When they both returned to their room, Suad began his story.
Saad sat on the edge of the bed and listened. She had learned, over years of working alongside him, that Suad's accounts of things were best received without interruption — not because he couldn't handle interruption, but because the way he told things had its own logic, and cutting into it usually meant asking for the same information twice.
So she listened.
* * *
As Suad had traveled across the rooftops, he had decided to go check the rumors, and headed straight for the town's government office. He had to dodge all the guards he saw stationed around the building — some of them on higher ground — and had to be discreet. He was glad he had restocked from Saad's bag that morning for some of the drugs he was missing. He always did that. On missions when he found himself empty, he would use her stash. On normal occasions she would not have minded — she always brought double the amount, knowing he would use hers. But lately on this pilgrimage she was always angry at him, always trying to find a reason to fight.
So while he had searched for the painkiller in the morning he had taken other things too. She hadn't noticed, because she was half asleep. He wondered if he was doing anything these days that got on her nerves. Usually it didn't matter to her.
When he neared the government building he took a climbing drug, and as he began to scale the wall he wondered if Saad was on her period. He hoped she wasn't. He didn't want to deal with more mood swings and anger.
He checked a few windows that led to the living areas, then had to go to the other side of the building, this time scaling down. When he found Isla's room he marked the window and left the building. He was running short on the invisible drug, so he had to do it the manual way — he went to the top of the adjacent building to watch over her. He was glad she had left the curtains wide open.
While he watched her he thought about his sister.
Since the beginning of this pilgrimage, Saad had been on edge. He knew her promotion was on the line, but there was something else — something dark and forced — and it had something to do with him. He had caught her many times glaring at him, but he had ignored it and played the jester, trying to ease her. Back then she would have laughed or shouted and gotten it out of her system. These days she just glared and turned her head, keeping it all inside. He was scared she was going to blow up on him.
On the other hand, Isla seemed bored. She was either trying on new clothes or roaming around her room. There was no tension or sadness visible on her — no sign of someone in distress or hiding from a dangerous country. That was a significant point in their theory. A part of him had always been programmed to doubt their conclusions so as not to be surprised — it was military training — so he was glad to get a confirmation. He wondered if Saad had considered that maybe Isla was telling the truth. But then again, his sister was a very emotional person. She had probably just accepted it as fact without questioning.
Someone seemed to have knocked, because Isla went and opened the door. He watched the man from his telescope but was unable to identify him. He seemed to be telling her something. Suad wished Isla would move a bit to the right so he could lip-read what the man was saying, but her hair kept getting in the way. He cursed her silently.
The man seemed to have finished. Isla nodded, then closed the door — only to fall back on her bed and laugh. It was a wild, careless laugh. It didn't give him a good feeling.
He felt thirsty, but he wanted to watch more. So he stood there, taking note of Isla's expressions. This woman didn't seem to be in any hardship. Her food was brought to her at the designated time. She moved normally around her room, went to the toilet, adjusted herself with the ease of someone who had been somewhere long enough to be comfortable.
There was no sign of distress or hardship to back her story.
He felt disgusted. He wondered if she was actually from Dawai — maybe she was, and had been bribed. Or maybe she wasn't, and had still been bribed. Either way, she was a lying filth, just like the governor and the kings of this country
If they really wanted to wage a war to get the Black Orb, did they have to ruin Dawai's reputation to do it? To justify their attack? Couldn't they just say they wanted it and go to war like that? Politics always drove him crazy. He never liked it, could never understand its appeal. God knows how Saad liked it — she always said that politics showed you the true nature of human beings. But to him it only showed how ugly and greedy they were as a race. It was always depressing.
After a while of watching her go through her daily life, he felt bored. He decided it was enough watching her. He went around to snoop.
He checked along the other windows and found an office on the side of the building. He felt lucky. The office seemed deserted — all the officers were moving around, having meetings for the upcoming war — so he sneaked in through the window.
The first thing he did was check the papers on the big desk. He sat comfortably in the chair and went through them. They turned out to be supplies papers. He saw a few, got bored, got up and stretched. He started checking files on the shelves. They too were supplies papers. He checked the other shelves, which were filled with supplies from earlier dates. He didn't hit any jackpot.
* * *
Suad concluded his tale and looked at his sister.
She was giving him a weird look that he didn't feel comfortable with. Then she suddenly burst out laughing.
At first he laughed along, because laughter was contagious. But then he felt strange. Was she laughing at him? Was she angry? He stopped laughing and prepared himself mentally for her to start shouting.
"Why are we laughing?" he asked, and she laughed harder.
This didn't seem good. Maybe she was on her period. Saad always became weirdly angry and frustrated when she was on her period. A couple of times she had laughed and then punched him for no reason. He was worried she might punch him now, given how her moods had been running lately.
"Okay, stop," he said. "You are scaring me now."
He hadn't meant to sound childish, but he was genuinely freaking out. That seemed to sober her, and she stopped laughing. Then she did something she had not done in years — she reached over and ruffled his hair.
