Call Forth the Waves by L. J. Hatton Page B

matter what. Giving things to others was fine, so long as we didn’t take anything. Taking things was a sign of trust, and putting trust in strangers was too risky. It also put you into someone’s debt, and you never knew what kind of favor they might ask in return. I had a greater understanding of that particular fear now than I ever did growing up, but my father’s way of doing things had proved questionable at best.
    We needed clothes. Nafiza brought us clothes. I was keeping the clothes, charity or not. That was the order, and it was my decision.
    “Thank you,” I said again.
    “You say that now,” Nafiza scoffed. “Flying too close to the sun will get you burned.”
    “Good to know.”
    “It’s a star.” She pointed at the sun, cupped her hands, then moved them apart with a whooshing noise, miming an explosion. “Stars aren’t so special. The universe is full of them.”
    “Yes, it is,” I said, not quite sure which statement I was agreeing with.
    “It’s a star.” This time, she pointed to the purple sweatshirt in the box. She made another explosion.
    Curious, despite the fact that curiosity never does me any favors, I unfolded the shirt. It was emblazoned with a shooting star on the front.
    Winnie got her mom’s clothes. Jermay’s matched his eyes. Mine came emblazoned with a shooting star. Nafiza hadn’t found us cast-off clothes; she’d seen us clearly enough to mark us.
    “I’m . . . I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “Has it happened yet? If it hasn’t . . . I’m sorry.”
    Her eyes stopped flashing and settled on brown.
    “Did you see my sister?”
    “Yes. I’m sorry you lost them, but they aren’t really hiding.”
    Nim and Vesper? I’d thought she meant Evie.
    “Do you know where they are? Did you see my father?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where? When did you see him?”
    “Never ask me that!” she screamed. “Never ask me when! Never when! Never when!”
    Nafiza pulled her shawl tight around her and ran, leaving me standing stunned beside Baba’s porch.

CHAPTER 9
    I pushed my doubts about Nafiza’s motives aside and put on the sweatshirt she gave me. Creepy-accurate clothes were a lot more comfortable than molasses-encrusted ones, and now I wouldn’t be as reluctant to meet others on the Mile.
    After changing and combing my artificial waist-length tangle into something that looked more like hair than a hastily tatted fishing net, I swept it up into the scarf. It was a relief not to have all that weight pulling me down, reminding me that the only reason I had long hair was because of Iva. The synthetic hair she’d created was heavy and thick, and I wanted nothing more than to find a way to cut it all off so I could feel cool air on my neck again. But that was a petty concern, and it could wait until I’d found a way to force the lock on my father’s room to open. The others were still changing. I wanted a few minutes alone with Magnus Roma—or at least the things he left behind.
    I was too late.
    The security panel that controlled the door had been pulled apart, with several of the wires snipped and melted to force the electronic lock to release. There was still no power in the house, so the work had been done by someone with his own power source.
    “Klok?” I only had to tap the door to open it.
    “No, it’s me.” Birch pulled the door open the rest of the way. “Klok was here, but he went in search of the toolkit he brought with him from the Hollow. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
    “That’s okay, I just wanted to take a look around.”
    “I think he beat you to it.”
    All of the drawers were open, with their contents pulled out. The closet had been emptied onto the bed. The only neat area was the desk, which was arranged exactly as my father’s had been on the train, right down to the coffee cup full of pens and the pad of green paper he used for a coaster. In the exact center of the blotter sat an old-fashioned leather briefcase with hard sides and