“As I’ve been saying,” Svetlana’s voice responds from inside Vesper’s cloak. “This cold is the devil.”
For once, the bug and I agree. Dross was always a sweltering heat, sometimes worse when you were moving through a section where the sun shields had completely failed. I’d hated the heat then. Apparently, now that it’s blisteringly cold, I can hate that, too.
“You think there’s a region in the Harrow where it’s just the right temperature?” I ask. The snow is getting deeper. Every step I take, I sink halfway up my shins now. It won’t be long before we’re sinking up to our knees. “One where it’s not too hot, not too cold?”
“That would be amazing,” Vesper groans. “But I doubt we’re gonna be so lucky.”
“Yeah,” I grumble. “Cipher wouldn’t be that nice.”
“You humans are so sensitive to temperature,” Cipher chirps, as if my moaning amuses him.
“It does,” he replies, reading my thoughts.
“Get out of my head,” I grunt, stomping through the snow a little harder.
Cipher chuckles. “Make me get out, if you so wish. Vesper can do it.”
I try. I’ve been trying since we got here. I imagine building a wall brick by brick, but after a few bricks, the image fades and I can’t seem to keep building. Vesper had tried to explain how she does it, how she imagines the wall so high, and I apparently can’t do that. My mind wanders away before the job is done and once another thought sneaks in, the wall disappears and I have to start all over again. I don’t understand how she just . . . holds it.
“I fucking hate you,” I mumble under my breath, knowing that Vesper won’t be able to hear me over the howling winds.
Apparently, she can have conversations with Cipher inside her mind as well. I can’t really. Sometimes, Cipher speaks to my mind, but when I try to respond directly to him in my own head, he doesn’t seem to get the words. That, or he’s being an asshole. There’s really no telling with the system. He’s always half helpful, half sabotage.
At least to me.
“I do not hate you in return, as that emotion is reserved for very specific humans. However, I do have considerable disdain for you,” Cipher replies.
“Is that because you genuinely don’t like me or because I can actually touch Vesper flesh to flesh?” I goad, feeling a bit stabby after the Ice Hotel safehouse we’d left. The scene we’d left behind . . . I’m glad Vesper had killed Anders. If she hadn’t, I might have.
Cipher pauses before answering, as if giving my question weight I didn’t intend. I was being a dick, but that doesn’t seem to matter as he weighs his answer. When he replies, I’m surprised at the honesty.
“Both,” Cipher finally says. “I find your general make up to be wholly disappointing, but . . . your ability to touch Vesper . . . I find I know true jealousy for the first time in all my existence.”
That makes me pause in my steps. A system machine shouldn’t be able to be jealous of a human, but . . . Cipher isn’t just a system. I can’t even pretend to know anything about that sort of tech, about what our ancestors created and allowed to run loose. Cipher is so other and foreign, I don’t know how to ask the correct questions. Though he likely wouldn’t answer anyway. Not me, at least.
Before I can respond to the rare bit of honesty from the fucker, the sound of another voice interrupts me.
“You three are so boring,” Steve says suddenly, reminding me that he’s still floating along behind us like some sort of brightly glowing dog. “Like, when are we going to get to the good stuff?”
I glance at the biblically accurate Ophanim, whatever that is. I just know when I look at him, a menu pops up beside him.
STEVE (A.K.A. STEVIE)
Biblically accurate Ophanim, unaligned
I can’t see any of his stats, if he has them, but I imagine they’re larger than I’m expecting. It’s hard to think of the thing that speaks with such an unhinged accent and lives for the drama as being powerful, but I think it would be a brilliant way to hide strong stats. After all, Anders had been afraid of him, enough to imprison him at the top of that tree somehow. And now here we are, travelling with the thing.
“If you’d like to start a fight with the snow,” I grunt at him, “be my guest.”
“Oh my god, you’re such a buzzkill, Lockey Poo,” Steve replies. “If I was a different Ophanim, cough cough,Michael, I’d have to smite you just to create a little drama.” Steve’s rings spin rapidly and then stop as his many eyes look at me. “Lucky for you, I’m not the incredibly squareMichael. I’m just Steve.”
“There are others like you?” Vesper asks curiously, falling back a little so she can walk next to Steve.
“Of course there are, silly goose,” Steve says, as if it’s the wildest question he’s ever heard. “There are many humans. Why would there not be many Ophanim?”
“We’ve just never seen anything like you,” Vesper replies. “You’re so unique.”
Steve’s light pulses and I get the feeling he’s blushing. “Oh my god, Vesper. Stop. You’re embarrassing me,” he coos, and then those rings spin fast. “Just kidding! Keep going. I’m such a sucker for compliments.”
