Outlier: Reign Of Madness
Author: Daryl Banner
Date: 2016-12-26 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: M M Romance; Fantasy; Dystopia; Science Fiction; Paranormal
Description: *THIS IS BOOK #3 IN THE OUTLIER SERIES*"I am the Madness."It has been two months since the Madness took over.In the third installment of the OUTLIER series, our band of unlikely heroes — both slum-born and sky — survive in a very changed, volatile world. The slums ignite with chaos. Ancient powers awaken. Doomsday is on everyone’s heels as the Mad King entertains himself, casting his red “Finger Of Madness” down upon the slums below, destroying any in its fiery path.But the slum-born are not silent. Alliances are forged even as the fires rain down upon them, and dire actions are taken to prese
Publisher: Frozenfyre Publishing

Outlier : Reign Of Madness (Book 3)

Copyright © 2016 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover & Interior Design: Daryl Banner
www.darylbanner.com

Cover Model: Joe Delaney
www.jd-fitness.com

The
Beautiful Dead Trilogies

A post-apocalyptic fantasy series starring Winter, an undead teenage girl. Each trilogy can be read independently, but it’s best to read them in order.

The Original Trilogy

The Beautiful Dead

Dead Of Winter

Almost Alive

The Sunless Reach Trilogy

The Whispers

The Winters (coming soon)

The Wakings (coming soon)

The
OUTLIER Series

An epic dystopian saga with a strong ensemble of unique & unlikely heroes who incite a rebellion. Join them on their journey for truth, love, and justice.

The OUTLIER Series

Outlier: Rebellion

Outlier: Legacy

Outlier: Reign Of Madness

Outlier: Beyond Oblivion (coming soon)

Outlier: Five Kings (coming soon)

Kings & Queens:

A Collection Of Companion Novellas

The Slum Queen

The Twice King (coming soon)

The Queen Of Wrath (coming soon)

The Brazen Boys

A series of fun & playful standalone M/M romance novellas.

Dorm Game

On The Edge

Owned By The Freshman

Dog Tags

Commando (Dog Tags 2)

All Yours Tonight

Straight Up

Houseboy Rules

Slippery When Wet

The College Obsession Series

A series of full-length standalone romances linked together by a group of college friends. Though characters are shared between the books, each one can be read on its own.

Read My Lips

Beneath The Skin

With These Hands

Acknowledgements

Chris Rivera – Hey there, “Reader”! It’s me, “Writer”. I always thank you first because at times, I literally feel like I’m walking the streets of Atlas with you at my side. We’re braving Mad Kings and a decade of growing up and a future unknown … and Atlas is a scary as shit place, dude, but with you there by me, I’m never afraid.

Jan Behrens – You are literally my brother from another mother When you read this book, I hope you forgive me for the abuse your “feels” will take. You were with me each step of the way in writing it, so I will be there each step of the way in your reading it. Not even an ocean can stop us from being best bros! Stay in my life! You’re one of the greatest influences I know, and for that, I feel blessed. And thank you for introducing me to your friend. To David: Thanks for reading Outlier! You are an inspiration and your feedback touches my heart.

Joe Delaney – You make Anwick Lesser look so good! Thank you for being the one to represent the rebellion that changes the world. I count myself very lucky to know you!

Sue Banner – My mom! Literally the first one to read anything I write, even the stuff that never makes it to publishing. Thanks for saving me from a hundred bad ideas (especially the creepy sex scenes). Thanks for your faith and for being my “home”. Thanks for healing me, dealing with me, and feeling with me. I love you

David & Aimee & Jordan – I love my family. My bro and my sis-law and my brilliant nephew!! David, you fill me with joy and pride. Aimee, you stir my mind with creativity and make me laugh. Jordan, you are smart and intuitive and approach everything thoughtfully and with the eye of a wise soul. You’re going places, little guy!!

A very special thanks to the members of

Daryl’s Doorway

Thank you for being there for me!! All of you are the sweetest and most supportive and smartest people I know! You make me laugh when I’m down and you kick my ass every day with love! I don’t know about you, but for me, the Doorway is always, always a safe place that I can run to when the world is too much. It’s all because of you. And believe me when I say, there is literally not a day that goes by where I’m not reminded of that sole fact. I’m so thankful and blessed to have you all at my side, and I promise to write you stories that you’ll love, that will move you, that will make you laugh, and that will take your imagination out to dance … as long as you’re still wanting them. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And if you’re reading this and are not part of the Doorway, well goodness, where’ve you been?? Come join the party! You’re invited!
www.facebook.com/groups/darylsdoorway

And finally …

Thank YOU, the one in possession of this adventure you’re about to embark on. It’s a long one. It’s a trying one. It will test your heart and your loyalty and your faith. I know you’re strong enough, but I am also with you every step of the way. Thank you for joining me for the third installment of the Outlier series: Reign Of Madness.

www.facebook.com/DarylBannerWriter
www.amazon.com/author/darylbanner
www.DarylBanner.com

THE OUTLIER SERIES
Chapter Compendium

R E B E L L I O N

Act 1      0001 – 0018

Act 2      0019 – 0043

Act 3      0044 – 0069

LEGACY

Act 1      0070 – 0091

Act 2      0092 – 0117

Act 3      0118 – 0137

REIGN OF MADNESS

Act 1      0138 – 0161

Act 2      0162 – 0184

Act 3      0185 – 0207

Act 4      0208 – 0231

BEYOND OBLIVION

- - -

FIVE KINGS

- - -

Don’t be afraid.

Seriously, don’t be afraid.

I know the whole world’s Mad. And maybe it should be.

It’s only in that Madness that we can truly understand who we are.

For instance, I’m a guy who dances with Madness. Every single day.

And then I get lost in it. And then I scare the shit out of myself.

I worry I’ll fall into the Madness one of these times and never, ever find my way out.

The Madness is something I will fight my whole life.

But it only exists because of me.

And in knowing that fact, I gain a strange power over it.

It’s there to make me strong. It’s there to remind me never to sit still.

It is a fight that I will never lose, as long as I keep fighting.

And it knows that.

So don’t be afraid.

The Madness can be your friend if you learn to dance with it.

#OutlierPride

xxoo

Daryl

The Citizenry of Atlas

Members of Rebel Group Rain, sixth ward slums

Anwick Lesser “Wick”

18 m - Mimicry

Lionis Lesser

19 m - Hot palms

Athan Broadmore

17 m - “Luck”

Victra Kingsword

19 f - See through others’ eyes

Pratganth Upgold “Prat”

22 m - (not yet disclosed)

Juston Markmake

22 m - Generate noise

Arrow Fyrefellow

19 m - Charm electronics

Yellow Everon

48 m - Erase memories

Gandra Gateward “Professor Frey”

50 f - (not yet disclosed)

Formerly The Keep, now The Undercity

Forgemon Lesser “Forge”

45 m - Calculate possible futures

Aphne Lodestone

29 f - Duplication

Guardian Interim HQ, Eleven Wings Hospital

Halvesand Lesser “Halves”

22 m - Stop kinetic force

Aleksand Lesser “Aleks”

23 m - Make heavy his feet

Ennebal Flower

23 f - Unpierceable / Deafness

Obert Ranfog

37 m - Lie detection

Title: Lead Officer Obert

Former Head Trainer

Guardian, stranded in a sixth ward holding unit

Ellena Lesser

39 f - Transfer wounds to and fro

Gabel Wayward

25 m - (not yet disclosed)

Beatrice “Bee”

30 f - (not yet disclosed)

Cope

19 m - (not yet disclosed)

The Lifted City

Rone Tinpassage

18 m - Phasing through objects

Erana Sparrow

20 f - Memorization

Ruena Netheris

18 f - Electricity

Title: Former heir to the Throne of Atlas

Granddaughter to the late King Greymyn

Sanctum

Impis Lockfyre

28 m - Mania

Unofficial Title: King Of Atlas “Mad King Impis” / The Usurper

Formerly the Marshal of Legacy / Royal Legacist

“Metal Hand”

40 m - Touch of destruction

Sedge Arwall

11 m - Shapeshifting

Dregor

31 m - Scale-skin armor

Arcana “Reader”

25 f - Listen to thoughts

Axel “Writer”

25 f - Control thoughts

The Waterways, previously at The Brae

Link Lesser

16 m - Formerly: color manipulation

Ames

14 m - (not yet disclosed)

Baron Poe

60 m - Grants invulnerability at the cost of life & Legacy

“Facility”, unknown location

Cintha Two

16 f - Stimulate others’ sexuality

Aryl

11 f - Able to “see” temperatures

Elsewhere in the Last City of Atlas

Kendil “The Weapon”

17 m - Coldness

“Kid”

10 f - Invisibility

Mercy

18 f - Poison

Edrick

22 m - Amplified hearing

Tide Wellport

17 m - Wind manipulation

ACT 1

Prologue

“Everyone wants to save the world.”

She looks up from her cup of broth, startled by the man’s words, a drop slowly crawling down her chin. “Sorry?”

“It’s the natural human hunger we all share. We feel a sense of … significance in the world,” the man with the pointy grey eyebrows and dimpled russet face goes on. “We grow up feeling like our lives are going to amount to a great and wonderful thing … that we will accomplish the impossible and … save the world.”

She listens to his words guardedly, dabbing a finger in the broth to give it a stir. The gritty, slum-grade flavor spices from which it’s made are already separating, which annoys her greatly.

“The truth is,” the man drones, “most of us will amount to very little. And it’s important to know that. And it’s important to be okay with that sad, sobering fact. Some of us are destined to be small. We are not, all of us, a King or a Queen or a—”

“Outlier,” she murmurs.

He flinches at her word. “I was going to say Lifted Citizen, but sure, your vulgar word makes the point just as well.”

She lifts her face from the cup of broth and observes the room. Her eyes scan the plain chrome chairs and beige sofas that make up the social lounge in which everyone is allowed to mingle (within the allotted hours, of course), the big clock on the wall (which she has always suspected since her first day here does not tell the proper time, as it seems to make the hours go by faster than they ought to), and a broadcast hanging upon the wall that looks so well-kept, it’s a wonder such a device can be found in the slums. In fact, she’s even doubted if she’s in the slums at all. Maybe she was lied to.

She wouldn’t mind if most of the things she was told were lies. The people here have treated her kinder than the ones in Guardian did, who kept interrogating her about Rain, about bombs, and about that boy with the cold hands. I miss him, she realizes. He could see past my sex. He had no hunger for me, whether with or without my Legacy. He was much like the boy who could sleep. But they’re all gone now. They’re not a part of her life here; no one is.

“Cintha Two,” calls a sweet voice.

She turns her head, spotting the woman with the long cream cloak and the piercing red eyes standing by the doorway.

The man pats her hand and wiggles his pointy grey eyebrows. “Good luck.”

Cintha smirks, setting her cup of broth on the table between them and pushing it gently toward the man. “You can have the rest. I’ve had my fill and I know today’s your favorite flavor.”

His face warms. “The world’s full of big people and little people. You are one of the big, my dear. You will accomplish great things.”

I wouldn’t count on it. But instead of voicing her doubts, she rises from her chair and leans into his ear to say, “I’ll owe it to you, Kirin,” before departing the room with the cream-cloaked woman.

Once she is seated on the table in the observation room, the woman flicks on the machines and slides a clipboard off the counter and onto her arm. “How are you feeling today, Cintha?”

“Fine.” Cintha smiles minutely. “No bellyache.”

“And the fogginess in your mind?”

“Less than yesterday.”

The woman nods curtly. “Good.”

No one is interested in Cintha’s Legacy of sexually arousing others, not until now. The people here make her feel useful to the world. She didn’t have this much purpose in Rain. She was always in the way of her brother Rone’s latest mission, or Arrow’s charms and gadgets and electronic machinations, or Gandra’s great vision.

Here, Cintha is the great vision.

“Today is a big day for you,” the woman says brightly, her red eyes like two needles of blood. “We have the results of your chemical preliminary.”

The word “chemical” had such a different connotation to her back at the Noodle Shop when her brother Rone would guzzle it all day and night. I miss my brother. Not the chemical.

“Are you interested in the results?” asks the woman.

“Yes,” murmurs Cintha.

The woman gives the clipboard a gentle tap. “According to your testing, you … are eligible for all three levels of treatment.”

Deep relief floods Cintha’s heart at those words. She had never thought it was possible. She even still thinks it may just be a fantasy, another sweet lie told by the men and women who run this facility. But this is a lie she most desperately hopes is true.

When she was six, she knew she could pull boys with her mind. That was how she described her Legacy—her unique power. When she focused her muddy brown eyes on a boy, she felt as if she could pull him toward her. It was amusing to her, considering she’d always seen herself as ugly, and no boys or girls wanted to play with her. She tried it on her brother Rone most of all, who described it as a tickling in his chest that made him both want to laugh and cry at the same time. Nevertheless, the influence was clear: Cintha had some sort of power over boys.

It wasn’t until she turned eleven that she realized the sobering reality of her Legacy. Four months into the eleventh year of her life, her Legacy experienced what the sages call a “bloom”, its power surging to an unprecedented height. It was in that year, in the center of her classroom filled with boys, that her bloom forever changed the way she would ever look at a male. It was that day that her faith in all people, in all men, in all notions of love or trust or beauty would forevermore break.

“You’re quite certain that Legacy elimination is your choice?”

Cintha brings her gaze up to meet the red eyes of the woman. She, too, is a victim of an unfortunate Legacy. Her eyes used to only turn red when she was excited, angry, or sometimes when she grew physically tired. Around age twenty, the ability began to take an assertiveness of its own, and soon, the redness was there by default, and it would take the greatest effort imaginable for her to will away the red and reveal her true eye color—which Cintha still does not know. And this woman chose to keep her Legacy. She did not choose to eliminate it with the grueling three-level treatment. Am I making a big mistake? What would Rone do?

“Cintha?”

She takes a short breath. “Yes,” she finally answers in a voice so small, it hardly touches the ears. “El … Elimination.”

“You understand the risks?”

“Yes.”

The woman hugs her clipboard and smiles. “You are a brave young woman, Cintha Two.”

Cintha lifts her chin and returns the smile with a tiny one of her own. “I think Ruena Netheris is brave,” she replies quietly. “I look forward to watching the coronation on the broadcast. Just two weeks away, isn’t it? She is going to make a remarkable Queen.”

“The Queenship is kind,” recites the woman, her eyes beaming. “The Queenship is good.”

Hopefully, thinks Cintha.

0138  Sedge

The Queen is dead.

That’s what they say.

Ruena Netheris, my friend that I loved and betrayed, my model, my idol … she is gone. The world is lonely. The world is empty.

Her Queendom—a flash of lightning, then gone just as quickly.

Children first learn about “the good guys” and “the bad guys” when they’re told their first stories of heroes and legends. Everyone identifies as the good guy, and everyone despises the bad guy—no matter the reason for his or her villainy.

I’m a good person, every child tells themselves without any hesitation. They’re quick to brand themselves the heroes long before they question any morally-ambiguous act it may take to vanquish the horrible evil. It isn’t until one special moment in a child’s life that they learn that “good” and “bad” is simply a matter of perspective. It isn’t until a child grows to a certain age—and does one certain thing that they cannot undo—that they learn the coldest lesson no school will dare teach them.

That they, in fact, can be the bad guy.

Sedge stares across the plaza of broken glass at the woman who floats over the edge of the Lifted City where the Lord’s Garden used to be. It’s by the very powerful telekinetic Legacy of one of Impis’s Posse that the woman floats. She struggles and wrestles in the air, as if caught in some enormous, invisible spider’s web—and nothing can free her. The man called Yoli stands poised at the ledge with his arms at his sides and eyebrows furrowed, as if he was just glaring at her with the pouty conviction of a child about to throw a tantrum.

That’s one tantrum Sedge wishes very much not to be caught in front of. He’s seen many people hovering over the ledge, the cold slums waiting so far below. Many people who hovered by Yoli’s incredible telekinetic Legacy. Many people who begged for Yoli not to look away, to keep glaring at them until he pulled them back to safer ground … but Sedge knows better. They never come back.

“The sun is on the rise,” complains the skinny, scaly-armored, self-important idiot named Dregor who Sedge can’t stand. “Another day without the Almost-Queen.”

“Another day without the Almost-Queen,” agrees Umi, the large, curly-haired woman by his side with huge, half-lidded eyes and a tiny mouth. “I say we drop the slum fool.”

“Drop her and listen to her bones crunch.”

“Listen to her brains splat on the pavement of the ninth ward.”

“Isn’t it the tenth below?”

Umi smirks back at him. “You can tell the difference? Ninth is as dirty as tenth, as dirty as eleventh, as dirty as eighth, seventh, sixth—the whole lot of them. I doubt they even distinguish between themselves down there. The whole city’s broken.”

“I don’t care for it,” Dregor mutters back. “I wouldn’t mind if I never stepped foot down there again.”

“I doubt it would mind either.”

Dregor bristles at her cold words, then steps right up to the edge of the road, peering down with a wrinkled face. “Greedy,” he mutters in disgust. “And foolish.” Then, with sudden conviction, he grips the makeshift railing and yells out, “If you turn her over, the rain of blood and bones will END, fools! Quit your hiding! Turn over Ruena Almont-Sunsong Netheris to us and the death will end!”

“Quiet your mouth,” drones Umi. “I doubt they can even hear you.”

The scaly-skinned man squints down at the slums with dislike, then turns away. “I’m tired of the spectacle anyhow. Let her drop.”

When he passes by Sedge, his eyes narrow, as if the very sight of him is annoying. Then the moment’s passed, and it’s just Sedge and the big curly-haired Umi, who appears significantly calmer now that the scaly man has sauntered off.

“You know,” she murmurs, quiet and weary, “I do feel sorry for them. Each and every one of them we sacrifice. I mean, what could they have done with their lives, had we let them live?”

What have we done with ours? is what Sedge might reply, but doesn’t, turning his eyes back to the floating sacrifice who, in this moment, chooses to make eye contact with him. He fights an instinct to look away, instead keeping his little eyes locked upon hers. She pleads silently with him, even going as far as to reach out, despite being a hundred feet or more away. The poor woman hardly has any voice left; she’s screamed it all out of her withered throat.

“Yoli,” mutters Umi, defeated. “The day’s done.”

At once, Yoli turns his eyes away, as if he’s just lost all interest in the thing he was only a second ago furiously concentrated upon. The moment the eye contact is broken, the woman releases from midair with a hoarse, wimpy shriek, falling out of sight as she drops to the slums far, far below. Her broken, raspy cry echoes off the buildings like a score of bats screeching in the streets.

The sound doesn’t last long.

Sedge sits in the Great Hall of Cloud Keep, curled at the farthest table as he watches the others eat and banter and laugh amongst themselves. Half the structure of the Great Hall collapsed during the disruption of Ruena’s coronation over two months ago, allowing the sunrise to spill in through the fractured ceiling and split-open walls. Sedge lets the furious sun blind him, too drained by emotions to care. “Have a bowl of mint soup,” offers Nightly, a woman with hair and nails that glow in the dark. Yes, it’s due to her Legacy; Sedge asked when they first met. But to Nightly’s kind offer, Sedge merely shakes his head and declines on account of a turning belly, which is no lie.

But that doesn’t spare him the company he’s granted later when he’s pulled into another search—or hunt, more accurately—through the streets of the Lifted City with dumb-idiot-one and dumber-idiot-two, who seem far more interested in crude conversation than in finding any hiding Lifted citizen or missing Almost-Queen.

“The fact is, he owns the world now.”

“Aye, but what’s he to do with it now that he’s got it?” grunts dumb-idiot-one, the hugely muscled Baigan whose skin is sunburnt red at all times and whose ugly, scarred face is always scrunched up, as if thinking is an excruciatingly difficult task for him.

Tall, olive-skinned, and dressed in an assortment of mismatched clothing, dumb-idiot-two (named Splinters) says, “You actually think someone like the Mad King has a plan?”

“His plan is madness,” returns Baigan with a laughing snarl. He makes a run of his whole arm across his face, wiping away some foul thing Sedge can’t see—a strand of hair or a buzzing bug or a glob of snot, he’ll never know—and then adds, “He does whatever pleases him. He entertains himself. He laughs at the filthy world below as we sit upon its summit, party, and shit on the slum-fucks below.”

These routine hunts for Lifted citizens—who are foolishly hiding in their homes hoping to wait out the Madness—make Sedge wonder how life would be like if he was among those in hiding. All of the ones who haven’t already been captured or killed fled to the slums. The slums will not be kind to them, Sedge knows. It is like a flock of pretty geese fleeing the fire only to land in a den of wolves.

“Careful where you aim your shit,” replies Splinters. “My slum-fuck family’s down there someplace.” The two of them laugh.

Sedge rolls his eyes, tired of the vulgarity and the juvenileness of his company as of late. Really, where has all the class and dignity and character of the Lifted City gone? It died when a sword came through the Banshee King Greymyn’s chest. It died when Janlord was knifed thrice in his gut, then beheaded an hour later when he attempted to rise from the stage of that Crystal Court. I still wonder how things might be different, had I let him have a go at Impis.

He curses himself for the errant thought. No thoughts are secret, not when Impis has his reader and writer twins among his Posse. Arcana and Axel, the twin sisters who can read and write upon the minds of others—“reader” and “writer”, Impis lazily calls them instead of by their true names. Sedge must be careful what he thinks at all times; there’s no telling when the sisters might be present, listening with their hidden Legacy ears.

“If you’d have me think of a theory or two,” mutters Splinters, his voice turning light, “I’d suspect Ambera’s sudden, innocent death however many years ago was not, in fact, innocent or sudden at all. I suspect it was planned.”

“Planned? You paranoid fool. Royal Legacist Ambera suffered the stony throat—the same damned illness that befell a Marshal or two before her, and near a quarter of the Council of Elders.”

“She was murdered,” insists Splinters. “It was Impis. I just know it, now that I’ve seen him cut through the heart of a King. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. He killed her way back then, pretty Ambera with the lavender eyes, and took her position as Marshal of Legacy.”

“Seems too calculated. No. Impis acts on whims. He chases the winds as they blow. You act as if he’s the one doing the blowing.”

“Aye, you’d sure as fuck hope so. You wish he were doing the blowing of your cock, don’t you.”

Baigan sends a fist into his arm so hard and fast, a discharge of five finger-shaped darts fly from Splinters’ hands—an accidental use of his Legacy, which happens when he suffers a sudden fright. Splinters takes to rubbing his beaten arm, scowling at his friend.

“Are you,” growls the burnt, muscled abomination, “implying that I, Baigan, want the Mad King’s mouth on my dick? Have you any fucking respect for our god?”

“Our god?” Splinters laughs, the pain of his arm forgotten. “He is no god. He is a crazy man who got lucky, and we’ve been invited to his end-of-world party, the whole lucky lot of us.”

It’s in this moment that Baigan turns his still-furious face to look at the likes of Sedge, as if just now realizing that he has been with them this whole time. “And you?”

Sedge’s little eyes meet the thick red man’s own. “Me?”

“Do you think the Mad King’s a god?”

Sedge works it over in his mind. He knows precisely what he thought of the Marshal of Madness the first time he saw him. Weird, like me. Strange, like me. An outcast, like me. Made fun of, like me. Ridiculed, like me. Beautiful …

Beautiful, like me. “I think he has a plan,” Sedge answers.

The two men study little eleven-year-old Sedge, dubious.

“A plan,” Sedge insists, gaining confidence. “Impis Lockfyre has a plan.” He dignifies the Mad King with his full name. “His Legacy may be in invoking a … a frenzy of madness among those who witness that … that twitching left eye of his. But I know … I’ve seen … I’ve felt his very authority.” Sedge finds himself choked up with inspiration, admiration … some sort of powerful devotion he can’t quite name. “He will save our world and rid it of every last person who laughs at him instead of with him. A person who laughs at him is laughing at me too. And you,” Sedge adds, squinting at Baigan, then turning to Splinters. “And you.”

The two men seem to regard Sedge like a joke for which they are patiently awaiting the punch line. They listen to his words and wait for him to finish, their amused faces left hanging, ready to laugh, ready to cut him down. Have they already forgotten that, had it not been for me, they’d still be in a cell of the King’s Keeping and Ruena would be sitting upon the Throne of Atlas scheduling their executions?

Splinters gives a short, dry chuckle, then turns away, continuing his trek down the road. Baigan soon follows, though his amusement seems to darken, any semblance of a laugh swallowed up in that thick reddened neck of his.

Sedge stares at their backs. “He has a plan,” he insists yet again, though his voice has lost its vigor. “He has a … a …”

But no one’s left to listen to his words. Maybe it’s a good thing, since he’s so heavy with emotion this particular morning. He leaves them to continue their hunt, instead strolling miserably through the streets alone. Images of Ambera’s lavender eyes chase him, though the only thing he can picture now is her staring lifelessly at nothing with Impis standing over her cold, dead body holding a bloody sword. No, he decides. They would have discovered him, the King or the Marshals, or the Sky Guard. He could not have done that and gotten away with it, surely. The Kingship is kind. The Kingship is …

But before he finishes the words, he finds himself standing upon the ruined stage of the Crystal Court with no idea how his feet took him here. It’s not so crystalline anymore since the majority of its glass pillars and glorious walls were shattered during Impis’s invasion, which he had a significant hand in orchestrating. I’m surrounded by my own consequences, every day. Dumb Splinters and dumber Baigan, their very existence is my fault too.

The world is unkind. The world is ungood.

And all the lives, one each day, who are lifted by Yoli’s eyes, then dropped to the slums below … their blood is on him, too. Each day, a life. Each day, a death. My fault, my fault, my fault.

And hers …

To the audience full of no one, Sedge leans over the broken podium and says, “Why won’t you simply come forth? Ruena, you could end all of this. Don’t you see how selfish you’re being??” Sedge snorts at his own words, growing furious suddenly. “Every day you spend defying the Marshal of Madness, another innocent soul goes falling to the slums below. Every day you spend—”

Suddenly he catches himself. He is no Marshal of Madness anymore. Impis is the self-proclaimed new King of the Last City of Atlas. King Impis, the Mad King, who didn’t even protest when the unofficial title surfaced. He made no effort to dignify himself with a better one; in fact, he downright embraced it. “Yes, Mad King Impis, yes, yes,” he sang in his high-pitched, twisty voice, laughter dancing around in his throat and never quite coming out. “It is ever so right!”

But Sedge did not count on Impis’s very first mission for the lot of them to be the capturing of Ruena—or rather, for the lot of all that remained of Impis’s Posse, the Twenty-Two, which since dwindled to a mere Seventeen after some unfortunate incidents left a number of them missing or brutally murdered after one of Impis’s manic episodes that sent all of them into a thoughtless frenzy—all of them but Sedge, who could melt his body and render himself unaffected.

Just that thought makes his arms shapeless as wet clay, pouring over the podium lazily as his chin rests upon its jagged surface. Even his chin shapeshifts itself accordingly with his mood. He feels so sour all of a sudden, angry at Ruena, his former friend, his former Queen, his former everything. If you’d just show up, Impis wouldn’t have to kill an innocent person a day. If you’d just reveal yourself …

Sedge’s mind takes a turn. And if you were here … I’d … be less afraid of Impis and his unpredictable behavior. If you were here, you’d tell me what to do, what to fear, what not to fear. If you were with me at my side, as you were supposed to be … then we could rule together.

We could have ruled together, if you were here.

“But you’re not,” he says aloud, stiffening up both by his literal shape and his posture. “You’re probably dead.”

The world is dead.

Impis was not convinced that she died that day, which is what so many people claimed. Sedge always admired how glorious Impis looked with all his madness, all that power teeming off of him. It’s in the way the others regard him too, doing his bidding, even if the bidding is strange and makes no sense. Sedge nearly drools upon the podium, thinking of Impis’s power. Oh, what I could do, what I could do with such sweet reverence …

This would all be so much more fun to enjoy with Ruena at his side. She’d get him to smile; she’d just offer him her silks to wear. Silks and shoes—that’s all it took. He scowls again, but the emotion seems to betray him. I miss her, he realizes with a pang of doubt.

And if he miraculously was the one to find her, would he really hand her over to Mad King Impis? Could I really betray her twice …?

The sound of a foot scuffling draws his attention.

At the other end of the stage he spots Arcana—“reader”—a woman with a tightly-pulled ponytail of shiny, perfectly straight hair running down the whole length of her slender body. Her enormous hazel eyes are locked on Sedge, flashing and beautiful against her dark, velvety complexion.

But he cannot admire her beauty, stricken by fear as he is. Arcana’s Legacy is in reading minds. She knows what I just thought, he realizes with terror. She heard everything. She’s hearing every …

And as quick as he thinks it, she turns, disappearing down the side steps of the stage and out of the Crystal Court. She was without her twin sister today, the one who controls and manipulates minds. The pair of them are deadly, he knows.

But it just takes the one to rob Sedge of all his peace, of all his mental privacy, of all his security. She heard my doubts …

“She wouldn’t do anything,” he decides defiantly, straightening his spine. “She wouldn’t dare. I’m Impis’s Special. I’m the King’s only Marshal.” Unofficially, but still. No one’s protested; they owe Sedge their freedom, don’t they?

Don’t they …?

He looks up from the wreckage of the Crystal Court, lifting his anxious eyes up to the peak of Cloud Tower that punctures the sky nearby. He has a plan, Sedge keeps telling himself. Impis the Great will make me see that it was not a mistake, that what I did to Ruena was for the best, that the world will learn its flaws. He will make every person peer within themselves and see the ugly sides of them that mock people like Impis, that mock people like me, that disregard anything and anyone who isn’t precisely, exactly, perfectly like themselves.

Only twenty minutes later, Sedge has become a sludgy mess of flesh that slithers up the staggering height of Cloud Tower. When a door requires access, he creates only his hand from the blob that is Sedge’s shapeshifted form and allows himself through. He’s been given top clearance by Impis, all the way to the throne room itself. But when he gets there, he finds it empty. The glass ceiling is so high that it’s gone, and when he turns back into a boy, he looks up at it and sees two figures at the top. Oh, but of course.

He has no idea how Impis manages to get to the very top of Cloud Tower, but he knows how he will: by shifting into a sticky blob and pulling himself up the tall, tall, tall glass walls of the throne room. The effort makes him feel like he’s scaling the height of Cloud Tower all over again.

Sedge squeezes himself through a vent of sorts and, before he’s expecting to, his shape pops out onto the glass roof of Cloud Tower, gathered up against the vent so that he cannot be seen.

He only forms his eyes, and those eyes are not disappointed.

Impis Lockfyre stands at the brink of the tower, and his vibrant silks blow in the wind, swaying behind him in shades of emerald, of ruby, of passion blue, of rippling violet, of star shine and yellow. His face is powdered white, and his wild locks of hair—his ponytails and braids and spikes and tufts and twists and curls of lush, chaotic hair— dance in the breeze. He’s dyed his hair as white as his face, but for the tips which look dipped in blood, the same color of which dresses his lips crimson and lines his eyes as he squints into the distance.

He is a beautiful, beautiful mad god.

The world is mad beauty …

Then there is the young man at his side named Chaos, a skinny, short man who is naked except for a gadget he wears over his head that has a lens coming down over his left eye. The man’s hair, short and black, has red at the tips, like Impis’s.

The sight of the young man annoys Sedge.

“THERE!” cries out Impis suddenly, pointing with vigor. “Yes, yes, yes. THERE!”

The young man Chaos looks in the direction Impis points. He leans forward, which causes Sedge’s imaginary heart to race, as there are no railings up here at the highest point in all of Atlas—one wrong misstep can send a person falling hundreds of feet to their death. Chaos throws his hands into the air as if meaning to reach for something on a high shelf. Sedge nearly mistakes it for a stretch.

Then the clouds above them fill with red light and the air starts to race laps around the tower, becoming a great funnel of fire.

Impis cackles suddenly, throwing his own hands into the air as if to imitate Chaos, delighted and full of glee.

“DO IT!” he screams, overjoyed. “Do it, do it, do it, do it, DO IT!”

And then the young man throws his hands down so fast, Sedge doesn’t see it, and at once, the world explodes. A crack like lightning, but more fiery and boiling, breaks through the air as the Finger Of Madness is cast down into the dark slums somewhere. The crackling sound of pure, blazing energy begins to turn into a scream as the bolt intensifies. Chaos keeps his posture perfectly rigid, his hands balled into fists and his head lurched forward, directing his full attention to the Finger’s path.

At once, the red light is gone, and the young man steps away from the brink of the tower, reeling for a moment. The bolt is tiring, Sedge observes, watching him.

Impis, even standing right at the edge of the roof, jumps up and down without a care, giddy as a four-year-old on the morning of his birthday. He jumps and jumps and jumps, then claps feverishly and shrieks out with delight. “YES!! Yes, yes, yes!” He giggles and spins around in circles. “Power, Goddess-given. Yes, yes, yes! YES!”

Chaos has seated himself, breathing heavily as he recovers, his little red-tipped spikes bouncing with his every intake of breath.

Sedge feels a pang of pity for him, for his mind is not completely his own. Much like the fabled Weapon of Sanctum that got away, the young man’s mind has been touched by Axel, the mind controller, twin sister to Arcana. An idea was planted into his brain by Axel that he is unbearably warm at every hour of the day—humid, sweaty, hot—and the one and only way that he can cool off is to stand atop this tower with Impis Lockfyre at his side and purge himself of all his pent-up heat in the form of his fiery, bolt-casting Legacy. Poor Chaos can’t bear to even put on underwear, thinking himself to be so warm all the time that he can’t stand a scrap of clothing. Even minutes after casting his Red Light, it is already apparent on his agonized face that he’s insufferably hot again and desperately needs to release another Finger Of Madness. His body is covered in a sheen of dripping sweat that makes his every muscle glow, wet and shiny.

But only Impis decides when he casts it, and where. “Beautiful,” murmurs Impis when he finally calms down from his mad laughter, grinning ear to ear. He stares ahead into the unknown, as if trying to peer over the Wall that stands so far, far away. At this height, they very well may be higher up than the Wall, but it is so distant that nothing can be seen. I’ve always wondered what Oblivion looks like, Sedge muses. I imagine it looks much like the inside of Impis’s mind.

The world changes again and again, and now it is Oblivion.

Out of nowhere, Arcana appears, which startles Sedge even in his shapeless, hidden form. The woman’s long straight ponytail is tossed by the breeze up here as she walks up to Impis, her heels tapping along the glass surface. “King,” she murmurs.

“Reader!” he exclaims giddily. “I summoned you for a most, most, most important task! It is a task of hunting, yes! Yes, yes, yes.”

Arcana gives a curt nod. “We still have Chaots in both the Lifted and Lower Cities searching for Ruena Nether—”

“No, no, no.” Impis shakes his head irritably, then says, “A new hunting task. My list of Nine. You know it? My Legacy list, yes?”

Arcana gives another curt nod. “I do. Your list of Nine from the recent Legacy Tour.”

“I want each and every name on that list gathered. I was not able to finish gathering the chosen Nine from my most recent Legacy Tour, see, because dear sweet Ruena interrupted me.” He hisses at the air, as if seeing a hallucination of Ruena before him. “I must finish collecting those boys and girls. They must be brought here safely so that I may do what I wish with them. Your sister can help convince them of … of …” He swallows, stares at the sky for a moment as if the words might drop down onto his forehead. “Of how FUN I am!” he decides, nearly screaming the word “fun”.

Arcana doesn’t smile at all, but her eyes seem to as they squint with understanding. “I will collect your list and finish the gathering that our Fell Queen interrupted.” With that, she turns away and strolls back to where she came from.

But on the way, her eyes drift to the area where Sedge hides. And just before she vanishes through the portal that must be there—a portal that someone else among Impis’s Chaots created—she gives Sedge a knowing smirk and lift of an eyebrow, as if to tell him how very not invisible he’ll ever be to her. Just that one look chills him to his amorphous, nonexistent bones.

And then she’s gone in the next instant.

“Today is a good day,” Impis announces to Chaos, who breathes deeply, sweaty, mouth open, his blank eyes exhausted from thinking of any way he can possibly cool himself off more.

Suddenly Impis flinches, his eyes half-closed as if to shield himself from something bright. He takes two steps forward—so close to the edge that just a tiny push could send him to his death.

“Nothing,” he whispers to no one. “There’s … There’s nothing in my pocket at all. N-Nothing … N-Nothing is important to me. No … No, no, no. Nothing at all. Except for one thing …” And then a smile breaks his face, which slowly grows into the biggest, widest grin Sedge has ever seen. “YES!” screams Impis, cackling into the sky, and for a moment, Sedge imagines him as the new Banshee whose screams used to blanket the world below, filling the people with fear and obedience.

And it’s somewhere in that cloud of screaming and laughter that Sedge realizes he will never see his friend again. She’s never coming back, he tells himself with a start. Ruena Netheris, my friend, my everything, my girl of silks, my jewels, my fellow weirdo …

She can still be alive. Sedge knows this. No one saw her die, not truly. She might be biding her time. She might decide one day to let the dying end and do the noble, sacrificial thing.

Or will she?

Why would she come back? Sedge asks himself. Why would she put herself in such a position to be slaughtered by the Mad King and his madder Posse? Sedge is the reason that that sad, poor hovering woman splattered on the pavement of the slums below earlier today, as well as the dozens before her who hovered similarly over the edge of the Lifted City—dozens of innocent lives, skyborn and slumborn, ended. Sedge is the reason that the last Banshee, Greymyn, was assassinated and replaced with a new, laughing one. Sedge is the reason Ruena, his best and only friend, ran away. And who truly knows if she survived? Maybe her death is his fault too.

Sedge put King Impis upon that throne. Sedge brought King Impis to the summit of this very tower. Sedge started all of this. It was all Sedge. He is the reason. He is the force. He is the power.

I am the Madness …

0139  Wick

The Warden of the sixth had a wife named Tess, and with her Legacy, she could summon the rain. It was on a cold grey afternoon five years ago that a botched Guardian raid of a local market ended with her death. Whenever it rains, he thinks of her.

Five years ago, five days ago, five minutes ago, it hurts the same.

Those thoughts follow Wick as he, at last, discovers Athan in the armory, but only after spending an hour checking every room on the ninth floor of the Warden’s tower where the rest of Rain stay. The armory is on the sixth floor where they don’t belong.

“Athan?”

The Lifted boy lifts his gaze slowly from a steel-plated gauntlet he holds. His soft eyes find Wick’s from across the shiny armor-filled room. Athan is wearing Wick’s red sleeveless hoodie, which fits quite tightly on his muscular frame—almost comically so—and jeans that hang loose on his hips. His golden hair is flipped up lazily in the front, messy everywhere else. The trace of a smile touches his full, plush lips. “Hey, Wicky-poo.”

Wick scoffs. “Don’t you start that, now.”

Athan grins, then returns his attention to the gauntlet. “Doesn’t this look like the color of the Sky Guard?”

Wick brings himself to Athan’s side, inhaling deeply when his nose touches Athan’s neck. Even months later, I can smell the clean freshness of the Lifted life on your skin. He slips his arms around the boy’s thick waist, pulling him back against his body. “Mmm, yes, like a blue-grey. Color of your eyes.”

“More like … a polished cyan. A silvery cyan …”

Call it whatever color you want, Lifted boy. “I’ve been looking around for you all morning.”

Athan leans his head back slightly, resting it on Wick’s chest. “Can’t sleep?”

Not with the nightmares. “Everyone’s being loud upstairs,” Wick says instead. “Victra’s kicking back at the meeting table with Juston, cracking joke after joke. I think the two of them are getting sweet on each other.”

“No, no. That’s Victra and Arrow, I heard.”

“Arrow? No way. I’d sooner believe that she was getting it on with my damn brother than Arrow. He’s too in love with his gadgets and charms to pay mind to a girl, let alone one as wild as Victra.” Wick shrugs away the banter. “You smell great. I’ve missed you.”

“Do you think it’s possible some Sky Guard fled here after the Fall of Sanctum?” he asks, lifting the gauntlet to his eyes to examine it up-close.

“Maybe.” Wick runs a hand lazily down Athan’s arm, his fingers bumping along the shape of his biceps. “You’re warm.”

Athan compares the gauntlet to his own hand, then slips it on. It fits perfectly. He gives the fingers a wiggle, then turns around, facing Wick excitedly. “It’s as lightweight as cloth.”

“Sanctum tech,” Wick guesses with a lighthearted shrug.

