And Master Talik had the same answer for her this time, too. “Close,” he said, then turned off the path we were walking, and onto a trail between two houses, so narrow we had to walk single file.
I was tempted to doubt he knew where he was going, but how could I when every step, every turn he took was soprecise?No, Master Talik knew.
March still didn’t. Every time I looked at him with the question in my eyes, he’d shake his head to say he had no idea in which part of the quadrant we were.
But even though we’d been walking for the better part of an hour, this time when Master Talik saidclose,he’d actually meant it.
On the other side of the narrow trail, surrounded by tall hedges like they were trying to impersonate isolation walls, was a single house.
It was smaller than the rest out in the main street, one story, maybe one and a half if you counted the attic window peeking out from beneath a roof covered in moss and climbing roses. It was absolutelybeautiful,very unlike the clean, white rooftops of other houses we saw on the way. The walls were the same sun-bleached stone, though. And this house also had a garden—ifyou could call it that. Morelike if a garden had gotten into a fight with a forest, and neither side had won. They’d just…stopped mid-fight, had settled wherever they’d landed.
Flowers grew everywhere, spilled across the path, climbed the walls, and tangled themselves around a wooden gate that hung half open on its hinges. Roses had dominated every yard and every shop out there, but here, tulips and daffodils and orchids were mixed in together so beautifully with the roses you could hardly tell them apart.
Beyond the gate was a small yard—with a table and a chair and a teapot.
In the chair sat a woman.
“Ah. Vesta,” Master Talik breathed—almost as if he were relieved to see her.
Iwas relieved to see her, too. A part of me really had believed we weren’t going to find what we were looking for here. A small part, but still.
We couldn’t see too clearly from the distance, but she looked quite old, her hair snow-white, cut close to her chin. Her skin was dark, her shoulders small—and her feet barely touched the ground from her chair. She wore a red shawl over a plain white dress, and she was drinking tea slowly, lifting and lowering her cup a few times before she finally turned her head toward us.
We’d stopped in front of the low gate, and Master Talik had only raised a hand to tell us to be quiet.
The woman finally put her cup down and stood up, wrapping the red shawl around her arms as she slowly walked over to us on the narrow, cobbled path, barefoot.
She was smiling, but it wasn’t entirely pleasant. The closer she came the better we saw her. Her eyes were a rich brown, her dark skin deeply lined. She looked much older than you’d think considering the ease with which she moved—not any different from me, really.
Then she stopped halfway to us, still six or seven feet away.
“Talik, you old fool,” I thought she said, that smile still on her lips as she shook her head a little.
Master Talik had pulled his hood down and had a hand over his chest. “Vesta,” he said with a nod. “You look well.”
“I look eighty-three—which is well enough, considering the alternative,” she said. Her chocolate-brown eyes moved from his face to Damon, then to the rest of us.
We all wore our hoods still, but I felt like she couldseeus. See right through us.
And a second later, her smile dropped.
“No,” she said. Justno.
Master Talik chuckled—and it was so strange to witness it. Don’t know why I’d had the impression the man never even smiled all the way.
“You haven’t heard what I’m going to ask,” he said.
“I don’t need to. I see all the…troubleyou’ve brought to my door.” She raised her brows, made a point of looking at us again. “The answer is no. Go home.”
Yet she didn’t back away.
Master Talik said, “Give me five minutes.”
And I was sure she’d say no. I was sure she’d turn us away, and I was already dreading our way back through that metal ribcage, and I was already dreadingnothaving my memories for the rest of my life, when?—
“You can have two,” the woman said with a sigh, then turned around and walked back to her table.
Master Talik looked back at us, raised a hand to tell us to stay here, then pushed the low gate open and walked across the yard to Vesta’s table. We all watched in silence for a moment, until he pulled the chair across from her and sat.
