“Do not touch her,” Fana’s voice said, somehow gentle despite trembling the floors.
As quickly as she’d been surrounded, Jessica was alone, penned into a wide, empty circle. Jessica’s heart pounded. Which Fana was floating above her? The gentleness in Fana’s voice brought hopeful tears to Jessica’s eyes.
“Fana?” she whispered. “Sweet baby?”
IT IS NOT FANA, DEAR JESSICA, Teka’s voice said sadly in her ear.
Jessica glanced at Dawit, who seemed ready to spring to her. She shook her head no, and his face withered … but he stayed back, his eyes expecting the worst.
No one could say Jessica hadn’t known love.
The room swayed, and Jessica let out an involuntary gasp, her fingers trying to grab something to hold; fistfuls of air. She waved her arms for balance and found none.
Her feet weren’t on the floor!
The room grew bigger beneath Jessica as she floated higher. She braced for a wild swing, but she hovered until she was ten feet above where she had stood. Jessica hadn’t realized she had such a deep, primal fear of heights until her limbs flailed in panic.
Jessica looked up, hoping to see Fana’s face, but Fana was too far behind her. She whipped her head around to search for her. Instead, she felt a wave of dizziness as she saw the crowd staring at her, moony faces upturned.
I CAN EASE YOUR FEAR, Teka said.
“I’m not afraid of you!” Jessica shouted, her answer to Teka. Almost the truth.
I LOVE YOU, JESS, Dawit said, faint but unmistakable. Jessica didn’t have to touch the warm dribbling from her nose and ears. She knew her blood from the smell.
I have faith in you, Fana, Jessica said, a whisper from her mind. I know it isn’t you.
Fana’s voice flowed like wind through the Cleansing Hall.
“I love humankind so much,” the Fana-thing said, “that I sacrifice my mother.”
Forty-three
The world was all tumbling and mud, until she heard the Words.
“I have faith in you, Fana.”
She stuck out her hand, or where she imagined a hand should be, and caught something. It was rough, and would have scraped her if she’d had skin, but she held on tightly. A tree root in the mud! Freed from the mud’s tumbling, she hung on to work on the puzzle of the Words.
I have faith in you, Fana. She remembered the precise order.
Who was the “I”? What was faith? Who was Fana?
Asking the questions exhilarated her. Shaped her.
Who was the “I”?
She was the “I.”
What was faith? (Knowing?)
Who was Fana?
The last question niggled at her. She was certain she had known, once.
Who was Fana?
She was Fana.
She had a name.
Her name meant Light.
When Light remembered her name, the Shadows parted.
Michel, where are you? Please wake up.
Years seemed to have passed, but it might have been only minutes.
Fana swam to the surface of the mud, gasping at the thin sheen of air. She spit the syrupy sweetness from her mouth, looking for flickers of Michel in the dark hallways.
Heal, Michel. My mother is dying!
She heard something rolling slowly back and forth below her, the length of a room. Every sound was a clue. She was too far above the surface of him, looking for him in his reflections. She had to dive back down.
Fana took her mother’s Words to guide her, so that she could remember herself again.
I have faith in you, Fana.
Fana dived again, this time without pausing or fighting. The Shadows washed away some of her remembering, but she knew she was looking for Michel.
The muddy waters were rushing now, gaining speed, moving toward something larger, a place too deep to swim. The waters tried to carry her, so she swam the way her teacher had told her, riding the current for a while instead of swimming against it. When the water felt no resistance from her, the current let her go.
Fana swam the way she chose again. When she got lost, she followed the singing.
The waters brought her to a dreary office building, flooded nearly to the ceiling in mud. Ruined light fixtures above her dripped in Shadows. She saw an open door, the first open door she’d found, so she floated inside with the tide of clouded water. The office was flooded, too. Rows of submerged file cabinets stood in regimented lines, only the top drawers dry.
But the drawers were locked. TERU, the typed labels read.
She had been in this office before! Had she found Michel’s thoughtstreams?
He had opened one drawer for her.
