CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series Read online

  Lil’s shoulders went from hunched to thrown back and her cheeks puffed into equal balls of amusement. “Do you hear that, Eam? I am a fascinating, seamless blend of perfection. You should take notes and strive to imitate me in all of my glory.”

  Jaz clicked her teeth and added an irritated, “Be serious, Dohtor!”

  Kal kept a straight face by the barest of margins. “Is she stable, Sil? Is this done or can you tell if her being is still mutating? Can her body withstand such a dramatic change without unwelcome or harmful side effects?”

  Vel stood at Kal’s words and crossed to his daughter, placing his hands on her shoulders. Lil pressed a cheek into Vel’s knuckles in acknowledgement of his offer of comfort. Jaz was so tense at our side that her body seemed poised to attack, like a housecat tracking a dangling string.

  Sil’s answer was honesty carefully couched in a bed of caution. “I do not see any cause for worry at present, but as Lil is the first fully mutated hybrid I cannot answer with any certainty. While she does seem stable at this time, complications could arise that I cannot foresee. I deal in facts and data, of which I have much too little to predict any chain of events. We watch, wait, and hope the Will of Annis is benevolent.”

  Mez sat forward to ask, “Why now? Why did this not happen weeks or months ago? You credit the Will of Annis but why is no one asking the obvious question—does this have anything to do with Silver and Cassandra? Was it their touch that set this in motion? If so, why is it so selective and unpredictable?”

  Cass began to pull our gloves back on in a discreet, practiced set of movements under the table. Blood was in our face making it feel hot and pin pricked. Our ears were knobs of heat beneath our head wrap. Jaz patted our knee. When we looked into her eyes we saw twin reflections of our shame and guilt.

  She said aloud with a harsh glance at Mez, “You have no cause to feel blame, Neces. This is beyond your control. I do not think he meant to condemn you.”

  Mez whipped his head our direction and his expression was bewildered.

  Jaz muttered his direction, “Clueless boyling. Think first, and then speak.”

  I defended him, saying, “He only spoke the truth, Jaz.” It was our turn to pat her knee, the sound of leather on leather gave a small smack. Mez wove his neck in apology and we all turned toward the real show.

  Sil handed his tablet device to Lil. “Keep this locked away and record your own readings when you may at Nyt’s. Meet with Kal’s mind and give him the data to pass to me. I have already set the parameters so please do not alter the controls. If this should fall into the wrong hands it has no identifying markers in the program other than belonging to my Guild. It will respond only to your genetic signature and mine, so the information gathered should be relatively secure. Your scent is rather strong and unique, Lil, you may not be able to hide what you are very long.”

  Jaz kicked her chair back to stand “We do not plan to, Guild Master. Kal, you should go. I thank your Aniy freond for his assistance. Do not risk his exposure by being here when you should be elsewhere. Vel will tell you of our plans when they are decided.”

  Lil flung herself into Kal’s arms with enough enthusiasm to knock him back a step and he cupped the sides of her head to kiss her forehead. He crooked a finger at us behind Lil’s back. A reluctance rose in us and our muscles felt frozen. Cass got us upright with effort and walked toward Kal. He pushed Lil gently in Vel’s direction and placed his dessert plate sized palms heavily on either side of our neck.

  Kal’s voice was rough. “You are what you are, Cilda. I am not sorry.” He gave the top of our head wrap a thump. “This is not so bad, yes? It makes your strange eyes bright. Take care and I will be checking in with you. Do not give me cause to worry.” Kal pointed at Mez and said, “Behave, Nefa.”

  Mez crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, Eam.”

  We backed away as Sil pulled a light field around himself. Kal turned to Vel in question.

  Vel whispered, “He may pass, Kal.”

  A strong whiff of ozone blasted and then Sil and Kal were gone back to wherever they’d been before they’d come. I turned in place and gave Lil a sideways glance, “Whatever we’re going to plan needs to be done before we have to head back. Ela told us all we had to return to Nyt’s household by dark fall.”

  Lil clasped her hands primly at her waist in a posture that Ela typically took when addressing her charges. “Annis forbid we disappoint the Aniy! I can pretend obedience just as well as their offspring can.”

