Fire.
Nox did not know how old he was. Five. Maybe four. Maybe younger. In this memory, he never had an age, only sensations. Heat on his face. Smoke in his lungs. Someone's cry far away, then silence, then the cry again, closer now.
He stood in the middle of a room. Not a room like the one he had now, not made of metal sheets and canvas. A real room. With a wooden floor and a window through which he could see the sky. He remembered the sky. Dark blue, with a moon, huge, too close, as if the moon had leaned over the city and was watching.
«Father,» he said then. Or did not say. Maybe he only thought it.
His father was nearby. Nox did not remember his face. Never did. Only his hands. Large, with calluses on the palms, just like Nox's own hands now. Those hands scooped him up, pressed him against something warm and solid.
«Do not look,» his father said. His voice was low, hoarse. «Do not look, son.»
But Nox looked.
And he saw his mother.
She stood by the door. Her hair was disheveled, her dress torn at the shoulder. In her hands, she held something small, wrapped in cloth. She pressed it to her chest the way you press the most important thing. She was not looking at him. She was looking somewhere beyond the door, into the darkness of the hallway, from which something cold and alien drifted.
«Little Lina,» the mother said. Quietly. Almost a whisper. «My little Lina.»
Then the door burst open.
And everything went dark.
Nox opened his eyes.
The ceiling. Canvas. A hole in the right corner, from which a thread of cobweb hung. Morning in Ravnes did not come with dawn. It came with noise. Somewhere, a magic train began to grind. The factories hummed, building up their daytime power. A neighbor coughed behind the wall, long and wracking.
Nox lay on the floor and did not move.
The mutant lay two meters away from him.
In the light seeping through the dirty window, it looked even worse than at night. The scab-covered skin was beginning to darken. A thick, brown fluid oozed from beneath it. The growths on its back had shriveled and no longer moved. The sour, heavy smell had already spread throughout the room.
«You are not asleep.»
Nox turned his head.
Lin sat on the bed. Her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins. She was looking at him. Her eyes were dry, without tears, but red around the edges. She had not slept all night. Nox knew this. He had not slept either. They had both been pretending.
«I am sleeping,» he said.
«You are lying, brother.»
Nox sat up. He ran a hand over his face. There was no stubble yet, thirteen years old, but his skin was rough from cold and fatigue.
«We need to get rid of the body,» he said.
«We do,» Lin agreed. And did not move from her spot.
Nox stood up. He walked over to the mutant and crouched beside it. He estimated the weight. Heavy. Very heavy for two people, one of whom weighed less than an empty sack.
«Lin, I need your help.»
«And I need answers.»
He looked up. She was still looking at him from the bed, not moving. There was nothing like a request in her voice. It was a condition.
«Later,» Nox said.
«Now.»
«Lin…»
«Nox!» She jumped off the bed so abruptly that the sacks beneath her slid to the floor. «Do you think I just went back to sleep?! This,» she jabbed a finger toward the mutant, «this is lying in our room, and you say later?!»
«Quiet,» he said sharply. «The neighbors will hear.»
«I do not care about the neighbors!»
«Lin.» He stood up and walked over to her. He took her by the shoulders. «Quiet. Please.»
She looked up at him. She was breathing fast, angrily. Then she exhaled. Once. Deeply.
«Your hands were black,» she said quietly. «Last night. When you were holding it. They were black, Nox. And it fell.»
«I know.»
«You know?» She stared at him. «Just like that, you know?»
«Not just like that. But I know.»
«And what was it?»
Nox took his hands off her shoulders. He stepped back. He looked at his palms. In the morning light, they looked normal. Dirty, scratched, with dark half-moons under the nails. No black mist. No traces.
«Magic,» he said.
Lin was silent for three seconds.
«Magic,» she repeated. Not a question. Just repeated.
«Yes.»
«You do not have magic.»
«Now I do.»
She fell silent again. Then she walked over to him. She stood beside him and also looked at his hands. Then she raised her gaze.
«Show me your back.»
«Lin…»
«Show me.»
He paused. Then he took off his shirt.
Lin walked around behind him. She was silent for a long time. Nox could feel her gaze like a physical pressure. The tattoo on his back pulsed weakly, barely noticeably. As always now.
«It is moving,» Lin said quietly.
«Yes.»
«Does it hurt?»
«No.»
«You are lying, brother.»
