They laughed, some more than others. Alexia smiled. "No," she said.
"Yes," someone else said. Another Unseen shrugged.
Nophel focused inward, sensing the solid part of himself that had never let go since his mother had abandoned him. It was strong, this part, and rooted in the real world, because even back then he'd known that he would need a solid foundation to survive. When he opened his one good eye again, the people were all looking at him.
"Still here," Alexia said.
"You all drank the Blue Water?" he asked. They nodded. My mother's Blue Water. He wondered if they knew, and if they'd blame him if they did. He hoped not.
"Did they force you?" Alexia asked.
Nophel shook his head. "I'm here to find something."
"Something from out of Dragar's."
Nophel could only nod. How does she know so much?
"We've been watching," she said. "Sometimes…" She trailed off, her thin face falling slack.
"Sometimes what?" Nophel asked. Alexia stared at him.
"New?" she asked.
"You've already asked me that."
"I have?"
Nophel took a step back into the corridor. The walls were rotting here, the plaster damp and weak, and the joints between floorboards were wide and decayed. Small insects crawled in and out of the space between floors, appearing, disappearing again, and most of them had probably never been seen.
"We've seen what you want," Alexia said from the room. There was no plea to her voice, and no hint of threat. Simply a statement of fact.
"Who are you all?" Nophel asked.
"The Unseen," Alexia said. "I told you that. We're like you."
"No, I can go back. I can-"
"Is that what they told you?" She came and stood at the doorway, the others shifting slightly behind her, moving in a strange, fluid way.
"I know it," Nophel said.
Alexia only nodded. "It's how most of us thought, to begin with. It's a way to try to handle it."
"You are dead," Nophel said, and Alexia chuckled at that.
"Sometimes we wish," she said, "but no. Not dead. Just… faded."
Nophel leaned against the door frame and looked into the room. The other Unseen were still there, but the room seemed hazy, incomplete.
"And we fade more and more," Alexia whispered. "Some become invisible even to the Unseen, and who's to say…?" She shrugged, as though loath to consider her future.
Dane would never have lied to me, Nophel thought. Not if he'd known about this. "My mother made the Blue Water," he said.
"We know." For the first time, there was a sliver of ice in the Unseen woman's eye.
"So you'll know that she was my mother only in blood. In every other way, she was nothing to me."
"Defending yourself?" Alexia asked, then offered a humorless smile. "It's widely known you helped kill her."
Nophel nodded. "So, Dragar's Canton. Tell me what you saw."
"I can do better than that," Alexia said. "We captured it. Come with me and I'll show you."
When they reach the surface, the sun casts its light on the sheer tiled steeple of a Hanharan temple. A man is standing on the precarious iron balustrade around the temple's summit. He's reaching up for the stone birthshard-Echo City's outline balanced in the palm of an outstretched hand-which is the eternal symbol of Hanharan's birth and continuing love for the city. He's stretching, and Rufus (that's not my name, not here, not now, but it's all I know it will do it will suffice)
– can see the slashes and cuts on the man's back as his shirt rides up. And even from this distance-the birthshard stands proud on the steeple's summit, perhaps a hundred steps above the street-Rufus sees that they are still bleeding. The man is raging.
People in the crowd around Rufus are shaking their fists at the man, throwing stones that barely reach halfway and cursing his and his family's name to the pits of the Chasm. Four Scarlet Blades are battering at the temple's main door, but though they have it open and Rufus can see a sliver of flickering light from the thousands of candles always burning inside, the man must have barricaded it. So the soldiers push, and soon other people join them in attempting to break in.
But Rufus has eyes for only the man. He's going to die, he thinks. He might fall, or if he doesn't they'll get in and shoot him down with a crossbow. Or if he grabs the birthshard and gets back into the temple, they'll stab him to death when he's on his way down the staircases…
The man stands on the edge of the balustrade and leans against the spire, gaining himself a vital extra reach. He shouts in triumph as he closes his hand around one of Hanharan's fingers, and the street crowd gasps at such blasphemy.
It's only a statue, Rufus whispers, and he looks up at his mother. She smiles down at him, and he sees surprise in her eyes, and pride. And something else. Sadness? He's not sure, but it's something he'll ask her about later. There's always something to ask later, because Rufus is an inquisitive little boy.
The man tugs, his blood spatters onto the temple spire-red rosettes on the spread of familiar pale gray pigeon shit-and Hanharan's index finger snaps off in his hand.
This time, the crowd cannot even gasp. It holds its breath, and for a moment that congested scene is utterly silent. It terrifies Rufus, and he has the staggering idea that he is seeing a moment between moments, as if time itself has been stretched to the breaking point by this man's blasphemy and Rufus is the only one to exist in and through that moment. It's something else he will ask his mother about later, and when he does she will stare at him for a long, long time and then shake her head and whisper to herself that he has to go.
The man breaks the silence and moves time on. After climbing so far and dooming himself to perform such a useless protest, his trust in the strength of Hanharan is his downfall. Still clasping the stone forefinger in his fist, he tilts backward and falls.
Around Rufus, people turn away or cover their children's eyes. He and his mother watch. Learning never ends, she said to him once, and watching feeds knowledge.
Rufus notices that the Scarlet Blades have disappeared inside the temple. Too late, he thinks, and he takes confused delight in the fact that the man has denied them their kill.
The blasphemer strikes the steeply sloping spire on his back, then slides to its edge. Several tiles come with him as he falls, and he turns slowly so that he strikes the cobbled street on his front. The sound is heavy and wet, and Rufus hears snapping. People pull away, but he and his mother stand still. The man spasms.
Someone from the crowd-Rufus knows him as a baker from three streets over, a cheery man with bright white teeth and rosy cheeks-runs to the body, pulling a huge knife from his belt. He hacks off the dying man's arm and shifts it aside with his boot, careful not to touch the blood-soaked stone finger still clasped in the hand.
Why did he do that? Rufus asks.
Because he's a fool, his mother says. And later she will tell him about false gods and idolatry, all the while watching him with her sad, tragic eyes.
"Rufus?" Peer said. "Rufus?" She grabbed the tall man's arm as he leaned against her, pushing her back against the wall. He raised one hand and pointed up at the temple roof.
"Finger…" he whispered.