"You found their supply office," she said, with a wicked grin.
He felt his heart beat loudly. He remembered that grin from when they were young — it was always when she was up to no good, when she was planning something that would get them punished by their parents but would be very entertaining and fun.
"Yeah," he replied, breathless. He could feel his blood beginning to move faster just thinking about the possibilities. Getting other people's secrets. Government secrets. This was getting exciting.
"Well, you said you saw the papers and files?" she asked, leaning closer.
He nodded.
"I did. I have it all in my mind," he replied.
He could see exactly where this was going. It might not be an adventure in the traditional sense, but it was something.
"Then…" she said, trailing off.
He grinned back at her.
"I drink the memory potion," he finished.
She nodded, then went to her bag. He pulled off his jacket and got into a comfortable position. He watched his sister as she gathered all the papers they had — including the ones from the hotel room drawer — and set out the pen and ink in front of him.
He grinned as she handed him the potion and drank it in one go.
He was going on a vacation while his brain and body worked at recreating the file contents onto the papers.
It turned out to be a lot of words.
Even though Suad's handwriting was neat and small — unlike Saad's — the papers were not enough to contain everything in the files. So Saad stripped the sheets from the beds and handed them to him to write on. When he finished, the nausea set in. He got up and went to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. The basin water was cold enough to help, but he still felt dizzy, so he laid on the bed and pulled the pillow over his face to assist with the spinning.
He could hear Saad going through the papers. From the sheer quantity of them, he knew she would take hours. So he let himself drift — lulled by the sound of papers turning and his sister's breathing — and fell into a sleep that reminded him, somehow, of being young. Of sitting beside her while she read through the history and politics texts she loved, while he dozed on the books next to her.
* * *
He was awakened after a while.
When he looked at the window, it was dark outside. The town's lights were out — it was the middle of the night. Everyone must be sleeping. He turned to look at his sister.
"I found strange purchases," she said, in a rush. Her hair was all over the place. She had an excited look on her face, and the bags under her eyes were visible.
"Yeah? What did you find?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. It hurt — he had slept on the bare mattress without anything supporting his head. He was a bit worried about her. She looked like a mad scientist.
"Aside from the weapons and war rations — which I'll tell you about later — the most interesting things were women's clothes and jewelry," she said, giving him a look that said she had found treasure.
"Someone might be buying something for his wife or lover," he reasoned. It was too late for this, and his brain was not working right.
"No. It's a large amount, and it was in the urgent section," she said, in the tone of someone wondering why he was acting stupid.
He thought for a moment. His head was still fuzzy from sleep. He tried his best to look interested and engaged, but the look on her face told him he had failed. So he slapped both palms against his own face to wake himself up. If she was excited about something, not giving her the attention she wanted would only make her angrier — and she needed to sleep. If she got angry she would not sleep out of spite.
"What I want to say is — this could all be payment for Isla. They might be paying her for putting on that act," she said.
He nodded. He was not convinced. He wanted to tell her she was seeing connections because she wanted to see them, not because they were there. But he knew that if he said it that way she would only argue more. He had to tell her, but without being patronizing.
"Even if that's true, there's no proof of it," he said slowly. "There are no names mentioned, nothing that connects directly to her. If you show this to the public without more, you'll be humiliated."
He didn't say the rest of what he was thinking — that it would also put them in a bad situation right before they needed their passes certified.
"I know that," she said, ruffling her hair. It was a habit she had when she was frustrated. This was going to be bad. "But if we found this, we can find more. If we do more research."
He could see what she was trying to do. She still hadn't given up on her plan to stop the war. That could be dangerous to their main mission.
But the most practical solution was already clear to him: capture Isla. Give her the truth drug, get her on stage. Or threaten her. They didn't need the supply papers for that.
"They would just say she needed to be spoiled to feel safe after such trauma," he said. "They'd explain the clothes and jewelry away."
"I'm not saying we don't make her confess," she said. "But these papers will fuel the people's anger against the government."
He could see it now — her plan within the plan. The confession to crack Isla open, and the papers to make sure the people felt cheated afterward. It was actually not bad.
"Okay," he said. "It would be very useful to show them after getting the confession, to make the people feel cheated."
She smiled at him and opened her mouth to reply.
He cut her off.
"Now you need to sleep. Tomorrow, if we're going to investigate and talk to Isla, you'll need all your strength and a calm head," he said.
He got up, put her in his place on the bed, set the pillow under her, and covered her with the blanket. She gave him a long look, then nodded and closed her eyes. Within a few minutes she was already asleep, snoring lightly. That was proof enough of how much she had worked. She was exhausted.
He sighed.
He gathered the papers and the bed sheets, opened the ledge in the floor, and put everything underneath it, then closed it. The hotel staff were going to be very surprised about the missing sheets in the morning. He would think of something to tell them.
He tidied a little, then took the other bed and laid on it.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
He yawned, closed his eyes, and let the quiet of the middle-of-the-night settle around him.
He needed to sleep too.