It is. And you havent even seen the best part yet. Karou looked sly.
Ooh, what? Please tell me its a cave where cupcakes grow like mushrooms.
Score another laugh for Zuzana.
No, said Karou. And I dont have any cake, either, and Im afraid the bed situation cant be helped, but She paused, waiting for Zuzana to figure it out.
Zuzana did. Could it be? Dont tease me.
Karous smile was pure; she was happy to give happiness. Come on. I think we can spare a few minutes.
23
THE WHOLE POINT
The thermal pools were as Karou remembered, but also not at all as she remembered, because in her memories, there were Kirin here. Whole families, bathing together. Old women gossiping. Children splashing. She could feel her mothers hands working selen root into a lather on her head, and she even remembered its herbal smell, mingling with the sulfur odor of the springs.
Its beautiful, said Mik, and it was: the water a chalky pale green, the rocks like pastel drawings, rose and sea foam. It was intimate but not small, not one pool but a cluster of joined baths fed by a gentle cascade, and the ceiling seemed to ripple, ashimmer with growths of crystal and curtains of pale pink darkmoss, so named because it grew in the dark, not because it was.
Look over here, said Karou, and held out her torch, leading the way to the place where the cavern wall was pure, polished hematite. A mirror.
Wow, breathed Zuzana, and the three regarded their reflections, side by side. They looked bedraggled and reverent. The curved surface warped them, and Karou had to move around to gauge what of the distortion of her face was from the funhouse mirror effect, and what was left over from her beating. The attack seemed ages ago, but her body knew differently. It had been two days, and her face was not recovered. Her psyche wasnt, either. In fact, the mirror distortion struck her as fitting: an outward manifestation of the inner warp she was trying to keep hidden.
They peeled off their clothes and slipped into the water, which was hot and very soft, so that within seconds of immersion, their limbs felt as smooth as doll porcelain, their hair like swansdown. Karous and Zuzanas drifted like mermaid coils on the eddying surface.
Karou closed her eyes and sank beneath the surface, head and all, and let the moving water draw the tension out of her. If she were to play Three Wishes honestly, she might wish she could drift off as if this were Lethe, the river of oblivion, and take a nice long break from armies and doom. Instead, she washed and rinsed and climbed out. Mik politely faced away as she dressed in clean clothes. Clean, that is, if dipped in a Moroccan river and dried on a dusty rooftop counted as clean.
You probably have an hour on the torch, she told her friends, leaving them one and taking the other. Can you find your way back?
They said they could, so Karou left the pair to their perfect, uncomplicated enjoyment of each other, and tried not to be too jealous as her feet carried her back up toward the humming enmity of the armies.
There you are.
Shed rounded a bend, nearing the hivelike center of the village, and there was Thiago. Ziri. When they saw each other, a flash of feeling transfigured him. He hid it quickly, but she saw it, and knew it. It was love inseparable from sadness, and it made her heart ache for him. Im with you, she had told him back at the kasbah, so he wouldnt feel so alone in his stolen body. But he was alone. She wasnt with him, even when she was. And he knew it.
She made herself smile. I was just coming to find you. That was true, in any case. Has anything been decided?
He sighed and shook his head. He was unkempt, something the Wolf never was, except perhaps immediately after battle. His hair was in disarray, his brow dark with dried blood from his crash landing, and his knees and hands, scraped and bloodied, looked like meat. He cast a glance around and beckoned Karou through a doorway.
Only for an instant did she stiffen and want to demur. Hes not the Wolf , she told herself, preceding him into the small chamber. It was dark, musty. Karou closed the door and made an arc with her sputtering torch to confirm that they were alone.
Alone. Was this
what Ziri had hoped for, back in the night, just this small sad slice of time to let his Wolf posture fall slack? He sagged against a wall, plainly exhausted. He said, Lisseth proposed we choose a scapegoat for a show execution.
What? Karou cried. Thats awful!
Which is why I said no, unless she wished to volunteer herself.
I wish.
She declined. He gave a wry, tired smile, then pitched his voice low. Theyre still waiting for this to make sense. For me to reveal the true plan, which must, of course, involve slaughter.
Do you think they suspect anything? Karou asked, anxious, her voice a secret murmur like his. She wished she could speak to him in Czech as she could to Zuzana and Mik, and not have to worry about being overheard.
Something, yes. But I dont think theyre near the truth.