Chapter 27:

Outside the sunlessness of darkwake reigned. In the library, bright wood-lined lampstands lit up Mayah’s way. Soon she was pointing at the hatch door in the ceiling. “That’s what you’re looking for?” she asked.

“Yep,” Vek replied. “You sure know your way around here pretty well,” he added.

Mayah blushed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been admired by someone out loud. “I’ve spent a lot of time here.”

“Well, no more,” Vek responded. “Look up.”

It was almost funny. How many times had Mayah stared at the underside of this hatch door, at this long closed-off escape from the castle? At least a thousand times. But now, when directed to look up by Vek, it was as if the plafond was shifting, as if all the pieces of the painting were in flux, and the woman adorned in breathflowers was smiling at her.

Vek stepped onto the second lowest shelf of the nearest bookcase. He pressed himself into the books as he gripped the highest shelf with his re-gloved hand. Reaching up with his other hand, also re-gloved, he touched the corner of the woman’s lips. His fingers fiddled with a handle Mayah had never noticed before, painted over as it was by a half-blooming bud. Then he pulled the hatch open, and the woman’s face cracked in two, a gaping hole replacing her smile.

Mayah watched with bated breath as Vek pulled loose a rope ladder that fell all the way to the floor. He sprang off the bookcase with a smile. “After you.”

She tried hard but failed to keep from blushing again. Vek might be just a serf, but he was being really nice to her. He was also the only person to actually have a conversation with her in what felt like forever. He could probably say just about anything and she would be happy.

Soon Mayah’s head was poking up through the hatch’s opening. She sneezed. Dust swirled into the air as she pulled herself up into the tower. She sneezed again, and again. By the time she had recovered, Vek was already inside the tower with her. “You okay?”

Mayah nodded. She looked at her surroundings. From inside the place didn’t seem so much a tower as a rounded one-room cell. It was small and bare, except for a rough bundle of straw to one side, and also some curtains, dark, heavy curtains that circumscribed the circular area.

Flashes of blue and green peeked out from under one of the curtain’s edges. When Mayah drew it to the side, she found herself looking through a pane of glass. Oh, the glass stretched all around them; the tower was panoramic. It was like being inside a bubble, or a bowl, although the darkness outside made it hard to see through the glass. Maybe that was a castle in the distance? Yes, it had to be. No other shadow could loom up over the shore of the holy lake like that.

“That’s where we’re headed.”

Vek had come to stand next to her. Mayah could feel his presence. Over sixteen diurnals had passed since Sukren’s disappearance; no one had stood this close to her or spoken to her so genuinely that entire time. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want Vek to move. Trying to linger, Mayah peered in the direction Vek was pointing. “We’re going to the holy lake?”

“That’s right.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

Mayah felt frightened by Vek’s confusion. She didn’t want to anger him. “I… I don’t have enough credits to get a cableway pass,” she stammered. “My artwork was never good enough to win many.”

“Oh, we won’t need any.”

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“Then… how are we going to leave Lost Technology?”

He grinned at her. “We’re going to walk out.”

Mayah swallowed. Briefly she closed her eyes. Sukren said to go with Vek, just listen to Sukren, it’s okay if it’s not authorized by the Movement Bureau, it’s authorized by Sukren…

“Here, come, put this on.”

Happy for the distraction, Mayah obeyed. She watched as Vek tore open the bundle of packed straw. Inside was a hooded doctor-priest’s robe. It was much too big for her, but Vek handed it to her anyway. “We have to keep you disguised,” he said. “And you should probably leave your journal here too. You’re going to want your hands free.”

Mayah hesitated, clutching Sukren’s notebook in her right hand as she gathered the robe’s layers together in her left. There were so many things in it that Mayah wanted to talk to Sukren about! But her reluctance lasted only a moment. Mayah was going to see Sukren, after all, and that was better than having his notebook.

Mayah watched as Vek tucked the notebook under a loose pile of straw. After he was done, she draped the doctor-priest’s robe over her shoulders. Vek helped her pull on the enormous hood so that she was covered from head to toe. “This robe is big enough to be Sukren’s.” Mayah laughed a little. “I’m going to trip.”

“I’ll catch you if you do.”

Mayah was glad the hood was so large. She could blush in private underneath it. In fact, Mayah hoped she wouldn’t have to take it off anytime soon. It was strangely relaxing, knowing nobody could see her. She even felt bold enough to ask Vek the question that had been burning in her mind. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

To her surprise, Vek winked at her. “Because you’re special.”

Blushing furiously, Mayah ducked her head. She couldn’t even begin to know how to respond. Yes, Mayah knew she was special, but that had always been a curse. The girl who grew up in a Chenta serf village, the princess who didn’t know how to navigate the social life of Lost Technology, low status as she got older and older and still remained unseeded – oh, yes, Mayah was special, special indeed.

Yet Vek made it sound like a good thing, like there was nothing she could want more than to be different from the Rajas. That was what Sukren had said in his notebook too. It’s them, not me, she recited silently, trying to feel it. It’s them, not me. Not me not me not me.

She followed Vek back down the ladder into the library after he made sure no one was watching. He helped her adjust her robe once she was down. “Can you take us to the balcony with the hanging vines?” he asked. Mayah nodded, then led the way, left, right, then left and left again, through the bookshelves.

She wanted to go fast to show Vek how well she knew the library again, but it was hard with the doctor-priest’s robe trailing around her feet. They got there eventually. Thankfully, it was on the same floor as the hatch door.

“I’ve never actually been on this balcony,” Mayah said. She was still finding it amazing to have someone to talk to. She slipped her hands up out of her sleeves and pulled aside the curtain of breathflower vines hanging over the balcony’s entrance. She stepped through it, the wind washing over her as she left the electric lights of the library behind for a fiery glow all around her. Although it was dark outside, the breathflowers were bright enough for Mayah to be able to see the vines covering every part of the balcony, hanging over the railing, curling around the balusters, crawling up the nearby walls.

When Vek didn’t respond, Mayah turned around to see him tugging open a trapdoor. It opened, and he grinned. “After you.”

Mayah peeked down through the trapdoor. There was a staircase running underneath, a staircase that curled around the trunk of the castle, the serf staircase –

“Hey, hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Mayah whispered, automatically, mechanically.

“I’ll help you down.”

Still Mayah couldn’t move.

“There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“I’m sorry,” Mayah whispered.

The memories were flooding her, almost choking her. Oh, Sarana, that long night climbing up and up the serf staircase with Sukren by her side… she had tried so hard to forget, she had tried so hard to pretend that it especially had never happened, that she was a princess just like everyone else…

Vek came over to stand by her. He held out his hand. He was wearing a glove, but even holding out his hand, that was monstrous. Mayah couldn’t look at it. Didn’t Vek know how much trouble both of them could get in for breaking the purity laws?

“You know, we don’t have to follow their rules anymore,” he said softly.

Then Mayah remembered what Sukren had written: I wish I could tell her that maybe the problem isn’t her, but their rules. And slowly, she took Vek’s hand.