Suddenly, Athan slips out of Wick’s arms and heads over to a breastplate his bright, curious eyes have caught. Pulling it off the rack upon which it hangs, he slips it quickly over his neck, then looks down at his chest, observing it. He faces Wick, running his hands—one bare and one gauntleted—across the shiny surface of his polished breastplate. “I feel like a Sky Guard.”

Wick leans against the rack, observing Athan. I’ll never get used to his beauty. He admires the fullness of Athan’s chest and big arms, accented by the bold, proud armor. Wick’s pants are already growing tight with the evidence of something else’s approval between his legs. “And if you had wings, you’d be an angel. A warrior angel, sent from the Sisters to work their vengeance upon the world.”

Athan’s chest puffs up at that comment, the muscles in his arms flexed deliciously in the effort. Wick notices. “Is that so?”

“You’re really fucking sexy, armored up like that.”

The bluntness is what, at last, seems to catch Athan’s attention. He looks up, his grey-blue eyes startled, and then he smiles slyly. He twists his torso a bit, feigning wanting to admire himself in the gear, but succeeds more in showing off his shapely butt and tapering of his thick, muscled torso to his slender waist and dimpled hips.

Wick can’t help himself, hard as a rock at the sight. He slowly closes the distance between them, hunger in his eyes and drumming in his chest. “Breastplate … gauntlet … my jacket on underneath …” He comes to a stop in front of Athan, then combs his fingers gently through his Lifted boy’s short, messy hair. “What are you arming up for? The end of the world?”

“The way you’re looking at me …” murmurs Athan warningly.

Wick puts a kiss on Athan’s cute left ear. Then he draws a few more across his jawline, kissing along the way, then puts a firmer kiss on Athan’s neck, right at that place he knows drives him insane. “Is it taunting you?” Wick asks under his breath.

Instead of answering, Athan turns, grabs Wick by the ears, and pulls him in for a mouth-crushing kiss. The boys are out of breath faster than their lips and twisting tongues can keep up. Wick pushes his boy’s chest, the fever taking him as he shoves Athan against the rack, inspiring a whole chorus of metallic protests and tinny clangs. Wick’s hands fly to the buttons of Athan’s jeans, releasing him in a matter of seconds. Athan moans against Wick’s face when a hand slips inside his pants and grabs hold of his cock.

“Hard as the steel armor you wear,” observes Wick, lifting his mouth to Athan’s ear and giving it a gentle bite.

“You’re … making me … insane,” Athan manages to get out.

“I want to put it in my mouth.”

“Wick …”

“It’s been too fucking long.” The fingers of Wick’s free hand dig deep into the meaty muscles of Athan’s back, which inspires his cock to flex in Wick’s grip. “I want to take care of you, baby.”

Athan’s voice comes out in long, wispy breaths. “Fuck, Wick … Wick …”

Wick can’t wait a moment longer. Pinning him to the wall, he begins to kiss down Athan’s face, taking a second to bury his nose in his tender neck. Then he continues kissing down the armor, planting three along Athan’s stomach and abs as he goes. Crouching down now, Wick leaves one hand pressed to his boy’s breastplate—which Athan clutches—and drinks in the sight of Athan’s throbbing, fully attentive cock. It is so hard, it nearly points upward with expectant yearning, begging for the attention Wick is about to give it.

“Please … please …”

Wick chuckles. Begging? With excruciating slowness, Wick lets his lips wrap around just the head of Athan’s cock, letting him inside slowly. The second Wick’s tongue greets it, Athan responds with a shudder and a groan of anguished pleasure. I’ll go slow, Wick decides cruelly, because it drives him the craziest.

And slowly he goes. He keeps his full attention on just the tip, working him up so gradually that he feels every muscle in Athan’s legs tensing up. He’s extra sensitive because he hasn’t had any relief in quite a while. This is going to be especially tormenting for him. Wick lets in just another inch of Athan into his mouth, driving him crazy. Athan moans accordingly, reaching a hand down to tangle it in his slum boy’s hair.

Truth be told, beneath the furious fever of the moment, there is another story unfolding in Wick’s cluttered brain: the one about a Lifted boy who is still processing the loss of his entire family. Athan insists he’s fine far too many times, but is caught staring at walls or busying himself with chores he isn’t asked to do—even chores that have already been done. Once after a meal Lionis cooked for the whole group, Athan cleaned the scullery from ceiling to drain, from sink to window, from steamer to doorframe. Four hours later, he was found still cleaning, his fingers red from the effort.

Right now is all about Athan, and I’m going to take care of him—mind, body, and heart. Something isn’t right in that head of his, and I won’t leave him be until I help him through his.

But is there any helping through such a tragedy? Wick’s family may be pulled apart at every seam possible, but Athan’s family is dead. Gone, forever. How can Wick ever fathom that level of loss? Is he foolish to think he’ll ever fill that void in Athan’s heart?

“Don’t stop …” begs Athan from above. “Oh … oh …”

Wick didn’t realize he’d gotten lost in his own head. He plays it off as an intended act of torturing his boy, slowly working Athan’s cock with his twisting lips, letting him in only a tiny bit at a time.

He glances up to find Athan staring down at him with a look of drunken bliss in his half-lidded blue eyes. He almost looks in pain, for all the sensitive pleasure he must be feeling.

Inspired by the look on his face, Wick swallows all of Athan’s cock, picking up speed and working him to the edge. Athan gasps, taken by the change of pace, and throws his head back, groaning.

But Wick can’t stop thinking. It’s not just his family Athan lost. Gone is the comfort of the Lifted City, which Athan lived in his whole life. Gone are the great big house and the mirror pool and the flowing silks and the lavish bed he never slept in since he was two. Gone are the daily trips to the Eastly gym and his frequent tossing of a lucky gold coin over the Lifted City ledge. Gone are his strolls through the courtyards, the Glassen square, the Crystal Court, and the marketplaces on a bright afternoon when the totally unobscured sun beamed down upon his happy, carefree face.

Athan is mourning the loss of his own life, too.

“Fuck, Anwick, oh … oh, I’m close …”

Always close, never close enough. “Let go,” Wick says between having his mouth full of Athan Broadmore. “Let go.”

And at last, he does.

Shortly after the enormous, eruptive release, the boys settle onto the floor, wrapped up in each other’s arms. The breastplate and gauntlet remain on, but they’re so light that it isn’t uncomfortable pressing between them. Wick’s head rests mostly on Athan’s arm anyway, finding it a suitable pillow with Athan’s soft breaths falling on his forehead. It isn’t long before the heavy fingers of sleep start to pull upon Wick’s mind.

“Who do you think will put a sword through Imp’s belly?”

Wick flinches at the sudden sound of Athan’s voice, peeking open an eye. Imp—that’s what Athan calls the Mad King, as if they’re buddies in some warped dimension of his mind and carry nicknames for one another.

“I’m trying to sleep,” Wick groans woozily.

“Hey, you sure I can’t reciprocate somehow?” asks Athan. “You have to be hard as a rock down there,” he teases.

“Little Wick’s gone to sleep. That was all about you,” Wick adds with a sleepy smile. “And trust me, I enjoyed it just as well.”

“Clearly. You practically ate me up.” Wick laughs at that, his hand rubbing up and down Athan’s side, tickling along his exposed ribs as the sleepiness tries to reclaim him. “You’re so good to me.”

What else would I be? I wish I could be even more. I wish I could fix your heart and take away all the hurts, forever. “You make it so much easier to wake up,” Wick replies instead. “I used to hate when the dreaming ended. Now … it’s like it never ends.”

A peaceful silence passes between them after that. Wick smiles, satisfied, and lets himself drift away.

“Someone has to put a sword through his belly,” Athan says suddenly, resting his chin softly on Wick’s shoulder, his big arm squeezing Wick tightly against his muscled body. Wick stirs, pulled awake again. “Every Queen and King who’s taken the throne has had the justice set upon them. No one gets away with it, not ever. At least, not historically. That’s one of the last things my tutors taught me. Of course, the Slum Queen Atricia Sunsong couldn’t get away with what she’d done, nor the ones who overthrew her. It just takes a hero to get up and do the job, really.”

“Athan …”

“Then a new King or Queen will take Imp’s place—unless Ruena is found first. Oh, oh …! Maybe it’ll be her who does him in,” Athan posits, “and the Lifted City will be restored.”

He grimaces at Athan’s words. What does he think will happen if the Lifted City is restored? Does he think he’ll get his house back? Does he think life will somehow return to normal, as if his past two months in the slums have just been a temporary getaway? There’s no chance of going back, Athan, he’d tell him if he dared. No more a chance of that than of me ever again sharing dinner with all my four brothers and both my parents—in that quaint house in the ninth in which I grew up.

“Mmm,” Athan moans, squeezing Wick again like a big stuffed animal, nearly taking the wind out of him. “I can’t wait for it.”

Wick stares at the endless wash of silvery, polished armor on Athan’s chest. “You know … you don’t need to … armor yourself up. You’re safe with me. You’re safe no matter what.”

The stillness he gets for a response tells him he’s right in his hunch: Athan doesn’t feel safe. He’s ready at all times for some rogue in the night—some killer he’s never even seen—to come and take his life, too. He may never learn who murdered his family. He is literally armoring up, ready to defend his life against an unknown enemy. No amount of armor will make him feel safe, not truly.

“Remember your Legacy,” Wick whispers to him, running a hand up and down Athan’s arm slowly. “You’re safe, always.”

“You really believe that?” Athan snorts once. Wick can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a derisive snort, not having his face within eyesight. “My Legacy can’t be survival. That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me.”

“Or is it luck?” he goes on. “Is my Legacy that I’m just lucky? That makes even less sense, Wick. And what class of Legacy is that? Psychist? Elementalist? Sensor? All of them?”

“Mentalist, like me,” answers Wick automatically.

“No. Just mental,” responds Athan, borrowing a joke they once shared between each other long ago.

Wick smiles, but soon finds his smile deflating. “Maybe it’s as simple as you sensing danger. Maybe you can sense danger.”

“Can you sense anything?”

Wick chuckles, gives a shake of his head. “Alright, then. I’ll just keep focusing when I’m around you, and if I find myself suddenly capable of turning water into chemical, I’ll know it’s your Legacy.”

“And you’ll also be Rone’s best friend,” Athan teases.

But the joke falls flat, stabbing Wick in the chest like a poison dart with the memory of his best friend Rone who he hasn’t seen in over two months. Their last words to each other were harsh and horrible. He may not even be alive, Wick realizes. He could be—

“I’m sorry,” Athan says suddenly. “That was really insensitive.”

“No, no,” Wick says at once, realizing he had gone silent. He rises to put a quick kiss on Athan’s worried face, then offers a smile. “I’m fine, Athan. And I’m sure he is, too.”

“Me too,” Athan agrees too quickly.

Wick lays his head back down on Athan’s armored chest, staring off. He thinks about the argument between him and Rone. He thinks about the joy he felt when they reunited in the dark streets of the Lifted City at night. He thinks about the thrill he felt when they left Rain in the dark hours on their own quest to reclaim Athan. He thinks about …

He thinks about a time they shared on the rooftop of Tide’s apartment complex, a time that led to a little fun with Rone’s cock while they were under the influence of chemical. Wick feels a pang of guilt. He’d joked to himself at the time that Athan’s only reaction to Rone and his little rooftop tryst would be wanting to have had Rone shared with him, too. He’s not so sure Athan would take it as lightly anymore.

“Wick? You alright?”

Or maybe he would. “Months ago … before we made it to the Lifted City, Rone and I …” Wick squints, trying to gather his words. “Rone and I were hanging out on the roof of Tide’s old worn-down homing complex and … and we were sharing some chemical …”

“Did all your clothes come off?” Athan jumps in.

Wick chuckles nervously, then swallows. “Well … I’m not sure our clothes came off. But his pants did.”

“His pants?”

“And I sorta gave him a suck job. It wasn’t even … intended. I just sort of … It just sort of …”

“The chemical?”

“Maybe. Most likely. I … I just haven’t really thought to tell you about it because, well … it didn’t really mean anything. We were both high. We were both lost over our … respective loved ones. And I was staring up at the underbelly of the Lifted City, longing for you. And all that chemical was racing through my system …”

“Radley wanted to get me a pleasure boy,” mutters Athan.

Wick jerks his head up. “Really?”

“I didn’t go through with it. It was more of an … offhanded little offering, really. How’d he taste?”

Wick squints at him. Athan seems to be taking the news a touch too easily. Pleasure boy …? Wick’s heart quickens. “You mean Rone?”

Athan meets his eyes. “I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re so worried about. How can I possibly blame you, Anwick? You were in a state of mind. You thought you’d never see me again. Emotions can get really …” His eyes drift, the joy in his face vanishing. “Really complicated,” he finishes finally, almost to himself.

Wick sits up completely. Is Athan truly okay with what he’s been told, or is there something now that needs spilling from Athan’s mouth? “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his heart fluttering anxiously.

Athan shakes his head at once. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. Seriously. I’m not upset. I was … I was just …” Staring off, he licks his lips, distracted by a thought. “I was thinking you should find your family. Gather them back up. Bring them here where it’s safe.”

Wick lifts an eyebrow, his mind spun around. “My family?”

“I lost mine. Radley. Janna. My mother and father. I lost them all. You shouldn’t lose yours … all your brothers.” Athan bites his lip, his eyes finally returning to Wick’s. “Haven’t we lost enough?”

A knock at the door interrupts them followed by a muffled calling of both their names. The voice is Prat’s.

“We’re busy,” grunts Athan, then shoots Wick a teasing smile.

Prat’s tired voice replies, “Meeting at the round table. Lionis has made us a salad from leftover’s veg scramble. We’re discussing the situation in the seventh and a request from the Warden.”

“We’ll be there once we finish a discussion of ours,” Athan calls back. When Prat’s footsteps carry him away, Athan sighs, then gives a poke at Wick’s arm. “Hey, I can’t see your glow marks anymore.”

Wick nods distractedly. “Yeah. They’ve been gone for a week or so. All faded away, what little bit was there. I kinda miss them.”

Athan lifts his eyebrows. “So … about your family …”

“We’ll find them,” Wick answers softly just to placate Athan. But finding my family won’t replace yours. He kisses Athan to shut up his own mind. It works. The little kiss turns into a big one, and too soon the boys are wrestling right back out of their respective clothing and armor. The meeting will have to wait.

0140  Kid

Well, it was fun at first. Now, even the cat fears the cold boy.

He’s growing dark. Too dark. “The Rain Frog will die a cold and painful death today,” Kendil recites—a thing he’s annoyingly taken to stating every sunrise, even if no one’s around.

“I know he knew who I was,” Kendil went on one afternoon when they were sharing a plate of scrap bread and berries Kid stole for them from the bakery by the vineyard. The way he ate, with his long pale hands and his tall, bony shape and black-as-night messy hair, he looked like a strange creature. “The Rain Frog shivered when he saw me in the Pylon. I’ll freeze him in the space of a second.”

Once, Kid was in the middle of telling him about the man who stopped a train with one hand to save her life when Kendil cut her off, his black, beady eyes filled with dark dreams as he muttered, “I’ll watch as the Rain Frog’s eyes fill with frost. Have you ever seen a person freeze right in front of you? I have.”

Yes, your own mom. Kid knows the story already, how the Rain Frog—whose name is Obert Ranfog, she can now safely pronounce—invaded his home when he was just a child. He held his mother’s hand, sobbing, and she ordered him to freeze her. “That’s the only way I’ll be safe,” Kendil recited. “She said that. And she said that I’d be King someday. The Cold King … King of Eternal Winter.”

Kid had a similar experience. That’s why she first connected to the cold boy. Her mom told her she’d be right back, then never was. Her dad told her to hide, and she did, only to witness the storm of Mask Men rush in through the front door and murder her father before her eyes. They came back for her too, but she got away.

“Masked Men,” Kendil corrects her one evening. “Not Mask Men. They are not men made of masks, are they? They are Masked.”

Well, they sort of are made of masks. But Kid doesn’t argue the point. She just continues eating her stale lump of bread and smiles, ignoring the soreness in her jaw from chewing.

He’s been correcting a lot of her speech over the past few months. It’s a welcome thing, to talk more like a proper, adult girl. I’m probably fifteen years old by now, she decides. Of course, it’s a total exaggeration; she’s only ten. Or so she estimates.

But time has flown by ever since Sanctum fell into the hands of that crazy, colorful man upstairs. Days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into lives.

She’s seen so many lives end. I thought I was done with death.

She’s thinking about her mom again when they stop for a rest at a street corner in the tenth ward. They had circled through the space of three whole wards over the weeks, looping back now into the tenth. This is where her childhood began and ended, in a little house at the back of the tenth near the Wall. ‘I’ll be right back,’ her mother said before departing her life forever. Or maybe it was, ‘I shall be right back, sweetie.’ Or perhaps, ‘I’ll be back soon.’

Every time she recalls it, she hears her mother’s voice a little differently. Maybe she misheard her. Maybe the words were meant as a loving goodbye and Kid was simply too young and scared to understand. Dad, too. Did he know the fate he was about to meet at the hands of the Mask Men? The … Masked Men?

The older Kid gets, the stranger the voices sound.

Kendil’s memories don’t seem to change; they only fester, the same exact recollection of his crying mother, then his frozen mother, then the barging in of the Sky Guard and Obert Ranfog’s soothing voice as he coaxed Kendil away from his home. Sometimes, Kid even catches Kendil cursing his mother. “Why’d you make me freeze you? We could have ended Obert and his whole Sky Guard. I could have frozen them instead of you. Why did I have to freeze you, mom?? Mom? MOM??”

He has full conversations with his dead mother. And, of course, he clutches his chest while doing so. I know why he clutches his chest. He showed me his secret, the one he keeps there. Sometimes, Kid thinks he’s losing his mind, and she has no idea how to help him.

So she does the only thing she can: I won’t abandon him. He’s been abandoned so many times, and so have I. He needs her, even if he’s horrible to her sometimes.

And cruel. And broken. “Maybe I’m the one who is cruel and breaked … broken,” stammers Kid one morning to Blindy, her ugly one-eyed cat, while Kendil has gone ahead to scout a building that’s been burned to a skeleton by the Great Father Fire—which is what Kendil likes to call the bolt of red lightning that casts down from the sky from the Mad King Impis and his Army of Chaots, which is what the Posse now call themselves, apparently: Chaots, bringers of chaos.

Doom follows her everywhere. I am good friends with doom.

One tower—whipped up by a flurry of frozen daggers. One barrack—assaulted by a storm of cold. One tall house, one weapon shop, one marketplace, one backstreet … all frozen up. Kendil’s eyes grow more and more furious, more and more inhuman, more and more darkened with rage each time he lets his Legacy out. Doom still follows Kid wherever she goes, except now it’s kissed by ice.

“We make a great team,” he tells her at the top of a building next to the statue of a Guardian, frozen alive two minutes prior.

Kid smiles anxiously. Even Blindy keeps tightly to her side, purring. Thinking Kendil’s calmer today, she quietly asks him, “When will we find my friend Aryl? We have goned in a circle.”

“Gone. We will find your friend,” he answers, “once I find a warm frog beneath my cold foot.”

“Do ya know where Facility is? Ya says you’d … You said you knowed where—”

“Of course I know.”

She frowns. “You want someone dead. I want someone alive.” The hurt and the doubt starts to flood her again. I swore I would not leave him, yet I am no closer in finding Aryl than I was when we first started journeying together.

He seems to sense the discord in her because he meets her eyes suddenly. His voice is smooth and comforting when he says, “You are really important to me, Kid.”

She lifts her face, listening.

“You keep me safe. Unseen. You are invaluable to me and … and without you, I’m quite certain twice as many people would be—”

“Dead,” she finishes for him coolly.

Kendil’s face wrinkles, then he gives a soft shake of his head. “Frozen,” he corrects her gently. “And when someone is frozen, they are never dead. Not truly.”

Kid smirks, not believing him. When she notices how sincere and calm his face is, she reconsiders. Is that what he tells himself, over and over again? That he’s killed no one? That his mother is still alive? She glances at his chest, covered by the loose-fitting t-shirt he wears with the neck hole so stretched, it hangs off his bony shoulder. She stares at the protrusion on his chest. Frozen … not truly dead.

“You’ll understand someday,” he assures her.

Kid nods, bringing a hand absently to the cat’s head and giving him a soft petting. She doesn’t even notice at first that the cat doesn’t flinch or run away; he welcomes her warm touch.

“But for the Rain Frog, he will know the real death,” he goes on, his voice taking a turn for the darker. “Coldness would be a mercy.”

A raindrop kisses her cheek. She gazes upward, thinking on the Masked Men who took her dad, her life, and her youth. She turns to Kendil, who seems to ignore the light rain. He is cold, but his anger is red hot. Somehow, his vengeance is starting to feel a lot like mine.

0141  Halvesand

There’s rain against the window.

It’s a recent development ever since a chunk of the Lifted City came crashing down upon the eleventh ward one innocent Tuesday afternoon a month ago, opening up a small sliver of sky through which the weather sneaks in. Halves enjoys a warm, golden sunrise in the morning, the light at just the right angle to slice into his room. And when it rains, his window feels the brunt, provided the wind is coming in the right direction.

He knows he isn’t supposed to, since he’s hardly recovered as fast as they said he would after the poison wrecked his muscles, turned his skin into sandpaper, and stole away his perfect vision and voice, but he gently swings a leg over the edge of the hospital bed anyway, testing it on the ground. It supports me. He brings his other leg around, ignoring a severe pinch of pain that runs up his thigh and makes a thunderstorm of aches in his belly to match the bigger one outside. Both feet on the ground, he braces himself for precisely five seconds before lifting himself off the bed.

Then he collapses.

Fuck. Before even acknowledging the pain, he worries first if anyone heard him. He cringes, clenching shut his blurry eyes and listening intently for approaching footsteps. After a short handful of seconds, he decides that he’s safe, then slowly begins the process of pulling himself back onto his wobbly, weak, stiff-as-stone legs. He can’t stand not being able to move as he used to, easily and freely.

The window, he decides, his goal, his destination. Just make it to the damned window.

He pushes one foot, sliding it along the tiled floor. Good, one step. He pulls the other, sliding it similarly. Another. He keeps a grip on the wall for balance, running his fingers along the dusty surface of a shelf. Keep going. His foot catches on something sticky on the floor, but he pushes past it, at last making it to the window with only a slight shortness of breath and needles of pain poking all up and down his thigh and his right arm, which took the force of his fall.

Through the window, he sees a blurry landscape of the eleventh ward. They are a train ride and a half from the Guardian dormitories, so the Forsaken Ward is not visible. He’d so grown used to the sight of that outside the window of his old dorm, but finds he doesn’t quite miss it. He squints, trying to make out more than just vague shapes of buildings and streets and unpowered railways.

I have the sight of a hundred-year-old and I’m not even a fourth that age. Even if the window itself wasn’t blurred by rain, Halves would still have difficulty. His eyes are not fully recovered. Doctor Turtle said he’d get his eyesight back in a matter of months, but a “matter of months” has passed and he still can’t read the chart that hangs on the wall across from his bed not ten feet in front of him. I’ll never get it back, Halves knows. They are lying to comfort me. That’s all the men and women of Eleven Wings have to offer: words of comfort as hollow and useless as my voiceless throat.

The shuffling of feet startles him, but when he hears no voice, he knows who it is and that he’s safe from a scolding.

“Not a pleasant thing, this rain.”

The sound of Ennebal’s voice is smooth, deep, strong and full and commanding. And seductive, Halves is almost ashamed to admit.

She crosses the room and leans against the opposite side of the window, staring out with him. Halves can’t help but bring his eyes to her thick, womanly form, even if a lot of it is blurry. He can still pick out the shape of her wide, plush, sexy lips and her too-close eyes that stare out the glass with a severity he knows so well.

But the joy turns sour so fast. How can he possibly trust her after hearing what might have transpired—or might still transpire—between his brother Aleks and her? The word of warning came from his dead partner Pace, and now that he’s gone, there’s no chance of further explanation or evidence. Yet still, Halves can’t think of any reason to doubt it. He is broken; his brother is not. He was sent on missions with Pace; his brother was sent on missions with her.

“Just returned from the mess out there,” she murmurs dryly. “Aleks was almost taken in the head by a large man with an iron barrel. I shot a neon into his belly and now he’s a glowing large man, and the barrel fell upon his own head. He’s been apprehended.”

Halves smirks, listening.

“But if I’m being totally honest,” she goes on, shifting her heavy, booted feet, “I’m worried that we’re making a muck of all the chaos instead of fixing it. I mean, without a Keep or a Cloud to send our arrested, we’re already near capacity. Rooms to keep the criminals, rooms to keep the wounded … How are we supposed to make a life of it here if we’re filling up our beds with brigands and cripples?”

Halves flinches, his eyes flitting back to the window, jabbed in the gut by her words.

“I didn’t mean you,” she blurts, sounding annoyed that Halves appears hurt. “Obviously we need you. You’re one of us. And once you’re better, you’ll be back out on that street at my side.”

Halves opens his mouth, forces out a word. “I …”  But just the one tiny syllable sends razorblades and fireballs down his throat, and the effort is ninety times more agonizing than trying to cross a room. “Am …” he persists, an army of knives trying to burst from his neck with each word he pushes out. Already, he feels like his ears and neck are going to explode from all the exertion.

But Ennebal stops him by gripping his wrist, pulling herself in, and pressing her mouth to his. He forgets everything—what he was angry about, what’s happening between her and Aleks in the other rooms of the Eleven Wings, the state of the world, the streets, the sky—and he forgets what he was even trying to say.

Ennebal ends the kiss abruptly, her face close to his. This close up, he can see the shimmer of her eyes and the quirk of her smart, knowing lips. “Stop trying to speak,” she warns him, her voice deep and steady. “You know damn well that any word you say might rip open your throat and send all that poison into your belly, killing you. Doctor Turtle said so. No speaking, Halves.”

He presses his lips together, annoyed and furious and turned on, all in the same moment.

She sighs. “Are all you Lesser boys so damn stubborn?”

Halves’ eyes are drawn back to the window when a flash of lightning catches his attention, arresting his heart for a second. It was white light, that of natural storms. It wasn’t the red light. You’re safe.

With the blur of shapes through the glass, he can almost picture his home in the ninth ward. He and his brother Aleks had always been friendly rivals growing up, but then they hit a certain age when girls became more interesting and suddenly everything became a matter of life and death. After months of chasing the same girl, Aleks and Halves finally made a bet: the one who won a race would get the girl. They didn’t seem to care which one of them the girl herself preferred, too incensed by the rivalry. Aleks used his Legacy of heavy feet to give his every stride a longer pull, making his footfalls carry weight only when airborne to lend himself momentum. Aleks had gained such a lead that he stopped, tauntingly, and let Halves catch up. When Halves was in the lead, Aleks utilized his talent once again to push himself towards his inevitable victory.

But Halves was furious by the mockery. Just as Aleks was about to close the distance between them, Halves stood in front of his brother and stopped cold in his tracks. Aleks realized his brother’s plan too late, his eyes flashing with terror as he crashed into Halves, who did not budge—as solid as a brick wall.

Aleks broke his arm in three places that day. He dislocated his shoulder too, and broke four ribs. Their mother Ellena could only absorb so many of the wounds before she, too, was bent over in pain. Forge rushed the pair of them to the ninth ward hospital, Lionis left at home to watch over little Anwick and Link. Ellena recovered after simply an hour’s rest, thanks to her Legacy, but Aleks’s situation was far more dire. Halves overheard his dad being told that it was very possible Aleks would not be able to pursue his dream of enlisting in Guardian, since some of his wounds might not heal completely.

Halves didn’t feel as much remorse as he thought he should. He just watched like a ghost from the hallway, listening to the noise and the business of the hospital, and he wondered why he wasn’t as sorry as a brother in his position ought to be. Wasn’t he responsible? Didn’t he do this to his brother? I just wanted to win, he had thought to himself, staring at his broken brother in his medicine-induced state of unconsciousness. Halfway through the race, it wasn’t even about the girl anymore.

It’d been a race their whole lives. Many races, over and over. Do I even care about Ennebal, Halves wonders, bringing his blurry stare back to her face, or is she just another race I’m trying to win?

She moves suddenly quite close to him, then slips a hand down his pants. He sucks in a breath at the touch of her icy fingers. “Your voice may be broken,” she says, “but your other parts are not.” And then she begins a race of her own within his pants, her rough hand working his tender cock.

Halves grunts under her touch. Even just the grunt is a knife in his throat, giving him cause to wince in anguish.

Ennebal stops moving her hand. “Stop?”

He shakes his head desperately, eyes clamped shut.

“Keep going?”

He nods, and so she does.

0142  Wick

The room is so tense, the innocent buzz of a fly’s wing could end someone’s life.

Gandra is seated at the head of the table with Wick to her left and Lionis to her right. Against the wall in the dark of the room where the lantern’s dancing kiss doesn’t quite reach, Athan, Juston, Victra, and Yellow stand, poised and ready.

Everyone’s eyes are trained on the other end of the table where the three curious women sit. To the left, a skinny girl with viper eyes and a sword belted to her back. To the right, a larger woman with a plump chin and sagging breasts, her eyes aglow with the gorgeous luminescent pink color of a Guardian’s neon gun.

And between them is perched a spunky girl with a smart, cocky smirk on her elfin face. She could pass for a pretty boy, her hair short, choppy, and green and her chest flat as a board. Red vine-like tattoos run up the left side of her face like poison bramble.

Her name is Quin.

“Despite our clear differences in opinion,” states Gandra, tilting her frail head and casting her frayed, tangled curls to one side, “it still remains a fact that rogues from your ward are assaulting our people and thieving from us.”

“I know nothing of it,” Quin replies lightly.

“Both of our wards are enduring this madness,” Gandra goes on, ignoring the denial. “And I mean the madness from upstairs.”

“A terrible thing,” Quin agrees flippantly.

“This siege with the sky is indeterminate. It could last but a week more. It could last for a decade. Usurpers have been known to hold a throne—even in times of chaos—for impressively long reigns. You’d know that if you studied your Histories.”

Quin considers her for a moment, squinting. “You sound just like my old, fussy professor in the seventh.”

Gandra, formerly Professor Frey of the ninth herself, squints right back at the spunky girl. “I take your jab for a compliment.”

“It was meant as one,” she insists, smirking confidently. That smirk never leaves her face, no matter what’s being discussed. Wick wonders for a moment if she wears that same face in bed when she’s got a lover between her legs. “Sadly, we Wall Breakers know nothing of these rogues and thieves you so complain about. Have you considered that you might have thieves among yourselves? Little sixth warder rogues, lashing out at the madness, lashing out against their stuffy, insufferable parents? Not my problem.”

Gandra smirks, leaning forward, unbothered by the girl’s cocky demeanor. “If we want to survive this siege, I think it a smarter tack to work together and find a harmony.”

“Harmony.” Quin chuckles at that word. “Do you know what our harmony sounds like? Growling stomachs and dirty clothes. Overflowing toilets. Sewage and trash lining the streets. There’s a reason they call us the Skinny, more than just our ward being the shape of a long neck between the shoulders of the sixth and eighth. You want to talk about working together?” Quin tilts her head. “How about we talk about the food and resources you’re drowning in over there in your cushy sixth ward palace?”

“We are willing to trade,” says Gandra, “but not to donate.”

“Can’t find it in your heart to share with your lowly neighbors?” Quin taunts her. “Telling us to starve through your fattened cheeks? I took you to be a far more generous woman than that.”

“A survivor is not generous.”

“A survivor is also not stupid,” Quin returns. “It’s an open world now. Your pocket is my pocket is my people’s pocket.”

Gandra’s back straightens. “So you confess to and condone the thievery?”

“You are no judge or Queen or Council,” snorts Quin. “We don’t answer to anyone but ourselves and Three Goddess.”

“You certainly will answer for your crimes,” Gandra counters, losing some of her temper. “Need I remind you there’s a man in this very room who could make you forget your very name?”

“Oh, I know all about the Yellow man,” says Quin cockily, not even dignifying Yellow with a glance in his direction. “Everyone’s heard about the Yellow man and his memory games. The one that concerns me is the white one.”

“White?”

“The one dressed all in white, head to toe, who singlehandedly united wards one, two, and three. They call it the Coalition.”

Gandra’s eyes narrow. It’s clear this information is new to her, which gives Wick’s heart a jump. New information is never good information; Gandra’s supposed to know all.

“He’s giving birth to an all new Atlas,” the spunky girl goes on. “He’s even appointed his very own Marshals. But I trust it not.” Quin quirks an eyebrow at the others in the room warningly. “And neither should you. His new Atlas is an Atlas that only benefits him. All of us are merely in his way.”

“I’ve never heard of this White,” mutters Gandra skeptically.

“His name is not White. They call him the Slum King.”

Gandra finds that to be the most amusing thing ever, snorting with derision. “Marking himself after Atricia Sunsong? Seriously? And he leads all three wards without a cloud of mockery following him? I doubt that very much.”

“Doubt all you like. Doubt will not make him disappear.”

“And I suspect, neither will my doubt in you,” finishes Gandra.

Wick doesn’t realize he’s gripping the table with his fingers so tightly until they begin to cramp, alerting him. His eyes dart into the shadows searching for Athan, who he finds staring at the green-haired girl with an odd mixture of pain and indifference creasing his face. He wears that expression a lot lately.

“If there is, in fact, rogues and brigands in my ward,” the girl presses on, “then perhaps they can be … placated. I suspect they are impeding your passage to the rest of Atlas, too. We can sniff out a Hightower any day of the week, I’m quite sure. You stick out like a neon-struck chest here in the lowly seventh.”

“It has become quite a nuisance,” Gandra admits, “seeing as we share pockets and all. An open world, you said we live in?”

“Not so open for you lately.” Quin’s smile grows tighter. “You’re in quite the pincer it seems, old lady. The Coalition whispers at your back, and brigands taunt you at your front.”

“I find the arrangement rather cozy,” Gandra replies with mild humor. “Besides, we’ve made out well passing through the Core to access the other wards instead of the seventh.”

“The Core? Really? Provided you aren’t crushed by a falling piece of the Lifted City on your way, that path only grants you easy access to the ward opposite you. Is that your secret source?” she asks mockingly. “The eleventh, where the only establishment left with electricity and supplies is Eleven Wings? I doubt you’re chummy with the Guardian there. I hear the whole of them keep headquarters there in that very hospital. No, even those righteous fools wouldn’t share as little as a linen bandage, I suspect. How about the Forsaken Ward with its dead Kings? Perhaps your secret plan is to trade food and supplies with … with ghosts?”

The comment earns her a chuckle of amusement from the skinny one to her left. The plump one to her right only stares unblinkingly with her deep, glowing eyes. Wick watches them both, his stomach turning with the frustration that he can’t just reach over the table and turn one of their Legacies against them. For one, he doesn’t know what they are and would need a second to experiment. Secondly, Gandra has expressly forbidden him to reveal his power to others just yet. ‘A smart woman brandishes a big blade, and keeps her deadliest dagger cloaked,’ she had said. Wick supposed she meant him to feel flattered by the words, but they only annoyed him. I am not a deadly dagger; I wield deadly daggers.

“We know you’re responsible for the burglaries and looting,” Gandra fires back, incensed at once. “I don’t need your confession to know it. My one and only purpose here is to discover what, exactly, you want, and how we might placate your roguish selves so that you are less of an irritation for our operations.”

Quin leans back lazily, all five-foot-nothing of her. She is clearly amused by Gandra’s loss of composure.

“What is it you want?” Gandra finally asks. “Our conversation may prove more fruitful if you are direct. I do have other things I’d like to do with my life than sit in this room chatting with children, so help me. I already have enough greys on my head.”

Quin gives one short chuckle at that, then unfolds her hands. “Alright. You want peace? I suppose I can do my part in making your folk’s lives more … peaceful. Stopping the robberies, the thieves, the hindrances … but in exchange, I want a share of your resources from the Mechanoid Mines.”

“Metal?” Gandra lifts an eyebrow. “I thought your people were starving? Do rats eat metal for breakfast?”

“You wanted to strike a deal, that’s our deal. Metal for peace.”

Gandra frowns. “Metal. And for what purpose? You want to make weapons? You have a deal with the metalshops of the ninth? You’ll need access to them to make any decent use of the metal.”

“So will you, unless you enjoy the cold feel of your ass cheeks sittin’ on all that metal you got.” Again, the girls at her side chuckle. “And we do have access to them. We Wall Breakers love to make friends. Don’t we, girls?” The two grunt a response. “And perhaps securing your safe passage through us might also secure a means of weaponry … for us both. You share your metal, and we’ll share our forges. Then we’ll both be armed for the coming storm.”

Gandra shifts in her seat. “We’re listening,” she finally concedes.

“The Coalition grows. I hear they are working on recruiting the fourth. It’s only a matter of time before they also secure the fifth. And then you.” Quin’s eyes darken, despite her carefree smirk. “And if your gold-toting Hightower asses don’t prove a match against them, we’ll be next.”

Gandra squints, seeing her aim. “So you’re suggesting a sort of alliance …?”

“Perhaps. If we’re all armed, we can stand against the Slum King and his slummier following.”

“And how can I trust you won’t betray us?” asks Gandra lightly. “What with your hair, I’m not sure I can tell you apart from a simple slum rat who’d chew off her best friend’s ankles to save her own.”

Quin’s smirk deepens. “I never much liked my ankles. And I don’t know what queer sort of rats you’ve been having for dinner, but the most I’ve seen have hair more like yours: grey and scraggly and frightful to small children.”

“A perplexing thing you’re not frightened.” Gandra smiles, though it looks forced. “It’s the humidity. Couldn’t keep the frizz away if my life depended on it.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” returns the girl lightly.

Gandra inspects a fingernail, picking at it as if these insults and lightly-worded threats don’t even so much as raise a single hair on her long, frail neck. Lionis’s posture seems stiffened by the tension in the room, which annoys Wick; his brother’s blatant transparency has been a bother to him ever since he was roped into Rain a few months ago. ‘Show nothing on your face,’ he had told his brother once when they went on a food run. ‘The less you show, the less they know.’ To that, Lionis smugly replied, ‘All anyone ought to see from my face is my smarts and my impenetrable armor made of spirit.’

Wick could have strangled his brother that day. Your smarts will get you killed, he should have said, and fuck what your armor’s made of; any slumborn’s blade can cut through it just the same.

“Allies, then?” offers the girl with a lift of an eyebrow.

Gandra nods shortly. “Very well. I suppose in a world that’s fast falling apart, it’s the least we can do to mutually benefit from our … neighborliness.”

“Neighborliness.” Quin squirms, like the word tickles her. She speaks too smoothly for a girl who hardly looks twelve years old, Wick notes, his own eyes squinting in suspicion. She’s either the playful type who pretends to know the scope of the game, masking her ignorance with cockiness and empty smirks—or she truly does have a hand that she isn’t willing to show us.

But neither analogy helps him get any closer to trusting the spunky girl with the green choppy hair. Gandra and Quin agree to meet once a week in negotiating the terms of this so-called alliance and gather updates of one another’s intel. Gandra also agrees, upon conditions, to allow access to the Mechanoid Mines during the dark hours directly following nightfall.

“Until seven days,” says Quin at the foot of the tall abandoned building in which they all convened, shaking Gandra’s thin, papery hand. Then the girl is off into the seventh—the border of the wards being the rail of a train that hasn’t run since the Fall of Sanctum—her two cronies following silently behind, their eyes doing all the threatening that weapons and blades cannot.

The journey back to the sixth is a tense one. Only once does Wick overhear Gandra mutter, “Tired of dealing with fool children.” And then another time, she spits, “Making a fool of me, that little girl who thinks herself so witty. If she has a mother, I wish a firm scold and a spank on her for her insolence.” When Yellow tries to calm her, she hisses back, “The dumb girl doesn’t even know we’re all ninth warders. She thinks us as Hightowers, as rich and privileged and spoiled as the temporary sixth ward home we keep. The fool girl. Fool, fool, fool. I could spit for days I’m so angry.”

But spit won’t pacify her, and Wick catches no more words.

Not that it matters, since the self-important Lionis seems all too interested in his own. “We should not be negotiating with brigands,” he explains to the others who follow several paces behind Gandra and Yellow. “The only reason we’re bothering with them at all is—”

“Because the Warden of the sixth has a problem with them,” Victra puts in with a roll of her electric blue-lidded eyes, her blonde coils of hair bouncing with her every step, “and our arrangement requires that we do the dirty work of dealing with them. Someone please remind me why this arrangement exists at all …?”