  Mez coughed a laugh from his spot at the end of the table.

  Jaz drew her eyebrows together so firmly her head wrap moved forward. “You had better, Dohtor. Empty deeds and words carry more weight than we would like and a carefully turned phrase is worth your life.”

  Vel’s voice was a balm in the air. “I will confer with our council and when it is time to act you will be alerted. Until then, keep to your same patterns of behavior when possible. Do nothing to draw attention to yourselves.”

  I drew in a deep breath. My focus was inward as I mentally followed the path the oxygen took through the lobes of our lungs and into our bloodstream. The steady beat of our heart as it pumped blood in our veins was an imagined meaty thump. Cass closed our eyes and we felt centered in a way we hadn’t in a long time. The lake of placid mirrored glass appeared.

  Our lids rose to a slightly blurred room and a faint chiming, like a row of bells pulsing against the soles of our feet. We wondered at the cause of the melody as we stared at our wiggling toes.

  Lil took our hand in hers as Vel smiled. Jaz lost her scowl and her whole face relaxed.

  Cass whispered the question between our numb lips, “The stone sang for us?”

  Jaz’s words were as calm and assured as Vel’s soft advice had been. “I take that as a good sign, Cilda.”

  Chapter Twenty Five: Think Fast

  When Lil and I returned to Nyt’s household, Ela was waiting by the entrance with the normal accompaniment of guards who monitored access. She was adorned in a cool mixture of violet and lavender with her hair intricately twisted rather than braided. Circular green lights were evenly spaced along the smoothly rounded tunnel ceiling and if the floor had been shinier or darker it might have reminded us a bit of our arrival on Axsa. The huge doors the guards flanked were copper with complex stamped designs snaking along their borders.

  Ela’s features were nearly expressionless which made our body spur itself into readiness for action. Did they already know about Lil? Was there some secret way they had monitored us without our knowledge? Our insides raged with fear and insecurity but our outside was a painfully clamped down robotic shell. All of the Imini ‘foster children’ would be walking back this way, so maybe Ela was just waiting to welcome them all on their return. Lil remained relaxed and seemingly oblivious next to us. I wondered for the first time if she wasn’t better at political maneuvering than Jaz or any of us knew.

  Cass tucked her own suspicions in beside mine. “I wouldn’t wanna play poker with her, Silver.”

  Ela positioned her fingers in an upside down prayer point against the front of her frothy robes. I adjusted the satchel on our shoulder when we came to a halt. The heavy bag contained the tablet Sil had given Lil to monitor her vitals and pretty much our whole Imini wardrobe plus new wraps for our hair.

  We’d decided to play opposite ends to one another. Lil would continue to enthusiastically adopt Aniy ways and foster the belief a schism existed between herself and Jaz. Cass and I would regress back to full Imini dress and dig our heels in against Aniy customs as a minor distraction.

  Ela eyed our head wrap and plain gray ensemble with one finely arched eyebrow. “I see my hard work did not last long. You will be required to change for dinner, Bogan.”

  Cassandra raised our chin and said, “We’ll see. Are we late or something? It’s still light you know.”

  Lil put a hand on our arm, smiling in apology at Ela. “Come, I will help you change, Min Druta. Perhaps
we even have time for a bath.”

  In feigned irritation I yanked our sleeve out from under Lil’s attempt to steer us toward politeness and grumped, “I already took one. Just how many do I have to take a day to keep Mez happy? I can’t help how I smell, Lil. Maybe he should stuff some crap up his nose. I’ve got a few things in mind that might do the trick.”

  Ela gestured at the guards in their sunshine yellow flowing tunics and baggy pants. One towering hulk flared his nostrils then gave a silent sideways smile at our smart remark that disappeared when Nyt’s second in command turned his way. They didn’t look that scary as they swung open the massive doors; their height was still intimidating but their bright, eye catching ensembles made us think of a Mary Cassatt painting though they hardly would have been the artist’s usual subject matter as they didn’t look soft, motherly, or inclined to repose. Corded muscles flexed as they manually pushed against the heavy engraved copper.

