Isolation
Berend takes the desk chair from Emryn’s bedroom and places it against the wall between the sitting room and the kitchen, facing away from the kitchen door. Its slats dig into his back. He’s reasonably sure he won’t fall asleep in it, but he wouldn’t be willing to wager any actual coin.
Water splashes as Isabel wedges the huge kettle sideways into the first bucket and takes it back to the stove. The hiss of steam follows.
When she asked him to stay by the door, Berend had assumed there would be some sort of conversation. He’s starting to doubt that the uncomfortable chair will be enough to keep him awake.
“I wasn’t ever going to take you to the temple of Isra,” he says. “You know that, right?”
The only answer is the sound of Isabel unbuckling her shoes and dropping them on the tile floor.
“I don’t think you’re mad,” Berend continues.
The tub scratches against the floor and taps the wall behind him as Isabel tries to create more room in the cramped kitchen. “That makes one of us,” she says quietly. The walls are thin; she might not have intended Berend to hear.
“All we have to do,” he says, doing his level best to sound confident, “is get Warder to undo what his device has done. I’m sure he knows how to do it, or he can figure it out.”
“Arden Geray wants you to know that he doubts it,” Isabel replies.
Berend scowls. “Tell him I don’t care what he thinks. He thought that hacking people apart would make the gods notice him, and where did that get him?”
“He can hear you.”
Of course he can. Berend gives the room a rude gesture, just in case Geray can see him, too.
“I don’t think Warder’s device does anything,” Isabel says. “I think it’s just a generator with a light attached.”
Berend stands up, almost walking into the kitchen before he catches himself. “You saw what happened to Mikhail. And to Bessa. You can’t seriously believe that now.”
The kettle sputters and whistles, and then goes quiet with a heavy scrape. Water pours into the tub, hissing with steam.
Isabel’s head appears in the doorway. She’s taken her hair down, and it falls around her face, turned pale with dust and soot. “Something happened to them. Something that requires magic the world hasn’t ever seen before. I don’t think a university researcher who barely believes in the gods could manage it.”
“I don’t think he did it on purpose,” Berend says with a shrug.
“I think between the two of them, they stumbled on something dangerous.” Isabel picks up the full bucket of cold water and goes back into the kitchen. The water splashes into the tub with a dull, metallic ringing.
Berend returns to his chair. He used to take overnight watches with only two cups of vile camp coffee to sustain him. If everything goes right, he promises, knowing full well that it never does, and I get some money from good old Herard, I’ll retire for good. Lady Breckenridge probably knows someone with a desk job I could have. I’ll live in some cottage with a leaky roof, far away from the city. Maybe I’ll even get married.
“In that case,” he says, more to keep himself awake than to convince Isabel of anything, “can we agree that we need to see Warder? Only he knows exactly how it works.”
There is a distinct possibility that Lucian Warder has expired in the time since Berend left the hospital. He is making the conscious choice to deal with that problem if and when it arises.
“All right,” Isabel says. She places the empty bucket by the door and takes the other into the kitchen. “Maybe with his help, and access to the temple archive and the university library, we could figure out what went wrong. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Well, if all else fails, we can at least use the device on Arden.” It’s a tempting possibility, though Berend would never do it even if Isabel let him. He’d be sorely disappointed if it turned out she was right, and the device didn’t do anything after all.
A heavy silence is the only response from the kitchen.
Berend shakes his head. He knows better than to suggest some lighthearted, blasphemous desecration of a soul to a Sentinel. “It was a joke,” he mutters.
The kettle sings again, a wet, warbling note that spits water onto the surface of the stove, starting a chorus of pops and spatters. Isabel pours it into the tub. A series of soft sounds follow as she strips off her clothing. She gets in with an audible sigh, and Berend is overcome with a petty, exhausted envy.
“All right,” she says after a moment. “We can go see Warder. As long as it’s safe.”
That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? If it were safe, he’d be in Lady Breckenridge’s claw-foot tub right now, drinking red wine older than he is, not waiting his turn in Emryn’s kitchen. “I’m sorry that I’ve gotten you tangled up in the Belisia thing,” he says. “I really thought we might just be done with it at the manor. I’d just have you tell the magistrate what happened to Bessa, and it would be out of our hands.”
“No, it’s…it’s fine.” The water shifts as she moves, and with the tub up against the wall, Berend can hear every splash and only reassure himself that it might still be hot when she’s done. He considers getting another bucket of water, but getting up out of his chair for something that isn’t either a bed or a bath sounds like torture.
“I wouldn’t have tried the ritual again if you hadn’t asked,” Isabel continues. “I wouldn’t have seen all the dead wandering.”
Berend remembers the press of ghostly bodies and shudders. That was the worst of it—that and the sky full of eyes, and the horrible screech that had cut into his very soul. It was all bad. All the more reason to postpone his death, then, if that’s what he has to look forward to. Even with the gate restored, which he hopes will happen before he finally meets his end, he’d like not to have to stand at the back of that line for half of eternity.
