Our Lady of the Ice

“Sofia, please,” said Marianella.

“Well, that’s what I was hoping—”

“Did Juan Gonzalez tell you to ask them?”

“Not exactly—”

“Who’s Juan Gonzalez?” asked Marianella.

Eliana dropped her head back. With Marianella here, she no longer thought she was going to die, but it was growing apparent that she was the worst private investigator in all of Hope City.

“Her client,” Sofia said. “Supposedly he sent her here to spy on me.” When she said “spy,” she kicked at Eliana’s chair. Eliana gasped and spilled water on herself as the chair jerked backward.

“Sofia.” Marianella grabbed Sofia’s arm and yanked her back. “She’s only doing her job.”

Sofia fixed Marianella with a dark, inhuman look, but it didn’t seem to bother Marianella at all.

“Her job?” Sofia said. “Her job?” She turned back to Eliana. “This man, does he work for Ignacio Cabrera?”

“No,” Eliana said quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.” Eliana sighed. “Look, this is all shot to hell anyway, so—I don’t know anything about the guy. He’s paying me twice my usual fee, plus a fifty-dollar retainer. When I asked if this was related to Cabrera in any way, he said no.”

“Did you ask him that because of me?” Marianella said. She looked concerned.

Eliana shook her head. “Not really. It’s more ’cause my boyfriend—” Her chest tightened. “Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? He said no. I don’t think he was lying. Other than that, I know nothing about him. He just wanted me to tell him anything I could find out about her.” And she pointed at Sofia.

“Tell him I’m a robot,” Sofia snapped.

“He already knows.”

Sofia glared.

Marianella stepped between them. She pressed one hand against Sofia’s shoulder. “I’ll talk with her,” she said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“He’s either lying about Cabrera,” Sofia said, “or he’s from the city.”

“I know he works for the city,” Eliana said quickly. “He was up front about that.” She meant this as a reassurance, but it just made Sofia’s face flash with anger.

“You said you knew nothing about him.”

“Other than that, I don’t. But him being a city man isn’t a danger.” She looked over at Marianella. “Right? As long as it’s not Cabrera—”

“The city is dangerous for the park,” Marianella said softly. “As dangerous as Ignacio is for me.”

Sofia fixed Eliana with a cold stare. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly. So don’t you dare tell him what happened here.”

“Sofia, I said I would take care of it. Come on, Eliana. We can talk outside.”

For a moment Eliana wasn’t sure she’d be able to move out of Sofia’s line of sight. But then Sofia looked away, and Eliana stood up, her legs shaky. Marianella smiled at her and linked her arm in Eliana’s and led her past Luciano and out of the kitchen.

“I shouldn’t have told her all that stuff,” Eliana said.

“I assumed as much. But you mustn’t let it get to you. Sofia’s very persuasive when she wants to be.”

Their feet echoed in the empty halls of the palace until they stepped through the main doors, out into the cold white light of the dome.

“If you tell that man about Sofia,” Marianella said, “it could be dangerous for her.”

“Dangerous how?” Eliana pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest, shivering. It really was colder here.

But the cold didn’t seem to bother Marianella. “I shouldn’t say. It’s not my place.” She looked over at Eliana. “He was looking for Sofia in particular, right? He didn’t ask about me?”

“He didn’t say a word about you.”

Marianella sighed. “He probably isn’t from Ignacio, then. Ignacio wouldn’t have any interest in Sofia. Only me. Ignacio should still think I’m dead. I haven’t—dealt with him yet.” She gave a weak, sad smile. “But if you give information to that man, and he does have ties to Ignacio—my life could be in danger.”

Eliana stared at her. The cold crawled over her skin. She wanted out of the amusement park. Being here was like being surrounded by the dead. She wanted to be back in her apartment in the smokestack district, in the months before Last Night, when she didn’t have uncomfortable suspicions about Diego doing violence for the man who’d raised him, when Marianella was just a woman on television, when Sofia didn’t even exist.

“He said he’s from the city,” Eliana said. “And given what I’ve seen of him, he looks like a city man. It doesn’t seem like something worth lying over, anyway.”

Marianella frowned. She didn’t look as put-together as she usually did. Her hair hung loose, her clothes were wrinkled. But she was still beautiful, and her unhappiness only magnified that. “If he’s from the city,” she said, “that would make sense, actually.”

“Why?”

Marianella looked to some point in the distance, toward the overgrown gardens. “Do you know where the maintenance drones come from?” she said.

“The city builds them? Marianella, look, I’m sorry, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Yes.” A stillness settled over Marianella that made her seem less human. “The city builds them. Do you know where the parts come from?”

Dread crept into Eliana’s stomach. She didn’t know where this was going, and that made her nervous. “The mainland?”

Marianella shook her head.

“Then where—”

“From here.” Marianella gestured with one hand. “From the amusement park. From the robots who live in the amusement park.”

Eliana fell silent.

“I’m not sure why they didn’t dismantle them all at once—too big of an undertaking, I suppose. They’ve been coming here for years, although they don’t come around so much anymore. Partly because there aren’t as many robots to cull from, but partly because Sofia learned how to stop them. The androids in particular—they were the first of the robots here to gain intelligence, and they were being mutilated and destroyed so the city could make more drones. So she hid them away, where they can’t be destroyed further. She plans on repairing them someday, when it’s safe.” Marianella smiled again. Wistful. “And that makes the city very unhappy with her.”

Eliana didn’t know what to say. The robots had gained intelligence? Luciano and Sofia weren’t meant to be that way?

“If the man’s from the city, it’s just as dangerous as if he’s from Cabrera,” Marianella continued. “For Sofia and for me. The city will want to know why I’m living down here. It will arouse suspicion.” She grabbed Eliana’s hands. Her palms were warm. Human. “Please, Eliana. Feed him false information if you like, but nothing that could bring them here. Will you promise me that?”

Marianella’s eyes were bright and imploring. Eliana couldn’t say no.

*  *  *  *

Eliana trudged up the stairs to her apartment, the cold air lingering on her skin. Marianella had put her on a train back into the city, and she was vibrating from leftover adrenaline. She’d have to write up a bit of false information to feed to Mr. Gonzalez—she’d gone down to the park but hadn’t seen anything except old steam-style maintenance drones. That should be safe enough, and she’d at least get her doubled daily fees.

Eliana had the vague idea that she could string Mr. Gonzalez along for a few weeks. Could be more lucrative than just giving him the information in one go. But it was also the sort of thing she would have done last summer for kicks. Now she understood just how dangerous that was. For herself, for her goals.

She was starting to realize how deeply Cabrera was embedded into the city, if even the robots in the park worried about him. She finally understood what Mr. Vasquez had meant about playing it safe through the end of winter. Cabrera was hard to avoid if you were involving yourself with the underworld.

Eliana came to the top of the stairs. A bit of thin warmth trickled out of the hallway radiator with the fading sunlight.

And Diego was sitting in front of her door, his back pressed against the wall, a bouquet of hothouse flowers balanced across his knees.