Fana heard a young child’s laughter. She swam in the mud, following the laughter, until she found a file cabinet in a corner against the far wall. The top drawer was cracked open exactly the way Michel had left it for her. MAMA, the label said in crayon.
The child’s voice was a very young boy’s. His laughter giggled from the rusted drawer.
Fana pulled open the drawer and found a soccer ball. Michel’s mortal friend. (Nino’s ball?) When she touched it, the waters lurched, rising to Fana’s chin. Fana tossed the soccer ball behind her and reached deeper into the drawer before it could flood with the mud.
This time, she found a bright, shiny red ball. A younger child’s.
Fana held the ball between her hands, remembering how a ball felt when you were three. She closed her eyes, savoring the joy of it.
When Fana opened her eyes, she was on her feet, on solid ground, in a large gray living room. Piano, sofas, display tables with statues. Tall windows stood in rows across the walls, but the windows were covered in thick curtains, as if the house had something to hide.
Not a house—a castle, in Tuscany. A grand, fading Turkish rug spread from one side of the room to the other; a soft ocean for play in a house of cold, uncomfortable floors.
A bounce-bounce-bounce sound issued from the stairwell behind her, and the shiny red ball she’d dropped fell impossibly slowly behind her, until the last bounce rolled it to her feet.
A young boy near her squealed with laughter.
“Dammi la palla!” the boy called. Give me the ball.
The child was sitting alone across the rug, on patiently folded knees. He was such a well-behaved child. All the staff marveled at it, especially his nanny.
A nest of black curls spilled across his brow. In the winter, his skin was the color of honey. In the summer, he turned nearly as brown as his mother.
“Dammi la palla, Mama!” Michel said, his baby teeth shining at her.
He laughed when she picked up the ball. She sat on folded knees across from him. She tested her fingers on the ball’s firmness, and pushed.
The ball rolled the length of the floor, until Michel caught it on the other side. As the ball rolled toward him, the room began to lose its light. He squealed, rolling on the floor with delight. Life rolls in cycles of good and bad, Gramma Bea said in her ear.
“Mama’s turn now,” Fana said. “Roll it back, Michel.”
Michel pushed, firm and sure, and the ball came back to Fana. She held it tightly. Sunlight peeked above the curtains, brightening the room, and Fana saw her face in the standing mirror beside her. She was wearing her favorite white scarf, and she looked like Teru’s twin.
But she was Fana.
In her reflection, Fana noticed two shapes on her lap: toys! One was a handmade rag doll with three heads, a gift from children who loved her and relied on her. The other was a small plastic container of jumping beans. The worms inside the beans jumped when they were too warm, because they liked to sleep. They were freed of their beans only when they became moths, and then they could fly! But they flew only for a few days before they died.
When Fana saw her face in the mirror again, she was round and fat, too. Chipmunk cheeks! She grinned at herself, glad to have her baby teeth back.
“I want to play with you,” Fana said, “but
we have to go somewhere, Michel.”
Michel beckoned to her, impatience sagging his chubby cheeks. “Per favore, Fana! Dammi la palla!”
“Only one more time,” she said, and rolled the ball back to him.
They played for an instant; a day, a night, a day, a night.
She had found Michel’s hiding place from the Shadows.
Forty-four
Dawit’s world fell away when the Cleansing began, everything wrong in a breath.
The terrible stream of Jessica’s life dripping to the floor ravaged his eyes. And Fana floated above her, impassive, willing her mother’s Blood to flow.
Was it all the Shadows, or was Fana angry about the wedding? Dawit didn’t know.
How could he kill any creature dressed so convincingly as his daughter? Unless Michel intervened, both he and Fana had to be destroyed, neutralized beyond simple sleep. How could he? How could he carry her to the incinerator while he trembled with sobs?
For the first time, Dawit knew that he could not trade his daughter for his wife, weighing the tragedies. Even saving Jessica could not compel him to destroy Fana before she drained her mother’s Blood. Dawit’s limbs shook with helpless frustration and horror.