“It’s not important,” Lionis retorts, annoyed at her interruption. “My point was, we should enlist the help of Guard—”

“I’m not hearing this spiel again,” says Victra with a dismissive wave of her hand, her pointy nose scrunched up. That earns her a glare from Lionis, but he doesn’t seem inspired to push his point.

And really, the whole of them has heard it a dozen times. He thinks there is secretly a band of Guardian who still reside in Pylon #105 and that Rain should join forces with them in an effort to secure the slums. No one seems to agree, especially since their relationship with the Warden of the sixth is already quite strained and his trust is difficult to gain—and has been that way ever since the devastating loss of his wife, so they’re told. The only one he trusts is his precious son Ryke, a fourteen-year-old brat with sandy hair. The Warden was reluctant at best to give them lodgings in his own operations tower, but apparently owed a favor to Yellow for a past memory job. ‘The whole of the ninth floor is yours,’ he’d told Gandra and Yellow when the agreement was made. ‘Help keep the peace in the sixth, and I’ll keep you hidden.’ No matter the trust that exists between them, Wick doesn’t put it past the Warden to toss them at Guardian the instant balance returns to Atlas and a King or Queen sits the throne.

It wouldn’t be the first time Wick was turned in by Guardian. Somehow, he thinks a second turning-in would not go as luckily.

An hour later, Wick finds himself back on the ninth floor of the tower, seated at the round table with Athan, Juston, Victra, and Prat. Lionis took off to the kitchens to busy himself with making a meal for the crew while Gandra and Yellow holed themselves up in a room to discuss plans. Wick has no idea where Arrow is.

“What’s happened to us?” groans the always-bored-and-restless Juston, running his long fingers across the table in leisurely patterns. “Rain used to be, like, the thrilling, subversive, save-the-world thing I ran to, taking off to the Noodle Shop in the ninth in the middle of the night. It warmed my blood. Now I feel like I’ve been … employed at some job I don’t remember applying to.”

“Blame Yellow,” teases Prat with his deep, throaty voice. “He robbed your memory of the day you signed your life away to Rain.”

Juston scoffs at that. “I’m starting to think he really did. I miss how we used to be.”

“I just miss the spicy noodles,” Victra cuts in with a sneer. “No offense, Wicky, but your brother’s cooking is subpar at best.”

“None taken,” says Wick, earning an encouraging rub on his thigh from Athan who sits closely by him, leaning against his side. “I’m simply used to it. I grew up with his cooking my whole life.”

And if he really lets his mind go there, he finds himself far more appreciative of Lionis’s cooking than the others. It takes him back home, somehow. He misses his quaint, cramped house on the broken street in the ninth ward slums where he and his brothers grew up. He misses the thick tree in the front yard that Lionis would climb up to read even if he didn’t often climb up its rough, tired bark himself. A part of him feels like he’d go up it every day if he could somehow return there. He also misses running off to the Noodle Shop loft and snuggling in the spare room there, the one with the bed and the dusty sheets. He misses the times when he and Rone would sit on the windowsill right next to that big bed, their feet dangling down into the alleyway below full of warring cats and laughing street kids.

Thinking of Rone still turns his gut, but perhaps not as much as it used to. I’m going to see my best friend soon, he reassures himself, then wonders if he can even call him his best friend anymore. Why had they left things so horribly back in that little room in the Windstone Academy? It feels like forever ago. Maybe Rone is feeling similarly, regretting the harsh words they’d shared. Really, it was all said in the heat of the moment. Rone was angry because he still hadn’t found his sister Cintha, and Wick was furious because … well, he can’t even remember why, precisely. It’s all so confusing.

“Are you alright?”

The question comes quietly from Athan, despite the others carrying on a conversation about school in the ninth compared to the tenth. Wick lays his eyes on Athan Broadmore and his broad, muscular shoulders and his boyish, pouty face with his lush lips and his beaming eyes and his golden, messy hair. Athan wears a blue shirt that he’s clearly outgrown, as it pulls across his pecs, hugs his tapered torso, and stretches over his biceps. He looks perfect in every way, except for the blank look on his face which has bothered Wick for too long a time. Athan hasn’t been himself. He keeps saying he’s happy, sounding less so with each utterance. He does kiss Wick with passion and gets hard and fucks harder, of course—which seems to be about the only thing normal between them lately. Otherwise, Athan’s eyes are blank, his face is clouded, and his forehead is wrinkled meditatively. I need to get him talking about his family. He needs to acknowledge them someday. He needs to truly mourn them.

Before Wick can answer him, Lionis enters the room with a pot full of stew, which he gently sets down on the table right in the middle of the five of them. The enticing, mildly spiced aroma of the stew fills the space between them all. “What’s that look on your face for?” asks Lionis at once, eyeing his brother.

Juston, Prat, and Victra ignore the question, grabbing bowls and scooping themselves some of Lionis’s vegetable stew. Wick lifts an eyebrow at him. “Look? What look?”

“If something is wrong with you, Anwick,” Lionis pushes on in his miserably righteous, snotty tone, “then you need to say so and we need to fix it. You can’t be unfocussed like this. Not when Gandra is relying on you as the primary runner for supplies and food lately. You saw that cocky Quin girl. The thieves in the seventh aren’t likely to relent from just a simple conversation in a room. We’re from the ninth; we know thieves better. You need to keep alert.”

“I am always alert,” Wick responds tersely.

“You think I don’t know you? I’ve seen that overwhelmed look on your face ever since you were too young to go to school. You’re not even here or present. Are you not getting enough baby time?”

Juston stifles a laugh, quickly straightens his face, then starts to eat his stew spoonful by spoonful. Victra rolls her eyes, the blue of her eyelids shining. Prat takes his bowl and moves across the room to his mapping desk. ‘Baby time’ is Lionis’s crude euphemism for sleep, which he insisted is not meant mockingly; the only ones who sleep in this world are babies—Wick, the one and only exception.

Of course, he also knows his brother well. “Mind the look on your face, Lionis, before I put my big fist in it and give you another one.”

“And you’re angry all the time,” Lionis goes on insufferably, despite a sigh from Victra. “How can you make smart, measured decisions in a state like that? You’re too much like dad.”

“And you’re too much like mom,” retorts Wick, “caring for me the way you care for a baby, watching my every step and criticizing the tone of my voice. What’s next? You want me to suckle your tit and see if I can draw milk from it?”

Juston snorts into his stew while Victra flat out laughs. Lionis appreciates neither reaction, his eyes narrowing.

“I’m eighteen now,” Wick presses on. “I’m grown. I don’t need my brother’s pampering.”

“Older brother’s pampering,” he pushes haughtily. “By almost two years. My birthday’s not long after yours.”

That fact hits Wick in the face, reminding him of the time of the year. Days fly by so fast lately, he hardly knows what day of the week it even is. Lionis will be twenty in just two weeks, it occurs to him after a moment of figuring. I had pictured his twentieth birthday in very different circumstances. Of course, he also hadn’t expected to have his own eighteenth birthday in the Lifted City at Athan’s side. Nothing ever unfolds in life the way one expects …

“Anwick. Your hands.”

Wick stirs at the softer tone in Lionis’s words, then glances down at his hands to find them sweating so much, they are literally dripping. In his anger, he’s apparently latched on to Lionis’s Legacy of hot palms. The others at the table have taken notice too, Juston having frozen with a spoonful of stew halfway to his mouth. Sourly, Wick wipes away the sweat on the thighs of his jeans, but his hands keep sweating anyway. This seems to occur a lot lately—accidentally borrowing the Legacy of anyone nearby in a fit of emotion. Good thing I didn’t latch on to Juston and fill the room with angry noise.

“You’re getting good at that,” mutters Lionis, and even the tiny compliment rubs Wick the wrong way, making his face scowl. “You just need to control it better. The very awareness of your Legacy has made you more capable of using it, that much is clear. But you need to be cautious. If you get angry around Yellow, you could wipe all our memories. That’s not good.”

“I think I would’ve done that by now,” Wick reasons.

“You need to practice self-control. It’d be irresponsible not to.”

Wick takes a calming breath, then he glances at Athan, who returns his gaze with a kind one of his own. When he offers the hint of a smile, Wick returns it, grateful for the small gesture.

“Do you agree with my annoying brother?” Wick asks quietly to Athan, despite the whole room being able to hear him.

Athan takes Wick’s hand, even sweaty and slippery and warm as it is. “I trust your self-control,” says Athan back.

“Is that so?”

“Otherwise I wouldn’t hold your hand for fear that you’d burn mine right off.” Athan gives his arm a playful jerk, pulls Wick to his side, and kisses his cheek.

Wick squeezes his hand, reassured, then lets go to fill two bowls with Lionis’s cooking. He slides one in front of Athan, then pulls one in front of himself. And despite all his irritation at his brother, when he tastes the brown spicy stew of bean and cabbage, he is instantly transported home. Judging from the smirk on Lionis’s face, Wick assumes he’s not hiding the pleasure on his own. I’ll let him have this one, Wick decides lightly, savoring every bite.

0143  Link

Lying on his back, balanced on the edge of the walkway with his left hand lazily adrift in the water and his right one resting on his belly, Link stares up at the stone ceiling of the waterways and thinks about a song his mother used to sing when he was a child. He often heard it through Anwick’s door, the gentle humming and the lyrics he can’t remember. Were there even lyrics, or did he imagine them? Why did my mother sing to only Wick at night when we were children? She never sang to me …

“WHAT DID YOU SEE??”

The voice causes Link to jerk, lifting his head off the cobblestone to pay witness to Baron, who stands over a boy knelt on the other stone walkway across the water. The boy is the latest addition to their Brotherhood, a skinny thing with huge innocent eyes and dirty blond hair that cascades to his ears in waves. One sole braid runs down the left side of his face, bouncing against his chin when he walks—knelt before the bald former priest of The Brae, however, the boy isn’t doing much walking.

“N-Nothing,” says the boy, his voice hollow. “It was … It was dark and watery. I thought I saw a light, but—”

“Yes, yes?? Tell me of the light, boy! Tell me of it!”

“Well, I opened my eyes wider and realized it was th-th-the light from the waterways. The one up there,” he says, pointing up at the nearest electric wall-lantern, which glows dimly.

“NO!” shouts Baron, slapping the cement next to the boy. He grips him by both arms, jostling him. “You saw more! Tell me! The Sisters came to you, yes?? They came to you! In a light, yes??”

The boy stares at him in a confused panic. He sputters several times, searching for the words. “Th-The Sisters?”

“Don’t tell me what I want to hear,” Baron says, his voice loud and clear even over the constant noise of rushing water that fills the halls down here at all hours. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I saw …” The boy sighs, deflating. “I saw … water, sir. Darkness and … and then the light of the … the lantern …”

Baron shoves the boy in frustration, toppling him back into the water from which he’d just been dragged out. With the boy kicking in the water trying to right himself, Baron stomps away, infuriated, and disappears around the bend. Three other boys—among them is Ames, the one who Link has grown closest to with the half-burnt face and body—dart to the water and help fish the boy back out of it. Link watches from the other side, crouched by the edge. When the boy is leaned against the wall, he finally says, “I saw nothing, I swear it. I didn’t mean to anger him. I tried really hard, b-but I … I …”

“Don’t worry on it,” says Ames. “It’s happened to us all, that very same thing. He is just old and tired.”

“Is … Is it gone now?” the boy asks at once. “My Legacy?”

Ames looks at his fellow brothers, seemingly ignorant of Link watching from across the water, then says, “Yes. Never to return.”

The blond boy sighs with deep relief, clenching shut his eyes and biting his lip. “Finally …”

Ames rubs the boy’s back consolingly, then shakes his head and, with a smirk, mutters something to the others which Link cannot hear. It’s not easy when the noise of rushing water does its best to drown away all sound. Not being able to hear anything further of their exchange, Link lies back down, letting his hand back in to float as he recalls the day when Baron once held his head beneath the flowing waters, drowning one life out of him and giving him another. He frowns, thinking about what he saw in those waters …

And then what he said he saw.

Hours later, Baron has returned, and he is fortunately much calmer. Link has since relocated to the other side, joining the rest as they gather for an announcement. “We will push forth through the Waterways,” Baron tells them, “beneath the wards, without any of their knowing, and make way for the Dark Abandon.”

That alarms Link. “Dark Abandon?”

The boys turn to him. Baron’s watery eyes meet his. “Yes,” he says simply. “We are no closer to completing our mission here and, if counting serves me well, there are thirteen of you, and still we have not been guided by the Sisters.”

“But why the Dark Abandon?” presses Link. “That’s a … a place even the Sisters abandoned.”

“And where did you hear that? From your school?” asks Baron, inspiring a light chuckle from some of the boys. “From the King? From your friends? From the Marshal on the broadcast? Poor boy, we’re being made to fear the Dark Abandon for a reason. They are hiding something there. Sanctum is. Or was. And with Sanctum broken, now is our chance.”

Link already knows in his gut that the Dark Abandon will reveal no more answers than the Waterways have. Baron’s grown paranoid. He can’t help the sick ball of guilt that rolls around within him. Even now when he thinks back on the day of his drowning, he doubts the things he saw in the water. That can’t possibly be the vision Baron was looking for, Link reassures himself, trying to ease his guilt. It didn’t even make sense, what I saw. The Sisters. That girl who could turn invisible. Gold, lots and lots of gold. He even heard his mother singing, didn’t he? A song his mother used to sing …

“They have abandoned the light,” Baron decides, his voice deep and heavy with importance. “So it’s our duty to seek them in the dark. Yes, that’s where they’re leading me. And you are all one with the Brotherhood now. You will not die until the Brotherhood does. The Dark Abandon should not inspire fear in you. Nay, nothing ought to inspire fear in you, not anymore. Now that you are immune to the threat of death, you should feel a freedom that all others in Atlas would envy … especially now.”

Link’s hand drifts to his chest instinctively at those words. Still, he feels no heartbeat. My life force belongs to Baron now, he reminds himself. I don’t die until he does. None of us die until he does. Looking at the old man, he finds himself suffering an unfortunate working of numbers in his head, feeling much like his father. Did I just cut my life in half by joining this Brotherhood? What if Baron dies today? What if he dies tomorrow? What if he dies five years from now?

Five years. Could that be all Link has left to live?

It is decided that the group will pick up their things and begin to make a move at the next nightfall. Link is chosen to keep watch on the sun, so he flings himself up the tall ladder to the street and watches from the hidden, unassuming entrance to the Waterways under a curb and a dip in the road. He drums his fingers along the pavement, staring out at the empty streets that slowly grow redder from the gentle burn of dusk.

Annoyed suddenly, he pushes himself out of the hole and stands in the road, stretching his legs and arms. No one comes out at night anymore, it seems. He walks quietly along the street, listening for any signs of life. He can’t even hear the stirring of bodies or the murmur of distant voices through the walls. He does, however, catch a rat scuttling behind a dumpster, as if to hide from him. The more he listens, the more he’s awed by what he notices. Without a pesky pulse or heartbeat to distract him, he feels like he could hear any tiny presence on the whole street.

Not to mention that the freedom from the constant noise of the water is a gift in and of itself. He breathes, allowing himself a smile, then starts to walk with confidence. A light breeze pushes through his hair, which has grown longer and bushier over the months. His natural brown color is coming in at the roots, pushing out the dyed black tips. I ought to cut off all the black, he muses, to be rid of The Wrath for good. He wears just the loose white shirt The Brae gave him and the very jeans he wore the day he fell through its roof, so long ago. Considering their location, washing their clothes as well as themselves has been a nice, daily luxury. He is very proud to say that there isn’t a speck of pink on his shirt, and that’s because his Legacy is no more; he traded it for the Brotherhood.

Limited invincibility. Freedom from a Legacy. Link’s pace starts to slow as he reconsiders his situation. He can’t help the nagging feeling that he’s made a horrible mistake. I didn’t trust it from the beginning, he reminds himself. What changed my mind?

Was it Ames, the boy who annoyed him so greatly at the start, only to turn around and become his only friend? Was it Baron, who taught him repentance and purged him from the guilt of associating with black-about-the-eyes Dran and The Wrath? Was it the way his family made him feel? Inferior, radical, bothersome, less-than, weak, small, juvenile, problematic …

It’s somewhere in the midst of these self-doubts that Link finds himself in the square where The Brae used to stand, tall and simple. Half of it has since burned down due to a mystery fire that chased them out one day long ago. The faint scent of smoke still hangs in the air, even months later, and Link feels the soft ash beneath his shoes. Maybe I came here to say goodbye, he considers. I came here to tell The Brae goodbye, to tell the Sisters goodbye, to tell my family—who may or may not still wonder if I’m alive—goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. His whole past seems to be slowly letting go of him. Even the glow on his leg went away when he gave his first life to the Brotherhood, perhaps unable to sustain itself without the beating of his heart, if Link had to guess. He doesn’t miss it at all. Goodbye, glow.

Then he sees a figure. Link steps back, startled. The figure wasn’t there a second ago. Are his eyes playing tricks on him, or did a man just rise from the debris of the temple?

“Just where I expected to find you,” calls out the figure.

It’s a man. Baron, Link first assumes, judging from the shape. Baron followed me here. But then he’d have to figure out how Baron possibly got in front of him, and though Link may not be the fastest boy at his school, he certainly can run faster than Baron could ever dream to. This figure is not him.

“Who are you?” asks Link, squinting across the dark square.

The man, cloaked in shadow, steps down from the debris and calmly crosses the way as he speaks. “Do you realize, boy, that the end is coming soon, and your life as well as the lives of all you know and love—or will know and will love—are in danger?”

Link frowns. What an annoyingly vague thing to say. “Every person’s life is in danger,” he spits back, “and all our lives will end. Eventually. That’s no news.”

The figure laughs, still slowly approaching. “I’ve always loved your sense of humor. You will need it.”

He isn’t close enough to pick out facial features, but he appears to be wearing a strange sleeveless jacket or leather jerkin, perhaps, and his pants are flowing like silk—maybe it’s even a dress, or a robe of some kind. He is bald, just like Baron.

“Aren’t you a boy of riddles? I have one for you.”

Link scoffs. “Riddles are for children and bored old men. I’d rather you say it plain, whatever it is you aim to say. Say it and go. Don’t step any closer,” Link adds suddenly, stepping back.

“Didn’t you hear my brother properly?” asks the man. “Death is no consequence to you. You have nothing to fear now.”

Brother? “Y-You’re Baron’s brother?”

The figure stops. The silk of his pants or robe, which flowed as he walked, now stands still as a carved statue. His face is still covered in shadow, but a tiny glint of light catches his eyes. Link swallows hard, watching him warily. I hardly trust Baron. How could I trust his brother? How did he know I’d be here?

“Do you have a message?” asks Link, searching for the purpose. “Is that why Baron chose me to keep watch of the light tonight? Did he intend for me to wander off … to walk into you? Are you working together, the pair of you?”

“Oh, hardly.” The figure folds his arms and tilts his head to the side, giving him an oddly casual sort of stance. “My brother and I never much got along, the hungry demon he is.”

“Hungry demon?”

“Not literally, of course. I don’t believe in demons. But I believe in hunger, and my brother … is the hungriest. I’ve seen where he’s been, I’ve seen where he is, and I’ve seen where he goes. I see all.”

“You can see the future?” asks Link suspiciously.

“And the past. Whatever I want, really. I don’t like much of what I’ve seen of my poor brother Baron, but there is one thing we do have in common.”

Link keeps alert, expecting any sudden movement, searching the man’s silhouette for signs of a weapon. He could be trying to deceive you. Don’t trust his words. “What’s that?”

“Our love for the Three Goddess.” At the mention of them, he brings his hand to his chest, then kisses it—a gesture Link remembers his mother doing sometimes when she returned from the Wayward where she’d pray. “Oh, and a taste for red robes.”

“Baron’s robe is not red.”

“It will be.”

The man is about the same height as the bald priest, but his shoulders are broader, and his voice is gravelly. Link picks up a faint citrusy scent from the man, which is a curious contrast to the smoky waste of their location.

“It is nightfall, and you must return,” the man announces, “but I will see you again—here—in one week’s time. But where there is one of you now, there will be two.”

Link lifts an eyebrow. “No. You won’t be seeing me in a week,” he argues, “as I’ll be in the Dark Abandon by then.”

“You will be here,” the man gently insists, “and that is the riddle of it, boy. It’s just a matter of time. Everything is.”

“I am not a child for riddles.”

“Then I must be an old man.” The glint in his eyes shift, perhaps from a smile. “I told you all of Atlas is in danger, didn’t I? I failed to mention that you—my boy—are the key to saving it. You, and that Goddess vision you think I don’t know you had.”

Link’s throat tightens at his words. How did he know? This must be a trick. Baron has sent his brother here to shake Link down, to make him confess his secret—that he did, indeed, see something in the waters that fateful day that Link Lesser died and something else was born … something quieter.

“I had no vision,” Link lies, feeling bold in doing so.

“You can lie to my brother, but you cannot lie to me. I have the unfortunate advantage of knowing things no man ought to know. Things that have passed. Things that are to come. You were a cute little kid before you turned your hair black—and that’s not thanks to your Legacy.”

“I have no Legacy.” Link has never felt more unsettled than he does right now, a hand of his absently going to his hair at the man’s comment. How does he know what he knows? It isn’t possible …

“Please don’t take my words for threats.” His tone grow softer. “I’ve been odd since I was a cute little kid myself, so, so long ago.”

“I’ll tell Baron I saw you,” Link threatens him, his jaw tightened.

“No you won’t. You don’t trust him. And you shouldn’t.” The man shrugs carelessly, then gives his jacket a tug, straightening his posture. “It all began in cold, but it will end in fire. It’s up to you to save Atlas. See you in a week, Shye.”

Link swallows. “My name’s not—”

In the next instant, the man is gone.

0144  Ellena

She’s been getting used to the smell of soap and chemical—and not the fun kind that makes the head dizzy and the heart light.

She scrubs the linens in the big metal basin by hand because all the washing and drying machines have been disabled. Yes, of course this small Guardian holding in the sixth has power, unlike so much of Atlas since the Fall of Sanctum, but it has to be rationed or else certain rooms go dark, and with communications depending on said power, it is imperative to keep the computers going.

Not that Ellena cares. The only rooms she ever sees are the utility room, in which she’s working right now, and an unused room at the corner of the building where she’s pretty sure a man wasted away in his own filth and died at some point, for the faint scent of death that lingers in it at all hours.

Is this all her life is fated to be? Drifting from one unpleasant circumstance to another? She didn’t much like the Greens, even when a promotion into the flowers was all but in her slippery grasp. And though her time working at the hospital before was awful and humiliating, here she is cleaning linens, bloodied by the wounded of the sixth. Three Sister has an unfunny sense of humor as of late.

Yet still, every morning just before the sun burns the windows, she presses her hands together, clamps shut her eyes, and prays to the Sisters for guidance, for protection, and for comfort. Lionis was left at her sister Cilla’s in the ninth, safe and cared for, so he should have a decent roof and food. And though Halvesand and Aleksand are under the protection of Guardian, who is left to protect them in a time like this when their very leaders are dropping like flies? Not to mention one of them dropped at her hands; former Marshal of Order Taylon’s shriek of agony still rings fresh in her ears. And then there’s the question of where Anwick has gone off to, her poor dreamful boy. And Link, she agonizes further. Oh, please let Link find his true place in this world, she begs the Sisters, ignoring the crippling fear in her heart that he really is dead in an alley somewhere. You know best, Sisters, and his safety is in your hands. Please, please …

The image of that boy floating in the water keeps surfacing, the one with “Link Lesser returns his gift to Three Goddess” carved into his chest. That boy … who wasn’t her son, but who might as well be. Where are you, Link?

“Forge …” she murmurs at last, coming to a stop in the middle of scrubbing a hospital gown of blood. “I need you now. More than ever before. I need your sight. I need your figuring and your reassurance.”

But there will be no reassurance; she knows that. None from him. None from her children. None from these ragged, soiled gowns. None from the Guardian who watch over her like she’s some scary weapon that will, at any second, detonate.

She scrubs and scrubs, growing more furious with each scrub. What are these stains? She doesn’t care. Whose blood is she washing out, if not her own, over and over again? She doesn’t even have time or energy to be sad anymore; anger is easier.

The door opens. Noise from the hall floods in. Ellena turns to find Gabel standing there, the young Guardian with the unblemished chestnut-colored skin, brawny square jaw, smooth shaved head, and muscular form. Even through the light layer of armor he wears, she can see his shapely pecs and his broad, thick shoulders. Stubble lightly dusts his handsome face, pierced by two sharp green eyes.

She blinks away her observations. Stop seeing him like that, she chides herself. He’s a Guardian holding you for trial—and is as young as your firstborn! “Good day,” she mutters, annoyed with herself.

“Not for you,” he says back, his voice like iron. “Intake. Ten.”

That means ten more have been admitted to their care, or apprehended off the streets. That’s ten more sets of pans or gowns or bed sheets or other linens and utilities she’ll be required to clean. There are worse punishments I could endure, she does realize, but if I have to wash another mystery stain out of another beige gown, I will lose my sanity.

“Ten?” Ellena groans.

His gorgeous eyes study her long and pensively. His lips purse, as if tasting something sweet. “Twelve, to be exact,” he finally says, his eyes drifting to her mouth. “The Finger … struck a neighborhood in the outskirts of the fifth. A building toppled into a plaza, plus a row of homes were—”

“I could be of use!” she says at once, clinging to the soap-soaked cloth in her hands as she pleads with Gabel. Even the way he just stands there, poised and watching her, he looks like a muscle god. His jaw is set, strong and dimpled, and his eyes glisten brilliantly and sternly in the sea of chestnut skin that is his smooth face.

“You’re being put to use here,” he interrupts her, licking his full lips, which pulls all of Ellena’s attention straight to them. Does he lick them because they’re dry, or because he’s having thoughts of his own of where on her body to put them?

Stop it, she scolds herself yet again. “I’m a healer,” she says as she hears the commotion outside in the hallway, imagining all the wounds her Legacy could take away. “Put someone else to these stupid linens. Let me work among the medics and use my—”

“A healer?” Gabel scoffs. “You think I’m a fool? You want me to let you work with the medics, so that you can take away wounds and arm yourself with them??”

Ellena had honestly not considered that possibility, but now that Gabel has laid it out so plainly, she finds herself unable to argue.

“If you’d rather be confined to the corner room at the end of the hall all day,” says Gabel, “you only need request it, Lesser.”

She cringes at being called by just her last name. It feels so cold and dissociative. “I have … I have better uses,” she argues feebly.

“Should I remind you what you’ve done?” he offers almost politely, taking a step toward her. Every muscle in his body, visible even through his light gear, tightens and dances invitingly with his every movement. “You murdered Taylon Redbrade, the Marshal of Order. I don’t care if it was intended or not. Sanctum has fallen, and until order is restored to a new King or Queen and you are given a proper trial, you will remain under my strict custody.”

It’s the reign of madness. There will never be a King or Queen again, not while I’m alive. “There is nothing proper about a Sanctum trial. My husband Forge—”

“Is dead.”

Her mouth opens, stunned by his bluntness. She finds she can’t speak for a proper moment, staring at his eyes and seeing nothing. Then the minute passes and she says, “I … I know that is … is likely.”

Gabel swallows hard. A look of pain seems to cross his bright, green gaze. Does he regret his words?

“But,” Ellena goes on, “I also heard that the Keep collapsed. And I also heard it didn’t, and the prisoners all killed each other. And yet I also heard the Mad King set them free. I’ve heard a hundred things. They all could be lies. He could still be alive. Gabel, I—”

“Sir,” he corrects her. “You will address me as sir.”

Ellena stares at him hard, unable to say anything else suddenly. Gabel stares back, his gaze drifting to her mouth, then to her chest, and finally back to her eyes, appearing twice as fierce as before.

“Then allow me to make it clear to you,” he says, and his voice is softer. “The Keep is no more. The occupants of the Keep are dead. All of them.” Gabel’s jaw tightens. “Your husband included.”

Every pinch of resolve Ellena had mustered is gone. And so is he, she decides, her body afloat in a sea of doubt. Forgemon is gone. The love of my life … is truly gone. Perhaps she knew that already.

“Ten,” she repeats back. “Sir.”

“Twelve.” Gabel gives her a nod, then turns to leave.

“One request,” she says quickly, the sound of her voice stopping him. “Please … s-sir.”

He turns just his head, lifting one blunt eyebrow.

She drops the gown back into the basin and lifts her hands, which have been locked into two thick gloves that come up to her elbows. She’s been forced to wear them since the very day she was arrested, months ago. “These,” she mutters miserably. “They are inhumane. And not to mention humiliating. Please. My hands are pruning from moisture within them. I cannot work as efficiently with these on. I beg you. I can’t even use the toilet or bathe alone because that stupid tree trunk of a woman has to supervise and help me. Did you hear me right? She helps me use the toilet and bathe. Do you even know how humiliating that is? How degrading …?”

“Her name is Bee. You will address her as—”

“I don’t give a damn what her name is. I want to be able to shower like a normal, decent, respectable human being. I can’t even feed myself. Am I really to be treated less than an animal? Am I really deserving of such … such … such disregard?”

“Perhaps you should note that assigning Guardian to watch over you and feed you and bathe you is a rather enormous amount of regard. It’s a downright nuisance at times.”

“If I’m such a nuisance, free my hands so that you don’t have to keep feeding me like some caged animal. Release my hands so I can work with them … with my actual hands.”

Gabel makes no expression on his face. He simply keeps his eyes locked upon hers, not a word escaping his full, stern lips.

So Ellena pleads further. “Don’t you understand the limit of my Legacy yet? I have no physical wounds. That equates to me being unarmed. My hands are not dangerous. I am not dangerous. Please, Gab—Please, sir, let me have my hands back.”

Firmly gripping the handle of the door, he purses his lips once more, tasting that sweet thing again, then says, “I like feeding you.”

The answer startles Ellena, casting a bolt of excitement—and a shiver of fear—through her system. Her lips open and close, unsure what to say to that.

Gabel straightens his posture, then nods astutely and says, “I’ll be back in two hours’ time with your next meal.” Abruptly, he closes the door behind him.

Ellena stares at the door, lost in a whirlwind of feelings, none of which she can process. I said physical wounds, she realizes, because as far as emotional ones, there are a plethora. The thought goes unvoiced as Ellena distractedly returns to her work, with clumsy, gloved hands that tediously slow her process.

Two hours later, just as promised, Gabel is sitting before her at the rickety metal table by the machines, feeding her spoonful after spoonful of tasteless vegetable mash. She stares ponderingly into his strong eyes as he slowly feeds her, his full lips set in a permanent, unspeaking half-pucker that almost looks like a scowl of frustration.

And in those infinite green eyes, which focus so deeply upon his every movement, upon every bite he gifts her, Ellena can see the anguish buried deep within. It is an anguish she knows, with the knowledge that her husband is, without a doubt, truly gone. Ellena suspects she’d already come to terms with that possibility long ago, and perhaps that is why there are no tears left in her to cry. We both have the kinds of wounds that can’t be touched by a healing hand.

0145  Athan

There is madness in his mind. And darkness. And anger.

But the love is stronger. ‘The Marshal of Peace must be a man of peace,’ his brother Radley once told him over two crystals of lemon’s tears before he joined the King’s Research, ‘and how can I be a man of peace when I don’t have a girlfriend to suck my cock?’ The joke had made Athan laugh so hard because it was so uncharacteristic of his kind, proper, well-meaning brother. He knew if Radley met a girl to fulfill his heart, she’d be more than just a mouth for the toy in his pants. Love, that’s what Athan remembers the most of all. He can’t mourn his family yet because he doesn’t truly feel like he lost them. They’re still in the sky, he tells himself, feasting on delicacies and chatting about the coming turn of the throne. Just like the time after he fell from Lord’s Garden, he’s simply on a vacation to the slums.

The sight of their cold, dead faces that fateful night hits him.

A flash of his brother’s lifeless eyes staring at nothing from the floor. His sister’s head resting on her half-eaten food.

Athan shakes it all away, frustrated with his mind. Love, he tells himself. Love is immortal. All he feels when he thinks of them is love. Even Janna loved him in her own cold sort of offputting way. And he loved the Eastly Gym—the smell of the machines, the clean pull of air that would refresh him no matter how sweaty he got, the flash of sun in the windows while he lifted and grunted with the weights.

And the coin he let loose over the ledge every day.

His dead father on the floor, and his dead mother.

The ringing silence in the dining hall that night. The death.

Death, death, death, death.

He did meet someone, Athan reminds himself suddenly, thinking of his brother. He met someone to fulfill his heart, even if she never got the chance to. She almost fulfilled his heart, too. Her name is Ruena Netheris, and she was almost Queen of Atlas.

Almost. That’s a theme that’s pervaded so much of Athan’s life. Almost a slum boy, but not quite, since everyone at Rain still sees him as a Lifted Boy. Almost a Lifted, but even his own family saw something wrong in him, something strange and dirty and touched.

The sight of his cold dead father. His brother’s lifeless eyes.

Janna and her half-eaten dinner.

Almost powerful, Athan pushes on, forcing his brain to focus and not wander into the darkness. Everyone in Rain has accepted that his Legacy is some sort of strong, otherworldly sense of survival, but no one can quite explain what, precisely, he can do. Panic attacks, Athan decides. My Legacy is anxiety.

And he remembers how his heart raced that night when he found them all dead. His heart raced like mad and his eyes focused to needlepoint precision. Death, death, death …

“Your boy’s asleep?”

Athan looks up to find the electric blue eyelids of Victra at the door, staring at him from across the dim front room in which he’d claimed a spot by the window. He thought he could find some time to be alone, since everyone else was in the food room eating and Wick was cuddled away in the closet, asleep. He enjoys cuddling with Wick for a time while he sleeps, but six to seven hours does get quite long to endure on a daily basis, and sometimes Athan cannot keep the darker, heavier thoughts from invading. He’d slipped from Wick’s arms and left him alone in the closet, retreating to this space by the window in the front room where no one goes. He enjoys the company of all these abandoned desks and cabinets that likely were used by employees of some long-abandoned slum business.

“Yes,” Athan finally answers.

“What are you doing here in the dark, Lifted Boy?”

Athan tries to smile. If he’s completely honest, he’s furiously tired of being called that. I’ll never be a Lifted Boy again. But will I ever truly be a slum boy? And if I’m neither, then what the hell am I?

“Oh, nothing, Victra. I was just …” He glances out the window, searching for some innocent lie.

“If you want to be an asset here,” Victra says, her voice hard, “then you need to be there for Wicky so that he doesn’t have to carry the weight of both of you.”

Athan lifts his eyes to hers. For a second, he wonders if she’s joking. Then he remembers who he’s talking to. “I carry my weight,” he protests lightly.

“Gandra won’t say it because she’s too weak,” Victra mutters, crossing the room, “and Yellow won’t say it because he’s too kind, but I am neither weak nor kind. I’m just honest.” She stops in front of him and leans against the window. “We’re waiting for you to crack.”

“Crack?”

“All of us. Every single one of us. Juston, he thinks you keep from breaking down on the daily. Prat, he’s afraid to talk to you because he feels guilty for interrogating you about the Lifted City so long ago when he was first making his maps.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind. Really, I—”

“Lionis probably resents you that his father is stowed away in the Keep for life. Even Wicky too, maybe, though I doubt he’d ever in a million years admit that.”

“I …” Athan swallows hard, trying to find a way to refute any of her claims.

“We’ve all had our losses, Athan Broadmore. Did I weep for my dead family? My sister? Do I push through my days longing for what was, for what is, and for what could have been?” She folds her arms tightly and narrows her eyes. “We’re warriors here, Athan. We don’t wait for the world to fix our problems. We are the fix.”

“I’m not waiting for anyone to fix my problems. I’m really sorry if you … if everyone thinks that I’m just … here. Or not pulling my own weight.” Athan considers making a light joke to diffuse all the tension about the Eastly Gym and how very practiced he is at pulling weights, but can’t seem to let it fly off his tongue, his stomach twisted into a knot.

Victra sighs. “There was a time when you were so ready to be rid of that life upstairs,” she muses coolly. “Now you got your wish. Losing loved ones is sort of a slum rite of passage. Really, you—”

“Rone said that once.”

The name instantly reels her eyes upon Athan. At first, he fears he should have held his tongue. Then Victra’s gaze softens and her posture slackens, as if the name somehow crippled her.

Athan tries to smile again, his lips pulling tightly. “He said that to me—or maybe it was to Wick—the day my family died. He said it was a slum rite of passage, losing the ones you love. That I have the slum life now, or something like that. It was the last day either of us saw him.” Athan swallows, thinking of it.

Victra seems to consider him, her breathing steady and soft. She doesn’t say anything. Athan wonders if the two of them—Victra and Rone—were ever truly a couple, or if they were just convenient sex partners who enjoyed the company of each other’s stiffening private parts and shared swigs of chemical.

“Do you think of Rone a lot?” Athan bothers to ask.

“No.” Whether it’s a lie or not, Athan can’t tell; Victra isn’t the easiest person to read, hiding the most of her feelings behind those blue-colored eyelids of hers.

“I think about him often, mostly because I knew how close he and Wick were.” A sudden gust of nightly wind pushes against the window, causing it to groan. The two of them glance at it, their attention pulled. “I have to believe he’s still out there and doing okay. Wick doesn’t. Wick thinks he’s dead.”

“Rone? Pfft.” Victra smirks. “He’s invincible, didn’t you know?”

Athan stares at his hands, thinking of Legacies and lies he tells himself. “No one’s invincible.”

“Just give Rone a jug of chemical and he’s as good as godly.”

“He had one last swallow left,” Athan remembers, thinking of something Wick sleepily told him one night several weeks ago in the closet. “He was saving it for when he found his sister Cintha.”

“That’s a swallow he’s never like to take.”

Athan studies her for a moment as she stares out the window forlornly, her blonde curls covering half her face. Then, chasing a sudden impulse, he rises from his creaky office chair and comes toward her. Victra stares at him like he’s lost his mind as he wraps his arms around her.

“What are you doing?” she asks stiffly.

“Just let it happen,” he mumbles into her shoulder, hugging her.

She doesn’t quite return the hug, her arms pressed to her sides and her body as rigid as iron. “I don’t do hugs.”

But she lets him. And for a solid minute or so, the two stand there in the dim room by the window, half-embraced in each other’s arms, lost in thoughts of their passing loves and things that could have been, and things that’ll never be.

An hour later, Athan is back in the closet. Wick still sleeps, his soft, deep breaths filling the cramped space. Athan carefully climbs under the thick woolen blanket Wick clutches, then slips an arm around his slum boy’s slender waist, getting comfortable.

Radley’s cold, dead eyes. Janna’s face in her food.

His mother. His father.

I don’t ever want to lose you, Anwick of the ninth. He squeezes his boy tightly, then closes his eyes and rests his face against his head, his nose buried in Wick’s brown, messy hair.

0146  Mercy

She kneels at the foot of the statue. She bows her head, brings two clenched fists to her forehead, then recites, “Sister of Want, may we always stay wary of our hungers. Sister of Chaos, may we always know the consequence of our hungers. Sister of Dreams, may we always employ the wisdom to overcome them.”

Twenty-nine other voices recite the words with her, all knelt at the stone feet of their own miniature statues. They each bring a hand to their left shoulder, their right shoulder, then their chest, and in a chorus of soft kissing, each woman brings their fingers to their lips, then presses them to the statue.

This is how every morning begins now.

Mercy and the women make their rounds. Twice, an elderly person vomits on her clean robe. Twice. There is a kid in the stone chambers who won’t stop crying. A woman begs for anyone to listen to her woes, then proceeds to pour out stories of the demise of her house when the Finger Of Madness struck it down. Mercy heard the story a hundred times from a hundred people. She’s numb to seeing their tears, especially when she hasn’t shed a single one of her own in countless days. Two screaming men are brought in with burns all over their bodies from yet another instance of the red lightning, then die holding each other’s hands not thirty minutes after being received. Mercy stares at their lifeless bodies and can’t bring herself to feel anything. She sees Dran as one of the men and herself as the other, holding each other’s hand, dying together in a bright, burning flash of red, angry light. There are worse ways to die, she decides.

Three hours later, she gets a question. “Where are you from?”

Mercy looks up from her bowl of soup. Ten of the women are gathered in the dining hall for the midday meal. It’s the one next to her, a frizzy-haired lady with gorgeous eyes and full lips who might be Mercy’s age or perhaps a year or two her elder. She’s a nosy one, constantly asking questions ever since Mercy donned the grey robe of the Sisters Of Sisters.

“We aren’t supposed to discuss that,” says Mercy quietly.

