single amber eye. “Why are the Kerch so focused on money?”
“Says the woman with a bankrupt country,” murmured Jesper.
“What was that?” snapped Zoya.
“Nothing,” said Jesper. “Just saying Kerch is a morally bankrupt country.”
Zoya looked him up and down as if she was considering tossing him into a pool and boiling him alive. “If you want to waste your time and talent on these wretches, feel free. Saints know there’s room for improvement.”
“Zoya—”
“I’m going to go find a dark room with a deep pool and try to wash some of this country off.”
“Don’t drown,” Genya called as Zoya flounced off, then said conspiratorially, “Maybe she’ll do it just to be contrary.” She gave Wylan an assessing glance. “It would be difficult. If I’d known you before the changes—”
“Here,” Wylan said eagerly. “I have a portrait. It’s old, but—”
She took the miniature from him.
“And this,” Wylan said, offering her the poster his father had created promising a reward for his safe return.
“Hmm,” she said. “Let’s find better light.”
They fumbled their way around the facilities, poking their heads into rooms full of mud baths and milk baths, and one heated chamber made entirely of jade. They finally settled in a chilly white room with a tub of odd-smelling clay against one wall, and windows all along the other.
“Find a chair,” said Genya, “and fetch my kit from the main pool area. It’s heavy. You’ll find it near the towels.”
“You brought your kit?” said Wylan.
“The Suli girl suggested it,” said Genya, shooing them off to follow her orders.
“Just as imperious as Zoya,” Jesper grumbled as he and Wylan obliged.
“But with better hearing!” she called after them.
Jesper fetched the box from near the main pool. It was built like a small cabinet, its double doors fastened with an elaborate gold clasp. When they returned to the clay room, Genya gestured for Wylan to sit near the window, where the light was best. She rested her fingers under his chin and tilted his face this way and that.
Jesper set down her kit. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“The seams.”
“Seams?”
“No matter how fine a Tailor’s work, if you look closely, you can see the seams, the place where one thing ends and another begins. I’m looking for signs of the original structure. The portrait does help.”
“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” said Wylan.
“Because she might mess up and make you look like a weasel with curls?”
Genya lifted a flame-colored brow. “Maybe a vole.”
“Not funny,” said Wylan. He’d clenched his hands so tightly in his lap his knuckles had become white stars.
“All right,” said Genya. “I can try, but I make no promises. Nina’s work is near flawless. Luckily, so am I.”
Jesper smiled. “You remind me of her.”
“I think you mean she reminds you of me. ”
Genya set to unpacking her kit. It was far more elaborate than the one Jesper had seen Nina use. There were capsules of dye, pots of colored powder, and rows of glass cases filled with what looked like clear gels. “They’re cells,” said Genya. “For a job like this, I need to work with human tissue.”
“Not disgusting at all,” said Jesper.
“It could be worse,” she said. “I once knew a woman who rubbed whale placenta on her face in the hopes of looking younger. To say nothing of what she did with the monkey saliva.”
“Human tissue sounds delightful,” amended Jesper.
“That’s what I thought.”
She pushed up her sleeves, and Jesper saw that the scars on her face also traced over her hands and up her arms. He couldn’t imagine what manner of weapon had twisted the tissue in that way.
“You’re staring,” she said without facing him.
Jesper jumped, cheeks heating. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. People like to look. Well, not always. When I was first attacked, no one would look at me.”
Jesper had heard she’d been tortured during the Ravkan Civil War, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you made polite conversation about. “Now I don’t know where to look,” he admitted.
“Anywhere you like. Just be quiet so I don’t make a hideous mess of this poor boy.” She laughed at Wylan’s expression of terror. “I’m kidding. But do stay still. This is slow work, and you’ll need to be patient.”
She was right. The work was so slow that Jesper wasn’t sure anything was happening. Genya would place her fingertips beneath Wylan’s eyes or over his lids, then step back and examine what she’d done—which as far as Jesper could see was nothing. Then she’d reach for one of the glass