He yawns. The left side of his jaw makes a cracking sound in his ear. “So, what would you have done if I hadn’t come to fetch you?” he asks. “Stay in the temple?”
There’s a long pause, punctuated only by a series of drips as Isabel squeezes water from her hair. A door opens and shuts down the street, and a fragment of conversation drifts its way up, as another pair of students argues over some philosophical concept Berend can’t hope to understand. He’ll have to time the disposal of the dirty water, and their eventual departure, carefully.
“Father Pereth had assigned me seven days of penance,” Isabel says at last.
Berend rubs at his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Fasting, praying on the hour, service to the dead.” She rests her head against the wall with a soft thump. “I wasn’t supposed to leave the temple grounds.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say you’re as wicked a sinner as the rest of us just yet, but it’s a start,” Berend says. “No wonder the high priest had his cassock in a twist.”
If she says anything in response, Berend doesn’t hear it. The next thing he’s aware of is the kettle whistling again, and Isabel shaking him by the shoulder.
He opens his eyes. His neck feels like someone put it in a vise, and his back isn’t much better. The light from the windows has turned a vivid orange.
“I got you fresh water,” Isabel says. “You should get in while it’s still hot.”
Berend groans. “How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours. Mr. Marner still isn’t back.”
She’s dressed in the clothing he found: a shirt in soft blue that is far too wide for her narrow shoulders, and brown trousers tied tightly around her waist and rolled up at the ankles. It’s the first time Berend has seen her wear anything but black. Her hair is pinned up by means of a charcoal pencil. He almost doesn’t recognize her.
“I thought we agreed that I would fetch the water,” Berend says. He won’t tell her so, but the idea of sinking into the tub without having to do any extra work is so delightful he could kiss her.
Isabel almost smiles. “I didn’t agree to anything,” she says. “You were asleep.”
Berend clenches his teeth to avoid visibly wincing as he straightens his spine an inch or two at a time, from the throbbing base of his skull down to his sore tailbone. The hot bath can’t come fast enough. He gets to his feet. “I suppose that’s fair. Thank you.”
She brushes off his gratitude. “I saw a few people while I was out. Students. I don’t think they noticed me.”
“Good. Keep an eye out, would you?”
He goes into the kitchen and lifts the heavy kettle from the stove. The water is already hot—Isabel might be a blessed messenger of the gods—but he adds it anyway. His skin turns a livid pink as soon as he steps in, drawing his knees up to his chest in order to fit. Discomfort gives way to a gentle, thoughtless bliss. He could stay here forever.
Eventually, the water turns cold, and he scrubs the last of the sweat and field mud from his body before getting out. He finds Isabel asleep on the sagging couch, curled up with her head on the arm nearer to the window. So much for keeping watch, but he’s not going to wake her. He’s tempted to join her, but they would have to be much friendlier with one another than they currently are in order to fit.
The setting sun blankets Isabel in golden light, and she sighs, deep in a pleasant dream. Strands of hair around her face curl as they dry. The world may still be falling apart, but she’s safe, and so is Berend, so maybe he’s not doing so badly, after all.
Before Berend can think about whether he has the strength remaining to empty the tub, Emryn Marner returns to his apartment. He’s balancing a sack that isn’t very warm but smells like meat pies. Berend takes it from him as he locks the door.
“Oh, good, you found some things to wear,” Emryn says. “Everything all right?”
Berend sets the sack down beside Isabel, hoping that the smell will rouse her before the food loses the last of its heat. “More or less,” he says. “We can’t thank you enough.”
“Any friend of Herard’s is a friend of mine. He owes me a favor, though.”
Isabel wakes with a start and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. She mumbles an apology and squints at the window, calculating the passage of time from the angle of the sun.
“You were only asleep for an hour,” Berend tells her. “You’re just in time for dinner.”
Emryn sits down on the floor like he’s a peasant child, not the son of some noble house wealthy enough to send him to the university to study mathematics. “Right. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s cheap and filling and far enough away that no one will question why I’m buying dinner for three all of a sudden.” He opens the sack and hands Berend a stiff cylinder of pie crust. “I heard the strangest thing from the cook, though.”
“Is it about the temple of Ondir?” Isabel asks quietly.
The young man shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. There’s this man who came from the west, see, from a village called Ferrie, about a day’s ride. He says he saw a red star fall from the heavens, and in the morning, the entire village had turned to iron.”
“What?” Berend stops before the pie reaches his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what the cook told me. All the houses, the trees, the livestock, even the people. Like cast-iron statues.”
Berend’s eyes meet Isabel’s, and he watches the same cold realization fall across her face. She turns to the window again.
In the back of his mind, Berend can see the red star, and he can hear the horrible shriek of the sky filled with eyes.
Last chapter of the year! From the very depths of my heart, thank you for reading, sharing, and supporting my work this year. I couldn’t do it without you.
Space Whales Press 
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