  Ela shooed us inside muttering a rapid censure through barely slit lips. “That is hardly proper talk in front of males, Bogan. You are not yet of an age to officially marry in our society and you could give the wrong impression. Not everyone needs to know your private business with your Leoght Cor.”

  Behind Ela’s back Lil wove her neck at us with a prim expression as if she agreed wholeheartedly. Cassandra whispered, “Would you like us to drown you in the baths?”

  Our friend flashed white teeth and gave a dainty silent snarl.

  Ela escorted us all the way back to our rooms. Her head jerked as if someone were tugging for attention in the Web. Lids closed, Ela’s flawless skin looked like a statue’s and then her ears moved upward a fraction as she wove her neck in dismissal.

  She murmured low in a discreet aside, “You have fifteen measures and no more until you are observed again. I cannot risk longer and you should always assume you are watched here—always. Tell Sil I will not assist him again in whatever you are up to. My debt to my brother is paid.” Her face was drawn with tension as she began to turn away.

  We gave Ela our most serious eyes and I whispered, “We’ll tell him.”

  Cass was miffed but our body was more relaxed than it had been. “Somebody could have told us she was in on it so we didn’t freak the frack out, Silver. We almost had a heart attack at the doors—son of a motherless goat!”

  Lil touched a hurried three finger obeisance to her forehead that we weren’t even sure the other woman saw before our den mother left the way she’d come. The long rectangular room was deserted. Air circulated from cleverly concealed vents over each pallet, making the white curtains wave in ghostly welcome. The main aisle was illuminated by the same bioluminescent green discs favored by the Aniy for lighting. Their caverns didn’t glow naturally the way the Imini’s did.

  I warned, “We’re wasting time, Sister. She said fifteen measures—let’s hustle.”

  Cass hurried us to Lil’s slot and she pulled her lockbox from the bottom of her wardrobe. None of the Imini girls ever had cause to worry about purloined items; since they couldn’t bend, Tet, Nik, Kit, Fyt and Efl let them be. Lil may not enjoy that luxury for much longer. I pulled the tablet from our satchel, still wrapped in a spare head scarf, and let Lil hide it away. She locked the small wooden chest, looped the key string around her neck, and stashed the cube back where it’d been. We tossed our satchel on her pallet. It was time for a crash course in light bending.

  We led her to the vanity farthest from the entrance and faced off with the mirror. I spoke to her ruby-haired reflection. “Put your hand to the key and imagine it isn’t there. Think of the colors in your skin wrapping around it like a cocoon.”

  Lil got a puzzled look on her face and said, “Cocoon? What is that word, Min Druta?”

  Apparently there wasn’t a counterpart in the Axsian tongue so our translator had left it in English. We felt jumpy, like a spy would leap from the shadows at any moment and say aha!

  Cass pinched our nose in frustration before saying, “Never mind, just picture the color of your skin covering the cord. If it works you’ll feel it. The key can hide under the fabric of your robes so you don’t have to bother with it.”

  Lil stared at her reflected décolleté, squinting until her black sparkling eyes were sharp-ended slivers. Slowly the cord turned a pale cocoa, blending seamlessly into her chest, up across her collar bones and behind her long neck. We checked and it disappeared around her exposed nape as well. She placed both of her palms flat on the counter top and leaned in closer to the mirror.

  Cass patted her waist. “See? You’re a natural. You need to concentrate on that niggling feeling at the back of your mind and hold it. Stuff the key under your pallet, in a pocket, or even in your hair before you go to sleep. I haven’t figured out a way to hold a bend and rest. There’s Aniy technology that can be programmed to do it but you’d have to conceal that on your person, too. Hopefully we’ll get the word from Vel or Kal before too long and you won’t have to bother with it.”

  Lil blew out a breath and relaxed her eyes a bit until they were at least ovals of black rather than mere lines. She massaged her temples. “My head is going to hurt before long, Min Druta.”

  To distract her I asked, “Are we really taking another bath?”

  She dropped her hands to grab ours, ignoring my question. Her eyes grew into a pleading, frightening size and her chin creased even as the dimples in her cheeks vanished. “I am scared. Tell me we will be okay. Tell me and I will believe you.”