“What’s your grievous sin?” the woman asks anyway. “We all have them. It’s no secret that none of us are pure.”

Mercy continues sipping her soup, most of her face hidden by the hooded grey cloak she wears—the same exact one as the other twenty-nine Sisters Of Sisters—so she outright ignores the nosy one at her side. The woman sitting across from Mercy, an older lady with a hook nose and a twinkle in her eye, winks with appreciation. No conversation here is private, Mercy knows. The idiot at my side will be first to learn that, and first to be excused from the Sisters Of Sisters.

Mercy isn’t so sure how long she’ll last here. Yes, she gets free shelter and free food. With the slums turned upside-down as they are, maybe it’s worth it to keep up the façade. All she needs to do to stay is not kill people—the opposite of what my life’s known thus far.

But it’s the nights that make Mercy want to crawl out of her skin and run away from this place. When the sun sets through the tiny hole of a window in her room, flashes of every murder she’s committed—and some she didn’t—cut through her mind.

The kind lady who lured her into joining the Sisters Of Sisters, the sweet thing with twinkly eyes who sits across from her each meal, she came to Mercy’s room one night and caught the look of panic on her face. Soothingly, she explained to Mercy that her past makes no difference here. No one’s does. One is absolved of all sin when they don the grey robe and greyer cloak. Grey, grey, grey. Neither black with hunger, nor white with want. Grey with balance, the kind lady told her. Wear it and let it shield you from temptations.

Temptations? To what? Slit another poor Guardian boy’s throat to secure his silence? Give another poison kiss to the Warden of the ninth, killing him in a fit of pleasure? Fall in love with another boy named Dran with black smeared around his eyes?

So much blood, poison, and bone.

I can’t endure this much longer without you, Dran. I want to join you in the after realm. I want to hold you in my tired, blood-drenched arms and kiss you without the poison. Dran, my love, my life …

Mercy lies on her bed when the sun falls, folding her arms over her chest and staring at the ceiling. No matter the “good work” her days bring, the nights are hell. The Sisters Of Sisters lie in beds at night, just as the Ancients once did, and they must close their eyes and dream as the Dreaming Sister does. Of course none of them truly sleep—no adult in this world does—but when the women allow themselves five uninterrupted hours of pure meditation a night, they apparently grow closer to Three Goddess and to the peace that is promised to come. Of that, they are quite convinced: there is a long and everlasting peace awaiting everyone in Atlas. Yes, Mercy darkly agreed when she heard those words, and it’s called death.

“We do not meddle in our own selfish needs,” the kind lady explains to a newcomer over breakfast the following morning. “The city has too many needy, too many wanting, too many hungry. We devote ourselves only to others, and thereby, to the Sisters. Atlas is a living, breathing thing, and we must serve her the best we can.”

Mercy glances at the newcomer, then freezes at the sight. The new Sister Of Sisters is not a “sister” at all. He is a gentle-eyed man with a tiny mouth, a button nose, and large, otherworldly eyes. Not a speck of facial hair blemishes his face. He’s likely twenty or so years of age, if Mercy had to guess. If he wears his years nicely, he could even pass for halfway-to-thirty. His yellow hair is short and simple, parted neatly to the side, and his smooth, peachy skin looks as soft and untouched as a baby’s.

“I shall serve,” he murmurs so quietly, it sounds like a whimper. Then he turns his pretty eyes to Mercy.

She looks away and returns her full attention to the bowl in front of her. She doesn’t question why a man is allowed to join their like and she doesn’t care. Judging from the indifferent expressions on the others’ faces, no one else seems to either.

It’s that night that she decides to leave. She yanks open a drawer and pulls out her things. It isn’t much: the jeans she wore when she arrived nineteen days ago, Dran’s fingerless gloves she likes to wear so that she’s always holding his hand, a tiny container of ashes she uses to spread around her eyes … and the dull ring Dran gave her as a symbol of their wedding that will never happen. ‘I name the star right there, right by the moon, I name it the black star of mercy.’ She stares at the ring, lost in a memory of her and the love of her life.

“Please don’t leave.”

Mercy turns toward the door. Lady Agdanagon stands there, the oldest one with a bun of grey hair and dark wrinkly skin who they all call Mother. She is true sisters with the one who has kind, twinkly eyes. She is the one who quietly runs the Sisters Of Sisters from her private chambers from which she rarely leaves.

“There’s nothing but madness out there,” the Lady continues. “Of course, I don’t know much of it. I’m stuck in a room most of the day. Oh, if I’m quite honest, I think I’ve spent more time in that room in the past forty years than I have anywhere else in all of Atlas my whole life.” She chuckles, folds her arms, then leans against the wall. The sleeves of her grey robe hang so low, they brush along the floor when she moves her hands.

Mercy considers her. “I can’t pretend-sleep. It is too painful.”

“What pains you, dear?”

Him. It’s always him. “My past,” she answers vaguely. “I’ve done things I cannot undo. I’ve lost things I’ll never get back. I’ve thrown away my life without throwing a damn thing.”

“Except that knife you keep beneath your mattress.”

Mercy squints at the old woman, suspicious at once. “So you’ve been sneaking around my room, then?”

“I wish I were that interesting.” When the woman chuckles, she sounds like the squeaking of gears in an old machine. “It was an innocent discovery. I like to replace the linens when you are all going about your daily duties. It reminds me of my days as a mother when I’d look after my children, cleaning up after them, sorting their clothes and cooking their meals. I’ve always been a mother. Terrible habit to kick, and cruel yet to watch your little kids run off into the world and … oh, but what’s a mother to do with an empty house?”

“Grow old with your lover,” Mercy says bitingly.

“Ah, but I have, I have. Every day I grow old and older with him, even if his face remains the same.” She brings a few fingers to her cheek, her eyes drifting off. “When Good King Michold called upon my husband for a very important duty, we screamed with delight and threw a celebration. All our friends joined us. Oh, but if I only knew the following morning when my husband went off to the Lifted City that that would be the last time I’d see him alive …” She shakes her head. “Yes, but the good thing is, when I see him each night, his face is always young. And somehow, so is mine. Dreams are not always painful. Pain … is not always painful. More often than you realize, pain is your only reliable friend.”

Mercy sits down on the corner of the bed, her clothes in her lap and Dran’s ring in her palm.

“Try to dream,” Lady Agdanagon urges her. “Your body has not forgotten. You dreamt once as a child, and you’ll dream again now. It will remember. You may not find the true sleep, of course, but your mind will find the peace you crave. There is something quite special in a person who can dream, who can rest, who can gather strength of mind whilst others suffer and bear it twenty-four hours a day.”

“I can’t,” groans Mercy, shutting her eyes.

“Please. Give us one more night at the very least.” The woman’s robes shuffle as she crosses the room and lifts Mercy’s face with a finger under her chin. Mercy opens her eyes to meet the woman’s. “If after one night you still wish to go, then the doors are open, and you are free to turn over your greys. No guilt. No reprimand. You are here of your will and you may depart just the same.”

“Then I will stay here one night and leave on the morrow,” Mercy says stubbornly. “One more night I’ll give this place, but when that sun paints the glass of my window, I’m leaving no matter.”

“The decision is yours,” the Lady finishes somberly. “It always was.” Then, with a gentle nod, she glides across the room, shutting the door at her back as quiet as a sigh.

Mercy lies down on the bed clutching the ring and her clothes. She slips the ring on her finger, anger turning in her stomach for too long a time, until finally she gives in and allows her eyes to close. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she sees Dran’s smile. She hears the banter of the boys from The Wrath, all of them wearing their blacks, all of them laughing, then listening intently as Dran shares with them another story, another tale, another misadventure.

She huffs, breaking the memory and flipping open her eyes. “Not even another night,” she decides, jaw tight, head throbbing. “I will depart now.”

But she doesn’t move. Still lying on her back, she slowly brings her fingers to the edge of the mattress. Running them along, they happen on the subtle bump of an object hidden there.

Fingers tracing the retractable knife—her gift from Dran—she suddenly finds a smile on her face.

“I am blood … and bone … and poison … in the shape of a very sharp and loyal friend,” she whispers to herself, then closes her eyes once more.

0147  Wick

“It’s just a supply run to the eleventh,” he tells Athan after he’s already geared up to go. “I’ll be back before Lionis even turns on a stove for dinner.”

“I’m feeling really anxious about this.”

Wick places his hand on Athan’s shoulder. “I went just last week to the eleventh, remember? We have a path that even avoids the major streets. Cuts straight through the Core, skirts the broken rail in tenth that we took on our way here …”

“Shouldn’t we listen to my instincts, though? I feel like there’s something wrong,” Athan insists, pressing a hand to his chest as if to measure his own heartbeat.

Wick puts his own hand atop Athan’s, boring his eyes into his boy’s. “If that were the case, I’d feel it too. If you sense danger and I’m nearby, I sense it too.” Athan studies Wick’s face skeptically, the worry clearly evident in his shimmering blue eyes. “I sense nothing. Except a deep, heart-racing desire to kiss you. And tear off all your clothes and pin you against the wall while I have my way.”

“Still an option,” Athan tries to jest, but his humor falls flat with the worry still dominating his nerves, by the look of it.

“Maybe Gandra will let you come along on the next,” Wick reasons. “Then we don’t have to separate.”

“She doesn’t trust me.”

Wick lifts an eyebrow. “Why would you think that? Of course she trusts you. She likely trusts you the most of all of us, what with those sweet, innocent eyes of yours.” He lets on a light smile and kisses Athan, feeling the warmth of his soft lips.

Athan kisses him back, then pulls away to say, “She trusts my character, but she doesn’t trust my stability.” His eyes meet Wick’s. “She treats me like I’m, at all times, a minute away from snapping. They don’t know what to expect from me. I’ve suffered a great loss, I know, but it’s nothing compared to what you Lower City citizens have suffered all your lives.”

How could he play down his own tragedy like that? “Slumborn. You can call us slumborn, Athan. Not one of us would be offended.”

“Soon, when order is reestablished, we’ll all just be citizens of Atlas, Lifted and Lower alike.” Athan forces a smile, gives Wick another kiss on the lips. “Maybe I am a minute from snapping.”

“You have more self-control than you realize. Gandra ought to trust that.”

“You too,” Athan returns. “Be back quickly.”

An hour after that exchange, Wick and Juston are tranquilly trekking through the streets leading to the Core, a monstrous twist of Pylons and enormous buildings and fallen pieces of the center of the Lifted City. Entire roads are blocked by collapsed towers and huge blocks of cement, some from the slums, some from the city above. Only twice do Wick and Juston find themselves hiding behind an obstruction, unnoticed by some band or grouping of people walking by—whether brigand or innocent citizen, it doesn’t matter; no one can be trusted in times of anarchy.

A square they usually skirt around on their runs to the eleventh ward is populated by clusters of people in tents with tiny campfires burning, who may or may not be totally peaceful and unthreatening. Wick suggests they mask their passing with a blanket of white noise that the people might discount as rain or wind, but Juston doesn’t trust his ability to make it sound convincing. Having been around Juston enough, Wick smirks and reaches into his partner’s Legacy, producing his own blanket of noise that is richly layered with bumps and shuffling of winds to mask perfectly their footsteps. Juston lifts an eyebrow at Wick, then admires his handiwork and says, “Thanks for using my Legacy better than I do, asshole,” with a teasing nudge. Wick responds with a cocky grin. The two make it across the square without even a glance or a suspicious whisper in their direction.

It isn’t until they actually reach the eleventh ward that they face a true obstacle. The east entrance to the warehouse from which they pilfer supplies has been crushed in and blocked by falling debris from the Lifted City—namely, an enormous house-sized slab of cement that might have been some Lifted street or piece of the underbelly. But that’s not the cause for concern. A couple of rogues are standing near the only other entrance: the north one. One rogue is a big, built man with broad muscular shoulders that are encased in thick metal armor that covers half his torso, his firm abdomen exposed as if the armor doesn’t properly fit him. He wears a helmet, too, likely stolen from the abandoned Guardian headquarters near the Dark Abandon. The other rogue is slender and shirtless, wearing no helmet and no armor. His whole chest and back are decorated in extravagant ink.

Wick and Juston stay behind a toppled statue of some past queen, her stone body wide enough to hide them both as they watch the two living obstacles from across the road. Are they here for the same supplies, or completely ignorant of them?

“Go away,” Juston quietly hisses to himself. “Fuck. I wish they’d just fuckin’ leave so we can get our shit and get back.”

Wick’s eyes narrow. “I could really, really use Victra’s Legacy right about now. If I jumped into their eyes, maybe I could see what’s got their interest.” He turns to Juston. “Should I call upon Arrow?”

Juston sighs. “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.”

Pressing a finger to his ear, Wick whispers, “Arrow. Come in. We have a problem.”

It’s Prat’s voice that crackles in instead. “Arrow’s on a run of his own, apparently. It seems Gandra’s juggling us all around. So it looks like you’ve got me, Wicky-poo.”

Wick growls. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

“I heard Athan call you that once and just couldn’t resist.” Prat’s breathy, voiceless chuckling fills Wick’s ears through the earpiece.

The two rogues across the street pull open the north door, then slip inside. The big armored one takes an extra second to poke his head out, as if checking that he isn’t being followed, then lets the door shut ungently behind him.

“Two people are in the supply building,” Wick whispers to his earpiece. “Arrow gave us a few charms to plant in the building itself. Are you picking up anything in there?”

“Hmm.” There is a moment of silence as Prat checks, Wick has to assume. He glances at Juston, the two of them sighing impatiently. Then: “I hear nothing. This would be a lot easier with eyes.”

Juston nudges Wick. “Don’t you hang onto Legacies when you learn them? Can’t you, like, channel Victra or something and get us some visual into that building?”

Wick sneers at his partner, annoyed. “You know damn well I need the person within proximity to use their power.”

“But, like, how much of a proximity?”

“Near me. Like, maybe five feet? Ten? You practiced with me. You know this.” Wick curses. “She should’ve come. This is fucked.”

“Wait, wait. I think I hear them talking.” A long silence passes. “Nope, false alarm. Was hearing a charm from the edge of eighth. Hey, Wick, you ever been back to that pleasure house there? The one with the Eddy boy?”

Edrick, he means; the one whose Legacy is long-distance hearing. Wick doesn’t think back on that self-important Sanctum-butthole-licker with any trace of fondness. “Didn’t Arrow take an earpiece with him on his run?” he asks, ignoring Prat’s question. “We need to get in that building, whether with ears, eyes, or our damn selves.”

“Uh …” Scraping sounds cut through their ears; Prat scrambling for yet another answer he doesn’t have.

Juston shakes his head. “I say we just go in and deal with them.”

“With what weapons?” Wick spits back. “I have a dagger. They have a big armored guy and who knows what else? We don’t even know what dangerous Legacies they are armed with.”

Juston leans into Wick, strands of his usually messy blond hair sticking to his forehead from sweat. “Their Legacies are our weapons too. More specifically, yours.”

That idea worries Wick. Reaching out and using powers I don’t even know? Though it is a logical conclusion to come to, Wick finds the notion of randomly reaching out for others’ Legacies unsettling and reckless. That’s like fumbling for a blade in the dark, unsure of which end you’ll grab hold of. Wick could easily harm them both if he mishandles an unknown Legacy so blindly.

Juston reads the look on his face. “You underestimate yourself.”

“You overestimate me.”

“Dream big, remember?”

“Gandra is not here.” Wick glares darkly at the entrance to the building, frustrated. “She’s the reason we’re here. Gandra, who safely hides away in her tower in the sixth while we’re sent out like rats into the city. We should skip today’s run, head home, and make it back on the morrow,” Wick decides. “I won’t risk it.”

“But these supply runs aren’t Gandra’s,” Juston argues back. “If it were her will, she’d keep us safe in the hideout, just like when we were in that dark, secret room at the back of a jeweler’s closet last month. We’re being sent on runs for the Warden, Wick. If we return empty-handed, we run the risk of losing our place in that tower.”

“He wouldn’t kick us out on account of being safe. Don’t be a fool, Juston.”

“I’m going in. I can take the both of them.” Juston unsheathes a long, serrated blade, nearly the size of a short sword. “You haven’t yet paid witness to my impressive swordplay.”

“Juston, don’t.”

Juston does. He slips out from behind the statue and makes his way across the street, edging the building to the north door. Wick’s heart goes into his throat, his hand instinctively clutching the dagger at his belt. ‘You hold your life in your own hands now,’ Rone told him the day he gifted him this dagger during a training match back at the Noodle Shop. ‘No one can take it unless you hand it to them.’

Wick presses a finger to his ear. “Juston’s gone ahead. I have to follow him. Pay attention to the inside, Prat. Try not to say anything unless you must. The rogues can hear. I’m counting on you.”

“Arrow didn’t take an earpiece. We’re alone,” complains Prat. “Wick, I don’t trust this. Please convince Juston to come back.”

“I’m the only one with a charm in my ear,” answers Wick. His jaw tightens as he watches Juston slip through the doors. “Fuck. I have no choice, Prat. Cover me.”

“How??”

Wick abandons the safety of the toppled statue and pushes to the edge of the building, skirting around it to the north door. Juston left it a crack open, so Wick slips inside like a shadow. He moves soundlessly down the long corridor he’s been in four or five other times. His right hand never leaves the handle of the dagger at his belt. Each time he stops to listen, he hears nothing. How far could Juston have possibly gone? Wick was only thirty seconds behind him at most.

He crouches behind a barrel, listening into the main room where all the goods are stored in giant stacks and shelving units. A jolt of anxiety races through his system, and he finds himself pulling the dagger from his belt, brandishing it and ready to strike anything that comes near. If he’s lucky, it won’t be Juston he accidentally buries his blade into.

He reaches out, allowing himself to feel in the dark for any trace of someone else’s power. This isn’t something he’s especially skilled in doing yet. Over the months since the discovery of his true ability, he has experimented with the others in Rain. He practiced with Victra and Juston, whose abilities of sight and sound were deemed the most demonstrative. They tested how far he could get before he lost grip of their abilities. Wick got used to the feeling of reaching out for Victra’s sight and Justin’s noise. It’s a little bit like floating in a pool and both reaching for and simultaneously waiting for a stubborn, aimless fish to wriggle through the water toward your slippery hands. No matter how much practice Wick got, his ability to latch onto others’ Legacies never quite got easier. When a false alarm rang through the tower and everyone in Rain thought the Finger Of Madness was about to burn them alive, Wick found himself grabbing onto three or four Legacies at once, as if he suddenly held in his hand three differently styled tools of his choosing. Fear, he realized at that moment. Fear is the key …

There’s a noise from the main room that draws his attention. He holds his breath and moves silently down the aisles of shelving units. With each step, he continues to reach out with his power, desperate to know who they are up against.

‘Weapons find your hand, Anwick,’ his dad once told him. The meaning has never held more gravity than it does now.

He stops when he reaches one of the shelves. He thinks he feels Juston’s Legacy, clinging to it. Maybe I can use my own senses to guide me to him, he wonders. He follows his instinct, trusting the pull of his own power as he moves toward a half-opened door.

He steps inside. He sees and hears nothing. Warily, he reaches for Juston’s Legacy once again.

A breeze pulls across the hairs on his arms instead. Did I do that?

There’s a shuffle from behind. Wick turns.

Knuckles meet his face, throwing him to the floor. He hears a familiar voice say, “Goodnight, dreamer,” before his consciousness is stolen by a heavy boot to the cheek.

0148  Arrow

Listen, his father told him, and you will hear the truth.

The truth is something Arrow’s wrestled with for too long, and it’s a truth too dark for anyone else in Rain to know. That’s why he already did his run’s requirements a week prior; now he has this time to conduct a one-man mission of his own.

He’d done his research, like any good slummer with a computer and access to unlocked, unsecured Sanctum systems. I know where you live, Caldron family. I know the precise street in the sixth ward, and the precise house. He’s dreamed of this day since he was ten years old. His heart hammers wildly in his chest and his throat is so dry, he can’t seem to swallow.

He’s never done anything like this before. No one in Rain would suspect such an act like this, not from Arrow, not from good, quiet, loyal, respectable, smart Arrow who sits in the corner and messes with gadgets and earpieces and charms all day long, speaking the language of machines and electronics—listening, listening, listening. There are other languages I speak, he tells himself. Redder languages. Words of vengeance. Words of retribution.

Revenge.

The street creeps up on him faster than he’d anticipated. He verifies the name three times, then double-checks the gun he has stowed away in his pocket. There are very few guns in the city of Atlas, most of which are locked away in Lifted armories and vaults of the Ancients, regarded as relics. Upon the undoing of Atlas, many things have gone missing.

And many things have been found.

Arrow runs a finger along one such weapon he’d found, the gun that carries within its chambers six bullets. I’ll only need five.

He starts to move down the street. Strange, how his feet start to grow heavier with every step. He finds himself leaning against the wall of a boarded-up storefront, out of breath suddenly. He listens to his thumping heart, its pulse carried into his ears. Listen, and you will hear the truth. The truth is, he’s scared shitless.

He clenches shuts his eyes. Remember them all, he tells himself. Remember who they are and what they did. Eron Fyrefellow, Arrow’s father, struck an amazing opportunity to work for a rich family in the sixth when Arrow was a child of just six years. The Caldrons, a family with a slumborn mother, a Lifted father, and three young daughters. They were richer than even a typical Hightower, thanks to the wealth of the patriarch of the family, and Eron was modestly compensated.

Eron asked politely for a raise and was denied. He asked for a promotion and, despite his incredibly good work, was mocked. Listen, he told Arrow. Listen to those with more power than you. Listen to those who love and depend on you. Listen a thousand times before you speak one ill word. When you are at your angriest, swallow every word you want to say, Arrow.

Swallow every word …

So his father went in for his duty every day and never once complained. He performed well and came home to a hungry Arrow and hungrier sister with sweaty clothes to prove it. Little Arrow had no idea what precise work Eron did for them, but he imagined it to be something quite laborious.

The Lifted Mr. Caldron took a sudden and strong dislike toward Eron. Arrow never learned why, no matter how hard he listened. Without a speck of warning, Mr. Caldron hired and sent a squadron of corrupted Lifted City Guardian to the Fyrefellow home one fateful evening. Little Arrow watched the Guardian with wide-open eyes and wide-open ears as they toppled furniture, shattered glass, and marched through his house. Arrow listened. They beat his father in front of him until Arrow couldn’t recognize where his face ended and his neck began. Arrow listened. His mother’s clothes were torn off and, beyond their bedroom door, her screams of protest ripped through the house. Arrow listened. His sister, only ten years older than him, was next. But it was more than screams he heard with her; bones cracked and walls shook with the wrath of the Lifted City Guardian, bought and paid for.

Arrow remembers distinctly the face of the armored man who pinned him to the wall during the whole violent ordeal and, gentle as a caring uncle, said, “The Caldrons send their love and due respect to you and your hardworking, loyal family. May you all learn and never forget the difference between the numbers six and eleven. They are of the sixth. You are of the eleventh. Watch and learn.”

Watch and learn.

His mother survived the beating. His father did not. His sister’s brain was broken in the act of violence. She has trouble forming thoughts now, and her words come out in the wrong order. Worse yet, she never notices. She can’t move her left arm or leg, and quite often she defecates herself without realizing it. His sister’s life became a sudden and sobering lesson in humility and dependency.

Arrow Fyrefellow’s decision to join Rain was not a light one.

He hasn’t seen his mother or sister in seven months. They were good friends with a kind metalworker in the tenth who had started to look out for them after Eron’s death. Arrow was grateful; he was not his father and could not fill the void that his death left.

Arrow is no longer a child, and the big house looms before him across the street. This house is where the Caldrons live: Mr. and Mrs. Caldron and their three beautiful daughters. One, two, three, four, five Caldron lives are beneath that privileged, rich, self-important roof. That murderous, foul, despicable roof. Listen …

Arrow hears his teeth clattering. It’s not fear, he tells himself. It’s anger. You are angry. Think of dad. Think of mom and sis. Think of that gun in your hand.

The gun is in Arrow’s sweaty, sturdy hand. Six bullets.

Five lives.

Arrow swallows hard past the dryness in his throat. He licks his lips, finding them to feel of sandpaper and taste of salt. Remember, he incites himself, pushing himself, urging himself. Keep your focus.

‘May you all learn and never forget the difference between the numbers six and eleven.’ No, he will never forget the difference. It’s five. The difference is five.

One, two, three, four, five lives.

Arrow starts to cross the street.

The world turns red. Arrow stops, breath catching in his throat. For a second, he’s confused. Then, he looks up to the sky.

Oh, no.

Arrow takes off running in the opposite direction. He charges away so fast, he trips over his own feet and his face dives into the harsh pavement. “Fuck!” he screams out, feeling the burn of blood on his cheek as he scrambles back to his feet, ignoring the wound on his face that smarts something awful. Head pounding, pulse in his ears, he lurches forward desperately.

The Finger Of Madness strikes down with a horrifying sound. It is a million screams that are nothing human. It is lightning and it is fire. The world melts around him and Arrow becomes flat against the road, his own scream joining in the cacophony of death’s music.

Then it is over.

Arrow blinks, shaking so hard, he worries he’ll dislodge every bone in his body. Wait, I still have bones? He lifts his face off the pavement for the second time and finds a bloody imprint of his cheek left there. Twisting his torso around, he glances down the road, trembling.

As if some great god took a magical cylindrical eraser to the buildings, a mighty, jagged hole fifty feet in diameter is now cut through them at an angle. Flames dance and spit about the harsh wound that’s been given to the street.

He sees no people. Is this part of the sixth abandoned already? he wonders. Did the Caldrons leave? Am I here … Am I here for nothing?

He lifts himself off the ground, still shaking. Putting one very unsteady foot in front of the other, he returns to the front of the Caldron house. Half of it is gone, eaten by the Laughing Finger. The other half is wrapped in angry fire and smoke.

The smoke twists about, lured away by some stray wind, and in its place a young woman stands there.

Arrow blinks, astonished. His hand grips the gun, trembling.

She looks up from the wreckage, smoke dancing in her hair. Her desperate, terrified eyes meet his.

Neither of them move. It is an eerie scene, the crackle of fire and the deep inhale and exhale of smoke as the world settles from the cold and careless bolt of red fire that so randomly struck this very part of Atlas. Why here? Why now? Why at all? And there’s not a soul in sight but Arrow and this young woman.

She cries out a word. Arrow swallows hard. What did she say?

She starts to move, stumbling over burning debris and ashes that float in the air. Her skin is charred and blackened from the fire, yet she walks as if the burns are just paint upon her skin.

The closer she gets, the harder Arrow finds it to breathe. The young woman is gorgeous. She’d be about his age, too. Her breasts dance with her every step. Her hair is long and silken and brownish-red, like a sunset to complement the wintry cream of her skin. Her clothes, half burnt off, cling to a wide set of curvy, sexy hips, thick and gorgeous thighs, slender shoulders, and silken arms.

And when she reaches him, the word she’d cried out is made plain. “Help!” she shrieks again, lips trembling. “S-Someone needs … needs to call the h-h-hospital! Oh, Three Goddess help me, they’re all still inside!!”

The look on her face, it stuns Arrow and sends a sharp, unkind chill to the very pit of his stomach. That look of terror, that look of crazed desperation, that fear and that grief and that helplessness … that’s exactly how Arrow felt the day the Guardian came into his house, broke his sister, defiled his mother, and murdered his father. The horror in her eyes is unmistakable and plain, and it is something that speaks directly to Arrow. He’s transported at once to that day he lost his family and gained a broken one.

Arrow is stunned, a prisoner to his memories, unable to move, petrified to the fingertip.

“They’re inside!” she’s crying out. “All of them! Help!”

And to that girl, he’s only able to sputter a single word. A name. “C-Caldron.”

Her eyes flicker with surprise. “You know my family?? Can you help me? Please??”

It is her. One of the daughters … but which one?

“Please!” she cries feebly. “I need help!! They’re—”

There’s an explosion. The front of the house folds in upon itself, and the roof follows, crashing down. Fire sweeps up like dust from under a rug as it’s thrown, flitting in the air and licking up the sides of neighboring buildings.

Arrow and the girl watch on—Arrow in a stupefied stare, the girl in frozen horror.

Neither of them need to say it. If there was any fleck of life in that house a second ago, it’s gone now.

“My s-s-sisters …” the girl hisses at the flames, her eyes welling up. “M-Mother. F-Father …”

She drops to her knees, staring at the toiling light as it continues to greedily consume everything she, all her life, cared for and loved—everything Arrow, all his life, despised and hated.

His fingers still grip the gun. Six bullets, five lives …

One life.

The girl faints, tumbling to the pavement in a heap of limbs.

Arrow stares down at her. The fire ahead of him burns so hot, he feels it against his face like a blanket. His body is drenched in sweat. Flames start to throw themselves outward from the house in little whips and tongues, as if hungrily reaching for the pair of them and inviting them to join the dance.

Killing her now would be too easy. Killing her now would be a mercy, letting her drift to the other side with her family. Does she deserve that kindness? This girl who took part in destroying his life? This girl who’s watching her own get destroyed before her?

I will save this bullet. I will save it until I can use it upon her and finish my own mission. I will do it when it will hurt her the most.

And he thinks these angry thoughts as the boy who lost his family, furious tears quivering in that boy’s eyes as he looked down upon his wounded, wailing mother and his confused, broken sister and the corpse of his father, who he never got to say goodbye to.

The girl is motionless at his feet. One life …

Arrow stows the gun away. The next instant, he brings the girl into his arms. Carrying her, he rushes down the road, abandoning the crackle and spit and groan of the hungry flames at his back.

0149  Ellena

Gabel has been standing guard outside her door for the past hour. It is such a mercy that the room she stays in when she’s not cleaning linens has a big window in that wretched, thick door. She finds herself staring through the glass at Gabel’s wide, muscled back hugged tightly by his green uniform shirt. He flinches, as if feeling her eyes on his back, but doesn’t turn around.

She leans against the wall and sighs, then stares down at her hands which are still locked in the thick leather gloves. She’s tried a hundred different tugs and pulls to get them off—even crouched to the floor, stepped on her own hand, and yanked with all her might—but nothing at all works. I’ve forgotten what my real hands look like.

Lonesomeness is the worst torment. It’s worse than the memory of murdering a boy of fourteen. Yes, he was horrible and broke her into fifty pieces before she moved those fifty broken bones right back into him, but still, he was only a boy. He had a mother who loved him, surely. He had desires. He had dreams of living a long, happy life. Maybe he would’ve met a woman or a man to make him smile and learn compassion. It’s possible, isn’t it? The Fall of Sanctum might have changed him. Maybe he’d have become a better person. Maybe the next victim of his bending and breaking bones would have been King Impis himself. Now, Ellena will never know.

“You know I’m dying in here,” she says at the door.

Gabel’s motionless statue of a body makes no response.

“Is there any news of my sons?” she asks anyway, her voice softer. She knows he can hear her; she’s tested it many times before. “Anything at all? News from Guardian? From my sister? Please. Give me scraps here. Even just a word or two. My sons are out there in the middle of it. I’ve already … I’ve already learned the fate of one of them. What a horrible fate for a mother to bear.”

Yes, she’ll cling to the lie that the boy’s body she was brought to identify was her son Link’s, even if he wasn’t. She’ll cling to that lie and use it like an emotional crowbar in this unforgiving door. She is determined to pick into that stone heart of his, even if a morsel of compassion is all she gets in return.

Ellena notices his shoulder move. He’s turned his head slightly, his ear perked. He’s listening.

“I never even got to tell him goodbye,” she murmurs at the glass, encouraged by the shift of Gabel’s broad, chiseled backside. “He was my youngest. He was my baby … my little Link. If only I knew just a bit of news from any of my other boys. Two of them are in Guardian. I’ve spoken about them so many times, my sweet boys from Quadrant Nine. Oh, if only I knew whether they were okay.”

He says nothing, but he still keeps his head turned just half an inch in her direction.

“Please …” she begs him.

Then he relents. “Halves. He’s your second oldest?”

“Yes.” She hangs onto his words like the rope thrown over a cliff to save her from falling. “Yes, Halvesand Lesser. Do you know him? Is he alright? And what of his brother Aleksand, my eldest son?”

“Aleksand is alive.”

She clenches shut her eyes, drinking that information like a cool glass of water and she is ever parched. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” The persisting silence stabs her. He didn’t mention … “And what of his … his brother? Halvesand?” There is still silence. She’s gone from mourning the fake-death of her youngest to fearing the worst for her second-oldest. “Gabel? S-Sir? Please don’t say it. Oh, no. Please, please don’t say it …”

“Halves is alive too, but …” His chin jerks down, eyes averted.

“But what??”

Gabel swallows hard, then turns his head completely, lifting one blunt, sorrowful eyebrow at her. “He suffered an injury at the hands of … well, it matters not. He has been in recovery at Eleven Wings.”

“For how long?”

“Since before Greymyn’s death.”

Ellena feels herself turning white. Her gloved hands press onto the door. “That’s … That’s months. My son has been in recovery for months?? What sort of injury…? It must have been s-substantial.”

“I’ve told you enough.”

“Who did this to him?” Silence. “WHO DID THIS TO HIM??”

Gabel turns and opens the door in one swift movement. Ellena backs away, startled by his abrupt change. The door shuts heavily at his back. “You will not raise your voice at me, Lesser. I swear it, I am doing a kindness to you by even allowing you this spare room to decompress from your day’s work and have privacy. I could chain you to that utilities room and work you from sunset to sunset. You heard me. From sunset to sunset. Twenty-four hours a day. Linens. Soap. Stains. Labor. Am I clear?”

Ellena folds her arms defiantly. The thickness of the gloves makes her misjudge the motion and, for a second, she’s afraid she’s forgotten how to cross her arms at all. When she’s finally settled, she raises her chin and says, “I could’ve helped him. My own son.”

“Silence, Lesser.”

“I could have taken his wounds. I still can. Even now. I can walk up to my son, my Halvesand, and I can touch him and take away whatever injury it is that—”

“A rogue slit his throat with a poisoned knife,” he cuts her off. “His Legacy stopped the knife, but kept the poison. He’s blind, I think. And mute. And his skin is sandpaper, last I heard. But alive.”

Ellena’s mouth can’t close. Whatever smart little words she was about to throw at him, they’ve suddenly found themselves stuck to her stiffened tongue. Blind? She seems to have gone blind herself. Mute? Not a word seems capable of leaving her throat.

“Lesser?”

She moves to the window, utterly gutted by the information. She stares through its glass, unseeing. Halves was being attacked by rogues with knives and where was I? Sitting at my sister Cilla’s house? Sitting at home listening to Lionis go on about his latest read?

And all this time that Halves was recovering, he was recovering alone. Even now, she can imagine the phone at their abandoned house in the ninth ringing, ringing, ringing with the call she never answered, the call that would have gently informed her of her son’s incident and resulting condition. I could’ve been there for him during the recovery. I could’ve been there for my Halves …

Then she remembers that Forge and her had decided to sell the house phone so many years ago after she was released from her duties at the hospital. It was such a tough time for the Lessers. They were tight for money and everything was collapsing around them.

Much like now.

“Ellena?”

She turns slowly. Gabel stands in front of her now, his eyes soft. She doesn’t say a thing; she only stares at his lips silently.

“I’m sorry you had to hear it so plainly,” he says, sounding far more like a human being than a Guardian. “I … I may have been able to spill the information in a more sensitive, gentler manner.”

Ellena only nods once, her gloved hands held protectively to her chest. She tries to imagine what Halvesand looks like right now. Is he up and about in the hospital, making new friends? Is he lying in a recovery room, bedridden, alone and afraid? No, don’t be so dramatic. Aleksand is with him. Aleks and Halves were inseparable growing up.

Gabel slowly reaches for her. The gesture confuses Ellena until she realizes he’s taken her gloved hand. He pulls something off his waist, then moves it near her elbow.

Click.

The gloves fall off. Air as cold as ice swallows every inch of her hands and forearms. The skin prickles as it drinks the air, and Ellena sighs from the immediate relief. Somehow, this small act seems more capable of wringing tears from her eyes than the news of her son.

“You did Atlas a favor.”

Ellena lifts her gaze. “What?”

“Taylon was rotten. Right to the bone.” Gabel’s eyes drift down to her lips. A certain look of pain seems to cross them, a pain that almost appears longing. “I think you took many wounds away from all of Atlas … with what you did.”

Ellena’s breath catches in her chest. This is coming from the man who is holding me here for my eventual trial … which may never, ever happen … a trial for the murder of this rotten Marshal he speaks of.

“His mother must have failed him,” says Ellena darkly. “Should have … mothered him more. I killed a child.”

“And saved a city.”

“What brought this on?” she asks, attempting to keep her mind about her and not be distracted by the heat coming off his body the closer he draws to her. He has strong arms, like Forge. They can crush me worse than the bone bending did. That fact should not turn me on, but it does. I want him to touch me. Is this what grief looks like? Is this me grieving, craving his touch? “Why the change of heart?”

“My heart hasn’t changed.”

“You’re standing too close.” I wish he’d stand closer.

“Am I?” His words fall on her face in hot tufts of breath.

“Y-You’re young enough to be my son.” And full of energy. And full of power. And full of steam. I’m losing my mind.

“I’m twenty-five.”

Still far too young. “I have a husband.”

“He’s dead.”

“Then that makes me a widow. A widow who must mourn. A widow who must … who must …” And I have a body that hasn’t been touched in ages. And a soul that’s been broken worse than my bones were. And a desperate need to be held … or invaded, or consumed …

“I had a woman,” he tells her so close to her ear, his voice sends a shiver down her neck and arms. Ellena starts to tremble. “I lost her too. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss her.”

“I need … I need …” Ellena can’t even form a thought.

“We both have a need,” he finishes for her. “The same one.”

Then his mouth is on hers, and she turns into dough in his big, strong arms. His hands slide up her supple body, rushing to cup her neck and hold her in place as his mouth consumes her. Ellena’s mind turns clear as a Lifted Lady’s sky as her own hands—freed from the wretched gloves at last—cling to his chest, feeling everything with such detail that she has not known for weeks. His muscles flex and pull as he works her, and she admires and worships each and every movement. It’s a very pleasant landscape for her hands to enjoy, the first true thing they’ve touched in so long.

“I shouldn’t …” she hisses when their mouths enjoy one short reprieve. “I … I love Forgemon. I always will. I c-can’t—”

“This isn’t love.” His words fall on her face in warm bursts of breath. “Love your man, forever and always, just as I love my lost woman. All I want is a fuck.”

“Fair enough,” Ellena decides, and then their mouths find each other again.

0150  Tide

This … is … the … fucking … best.

Tide Wellport can’t believe his eyes when he finishes tying the rope around Wick’s leg, binding his unconscious body to the chair. Anwick Lesser, the cocky smell-boy with the wimpy pink puppy of a brother, is under his control. For once in his life, Tide feels deep pride in his accomplishment. Every little scolding and dark word his father threw down upon him all those years in that ugly apartment at the edge of ninth, those dark words mean nothing now. Even that old tired bastard would be proud of me.

Tide turns his head to observe the other one, whoever he is. Probably Wick’s latest butt boy. He’s bound similarly to a chair by his legs, arms, and neck. Tide took his short sword too, impressed by its sharp, serrated edge. He smirks, turning the blade over in his hand as he inspects it.

“The fuck you tie them up for? We need to kill them.”

Tide scoffs at his partner, who’s apparently just come into the room. He doesn’t bother turning around to face the fool. “Fuck no. I want to enjoy this. You have any idea who we just caught?”

“Doesn’t matter. The Queen only needs their eyes.”

“I’d love to remove his friend’s while he watches,” Tide muses.

“The Queen removes them herself from their cold dead corpses. You know the orders. Kill ‘em and bring their heads.”

“I know the orders. Once this one wakes up, we’ll take the head of his friend and call it a day. I want him to watch.”

“So why are you taking your time? Slap him awake! Or are you thinking of giving one of them a suck job while they’re out?”

Tide snorts at that. No. This Wick bitch would enjoy it too much, he jests to himself. “I grew up with this one, here. He went to my school in the ninth, him and his stupid pink brother.”

“Pink?”

The word “pink” suddenly sends Tide’s heart racing as he thinks about all the glow marks on his skin beneath his armor. He still can’t remember how he got them. One minute he was at a Weapon Show. The next minute, he was running for his life.

And Wick was there, running alongside him.

Wick and his stupid smirk.

