Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Yilas tossed the odd note in the office trash can the moment she returned from the palace. She didn’t think anything about it, writing it off as nonsense. It requires a certain brand of peculiar to work in an environment like the Palace of Union, so she wasn’t going to take it personally. She merely happened to be the person in view that day for the woman with black eyes to exercise her eccentricities on. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Baby, what is this?”

Until Chami walks into the apartment later that night with the note between her fingers.

“Don’t tell me you plucked that out from the trash,” Yilas groans, setting down her book. “I threw my orange peels in there afterward.”

Yilas has put on new pajamas, as promised. The air conditioner blows gently from the window corner, its cold blast mostly absorbed by the overgrown indoor plants that line the floor before drifting into the rest of the bedroom. Though the diner closed an hour ago, Chami was on cleanup, pulling the blinds and locking the doors while Yilas came up first to rest.

“It looked strange, so I reached my hand into the trash.” Chami raises a brow. Yilas’s darling girlfriend, who laces her shoes in the correct order, has been wearing a fake piercing in her left eyebrow lately. She wants to branch out into new styles but needs to “try it out” before she “commits to a lifelong scar.” “You want to explain yourself to me?”

Chami turns the note around. Though it is clearly orange stained from Yilas’s flippant peeling, the typewritten message in the middle remains clear and legible:

We need you.

441-819

“Well, first of all, it’s not what it looks like.”

Chami snorts. “Yes, I figured as much. Did you get it in the palace?”

“It was just someone who overheard my conversation with Matiyu.”

A thump from downstairs sounds on cue, then an “ Ow! ” and a meow. Matiyu is sleeping downstairs on an air mattress in the office. He doesn’t want to return to his designated lodging in the palace, for fear of his life. Yilas still isn’t convinced that there is some conspiracy in the palace taking out the guards. People are murdered in San-Er all the time. The timing is suspect, but it could easily be a regular crime. Maybe some guards pissed off another employee, and now, while most of the Weisannas are away with the delegation, they’re taking the opportunity to strike.

“They gave you a calling card because…” Chami trails off, appearing confused. “They heard your conversation?”

Yilas peers down the stairs, checking on the sound. “Are you all right?”

“Yes!” her brother exclaims. “The cat whacked a plate. I saved it!”

They better not break anything down there. Yilas sighs, then turns back and reaches to take the card out of Chami’s hand. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t particularly care to find out.”

Just before her fingers can make contact, Chami cranes her arm behind her, keeping the card away.

“You may not remember this, because you were kidnapped and everything,” Chami says, “but I recognize this number.”

Yilas stops. That’s even more reason to throw it out. “Hollow Temple?”

Chami nods. “I made multiple calls when you didn’t come home. They were unhelpful, of course. Couldn’t exactly admit to the bodies they were holding hostage in the back.”

“I’m throwing this away—”

“Wait, wait ,” Chami urges. “Yilas, you’ve solved Matiyu’s mystery for him. It’s the Crescent Societies. They’ve infiltrated the palace and are wiping out the guards.”

“Okay, and?” Yilas asks. “That’s none of my business.”

“It is your business once you know.” Chami is already walking toward the telephone by the air conditioner. “But it can be someone else’s business once you report it with enough evidence. I’m calling.”

“What?” Yilas screeches. “They kidnapped me!”

Chami pulls open their crowded miscellaneous drawer. “We’re calling to catch them, not actually work with them.”

Yilas crosses her arms. Her new pajamas are too silky for her liking, so it doesn’t give the full impact she intended. The sleeves absorb her disgruntlement.

“The Crescent Societies are constantly committing crime. When has gathering evidence on them ever stopped what they were doing?”

Chami brings out a camcorder. They don’t own a tape recorder, but the camera captures audio, so Yilas understands that Chami must want to record the call. She sets it beside the phone. Hits START .

“I can already tell you what this is going to be,” Yilas continues warning while Chami dials. “ Get us in contact with Calla Tuoleimi. We would like her support while we destroy the twin cities for total anarchy. We love her because we love destruction. ”

Chami jabs a button, and the phone switches to speaker. It only rings twice.