He put his shirt back on.
«We need to get rid of the body,» he said. «Then I will tell you everything. What I know.»
She looked at him for a long time. Then she nodded.
They grabbed the mutant. Lin took its legs, Nox took what remained of its shoulders. The body was heavy and hot, like a stone that had been lying in the sun. The smell coming from it was so bad that Lin grimaced and started breathing through her mouth.
«Where are we taking it?»
«To the basement.»
«But there…»
«I know. There is no other option.»
They moved toward the door. Awkwardly, stumbling. Nox pushed the metal sheet with his shoulder, and they dragged the body outside, into the narrow alley of the Crack. The morning was gray and damp. Fog hung low between the buildings, almost at face level. Good. In this fog, neighbors could not see beyond arm's reach.
«Which way,» Lin puffed, backing up.
«Right. There is a manhole.»
They dragged in silence for a minute. Then Lin said:
«Where did you get magic?»
«I do not know.»
«You really do not know?»
«Really.»
«And the tattoo? How long have you had it?»
«Since that night in the tunnel.»
Lin stopped. The body lurched, and Nox barely held on.
«That night you came back with empty hands,» she said. Not a question.
«Yes.»
«Three days ago.»
«Yes.»
She started walking again. She was silent. Then:
«You could have told me.»
«I did not understand what was happening myself.»
«Do you understand now?»
«No.»
«Then you could have told me anyway.» Something wavered in her voice. Not anger. Something else. «We are in this together, brother. You and me. No one else.»
Nox did not answer.
They reached the manhole. Nox lifted the cover, and they lowered the body down into the darkness of the basement. It fell with a dull, heavy thud. Nox closed the cover. He wiped his palms on his pants.
«Someone will find it,» Lin said.
«Not soon. And by then, we will not be here.»
«Where will we go?»
«I do not know.»
«Do you know anything at all?»
He looked at her. She stood in the fog, small, pale, with hair stuck to her cheeks. Angry and frightened at the same time. Seven years old. Seven years in these slums, and she still managed to be angry as if she had the right to be.
She did. Of course she did.
«Let us go inside,» he said.
They went back into the room. Nox picked up the sacks from the floor and put them back on the bed. Lin sat down. He sat opposite her, leaning his back against the wall.
They were silent.
Then Lin said:
«Tell me about Mother.»
Nox felt something tighten in his chest. Sharply, unexpectedly.
«There is nothing to tell.»
«You must remember something.»
«Almost nothing.»
«Tell me that almost nothing.»
He looked out the window. Beyond the dirty glass was fog. Beyond the fog, the factories. Beyond the factories, the sky that could not be seen.
«Fire,» he said. «I remember fire. And her voice.»
«What did she say?»
Nox was silent for a moment.
«Your name,» he said quietly. «Little Lina. She said little Lina.»
Lin did not move. She looked at him. Something in her eyes changed slowly, the way the color of the sky changes before rain.
«Her face,» she asked. «Do you remember her face?»
Nox opened his mouth.
And he realized that he did not.
He tried. Right now, in this second, he tried to pull something from his memory. Her eyes. Her nose. The shape of her face. The color of her hair. Nothing. There was only warmth there. The feeling of something large and safe that stood between him and the fire. And a voice.
The face was not there. It was simply not there.
«No,» he said.
Lin looked at him.
«Neither do I,» she said.
Nox looked up.
«I do not remember either,» she repeated. Quietly. Very quietly. «Sometimes I try. I close my eyes and I try. But there is nothing there. Only darkness.»
Silence filled the room. Not the silence that happens when no one is speaking. A different kind. Heavy. As if something large and invisible had come and stood in the middle of the room.
«Nox,» Lin said. «Do you remember Father?»
«His hands.»
«What?»
«I only remember his hands. Nothing else.»
She looked at him for a long time. Then she asked the question he had been afraid of. The one he did not know how to approach.
«What is our name? Our real name. Our family name.»
Nox was silent.
«Brother.»
«I do not know.»
«How can you not know?»
«Just that.» He looked at her. «I do not remember. For as long as I can remember, I do not remember. And when I try to remember…» He stopped.
«What?»
«Nothing.» He ran a hand over his face. «Just nothing. As if there was never anything there at all.»
Lin was silent. Then she stood up, walked over to him, and sat down beside him. Shoulder to shoulder. She was so small that she barely reached his armpit.