Or was Wick there at all? It’s so frustrating, not being able to remember the simplest thing. There was the guy with the black around his eyes who gave a big presentation on the stage about a retractable knife that went back to his hand after he threw it, like a boomerang. How did that guy always manage to catch it by the handle instead of the blade? And then suddenly there was blue writing and drawings everywhere on the domed ceiling of the Weapons Show arena. ‘Let It Rain,’ he remembers reading in that blue ink.

Rain. Why does that word unrest him as deeply as “pink” …?

“Tide.”

Tide jerks at the sound of his name. “What?” he growls.

“You went away again.”

“Pink,” Tide says, pulling himself out of his head. “Pink because his brother was …” But the word keeps stinging him, and the simple joke he’s trying to make doesn’t come. Am I scared of Wick? Does he know what happened to me? I haven’t seen him since that day …

“I don’t care about his brother,” says the partner. “You kill that one, who you obviously have a boner for. I’ll kill this one.”

Tide faces him, alarmed. His partner, Scorp by name, is a skinny guy with a bushy path of hair running down the middle of his scalp from his forehead to the back of his neck, the sides shaved smooth. He never wears shirts, showing off all the coils of ink that decorate every inch of his torso, and his black pants are so tight, Tide wonders how the idiot breathes. Scorp is a Morph, but his Legacy is useless; he can form bumps and lumps anywhere on his body, then make them go away at will. Tide calls him Lumpy behind his back.

“You’re so dumb. We only need one more head,” Tide argues. “We’ve gotten nine in the bag already. She only asks for ten.”

“So we’ll bring them eleven. One less we gotta get next month.”

Scorp’s logic is sound, but Tide feels particularly argumentative right now. Maybe it’s due to the vigor he’s feeding upon from having caught one of his schoolyard nemeses.

Or maybe it’s because the thought of actually ending Wick’s life makes him terrified. I don’t want to kill him. I just want him to suffer. “Maybe they only ask for ten for a reason, dumbass. What if we bring the Queen eleven and get her all pissed off?”

“So what are you proposing? Kill one and let the other go and run back to his friends, warning them of us and sending an army of ninth ward rats over here to retaliate?”

Tide’s about to respond, then finds himself caught. I didn’t think about retaliation. He stares off with his mouth parted, thinking.

And it’s in the middle of his thoughts that he hears the first groan. He looks up to find Wick lifting his head, blinking in the dim warehouse lighting. The wimpy, messy-haired idiot groans as he slowly peers around, taking in his circumstance. He gives his arms a tug, discovering them to be bound to the chair. He jerks his legs too, then lifts his chin and brings his startled gaze to Tide’s.

The sight of Wick’s opened eyes revives Tide’s vigor. “Yeah,” he grunts, proud. “I caught you, you fucker.”

“Tide …? That’s … really you?” Wick can’t seem to believe his eyes, blinking countless times. “What … What are you doing?”

“You’re my prisoner now, dumbass,” Tide grunts back, crossing his big arms. He gives the other guy’s chair a kick. “Don’t know who that idiot is.”

“You damn well know Juston’s name,” grumbles Wick, glaring at Tide. “Or should I say Noisy Boy?—your nickname for him? The fuck is wrong with you? I thought we got past all this bullying shit.”

Tide blinks. What the fuck is he talking about?

His partner nudges him. “What’s this dude’s Legacy? I want to know what I’m dealing with.”

Tide snorts, shrugging off Wick’s words. Don’t let him use all his dumb smart-boy tricks on you. “Oh, you’ll laugh,” he promises Scorp. “You’ll fucking laugh.” Tide can’t wait to say it, the chuckles dancing around in his throat as he speaks. “This little shit, Wick, he can smell stuff.” Tide lets out a hearty guffaw, enjoying the look of bafflement on Scorp’s face. “Like, feelings and shit. That … is his Goddess-given gift. Fucking smelling.”

It’s Wick who exclaims: “Smelling?? The fuck, Tide?”

Scorp studies Wick appraisingly, his eyes squinting. To Tide’s annoyance, Scorp doesn’t seem amused; instead, he looks intrigued. “Is that true?” his partner asks, his voice soft, as if doubting the truth, or working it over in his head. “Can you smell thoughts? Feelings?”

“He couldn’t smell his own fart if he tried,” Tide mocks him, as if trying to impress the dumbness of the Legacy on his partner. “We’re all capable of smelling things. It’s one of the five basic senses, obviously. So damn dumb. ‘Smelling’. Hah! This idiot has a power that’s totally fucking useless!”

“Useless …” mumbles Scorp, still studying Wick.

The longer he stares at Wick, the angrier Tide gets. “Useless talents runs in his family’s blood,” he goes on, trying to steal back his partner’s attention. “His brother can turn things pink.”

“Pink as the glow under your armor?” interjects Wick.

Tide’s blood runs cold at Wick’s words. His mouth goes dry as he gapes, staring at Wick hard and stonily, his eyes wide and his fingers beginning to quiver. How the fuck does he know that? Did he do this to me? Did he put these marks on me?

“Or is your glow purple today?” Wick continues, his face ripe with that insufferable cockiness Tide can’t stand. “Or orange?”

Tide keeps his face as blank as he can manage. He can’t stand Wick knowing something that he doesn’t. Especially when the thing directly pertains to a mystery that has plagued Tide for months.

And then Scorp draws an interesting conclusion. “Oh! You can actually smell them??” he asks Wick, curious. “The glow marks?”

Wick’s eyes flick back and forth from Scorp to Tide, baffled. His face slowly softens, and it seems Wick is beginning to draw his own conclusion about something. “Oh …” he breathes, then says nothing more at all, his expression utterly changed.

Tide can’t stand a second of whatever the hell is going on in Wick’s head. “Think you’re so smart, do you?” Tide barks. He nearly snarls as he steps back, admiring Wick in his predicament. “I wonder if you can smell your own fear, Wick boy. What’s the scent like of your own imminent beheading?”

Wick lifts up his chin. “Don’t know. All I smell is a big dumb troll who needs a shower.”

Scorp laughs, at last amused, but not by the one Tide intended. Wick smirks, appearing proud of his own joke.

Tide covers the distance between them in one single stride and knocks Wick across the mouth with one forceful, backhanded slap. The hit takes the smirk right off his face, Tide’s knuckles stinging with the sheer satisfaction of meeting Wick’s insolent smirk.

“Your life is mine,” growls Tide, despite the pang of worry that lives in his stomach. “You better know that, Wick Lesser.”

“Enough.” The word comes from Scorp. “We gotta get to taking care of them. The other one’s waking already.”

Tide doesn’t bother to watch him come to. His furious eyes are piercing into Wick’s, threatening him without words, making dark promises that he hopes the sting of his backhanded slap helped Wick understand. I’m in charge. The anger boils inside his belly. You are powerless, Lesser. You’re powerless and I am in charge now.

“Who’s this other one?” Tide growls, deadly deep, still glaring at Wick with his face reddened and his body so close, he can pick up the scent of Wick’s sweat. “And what is his Legacy?”

“Tide …” murmurs Wick. “Do you … Do you really not …?”

“Shut up.”

Scorp draws his sword, which was belted to those ridiculously tight pants of his. He aims the sword at the other’s chest just as the boy seems to have gained his full consciousness, blinking rapidly and assessing his situation with mounting alarm. “If you make any sudden movements,” Scorp warns him politely, “then this blade is going to come out of your back.”

The boy’s eyes flit back and forth between Scorp and Tide, fear flashing in them. He says nothing.

“Tide, listen to me …”

Again, Wick trying to appeal to him. “You want something else crunching against your face?” Tide offers acidly. “It’ll be a fist next time. Possibly two.”

Scorp sighs, his patience lost. “It will obviously bring you deep and powerful satisfaction to put an end to that boy’s life. Here.” Scorp fetches the serrated blade he’d taken off the other one when they had knocked them out. “Take his friend’s weapon. Clean cut right across the neck. We’re already late. The Queen’s waiting.”

Tide takes the blade. It feels very heavy in his hand. He stares at it for too long, then shakes his head and trains his eyes on Wick, who annoyingly shows no fear. I’ll give you something to fear.

Tide lifts the weapon. The point hovers at Wick’s throat, which tightens before him. Tide bares his teeth, holding the sword in place and preparing himself to cut off his friend’s head.

No, his enemy’s head. Tide blinks, annoyed with his brain. Why is his heart still racing? Maybe he knows what happened to me. Maybe he knows why I’m glowing. He has the answers I need. Yet …

“Tide …”

“Shut up.” He lifts the sword higher, the point at Wick’s lips. “Shut up or I’ll cut off your lips before I take your whole damn head. You would look fucking funny without lips and I will happily laugh before I end you.”

Tide glares at Wick with his weapon pointed. He sees the boy in the schoolyard. He sees the laughter between Wick and his brother Link. Tide feels a pang of wishing he’d had that in his life. He thinks about all the times he watched them from across the yard and didn’t harass them. His heart grows as heavy as the serrated short sword in his grip. Do it, he tells himself. Do it now.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he lifts his chin and growls out some more words. “You’re gonna regret coming at me in the schoolyard.”

Wick’s face wrinkles up. “Tide … your memories. He … He took your memories. We left the ninth together. We worked together …”

Scorp sighs yet again. “Just take his fucking head, Tide.”

He took my memories? Who took my memories? After Tide had escaped the Weapon Show, running alongside Wick, he remembers only opening his eyes in his apartment and watching through a haze as an old man left the room. An old man with a cane …

“You could be working with us to end the madness, Tide,” Wick goes on. “But you’re not ending it. You’re becoming it.”

“Shut up.”

“We were friends …”

I can’t kill him, Tide realizes with horror and deep humiliation. Trembling, the weapon in his grip grows heavier with every passing second. I … I don’t want to kill him.

0151
Wick

“Do you remember the boy who could turn you cold?” Wick pleads, his heart racing in his chest. Reach, Wick. Reach for that punk-head’s Legacy, whatever it is. Reach for Tide’s. You’ve used it before. “Do you remember the cold boy, Kendil?”

“SHUT UP!” shouts Tide, gritting his teeth nastily.

Wick is getting to him, but not in the way he had hoped. Tide is like a bomb, and Wick feels little success or confidence in his talent of diffusing him. Yellow has obviously taken everything from the idiot’s mind and now he’s reverted back to his old self, as if none of their adventures together in Rain happened. Yellow, you fucking idiot. If I survive this, I swear, I swear …

“The cold boy suppressed your glows,” Wick pushes on. He feels the hairs on his arm stir. Was that a light breeze? Am I taking hold of Tide’s Legacy the right way? Is it the sharp or the handle of his power that I have a grip on? “The cold boy Kendil. Come on …”

In one quick instant, the punk-head crony snatches the weapon out of Tide’s hand. He lifts it to Juston’s throat, who gasps and emits a loud shriek of noise that might or might not have come from his Legacy at all.

“I’ll go first, then,” the punk announces, drawing the weapon back in a sideways arc, prepared to swing at Juston’s exposed neck.

Wick pulls against his binds, reaching desperately. Bumps form on his hands. He feels his own neck bulge. And then, by a stroke of devious luck, a deep and potent wind pushes through the room as Wick drinks thirstily from Tide’s Legacy. He directs all the wind at the weapon, determined to knock it from the assailant’s hand.

He only succeeds in changing its angle. Instead of cutting into the neck, Juston’s own serrated short sword slices itself deeply into his arm.

And then he screams, exploding with the full strength of his noisy Legacy. With Wick’s hands bound, he can’t cover his ears, but both Tide and punk-head do, backing away from Juston as he screeches both from his mouth and from his power, becoming a type of banshee in his own right. The weapon remains jutting out from the side of his arm, likely buried to the bone.

The wind keeps pushing through the room. With the power of Juston’s noise and the storm-like pull of air, the walls begin to shake and items turn airborne from off the shelves, flying through the air and finding new homes in the walls. Tide stares at Wick, astonished, terrified, having no idea where the wind is coming from, since it is clearly not of his own doing.

“STOP THE NOISE!” screams Tide through the assault of ear-splitting sound.

Something hard and metal crashes into Wick’s backside, drawn to him by the wind, and he finds his hands—still bound to the arms of the chair—separated from the base. Wick flops to the floor, bracing himself as objects fly haphazardly over him. A blunt blue something flings through the air and knocks Juston violently over the head, killing the noise instantly—and then that blunt blue thing is red from Juston’s blood.

Wick can’t seem to stop the cyclone. His fear and anxiety pull it so potently, he begins to feel the very shape of the air, the strength of it like the muscles of an invisible third bicep—and he cannot unflex it. He feels the building swell. He feels the weakness in the walls. It’s all going to come crashing down on us, he realizes with sick horror. He tries to hug himself protectively despite his legs still being bound to the bottom half of his toppled, broken chair, willing himself to calm down and to let go of Tide’s Legacy.

The wind does not relent. He looks up just in time to see Tide racing away toward a hole that had been ripped in the wall.

“UNBIND US!” Wick screams at his retreating ex-friend, if the ever-cowardly block of muscle could be dignified with such a term of sweet nothingness. “TIDE! … REMEMBER!”

But Tide is gone, and so is his friend. Juston’s limp head hangs, blood pouring down the side of his face and painting the collar of his shirt red, red, red. Then his chair falls over the wrong way, and Juston lands on the side that still carries the buried blade.

The farther Tide goes, the less Wick feels the Legacy. It’s letting go, he thinks and hopes, desperate for the wind to die away so that he can safely unbind himself, if such a feat is possible. He tries to get a good look at his toppled partner, but the wind and the dust pushes against his eyes, and all he sees is a bloodied face amidst splinters of flying, wingless wood.

And then he hears the unmistakable groan of a wall giving in. His legs still bound, his hands wrestling with the arms of a broken chair, Anwick Lesser looks up just in time to watch as the broken wall collapses on top of him.

0152  Halvesand

The window is dark with night and his room, darker.

The bed creaks as he, yet again, defies all orders to remain in it. The past few days especially, he’s felt stronger. Maybe it was the way Ennebal moved her hand within his pants. Maybe it’s the promise of more of her. That’s all my cock seems to care about, he muses darkly. The presence of a woman’s hand, regardless of where that hand’s been prior.

Much like losing his voice, losing his potential promotion to the Lifted City, losing his father to the Keep, losing his youngest brother Link to the streets, losing Anwick to the madness upstairs, losing the strength in his arms and legs … Halves has gotten quite used to having nothing at all anymore. Ennebal? Maybe she was never really his. Maybe she’s better seen as a pleasure girl, a passing passion, a woman who enjoys the company of any man who looks her way.

He doesn’t like cheapening her like that, but he knows no other way to cope. Her hand feels good. Her love doesn’t. So I’ll take the hand.

And maybe her lips too, when he’s sure that his own don’t taste of blood and acid.

He manages, with one very careful step at a time, to get out of his room. The hallways are dimmed overnight to conserve power, so it’s in the semidarkness that he slowly edges his way down the hall. The room is so boring and he needs a different perspective. There is only one nurse at the desk, and he doesn’t look much interested in Halves, or perhaps didn’t notice him at all. The ones during the day are much stricter and crueler, confining him to his room and not allowing even the decency of a stroll around his floor. Too dangerous, they insist. You lack the proper physical therapy. Give it another week.

They’ve told him to “give it another week” for the past month. His eyes are still wrecked, everything appearing as if veiled in white, amorphous goo. He’s convinced the only medicine the hospital has left for him are sweet-tasting lies of comfort. They tasted sweet the first month.

When he happens on an unmanned nursing station, his eyes fall upon a phone that rests on the counter. Yes, of course, he realizes, his heart giving a jump when the idea enters his head. He shuffles across the expanse of the hall, half-collapsing into the counter as he clings to it for balance.

He lifts the phone to his ear, then squints as he studies the blurs of numbers. Who to call first? He considers Uncle Redge, but can’t remember the last three digits of his number, mixing them up in his head. I suppose I could guess all three. Aunt Cilla might have heard from his mom by now; he could also call her.

He dials her number, invigorated and hopeful, then waits as the line rings in his ear.

“Hello?” answers his aunt.

And it’s only then that he remembers he has no voice. With a haze of colors before his eyes, he stares dumbly with his lips hanging open, struck with his utter incompetence.

“Hello? Say something,” Aunt Cilla mutters, annoyed.

If she heard my voice, she would collapse into tears. Aunt Cilla always adored me. She gave me a dark blue, hand-woven sweater on my eighteenth birthday that I still wear to this day. Remembering the sweater, however, also reminds him of how they were forced out of their dormitories due to the riots set on by three untimely Fingers Of Madness that ripped open a sore wound in the eleventh ward slums. No amount of Guardian could have controlled the chaos that ensued; the Eleven Wings was their best fortress, complete with power, thick Sanctum-grade walls, and medicine that could help them endure the reign of madness.

“Is that you, dear Lionis?” she asks quietly, her voice softening to a near whisper. “My dear? Are you in trouble?”

Halves dares to push out air, but it results in a gargle of noise that sounds nothing human. He swallows, feeling the burn of his attempt at speaking as it chases its way down to his raw stomach.

“Lionis, my sweetheart. Are you hurt? Has your mother done something to you? Has she run away?”

Halves feels the sting of tears in his eyes. Don’t let the tears fall, he warns himself with mounting aggravation. They will burn a path down your cheeks, you fool.

“My house is always open to you, sweetheart. We even have power drawn from a Sanctum-connected metalshop no one knows about. You’d be safe here, my brainy nephew. Oh, I have a new recipe we can try. You can cook with me. It’s a brand new recipe. Did I mention my husband was—? Oh, no, no. We won’t talk of such things. He’s gone now, sweetheart. Just come at your first—Oh, I understand if you can’t speak right now. She might be listening. Yes, yes, of course.”

Halves listens, his eyes narrowing. What has happened to his Aunt Cilla? His heart races and he grips the phone tightly. Is his heart racing from her words, or from the energy he’s expending on keeping himself upright?

“Just come to my house in the ninth the very next moment she’s off to her muds,” Cilla goes on carelessly. “The … The Greens are still operational, aren’t they? Oh, of course, you can’t answer me. Yes, yes. You live far out enough, my brainy boy, I doubt you’re feeling a bit of the anarchy at all. Lucky, sweet thing. Perhaps it is I who ought to come to you. Ever since your mother left here, oh … it just hasn’t—” Suddenly, she cuts herself off. Halves listens closely. Her breathing changes. And then: “This … This isn’t Lionis, is it?” Her voice deepens. “This is a … This is just a dead line, isn’t it? I’m … I’m talking to myself. I’m talking to a ghost. Oh, oh … Oh …”

Halves swallows hard, then struggles to utter a single word, but it doesn’t form into voice and he only succeeds in gagging himself. The taste of iron and acid fills his throat.

“Just a ghost,” his aunt says wistfully, and then the line goes dead. Silence rings in Halves’ ear.

He sets the phone down on the counter, pursing his lips and considering her words. Lionis. He smiles lightly, thinking of the last time he saw his little brother when he was seen off at the ninth ward trains. That day was the last time he saw his whole family together. I might’ve hung onto it a bit more and insisted on staying an extra day or two, had Guardian permitted.

Or perhaps he might not have joined Guardian at all. Why did he enroll? Just because Aleks did? Just to show Aleks that he could do it too? Just to make his family proud? Or was it truly some sense of justice within him, some hunger to make the slums safer, to serve the safety of those less powerful, those less authoritative, those less fortunate?

Now it is he who’s less powerful, less authoritative. My blood isn’t thick after all. It’s thin and watery, running out of me the moment fear crawls up my neck. Or the sharp of a poisoned knife …

“Lesser.”

He turns. The face that greets his sends his stomach through the floor. The crooked figure of his Lead Officer, Obert Ranfog, stands before him. Obert has always had a sort of plain, unremarkable look about him, leaving no impression on a passing person, except for the stern, cold look of his eyes which can discern truth from lie thanks to his Legacy.

“You’re out of your bed.”

Halves, his chapped lips sealed shut, rights his posture as best as he can and salutes his Lead Officer, but is surprised at how limp his arm feels. The simple act causes his knees to buckle and he finds himself clinging to the counter for a moment to save himself from falling over. He grunts, but the sound only comes out in one tiny squeak that reminds him for the tenth time this week that he can’t use his voice to moan, grunt, or emit a simple sigh. Everything hurts.

“Don’t waste your breath on an old man like me,” says Obert, looking Halves over from foot to face. “You’re a damaged piece of shit, aren’t you, Lesser.”

It isn’t meant rudely. Halves is all too familiar with Obert’s crass and insensitive way of speaking. He nods at his Lead Officer and attempts a crooked sort of smile.

“Makes two of us.” Obert purses his thin lips, then gives Halves a hearty slap on the back, to which Halves struggles not to express pain. “Come with me.”

With Obert’s less-than-gentle aid, Halves is guided to a sitting room in the corner of the hospital that spans two floors, a balcony of the floor above them looking down. The two outer walls are made of glass, showing the dark, lightless buildings across the street and beyond that all seem to stare back at them with hollow eyes for windows. Halves lowers himself onto a couch, grateful for getting off his wobbly, stiff legs. Obert claims a chair opposite him. They are the only ones in the whole room. Not even a soul is visible on the balcony above, nor in the nursing stations or hallway below. Halves feels eerily alone, even sitting here with his Lead Officer, if he can even still call him that.

“I see your spirit.”

Halves lowers his eyes, his brow furrowed pensively.

“I do.” Obert stretches his legs, plopping his hands carelessly in his lap. “The shit I’ve seen, Lesser. Heh, I just realized. You can’t tell a secret. You can’t tell anyone a damn thing. Locked up with all the words that have fallen on your ears.” Halves finds Obert staring at him hard when he looks up to meet his eyes. “I’m counting on that.”

Does this mean my suspicion all along was true, that Obert cannot tell a lie from a truth without hearing the words behind them? Can I lie with my eyes and he never be the wiser?

“Of course, you could still write down what I say. You still got your hands, don’t you.” Obert squints. “But I suspect you’ll be smart enough not to repeat anything I tell you, lest you want me takin’ those hands from you.”

Halves gives a short nod of understanding to his Lead Officer.

Obert takes no time for drama. “I’m dying, Lesser. The only one who knew was … broken into pieces by a slummer. You’ve heard of the Marshal’s death. Well, not the Peacemaker. Taylon. Fuck me, I keep forgetting we’ve lost two Marshals. And the fucking third one dicks the Banshee and steals the throne right out from under our damned eyes …”

His Lead Officer keeps muttering on about lost Marshals and stolen thrones and all Halves can do is stare at his lips in bafflement. Dying? Obert is dying? How?

“Must be wondering why I’m telling you this. Truth be told, I always knew there was a … a thing about you, Lesser. I think I see myself in you. The way I was when I first joined Guardian. I shit my pants every damn day. I shit my pants when my Lead Officer raised her voice. Oh, she had arms of steel and a fuckin’ voice. Killer tits, too.” Obert grunts and crosses his legs tightly, his eyes wandering—likely picturing the woman in full, unadulterated detail. “I fucking miss those days. She made me strong. I owe everything to her … to her. Lesser, you’ll owe everything to someone someday. No strength comes from thin air, boy. It comes from others, others to whom we are indebted the rest of our lives. Enslaved, even. I wish it could have been me that gave you strength … but it won’t be. I’ll be dead by the time you’re back to jogging without doubling over the instant you begin. I’m dying. I’m dying right now, slowly, ever slowly, but …”

Obert pinches his nose suddenly, cramming his eyes shut.

Halves stares at him, alarmed. Tentatively, he reaches and puts a hand on Obert’s thigh. It’s a complete and uncharacteristic impulse, but Halves follows it nonetheless. Obert doesn’t move or protest; he simply remains with the bridge of his nose caught in a pincer between two very tensed fingers. Is my Lead Officer crying?

Then Obert recovers at once and reels his eyes upon Halves. “Remember the attack on Pylon #105? The fucker who set off a bomb of ice on us? The ice got to me, Lesser. The doctor keeps trying to explain it to me. He’s explained it seven hundred different ways, it makes less sense each time. There’s ice in my liver. There’s a cold death grip on my left lung. On my kidneys. Spreading to my bowels. I haven’t shit in three fucking days, Lesser. The ice won’t go away. Nothing touches it. I’m a fucking dead man, Lesser. The fucker got to me.” Obert growls the word “fucker”, contempt burning brightly in his sharp, unfeeling eyes.

Halves keeps his hand on Obert’s thigh, suddenly wishing he hadn’t placed it there at all. He meant to comfort him, perhaps, but his Lead Officer’s words touch him deeply. We’re both afflicted. You with a poison of ice. Me with a poison of blood. But he can’t say the words, so he gives Obert the benefit of the doubt of having realized the parallel himself. Maybe that’s why he’s telling me at all.

Except I’m recovering from my poison … and Obert is dying of his.

“I knew him, too.” Obert hesitates, his breath jagged and his eyes misty. Halves watches him carefully, listening. “Kendil was his name. He burned his house down, burned his father Loridic alive, and froze his mother Lenida solid … all when he was but five years old. It reeked of ash and charred furniture, that little house. I’ll never forget the smell.”

Halves wrinkles his forehead, trying to make sense of his words.

“I brought a team of my strongest Guardian to that house and I found him … the boy, the Kendil boy … I found him kneeling before his mother, frozen solid in that kitchen chair. The boy, the sick boy, the fucker had done his mother in. We knew he was evil. He needed to be destroyed. Do you know what an Outlier is, Lesser?”

Obert’s eyes don’t meet Halves’. With a heaviness in his heart that may or may not carry dear thoughts of his brother Anwick, he gives another short nod.

“No, you don’t.” The Lead Officer grunts, his face turning into a scowl quite suddenly. “Not until you meet one, not truly. Kendil is not right. There is something fundamentally broken inside him. His Legacy … it is unstoppable. He can level the whole of Atlas with his power. Easily. He needs to be stopped. I voted, I told them Kendil needed to be destroyed. ‘Oh, but he’s a child.’ The shit I heard. Even Janlord voted to keep the fucker alive.” Obert snorts derisively, his eyes burning with anger. “It isn’t a matter of ethics. Taking one boy’s life in order to save the lives of everyone else in the city? Kendil’s life will be a necessary loss. It is the duty of Guardian to protect the city. It always was, no matter the cost. Kendil should have been killed … but hungry Sanctum wanted to utilize the boy … to weaponize him. But as you clearly saw in the Pylon that day, the Weapon is no longer under Sanctum control. He’s gotten away. He’s on his own whim. He is dangerous, Lesser. Very, very dangerous. Outlier. You don’t know what one is. But you will. The whole of Atlas will, unless he’s stopped.”

Obert’s hand lands on Halves’ shoulder so suddenly, he jumps, and then Obert’s face is an inch from his in the same quick instant. His eyes are fierce and full of something between anger and fear.

“I’ll tell you a truth, Lesser, and you only need look in my eyes to know it’s true without the use of my Legacy.” His jaw sets tightly as he speaks. “Impis, the Madness … that is secondary. His ridiculous Reign will end. It is Kendil who will be our ruin. It is Kendil who is the true danger. Not a man who is tearing our city asunder, casting his red lightning and murdering us one by one—but a dangerous boy who’s become a dangerous man who can obliterate us in an instant. Fuck Impis and his twitching eye and his laughter. Let that fool die laughing; the rest of us will die cold.”

Halves feels himself shivering from Obert’s words. Finally, he lets go of Halves and rises from his creaky chair, moving across the room with a sigh leaving his lips. He stands by the glass wall, staring down at the city with a faraway fury burning in his eyes. He sets his jaw several times, as if gnawing on his own teeth. Halves watches him and, in some sick pocket of his soul, wonders how many days Obert Ranfog has left to live. Thirty? Ten? Two?

“Outlier,” mumbles Obert. “I know what you’re thinking, Lesser. It’s just a word. Some argue that it’s just a word used to fearmonger. That it’s just a label Sanctum uses. That it’s just a word to taint the beauty in someone’s Legacy. Outlier. It’s an ugly word. It’s vulgar. And it should be, for those out there who deserve the weight of it.” He sighs shortly. “You may find a time when you are face-to-face with such a decision that I had. Kendil, the boy. Kill him or spare him?” He laughs suddenly, then winces at a pain in his ribs. “Didn’t I ask you once if your blood’s thick enough?” Obert turns the side of his face to Halves, an eye staring down at him. “I ask you because once, long ago, my blood wasn’t. Kendil was spared. Now Kendil’s come back to kill me.” His eyes narrow. “I should have killed him as a boy. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

Two Answers. Halves detaches his gaze, staring at the floor as he thinks about what he saw that day at the Pylon. He didn’t quite see Kendil, but he saw the flashes of light, he saw the way the whole room seemed to ripple with his power, and he felt a chill of death that dug so deep into his bones, Halvesand thought he’d never be warm again.

“Three Sister, save us from our past mistakes and our past joys,” Obert mutters at the glass, staring out at the city. “They’re as painful to lose as they are to remember.” He shoots Halves a look. “Don’t judge me for my sudden piety. Nearing death as I am, suddenly I find myself clinging to the idea of three beautiful women waiting to greet me on the other side.” He smirks, then crosses back over to Halves and offers his hand. “Up, Lesser. You’ve heard enough.”

Halves accepts the help and rises. Slowly, Obert guides him down the hall and back to his room. There is still a disturbing calm throughout the building and an utter absence of people. Halves has a fleeting moment of wondering where Ennebal is and whether or not his brother is between her legs. The thought somehow sends a sharp pain through his ribs, which causes him to buckle near his bed. He rasps deeply and winces, bracing himself against the nearest bedpost. Obert, hardly giving the pain any attention, helps Halves into his bed and then leaves him there to stew on all the things he told him.

But at the door, just before he makes his exit, Obert turns to say one last thing. “You can stop things.” His figure is like a tall, crooked silhouette against the greyish, half-lit hallway. “You started with a train. Stopping that knife at your throat was not the end. Your job’s only just begun, Lesser, and you do not have my permission to die. You will get that strength from somewhere, from someone … I don’t fuckin’ care. You may never have your voice, but Three Sister help me, you’ll always have your hand.”

0153  Ellena

Ellena washes the linens much slower today.

Even with her hands free, she’s lost, afloat in a slow-moving river of confusion and guilt. She never let herself grieve. Sure, she was always suspecting the worst, but to know it for sure? I only just learned that my husband is dead, and I already let Gabel kiss me.

And kiss me.

And kiss me.

And she kissed him. Deeply. She felt his hands move down her body and she let them. ‘All I want is a fuck,’ he said to her. That got her so wet below, she fears nothing short of the sky shattering could have stopped her from letting him invade her. And invade her he did. For hours.

He came inside her and roared louder than even the Screaming King himself ever did.

She hasn’t seen him since that day. He’s avoiding me. Some other Guardian watches her doors now, the one named Bee, the tall girl with the long eyes and the soft skin and the permanent scowl. It is also sometimes the younger one, the boy with the rosy cheeks and the frightened composure who was in the room with Bee and Gabel that day when she was apprehended just after moving her broken bones into dear, sweet Taylon.

Is Gabel guilty, too? Does Gabel feel he’s committed some sort of crime? She can’t think of any rule he might’ve broken. Of course, she never prided herself in knowing the intricacies of rules between criminal and Guardian. Maybe there is some secret clause forbidding the very act they so hungrily performed.

The next sunrise, she’s given a reprieve back in her room in the corner of the building, where she leans against the glass and stares at the dead towers and streets of the slums as they are slowly painted in blood and orange and egg yolk. She hears no word from Gabel.

The evening has her washing dishes in the rusty basin, of which she has to avoid the left corner, for it is sharp and has a deep crack running down its side. She suddenly finds herself thinking about Anwick, wondering where he ran off to the day he packed his things to leave home. It was shortly after Forgemon was arrested. She knew he was involved in something, but didn’t know the precise nature of it. Forge knew; he always said Anwick kept secrets deeper than any of their other boys, and that was beyond the one about him sleeping and dreaming. Forge knew so much. Where am I without him? I know nothing. I’m lost.

Afloat in a river of guilt … a river of aches.

Who’s going to take away my aches?

The lights flicker. Ellena looks up, startled. The steady hum of the building shudders at the same time the lights do, giving her ears reason to perk up. She wrinkles her brow and stares after the door, noticing Bee as she tilts her head, pressing a finger to her ear and speaking to some unseen person at the other end of her radio device. Maybe it’s Gabel.

The building seems to shudder again—the lights winking—and she hears shouting in the halls. Ellena stares at the window of her door, alarmed to find Bee gone.

She watches, wide-eyed and waiting. Where’s she gone?

Ellena abandons her duties at the basin, the last plate she was cleaning dropping into the water with a heavy splash that she utterly ignores. She moves across the room, listening to the shuffling of feet and the distant shouting that comes from the hall.

She reaches the door and finds no one on the other side of the glass. The shouting and noise has become more distant. It’s moving away. She leans toward the door, pressing her ear to the glass, but she hears nothing to aid her in answering any of her own questions. Her eyes drift down to the door handle. She reaches for it, her fingers wrapping around the cold metal. She pulls.

The door clicks open.

Her jaw slackens. Bee never locked it.

Opening the door, she slowly slips her head out. The noise has vacated the hall, and along with it, every Guardian in sight. She looks to the left where the hall ends at a set of stairs leading down. She looks right to where the hall bends out of sight, lined with stacks of unlabeled barrels and boxes. A desk by a door sits unmanned with a lamp on its cluttered surface.

The lamp flickers. The hall lights sputter. Then darkness.

Ellena blinks until traces of streetlight coming in from the one window in the hall touches her eyes, outlining some of the furniture. She hears nothing at all anymore, as if the whole world just packed up their things and abandoned her. Just like Halves and Aleks did when they took off to Guardian. Just like her husband left her when he was arrested. Just like Anwick. Just like Link.

She steps out of the room and wipes her hands off on her pants, drying them. Turning her head left, then right, she opts to hurry in the direction of the stairs. Her feet carry her too fast, making her trip twice on her way down the steps. Hurry slowly, she advises herself. You have no idea what’s the cause of this disruption. It could be a force worse than the Guardian who hold you captive.

But she doesn’t want to be a fool, either. There is no way that Three Sister could have answered her daily prayer in such a literal, dropped-straight-into-her-hands sort of way. The Goddesses could not have simply made everyone in the building disappear, granting her this golden opportunity to flee from their custody, could they?

She stops halfway down the stairs when she hears a boom and feels the building shake. She grips the handrail tight and crouches down, balancing herself with wide-open eyes and held breath. She waits, listening and wary.

She hears voices coming from downstairs. Soundless, she travels down the rest of the stairs in pursuit of them. If she sees who they are and where they’re coming from, she can better avoid them. I need to see what I’m up against, and whether the voices mean to aid me in my escape, or to put the bird back in the cage.

The stairs dump into a hallway. She stands at the corner on the foot of the stair and slowly brings her face around the wall, peeking. The source of the voices still isn’t visible, but she doesn’t dare risk finding out who they belong to. Deciding that her shoes are making too much noise, she slips them off and pads across the hall to the nearest corridor. Without power, she’s going to have to descend many flights of stairs to make it to ground level. She stares at a nearby window, darkened by night’s kiss, and gives an honest wonder if it’s a better bet to jump out of it than to descend the stairs and be caught by one armed fool or another.

Something loud bursts in a distant hall, flashing her world with a fiery white light for an instant. Ellena jumps, pushing herself into the corridor and risking the stairs, determined to get away from it. She has no idea what she’s running from, but it can’t be Guardian. Maybe someone has invaded the building. Maybe the Finger has struck and brigands from all the neighboring wards are flooding in to pillage all they can from the Guardian supplies.

This could be my means of freedom, or my ultimate undoing.

Her foot catches something on the floor and she flops to the cold tile, banging her knee. She grunts, suppressing the sharp cry she wanted to let out, then grips her leg and curses, hissing in pain.

A soft sound comes from somewhere nearby. When she lifts her head, she finds the sound coming from the very thing over which she tripped: a Guardian earpiece.

I needed eyes, but I got ears. It could suffice.

Gritting her teeth through the pain of her busted knee, she lunges for the little sleek piece of technology and brings it to her ear. She hears nothing. Had someone just spoken something a second ago? She pulls herself back against the nearest wall, sitting upon the floor with a throbbing knee and a racing heart, and holds the object against her ear desperately.

A nearby door swings open, and an armored young man dumps out of it in a bundle of twisted limbs. When he rights himself, his two scared eyes find Ellena’s instantly. He points his neon at her.

She lifts her hands to express her innocence and shouts, “Don’t shoot, please! I-I-I’m unarmed!”

“Ellena,” the young man whispers, recognizing her, but yet not dropping his weapon. “You have to come with me.”

And then she suddenly recognizes him. It’s the boy she met the day she was arrested—the one who sat with the Bee woman and the ever-faithful Gabel and sometimes guards her door. He looks half her years, this boy who might be about Lionis’s age, were she to guess.

“What’s happening??” Ellena asks in a hush.

“Security’s been breached. It isn’t safe. Come with me.”

She slowly rises from the floor, forcing herself to fight against the pain of an angry, reddened knee. “Brigands? Rebels? Or Chaots?” she asks, wincing through the aches.

“I don’t know. Come. N-No questions.”

Hearing the boy sputtering out the words, Ellena suddenly feels a maternal need to protect him instead of having him protect her. Nevertheless, she ignores the gun he still points at her and forces herself to walk in the direction he indicates.

She hears squawking in the boy’s earpiece, but not her own. What was his name? It’s lost on her. Did she ever learn it? “No, solo.” He rushes in front of her to check around a corner, then flags her to move on with his gun. “Yes, I have her. Yes, she’s complying.”

“For now,” mutters Ellena under her breath, trying not to limp.

“Meet me at the Core-side exit. We’ll take the back leg outside. No one’s there, as far as I can—Alright. Copy.”

The boy Guardian continues to lead her with his gun. She feels a sting of helplessness until she remembers something. My knee. I can give my knee to this boy the moment I’m outside and be free from him and the Guardian who’ve kept me. After all, it’s the reign of madness and no one’s in charge, not truly. This is her chance to get away.

Maybe her only chance.

On the fourth floor, the boy presses Ellena to a wall, narrowly avoiding a band of people who scurry by, each of them armed with something huge and blunt and sharp. The band doesn’t notice the boy or Ellena, hidden in the shadows as they are. With the boy’s hand on her shoulder holding her back, she realizes he doesn’t know how dangerous it is to be within touching range of her, considering her power. The timing must be perfect, she reminds herself, gritting her teeth and waiting.

After descending many more stairs and twice halting at the sight or sound of something formidable approaching, they finally make it to a set of double doors at the end of a second floor corridor. The boy procures a key from his belt and opens the padlock on the doors, pushing one open and flagging Ellena into the night.

She complies. The breeze of the city brushes over her face, tossing her hair and making her squint against it. They’ve emptied onto a damp, cement loading bridge that descends to the street in the distance. Stacks of boxes and rows of crates line the outside of the building and block the way ahead. Ellena breathes in the dirty smog of the streets, and somehow it reminds her of home.

Until the point of a gun pokes her in the back. “Keep going.”

He would be easier to obey if his voice wasn’t a squeaky teen-turned-adult one. She continues nonetheless, walking in the general direction he guides her. Soon, she makes out two other shapes who wait in hiding, crouched behind an oblong crate.

When the first one emerges from the shadow, Gabel’s piercing green eyes find hers.

“We have to relocate, Lesser,” he tells her, his square jaw set so tensely, a dimple Ellena never gave time to notice pops out of his cheek. “Can you be trusted, or must I shackle you in chains?”

Ellena doesn’t respond, lost in his eyes and feeling the wind in her hair.

The other figure approaches, the thin-as-a-plank woman named Bee with the long, feline eyes. “She’ll be a hindrance in chains. Slow, loud, and inconvenient.”

Gabel doesn’t turn to acknowledge his partner, keeping his eyes trained on Ellena with an intensity that borders between distrustful and lustful. Or maybe it’s just the way Ellena hopes to be seen, her lip suddenly caught between her teeth as she waits for him to decide to trust her.

And he does. “No chains. If you so much as blink without my express permission …”

But he says nothing more. Perhaps he realizes they don’t have many options, not without a secure holding unit, or a functioning Kingship, or a Keep, or backup Guardian … unless there is something else that Ellena is not aware of.

“Let’s move,” orders Gabel with a lift of his chin.

The boy keeps his gun aimed at Ellena as Gabel and Bee pick up the rear, ensuring Ellena moves with them. She gives an uncaring glance at the building she’s been kept in ever since her Legacy broke a boy into pieces. She won’t miss it … or the linens, or the soap, or those fucking dehumanizing gloves.

