“Winged Serpent.”
“Yes, Winged Serpent. They won’t let anyone through unless they’re Carrion Crow. It’s impossible.”
“Couldn’t you…？” Aishe touched fingers to her throat and opened her mouth to mime singing.
Xiala shuddered. “No.”
Serapio was not the only one with blood on his hands. Xiala had killed innocents, too. Not deliberately, she told herself, but you never do anything deliberately, do you, Xiala? And good intentions make no difference to the dead.
She caught her breath at that, turning away from Aishe so the girl could not see the hot tears of shame that gathered in her eyes.
Images from the Convergence flashed through her memory—a woman in blue silently tumbling from the bridge, lost to the river below. A green-eyed man in new year finery trampled by the crowd, gentled to inaction like an animal led to the slaughter. Gentled by her Song. If she had not used her magic, that man would still be alive. Of that she had no doubt. And he was not the only one. How many people had she robbed of their lives that night because she used her power so recklessly?
Everything you do is reckless. The trip to Tova that ended in the deaths of your crew, giving your heart to a man intent on his own demise, and look where you are now, in the bed of a woman who no longer wants you. Is it really a surprise that you used your Song to kill again? Wasn’t it only a matter of time?
“Xiala?”
“I’m fine.” She swiped a hand across her eyes.
Aishe would not understand, thinking she mourned for Serapio. But the truth was that she wept for herself, or, more specifically, for the charade of a life she’d chosen to live, refusing to face the things that had driven her from Teek long ago. The Convergence was proof that she could not outrun her past. So what would she do about it?
“I don’t suppose you have anything to drink?”
Aishe hesitated. “We can find some balché, if you like. I’m sure Zash has something.” She did not quite sound judgmental, but she did sound disappointed.
“No.” Xiala dug a fingernail into her palm and let the pain steady her voice. “Forget I asked.”
“Perhaps Uncle Kuy could help you get to Odo,” Aishe said softly. “He’s Carrion Crow and allowed free pass into the district—at least, he was before they closed their doors. It can’t hurt to ask, and if he says yes, then maybe you can go find some answers. Find Serapio… if you think he’s safe.”
“He won’t hurt me.” Xiala said it with conviction. “No matter who you think he is or what he did or didn’t do, he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I know you believe that, Xiala, but if he is a god like they say, who knows what he is capable of? And if he’s just a man, then he’s a man wading in holy blood up to his hips.”
Then perhaps we belong together, she thought. But she only said, “I know.”
She extricated herself from Aishe’s embrace and paced across the room, putting space between them. Aishe folded her arms, her expression resigned.
“I think I know where my uncle is. If all goes well, maybe you can be in Odo before the end of the day.”
And then I’ll no longer be your problem, Xiala thought, and you can be done with me. If only it were so easy for me to be done with myself.
But she didn’t speak any of those thoughts aloud, only nodded her agreement and reached for borrowed clothes.
* * *
The two women made their way through the streets of Titidi. The cold was biting, something Xiala was unused to, and it chilled her so deeply she thought her flesh might freeze. She huddled in the thick cloak she had procured in the port city of Tovasheh, but anywhere the cloak gaped—at her neck, around her wrists—it felt like her skin would surely crack and bleed frost.
They went to the barge first, down the long, winding path that led to the docks. The boat was much as Xiala remembered it, but it felt like years since she had arrived in the city instead of only a handful of days.
“Wait here.” Aishe hopped across the narrow space between land and barge. “Uncle?” she called as she walked the deck. Xiala watched her open the door to the room where she had once shared a narrow bed with Serapio, where she had sat as he confessed that his mission was one meant to end in his death. Xiala looked away, blinking back useless tears.
Aishe closed the door and moved on. After a few moments, she came back, empty-handed. “No one here, and it looks like he’s put in for the winter. Cupboards bare, beds stripped.”