The Hanging City (27)

She fishes around in her pocket and slaps a key onto the table.

I dare say the gruff Montra is starting to like me.

I don’t say a word about it.



With Azmar as my escort, I don’t have to defer to most other trolls in the corridors or on the lifts—it seems the higher castes have fewer members, while the lower have many. If not for my slowness, we would have made good time to the market. Azmar doesn’t complain, though. He walks beside me, which signals to the other trolls that I’m with him and don’t need to move aside. I’m grateful for it.

While waiting for a lift, I see my distorted reflection in a metal plate supporting the shaft. Two bruises on my face have merged into one, resembling the body of a spider, which ironically recalls Iter, the fifth planet. The larger one on my cheek, deep purple where it passes over my cheekbone, overshadows the smaller one next to my mouth, which isn’t quite so discolored. In my father’s house, I could use powder to hide the marks, but here I just use my hair. Thus far, I haven’t seen anything in the way of troll cosmetics.

We take the lift down, Azmar working the rope, and cut through the corner of the marketplace. We’re halfway across when I notice Perg pulling a small wagon. Excitement blooms in my chest.

“Azmar.” I grasp his forearm to stop him, then immediately release it, unsure if such an action breaks protocol. When I have his attention, I gesture to Perg. “Could I speak with him a few minutes? Please? He’s the one who found me.”

Azmar’s topaz eyes look toward Perg before lifting to the clock. “I know. Can you find your way?”

I pull the map from my pocket. “Always do.”

His lip makes the slightest quirk, though for how serious he is, I might have imagined it. “Be careful.”

I nod. He hesitates, glances to Perg, then continues down to Engineering.

Crossing the road, I call out, “Perg!”

He stops and looks to either side, and I chuckle at his confusion. I hurry, gritting my teeth each time I step with my left foot. He must catch the movement from his periphery, for he turns abruptly toward me. To my delight, he grins.

“Lark.” His grin fades as he takes in my face. “You’re still not well.”

“Not well looking, perhaps, but well enough.” I take a second to catch my breath.

He glances at my leg. “Well enough,” he repeats. “I’m sorry for what they did.”

The memory takes me aback—that and his concern for me. I glance at his wagon. “Where are you going?”

“I’m a stone layer.” He says it like it’s the most menial and unimportant job in Cagmar. “Taking this down to Deccor housing.”

“That isn’t near Engineering, is it?”

He tilts his head. “Close. Why are you . . . Oh, Azmar.”

I start walking, and Perg follows, kindly slowing his step to keep pace with me. “I’m taking a rest from physical labors and helping him today.”

Perg’s eyes are a very human shade of hazel, but they regard me suspiciously. “You can read?”

“And write, and do arithmetic.” Growing up, I’d never realized what a privilege that was.

“But you’re human.” He winces. “I mean, not that all humans should be . . . Well, they are—”

“It’s all right.”

Perg releases an audible sigh at my dismissal. He shifts the handle of the wagon to his other hand as we walk. “I’m glad you’re all right, anyway.”

I smile at him, and he turns away, avoiding my gaze. We walk in silence a ways, though it isn’t an uncomfortable one. A few trolls throw hard looks my way, but as I reach the corridor leading to the lower levels, I realize more than half of them are for Perg.

It’s one thing to be human, but is it worse to be both? Yet Perg is not the lowest caste, only near so.

Thinking of his past honesty, I say, “Might I ask you . . . a personal question?”

Perg runs a thumb over his pronounced canines. “Who were my parents and why did they have the audacity to create me?”

I trip at his words. “I . . . well, I would not ask it so . . . bluntly.” Heat rises in my cheeks, making my bruises throb.

A sad yet mischievous half smirk, all too human, stretches his face. “My mother was trollis, actually. Most assume it’s the other way around. But it’s no love story, if that’s what you’re hoping for.” The smile fades, flattening his expression. “I don’t know everything. Some drunken revelry, mistakes, and there I was. Half human, without a bloodstone pairing.”

“I’m . . . sorry.” I’m unsure how to respond. “Bloodstone pairing?”

“Trollis trade bloodstones to mate.”

I stare up at him, considering. “Is marriage so easy?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “It’s . . . Oh, you mean the human custom.”

No marriage, then. “Yes.”

He considers. “I suppose it’s similar. Never been to the world above. They’d hate me more than the trollis do.” He runs his hand over the less prominent nubs of his forehead, into his hair. “We get bloodstones once we finish military training, but . . .” He shrugs.

I reach out and touch his wrist, just below the bony protrusions there. He slows noticeably, and the weight of his wagon bumps him forward a step. His looks to my hand, then to my face, then back again.