Gabel comes to her hip as they walk, matching her stride, his handsome face pulled taut with stern guardedness, his full, watchful eyes upon her. Well, maybe there are some things I’d miss.

0154  Arrow

Yellow and Gandra stand over the body of the unconscious girl. The scent of smoke and ash still hovers in the room.

“You disappoint me, Arrow.”

He doesn’t look up from the floor as he listens to Gandra’s stern words.

“We are in a dire situation here,” she tells him. “Two of our own are missing and you were not able to be reached. And you took no earpiece with you …? The very person who creates them?”

He has no answer for her.

He feels her staring at him with such cold intensity, it sounds like she’s not even breathing. “Instead,” she goes on, “you secretly took to a street in the sixth. For a reason you’ve yet to disclose. You felt it took priority over Rain. And you’ve returned … with this girl.”

Arrow keeps his mouth in a tight line, his eyes unable to leave the girl on the floor. He keeps focusing on her hands for some reason. They’re so delicate and smooth, he wonders of this girl who’s his age, maybe a year more, maybe a year less. Why do I notice this?

He can’t seem to focus on a single damn thing but that girl.

“We’ve lost all communication with Wick and Juston,” Gandra states. “You need to regain that communication. Now. Get us ears in that warehouse, Arrow. Inspect your charms and find out why our boys aren’t back home yet.”

Arrow nods, his eyes still stuck on the girl.

“We will watch the girl,” says Yellow, and hearing his voice for the first time jerks Arrow from his hypnosis. He lifts his gaze to meet Yellow’s stony, watery ones. “Whoever she is,” he finishes.

“Thank you,” murmurs Arrow so quietly, it’s nearly a whisper.

When he turns to leave the room, he nearly crashes into the big, burly figure of the Warden of the sixth, whose eyes are heavy-lidded and whose stare is harder than any diamond in the Mechanoids. He has a beard that touches his chest, at which more hair sprouts, tufts of it coming out from the opened button-down shirt he wears, its sleeves loosely bunched at his elbows. He is a man who used to wear his clothes strictly buttoned, but everyone says that since the death of his wife, he has changed. There is warmth in his heart, but only ice in his eyes, and Arrow feels that none of that warmth is reserved for any of their like, regardless of the arrangement they’ve made.

The Warden regards Arrow for precisely one and a half seconds before trudging into the room. “Yellow. A word.”

Yellow nods. “Of course.” He gives Arrow an expectant glance.

Arrow ducks away, and the door shuts at his back. He passes Victra and Prat at the table, who are poring over his hand-drawn maps to devise some plan that has to do with circumventing the “ever-cocky” Wall Breakers, despite the deal being in place that Gandra and the spritely Quin had secured. Arrow never met Quin in person, since he didn’t attend the actual meeting, but he heard every word from headquarters through his charms, and he was reading the area for suspicious activity too. Other than a couple of cats fighting in the alley, he heard nothing during the meeting.

The way to his gadgets room is through the kitchen, in which he spots Lionis, but he isn’t cooking; the know-it-all is kicked back in an old metal chair with a book in his lap. Arrow’s passing through doesn’t inspire Lionis to look up or even flinch.

When the door shuts behind him, he sits in the dark, only the dim green light from one of his machines illuminating a corner of the room in which he puts himself. After a quick check at the door to make sure no one’s eavesdropping, he slides his chair to the far end of the room and pulls a lemon-shaped paperweight from the drawer.

With a rub of his thumbs, the metal paperweight speaks. “… my son,” comes the Warden’s voice from the charm. “I advised against it, but … Ryke needs a friend. He has a connection with her, and—”

“Are you sure it’s wise to let it happen?” comes Yellow’s voice. A grunt of assent comes from Gandra, though she says nothing. “I know that you’re at the whim of his desires, but as his father—”

“Ryke and this Quin person share a wound. They both lost their mothers. How can I take that from my son? Ryke has never looked happier.”

“Not to be crass,” says Gandra, “but do you think Quin has really lost her mother?”

“Of course,” retorts the Warden at once, a tone of offense in his deep bellow. “How else would—?”

“I’ve dealt with her. Direct negotiations. She has a manipulative bone or two in her, I know it. She is … energetic, yes. She seems kind, yes. And I don’t doubt that her and your son, being so close in age—thirteen now, is he?—may get along. But until our deal was struck, her people were robbing yours. The very reason we negotiated with them at all was at your request, Warden. Do you not see it as a conflict of interest that the boy befriend an alleged leader of—?”

“Quin is no leader. She was but an envoy of the mastermind, likely the crooked Warden of the seventh herself, if I trust it right. The King ought to have screamed in her face long ago, had I the way of it, or perhaps it’d be a more fitting farewell if Metal Hand touched her forehead and we could all enjoy her instant destruction. And the only conflict of interest I see is the very arrangement we have here. A known band of criminals—”

“We are not criminals,” Gandra spits back at once.

“Criminals—who I must hold within my protected tower, with my people, due to a threat that the Yellow man hangs over my head. To Sister’s depths with you and your conflict of interest.”

“It is no threat,” adds Yellow calmly. “It was merely a favor.”

“A favor, aye. We’ve different terms for it, then. Favor. Threat. Blackmail. I’m sure you’ll wipe my mind the second you’re finished with us, make me forget you cashed in on the favor already.” The Warden snorts, amused with himself. “Unless this is me paying back the favor a second time already. Or a third. How would I know?”

“You wouldn’t,” teases Yellow in his dry voice, likely in a sad attempt to ease the tension of the room. “I suppose you’ll just have to trust me.”

“A sick joke in that, too. To trust a group named Rain. My wife died in the rain, you know. Sick joke in that.” The Warden huffs, the sound of his feet shuffling on the floor coming through Arrow’s charm like a sighing of clothes. “If I were smarter, I’d take all I hold dear and head for the Mechanoids. It’d make a safer dominion than this tower, which the Mad King could—at any day—strike down.”

“Let us pray to the Sisters he does not,” murmurs Yellow.

“To hell with the Sisters. I’ll have a talking to with Ryke. I’m not sure I’m keen on this Quin. Maybe you’ve a point.” The Warden grunts. “My son is at that age where he looks at girls. The damned—”

The door at Arrow’s back opens, and with a quick swipe of his finger, the lemon-shaped paperweight charm is silenced and dropped back into the drawer. He turns to find Prat’s head poked in.

“Yes?” prompts Arrow, annoyed at the interruption.

“Can I sit in here with you?”

Arrow narrows his eyes. Maybe after I finish eavesdropping on Yellow and Gandra speaking with the Warden, then you can happily sit in here with me and be no help at all. “I’m in the middle of—”

“Finding our boys?” Prat finishes, letting himself into the room.

Arrow takes a deep breath, pushing closed the drawer all the way and resolving to stare at his other charms—all the broken ones, all the orphaned ones, all the misdirected ones—and figure that he ought to focus on finding Wick and Juston. It is, after all, somewhat time-sensitive. “Yes, of course,” mumbles Arrow.

“What’s the plan?”

Arrow stares at his charms. “I’ll … retrace the local ones,” he starts, giving his little pieces of metal a looking over, “and triangulate which are still connected in the eleventh.”

“Good call,” agrees Prat, having no idea what Arrow just said.

An hour later, he’s no closer to finding a sound of any kind in the warehouse Wick and Juston had gone to. Only one charm seems to be working, and all it produces is noise.

“Do you think it’s Juston’s noise? Like, he’s making the noise?” asks Prat yet another hour later when he’s slipped into the chair right next to Arrow, annoyingly close.

“No.” Arrow furrows his brow, listening with mounting tension. “It’s too constant.”

“Hmm.” Prat leans against the desk, staring at the charm—a tiny screw bent a bit at the tip. “So is it just broken or something?”

“Most likely.”

“I’m really worried about Athan.”

Everyone is. “I’m worried about Wick and Juston.”

“You know what Lionis walked in on the other night? Athan was in the kitchen and he had, like, every damn ingredient we own on the counter. He had three mixing bowls out, too, and his face was covered in flour. He just looked up at Lionis and said, ‘I just wanted to taste their cooking again.’ Athan said that. Lionis had to coax him away from the mess he’d made, then helped him to the shower. Ugh, and then I had to hear it from Lionis, how much spice Athan had wasted. Then I got a lecture—me, for some reason—got a lecture for how much the spices were worth, how many runs we’ll have to go on to replace them, and then I got a history lesson on paprika and blue pepper and garlic. Lionis is such a smart-fart. Can’t stand him.”

“Yes, but what he knows is valuable.” Even I hate admitting that. “Athan’s issues can wait. Wick and Juston need our help now, and so help me Three Sister they will get it.”

“I have three sisters,” Prat blurts. “They’re why I joined Rain … despite my mom going rogue after my dad cheated on her with a teen girl at the ring shop. Name was Tiffer, the girl at the ring shop. Not that it matters. What a shitty man he is, my dad. And my mom, an irresponsible … impulse-chasing woman. My sisters, they …”

Arrow closes his eyes and rubs them with his palms, ignoring the rest of Pratganth’s story—which he’s heard a hundred times before. He tries thinking of a solution to their problem short of going out to the warehouse themselves to investigate. He definitely doesn’t think about his own sister—brain-broken, deranged sentences, oddly hanging lip—and he doesn’t wonder how his mother is getting along with her new metalshop lover who is supposed to be looking after them both. He seals away any further thought of them.

Or of the unconscious Caldron girl who Gandra and Yellow are currently babysitting.

“Arrow? You alright?”

He sighs. “I’ll be fine when we get Wick and Juston home.”

“Need to consult my map of the eleventh?”

“I have a rendering of it here already.”

Prat blinks in the dark, the glint of green light from the machine twinkling in his eyes. “You do?”

Arrow taps a button on his computer. It gives a muted groan, and then a copy of Prat’s map appears on the screen in an amber color. He taps the screen and the map expands, zooming in. Before them is a layout of the streets surrounding the warehouse where three bright yellow dots glow.

“These dots are the charms I placed,” mumbles Arrow, pointing. “These two are unresponsive—completely silent, cold, dead. This one is the one that you’re hearing now. Noise. But it’s not Juston’s. I have no idea … no idea what to do. Wick had the only earpiece, and that has been crushed, by the sound of it. We have neither ears nor eyes in this place, and our team is in the dark.”

“You should’ve been here.”

Arrow presses his lips together firmly. I have been reprimanded enough by Gandra and Yellow, and I harbor enough guilt in me to fill a hundred gadget rooms. I don’t need to hear it from you, too.

“Sorry,” says Prat, shaking his head in the dark. “Sorry. I’ve been a bit tense. I couldn’t work your charms when we were having a back-and-forth with Wick. Then our communications were cut and, well, nothing’s come since. Athan doesn’t know a damn thing about this, by the way. Neither does Lionis. I don’t want either of them to panic. Wouldn’t be good. For all they know or care, Wick and Juston are on their way back now. Do you know how fucking hard it is to keep a secret around them? Even Victra doesn’t know. Shit, and with her eyes, you’d think she knew everything …”

Arrow nods once, then picks up the noisy charm and sets it in his palm, listening to it. Listen, listen, listen …

Prat sighs, then slaps a hand onto Arrow’s back. “Update me as soon as you know anything, please. It’s driving me crazy. Juston is basically the brother I never had. We joined Rain around the same time, y’know? I need to know I’ll see him again.”

“Look after Athan,” says Arrow simply, staring at the charm as it hisses and crackles in his palm, sounding not unlike the flames he, not half a day ago, was running away from. “And mind Lionis. He might be too brainy for his own good, but there are some in the world who would envy him that.” Arrow’s eyes go dark as he turns his head slightly, acknowledging Prat with another calm nod.

Prat rises from his chair and departs the room. Arrow sits there and listens to the charm as it whirs with its shuddering, constant noise. The rhythm of the noise is familiar somehow, almost calming.

After a glance back at the door—to ensure he’s absolutely alone—he opens the drawer again and, from its cluttered depths, pulls out his secret charm once again. With a rub of his thumbs, the object offers what it hears.

“—isn’t something I’d care to listen to at all,” comes Gandra’s voice through the lemon, “especially coming from you.”

Yellow responds. “No matter the blood you shed, you will never bring him back.”

“I said I don’t want to hear it.”

Yellow’s sigh comes through the paperweight like a brush of air, a burst of noise. Arrow listens. “You have put these kids through so much, Gandra. They’re pushed to their limits, fighting a ghost.”

“Sanctum is no ghost,” Gandra spits back.

It seems the Warden has left the room over the past few hours, yet Gandra and Yellow remain in it. Have they been bantering and debating and arguing this whole time? How much do these two childhood friends have to say to one another throughout a whole day before they run out of words?

“We have lost so many, and so many whose minds I have had to rewire.”

“Rewire. You word it so kindly to me,” mutters Gandra. “When in truth, you’re not rewiring a thing. You’re burning their minds.”

“You know that isn’t true. My Legacy is more like hypnosis than it is actual memory erasure, Gandra. So often you trade the truth for the easier-to-grasp lie.”

“Oh, do I?” The attitude in Gandra’s voice does not relent; she’s clearly riled and uses anything she can to make her words sting him back. “Is that how you explain it? So long ago, you hypnotized your family into forgetting your very existence? Like your mother never had a son at all? Like she’s not actually a mother?”

“A sort of hypnosis, yes. Why else would a simple dream have made Anwick suddenly unlock the memory of his sister, which I was sure I had wired his mind into never recalling?”

“You are a special kind of cruel, Yellow.” There is a long silence. “I pray you never use your Legacy on me. I’d hate to forget.”

“Gandra …”

“But then again, think of Anwick. Imagine his life, had he lived it knowing what he did. The guilt. How it might’ve ruined him.”

“And what of the ones whose memory we took and cast aside after their use expired?” Yellow points out. “Adamant, the short of temper? And Sarra, whom we cannot ever forget, as the others won’t even recall her being among us. There’s Jaena. There’s Fonden and Franklen, the green twins from the year Rain was first established.”

“I remember each and every name. I remember and I honor each of them, Yellow. You know I do. Even their sacrifices. Don’t make me out to be some blood-hungry monster.”

“We are all monsters. It is only some of us who recognize it so.”

“Spare me your poetry,” grumbles Gandra, and there is a clink of glass. Arrow imagines Gandra pouring herself a drink.

“The King who executed your child is long dead. The screaming King who followed is dead too, now. How many more Kings must fall before your son’s death is avenged? Just say the word and I will pull all of that suffering from your mind. Just one word and—”

“How dare you even suggest that!” There is a piercing silence, which is only punctuated once by the heavy sound of a glass being set down upon a table. “We all have our pains and our pleasures. And for some of us, our pleasure is in feasting on that pain. You have yours, locked away in that memory bank of yours. I wonder if you ever mourn not being able to take away your own.”

There is silence after that. Arrow closes his eyes, then runs a finger along the charm, putting it back to sleep and unwilling to hear any more. Now, only the sound of noise from his other charm pulls through the room—the mystery noise. Arrow listens to it, suddenly finding himself reminded of Yellow’s sigh in the lemon that came through in a burst of noise, how it sounded so much like wind …

And then Arrow’s eyes flash. “Wind,” he whispers.

0155  Kid

Big Blue chews louder and snaps his jaw far more obnoxiously than she does, which makes her smile. Things have been good for nearly seven sunrises. Even Blindy seems content, despite growing increasingly fussy with the food scraps they feed him. Nothing lives up to the fish they procured a month ago, and Kid fears nothing will.

Kendil still seems utterly uninterested in finding Kid’s friend, so she’s taken to telling him every little detail about her that she can, thinking something’s sure to resonate. “We were at the orphanage together,” Kid explained excitedly, “and we convinced the head mistress that she hadded super powers.”

“Had.”

“And I’d be invisible,” Kid goes on, ignoring the correction, “and then I’d pick up objects around Aryl and move them in the air while keeping them visible, and—”

“You’re becoming better with your words,” Kendil notes calmly, slurping on the last morsel of a chicken bone.

Kid smiles proudly. Then she shrugs off the compliment. “Aryl called you the Big Blue, but she didn’t knew it was you.”

“Know,” he corrects patiently, tossing the emptied bone over the ledge. They’re sitting on the roof of a building that they presume has recently been burnt near-to-nothing by the Mad King’s red light. Kid feels like the building is still warm.

“She called me Red.” Kid absently brings a hand to her lap where Blindy sleeps, scratching his ear while sullenly staring out at the city, which seems to issue smoke in the desolate sunset. “She wanting—wants to see you. Maybe you’d like her as you like me.”

“Every breath the Rain Frog breathes is a failure to my heart. Just now, another breath he takes. And now, another,” says Kendil, his lip twitching in half a scowl. “Another. Another.”

“What if he is already died? … dead?” Kid keeps scratching the cat’s ear, who flips and twirls his tail more and more irritably by the second. Kid ignores it, fueling her own frustration. “Maybe some big rock from the Lifted City fell and crushed him flat. Maybe the red light burned him right up like toast.”

“No. His fate isn’t fire. It is cold, the ice-cold embrace of my—”

“Yeah, yeah, but what if we’re too late?”

“I will know when Obert is dead.”

Kid looks up, meeting Kendil’s dark, beady eyes with her own. His messy hair, so much longer and out of sorts now, hangs over his left eye and down to his chin in black, inky tangles.

“Obert?” She’d nearly forgotten the Rain Frog’s real name.

“Obert Ranfog will die with the winter’s kiss in his eyes.”

Kid thinks on the Masked Men and the last words of her father and her mother, both of which seem to change each time she strains to recall them. “But what then? After the Rain Frog is killed dead. What will you do? You will have frozen yourself.”

“Maybe I’ll keep him alive and take from him every single thing in this world that he loves. Maybe I will show—”

“And then what after that?” Kid persists, ignoring the growing look of annoyance on Kendil’s face. “Does your mission ever end?”

Kendil’s hand moves to his chest. Kid watches.

“I have more than cold in me,” he says, and though it might just be an innocent reminder, Kid can’t help but worry that there was a threat hidden in his words.

And she knows his secret, the one right there at his chest. The cold boy showed her the precise nature of his wintry Legacy, which is as contradictory as winter itself—sweeping in with its cold breath, while inspiring a hundred fires to burn in hearths across the city.

“Yes,” Kid agrees quietly, “I know.”

And there is something else she knows that, perhaps, she should have realized so long ago. Kendil will never help her find her friend. Maybe she knew that. Maybe some subconscious part of her chose the comfort and protection of Kendil’s power over the reckless pursuit of her friend all on her own. That was a mistake, Kid realizes.

Blindy hisses at her. Maybe she was scratching him too hard. Or maybe all the kindness and patience is leaving her in this very instant that she realized she picked safety over saving a friend.

Maybe the Rain Frog is still alive and Aryl is the one who’s dead.

“I can let the invisible monster hurt me,” says Kid, her gaze hovering at Kendil’s chest, right where his secret lies, “but I want to fight it more than become it.”

“You still have that option. You haven’t become a monster yet. Some of us have no choice.”

“We all has a choice.”

“Have.”

“WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE!” Kid screams, on her feet in an instant, dumping Blindy onto his startled legs and causing him to bolt halfway across the roof in fear. “AND MINE WAS TO FOLLOW YOU AND LEAVE MY FRIEND! I MAKED A MISTAKE!”

Kendil stares at her, not unsettled in the least by her outburst. Then, after too long a time, a cool-tempered smile creeps onto his pale, half-hidden face. He lifts his pointy chin. “You are too young. You haven’t suffered at all. Not truly. You’ve had freedom most of your little life to do as you please, to go as your please, to be what you please. Until only a few short months ago, I had no freedom. I was formed into a weapon—the Weapon—with which Sanctum did as they pleased. I was but a tool. I was a toy for the mighty in the sky.” His hands clasp one another. “And then I got away.”

And then he got away. She watches him, feeling her heart race within her little flat chest, and she swallows hard.

Then, his eyes glaze over, staring through her. His face wrinkles as his eyes dart around, looking for her; she’s turned invisible.

“Hey,” he says, reaching out for her with his voice. “Hey, Kid. You playing some kind of game?”

She backs away slowly, soundlessly, holding her breath each step of the way.

“I’m done playing,” he says, and there is worry in his eyes, real worry. We all have a choice, she encourages herself, keeping herself hidden, keeping herself away. “No more games, Kid. Come back to me. You know I can find you. You know I will find you.”

Her foot kicks into the ledge of the building as she backs away. She stops, her heart jumping. I won’t be free if I fall off the building, she reasons. I’ll be another flattened slum girl on the pavement of another slum street.

“Fine. Go, run,” he says quietly, the darkness of murder and rage in his shallow eyes. “Let the world see me for the monster I am.”

Kid swallows. “Y-You’re not a monster,” she whispers.

He glares in her direction, his eyes still reaching for her, looking for a girl he’ll never again see. “Then for all the time we’ve spent on the streets together, you don’t know me. You haven’t learned a fucking thing, girl. Do you even know who I am?”

“You’re not a monster,” she repeats, retreating slowly.

“I’m Kendil, the Weapon of Sanctum, the fire and the cold, the death and the birth. Kings and Queens fear me. Whispers of me still drift on terrified ears in the endless nights …”

“You’re not a monster.”

“You don’t think I’ll turn on you like I turned on my defenseless mother? Like I did my father? I could freeze you in one instant. I could turn you to ice in one mad instant, girl.”

“You won’t. I believe in you. You’re not a—”

And in one mad instant, the world changes. The darkness turns blinding white. The cold that swallows Kid feels searing hot, and in the furious storm of energy that wraps around her—whether visible or not—Kid emits a scream so ear-piercing, so bitingly anguished, so inhuman, she can’t even recognize it as her own.

And as quick as the whiteness envelops her, a sharp, dark dagger cuts through the cold, and then it is Kendil shrieking out in a broken, furious voice. For one wild instant, Kid imagines that she willed a great sword into existence, a sword that just hacked into Kendil’s ankle.

Kid falls back like a stone block, her bush of hair so cold, it’s become a frozen-solid nest of indistinguishable curls and tangles. She forces her limbs to move despite them protesting in cold, bitter agony, and climbs to her feet, running away from the scene.

It was Blindy, she realizes as she races, unseen, toward the fire escape, swinging down the loud, metal stairs with clumsy footing and stiff joints, her teeth clattering from the icy assault. Blindy attacked him and set me free.

She misses the first step of the last staircase and goes tumbling down to the pavement below. Numbed by the cold, she feels nothing when her face hits the pavement, but a deep red cut is now drawn down her arm. She gives it exactly one second of her time, her eyes growing wide, and then she scurries away, fleeing the scene and the cat and the cold boy forever.

0156  Athan

His heart races.

He’s sitting perfectly still and trying to read a book Lionis had recommended to him when suddenly the panic invades him again, but it is so much stronger this time, overwhelmingly so. And when the feeling intoxicates him like this, rushing through Athan’s system like a great flood, bad things happen.

His family died soon after he felt this way.

Lord’s Garden fell.

He was knocked in the head and fell into the pool as a boy, his last sight being Radley at the other end staring at him in fright.

“Stop,” Athan begs his heart, his eyes quivering with fear. “Stop racing, please. Stop, stop, stop.”

Athan departs the chair he’d made a home in, then trips when he finds one of his legs tangled around a blanket in which he’d been swallowed. He kicks it away and pushes out of the room, storming through the halls and rooms of the ninth floor. Ninth, ninth, ninth, always the ninth everything.

He pushes his face flat against the wide, dirty glass window that overlooks the east side of the building. He tries to see something other than panic and danger and alarm and fear and worry.

It’s your anxiety attacks. It isn’t related to your family or to Lord’s Garden or to anything that explodes or dies or loses life. Calm, Athan. Just like your brother used to do to you with his Legacy. Calm, calm …

Oh, how he misses Radley. So, so much. Athan clutches at his chest, finding himself short of breath suddenly. “Calm,” he says in a sad attempt to mimic his brother’s voice. “Calm, calm …”

He can’t seem to still his heart; it keep racing, racing, racing. I won’t need the Eastly Gym at all, Athan tries to joke to himself. I am a living cardio machine, working myself without taking a jog or lifting a weight at all. But when he swallows, his throat is so tight that he can barely breathe.

Athan pushes into the next room for a drink of water, hoping it could bring down his anxiety. Victra and Prat are seated at the desk, neither of them looking up at Athan’s entry. He fumbles with a glass in the cabinet and it comes crashing to the floor, shattering.

“The fuck?” says Victra, looking up from the desk. Prat turns too, his bushy hair belatedly turning with his head. “Seriously?”

“Sorry.” Athan looks around for a broom, then remembers that they’re kept in the closet Wick sleeps in. Wick, who still isn’t back from his mission with Juston. I can’t go into that closet. “I’m having … I’m … I’m having my … my …” Athan can’t even seem to put his words together, swallowing air every couple of syllables.

“You okay, man?” puts in Prat, rising from his chair, concerned.

“Yes. No. Yes.” Athan squeezes shut his eyes, then wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of a wrist. “Y-Yes. Fine. It’s just … It’s just …”

Victra sighs. “He’s having one of his panic things,” she mutters to Prat in a low voice, but Athan hears it perfectly. In fact, he feels like he hears everything in perfect clarity. When he opens his eyes again, his vision is so sharp, he feels like he can see a smudge on the glass of the window even standing here at the counter.

That is, a smudge on the glass of the window across the street on a neighboring building. Athan blinks several times, breathing so quickly that he feels dizzy. Adrenaline, he tells himself.

“LIONIS!” calls out Victra in her less-than-patient voice. She comes up to the counter and starts brushing up the glass with her foot, lazily kicking and brushing the shards into a pile. “Come here, Lionis! Athan needs you!”

“N-No, I’m fine,” Athan tries to assure her, despite resisting the urge to double over. He fights a sudden urge to cry. Radley, Janna, mother, father …

Arrow enters the room instead, his eyes stony and faraway. “Is something—?”

“No,” Victra cuts him off. “We need Lionis, not you. He’s like a Wick clone. He’ll calm our Lifted Boy down.” She gives Athan a half-condescending pat on the head, being a head taller than him. Athan takes offense to neither the head-pat nor the term of endearment, but they don’t do a thing to slow his hammering heart. “You’ve been holed up in your ears all damn day, Arrow. Something up?”

“No, no, no,” Arrow answers too quickly, wiping his mouth and staring at the floor. “I was just … just bored, really. Um …”

Athan’s eyes dart to Arrow at once, and his heart feels its first moment of reprieve. Why? “What’s wrong, Arrow?” he asks.

Arrow shakes his head, suddenly looking a lot more convincing. “Nothing. I said nothing’s up. I’m just bored. I, uh, heard this cat hissing through a charm I have in the tenth, and … funny thing, really, I think the cat—”

“Wick and Juston are in trouble?” Athan asks at once.

Victra and Prat share a look of confusion, then the pair of them turn to Arrow, curious. Arrow swallows hard. “I …” His gaze moves from one person to another. “Did Gandra say something?”

Athan feels his stomach turn. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Arrow blurts. “Nothing, I swear it. It’s just that my charms in the eleventh are failed or … or disabled somehow. We’ve just lost communication, that’s all. They’re on their way back, I’m sure of it.”

Athan, however, isn’t sure of anything at all. He looks over at Prat, who seems to be swallowing a few words of his own. “Prat?”

The bushy-haired brain lifts his face, startled by the call-out. “I don’t know anything. I was trying to guide them with Arrow’s—”

“It’s because Arrow ran a little errand of his own in the sixth,” puts in Victra, sneering at Arrow. “The fuck, seriously? If you were here, we’d know what the hell happened to Wick and Juston, and—”

“Something happened to Wick?”

Everyone turns. Lionis stands at the doorway, a red pot hanging in one hand, an opened book pinched in the other.

Victra sighs, giving a great rolling of her eyes. “Seriously. Can anyone just keep their damn mouths shut?”

A look of indignance crosses Lionis’s face. “No, they certainly can’t, and they shouldn’t. Rain doesn’t keep secrets. Someone needs to speak up. What’s happened to my brother?”

Shaky of voice, Arrow says, “Nothing. He’s on his way back.”

“You don’t know that,” spits Prat, leaning against his desk and staring at the floor in despair. “Oh god … what if it was the red light? That noise …”

“Noise?” asks Lionis.

Victra huffs so loudly, it turns three heads in her direction. “Stop being so fucking dramatic. Remember that time in the fifth when Juston lost his earpiece then, too? Or when me and Prat went off to the Mechanoids? It fucking happens. Big deal.”

“Excuse me, but that’s my brother you’re so flippantly talking about,” says Lionis, “and if something happened, or if he’s in trouble, I’m going out there to help.”

“Is that so?” asks Victra, smirking. “And what’ll you do to your enemies? Give their arms a tan with your sweaty hands?”

“I’ll burn their f-fucking faces off,” Lionis growls back, sounding far more afraid than he does brave.

Prat sighs. “I’ll … I’ll go. I’ll go to the eleventh and check it out. All of you can stay here. Give me an earpiece and—”

“No. You’re the map guy,” argues Lionis, his voice lifting in that way it does when he tries to take control of the group. “You stay here with Arrow. I’ll go with Victra. I’ll need eyes.”

“I’m not going with you,” she says back, her eyebrows cocked and a laugh tickling her lips. “You and I are not a team. I stay here to check the surrounding eyes and make sure we have no intruders or brigands or spying faces. Gandra’s orders.”

“Then I’ll f-fucking go alone,” blurts Lionis, slamming the red pot down on the counter next to Athan and tossing his book into it. His shoes crunch in the shards of the broken glass on the floor.

“Don’t curse. It doesn’t become you, and you stutter every time you say fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking,” mocks Victra.

“At least I’m brave enough to say it,” he shoots back, “instead of avoiding saying the name Rone because I’m weak and scared.”

Victra lunges at Lionis so fast, she becomes a blur of color and one swinging fist. Prat intercepts first, but earns Victra’s elbow to his cheek, causing him to shout out in pain. Arrow goes to stop her from planting a fist into Lionis’s haughty face, which quickly crumbles to fear as Wick’s brother cowers away from Victra’s red wrath. The moment is brief, and when Prat and Arrow both succeed in putting distance between the two, Victra finally huffs and departs the room, knocking the red pot off the counter on her way out. It crashes to the floor to make friends with the half-swept broken shards of glass.

Lionis breathes heavy, blinking indignantly and sputtering words at Arrow and Prat, as if trying to blame her words without a speck of apology for his own.

And despite all of that, Athan still feels his breath catching in his throat. I need to get to Wick, and I need to get to him now. “Lionis …”

The three boys turn to look at Athan. Arrow steps forward first, lifting a concerned eyebrow. “You have that look in your eye, Athan. Are you … having the shakes again?”

“I just need to get out of here.” Athan doesn’t know where to put his hands, so he jams them into his pockets, feeling his tight shirt tug at his shoulders when he does so. “I can’t calm down. I’m … I’m having a h-hard time … h-hard time …”

“Breathing,” finishes Arrow, concern in his wide, knowing eyes. He comes up to Athan and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Wick is fine, alright? I’m pretty … I’m pretty sure he is. And … Wait.” Arrow studies Athan’s face, alarm starting to show in his own. “Are we alright? Are we safe? That look in your eye …”

“Yeah,” Athan says at once, his jaw tight. “Y-Yeah. No. Yes. I …” He shakes his head, dropping his gaze to the floor. His eyes pick up every little glint of light that reflects off the shattered pieces of glass. He sees a speck of dust between the cracks in the tile. He sees a stain from a botched dinner he tried to cook with Lionis weeks ago. “No.”

“No?”

Athan swallows jaggedly, then shuts his eyes, begging the soul of his brother Radley to calm him somehow from beyond the grave. He doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore.

“I’ll take him,” Lionis states, still sounding a touch too confident, even after what just transpired. “The two of us will go. I know the route that Wick and Juston took. Pratganth has his maps. I’ll take an earpiece, just in case they show back up after we’ve gone.”

Arrow isn’t done with him. “Athan …?”

Athan doesn’t meet Arrow’s eyes, for fear that he’ll see the deep concern in them. “Yes. I’ll go with Lionis. I need … I need to breathe. I need air.” Athan steps over the glass on the floor, then takes Lionis by the hand, finding it sweaty and not caring. “Let’s go.”

Lionis lets his hand slip from Athan’s grip, then pats him on the shoulder stiffly instead. The gesture is odd coming from Lionis, but he punctuates it with a confident nod anyway. “Yes, let’s.”

The moment they reach the street, Athan feels his nerves relax. Cool air touches his skin, and he breathes a sigh of relief, though still no smile comes to his face. I’ll smile when I see my slum boy again.

0157  Ellena

It’s through back alleys and side roads and long narrow paths that they traverse for quite some time. The boy impressively never loses his aim on Ellena, but if she’s perfectly honest, she has so little care or trust in the boy to actually pull the trigger. Try shooting me, a part of her mind dares him. I’ll just move the fatal wound right back onto you.

Hours must have passed since they fled the hidden Guardian complex. They stop under the awning of some closed-up restaurant on a dark, unpopulated street. Bee swings a bag off her shoulder that holds small rations of food. To Ellena’s surprise, the tall, emotionless woman even hands her a bite. “I don’t want you dragging behind us like deadweight on our ankles,” spits Bee, ruining what Ellena was hoping to take as an act of kindness. The rations are dried, processed vegetable patties that are about as unseasoned as a brick of cement. I could cook something better than this, Ellena gripes, chewing.

She assumes there is about an hour of night left before the sun rises. Her knee feels no better than it did when they’d left. Countless times along the way, she considered putting her knee into Gabel or Bee, crippling them somewhat, and then making a grab for the boy and his weapon, turning it on the others. She visualized it in her head so many times, she’d even say it became a comforting fantasy.

But she never did it. Sitting here eating the most unpleasant brick of food, she figures she’s in a better situation than she’d be in if she were on her own, trying to survive in a city that’s being slowly ripped apart by fiery beams of red light, endless uncontrolled looting, and rebel groups reveling in the chaos.

She wonders if the Greens are a place of peace right now. She can smell the cloying fragrance of andragora seeds when she closes her eyes. Even the muds she misses. It was hard work, but it was rewarding to come home to a house with Lionis’s cooking, Wick’s soft sleeping in his room, Link’s brooding on a laundry-filled couch, and waiting for Forge to return from the metalshops. Years before that, she’d enjoy the banter between Halvesand and Aleksand as they traded stories about Guardian—Aleks telling some exciting tale, and Halves excited to soon be moving into the dormitories. Where has all the time gone? Everyone has grown up and gone away.

What if Forge is alive? What if she was seduced by the hard, muscled proximity of a handsome young man with hungry eyes, and didn’t give an honest consideration to whether or not her husband might have, indeed, survived the Fall of Sanctum and its residual crushing of the Keep? Maybe he’s being held in a certain kind of custody himself, just like her. But Gabel said that Forge is dead.

Still … Maybe even if Forge is alive, he’s found a woman to keep him comfortable down there. There are women who are arrested and sent to the Keep for life, too. It isn’t unreasonable, Ellena tells herself.

Don’t be a fool. Forge is dead. Stop trying to revive him. Stop trying to make him exist when he is dead, dead, dead.

The guilt cuts Ellena like a knife. I shouldn’t have let Gabel inside me. But even just thinking those words makes her heart race and her thighs clench tightly at the memory, instantly craving it again.

She shuts her eyes, at war within. It’s madness in my belly.

“You’re not going anywhere, Lesser.” Chewing sullenly, she listens to Gabel’s words while staring off at the lifeless face of a building across the street with thoughts of fidelity and infidelity and sore hearts and lost loves swimming in front of her. She doesn’t dignify the man for whom her thighs currently tighten with even a glance. “You hear me?” his commanding voice persists. “No matter how undone this city gets. No matter what lowly slummers invade our Guardian strongholds. No matter if there’s twenty Guardian looking after you, or five, or us three, or just me. You are not escaping our custody. You are not free.”

“Damn right,” mutters Bee in agreement, having finished her ration a moment ago and standing watch with her gun at the ready.

“You will have your justice met,” Gabel promises her, his voice seeming to be right in her ear, reaching into her and touching her core. His voice carries so much strength, she can still feel his hands on her breasts, groping her, massaging her, giving her nipples cause to harden, making her wet down below. “You will be tried for your crimes, Lesser, and no undoing of the city will stop it. There will be order, no doubt about it. This … Madness … is not a free ticket to run, pillage, or murder. Each and every one of these brigands will have to face the justice in the end. Every rebel. Every killer. Every thief.”

“Every cheater,” murmurs Ellena.

Gabel’s breaths fall heavily on Ellena’s neck as he sits behind her. “Excuse me?” he mutters, a touch softer.

“Cheaters are the worst. They’re all three: rebel, killer, and thief. A rebel of heart. A killer of trust. A thief of love.” Ellena shakes her head, then stares up at the dark, ominous underbelly of the Lifted City. “My son once said it was a crime against marriage, back in the times of the Ancients. Adultery, they had called it. What an unusual word …”

“Love?” he whispers, speaking so that only Ellena can hear. A dry chuckle escapes his lips. “That isn’t what happened between us, Lesser. We’ve made that perfectly clear. All I needed—”

“Was my body, yes, right, of course. Like in the way you’d need a tissue to wipe your nose.” Now it’s Ellena’s turn to laugh dryly, her voice raising. “Oh, the fool I’ve been ever since I left the ninth. A fool to my sister. A fool to my children. A fool to myself.”

“Fools, indeed,” comes another voice—and it’s neither Gabel, nor Bee, nor the boy who utter the words.

Ellena looks up. A large teenage girl with enormous breasts squeezed tightly into a white top that cuts off at the belly, and a pair of loose beige pants hanging off her hips stands before them. A very formidable-looking crossbow rests in her clutch, aimed at Bee. The girl’s eyes glow, and they almost look curious, perhaps due to the way her eyebrows are cocked.

“Don’t,” she clips the moment the boy reaches for his gun, which he’d let rest on the ground to eat. “Nope, nope. Steady there, all four of you. I’ve only one question to ask and then we’ll all be on our merry way.”

“A question you get,” Gabel spits back at her. “So ask.”

The girl’s voice is a deep and raspy monotone, devoid of joy. “Which Wall Breaker gave you permission to eat in our ward?”

“Wall Breaker? Who the fuck are they?” he asks.

“I take it you don’t have permission, then,” she says, “And that must mean, assumedly, you have no permission to be in our ward.”

“Your ward? The wards belong to Sanctum. All twelve of them, even the ruined one. I answer to Sanctum, not to the likes of you.”

“Sanctum is broken. So you must mean you answer to a Mad King who’d laugh as he killed you.”

“Sanctum will be revived. The Mad King will be thrown from his place in the sky,” Gabel states, as if it was a fact. “I am a Guardian official. You have no authority over me.”

“Oh, but I do.” She tightens her hold on the crossbow.

The little gesture doesn’t seem to faze Gabel at all. He takes one single step forward, a word about to escape his lips.

The bolt looses from the crossbow so quickly, Ellena doesn’t see it until Gabel shrieks out in pain and drops to one knee, the bolt poking out of his thigh like a tiny third arm.

Bee is quick and has her gun up and pointed. The girl is just as fast, her crossbow aimed at Bee. The world turns silent and still again, but for the tiny heaves of pain from Gabel and Ellena’s own heart racing in her ears. The boy remains unmoving, his gun too far to quickly reach without being shot first or risking Bee getting the next bolt lodged in her chest or face.

“You are on Wall Breaker territory and you are eating our food,” the girl states, her voice flat and drab. “I don’t care if it was food from your own ward, or from a market square legitimately purchased, or from your dear grandmother’s crockpot. If it is within the boundaries of the seventh, it belongs to us.”

“Like hell it does,” Bee bites back.

“Surrender your food and make your way out of our ward,” the girl demands. “Also, we’ll be taking those pretty weapons from you. If you don’t comply, the next place I shoot will complicate your sex life for the rest of your days.” She tightens her grip on the crossbow.

Gabel’s tight breaths fill the street as he remains there, rigid of body and down on one knee. Every other breath, he sucks in air through his gritted teeth. Bee keeps her gun aimed at the girl with the glowing eyes, her own breath even and her long eyes squinted in concentration.

Ellena rises from her chair. “I, for one, am tired of being with these Guardian fools.” She smiles at the glow-eyed girl who stands but a few paces before them. “Hi. I’m Ellena. These idiots are keeping me in their custody, and really, what’s the point with the madness all around us? I’ll more than happily surrender my rations—and theirs—in exchange for a place among your Wall Break—”

“Shut it. I don’t make deals with thieves from the street.”

