“Is it the black spot?”
“It’s getting bigger. It’s going to swallow me
whole.”
“Come here.” I took his hand and pulled him
into my arms.
He nestled there, huddling against me. “What’s
wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” I said, kissing his curls. “It’s
not you.”
I held him until Jenko and Ione emerged from
the bedroom. Whatever had passed between them, Ione had softened.
She was slow to smile, but not unfriendly. She seemed especially
intrigued by Ayo, although her interest in him bothered me. When
she watched him, it was with the detached fascination of a person
observing a particularly exotic bird in a zoo.
Of course, it didn’t help that Ayo was acting
so strange. Twice during dinner, he stood up without explanation
and attempted to leave the apartment.
“He’s really from the Dollhouse?” Ione asked
me, after I’d led him back to the table for the second
time.
I was tempted to tell her to ask him, but I
didn’t want to be rude. Besides, I wasn’t sure Ayo was paying
enough attention to the conversation to answer. “So it
seems.”
“But he’s so young.”
“Well—”
“I’m not as young as I look,” Ayo said,
without taking his eyes from the door. “I’m not a
child.”
“I see.” She turned back to me. “I’ve always
worried Jenko’d go soft and try to help him escape.”
“You know I would never have risked it,” Jenko
responded without glancing up from his dinner.
“Well,” she said with finality, “thank the sky
it’s over now.”
After stacking the dishes in the wash basin,
Ione brought a bottle and two glasses to the table. She set them
down between Jenko and me. I wondered why not three glasses.
Because Ayo looked too young, or because she didn’t think of him as
one of us?
“I have packing to do,” she said to me. Then,
to Jenko, “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, throwing her a mock
salute.
“Packing?” I asked.
“Well—”
But he was interrupted by Ayo, tugging
impatiently at my sleeve. “Misha, I have to go.”
I bit back my irritation at him. I opened my
mouth to tell him once again that we’d have to wait, but Jenko
spoke before I could.
“Ayo,” he barked. “
A’vri
jher.”
Words I didn’t know, in a language I’d never
heard. Ayo seemed startled. He blinked at Jenko once, then stood.
He went quietly out of the room, down the short hallway to the
bedroom we’d been assigned.
“What did you just do?”
“I sent him to bed. That’s all.” He uncorked
the bottle Ione had left us and splashed some alcohol into each
glass. He slid one across the table to me. “I always feel bad using
his trigger words, but it seemed the best way to put an end to this
arch business.”
I hated to admit it, but he was right. I was
tired of fighting Ayo’s program.
I took a sip of the liquor, relishing the burn
as it slid down my throat. “How many commands are there?” I asked,
although I was afraid of his answer.
“Only a few, that I know of. There’s one other
one you should learn, though.”
“No.”
“It’s
ajerhi
.”
“No,” I said again, shaking my head, trying to
pretend I hadn’t heard the word at all. Trying to keep it from
lodging itself in my all-too-reliable memory. “Forget I asked. I
don’t want to know any of them.”
“You might need this one.”
“I won’t.”
“It helps him sleep. It soothes him.
Sometimes, after Donato was through with him…”
I shuddered at the thought.
“It was the only way I could calm him down.
Ordering him to sleep was the only thing I could do.”
I hated to think of Donato’s cruel side, or of
how many times Jenko may have needed to whisper that particular
command into Ayo’s ear.
Jenko turned his glass in slow circles on the
rough wood tabletop. “So, will you let him go to this
arch?”
“He’s awfully determined.” I thought about the
back of the apartment, where the bedroom and bathroom were. “Is
there a back door?”
“No. He’d have to go past us to get out. I
don’t think he’ll try, anyway. Not after being given an
order.”
“He’s been given two orders,
though.”
“Yes, one to stay, and one to go.” He eyed me
over the rim of his glass as he sipped at it. “But why is his
implant telling to go to this arch?”
“I think it’s the Dollhouse’s way of
reclaiming him.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, and I went
on.
“When I was trying to find his trigger word, I
had his tattoo translated. Some of it made no sense, but there was
one bit that I was told translated as, ‘return to death,’ or
‘return by death.’”
“Which is why you thought his trigger word
would kill him.”
I nodded. “Exactly. But now, I think it means
something else entirely.”
“It means he was programmed to return to his
makers, upon the death of his owner.”
In the apartment next door, a woman began to
yell. A child began to cry. In Jenko’s small kitchen, the sounds
seemed at home. “Yes.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do but let him
go.”
My chair creaked as I leaned back to regard
him. “I’m not willing to give up so easily.”
“Then what?”
“We could find another surgeon.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where
to begin. They’re almost as elusive as the Dollhouse.”
“But you must know of one.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Because
of Donato, you mean?”
His discomfort pleased me. I’d wondered how
much of our master’s business he knew. I’d wondered how he could
stomach what Donato and the Council were doing. “You were his
right-hand man.”
“Not by choice.”
“But you did nothing to stop him.”
“And you want to know why.”
I ducked my head in acquiescence.
He tapped his fingertips on the rough wood of
the table, debating. Finally, he sighed. He undid the top few
buttons on his shirt, and pulled it aside to show me two tattoos
below his collarbone on the right side.
“You’re a slave,” I said, stunned.
He nodded. “Ione too.” He buttoned his shirt
again, covering the letters that marked him as Donato’s property.
“As long as I served him well, she was allowed to live here, as a
free woman.”
“But if you betrayed him…” There would have
been nothing to stop Donato in his wrath.
