"Lachi," Eiah said from across the fire.
"Of course," Vanjit said. "I remember now. I met Umnit at a bathhouse,
and we'd started talking. She brought me to Eiah-cha, and Eiah brought
me to you. It was that abandoned house, the one with all the mice.
"I remember," Maati said. The two Kaes exchanged a glance that Maati
didn't understand. Vanjit laughed, throwing back her head.
"I can't think what you saw in me back then," she said. "I must have
looked like something the dogs wouldn't eat."
"They were lean times for all of us," Maati said, forcing a jovial tone.
"Not for you," she said. "Not with Eiah to look after you. No, don't you
pretend that she hasn't supported us all from the start. Without her, we
would never have come this far."
Eiah took a pose that accepted the compliment and raised her wine bowl,
but Vanjit still didn't drink from her own. Maati willed her to drink
the poison, to end this.
"I think of who I was then," Vanjit said, her voice soft and
contemplative. She sounded like a child. Or worse, like a grown woman
trying to sound childish. "Lost. Empty. And then the gods touched my
shoulder and turned me toward you. All of you, really. You've been the
only family I've ever had. I mean, since the Galts came."
At her feet, Clarity-of-Sight wailed as if heartbroken. Vanjit turned to
it, her brow furrowed in concentration. The andat squirmed, shuddered,
and became still. The tension in Maati's shoulders was spreading to his
throat. He could see Eiah's hands clutching her bowl.
"The only family I've had," Vanjit said, as if finding her place in a
practiced speech. And then softly, "Did you think I wouldn't know?"
Large Kae put down her bowl, her gaze shifting from Eiah to Vanjit and
back. Maati shifted to the side, his throat almost too tight for words.
"Know what?" he asked. The words came out stilted and rough. Even he
wasn't convinced by them. Vanjit stared at him, disappointment in her
expression. No one moved, but Maati felt something shifting in his eyes.
The andat's attention was on him, the tiny face growing more and more
detailed with each heartbeat.
Vanjit held out the poisoned wine bowl. The color was wrong. No human
would ever have seen the difference, but with the andat driving his
vision and hers, there was no mistaking it. The deep red had a greenish
taint that no other bowl suffered.
"What ... what's that?" Maati squeaked.
"I don't know," Vanjit said in a voice that meant she did. "Perhaps you
should drink it for me, and we could see. But no. You're too valuable.
Eiah, perhaps?"
"I'm sorry. Did I not clean the bowl well enough?" Eiah asked.
Vanjit threw her bowl into the fire, flames hissing and smoke rushing up
in a cloud. There was rage in her expression.
"Vanjit," Eiah said. "I don't think ..."
Vanjit ignored them, untying her satchel with a fast scrabbling motion.
When she lifted it, blocks of wax spilled out, gray and white, like
rotten ice. Maati saw bits of Eiah's writing cut into them.
"You were going to kill me," Vanjit said.