” I say. The wind rushes through my ears, and I feel light, too light.

“She could easily be lying,” says the woman.

“Look, Avimelech, we can't detain every fourteen-year-old girl we—”

“We're five blocks from her apartment, Barak.” The woman's grip on my arms tightens, and I suck in my breath.

“Fine,” says Barak. His gaze drills into me. “We'll accompany you home so you can show us your papers. Go on, lead the—”

“Marah!”

God of the Maitaf. The kasiri start. Channah is standing at the mouth of the nearest alley.

“It
is
her,” Avimelech says, clutching me to her.

“What are you doing here, Yishai?” says Barak. For a second, I don't know who he's talking to, but then I realize Hadar probably isn't Channah's real surname.

Sarah's tutor descends upon us, her black coat flapping. “Let her go!”

What is she doing? My captors gape at her, but Avimelech recovers first.

“So, our rogue spy resurfaces at last?” I can hear her contemptuous smile as I fight to break free of her. “Don't tell me you've been lurking in Horiel ever since you let the children escape the Rashids' house.”

“You cannot do this,” Channah says, her face blazing. “To save the kasiri and let the halani die . . . It's unforgivable.”

I stop struggling. Save the kasiri? Let the halani die?

“Can this be?” says Avimelech, still holding my arms. “Yishai wants to save the sparkers?”

“Treason,” mutters Barak. “They should never have assigned her to pose as a sparker. She was bound to revert.”

“Oh, that's right,” Avimelech says. “You were a changeling, weren't you, Channah?”

Channah's hands move like lightning. Avimelech screams, doubling over. I burst from her loosened grip and take three steps before the air itself seems to bind me, like the sticky threads of a spider's web. I don't know which of them cast the spell, but I can't run. When Barak lunges for me, Channah darts in front of him, and they collide.

“The girl, Barak!” Avimelech shouts between incantations directed at Channah. The kasiri are all on their feet again, locked together by invisible forces, their hands contorted to shape the magic, their lips forming precise syllables. Dull flashes of light flit between them.