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“I think I have gathered enough personal data.” She glanced at my hands and instrument. “Let us now move on to the heart of the matter: when did you meet Ilsinia?”

“On the bus. It take one week from Village Corish to City Fomora. Ilsinia ride bus in next village. I meet her when she ride bus.” Ah, so this was about Ilsinia.

“Were you close?”

My answer had been practiced and said aloud countless times, the syntax tattooed onto my tongue. “Our relationship was a transaction. I was a musician in need of a singer and she wanted someone who could match her voice.”

“That’s a lie.” The deep voice of her son caused my eyebrow to twitch.

The woman slammed her hands against the table. “That is twice now you have attempted to lie, there will not be a third time.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Now the truth: What was your relationship with Ilsinia?”

“We no friends, but we maybe friends.”

The woman set down her pen and crossed one leg over the other, the thin fabric of her ankle-length tunic and pants swaying with the movement. “Explain.”

“On paper, we both very similar: we both always practice music, we both no talk a lot and we both go to City Fomora.” I paused, wiping my brow with my sleeve. “Moreover, most of tribute girls very young, early twenties and younger, but me and Ilsinia about same age.”

She nodded. “How old are you?”

“I no know.” I focused on keeping my hands calm and steady. “Some days I think I have twenty-nine years, but some days I have thirty-two years.”

She looked down at her notes again. “According to your medical records, you are still a virgin with your hymen intact.”

It was a humiliation tactic. The obvious response at having such personal details revealed would have been to blush and hang my head in shame. Instead, I asked, “In this country, you no like virgins?”

More notes were taken before she said, “Everyone has a past. Men and males are one thing, but surely you’ve had previous girlfriends.”

“If past me had, I no remember.”

“Is that so?” The woman picked up her tablet and swiped around on it. She flipped through page after page of something and then met my eyes. “When you both were at the Gates of Fomora, several eye-witness reports and security footage recorded Ilsinia crying out for your help, but you dismissed her pleas. Why?”

“I no know she want escape.” Was she trying to label us as lovers and me the bitch who abandoned Ilsinia?

Flashes appeared in my head: the neon-green veins of the wooden Gates of Fomora, Ilsinia’s look of despair as she reached out to me and the crowd of judgement at my refusal to take her hand.

“I am waiting for a response,” the strigaix woman said, “a real one this time.”

I shook my head, the images fading away like a dream. “We only almost-friends. A week too short to be real friends.”

“Are you telling me you felt nothing for Ilsinia?”

“The moment she put me in plan is moment all my heart for her died.”

“I have made a decision.” The woman picked up the stylus, writing faster than ever before, and then powered down her tablet. “You shall board the next train to Talgazmear and join the tribute girls there. May you pray to whatever God you follow that your mate finds you quick.”

I blinked down at the small tattoo of a cross engraved in blue ink upon my wrist. Would my God have mercy on me if I could barely remember Him?

I blinked again, thoughts of religion switching to the place she spoke of. Talgazmear meant nothing to me. It was just another city in this foreign country in this even more foreign world.

She must have sensed something because she stood up. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“Two questions.” Without getting up, I met her gaze. “First, my books.”

“They shall be shipped with you to your destination.” She looked down on me. “And your second question?”