Jenko nodded. “He could have done anything.
Raped her. Sold her. Killed her. You of all people know how cruel
he could be, and I would have had no recourse.”
I shuddered at the thought. “What happens to
you now he’s dead?”
He smiled at me. “Now? I’m a free man. That
was the other half of the agreement. As long as he didn’t die by my
hand, Ione and I would be free.”
“I’m glad.”
He took a long drink of his whiskey. He set
the glass down and turned it in slow circles. “The thing is, with
the state of things in Davlova, I don’t trust it. I don’t know if
he had debts. But if he did, they’ll be looking to collect them any
way they can. They’ll seize as many of his assets as they can
find.”
“They could come for you.”
He nodded without glancing up from his glass.
“I have papers he drew up ahead of time, saying Ione and I are
free, but without him to back me up, they’d likely charge me with
forgery and sell me back into the trade. The only thing we can do
is run and hope nobody thinks to search for us.”
“When will you leave?”
“As soon as we can.”
“Where will you go?”
He leveled his gaze at me.
“Nowhere.”
I nodded in understanding. If our places had
been reversed, I probably wouldn’t have trusted him
either.
“Before we leave, I’ll help you make sure the
yacht’s fueled and ready to go.”
“But if they’re seizing Donato’s
property—”
“The Miredhel’s safe where she is. Donato paid
cash, so there’s no paper trail there. I doubt they’ll find her.
Still, I wouldn’t dawdle if I were you.”
“I don’t intend to.” But would I be able to
convince Ayo to go, when his implant was telling him not only to
stay, but to seek out those who had created him? “I still have the
problem of Ayo’s program. Can you tell me where to find Donato’s
surgeon?”
He sighed and swallowed the rest of his
whiskey. “I can,” he said, setting the empty glass down
heavily.
“Do you think he’ll help us?”
“I don’t know the man at all, but the rich
pigs in Deliphine are the same as the rich pigs in Davlova. My
guess is he’d as soon spit on you as look at you, unless you have
far more money than I think you do.”
I had money, but I suspected it wasn’t
anywhere near enough to pay for the services of a surgeon. Still, I
had to try. “Who is he?”
“His name is Gefrey Gideon.”
We didn’t linger over our drinks. We were both
too tired from the journey, and Jenko still needed to pack. Once I
had the information I needed from Jenko, I headed for the tiny
bedroom I was to share with Ayo.
Night had fallen, but not darkness. Both gas
lamps and electric lights burned outside, illuminating doorsteps
and advertising businesses. Our room was lost in shadow, except
where the window threw a warped rectangle of pale light across the
bed, framing Ayo’s face and the curve of one white shoulder. His
strange eyes seemed to glow as he stared at me.
“You should be sleeping,” I said.
“I can’t. It’s so loud here.”
I stopped for a moment to listen. To me, it
sounded like a normal amount of street noise, with a hushed layer
on top coming from the neighboring apartments. At least the couple
on the other side of the wall had stopped fucking. “You’re used to
Donato’s house. It was quieter on the hill.”
“Will it ever be quiet?” he asked, as I began
to undress.
“The noise will drop off, in a few
hours.”
“I can hear the people next door too. Like
they’re in the same room. ” His voice was small, like a child’s. “I
think they could knock down the wall and walk through, if they
wanted to.”
I chuckled at the thought. “I doubt they’d
have reason.”
I tossed my clothes aside and stood naked,
gazing down at his pale face. The light from outside made his
lashes cast hazy shadows over his eyes. I was suddenly extremely
aware of the fact that we were about to share a cot that was far
too narrow for me to maintain any real distance between us. I
steeled myself to resist the temptation of his slender body. He
might seek pleasure, but I wasn’t yet ready to take my own. Not if
it meant casting him in the role of my slave, or even my servant.
Not if there was any chance I might trigger his programming. Not if
I might end up hurting him, either physically or
emotionally.
And yet, the thought of him under the covers,
naked and ready, caused my blood to stir. I hesitated, wondering if
I could make an excuse to leave the room until he was asleep. Maybe
I could put my pants back on, although I didn’t really want to
sleep in my clothes.
The breeze from the open window raised
goosebumps on my flesh. Ayo held a hand out to me, reaching from
his bright place on the bed into the darkness, where I stood. “Come
to bed,” he said.
I had no good reason to say no, but I felt
guilty about saying yes.
The sheets were coarse. They were cold against
my skin, and like a doomed moth to the candle, I went to him, drawn
to his warmth and his willingness. I fell into the softness of his
flesh as he welcomed me. I bit back a moan at the feel of his
pliant, supple body in my arms. He began to move his hand toward my
groin, but I stopped him. I kissed his fingers and said, “You
should rest.”
“I should, but it’s hard to make my brain be
quiet.”
“What do you mean?” And then, before he could
answer, I realized what he meant. “It’s still telling you to go to
the arch?”
“It’s like a fishing hook snagged in some
corner of my brain. And whoever’s holding the other end of the line
keeps tugging, a bit harder each time.” He shook his head. In the
mixed light from the street, his eyes seemed haunted. “Eventually,
it’ll tear a hole in me, Misha, and you won’t be able to save
me.”
“But if I let you go…” And if I was right
about the Dollhouse calling him home? “Goddess knows what they’ll
do to you. I may never see you again.”
“Why is this happening to me now?”
I pushed my fingers through his hair, gently
touching the spot behind his ear. “I think it’s part of your
program, triggered by the death of your owner.”