A Different Kind of Deadly by Nicole Martinsen Page B

me?" She repeated the question as
though she never considered it before. "Yes, but there's no point
in me complaining."
    "You're young, beautiful, and eternal," I said
to her. "What don't you like?"
    "I can't dream."
    "What?"
    Diana shook her head at her own statement.
"Dolls don't sleep; therefore we don't dream. Memories fade,
Marvin. Dreams at least give a sensation of familiarity." She set
her fingers on my open palm. "A day will come when you'll forget
how many bearings there were in my joints, or the direction they
faced in my fingers, but in your dreams you'll have the illusion of
the memory of how they feel in your hands." Her pink eyes met mine.
"I don't have that, Marvin. I can't remember Inval. He will never
be real to me again, not even in the ghost of a memory."
    "I didn't realize you loved each other that
deeply."
    "We didn't," she smirked. "It was entirely
one-sided on my part. The unrequited love of a student for the
teacher who took her under his wing."
    "I don't think Inval would've gone all the way
to the East for someone he didn't love."
    "But that's the thing, Marvin," Diana said.
"He would have gone for someone he just met, because that was the
sort of man he was."
    "And you're still in love with him." The
sentence numbed my mouth as soon as I said it, oddly irked by the
sound of it floating in the air. Diana and I said nothing after
that. I saw her expression in its most human form yet, tenderly
gazing at a memory lost in time.
    "If I was Inval, I never would've left you
like he did."
    The words escaped my lips before I even
realized it was me who said them. Diana's lips parted in a taken
aback manner, but before she could say anything Jiki appeared
through the door.
    "You next, Marvin," she announced.
Jiki probably got my name from Leo while she was working with
him.
    I dutifully followed her back, stunned to
discover that this was where the real store began.
    From the outside, the narrow front was all we
could see, backed against a cavern wall. I have no idea that the
space could be hollowed out this way.
    Candles lined arched recesses in the walls,
lending a majestic feel to the otherwise frigid cave. A stairwell
led down another level from where Jiki and I were standing, and
what I first took for a pool of fire was actually a giant forge. I
followed the rusalka to a raised platform surrounded by mirrors.
She had already set aside a suit of armor on a nearby
stand.
    The metal looked like gray, beaten bronze,
consisting of miniscule scales atop a leather foundation. Jiki
slipped off the jacket I'd borrowed from Duck so quickly that I
shivered at her wet and clammy hands.
    "This is a good enchantment," she noted,
feeling the material. "Purilo's work," Jiki determined.
    The water woman reached under my
shirt, feeling every muscle and joint she could reach. I did my
best not to shudder as her cold hands roamed my torso. She finally
nodded to herself.
    "Your friend Leo was c-correct in his
assessment."
    "What would that be?"
    "You're a weakling."
    I felt as though she dropped an anvil on my
head.
    Damn you, Leo.
    Seriously, just damn you.
    "But your definition is good."
    "Duck said the same thing,"
I said, thinking of the zombie keeper of The Dead Man's Tale .
    "Duck has a discerning eye when it comes to
men, s-still..." she mused, giving me the once-over. "It's
uncanny."
    "What is?"
    Jiki froze, her arms dropping to
her sides. "You mean, Diana never told you?" She looked away, the
water droplets curiously resembling beads of sweat. "No, I guess
s-she wouldn't."
    "Could you elaborate? What isn't Diana telling
me?"
    "You're his s-spitting image," Jiki sighed.
"Inval, I mean. But forget I s-said anything. It's all in the past
now."
    Inval?
    I didn't hear a word after that, obediently
moving as Jiki needed to get me into the armor.
    I thought of Diana and her lovelorn
expression, and her reasons for entering a Doll Contract with
me.
    I licked my lips nervously.
    "Jiki?"
    "Hmm?"
    "I take it that you met