«Old Gras knew,» Nox said. «I could see it in his eyes when I asked where we came from. He knew. But he would not say.»
«Why?»
«He was afraid.»
«Of what?»
«I do not know. He died before I could figure out how to ask the right way.»
Lin stared at the floor.
«Once I asked a merchant woman at the market,» Nox continued. «She was old, she knew a lot about the slums. I said I was looking for my family. She looked at me, Lin. She looked and went pale. She opened her mouth. And nothing. She just walked away. Fast. As if I had hit her.»
«So she knew.»
«Everyone knows. The old ones, the ones who have lived here a long time.» He paused. «But no one speaks. They open their mouths and do not speak. As if the word will not come out.»
Lin raised her head. She looked at him. There was fear in her eyes. Real, not childish.
«It is a curse,» she said.
Nox did not answer. But she was right, and they both knew it.
«The Moon Goddess,» Lin whispered. She had heard that word before. Nox himself had said it once, he did not remember when. «It is her, is it not?»
«I do not know.»
«Brother.» She grabbed his sleeve. «Nox. Look at me.»
He looked.
«Did she take our faces?» Her voice was quiet but firm. «The faces of Mother and Father. Did she take them?»
Nox looked at his sister. At her pale face. At her eyes red from sleeplessness. At her small hand gripping his sleeve.
«Probably,» he said.
Lin let go of his sleeve. She turned away. She was silent for a long time.
«Then I hate her,» she said finally. Simply. Without dramatics. The way you speak the truth.
Nox did not have time to answer.
Because someone knocked on the door.
Not loudly. Three strikes. Knuckles on the metal sheet. Nox was on his feet instantly. Lin froze in place. They both stared at the door.
Three strikes again.
Nox picked up the rebar from the wall. He walked to the door. He listened. Someone was breathing on the other side. One person. An elderly breath, with a wheeze.
«I know you are in there,» the voice said.
A woman's voice. Dry, like old paper. Nox knew that voice.
Mara.
The old woman from the upper floor of the hangar. She had lived there for twenty years, never went out, never asked for anything, never got involved in anything. Nox rarely ran into her. She rarely came out.
«What do you want,» he said without opening.
«We need to talk,» Mara answered. «Open up, boy. I do not bite.»
«I am busy.»
«Time very much bites.» She paused. «I saw it last night. The creature that came into your room. And I saw how it left. Or rather, did not leave.»
Nox and Lin exchanged glances.
«I am not the only one who saw,» Mara continued. Her voice did not change. Even, dry. «Red Cat from the third floor saw it too. He is talkative, boy. Very talkative.»
Nox opened the door.
Mara was small. Nox remembered her always small and always the same, as if she had been born an old woman and had not changed since. Her face was wrinkled, her eyes sharp, light, not old at all. She looked at Nox and was silent for a second.
Then she lowered her gaze to his ankle. To the two black scars.
And the expression on her face changed.
Nox had seen many things on people's faces. Fear. Anger. Indifference. What appeared on Mara's face, he could not name immediately. It was something between terror and something like relief. As if she had been waiting for something for a long time. And now it had arrived. And she did not know whether to be glad or to run.
«So that is how it is,» she said quietly. To herself, not to him.
«What do you want,» Nox repeated.
Mara raised her gaze. She looked at his face for a long time. Then she said:
«Do you know what your family was called?»
Everything inside Nox tightened.
«No,» he said.
Mara nodded. Slowly. As if that were the correct answer.
«I know,» she said.
Nox stopped breathing.
«But I will not say it here.» She glanced around. At the empty, foggy alley. «And not now. Red Cat has already gone to the market. By evening, all of Ravnes will know that a creature was in your room last night. And by morning, those who are interested will come.» She looked again at the scars on his ankle. «And they will be very interested, boy. Believe me.»
Lin peeked out from behind her. She looked at the old woman. Then at her brother.
«Who will come,» Nox asked.
Mara opened her mouth.
And closed it.
She tried again. Nox could see her trying. Her lips forming a word that would not come out. She swallowed. Tried again.
Nothing.
She took a stub of charcoal from her pocket. She found a clean spot on the wall of the house. She wrote three letters.
Nox stared at them.
Mara put away the charcoal. She looked at him. In her light eyes was pity. Real, without pretense.
«You need to leave,» she said. «Today.»