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Eliana looked up from her typewriter, hands still poised over the keys. Her eyes went wide.
“Marianella,” she said.
“Hello.” Marianella shut the door and slipped out of her coat, an old out-of-style thing, nothing like the furs she’d worn her first time here. “How are you?”
Eliana looked away.
For a moment, they stayed like that, posed. The sunlight illuminated the side of Eliana’s face. Marianella watched her.
It was the moment before a conversation. The moment, too, before an apology, which Marianella realized she would have to offer before she asked anything of Eliana.
“I’m sorry there wasn’t a proper funeral for Diego.” Marianella’s voice was harsher in the silence than the typewriter. “I didn’t know what she was doing until after she had done it.” She didn’t say the rest—that she had screamed at Sofia for her sacrilege, that she had gone to one of the empty cottages and said a rosary for each man who had been killed, twenty-eight in total, including Ignacio Cabrera. It had taken so long that the human parts of her body could no longer support her, and so the mechanical parts had activated, and she had finished her prayers almost entirely as a machine. She had emerged from the cottage, shaking and trembling, after saying the final rosary for Diego.
“He wasn’t religious. It doesn’t matter.”
Eliana didn’t seem to mean it. Marianella took a hesitant step forward. When Eliana didn’t protest, she walked the rest of the way to the desk. Eliana watched her and didn’t speak. Marianella sat down, and Eliana slid the typewriter to the side, opening up the space between them.
“I prayed for him,” Marianella said.
“Why?”
“Because everyone deserves to have a prayer said for them when they die. Especially when—” Marianella stopped. She knew it was a silly superstition, about the smoke and the souls of the dead, but she believed it anyway. Believing superstitions kept her closer to human, and she wanted to be as human as possible right now. “Especially when they aren’t given a proper funeral.”
“I doubt he noticed.”
“Don’t speak that way.” Marianella said it before she could stop herself. Eliana frowned, and Marianella leaned forward, her palms damp with anxiety. “Eliana, I didn’t just come here to apologize for the funeral. I came—I have a job for you, although I understand if you won’t take it, but more than that I want to apologize. For everything. For Diego’s death. For putting you in danger.”
“A job.” Eliana’s voice was small, far away. “What kind of job? One for Sofia? I’m getting pretty tired of doing things for her when she clearly hates me.”
They looked at each other across the desk.
“She doesn’t hate you,” Marianella said, but she didn’t bother explaining further. It wasn’t hatred, only bitterness. Humans were the enemy.
“Things have gotten worse since she took over,” Eliana said. “The power flickers more often. Food’s more expensive.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly great to start out with, but I get the feeling she doesn’t have the city’s interests at heart.”
Marianella wasn’t going to lie.
“No,” she said, “she doesn’t.”
“You’re not going to stop her.”
“She doesn’t intend to kill anyone,” Marianella said. “She only wants to send the humans away, back to the mainland.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Marianella hesitated. After all, Sofia had ordered the deaths of Cabrera’s men without hesitation.
“That’s too kind for her,” Eliana said. “Sending us away to live someplace warm. Feeling the real sun.” She sighed and rapped her fingers against the desk. “Luciano showed me a rainstorm. Did you know he could do that? Share memories?”
Marianella nodded.
“He showed me a rainstorm, and now I remember it like it happened to me.” Eliana gave a hard little smile. “I’d like more memories like that. I’d prefer they be real, though.”
Marianella didn’t respond. The room was freezing, even with the radiator rattling away in the corner. Past Eliana’s head was a window that faced a cold gray building that grew, Marianella knew, out of a cold gray sidewalk. She thought about those years before she’d met Hector, when her life had been on the mainland, out in the countryside in a big white stone house, with gardens and horses. The wind had swept down from the mountains, smelling of rain.
She missed it. God, she really did miss it. She’d always thought moving to Hope City had been a way of starting over, and maybe it had been, twenty years ago. Maybe the amusement park wasn’t what she needed to start over again. Maybe the answer wasn’t with Sofia after all.
“I forgive you,” Eliana said abruptly, jerking Marianella out of her memories. “But not Sofia.”
Marianella nodded.
They sat for another few moments. Then Eliana dragged the typewriter back in front of her.
“So tell me about this job.” Eliana took up typing again, her gaze fixed down on the paper in the typewriter. “If it is for Sofia, do you think she’ll get me a one-way ticket to the mainland on one of those icebreakers of hers?” Eliana peered over the edge of the paper, and Marianella realized she was serious.
“Yes,” Marianella said. “I’m certain of it. But only in the summer, when it’s safest—”
“No.” Eliana went back to typing. “I want out sooner than that. The city’s already delaying me for my visa application, even though I’ve got the money. If she wants me to help her, she can put me on one of her ships before the docks open up.”
Marianella gaped at Eliana. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “Ships capsize all the time—”
“That’s my deal,” Eliana said. “If she can get me out of here before the city can, I’ll do it for her. But I’m not getting caught up in whatever she’s pla
Marianella sat for a moment. She needed Eliana’s help, but she didn’t want to put her in that kind of danger.
But if Eliana was right, if Sofia was pla
“Fine,” Marianella said. “I’ll get you a place aboard one of the shipping liners.”
“Thank you.” Eliana typed out another few words, then pushed the typewriter aside. “To be honest, I’ve been looking into something that might involve you—might involve Alejo Ortiz, anyway.”
“Really?” Marianella frowned. Her chest twisted with a slight break of anxiety. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know. It’s a bit of a strange—co
Marianella nodded.
“He showed back up here a few days ago, asking for the same thing. Any information I had about Sofia.” Eliana’s voice pitched forward in urgency. “I told him no, but then I went by his house. He didn’t live there—no one did. This neighborhood kid told me it was a place where the AFF meets up. Not in so many words, but reading between the lines, it seems fairly likely. So I went looking for who really owns the house, thinking this guy’s name was a fake. And it turned out—turned out the house’s owner is Alejo Ortiz.”
All the energy drained out of Marianella’s body.
“Now, I’m not accusing you of anything,” Eliana said quickly. “I was just wondering—the co
“Weird that Alejo has co
Eliana looked up at her. “You mean he does?”
Marianella leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “He does. That’s why he hasn’t reported my nature, because I know that he took a significant portion of his campaign funds from the AFF.”
Eliana’s eyes widened. “I fucking knew it!” she said. “Christ. So I guess if I report him—”
“He would reveal my nature, yes.”
Eliana rubbed her forehead. “What does he want with Sofia?”