  Our nerves steadied in response to her request. Maybe we couldn’t be strong for ourselves all the time but we could be strong for another and help ourselves in the doing of it. I’d had enough practice helping Cassandra survive our years with the Warp Faction, waiting patiently to become a host for the Soul Eater.

  She hadn’t known but I had and I’d held on to the hope that we weren’t useful until we came of age. My twin was more prone to it but I’d had my own ‘gut feeling’ that we just had to hold on and stay the course until a way out presented itself. Whenever I’d grown desperate and thought of tracking down our relatives a feeling of unease had gripped my mind. My sister got waylaid by our random pass down memory lane.

  Cass thought at me, “You never told me that, Silver. I always wondered why you didn’t contact Gerome sooner but I figured it had something to do with our body not being mature enough yet for him to see us.”

  I sloughed off my twin’s pique to reassure Lil. “It’ll be okay, Freond. We won’t let anything happen to you. You’re ours to protect—just like Kal, Jaz, Vel, and Mez.”

  Lil clenched our fingers in hers so tightly we winced and she let go to pat the loose strands that had escaped from her braids during her thrashing transformation on her bed earlier in the day. Her face took on the blank optimism that she frequently flashed to Ela and Elder Nyt; now we knew its purpose. In light of Ela’s assistance today we couldn’t think of our motherly minder as an ally really but neither was she an enemy like Nyt.

  I winked at her. “You look like a lighter, brighter version of Ela, Lil. I’m guessing that’s no accident?”

  She fluttered her lashes in a perfect imitation of Ela’s response to Fid Tal’s anger during breakfast. “I have no idea what you mean, Min Druta. You wound me with your assumption of scheming on my part.”

  A squeal erupted from the corridor outside and Bel, Qyl, and Zay tumbled in together laughing at some shared joke. Their smiles disappeared when they spied us at the vanity. Jaz wasn’t the only Imini taken in with Lil’s seeming conversion to Aniy ways. Zay—the girl who had tittered at Mez’s flirtation at the bazaar in Denu—separated from the Imini clique with a sly, transparent curve to her upper lip.

  Her smile was forced. “How did your cynn take your Aniy-loving ways, Lil? Your modor will have to hide her face and I doubt anyone will buy from her. She is a killer after all and Annis does not count murderers among her cilda.”

  I placed our body between Lil’s and the other girl’s. Cass stretched our mouth in
a genuine wide grin—we loved defeating idiots with their own logic. “Now who sounds Aniy? You’re quoting from the Codes of Annis not the Book of Annis, Zay. You’re just pissed because Jaz sells twice what your whole cynn ever will. Keep it up with your smart mouth and I’ll touch you in your sleep.”

  Zay recoiled in horror. “Stay away from me, Ellorgaest, or I will report you!”

  I rolled our eyes and Cass spat, “Go ahead, we’ll just deny it. We’ll say it was an accident. We’re not from here, remember? We could give two shits about your laws, because if we survive Axsa, eventually we get to go home.”

  The other girl bit her lip so hard we thought she might break skin, did an about face, and walked with stiff stilted steps to her little groupies.

  Lil sighed and hugged us from behind, which was uncomfortable because she put the full weight of her head on ours.

  “You didn’t have to do that, Min Druta. I could have handled Zay on my own.”

  Cass felt smothered and untangled our body from Lil’s. “Better us than you, Freond. We can take the heat short term because we’re not here for the long haul, but you are.”

  She followed us as we swung by her pallet to snag our satchel full of clothes and make a beeline for our own white-curtained slot. Our wardrobe was going to be stuffed to overflowing what with the thicker leather Imini-wear having to share space with black school robes and the filmy thin Aniy yellow and blue getups. I yanked open a drawer and Cass reached into the bag to lift out a stack of head wraps. Jaz had given us colors she deemed complemented our pale skin and the fabric was thick but soft ranging from deep red all the way to forest green.

  Lil leaned around us and patted the stacked squares straight then knelt on our pallet, disturbing the blankets to say, “With the Bindao in mind, what you say about not being involved with Axsa for the long term isn’t true, Min Druta. This is Mez’s home so it will always matter to you and hopefully others here you will miss as well. Will you forget us so easily when you have gone home?”