But for her mission? Yes. He could.
Dawit’s knife was ready in his hand as soon as he saw the blood throughout the room, enough nosebleeds to fuel a plague. None were spared. Phoenix, Teka, and all the rest of Michel’s believers who had been so happy to envision a world made just for them shared the same fate. The Shadows were feeding from them for the Cleansing.
The virus was loose. Jessica would not be the only loss, nor a room in a single hall.
MICHEL IS AWAKE, Teka said, just as his knife went flying toward Fana.
• • •
When Michel woke, at first pain made him senseless. His body was nearly dead, and Michel had never experienced the stripping of his body. He touched his face, repulsed. He wanted to flee from his skin. All of him roiled with confusion: where was he?
Then he saw his dear angel floating above him in the white Sanctus Cruor queen’s robe he’d made for her. Michel looked at his own clothing. He was dressed for Cleansing Day.
The Shadows were feeding in a howl.
From his throne—yes, he was in his chair for the Most High—Michel saw a room crowded with nosebleeds. The Shadows tried to smother him with the irresistible surprise, betrayal and suffering of hundreds of supplicants. His pleasure was so great, it was pain.
But Michel brushed the Shadows away with the lessons he had learned from Fana. He could not feast until he understood how he had left his wedding tower.
Had Stefan administered the vows? Had Teka? Such confusion!
Teru’s shrill scream suddenly echoed across the Council Hall from Stefan’s balcony, where she stood alone.
“No!” she screamed, pointing at the rafters. “Stop this, Michel!”
A woman hovered below Fana, her wide-eyed face streaked with blood. Blood crawled like tears from the corners of her eyes. Was it Fana’s mother? Michel looked up at Fana again, horrified. Fana’s face and mind were wiped clean. Where were her thoughtstreams?
What has happened? Who is doing this?
Michel tried to reach out to Jessica to stop her bleeding and bring her back to solid ground, but he could not find a way to touch her; it was like fighting endless billowing curtains. His mind felt as weak as his healing body. Jessica was wrapped in Shadows.
She was dying, draining of her Blood.
Fana, what are you doing? Your mother won’t wake if you take her Blood.
Fana’s father suddenly came to Michel’s sight. He was staring up at Fana with an expression Michel memorized so that he could paint it, the embodiment of Pain itself.
Dawit cocked his arm back to throw his knife. Michel’s mind was sharpening, but it was still moving so slowly that the knife surprised him. Dawit was so fast that the blade was flying before Michel could send a mental stream to swipe it from his hand.
Michel almost turned the soaring blade to dust. Almost.
Set me free, Michel, Fana said. The sound of a flea in his ear, begging. Fana was so lost in the Shadows, Michel felt barely a trace of her. But the soft words helped him understand what he had seen on Dawit’s face, and Dawit’s pain was contagious.
Michel was too weak to free Fana from the Shadows.
He allowed Dawit’s knife to fly.
Dawit’s blade was sure, pinning Fana’s heart still. Her gasp filled the hall.
Fana’s mother fell first, in a rag doll’s heap. Then Fana plunged down from high above, spinning, her gown flying behind her, trying to catch the air. Below, the supplicants scattered.
When Fana’s thoughts died, Michel screamed.
Until the last instant, Dawit was certain that Michel would turn his own knife back on him.
But it was worse: instead, Dawit watched the blade plunge into Fana’s heart to the hilt. He heard his daughter gasp in pain, and saw his wife and child tangle on the floor.
Even if the world died, at least Fana might live, or some version of her. He might have lost his wife, but he had been spared the worst, even if the world had suffered.
Supplicants crushed one another as they squeezed back through the doors, or lined themselves against the wall, trying to clear the Council Hall.
When Michel lurched to his feet, Dawit didn’t move or flinch. Michel’s face was healing, half of it sewing itself into blistered scars.
Dawit tried to look at his fallen daughter, but he could not. Perhaps when she woke.