“Oh, I’m no thief. Dear me.” Ellena gives an innocent chuckle of delight. “I couldn’t dream of stealing a thing. These Guardian have me for the wrong crime. It was a most unhappy misunderstanding for which I’ve paid the unwieldy price of—”

“I said SHUT IT.” The girl narrows her eyes, the glow pinched between her lids and making them seem all the more brighter. “I will have your supplies now or else I will have your lives.”

Ellena sighs. “Well, it was worth a shot,” she says.

And then she lunges at the girl without warning. So caught off-guard by her mad dash, the girl shoots her crossbow, but her aim is off, and the bolt ricochets off Bee’s gun, dislodging it from her hands and leaving her otherwise unscathed. Ellena makes it to the girl before she’s able to reload and, in the next instant, the large girl is toppled. Ellena reaches deep into her with her power and plants in there every possible woe and ache she can find within herself.

But a sore knee is nothing to a spritely teenager, who shoves Ellena right off of her like she weighs nothing. She fumbles with the crossbow and brings it up for another firing, quicker than a cat.

Unbeknownst to Ellena until she turns her head too slow, Gabel has made a charge of his own for the girl, and the second bolt that fires from the weapon buries itself deep into Gabel’s chest.

He drops to his knees, mouth agape, a death rattle quivering out of his tightening throat that can draw no air.

Ellena clambers toward him desperately, then feels the glowing-eyed girl gripping her by the ankle, not letting her get away.

“Gabel!” cries out Ellena. His eyes, far away, meet hers. The fear of death pumps through them like the lifeblood that pools out of his chest and thigh, quivering and filling with tears of astonishment.

When he can no longer support himself on his knees, he drops to the ground next to Ellena, gasping for air that won’t come.

She grips the bolt in his chest, leans down to his ear, then says, “This is going to hurt.”

The next instant, she pulls the bolt straight out, inviting a river of blood onto the cold pavement along with an earsplitting scream from his mouth. But she isn’t done. She makes a mad grab at the bolt in his thigh and yanks it out too—taking two solid tugs to dislodge the stubborn thing. The screams Gabel emits are deafening, but soon cut off. Touching his cheek and staring into his fast-fading eyes, Ellena closes her own and, with foolish abandon, goes to work.

The excruciating pain cuts into Ellena only for an instant before finding a new home.

The glowing-eyed girl, her hand still clutching Ellena’s ankle, shrieks as a wound, black and red, opens greedily upon her chest. Her throat, in its desperate attempt to scream, fast fills with blood and turns her voice into bubbling, offputting howls.

Gabel sucks in a lungful of air, renewed. His eyes flash open.

After twenty-two seconds of listening to the girl’s agony, her brief life comes to an end. Ellena turns over onto her back, exhausted and gulping deep breaths. With a tiny lift of her head, she sees that the glow has vanished from the girl’s eyes, turning them glassy and still. Her mouth hangs open, a stream of red drawing pools upon the road. Ellena collapses back, staring starry-eyed upwards, the view of the Lifted City underbelly filling her world. She spends a half of forever catching her breath. No one around her seems to move.

Then the boy’s boots shuffle nearby, helping Gabel to his feet. Bee cautiously draws near the girl, giving her a light kick in the side to ensure she’s done in.

And Ellena remains there, finally having caught her breath, but not having any success at catching her mind. Questions race through her troubled brain about why she did what she did. Another life, ended by a transference of pain. Another life, taken long before it should have been. Because of me.

Gabel’s is the next face she sees as he moves to stand over her, looking down at her while clutching his own chest, as if still feeling a wound there—an imaginary wound that doesn’t hurt, not truly.

“Lesser …” he murmurs softly.

Ellena can’t seem to acknowledge him. She can’t stop thinking about life and death and wounds and breaking bones that sound like celery stalks being snapped in half.

Gabel extends a hand. “Lesser. It … It isn’t safe here. We … We should really …”

“I met a boy once with black around his eyes,” murmurs Ellena suddenly, still staring stonily at the dark and ugly underbelly of the Lifted City, a place that is responsible for so many of her woes. “He robbed me, this wayward young man. And then I touched him and took an innocent wound from his arm. Just a cut, nothing much. He repaid me afterwards by leaving the things he’d stolen from me on the street, just around the corner. I nearly tripped over them, I recall it vividly. And his eyes … his eyes …”

Gabel’s face wrinkles, an eyebrow lifted curiously. “Dran? The Wrath boy, Dran? The one who was executed alongside his brother on the broadcast, that one?”

“I’ll … I’ll never forget his eyes.” Ellena swallows hard, suddenly finding tears in her own. “How am I suddenly a killer? My ability has been healing, all my life. Healing, healing, healing … and now …” She swallows again, her bottom lip quivering. Every wound is a weapon. My weakness will become yours … if you stand too close. “Now …”

Gabel crouches down next to her, his green eyes soft. “I’ve been looking for justice,” he whispers to her, his voice bent with surprise, as if realizing the point he’s making just as he makes it. “The fatal wounds you’ve given … they are simply wounds sent back to the ones who afflicted them. You … you are the justice.”

0158  Link

He stares at his reflection as it dances on the surface of the water. It almost seems to mock him, the way his own face stares back—smirking one moment, smiling the next, then sneering, then laughing, then looking nothing like a face at all.

“We’re in the eleventh,” Ames tells him when they come to a stop at a fork in the Waterways where the great canal splits in three directions, adjoined by narrow cobblestone bridges that stretch over each stream. The other boys are talking to each other while Baron stands ahead of them, judging which path will lead them closer to the ruined twelfth ward.

“You sure?” Link asks jeeringly.

Twice now they’ve turned themselves around, unintentionally circling back into the tenth ward. It’s as if some magic spell was keeping them from getting to the Forsaken Ward. The thought, even if it’s half meant in humor, makes him think on the strange man he’d met at the ruins of The Brae. He claimed to be Baron’s brother. He also claimed to have seen the end of the world—or something like that. It began in cold and it will end in fire …
or something.

The man also said he shouldn’t trust Baron. Why would he warn Link against trusting his own brother? Well, there are times Link didn’t trust Wick or the obvious lie about his Legacy and what he does with all those hours at night, of which he still does not know a thing. Perhaps it’s often one’s own siblings who are least deserving of trust.

Link spots the newest member of the Brotherhood in the crowd by the water, the tiny kid with the fear in his small, shrinking eyes. He’s listening to something another brother is telling him, but his eyes are glassy and faraway, as if the fear he felt when he was drowned is now permanently pasted on his face.

“Did I look like that when I joined the Brotherhood?” asks Link.

Ames follows Link’s gaze, then smirks, warring red and white scars of his burns crinkling with his mouth. “Something like that.”

“I looked afraid? Was I afraid?”

“We were all afraid.”

Link stares at his reflection again, remembering that last little moment of his life when he breathed water and felt the life of a boy drown within him and the life of a Brother take its place. He thinks about what he saw in the water that day.

“Did he ask you if you had the vision?”

Ames shrugs. “Yeah, of course. It’s the whole point.”

Link keeps staring at his face in the water as it wiggles and dances and shimmers. “Have you noticed that Baron’s … more and more angry each time it happens?”

“He wouldn’t have a reason to get angry at all if Three Goddess would just give the damn vision to someone.” Ames sighs, stretching his legs by the water and slapping his feet in, disturbing it—one leg smooth, one leg scarred with grotesque burns from ankle to thigh. Link’s reflection ripples until it’s unrecognizable. “Maybe he’ll find a new rat to drown in the Dark Abandon.”

“A new rat?”

“Some new boy. Maybe he’ll have the vision that saves us all.”

Link keeps thinking of the man from the ruins. Hazy visions of the Sisters and that invisible girl dance in his mind, spinning him around and around.

“It’s always boys,” Ames goes on with a little smirk. “I wonder if Baron has an appetite for them. Young and pretty.” Ames chuckles to himself dryly, then flashes Link a toothy smile. “Maybe I wasn’t pretty enough for the vision?”

The humor doesn’t touch Link. He stares at the water. For some reason, he feels sick.

“I saw a girl.”

Ames lifts an eyebrow at Link. “No, you didn’t,” he retorts with a sneer. “If there was a girl among us, I’m pretty sure the boys would smell her out like hungry dogs to a bone.”

“The day I drowned.”

Ames’ eyes turn serious. He doesn’t say a word, watching Link with an intensifying stare.

“A-At least I … I think I did,” Link amends, suddenly feeling the need to backpedal. “I might’ve just … hallucinated this girl I met once here in the Waterways. She stole something from me and …” Link swallows, not liking the fact that the severity on Ames’ face has not softened in the least. “It isn’t the vision. It can’t be. It doesn’t even make sense. All I saw was her and …” And the gold. And the Sisters.

“And?” prompts Ames.

“And … and maybe I’m the one losing my mind.” Link shakes his head. “Just ignore me.”

Ames stares at him dubiously for a long moment, then finally relents, dropping his head with a great sigh. He glances back at Baron. “He’ll find his mission. And then Atlas will be saved.”

Just then, Baron calls back to the boys, directing them down the right path, certain that it is the one to not loop back to a previous ward. The boys gather up their things and start to follow Baron over one of the cobblestone crosswalks. When Link follows, he catches Ames staring at him again with those pensive, skeptical eyes. He doesn’t much like that look.

They continue down the sidewalks of the underground canal. Baron looks particularly proud of himself, as this tunnel looks like new territory for them. The waters are much more calm, almost to the point where they don’t seem to be flowing at all. Distant water droplets echo off the stones, giving these parts of the Waterways the atmosphere of some deep cavern. Even the structure of the tunnels themselves appear more crudely built, with jagged edges along the walkways and sparser lamps. After just twenty more minutes of walking, even the water starts to look black as a slummer’s sky.

The road splits into two with a tired, twenty-thousand-year-old bridge made of wood giving access to the other side. Link is roughly speculating the age, of course. He wonders if anything is that old. One of the boys expresses a concern that one of the tunnels looks too dark to traverse at all, considering the next lamp appears to be so far in the distance that the area of the tunnel between here and there is completely dark, hiding any sudden bend or break in the sidewalks.

“REPENT.”

Link jumps, jerked out of his thought by the one hammer of a word. The boys fall silent as Link looks up to find Baron standing at the other end of the Brotherhood, his eyes locked upon Link’s. Ames is at the priest’s side, and he too stares at Link with a crooked scowl on his half-burnt face. Link would hate to describe it as full of malice, but that may be the most accurate word.

“Repent, did you?” asks Baron quieter. His words drift straight to Link, sending ice to his gut. “Is that what I was to believe that day you turned my Brae gold?”

Link swallows, his eyes darting back and forth between Ames and Baron. “I … I don’t understand.”

“What is it?” asks Baron, taking a step toward him. The boys back away to make a path for him.

“What’s what?”

“The mission, dear boy,” he asks so gently, the tone of his voice is nearly saccharine. “The one for which I’ve taken six more Legacies since the day I took yours. The mission I’ve been hunting for. The mission, Goddess-given.”

Link’s eyes meet Ames’. I was a fool to trust him. “What I saw wasn’t a vision. It was a hallucination. I … I even told you what I saw. I was drowning, for sh-shit’s sake. I saw a friend I once met down here … a girl. I saw—”

“Three Goddess,” Baron finishes for him. His hand reaches out suddenly, gripping the shoulder of one of the boys. The boy’s brow wrinkles in discomfort. “You saw Three Goddess.”

“I have no idea what I saw,” Link lies.

“I knew it.” Baron shakes his head, his mouth tightening to a straight line. “When I pulled you from the water, I knew it. When you fell through the roof, I knew it. When you walked with the boys of Wrath and robbed us of glass and pride, I fucking knew you were the one.”

“Admit it,” calls out Ames, as if he were some appointed second-hand to the Sister-obsessed priest. “Just admit what you saw.”

“I saw water,” Link bites back, fuming.

Baron grips another boy’s shoulder with his other hand. The two boys in his grip wince from the man’s tight hold. “Water,” he echoes, amused by Link’s wit. Though, if Link were to be truthful, he’s not sure he meant it wittily; he was being literal.

Then, before his eyes, the two boys in Baron’s grip turn gaunt as hundred-year-old men, then brittle and pale white. In the space of five seconds, two piles of dust and bone rest on either side of the priest.

The other boys step back with sickened gasps. One boy retches, his vomit spilling on the bare feet of the boy next to him. Another steps back so far, he loses his footing and falls backward into the water, then shrieks at how cold it is. Ames’ expression seems to have sobered completely, all sign of malice or anger lost immediately and replaced instantly with fear.

“What did you see, Link?” asks Baron, and it is now the priest’s eyes that have gathered the malevolence Ames’ eyes lost.

“Tell him,” orders someone in the back, his voice shaking with fear. “Yeah, fucking tell him,” orders another one of the boys who always seems to hang by Ames’ side. “Just tell him the damn mission or whatever!” shouts yet another.

Baron already has someone else in his grip, a boy who looks like he’s a second from emptying his bladder, struggling to free himself from the man’s unrelenting grip. “The mission, child.” Baron’s lips tighten again. “The mission. Tell me.”

“I s-s-saw shapes. Women’s faces. A friend I once knew.”

“Lies.”

The boy in his grip twists and screams as he ages a thousand years in less than two seconds, crumbling into a pile of ash and femurs and one small skull.

Another boy is already in his grip. Two more boys. Others begin to wrestle with Baron’s hold on them, trying to free their friends from the mad priest—the priest who’s been touched by madness, by violent greed, by shattered faith.

“THE VISION! NOW!” demands Baron.

Two more boys turn to dust, along with those who held on to the others in hopes of freeing them.

Boys have started to run. One abandons his robe, having gotten it snagged on a jagged stone coming out of the wall, and races into the darkness wearing nothing at all.

The back of Link’s heel hits the ledge, almost making him lose his balance. He swallows hard, staring at Baron who now stands all by himself. Even Ames has taken off running.

“They’re all just puppets,” mutters Baron over the sound of retreating footsteps and boys shouting and distant droplets of water echoing through the cavernous halls. “Each and every one. Empty visions and blank eyes and no gold in them. You, boy, child of gold, golden of spirit, golden of fingers, golden of faith …”

“Stay away from me,” hisses Link, sidestepping down the path.

Baron approaches, unheeding. “You were touched by the Sisters. They gave you the key. Why wouldn’t you want to hand it to the one who guided you there? To the one who’s supported you since your grievous fall through my very roof? I am your friend.”

“Y-Y-You’re a murderer. You took their lives … all their lives …! You said we only die when the Brotherhood does!”

“When I do,” Baron corrects him, “or when I choose to take back my Goddess-given gift of unlife. But you have nothing to fear, boy, child, Link, for I wouldn’t take the unlife of the one who was touched by the Goddesses. You’re, on the contrary, the only one I need.”

“You wasted th-their lives …” Link stumbles, drops to his ass, then scrambles back to his feet. “How can you have so little value for lives after … after what you’ve preached? What you’ve taught me? What you accused the Wrath of?”

“Little sacrifices. I’ll take twenty lives if it means saving the whole city. Cut off a finger to save the hand. Trim a branch to save the tree. Link, let us save the world together.”

Don’t trust him. Link is all alone in the tunnel with Baron. The other boys were smarter and fled so as not to meet their end. And I must do the same.

“Link. Don’t run.”

But run he does. Link bolts down the pathway, hopping over every crack and uneven turn of stone as he flees. Baron’s voice hollers down the hall, echoing into Link’s sensitive ears from all directions. He runs as fast as his feet will carry him.

The next time Baron shouts, Link realizes he’s chasing after him. Link’s running becomes increasingly more frantic. He turns a corner and runs so fast, he’s reminded unsettlingly of a day when he escaped hounds in the courtyard of some rich family Dran and the gang had abandoned him in. Hounds, he decides. You’re being chased by hounds again—or rather, by one big, scary hound that could end you. Never let settle your feet. Run, run, run.

When he turns the next corner, he finds Ames against the wall catching his breath. When his wide, worried eyes meets Link’s, he realizes the chase has caught up to him. Ames breaks into a sprint, flailing his arms to gather speed as he joins Link, racing down the winding paths of the Waterways.

“REPENT!!” comes the priest’s broken voice, flying down the hall faster than the water races at their side.

Link and Ames run and run and run, but no matter the distance they make, Baron’s voice seems always just a step behind. Link grits his teeth, prays to the Goddesses of which he never truly held faith, not truly, and he begs them for mercy. Sisters, if ever you had a moment’s reprieve for a Lesser, please, spare me your priest, spare me this chase, spare me the misery. I reject your mission. I want nothing of it. Take the vision back, if that’s even what it was.

The boys escape down the tunnels, haunted by the desperate cries of the priest who will not let them go.

0159  Tide

Is he dead? Did I kill Anwick Lesser?

He races past the threshold of the Dark Abandon. He doesn’t look back to verify whether Scorp has followed him or not. His legs are shaking by the time he finally stops, and he worries whether they can hold his weight. He doubles over, heaving with breath that fills and evacuates his lungs in deep and desperate mouthfuls, as if he’s drowning in air.

Scorp drops to his knees next to Tide, sucking in lungful after lungful as they take in the comfort of their home. Tide stares at his skinny, shaky, shirtless partner as they recover. His eyes graze over all the ink that decorates his skin, wondering what it all means. He never cared to ask. Why do I suddenly care now?

“You and I … were so fucking close …” Scorp finally gets out between uneven breaths.

His hands still on his knees, bent over, Tide shakes his head and says, “We can’t see the Queen.”

Scorp lifts an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“We didn’t get either of those dumbasses. We’ve only gathered nine. We’re short a set of eyes.”

His partner sighs. “I’ve seen others short their load. We will just owe them an extra next month.” Suddenly Scorp rounds on Tide, his teeth bared. “Fuck, man, why did you almost bring the whole fucking warehouse down on our heads??”

Tide’s face scrunches up. “The fuck you talking about?”

“The wind, you idiot!”

“It wasn’t me!” he shouts, furious. “It was a f-fucking …”

But Tide can’t quite complete the sentence, as he’s completely unsure of where that wind came from at all. It wasn’t a storm; the moment they got out of that warehouse, they no longer felt its effects. The wind was contained, much in the same way it contains itself when Tide uses it. But that wasn’t my wind, he keeps telling himself, a thousand times since they fled that warehouse. Was the wind from Wick’s stupid partner? Does he also have a wind Legacy? There was so much noise in the air from the storm of warring winds around them, Tide couldn’t hear a damn thing, let alone a source of the raging weather.

“You’re helpless.” Scorp sighs, slaps his own face. “Two more trains and we’re in the Abandon. Keep your feet moving.”

Tide snorts at his partner, not needing to be bossed around. Still, he breaks into a light sprint and keeps up with Scorp as they jog the rest of the way down the smoggy street. The first dead train station passes by on their left, its rail hovering over the road and hugging the nearby building. Too soon, they already pass the next depowered rail, this one twice as high from the ground, a rickety metal tower leading up to the station where people would board or disembark. I wonder if Atlas will ever have a running train again.

No matter how many times he’s passed through its daunting threshold, the Dark Abandon always sends a chill of fear up Tide’s spine. He would never admit that out loud, but it’s ever exhausting to wear a brave face in front of the others who reside here in the forbidden spot of Atlas that even the Kings and Queens don’t touch. It’s so far off-center from the city that there isn’t even a bit of Lifted City that stretches over it, as if even the city in the sky has retracted its arms and fingers in fear.

That also means they’re safe from the Mad Bolt, which cannot reach this far. The Dark Abandon is an L-shape that hugs the Wall and has many levels beneath the surface that, hundreds of years ago before the great explosion, was ripe with underground marketplaces, secret trade routes, cave dwellings in which people lived, and even a Sanctum-kept tunnel that led straight to the Keep. Its passage has long since caved in, collapsing in on itself and barring entrance to (or exit from) the Keep.

The criminals and the homeless and the hopeless all live in the streets near the entrances of the Dark Abandon, as far away from the black, unbeating heart of the Abandon as possible. The farther you go in, the less people you see, and the more shades you begin to notice. That’s what they call the weird hallucinations and the ghosts and the unexplainables that seem to lurk in every corner: the shades. Even during daylight hours, the Abandon carries an unmistakably intimidating, ghostly essence about it, as if even the buildings are alive in a sort of spiritual manner, staring at you with broken teeth for doors and eyeless eyes for windows, watching your every move and counting your heartbeats, secretly knowing when your last one will be. Every wind that pushes through the street is the mocking, breathy laughter of a dead Queen or King.

The blunt three-story tower—or fortress, as Tide prefers to call it—looms at the end of the road, just under the shadow of the Wall at its back. If it weren’t for the pale glowing that creeps out from under Tide’s armor, the way to the fortress would be pitch black for the pair of them. Even still, Tide blinks and finds himself walking too close to his partner, as if he wants to hold his hand or, at a moment’s fright, throw Scorp in front of him for protection.

The fortress doors open smoothly after Scorp and Tide identify themselves. Scorp swings by their room of lodging where all the other hunters keep their loot. Tide watches as his partner struggles to heave the thick, woolen bag over a shoulder. After too many sad attempts, Tide sighs and grabs it away from his partner without a word, slinging it over his own shoulder with ease.

The fortress is only three stories high, but it’s over ten stories deep. They take the spiraling staircase down into the dungeons of the fortress, the stones in the walls appearing more and more crude and jagged the farther they go. Their footsteps clang against their ears, echoing up and down the steps. Tide’s imagination always runs away from him when they descend the nine mighty stories into the depths of the earth. He imagines their footsteps are disturbing and waking some ancient beast deep down, a creature of thousands of years of age that wishes not to be unrested. The creatures and animals of Atlas sleep, Tide tells himself, but would a great beast sleep as they do, or would it be awake as we are, eyes always on the ready for its next meal? Tide, frustrated with his own fears, pries open a latch of his armor with his one free hand, letting some of his glow spill out and illuminate the way farther. The torches along the walls aren’t enough; all they do is make the way more sweaty.

At last, they reach the great underground corridor, its ceiling and walls so far away, it’s like they don’t exist. Tide and Scorp walk down the hall toward the Queen’s chambers, feeling as if they were crossing a great plain made of bricks and uneven cobblestone.

The guardsmen open the doors, letting in the two boys. When the great white doors shut at their back, Tide feels the chill of death crawling up his spine and settling in his every bone. One lonesome brazier is lit at the end of the long hall, by which the Queen sits. Even the brazier’s light looks paler than a fire ought to be. The sight is so cold and unwelcoming, Tide can’t bring himself to approach.

Neither can Scorp. The boys have turned in many bags of heads before, but this is the first month that they’ve been short one.

“Come.”

Tide can’t make his legs move, the thick bag over his shoulder seeming to pull upon his hands, as if the severed, smelly heads inside it were jumping around and laughing at him. It’s Scorp who begins sauntering down the hall toward the Queen. Tide finally breaks from his stance and follows, his throat feeling hollow as a deep, dark well that holds no water. He’s a shell, an empty skull, a bottomless pit.

The Queen is a tall, rigid, cold-looking woman. Her hair as grey and silvery as her eyes, which appear almost serpentine. She pricks needles through everything and everyone with her shielded gaze. Tide always feels so small in front of her and can never seem to make his mouth work properly.

“Your eyes, Queen,” says Scorp when they stop at the foot of the steps leading to her throne by the brazier.

When Tide feels the eyes of the Queen upon him, he fumbles with his bag, having gotten it caught on a hook in his armor, then finally deposits it in front of him with a sickly, scattered thud.

Only the Queen’s eyes move when she glances down at the bag. Without even checking its contents, her mouth tightens. “You are short.”

How can she tell? “J-Just by one,” blurts Tide, his voice so small and meek, it doesn’t sound like his own.

“We will get you another set of eyes,” Scorp promises, able to somehow wield more confidence before this great lady than Tide can. “We were occupied in our final hour with a pair of … ninth rats who both met their end when the building fell in upon itself. It was our plan to bring you eleven heads, but instead we’ve given you nine. We can easily—”

“I’ve never been fond of excuses,” says the Queen, her voice like an icicle cutting through the heat of Scorp’s very breath. “Save them for your school teachers who mind to scold you for lopsided math and uncrossed T’s upon your handwriting. I am no teacher. I am not collecting homework. I assign a task and I expect it done.”

“Really, though, it’s just a matter of the time,” Scorp pushes on. Tide stares at his partner, astonished that he’s daring to continue providing excuses to the Queen. “I figured being late was worse. All we need is one more day. We will have for you a tenth head that will outdo the first nine. Heck, pick an eye color. Your favorite. We’ll find that very one.”

The Queen, her face like the bleak stone that swallows them on every side of her chambers, is not amused by his quipping. Too much silence passes between them, so much so that even Scorp appears to begin regretting his words. He swallows hard in the long, wordless space.

Then, the Queen rises from her throne. She reaches into the bag and, from the long, wispy hair of a boy they procured from the tenth, she pulls out a head. She studies the eyes long and hard, then turns her own onto Tide, then onto Scorp. She drops the head back into the bag. The thumping sound it makes when it lands among the other heads causes Tide’s bowels to coil within him like an unrested serpent. He feels like he’s going to be sick.

“I’m so very sorry, Queen.” Scorp bows his head, holding a hand to his chest. “Please grant me and my partner one last chance to give you the final set of eyes you need from us. I—”

“Oh, you’ll have your chance.” The Queen gives a wave of her hand, her finger waggling between the two of them. “Carry on, then, the two of you. Your chance is here.”

Scorp and Tide wrinkle their faces, looking at each other. They don’t follow. “You are gonna … gonna give us a chance?” asks Scorp, his mouth hanging limply.

“Yes. And this is it.” The Queen lifts her chin. “We have nine sets of eyes and we need a tenth. So give me a tenth. Here. Now.”

Scorp’s eyes flash. He stares at Tide, understanding late to sink in. Tide’s heart hammers against his chest. One of us, Tide realizes, feeling air stirring across his arms.

“Do it before I take both of you,” she commands.

The very next instant, Scorp has drawn his blade. He lifts it in the air with the speed of a scorpion, its tail lifted, its poison ready.

But Tide’s hand is in the air just as quickly, and he pulls upon the wind with such ferocity, he feels every muscle in his body pulse with the force of his power.

Scorp’s lungs collapse from the vacuum and the whites of his eyes burn with alarm, wetted and bloodshot in an instant. The wind surges around him like invisible hands, pulling him off the ground with its infinite, elemental force. He drops his weapon with a loud clang that’s swallowed by the torrent of wind, then makes a grab at his own throat, desperate for air as Tide robs him of it.

The wind pulls the sword along the ground, scraping the stone like the talons of a great metal dragon.

The brazier dances wildly, its pale flames stirred with the wind.

Their whole world twists and pulls and screams around them.

Scorp can’t move, the surging wind keeping him off the ground and holding him in place while simultaneously pulling all the air out of his lungs, suffocating him. The horror in Scorp’s eyes is reflected in Tide’s as he stares at his partner, who he’s slowly killing.

Die, Tide begs him, desperate, terrified. Die quickly. Please.

But Scorp does not die quickly. Bumps appear on the boy’s face. Then his arms. Then his neck. His own Legacy turns him into a strange, lumpy creature before Tide’s horrified eyes. It’s Scorp’s last, desperate, primal attempt to save himself … using a useless Legacy that can do nothing at all for him.

But the visual disturbs Tide all the more. His arms tremble as he pushes the wind, stronger and stronger. His lips hang open dumbly, quivering, terrified at what he’s being made to do. Tears begin to sting his eyes as he watches the now-bumpy-faced Scorp continue to gasp helplessly for air, reaching toward Tide with his lumpy hands, then giving up and grabbing at his throat again. Is he begging? He kicks in the air, unable to get any footing, unable to do anything but suffocate in agony, drowning in air.

Drowning in air …

Scorp’s bloodshot eyes drift upward, unseeing. His tongue and jaw go slack. Then, his arms. And then his head, drooping back.

The sword scrapes along the stone. The brazier hisses, growls.

And still Tide clenches his teeth, the wind unrelenting, pulling the air out of Scorp even long after Scorp has drawn his last breath, even after his partner’s heart stops, even after Tide’s own ears are deaf with the surging power of wind and fury.

Only after far too long a time, Tide lets go of the wind ever slightly, and just that little bit of slack is all Scorp needs to drop to the ground in a clumsy crash of limbs.

Lifeless.

Unmoving.

Tide is shaking everywhere. Tears wet his cheeks. His posture broken, his teeth clattering with fear, he stares down at his dead partner Scorp, the only friend he’s had in this city, the companion he’s made, the partner he’s kept … and killed.

Wetness spreads from his groin and runs down his big legs, covering them with an unwelcome warmth. An involuntary, strange sort of sputtering that’s somewhere between a wailing cry and a moan of fear comes out of Tide’s lips. He can’t stop staring at Scorp’s dead body.

“Ten,” says the Queen.

0160  Arrow

Arrow can’t shake away that last look in Athan’s eyes before he left.

“You alright, man?”

Arrow nods absently, flicking his gaze at Prat once just to give him a curt, half-second smile. He fiddles with a charm on the desk, waiting for Lionis and Athan to confirm that they’ve made it to the warehouse. They should be there within the hour.

“The wind’s died down,” Prat observes, his eyes glinting in the soft green light coming from the computer, the rest of his acne-filled face painted amber from the eleventh ward map on the screen.

“Yes,” Arrow agrees, staring at the charm that had confounded them earlier, the one with all the noise. “Now it’s just …”

“Noise.”

“Noise,” confirms Arrow. “Still, if the charm …” If the charm was truly dead, it wouldn’t be producing any noise at all. I know how my charms work. The wind is gone, but it still creates noise. And this noise definitely sounds like Juston’s Legacy, yet …

“If the charm … what?”

Arrow shakes his head. “Sorry. I was lost in a thought. It’s fine. As soon as Lionis and Athan get there, we’ll have answers.”

“You think that was a good idea? Sending them together?”

Arrow sighs. We didn’t even get Gandra and Yellow’s approval. He smirks at Prat, then says, “Let’s just hope the four of them get back before mommy and daddy find out what we’ve done.”

Prat smiles at that, reassured. Arrow returns his attention to the charms. He never had much of a sense of humor, so when he makes any little joke, no matter how bad, it always seems to calm everyone around him, as if it’s some sign of good things to come. Yet, Athan …

The door opens abruptly and Victra’s head appears. “Arrow. Charms. Front line.”

Arrow lifts his face from the table. “The charms are asleep.”

“No.” Her eyes seem to drift for a moment. Arrow realizes with a start that she’s using her Legacy. “I see them.”

“Who?”

“Those self-important girls from the seventh. I think,” says Victra, looking through someone else’s eyes. “Two of the ones from the meeting, I see those ones. Shit. There’s too many of them.”

“So?” cuts in Prat. “We struck a deal with them, didn’t we? The terms included—”

“Fuck the terms. I don’t trust them.” Victra glares, furious with what she’s seeing through whoever’s eyes she’s linked to. “I need to go to Gandra with this,” she decides, her eyes adrift. “Keep hold of your charms, Arrow. Listen outside.”

Arrow quirks an eyebrow. “But I’m still listening for Lionis and Athan.”

“Listen to both, damn it.” Victra lets the door close behind her as she heads off.

Arrow and Prat share a look. “Should we worry?” asks Prat, his fingers drumming along the desk.

The sight of Athan’s worried eyes invade Arrow once again. His own heart races as he thinks about what it might mean. He’s heard so many words shared between Wick and Athan. He knows about Athan’s panicky demeanor and what usually follows after he has an episode.

“Maybe we should’ve … listened.”

Prat is turning the 3D rendering of his map around and around on the computer, observing it from all angles. “Listened to what?”

“Athan’s warning.”

“Athan had a warning?”

“Somewhat. It came in the form of his panic.” Arrow bites his lip, glancing down at the charms nervously. He sifts through them, sorting the ones for outside their tower. He touches them, drawing out more of their sound, lifting the volumes. Slouching in his chair with his ear angled toward them, he listens, squinting.

Prat doesn’t respond, still mindlessly playing with the 3D map rendering that Arrow devised from his paper ones. The room is silent but for the soft tapping of Prat’s fingers on the screen each time he turns the map.

Arrow hears a voice in the charm. Prat hears it too, the two boys turning toward it suddenly. The words are indistinguishable, noisy. Then it’s a young woman’s voice, and only a few words seem to come through, as if she passed by the sister charm outside just within range for her voice to be picked up by it. “With the steel. All of it. And all of them.”

Arrow’s eyes narrow. Did he get those words right, or did he mishear her?

“Steel?” whispers Prat, as if worried that the charms are two-way and whatever they say can be heard in the streets; it can’t. “Is that what she said? Like, steel as in weapons? As in swords?”

“I don’t know.” Arrow swallows, then looks up to meet Prat’s anxious eyes. “I said I don’t know,” he repeats.

And then he hears a blaring, high-pitched ringing from one of the charms. A jolt of fear tears through Arrow at the sound of it.

Then another charm bursts out with the same sound. Then yet another.

Prat and Arrow are out of their chairs, slamming against the wall as far as they can get from the piercing noise, slapping hands over their own ears. Another charm joins in, screaming its digital fury at them. Another. Another.

“Finger!” screams Arrow through the noise, realizing it too late.

He bursts out of the room, Prat and the noise of shrill digital screaming chasing them. Without care, Arrow tears through the rooms and halls of the ninth floor.

He slams into the door before his hand can find the handle. Opening the door, Gandra, Yellow, and two other faces look up at Arrow, startled by his abrupt, rude entry.

“The Finger Of Madness!!” he screams at them, shaken to his bone. “It’s the only explanation! My charms are screeching! They’re broken, all of them!”

“Are you sure?” asks Gandra, her voice severe and her eyes like ice. “Are you absolutely sure?”

In this small instant, Arrow realizes the other two faces in the room are Victra’s … and the Caldron girl he saved. She has regained her consciousness. Her soft, scared eyes lock with Arrow’s, and the two of them share a moment of recognition—though Arrow knows that the only thing she’d recognize him for is being the man who saved her from the fire. Your family destroyed mine, and I saved you from the Red Light of Madness in return. Could we be ever so lucky a second time?

“Y-Yes,” he finally answers.

“It can’t be,” protests Victra. She stares up at the ceiling, likely jumping into someone else’s eyes on the outside. “No, I don’t see it. I don’t see any red fiery anything.” She blinks away and turns back to Arrow. “Besides, we’d be struck by now.”

Arrow licks his lips, finding them dry suddenly. His eyes turn into two hollow sockets. I let Athan’s panic get to me. I’ve been a fool. Yet … “Then … Then why are my charms screaming at me?”

Gandra shakes her head. “Victra. Get in the eyes of the Warden. Look for his son and his guards and his employees.”

Victra stares at the floor, her brow furrowed in concentration, and reaches for them with her Legacy. After a short moment, her face clouds with bafflement. “I … I don’t …”

“They’re gone?” Gandra asks. Victra nods absently, though she still seems to be looking for them. “Oh, I don’t trust it. I don’t trust any of this. We’re alone here in the tower?”

“I can’t find any eyes,” Victra confirms, the uneasiness evident even despite her normally cocky demeanor.

Gandra lifts her head of wild, tangled grey hair. “Arrow, quiet your screaming charms if you can, or else simply gather the ones linked to the eleventh and to the earpieces on Lionis, Athan, Wick, and Juston. We can’t lose all contact with them. Get them all, Arrow. Prat, your maps. Every single one. Victra, our emergency—”

“Gandra,” interrupts Yellow, his voice tense.

“Don’t cut me off. Victra, our emergency go-packs. Enough for all of us. Yellow, you’ll follow our trail and memory-wipe everyone—and I mean fucking everyone—that we pass who isn’t us. I have a horrible feeling that we’ve been …” She swallows her words, cursing herself for almost saying them.

“Betrayed,” finishes Yellow anyway, his voice ringing with hurt. “After all we did for—”

“The Warden is a self-preserving shit,” Gandra says, furious at once as she raids her desk, filling a bag with items. “And so’s his son. May they both enjoy the company of the Wall Breaker cunts. Arrow. Go. Charms, now. Prat, your maps. Go, go, go.”

After one last glance at the girl—her eyes full of fear and pain and confusion—he bolts from the room. Prat follows, stopping near the round table where his desk full of paper maps is. Arrow, on his own, slaps his hands over his ears as he approaches his private room which still screams at him with a shrill, ear-piercing magnitude. As he enters the room, the sound grows so loud, he can hardly stand it, even with his hands covering his ears. How can I possibly know which charm isn’t screaming at me? He stares at all his gadgets and pieces and ears, ears, ears … and he hears nothing but the shriek.

He lifts a foot to the table, trying to work his Legacy through his toes, but is not successful at quieting any of the rogue charms. He reaches with his elbow, but can’t even manage to bring himself any closer to the charms and their deafening screams. “FUCK!!” yells out Arrow, his word drowned in the potent assault of sound.

Then a hand is on his shoulder, grabbing him by the collar like a cat by the scruff, and yanking him out of the room. He turns to find Victra pulling him away from the noise and shouting words at him.

“WHAT?” he screams out, unable to hear her. There is only a painful ringing in his ears.

Her mouth repeats the words.

“WHAT??”

And then she’s pushing him across the room, pulling on his shirt as they make their way toward the stairs. They move down the floors so fast, Arrow can hardly keep up his step. Twice they stop as Victra uses her Legacy, watching, searching for eyes in the vicinity.

“Gandra and Yellow have gone out the back,” Victra says, her voice coming to Arrow as if through a thick pillow, muffled and so far away.

He listens desperately to her every word as they hurry down the stairs. “And Prat? And the … the girl?”

“Your girlfriend’s with Prat. They’ve gone out the window.”

“Window?? She’s not my girlfriend,” Arrow adds, annoyed.

“Yes, obviously the window. Prat’s floated with her to the big fat abandoned building across the street.”

Floated. Of course. And the Caldron girl likely weighed nothing at all, making it so much easier for Prat to float with her. It wouldn’t have been possible for him to float all of them across the way. Prat uses his Legacy so seldom, Arrow often forgets he has one at all.

They finally reach the first floor, and it is utterly ransacked and deserted. Tables are turned over. Papers lie everywhere. Not a soul is in sight. The Warden of the sixth really did take his team and escaped the premises. They’ve betrayed us to the Wall Breakers.

“Look with your eyes,” suggests Arrow quietly. “The Breakers could be in here already, hiding in the—”

“Shut up.” Victra and Arrow crouch behind a desk in the corner, the front entrance to the building in plain sight. A side door to the alley is closer. “I don’t feel any eyes. We’ll go out the side door.”

“No eyes at all?”

“None.”

“Victra, reach farther. There’s no way they’d just let us walk out of here. They’re waiting for us. They have ranged weapons. They … They might ambush us outside.”

“How the fuck would you know all that? Your charms betrayed you worse than the Warden did,” Victra hisses back.

“Because,” Arrow reasons, “if it were me, and we were trying to scare out our enemies, we’d wait outside and we’d—”

“Fine.” Victra lowers her head and strains. Arrow can visibly see as she struggles, reaching as far as her Legacy can go.

Meanwhile, Arrow lifts his head slightly over the desk, taking a quick view of the room. There are two windows in the front, out of which he sees nothing but the darkness of night. Pratganth took the Caldron girl, he tells himself, as if needing a reminder, and I don’t even know her name.

“Oh,” Victra finally breathes. “I found someone.”

“You did? What do you see?”

Victra looks around, confused. She glances up awkwardly, as if she’s become the person whose eyes she’s looking through. “I … I think I see … I think I see those brothers. The ones who work the front desk for the Warden. I’m out on the street. I see … I see …”

Arrow listens, waiting. Victra says nothing, her brow furrowing as she stares intently somewhere, seeing something she won’t yet reveal. Her lips part, a word resting on her tongue.

“What?” Arrow finally blurts, impatient.

“I see Quin,” she whispers darkly.

Quin? “That Wall Breaker girl you guys met with? The boyish flat-chested one?” He remembers many of that girl’s words, and how brashly she spoke to Gandra during that meeting. The girl’s got balls, he remembers thinking at the time.

“Yes. I see her. I … Oh, fuck. She’s armed. She’s—FUCK!” Victra blinks, backing away from whatever she sees so fast, her head hits a nearby metal filing cabinet. She shrieks, grabbing her head. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!”

“Hush, Victra!”

Arrow tries to cradle her, but she swats his hand away, her eyes shiny and wet with fear as they dart around everywhere, lost. “I’m blind. I’m fucking blind. Arrow. I’m fucking blind.”

“What do you mean?”

