Page 58 of Immortal Longings
A bolt of panic runs up her spine. She meets Anton’s gaze again with a wholly new ferocity.
“Where’s your nearest telephone?”
Anton follows Calla out, his heart thudding against his ribs. He has long learned how to hide it, to school his features in any body so they show only what he wishes to show. Otta was the master at these lessons. She didn’t tolerate sentimentality; she hardened tender things until they were shimmering stones.
Now he hears his pulse in his ear, the breakneck thrum going and going as he watches Calla pick up the telephone receiver. A bartender from the front—Ruen—comes by and squeezes through the brothel’s thin walkways, eyeing Calla at the phone and then eyeing Anton, failing to recognize him. As soon as he disappears, Anton walks to the other side of the telephone and leans right onto the box, making sure Calla knows he can hear every word of the conversation, even if he isn’t really listening.
Adrenaline, he reasons with himself. This reaction to Calla is a primal response, something that works off association. She reminds him of Otta, and not in a good way. She gets under his skin, even more than Otta did, because Otta squirmed and burrowed just to see if she could, but Calla will set her claws deep and then claim that she didn’t mean to. She could have anything in the world if she only tried.
“When did this happen?” she’s saying into the phone. Her fingers grip the cord, twisting the line tight enough that the tip of her thumb is turning white. When her eyes flick up, catching Anton’s stare, it’s almost like she doesn’t even see him there.
He should know better than to be drawn to her. The palace has already left him scarred. It let Otta stand mighty and unstoppable, then took her away witha grinning leer. He’s turned on his heel and thrown himself as far as he can get from its mockery, and still he cannot escape, sent a new test in the form of Calla Tuoleimi, the last living princess of Er. She stains his mind in vivid color, bright and burning and dangerous.
He’s always liked dangerous things.
He hates that he knows better. That dangerous things are bound to leave a demolished path in their wake. And still, he tries to hold them anyway.
“Don’t panic, just don’t panic,” Calla says into the receiver, pinching the bridge of her nose. She mouths a violent expletive, which Anton catches but the phone does not. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Before Anton can guess what comes over the line, there’s a tap on his shoulder, and he turns around to find Ruen, a tray balanced in his other hand.
“Are you—”
“It’s me,” Anton confirms before Ruen can finish. “Any mail come recently?”
Ruen frowns, holding up a warning finger. “Stop swapping so often. I almost kicked you out.” The bartender reaches into his back pocket and digs something out. Envelopes. Ratty-looking ones that might have arrived a while ago, but Anton is the worst at checking for them, and everyone downstairs has begun passing them around for safekeeping.
“Pay your bills,” Ruen warns. He swerves around Calla at the phone. “You’re way too behind.”
“Are you opening my mail?” Anton calls after him.
“I don’t have to! The sheer volume tells me enough!”
Ruen disappears around the corner. Calla slams the receiver down. As she fumes, Anton shoves the envelopes into his pocket without even looking at them.
“What’s wrong?” he asks casually.
Her head jerks up. There’s a pause—a prolonged second of hesitation—before she answers. “A friend of mine is missing. She went to the Hollow Temple.”
Yearly in San-Er, there are more profiles of people missing than people found. Bodies vanish; souls get wiped out.
“So a Crescent Society abduction,” Anton guesses.
Calla is quiet, chewing on her lip and resting against the wall. She looks like she’s posing for a royal sculpture, if those artworks were forged in steel instead of gold.
“All right.” She straightens up suddenly, dusting her hands off. “Come on, Makusa.”
She starts to walk, striding at a brisk pace through the brothel. With a start, Anton rushes to follow, stepping left and right around her as her speed hastens.
“Am I coming with you?”
Calla shoots him a sharp look. “We’re allied, are we not?” She ducks out through the door, barely pausing to prevent it from slamming into Anton, but he is fast, so he’s soon back alongside her.
“We are,” Anton replies. He watches her pause on the street. She lifts her chin, seeming to be deciding which way to go, and in the midst of it, a strand of hair blows into her face, sticking to her mouth. Anton almost reaches out to help, but Calla is already brushing it aside.
“Why’d you ask, then?” she says. A ghost of a smile crinkles her eyes. “Of course you’re coming.”
Ruen picks up the telephone. He dials the number slowly, making sure he does not miss a digit, lest he is punished for the delay.