“Hello?”

She gestures for Yilas to say something. Yilas, stubbornly, remains mute.

“Hello? Anybody there?”

“Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?” Chami asks, taking over. Despite Yilas’s foot stomping, she always loves it when Chami swoops in on something. She’s so much more confident, radiating brightness where Yilas likes to slink away.

“You called me, so you’ll have to explain yourself first.”

“On the contrary, you gave my girlfriend this number on a card, so I’d like to know who I’m having words with.”

Chami flashes Yilas a grin. She’s enjoying herself.

“Oh!” Over the line, the speaker changes tones entirely. “You should have started with that! I’m Bibi.”

The woman has an accent. Yilas hadn’t listened too closely in the palace, or perhaps Bibi had been working to disguise it. People in San-Er so rarely hear a different manner of speaking that the only reason Yilas recognizes the distinction at all is because the palace would bring in the occasional legal migrant for attendants, and most kept their drawls for the first year or so before the cities flattened their words by force.

“Bibi, what can we help you with?” Chami holds up the card to the light, taking another look at it.

“I won’t waste your time. I’d like you to help me get in contact with the princess. I know you’re both her former attendants.”

Yilas gestures intently, telling Chami I told you so . Chami chucks the card at Yilas silently, missing on purpose.

“And why”—Chami pushes the camcorder closer to the phone, making sure it catches all the audio—“should we do that?”

“A Crescent Society takeover of San-Er is imminent. There will be significantly less friction if Calla collaborates with us. The cities will follow a natural heir of the throne.”

Yilas throws her arms into the air. She might as well be a fucking mind reader with how she’s predicted this conversation. The Crescent Societies know that San-Er will not accept them easily—they are still a fringe group, after all, with a reputation for extremism and kidnapping civilians. The Crescent Societies desire change, and perhaps there genuinely are members among them that have sensible ideas, but they have operated as a black-market operation for far too long. Even if they are entirely successful in wiping out the palace, they will still have the people’s disdain. For decades, Talin has been taught to accept the will of their heavens, to honor the aristocrats elevated by their bloodlines and let the nobles rule over the masses. For years, San-Er has warned their children to come home after dark because Crescents are lurking in the alleys. None of that goes away easily.

“You’re going to have to give me more information than that,” Chami counters. “I doubt a takeover is imminent.”

“It is. We will seize the Palace of Union by force.”

“How so?”

“Is this an interrogation? These aren’t necessary details. The only critical component is that Calla’s approval soothes the people. I’m sure she wants to work something out with us in exchange for a ruling title.”

Chami examines her nails, leaning into the wall. She looks entirely unbothered, her tone no-nonsense. “If I’m taking something to Calla, I’m going to need details. Do you know how many people want an audience with her? How do I know you’re not wasting her time with a plan doomed to fail?”

“I can’t give you our exact time or method. I will tell you that we have the complete blueprints to the Palace of Union and a dependable route in—”

“And how do you have complete blueprints to the Palace of Union?” Chami interrupts. “That’s not information maintained on any data server. Hidden entrances, servant passageways, and panic rooms are never told in full to attendants, staff members, or employees of the surveillance room. Without a full picture of lockdown plans, it is highly unlikely any palace offensive will be successful.”

Yilas is so in love right now.

“So unless—I don’t know—a councilmember has somehow sworn loyalty to the Crescent Societies and given up their inside knowledge, I doubt you have complete blueprints,” Chami continues. “Nice try, though.”

The silence draws long on the other end. Yilas has to assume that Bibi has been caught out, and this is the end of whatever scheme the Crescent Societies wanted to play tricks with.

“We do have a reliable source,” Bibi finally says.

She speaks with hesitation, again. Yilas sidles nearer to the phone. There’s no reason to carry this out any longer. It’s not going to be successful. It will be another failed Crescent Society coup, and Calla has much more important things on her plate.

Yilas’s finger is already hovering on the hook switch to hang up. Then:

“Before she was killed, Julia Makusa drew them up for us.”