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Felt like?
“Karou? Hello? Karou?”
Karou blinked and cleared her throat. It had happened again: her own name, floating right past, unco
“Where? I keep asking you. Where are you?”
Karou had momentarily forgotten. “Um. Oh. The teahouse on Nerudova.”
“Sit. Stay. I’m coming there.”
“No, you’re not—”
“Yes, I am.”
“Zuze—”
“Karou. Don’t make me hurt you with my tiny fists.”
“Fine,” Karou relented. “Come on, then.”
Zuzana boarded with a widow aunt in Hradcˇany, not far away. “I’ll be there in ten,” she said.
Karou couldn’t resist telling her, “It’s faster if you fly.”
“Freak. Don’t you dare leave. And don’t let him leave, either. I have threats to deliver. Judgments to pass.”
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” said Karou, and she looked straight at Akiva as she said it, and he looked back, molten, and she knew it was true, but she didn’t know why.
He wasn’t human. He wasn’t even from her world. He was a soldier with scores of kills on his hands, and he was the enemy of her family. And yet, something tied them together, stronger than any of that, something with the power to conduct her blood and breath like a symphony, so that anything she did to fight against it felt like discord, like disharmony with her self.
As far back as she could remember, a phantom life had mocked her with its impenetrable “something else,” but now it was the opposite. Here, in the circle of Akiva’s presence, even as they spoke of war and siege and enduring enmity, she felt herself being drawn into the warm absoluteness and rightness of him, like he was both place and person and, contrary to all reason, exactly where she was supposed to be.
33
P REPOSTEROUS
“My tiny scary friend is coming here,” Karou told Akiva, drumming her fingers on the table.
“The one from the bridge.”
Karou recalled that he had been following her yesterday, and would have seen Zuzana perform. She nodded. “She knows about your world, a little. And she knows you tried to kill me, so…”
“Should I be afraid?” Akiva asked, and for a second Karou thought he was serious. He always looked so serious, but it was another hint of dry humor, like atop the cathedral when he had surprised her with his joke about pushing off bad dates.
“Terribly afraid,” she replied. “All cower before her. You’ll see.”
Her mug was empty, but she kept her palms on it, less now for fear of flashing magic at Akiva than to keep her hands from making any more unsanctioned sallies across the table to touch his. She should have been repelled by his hands with their death count, and she was, but not only. Side by side with the horror was… the pull.
She knew he felt it, too, that his hands were fighting their own battle not to reach for hers. He kept looking at her, and she kept blushing, and their conversation stuttered along until the door opened and Zuzana stomped in.
She came straight to the table and stood facing Akiva. She was fierce, ready to scold, but when she saw him, really saw him, she faltered. Her expression warred with itself—ferocity with awe—and awe won out. She cast a sidelong glance at Karou and said, in helpless amazement, “Oh, hell. Must. Mate. Immediately.”
It was so unexpected, and Karou was already so on edge, that laughter burst from her. She sank back in her chair and let it pour out: soft, glittering laughter that worked another change in Akiva’s countenance as he watched her with a hopeful, piercing scrutiny that made her tingle, she felt so… seen.
“No, really,” said Zuzana. “Right now. It’s, like, a biological imperative, right, to get the best genetic material? And this”—she made spokesmodel hands at Akiva—“is the best genetic material I have ever seen.” She pulled up a chair beside Karou, so the two of them were like a gallery observing the seraph. “Fiala would so eat her words. You should bring him in to model on Monday.”
“Right,” said Karou. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind stripping for a bunch of humans—”
“Disrobing,” said Zuzana, prim. “For art.”
“Are you going to introduce us?” Akiva asked. The chimaera tongue, which they had been using all along, now sounded out of place, like a rough echo from another world.
Karou nodded, fa
“Ask him if he’s in love with you,” said Zuzana at once.
Karou almost choked. She turned her whole body in her chair to face Zuzana, who held up a hand before she could protest. “I know, I know. You’re not going to ask him that. And you don’t even need to. He so is. Look at him! I’m afraid he’s going to set you on fire with his crazy orange eyes.”
It did feel like that, Karou had to admit. But love? That was preposterous. She said so.
“You want to know what’s preposterous?” said Zuzana, still studying Akiva, who looked bemused by her appraisal. “That widow’s peak is preposterous. God. It really makes you feel the sad dearth of widow’s peaks in daily life. We could, like, use him as breeding stock to seed widow’s peaks into the populace.”
“My god. What’s with all the mating and seed talk?”
“I’m just saying,” Zuzana said reasonably. “I’m crazy about Mik, okay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my part for the proliferation of widow’s peaks. As a favor to the gene pool. You would, too, right? Or maybe…” She shot Karou a sidelong glance. “You already have?”
“What?” Karou was aghast. “No! What do you think I am?”
She was certain Akiva couldn’t understand, but there was an amused quirk to his mouth. He asked what Zuzana had said, and Karou felt her face flame crimson.
“Nothing,” she told him in Chimaera. In Czech she added, sternly, “She. Did not say. Anything.”
“Yes, I did,” piped Zuzana, and like a child who has gotten a reaction for naughty antics, she merrily repeated, “Mating! Seed!”
“Zuze, stop, please,” begged Karou, helpless and so very glad the two had no common language.
“Fine,” said her friend. “I can be polite. Observe.” She addressed Akiva directly. “Welcome to our world,” she said with exaggerated gestures. “I hope that you are enjoying your visit.”
Chewing on a smile, Karou translated.
Akiva nodded. “Thank you.” To Karou, “Would you tell her, please, that her performance was beautiful?”
Karou did. “I know,” agreed Zuzana. It was her standard acceptance of a compliment, but Karou could tell she was pleased. “It was Karou’s idea.”
Karou didn’t convey that. She said instead, “She’s an amazing artist.”
“So are you,” Akiva replied, and it was Karou’s turn to be pleased.
She told him they went to a school for the arts, and he said they had nothing like that in his world; only apprenticeships. She told him that Zuzana was kind of like an apprentice, that she came from a family of artisans, and she wondered if he was from a family of soldiers. “In a ma