Scurrying footsteps brought Phoenix and Teka to Dawit to huddle over Jessica. Was she lost to him? Waking grief tightened his muscles, caught his breath. Dawit knelt beside Jessica, pressing his palm to her warm forehead.
THEY ARE SLEEPING, Teka said, and Dawit was lightheaded with relief. BUT THE CLEANSING GOES ON, DAWIT, Teka finished.
Michel took pained, halting steps, dragging himself toward his bride, who was crumpled a few feet from Jessica. Michel was oblivious to any other concerns.
“Michel!” Dawit shouted, his voice rising above the room’s chaos.
Michel stopped, raised his eyes to him. Dawit had never seen eyes filled with such a void. The man behind those eyes might as easily collapse to the ground or strike him dead.
“You gave her your word!” Dawit said. “The Cleansing should not be today.”
Michel made a wild motion, as if to wave Dawit silent. Then he continued his lurching steps toward Fana. He could barely stay on his feet, but he knelt to scoop Fana into his arms, and he willed himself to stand again. Fana lay limply, her hair swinging as he walked.
A strangled sob tore from Michel’s throat.
THE CLEANSING HAS STOPPED, DAWIT! Teka said.
For the first moment since the tower—in truth, the first moment since Fana had first run away from home and found herself in Michel’s web—Dawit believed disaster had been averted.
Dawit felt Mahmoud before he saw him.
Mahmoud was in the balcony beside Teru, raising his gun. Dawit’s second knife was in his hand, ready to throw even as he realized that Mahmoud was out of his range. Dawit never had the chance to throw his knife. He had already run out of time.
Teru gasped, or Dawit might have thought he’d dreamed it.
In one instant, Mahmoud had been biting his lip with rare emotion, his body leaning forward in his readiness to take his target, and then …
Mahmoud’s gun clattered to the marble floor.
Mahmoud vanished in a puff of pale dust that floated across the floor. The unimaginable sight stole Dawit’s breath. He could not make a sound, but his eyes screamed with the horror of it. Watching beside him, both Teka and Phoenix gasped.
Dawit stared at the empty balcony, unable to look away from the space where his most beloved Brother had just stood, ready to join him in battle. If he stared long enough, hard enough, would Mahmoud reappear and grin at him at his joke?
The emp
tiness was beyond conception.
The air shimmered, hot, as Michel walked past, carrying Fana.
YOUR FRIEND CAME TO OUR HOME TO HARM US ON OUR WEDDING DAY, Michel said. I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS.
An apology, however polite, was not nearly enough. Dawit shook with empty rage.
“What will you do with Fana?” Dawit said.
“Fana is safe, signore,” Michel said, not looking back. “We are together. She will rest with me until she wakes.”
“Michel!” Dawit called sharply.
Michel staggered to a stop, and gazed back at Dawit with the unruined side of his face.
“She is the most precious being ever created,” Dawit said. If he had thought it would make a difference, he would have begged Michel to preserve her. Not to enslave her.
Michel’s eyes shimmered with tears. “I know Fana in ways you never can,” he said. “You need not tell me who she is.”
Trust us, Dad.
Fana’s voice? Or a memory in his ear? But how—if her thoughtstreams were dead?
I TOLD YOU, DAWIT, Michel said. FANA IS WITH ME.
Michel let Dawit hear a peal of his daughter’s laughter, the exact moment he’d first made her laugh when she was three. Dawit wasn’t ashamed of the father’s tear that stung his eye.
But he could not forget the mission Fana had risked her life for.
“How many were infected?” Dawit said. He had lost track of time, but fewer than five minutes had passed between the time of Jessica’s first nosebleed and the time he’d been forced to bring Fana down. Maybe only one or two.
Michel sighed, and looked at Fana’s sleeping face. He hated for her to hear.
NINETY THOUSAND, Michel said. AN ACCIDENT. BUT NOW IT IS CONTAINED. PERHAPS WE CAN HEAL THEM WHEN SHE WAKES.
“When is the Cleansing, Michel?”
Michel turned away from him with an unsteady step, carrying away his bride.
“I do not know the future, signore,” Michel said.