The girls had fetched the white slip; they’d chosen a halter style to cover the wound. It took all of them to put it on, maneuvering stiff limbs, lifting and arranging. They lay the body with its arms at its sides, orchids tucked all around it, and fanned out the cinnamon hair to dry in the sun before studding its ripples with blooms. It was easier to look at now that the evidence of its violent end was disguised, but it didn’t lessen the ache of loss.
Sarai was glad when Lazlo returned. He was dressed, like Feral, in clothing of the citadel, his dark hair clean on his shoulders, shining damp in the sunlight. She drank in again the sight of him blue, and could almost imagine they were back in a dream, alive and full of wonder, holding hands after the mahalath transformed them.
“Are you all right?” he asked, such sweetness and sorrow in his dreamer’s gray eyes that she felt his sorrow absorb some of her own. She nodded and was able to smile, a small gladness alive even inside her loss. He pressed a kiss to her brow, and the warmth of his lips flowed into her, giving her strength—which she needed for what came next.
The fire.
Ruby didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to touch the body. She didn’t want to burn it. Her eyes were pools of fire; when she wept, the tears hissed into steam. She was shaking. Sparrow steadied her, but with what she had to do, no one would be able to stay near her.
“Should we wait for Minya?” she asked—anything to buy time— and they all looked to the arcade, their breath catching, as though the mention of the little girl might summon her. But the arcade was empty.
“No,” said Sarai, who couldn’t forget how it had felt to hang in the air, powerless over her self. She’d been at odds with Minya for years, but they’d gone beyond “at odds” now, and every minute the little girl stayed away was another minute of doom forestalled.
“I’ll help you,” she told Ruby, and they knelt down together. She placed her hands atop Ruby’s where they lay on the body’s smooth skin. And she kept them there, even when Ruby kindled. They called her Bonfire. This was why. The flame burst into being; it blazed hot and white. It started in her hands but leapt like a living thing, engulfing the corpse in seconds. The heat was intense. The others had to back away, but Sarai stayed with Ruby to share the burden of this terrible task. She felt heat, but no pain. Ghosts don’t burn, but corpses do. It was over in under a minute.
The flames rushed back to Ruby’s hands. She absorbed them, and they all saw: there was no body now beneath her palms, no orchids, no cinnamon hair. The bower was untouched, though; the white blossoms all remained. They were anadne, Letha’s sacred flower, from which, before all this chaos, Sarai’s lull had been brewed to keep her safe from dreams. Their pale petals were tinged pink from bloody bathwater, but they lived, while where the body had lain there was naught but absence, like a gap in the world where something precious had been and now was lost. Even the scent of singed flesh was weak, the immolation having been so hot and fast, and the breeze was already sweeping it away.
Sarai sobbed. Lazlo stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him. She twisted so she was facing him and wept against his chest. Everyone clustered close. No eyes were dry.
“There, now, love,” said Great Ellen. “You’re all right. You’re still with us, and that’s what matters.”
At least the dissonance of two Sarais had resolved. There was only one now. Her body was gone. Only her ghost remained.
…
The Ellens shepherded them to the table. They weren’t hungry, but they were indisputably empty. It had been many hours since they ate or slept, and in their numbness, they let themselves be led.
They cast wary glances at the head of the table, but Minya still did not appear.
It wasn’t a proper meal. With the events of the night and morning, the Ellens hadn’t prepared one. There was only a loaf and a pot of jam, representing their two inexhaustible resources: kimril and plums. The others took slices and spread them with jam, but when the tray came to Sarai, she just looked at it. She could no longer consume food, but she was still prey to the habitual sensations of life, and a feeling like hunger stirred in her. Before she had time to feel sorry for herself, Great Ellen came up behind her.
“Watch,” she said, reaching for the bread. She cut a slice, and picked it up—or seemed to, anyway. It came away in her hand, and yet remained where it lay. She had conjured a phantom slice, upon which she proceeded to spoon phantom jam before lifting it to her mouth and taking a dainty bite. If you weren’t watching closely, you wouldn’t even notice the real food had stayed on the plate.
Sarai did as Great Ellen did, and took a bite of phantom bread. It tasted just as it always had, and she knew she was eating her memory of it. She watched Lazlo’s face as he took a bite of the real thing, encountering kimril for the first time—the nutrient-rich tuber that was their staple—and laughed a little as his expression registered the startling absence of taste.
“Lazlo,” she said with grave formality, “meet kimril.”
“This…” said Lazlo, striving to keep his voice neutral, “is what you live on?”
“Not anymore,” said Sarai, a wry twist to her lips. “You’re welcome to my portion.”
“I’m not very hungry,” he demurred, and the rest of them laughed, enjoying this acknowledgment of their private torment.
“Wait’ll you try it in soup,” Ruby said. “It’s purgatory in a spoon.”
“It’s the salt,” lamented Great Ellen. “We’ve herbs, and that helps, but with salt running low, there just isn’t a lot you can do to help kimril.”
“I think we might manage to procure some salt,” ventured Lazlo.
Ruby pounced on the notion. “And sugar!” she said. “Or, better yet, cake. The bakeries must be empty now, cakes going stale in the cases.” They had all witnessed the exodus from Weep. “Go and get them.” She was deadly serious. “Get them all.”
“I didn’t mean right now,” said Lazlo, laughing a little.
“Why not?”
“Ruby, really,” said Sarai. “Now’s hardly the time for raiding bakeries.”
“It’s fine for you to say. You could turn that into cake if you wanted.” She indicated the phantom bread Sarai held in her hand.
Sarai looked at it. “You make a good point,” she said, and transformed it. In an instant it was cake, and Ruby gasped at the sight. It was three layers tall, white as snow, with a froth of cream filling and the palest pink icing piped into flowers. Sparrow and Feral gasped, too. It seemed so real, as though they ought to be able to reach out and take it, but they knew better, and just stared—or, in Ruby’s case, glared. “I deserve cake,” she sniffed. “After what I just had to do.”
“It’s true,” said Sarai. “You do.” Though she felt that the ravid’s share of pity was hers in this situation. “All things considered, I’d rather have real bread than imaginary cake.” She took a bite. They all watched hungrily, as though they could taste it by witnessing her expression.
“How is it?” Sparrow asked, yearning in her voice.
Sarai shrugged and vanished it, feeling a little wicked. “Nothing special, just sweet.” She looked to Lazlo with a secret smile. “Like eating cake in dreams.”
He smiled back, and they all could see that there were memories shimmering between them. “What dreams?” asked Feral.
“What cake?” demanded Ruby.
But Sarai had no will for storytelling. She wished, rather, to spend whatever time she had left, if not living, then at least doing and being and feeling. Never before had time seemed so like currency, each moment a coin that could be well-or ill-spent, or even, if one wasn’t careful, wasted and lost. She looked to Minya’s chair at the head of the table. Even empty, it seemed to reign over them. Ominously, the quell board was there, all set up and ready for a game. I’m good at games, she heard in her mind. She wanted to dash the board to the floor.
If only it could be that easy to put an end to all of Minya’s games.
“You must be tired,” she said to Lazlo, rising from her chair. “I know I am.”
“Tired?” asked Ruby. “Can ghosts sleep?”
Feral shook his head at her, his expression sour. “How can you have lived your whole life with ghosts and never wondered that before?”