Clack. Pause. “I’d carry you with me either way.”
Pause. “What do you mean?”
Pause. Clack. “I’ve carried you, Warden. And I’ve carried your memory … I’d rather carry you.”
Clack. “What about carrying nothing? What about Camilla Hect, the independent entity? Free to live her life outside the shadow of her necromancer? Free from his agenda dictating hers?”
Pause.
“You thought it was your agenda? Huh.”
Clack. “I cannot bear the thought of using you.”
Pause. “Love and freedom don’t coexist, Warden.”
Clack. “This is all there is to love? Simply by being in your life, I have added indelibly to its weight?”
Pause. “Yes.”
Clack. “Camilla, I mean it.”
Pause. “I meant it too. You used to say it to me.”
“We are one flesh.” Clack.
“I am your end.”
Pause. “That didn’t mean I got squatting rights in your soul. I never would have asked for that. I never had rights to that.”
Clack. “Sure. That’s why I gave them to you.”
Clack. Pause. Pause. Pause.
“I hope you know that I adore you, Scholar.”
Clack. “Indubitably, Warden.”
Pause. “Cam, have you thought about what it means if Nona’s actually—a completed merger? One we will never actually be able to unpick, a successful soul gestalt?”
Clack. “Yes.”
“Yes? And? Thoughts?”
Clack. “Lucky them.” Another pause, and in the same tones: “More seriously. Keep neutral.”
Pause. “Yes, agreed. Roger that.”
Clack. Pause. Pause. One of them said, Nona couldn’t tell which, “About the Captain and Corona—” but then with a loud static squeal and a garble the recording swapped over into Nona’s own voice saying—
“Water-mouth, water-salt-mouth,” and Camilla’s, saying, “In the dream, there’s salt water in their mouth?”
“Nn-hnn.”
“In your mouth?”
“Mm-hm.”
“‘Yes’ when I’ve got it right, ‘no’ when I don’t. The salt water’s in your mouth?”
“Mm. Yiss.”
“Do you remember anything else?” After another moment, “Face? Nona, are you pointing at your face?”
Nona looked up. Camilla was standing in the doorway. The front of her cheeks and forehead went hot, and she knew that she was blushing furiously, but Camilla’s expression was very even. The recorder made another loud static squeak and a garble and Nona pushed wildly at a button until it stopped. Silence filled the room like cold water.
“How old was I then?” she blurted, more out of something to say than anything else.
“Two months.” Then: “Go wash up. Breakfast’s nearly done.”
Two months, Nona thought distantly, back when she was a baby who couldn’t do anything and could barely talk. It seemed so long ago. She wanted to say, “Cam, I didn’t hear anything,” even though she patently had, but Camilla had already disappeared.
In another pother of despair she twiddled the player to try to get a local radio station, hoping vaguely that there’d be another broadcast or maybe music. Pyrrha could make it go to stations where they still played music. She was teaching Nona how to dance.
Who was Pyrrha going to tell ass jokes to? Nona didn’t know; all of a sudden she felt sad and responsible that nobody was there to listen to Pyrrha’s ass jokes.
In this saintly, uplifted, and really quite terrified state of mind, Nona looked at herself and found that she was very grimy. In a welter of fearful bravery she sponged herself at the cold-water tap until she was free of smuts and old blood and dust, and the water was so cold it made her skin purple and blotchy. She called out, “Camilla, can I borrow a shirt?” and was pleased to hear, “Sure,” so she picked out one that was only a little too big but smelled comfortingly of Camilla. She looked in the cracked mirror and decided her hair was probably all right. The braids were a bit fuzzy but still doable. Thus armed, she went into the kitchen to see about breakfast.
“Sit,” said Camilla.
Nona sat down in front of a whole glass of water and a pottle of curds with the top taken off and a spoon stuck inside. The heat was already getting bad. The tiny, whirring fridge sounded like it was on its last legs. Nona, wanting very much to be good, drank all the water and ate half the pottle fuelled by martyred smugness that she was behaving so well. By the time she’d eaten half though, she felt ill and set down the spoon and said, “Done,” and was a little horrified that Camilla only gave the pottle a cursory glance before saying, “Okay.”