undulated as it gave birth to a torrent of plant life, more green and more color than this faded village had seen in the last ten summers. Somebody cried out, but there was no fear in the sound; only power, and life and magic.
A vine as thick as a human arm detached itself from the mass, reaching up toward the man. Its glossy leaves unfurled like fingers. The man reached out, tentatively; the vine twined around his arm, as gentle and friendly as a cat. The dazzled man wept. Then, all at once, he began to laugh. He lifted his arms, and the plants exploded out in a mighty wave.
* * *
That was John Slonim, Nate said, and that was the first Work. Everything we do is descended from him. Everything we know, he helped us learn. He figured out how to do the Work at will, how to find people with talent. His blood flows through you. Me, too, on my father’s side. There was pride in his voice. Now there are a dozen caravans, hundreds of people, from all over the continent. Hundreds of Workers.
They were standing on a white-sanded beach, next to an ocean the impossible color of one of Firo’s coats. I thought you said the Work didn’t affect the real world. That it wasn’t that kind of thing, Judah said. Who was Firo?
Not since John Slonim, the magus said. Although if it could happen anywhere, it would be in this tower.
Oh. Firo. Garish clothes, flamboyant hair, perfume, leering insinuations. His fish-belly pale body, exposed in the bathing room. How long had it been since she’d thought of him? And the rest of the world. The purplish gaslights. The ball. The Discreet Walk, the Wilmerian dinner, the life she’d lived before the coup. The coup.
Why had she forgotten her whole life?
In the Work she wore the same clothes she did in reality. They were cleaner here because she didn’t think of herself as dirty. Her left sleeve was pushed up. Her arm was smooth and unmarked. No cuts from the magus’s knife, no burn from Elban’s poker. A warmer sun than Judah had ever known seemed to make her skin glow from within. The arm was beautiful. It was also wrong.
Watch, Nate, in what passed for her present, said, and pointed out to sea.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then the water exploded upward and a great gray beast rose out of the water, leaping into the air with a stately exuberance. Like a fish but not a fish, its lines so graceful and sleek that by comparison the colts seemed clumsy, too leggy. Impossibly high it leapt, and then fell back into the water, the enormous flukes of its tail hitting the surface with a splash so loud that Judah blinked to protect her eyes from spray.
They breathe air, Nate said, satisfied. Like us.
She saw the colts in her memory, running across the pasture, nipping and playing with each other. Not clumsy. Perfect.
Is something wrong?
Yes, she wanted to say.
* * *
Back in the tower, the dullness persisted, but uneasiness ran through it like veins through marble. Those moments when she was in herself—those fleeting moments when she stood on her own feet and saw the world with her own eyes—were tangled and difficult. She felt caught. When she closed her eyes she saw vines pouring from the brown man’s hat. Some of them were green. Some of them were purple.
The something-that-was-wrong felt closer than ever. It was at the tips of her fingers. If she stretched, she could touch it.
You’ll need to trust me if you’re going to unbind yourself from Gavin.
She looked down at her arm. In the Work it was unmarked, perfect. Now, for the first time in weeks, she saw it as it really was. Scratches on scratches, like leaves fallen on top of each other: please come need you sorry worried are you okay answer please worried need you please sorry.
She felt nothing. Gavin’s face, in her memory, was a cold fire, a dry well. Something was wrong and the something that was wrong was that nothing was wrong. The places inside her that used to feel were dull and silent.
She thought of other faces: Theron. Elly. Elban. The Seneschal. Darid.
Nothing. They were all nothing.
Had the magus done that? She doubted it. She remembered when he’d drained Darid away from her, on that path in the Barriers. The act was not one he’d taken lightly; he was proud of himself, and