And there it is. As close as we’ve come to talking about whatever it is between us.
‘I can’t lose you,’ he says in a soft voice.
‘You won’t.’
‘It’s a risk for me even to be here,’ he says, standing and beginning to pace the golden dome.
‘They don’t know I can do this.’
‘Not yet.’
‘I know.’ I sigh and stand up. We’re getting dangerously close to something we can’t take back, and I’m not sure I can do this without him now that Enora’s so different. ‘We need a plan, but first we have to figure something out.’
He cocks an eyebrow.
‘What’s happened to Enora,’ I remind him.
I don’t know where her quarters are located, but Jost does, so I dismantle the dome and smooth the strands of time back into place within the room’s weave. Out of the safety of the time bubble, we’re pushing our luck, but he leads me out of my room and up two flights of stairs to her hall.
‘They monitor the lift more than the stairs,’ he tells me as we ascend. ‘No one uses them.’
Enora’s hall is similar to mine, but all the doors are painted violet instead of plum. Jost raps on the first one and waits, but there’s no answer.
‘You sure about this?’ he asks.
I nod. I won’t sleep tonight until I’ve spoken to her.
Jost holds his thumb to the scanner and the door clicks open to a quiet room. Large paintings hang in golden frames throughout the apartment. From the doorway the images look like flowers, but as I move closer to them they blur into a mash of subtle colours, losing their beauty. A small four-poster bed – its linens taut and its cushions precisely placed – sits next to the unlit hearth. The room feels abandoned.
‘She’s not here,’ Jost says from the window.
A chill creeps up into my throat, but I push it back down. They can’t have simply removed her. ‘Let’s check the bathroom.’
He follows me without a word. Her bathroom is smaller than my own and with the lights off I can barely make out her prep area except for the white plastic chair – exactly like mine – that glows faintly as we enter the empty room.
‘I don’t know where she is,’ Jost says. ‘I can run a locator on her from the valet station.’
‘Wait,’ I breathe, aware of the drip of a tap. My hand stretches in the dark, searching for the switchscan. When I run my hand along it, light floods the tiny space, and I blink.
Jost’s eyes adjust more quickly. ‘Damn it!’
I watch as he darts across the marble floor, but I can’t bring myself to look where he’s going. It’s in his voice. I don’t want to see what he sees. If I turn away now, I can go back to the still bedroom and out to the empty hallway and never know.
But then he’s pulling her up, and it’s too late.
Water sloshes over the side of the tub, trailing red down the white porcelain. She’s pale in his arms, not the polished ivory achieved via the aesthetician’s chair, but the blankness of untouched paper, bleached into absence. He struggles with her, heaving her body up by her underarms. The bloodied water laps against her bare breasts and trickles down her collarbone, and I can’t look away. Even from here, I spy angry red gashes along her wrists.
‘Stop,’ I command in a flat voice.
‘Help me, Adelice,’ he says, still pulling against her heavy body.
‘It’s too late,’ I tell him. The escaping water spreads across the marble, and I stare as it creeps toward the toes of my satin heels.
Jost looks at me but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he drops her arms and lets her body slide back into the water. The motion forces another wave up over the side of the tub, and the puddle of water at my feet surges over my toes. I should step back.
‘Maela,’ Jost accuses quietly.
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Enora did this.’
‘She wouldn’t—’
‘The Enora we knew wouldn’t.’
‘Then it’s still them,’ he says. He keeps his voice hushed, but his words are defiantly clear. The audio transmitters must be monitoring us, but why has no one come?
‘Of course it’s them. It always is,’ I say, and then turn to the door.
I crumble as soon as I’m over the threshold, but Jost is already there to catch me.
‘I have to call this in,’ he whispers.
Helping me to the only armchair in the room, Jost waits for me to settle back, but I lean forward on the edge of the seat, my elbows resting on my knees, and hide my face in my hands. Across the room, Jost speaks into the companel in a low voice. They’ll be here in moments and then explanations will be expected. I don’t know what to say. My mind has stopped forming words and keeps replaying the ripple of water against Enora’s breasts.
‘Let me talk,’ Jost whispers, kneeling down next to me.
I turn my head and stare into his blue eyes. I wish I could sink into them and float away.
The guards arrive first, then a few maids, and finally Maela sweeps into the room.
‘Where is she?’ she asks like she can’t hear the muffled chaos in the next chamber.
Jost answers, which is good, because I’m not sure I remember how to talk.
‘You,’ she says to me, ‘stay here.’
I look up and glare at her. Not much of a chance I’m going anywhere.