“They killed her. Oh, Sisters, oh … whoever it was. I can’t see, Arrow.” Victra slaps a hand over her mouth, her eyes flitting in all directions. “This … This hasn’t happened to me since … since …”

Since her own sister was killed while she was looking through her eyes. Arrow knows the story well; Victra was blind for weeks. “This is problematic,” mutters Arrow unhelpfully.

“No shit, you stupid fuck,” she growls, furious. “My fucking eyes are gone!! Oh, Sisters, help me. I can’t fucking see.”

“Use me. Hold on to me, Victra. We’re going to get out of here. We’re …” No eyes, he realizes. We can’t use Victra to guide us out. “We can wait here. I’ll look for a weapon. I’ll—”

“Don’t you dare fucking leave me like this.”

“Okay.”

The two of them stay crouched behind the desk. Suddenly, Arrow realizes how deeply dependent he was on Victra’s Legacy, now that they are suddenly and utterly without it. Arrow thinks long and hard, trying to outsmart the situation they’ve been put in. His fingers run along the legs of the desk anxiously.

And he spots the metal wheels on the chair nearby.

Metal wheels. “Victra, I’m going to be right here. I’m just … I’m just going to make a charm really quick and toss one out of the door. If we don’t have eyes, at least we’ll have ears. And as soon as we know the way’s clear—”

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers, her blank eyes still searching.

Arrow takes a deep breath, once again weighing the options he has. The limited options. “Keep a grip on my shoulder, Victra.” She does—a tight one, claw-like. He grips the leg of the nearest chair and pulls firmly on the wheel. It pops right off. He discovered how easy (or rather, how flimsily) the wheels came off one evening when he nearly fell over in his own rolling chair at the computers. He pulls off another wheel, then focuses on them—one in his left hand, one in his right. He concentrates as he massages them with either hand, his Legacy whispering to them and listening, listening, listening.

Arrow smiles when the work’s done. He always smiles.

He rises slowly, letting Victra shakily lift up with him. Then he cautiously edges toward the side door. Soundlessly turning the knob of the door, he peeks his head out. No one is in the alleyway. He looks up, searching in the darkness for any figures or movement. There is nothing.

“Victra,” he whispers under his breath. “Any sight back?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No,” she repeats more forcefully, her voice trembling.

Arrow bites his lip, studying the alley. He palms one of the wheels and aims it down the alley, rolling it as far away from him as he can. It manages to move an impressive amount of distance, nearly reaching where the alley touches the main road.

He lifts the second wheel to his ear and listens.

Listen close, he urges himself. What you hear can save or end your lives.

“Arrow …” she whispers.

“Shh,” he hushes her.

“I do miss him.”

Arrow stays focused with one eye peeking out through the side door and the wheel-turned-charm against his ear. He catches no voice and no footstep. Not even wind dances upon his charm. He watches the dark like a hawk and listens like an owl in the night. This is the worst anxiety I’ve ever felt, he realizes, growing more and more stiff the longer he waits, the longer he listens. Maybe I would’ve preferred the Finger Of Madness, burned out of existence in one quick, merciful instant.

“I miss him worse each day,” Victra whispers. “I miss his eyes. I miss the chemical. I miss his stupid laughter.”

“Quiet.”

“And if I never see him again, Arrow … if I never see anything ever again …”

He still hears nothing through the wheel. Now may be their best chance. The Wall Breakers could be distracted with another door, or they’re already in the building, having crawled in through a higher window instead of the obvious entrance on the first floor. If Rain was truly betrayed, then the Wall Breakers know everything—including the fact that the entirety of Rain was residing on the ninth floor.

“Please get me out of this,” Victra begs him in a breath. “Please don’t let me die. The dark is a horrible place to die. I’m so fucking scared, Arrow.”

“You’re safe,” he whispers back without turning his head. “I … I think we’re both safe. I hear nothing.”

“Nothing in the charm?”

“Not even a footstep. Not even a shuffle.”

“Absolutely sure?”

Arrow lifted his gaze again, double-checking the nearby roofs, even five or six stories up as they are. He lets his eyes drift from dark window to dark window, praying he sees no waiting figure with a ranged weapon. All it would take is for his eyes to miss one thing and both their lives can be forfeit.

Arrow stares down the alley and spots the abandoned store across the main street. They’ll have to charge down the alley unseen, then push across the wide open main road. That store has a passage hidden in its freezer that leads to an underground web of halls that can get them halfway across the sixth. “We have to make a go of it,” whispers Arrow, “and we have to do it fast.”

“Fast,” echoes Victra.

“Take my hand. We will move faster. Think of it as …” Arrow is reminded suddenly of his sister, back when he used to hold her hand everywhere they went. To the store, he’d hold her hand. To a house across the street, he’d hold her hand. To school, before they finally dismissed her permanently, deeming her a lost cause and telling their mother that the girl needed a hospital or a Mentalist healer.

“Think of it as what?”

“Running through the dark,” he finishes finally, listening to his heart as it rages on, both in fear and in anger. “Just hold my hand as we go from here to the other side.”

“To the other side,” Victra echoes.

“Go.”

They slip through the door soundlessly. With the wheel pressed to his ear with his right hand and clasping Victra’s hand with the other, the two hurry down the alleyway toward the main street. He keeps his eyes wide open, drinking in every sign of light or shadow, every movement, every sound.

Listen, Arrow. Watch, Arrow.

They finally reach the end of the alley as it marries the main street. He stops suddenly, his foot kicking into his wheel charm that he’d rolled and nearly causing Victra to crash into his back. Though he has walked it so many times, the street looks twice as wide as it normally is in this moment. It’s like a great cement river that they must cross. Safety is just on the other side.

“Are we there?” whispers Victra.

Arrow drinks in his surroundings with mounting paranoia. His eyes would scan every window, but there are hundreds. He glances upward, his gaze running along every rooftop for the third or fourth time. He breathes evenly, bringing his sight back to the goal: that store across the street with the busted front display glass through which the two of them will plunge.

“Are we on the other side?” she persists, trembling, her hand so sweaty he’d think he was holding Lionis’s.

“Just a little farther.”

“I’m scared.”

“Just a little bit farther, Victra.”

They break from the shadows and rush across the street. He looks to the left as they go, then looks to the right. Victra follows behind, keeping up pace, their hands joined. Arrow’s breaths become so short, he can’t help but breathe louder, every lungful becoming such an effort. This road is so wide, it’s damn near the size of a fucking plaza. They keep hurrying, running as fast and quietly as they can.

And then they’ve reached the storefront. “There’s a lip here, one small step,” Arrow warns her, stepping upon it and placing himself where there was once a glass display window. He gives her hand a tug. “Lift your foot, just one little step, Victra.”

Her eyes stare blindly ahead as her foot searches for the step. Her hands slip up Arrow’s arm, gripping him desperately as he guides her. Victra’s blonde curls of hair dance as she stumbles with her footing. She parts her lips to say something.

The tip of an arrow comes out of her face.

He lets go at once, Victra collapsing heavily into his arms and toppling him. Arrow screams out when the sharp point protruding from her face stabs into his thigh. He scrambles, trying to pull her and himself into the darkened store, driven to insanity in a second. He can’t seem to move out from under her, attached by the arrow through Victra’s head and his stinging, now-bloodied thigh.

The second arrow misses him by an inch, flying over his scalp and landing in the pitch black store behind him. Arrow can’t see much of anything at all suddenly, the panic and fear blurring his vision. He jerks and pulls at Victra, suddenly very uninterested in carrying her and, instead, desperate to get her off of him.

“Didn’t see THAT coming, did you, bitch??” screams a voice from somewhere up high, a girlish cackle following.

Victra dislodges from his thigh somehow, dropping inelegantly onto the sidewalk. Arrow doesn’t even feel the blood oozing from his leg when he plunges into the darkness of the store, scurrying for the freezer. He hears the girlish cackling echo from the streets, and then a third arrow whizzes by and lands right by his head, pinning itself to the freezer door.

Yanking it open anyway, he rushes inside and is met by the stench of spoiled meat and rotten things. Gagging through the thick of it all, he pushes into the dark until his clumsy fingers find the hidden panel. Pulling it open, he slips inside and drops into the dark, forgetting to get a foothold on the ladder there.

Arrow lands painfully on his side, grunting. He turns onto his back, staring up at the hidden freezer entrance so far above him. Get up, Arrow. Run. They will follow you.

“Here!” comes a familiar voice.

Arrow lifts his head, following the sound. A bit of ways down the passage where a dim, non-electric lamp burns tiredly, he sees a bushy head of hair.

“Prat,” grunts Arrow, struggling to get to his feet. “They got her. Through the head. The head. An arrow. They’re ch-chasing …”

“Come on!” Prat hisses from the lamp, not hearing Arrow’s words. “We have to get out of here fast! The girl’s with me down the path a ways.”

Arrow’s on his feet and running towards his friend down the tunnel, limping every other step. “Prat … V-Victra …”

“Hurry,” Prat urges, still not listening, and then soon the boys are running alongside one another, plunging into the dark between each of the sad little lamps. Blood soaks Prat’s shirt around his left shoulder. He wonders if Prat’s even aware of the wound. We are all wounded. Defeated. Rain is no more, Arrow thinks to himself, their means of communication broken. We are not Rain anymore. We are just the puddles in the street, and every power both above us and below step in them.

0161  Link

Link and Ames press their backs to the cold cement wall and keep perfectly still.

“We can’t hide forever.”

It’s Ames who says the words. Link glares at him. “But we must. I have what he wants, and until he has me, we are alive.”

“Half alive.”

“And unkillable. We must stay away from him so that he never takes back the unlife he gave us. He said it himself.”

Ames rolls his eyes. “You fool. He feels you. He feels all of us.”

The water is louder here again, since they had backtracked in their race away from the mad priest. Link isn’t certain he heard him right. “You mean …”

“He knows exactly where you are. He knows where I am. He will find us no matter where we hide.” Ames sighs. “It’s all ruined. All of it. If you’d just told him that you—”

“I didn’t have the vision, you fool! And this is all your fucking fault!” Link spits back, pulling away from the wall to face him. Ames wrinkles up his reddened, damaged face with indignance. “It was you who told Baron. It was you who caused all of this.”

“You should never have lied!” Ames hisses.

Then there are footsteps that shuffle, cutting through the even and constant noise of rushing water. Link presses a finger to Ames’ scarred lips, his eyes alert and his ears perked. He glances to the left, then to the right.

When the figure emerges, Link can’t believe his eyes. He blinks several times, thinking the Waterways are playing a game with him. Or maybe his vision has risen from the dead of the waters, haunting him. He must be deceived, surely.

“Link?” calls the girl from afar.

Link stumbles toward her, his eyes wide. He’s afraid if he blinks, she’ll disappear again, and this time, she may never come back.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” she asks.

Link nods quickly. “And you …? Why are you here?”

“I … was looking for you,” she says, casting her eyes to the floor.

Link watches her, concerned. Maybe she’s in danger too. Or else she’s just lonely. He can relate to and understand both feelings.

Ames comes up to his side. “Who is she?”

“A friend,” he answers simply, his eyes never leaving the girl with the crazy assortment of braids and curls for hair. “I … I need your help. Now, more than ever.”

She smiles, a light in her eyes. “What do ya need?”

“To hide.”

Her expression changes. “Are … Are you in danger too?”

‘In danger too.’ She’s hiding as well. “There is a man. A bad man. He’s a priest of the Sisters, but I think he’s corrupt or … or possibly insane. He’s chasing after my … friend and I.” That word comes out with due reluctance. “He can’t get to us. Our lives are in danger.”

Undaunted, the girl walks right up to Link, then takes both his hand and Ames’. In the next instant, they are all invisible. Ames gasps, but says nothing, as if suddenly as afraid of the ability as he is excited by it.

“I’m hiding from someone, too,” confirms the girl.

“We need to get out of the Waterways,” Link says quickly. “He is coming for us. He can feel where we are.”

“I know the way out,” she replies proudly.

And so she leads the way, the two boys dragged by either of her hands. Link stumbles in the unseeable world, awed once again by her perfect, brilliant power. If only I was able to use my own power with such perfectness, with such brilliance … I could’ve painted the world to look like anything I wanted. I could have been a great and powerful illusionist. I could have … I could have …

He could have done a lot of things, but right now, his life quite suddenly feels very short and unbearably fleeting.

They round a corner, and the familiar ladder looms just ahead. The girl lets go of their hands so the boys can ascend separately. Twice, Link checks behind him to make sure the girl is following. He has never in all his life been more pleased to see someone than he is to see her. If I had a little sister, she would be it. His desire to protect her the way that she so aptly protects him is overwhelming.

They come up from the ladder and empty onto the streets of the tenth. Link reaches back and helps the girl out of the hole. Then the three of them sprint together down the road, and for the first time in a long time, Link feels free. The smile stretches wide across his face, and when he makes a quick glance at the girl, he finds a similar one across hers.

“I missed you,” he says.

She laughs, but then when she faces front, her smile dies and she comes to a stop.

Link and Ames do too when their gazes aim ahead. Standing in the open square that the road led them to is the figure of Baron. He looms there silently, as if he had been waiting all along for Link and Ames to fall right into his trap.

Then he approaches, and Link realizes the error of his eyes. The man isn’t Baron; it’s the man who claimed to be his brother. With another jump to his chest, Link makes a second realization. “You said a week later that I’d … you said I’d …”

Baron’s brother nods approvingly. “And here you are. Oh, and you brought the friend I was expecting.”

A friend? Link turns the other way and discovers the girl gone. A pang of disappointment lances through him. Don’t dismay, he tells himself just as fast. She may, in fact, still be there. “Yes,” Link answers quietly, returning his gaze back to the man. “Your brother is trying to kill us.”

“He’s after that vision you had. And he will be here very soon. I have seen it countless times and it surprises me less so each time.” The man extends a hand toward the boys. “Are we ready to embark on a mission of our own?”

Ames turns to Link. “What is this man talking about?”

“This is Baron’s brother. And he’s seen the end of the world. And he thinks I’m the key to saving it.”

Ames squints at the man, dubious. “So he’s insane?”

“Most likely.”

“I will tell you outright why I need you, Shye,” says the man, a smirk playing on his lips that look so like Baron’s, “and it will be in your hands whether you choose to come with me or stay with my Sister-hungry brother.”

Link scowls. “My name is not Shye.”

“And you are not really half-alive. You are completely alive, but simply in a state of … suspension, should we call it? It’s like the opposite of time-walking. Frozen in time, yet able to move.” The man gives a curious wiggle of his fingers, as if to demonstrate the point. “Really, it’s the best middle ground between life and death, if one were to ask me.”

“One is not asking you,” spits Ames impatiently. “Our lives are in danger.”

“Yes. Everyone’s is, which is precisely the reason I’m here. Shye, my boy …” He grins at Link, taking a step toward him. “The truth is, ten years ago today, a Sister escaped from her delicate hiding place, and is somewhere in this vicinity. It’s a place only Sanctum knows of, a place Kings and Queens whisper of … and before she is caught by the wrong hands and she and her two Sisters are never heard of again, I mean to intercept and save her … with your help.”

“Sister? Sisters?” Link stares at the man as if his nose has fallen clean off. “Are you talking about Three Goddess?”

“Indeed. And it is the third Goddess who has fled her chambers ten years ago today. I believe that you—and that little vision you had—are the key to locating her.”

Ames snorts derisively. “Ten years ago today?” he blurts. “The hell do you expect us to do about that? Sounds like we’re ten years late to your party, old man.”

“I would say the same to anyone else … who didn’t have my Legacy.” The man gives his hands a little rub, then folds his arms. “The choice is yours, Shye. In a matter of seconds, my brother will have caught up. A Sister needs our help, and with her, all of Atlas.”

“My name is not—”

“Five, four, three, two, and—”

And their time is up. “TELL IT TO ME!” booms a voice from behind. Link and Ames spin around to find a most displeased Baron standing there in his heavy white robe. He is out of breath and crazed, his eyes zeroed in upon the boys.

“Oh, he’s a mighty hungry one,” the other man notes jeeringly.

“Shut up, time-walker. This boy belongs to me.”

“No, he belongs to no one, now. His parents have lost him to the streets. Or, more accurately, you. And now he’s lost to you, too. And soon, he’ll be lost to you forever.”

Link’s head flips back and forth between the men who stand on opposite sides of him. He has the most distance from Baron—and he wishes to keep it that way; he isn’t completely convinced that the priest wouldn’t just turn him to dust whether he learns this so-called Goddess Mission or not.

“I’m not sure I wish to choose either of you,” mutters Link, his eyes dark as they drift from man to man, from choice to choice. “I just want to be free. I belong to myself … to me.”

“Ah, but with duty on your shoulders …” begins the brother.

“It’s more than a duty,” interrupts Baron, seething and sweaty. “It’s a Goddess-given gift! It’s a …” His demeanor changes instantly, his eyes tearing up. “It’s a privilege. Boy, to me. Come to me now. Together, we’ll save—”

“You’d be the end of Atlas,” interrupts his brother. “Finding the missing Sister is the only way to save the city from this Madness and from the coming Doom. You know it, Baron, and I know it.”

“I know you,” growls Baron, his voice deep and thunderous. “I know what you really are. I know the only one whose best interest you fight for is your own. Boys, do not trust this man. He doesn’t mean to save Atlas. I mean to save Atlas. He wants to—”

“Trust me or the city falls,” states the brother. “It’s a simple fact.”

“Aye,” says the priest, “and here’s another simple fact for you.”

The priest draws a knife. Link and Ames take one step back until they realize what Baron intends to do with it. He brings the sharp, shining blade to his own throat, staring at the two boys with bright, challenging eyes.

“If you go with my brother,” the man hisses, his jaw tight and his teeth bared, “then I take all our lives with just a pull of my hand.”

“Don’t,” whispers Ames.

“Put the knife down,” begs Link.

The brother comes to the boys’ backs, hands on their shoulders. “Time’s tick-tick-ticking. He will do it no matter. I’ve seen it.”

“He’s b-bluffing,” sputters Ames at once, most likely praying to Three Goddess that it’s the truth.

Link swallows, his eyes glossing over. He knows for a fact that the man is not bluffing. Baron will have nothing left to live for if Link denies him. The Goddess Mission is this man’s life, and Link may or may not hold the very semblance of it in his crowded, anxious brain.

“He’s not bluffing,” says Link grimly.

“If … If he k-kills himself, then … we die too.” Ames can’t believe his own words, his lips trembling in fear. “If-If he kills himself …”

“I heard you. I know,” says Link tersely.

But then he feels another presence at his side. She’s still here, he realizes with a jump. Quite suddenly, he finds he’s not alone at all. If Baron ends his life, Ames and Link will turn to dust, as Link has witnessed by the other boys. Baron holds all the cards, and yet the man at his back, this so-called time-walker, he promises that they …

“You won’t survive another five minutes if we wait here,” warns the brother at their back. “Come with me into the past or stand here and watch your lives end before your eyes.”

Into the past … Time-walker … That’s what Baron just called his brother a moment ago. Does that really mean …?

“Hurry, boys. A decision. Baron’s knife grows tighter. See?”

“Take us,” blurts Link, feeling a certain invisible someone cling to his arm. “Take all of us away from here, from now.”

“Wait!” shouts Ames.

Baron, figuring the decision to be made and not willing a second to be wasted, draws the knife across his own throat. A deep gurgling sound issues from his neck as the priest collapses to his knees, a curtain of red dressing his heavy white robe. ‘His robe is not red,’ Link had said to the man a week ago. ‘It will be,’ the man had promised.

“Go!” screams Link, terrified that his life could end the moment that priest’s heart stops beating. “Now!”

Just as the man grips the boys tightly by the shoulders, Link sees shadows gather upon Baron, as if the souls of the boys he holds have come to join him in his final moment of life.

The very next instant, there is no Baron. Link blinks, confused. He was just …

And then the man at his back lets go of their shoulders. “Come,” he whispers. “Quickly.”

Link turns to question where Baron has gone, then finds his eyes growing double at what he sees: The Brae, fully intact and in all its Sisterly glory. It stands tall and proud, unburned, pristine and completely active. People are inside worshipping. The windows are bright. The city all around them, alight. Electricity. Life.

Is this just an illusion? Or …

“Follow me,” urges the man. “Speak to no one. Look at no one. Mind your own and move as silent as shadows. We’re not here.”

Link follows without question, overwhelmed, taking in the sight of everything with his hungry, astonished eyes and, to the best of his ability, paying mind to no one they pass.

As they leave the square—which only a second ago held the burned, ruined remains of The Brae—the horrible distant screech of a great, terrifying bird rips across the sky above, sending icy death chills down Link’s arms. It isn’t until the group of them vanish into the shadows of a distant alleyway that Link realizes the cry wasn’t of a bird at all, but rather of a Banshee … a Banshee on a Sanctum throne, somewhere in that black, unbroken sky.

Cintha’s Patience

Cintha stares at the schedule on the wall and huffs, annoyed.

“Something wrong?”

Cintha shakes her head, not turning toward the voice. The post on the wall has her listed as seventh in line for the treatment. “I just thought there would be an update by now. I’m still seventh.”

The girl leans forward, squinting. “Uh … K … Kin … Kinetha?”

She smirks down at the little girl with the short, cut-up messy hair. She looks like a little fairy creature from a children’s story Rone told her once, a story he said mother told him when he was scared, and apparently even when he was two and still slept. I wish I was a fairy creature that lived under the stoneworker’s pond and granted wishes. I’d make so many people happy. I’d have so many friends.

“It’s Cintha,” she corrects her kindly. “Sin … tha. That’s how you say it. Haven’t we met before?”

The girl shrugs, losing all interest in what’s posted or not posted on the wall, then turns and walks away.

Cintha finds herself leaning against the back wall of the social lounge sometime later staring lazily at the broadcast. She watches the screen as slowly, people gather in the Crystal Court. The cameras show the seats as they fill, people filing in and greeting each other in a Lifted manner: rigidly and curtly. If they held the coronation in the slums, it’d be a very different party. That amuses her, and she smiles.

She shouldn’t be too upset. The six others before her on that evil list have abilities that are of a higher priority to remove. She has no idea who’s at the top of the list, but she overheard one of the clerics mention that the second person on the list secretes acid from her skin all day long. Cintha winces every time she thinks of the pain of such a Legacy. I suppose my Legacy elimination can wait.

A door opens down the hall. Cintha turns. Three individuals wearing the long white masks pass through. They’re wearing clothes common to any slummer, but the masks hide their faces. Some are even built more like helmets, hiding their hair too. She’s been told time and time again not to worry about the people in the masks, that they are devoted to King Greymyn and are simply there to protect them. Still, they give Cintha an uneasy feeling.

“I will kill them someday.”

Cintha lifts an eyebrow at the voice. It’s the little girl again. She stands by the couch, having risen off of it to stare at the three in the masks who pass down the hall and disappear into one of the closed-off lab rooms.

“Those are sharp words,” murmurs Cintha, “to come from a girl as young as you.”

“Sharp,” the girl agrees. “Sharp as the knife I’ll put in them.”

Cintha’s brow wrinkles with concern. “They are here to help. They keep us safe.”

“They keep us prisoner.”

“Well …” Cintha can’t quite argue that point. Indeed, all of them are not really in this facility by their own will. From as much info as Cintha’s gathered or been told since her arrival here, everyone in this place was arrested by Guardian for some minor crime. They were each told that, after an amount of time was served in this place, they would be set free to return to their lives. ‘It’s just like the Keep,’ the lady with the red eyes told her, ‘but kinder.’

“They took my friend to another place,” the girl goes on.

Cintha pushes her back off of the wall, crosses the lounge, and takes a seat on the arm of the couch. “Your friend was arrested, too? Is she a pretty little girl like you?”

The girl doesn’t seem soothed by the flattery; in fact, it annoys her. “We were both taken by those evil people in the masks. They took my friend to another place and brought me here. I wasn’t arrested, not by Guardian. I …” Suddenly the girl’s eyes turn afraid. “I think they killed my friend.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She’s not here. They took her somewhere else. They must have killed her. She’s killed dead.” The girl glowers at her little skinny fingers. “I liked her a lot. She was the only friend I had.”

Cintha frowns. She’s not sure how much of this girl’s story she can believe. The masked people certainly don’t look cuddly or sweet, but they don’t seem like killers of children. “I’m … so sorry to hear that, sweetie. What was her name?”

The girl lifts her wet eyes to Cintha’s. She ignores the question and asks one of her own. “Are you gonna tell them what I said?”

Cintha shakes her head at once. “No. Why would I? I don’t care about the silly people here. Well, except for the ones who are going to take away my Legacy. I’m only here for another month before they let me go. I can’t wait to see my brother again.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yep. Well …” Cintha’s eyes drift to the broadcast, observing more and more privileged, silk-wearing Lifted fools filling the seats of the Crystal Court, which glimmers in the Sanctum-kissed sun. “I have a half-brother.”

“I have no family. I’m an orphan.”

Cintha smiles. “Me too. But no one knows. If anyone knew, see, I’d be put into an orphanage. My brother didn’t want that, so we … we just never quite, um …” She searches for the words, chewing on her lips between the thoughts. “We just … didn’t want to be apart.”

“But you’re apart now.”

“Yes.” Cintha nods sullenly. “He … He went into the city and he joined a … a club. So I joined with him. I didn’t really even want to be part of the club but … but I had nowhere, no one, nothing …” Her mind slips into murky waters. She sees Yellow’s judgmental eyes. She sees Arrow bent over a table full of metal trinkets and explaining machines and computers to Prat and Juston, and Wick stroking the Lifted Boy Athan’s hair, dyed a rich cerulean. She sees the hotheaded Adamant before he was exiled, his heated arguments with Victra and Rone about all the actions they could be taking, all the figurative—and literal—fires they could be setting.

She sees an enormous vat of steamy noodles in the scullery. Her stomach growls at the memory, inspiring her to hold it suddenly.

“You’ll find him again.”

Cintha jerks her head up, startled to find that the girl has come around the couch and stands before her.

“Your brother,” the girl clarifies, as if she needed to. “You’ll have your family back. I just know it.”

She knows that Rain would’ve abandoned the Noodle Shop by now. After the Guardian raid, they are likely halfway across the city. I’ll never find them. “And you,” croaks Cintha, pushing out the words despite stubborn emotions trying to make a tear or two in her eyes, “will find your friend again. I know it too.” Then they stare at each other, accepting one sugar-coated lie exchanged for another.

“The coronation is almost on!” notes the girl with sudden vigor.

The two of them sit together on the couch, watching the pomp and traditions. Partway through the Peacemaker Janlord’s speech to the Court, the girl leans into Cintha and says, “My name’s Aryl.” To that, Cintha smiles and considers the cute fairy girl to be her new and only friend. Now let’s hope she can grant wishes, too.

ACT 2

0162  Rone

It isn’t easy hiding in a maddened sky.

Rone, Ruena, and Erana had tried many times to escape the clutches of the Lifted City as it slowly spun out of control at the hands of the Mad King and his madder Posse, but found every option problematic. Each path to the slums—even secret ones known by only Ruena Netheris—had been destroyed or utterly obstructed by fallen walls, collapsed buildings, or debris.

“If we stay up here, then we are just meat waiting for that evil Legacist to play with,” protested Ruena one hot Sunday afternoon just after the falling apart of Sanctum, her silken gown half missing, the rest of it glued to her body by sweat.

“We can’t get through this way,” Rone spat back, kicking at the enormous slab of cement that crushed the passage through which they were hoping to escape. “Not unless I leave you two behind.”

“Oh, so you’re considering it? Of course. How expected.”

“I didn’t say I’m considering it. Are you always this irritable?” he asked with a cocky lift of an eyebrow.

Ruena took a lot of offense to that. “Do you know who you are speaking to?”

The remembers-everything girl from the Windstone Academy, Erana, was standing by the busted-open door through which they’d come, her arms folded and her long drab hair gracelessly pouring down her bony shoulders in knots. She seemed entirely uninterested in the fight, biting her lip and watching for anyone through the door.

Ruena and Rone got into a new argument every hour, and every argument was the same. Ruena was the To-Be-Queen of Atlas who deserved all the respect in the world, and Rone was just a dirty boy from the slums who knew nothing.

Regardless of the fights they had, they were wise enough to keep together; numbers meant power, as was clearly demonstrated by the taking of the throne by Mad Impis Lockfyre and his countless hand-picked minions.

Erana was with them everywhere, recording every single step with her mind. “No, we’ve been down that way,” she told them once. “Already tried that route,” she said the next path they chose. “The way is blocked that way, and that way, and that way …”

It was blocked every way. There was no path they could take to get out of the Lifted City, each one obstructed or inaccessible. Of course, none of those hindrances mattered one bit to Rone himself. The problem was that he wasn’t on his own. He couldn’t figure out a safe way to bring Erana and Ruena with him, even if he used his Legacy of phasing through solid objects. There was too much of a risk of falling through the floor, or getting himself—or one of them—stuck inside something in the process. The obstacles were too thick.

Chasing the setting sun of one unassuming Tuesday evening, they found a great Lifted City mansion that had half its structure crushed in by debris. It was in a large spare room in the back of that mansion that the three of them decided to stay to wait out the rest of the Mad King’s reign. The room had become otherwise inaccessible from the outside due to a fallen part of the Sky Rail. Unlike the collapsed paths down to the slums, this obstacle was an easy one to take Ruena and Erana through.

And the part of the mansion that still stood was stocked with food that could last them for half a year, if it came to that. Of course, none of them hoped it would. “My people will gather,” Ruena kept stating, “and I will be ready to fight that good-for-nothing Legacist and take back my rightful throne.” But with each passing day, she seemed less confident, and soon, she stopped saying it at all.

By the middle of the first month together in that room, Ruena did not seem to have any fight left in her. In fact, she deflated entirely, keeping to herself and staring out the back windows in despair. Rone was relieved, not having been particularly fond of their arguments. Part of him resented the way Ruena Netheris looked down on him. The rest of him—particularly a certain part below his belt—was turned on by her beautiful figure, her long white hair, and her rigid, regal demeanor. Ruena was completely exotic to him, unlike any woman he’d ever met before, which meant that he was inexplicably drawn to her.

There was a lavish bathing pool in one of the chambers they still had access to, which Ruena regarded as one of the tiniest ones she’d ever seen. To Rone, it was twenty times the size of any slummer’s bathtub, and he welcomed the clean feeling he got when he washed in its waters. The glasses-wearing dark-haired Erana always seemed to be lurking around the corner when he took off his clothes to slip into the pool, but he didn’t mind; he knew she hungered for him and, to be fair, he did half-fuck her once. It was the night Ruena caught them in the same hiding place they’d found right after the crashed coronation—a store too close to the Crystal Court for comfort. The To-Be-Queen caught Rone with his pants down and his cock out. He often wonders if Erana resents Ruena for interrupting their fun, as they hadn’t since had a chance to finish it.

At the end of the first month, Rone found Ruena in the half-collapsed room, which may have been an indoor garden of sorts that had long been neglected, its plants overgrown, unpruned, and some dying. Ruena stood by the tall bushy plant in the corner, a single yellowed branch of which she had nestled in her palm, staring at it with glassy, faraway eyes.

When she noticed Rone, she looked up with a start, alarmed. Her eyes drifted to his chest, and then she sighed, shook her head, and returned her attention to the thirsty, neglected plant.

“Sorry if I startled you,” muttered Rone, who was shirtless and wore only a loose pair of silken pants he found in a closet. They were a size too big and hung a bit low on his hips. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Becoming a botanist in your spare time?”

“A what?” She seemed greatly annoyed by his presence.

Rone knew there was something on her mind, and it’d been on her mind for weeks. Was she mourning the loss of her Queendom? Surely. Was she angry at the abrupt change in her life? Of course; they all were. But Rone was good at reading people, and he felt there was something else happening within her. It pulled at his heart, for certainly he had other interests other than their situation at hand that warred within him, too.

“I’m …” Rone looked up at the ceiling, curious how to phrase what it was that he wished to say. “I’m sorry for … pissing you off all the time.”

Ruena lifted her chin, slowly turning her head to him with her steely eyes locked onto his sapphire ones. It was like she suddenly refused to observe his shirtless figure.

“You didn’t anger me.” She tossed her long white hair, drawing it across her left side. The act almost seemed self-conscious to Rone, as if she was making sure to hide the long scar he already knew was there. “In fact, I should rather say … I should rather say that I’m quite indebted to you. This is a safer place than Marllan’s Shoppe. And if it weren’t for you, we’d all three of us be at the whim of a madman and his mad men.”

Rone grinned cockily. “That a Queen’s version of a thank-you?”

Her grey eyes narrowed. She was about to respond, then her face changed. She looked down at the wimpy plant, her eyes misting over. “I’d hardly call me … or anything that comes from my mouth … a Queenly anything.”

Rone’s grin faded. He took a few steps across the room, drawing near the plant that had her attention. “Impis will be betrayed by one of his Posse peeps. It’s inevitable. You can’t keep that many crazies all in one place and not expect one to backstab the other. His whole joke of a Kingship will crumble in days …”

“It’s already been a month, nearly. Or more, has it? I’ve stopped counting the sunrises.”

“It’ll crumble,” Rone said anyway, stubbornly insisting. “And then, maybe in the order that’s reestablished, I will find my sister.”

Ruena’s eyes went to his arm, as if noticing something there. She squinted. “Your sister?”

He had mentioned it once before, but it was a passing comment and she was too distracted with fearing for her life and keeping up all her emotional guards. “Before all this, my sister was … arrested. Falsely. Well, somewhat falsely. She was taken by Sanctum, I think. Put onto some unnamed Peacemaker list, or a database. I don’t really understand it. Erana was able to look it up in one of your Lifted tech computers.”

“One of my Lifted tech computers?” echoed Ruena. After taking precisely one second to decide not to be offended by the wording, her eyes softened. “A Peacemaker list … Janlord? What would he … What interest would he have had in a Lower City girl? That makes no sense to me.”

“Likewise. Especially since that girl is my sister. And I miss her. And I want to know she’s safe and …” Rone bit his lip, feeling a pang of anger. “And I want to bring her home.”

Rone felt Ruena studying his face. When he let himself meet her eyes, she looked away quickly. He wondered if he’d caught her in a moment of finally admiring the view of his lean, muscled torso. Of course he came into the room shirtless on purpose; if he couldn’t work her up, then what good was all his charm and flashy blue eyes?

“She’s all the fam I got in this world,” he murmured softly.

He took his time observing Ruena’s long and slender neck, her smooth and creamy skin, her straight hair that sometimes danced even when there wasn’t a breath of wind in the room, perhaps dancing with all the electricity that lived in her fingertips. He often found himself as turned on as he was scared of her. She could, in one painful instant, fry him to the bone if he wasn’t quick enough to turn immaterial first.

“I miss my aunt,” she confessed. “Really, she was the one to be Queen. She was the true heir. Kael Mirand-Thrin. Queen Kael. It has a stronger ring to it, I think. Maybe I was never meant to be Queen. I’ve never known a normal life.” Her steely eyes met his again, but this time, they seemed filled with a strange sort of curiosity. It took Rone aback. “Tell me what it’s like.”

Rone lifted an eyebrow. “What what’s like?”

“A normal life.”

Rone laughed softly at that. “My life’s anything but normal. I doubt anyone’s life is … normal. We all think we’re the special one, don’t we? We all feel like the exception to some great rule that every other tortured soul in this world obeys.”

“Some great rule?” Ruena seemed amused, as if trying to follow some joke Rone was telling. He found that he very much appreciated her sudden change of attitude. In fact, it was downright endearing. “Tell me. What’s the great rule?”

“That we’re supposed to live a life without suffering.” Rone took a bit of her hair into his palm, feeling it as it fell through his fingers. She let him, standing perfectly, rigidly still. “That we ought to know the way out of every trap we find ourselves in. That we should live our lives happily.”

“And?”

Rone smiled crookedly, tilting his head as he kept stringing his fingers through her long, dry, white-as-bone hair. “And the joke is, we all suffer, we all know nothing, and we’re all unhappy.”

She stepped closer to him. Her breasts pressed against his side and her cool eyes bore into his. Rone felt his buddy jump in his silken pants, then realized with a start that he had no way to hide his excitement. Ruena seemed to notice and it did nothing but entice her to get even closer to him, so close her breath began to tickle the tiny hairs on Rone’s smooth, caramel chest.

“And what would make you happy?” she asked innocently.

His hand came up to caress her cheek. She leaned her head into his palm, encouraging him. “To take you in this room. To feel myself inside you. To smell your sweet hair while doing so.”

Ruena’s eyebrows lifted with mock surprise. “You would speak in such a manner to your Queen?”

“My apologies, Your Highness.” Rone tilted his head. “What I meant to say was … I want to fuck you on this floor.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Oh?”

He was already running his hands down her shoulders, gently and ever so slowly slipping off her top. “Repeatedly,” he amended.

“You will pay … for your Queenly disrespect,” she said, shifting her shoulder to let her top fall off easier. Her fingers found the waist of his silken pants, which already hung so low on his hips. It took little effort for them to slip down to his thighs, revealing his dimpled butt and his unrelentingly stiff cock. “You know it is a rule that all the citizenry of Atlas must respect their Queen.”

“Thank Three Sister for exceptions,” groaned Rone.

And then the two connected their bodies. The floor met them next, and their legs entwined, smooth as silk and slippery with their lust. Twice as they kissed, Rone felt the pinch of electricity pass through their lips, giving him a shock. Both times, he jumped in surprise, and found Ruena smirking devilishly. This was not a side of the To-Be-Queen that he was expecting to get to know.

But he loved every second.

0163  Rone

The sexual trysts between Ruena Netheris and Rone Tinpassage became a daily thing after that day in the indoor garden. What else were two horny people stuck in a Lifted City mansion to do? And each time they met, Ruena seemed to unwind and loosen further. She was changing before Rone’s eyes—or perhaps more accurately, it was that she was revealing more of her true self to him each day. She laughed wildly. She became more frisky. She would giggle and shock him for a surprise, zapping him while they fooled around on the floor of the indoor garden … sometimes twice a day.

Rone knew that Erana could hear them. It would be impossible not to. What did she think of Rone and Ruena’s quick and sudden hook-up? Was she jealous? Did she feel cheated and betrayed? With as much (or rather, as little) as Erana showed on her face, Rone could never quite tell where her mind stood. She never seemed put-off or sullen when they all met in the food room to have a bite. In fact, she always had some new observation to share, talking on and on about a past King or Queen who turned the throne, or executed a disloyal Marshal, or enacted some rule or law about rebels and punishments. Erana even spent a whole evening telling them every detail about the Slum Queen’s rise and fall, all the way down to Peacemaker Janlord’s very involvement in the whole thing. She didn’t seem to notice the downcast, faraway stare of Ruena across the table, who was likely still mourning Janlord’s death in her own private way.

Rone thinks about all of these things that have brought him to this point right now. Two months in this room have changed his life.

Rone lets all his clothes slip off his body.

He sighs with delight as he sinks into the lavish bathing pool.

He thinks about how slowly and yet how fast he developed this relationship of circumstance with Ruena, the To-Be-Queen of Atlas. Never in all his life did he think he’d be in this situation. Yet here I am, having all the sex I want with a girl who … electrifies me.

The joke makes him smile as he lets himself float along the surface of the cool water, staring up at the curved ceiling with his cock exposed to the world. In this Lifted City indoor pool, he feels like he’s gliding across the sky.

He thinks about Wick suddenly. How is the madness affecting the slums? Did he get down there with Athan safely? The last words they’d shared were harsh ones, but the time that’s passed has allayed whatever anger he felt. Would I have done the same thing, had I found Cintha first? Would I have insisted that we leave to the slums if Wick had not found his lover in the sky?

The quick answer is no, he would never have. The truer answer is … he’s not sure.

Before he can have another thought, Erana slips into the room without a word and drops her clothes to the stone floor with a little clumsy shake. The only thing she wears is her glasses.

Rone, still floating on his back, watches her, stunned. Not what I was expecting. Silently, Erana steps into the pool on the opposite side, submerging herself up to the neck, then hovers there without regarding Rone at all, her eyes staring off at the wall opposite her. Her tangled black hair floats in the water around her.

“Are you alright?” asks Rone finally, his voice echoing through the room.

Erana hums her answer, blankly staring at the walls as if lost in thought about something curious. She makes that expression often. Rone has always wondered if it’s a side effect of remembering every single thing she ever sees, learns, and is told. She must have a million thoughts in that head of hers all at once, all the time.

Rone has a few thoughts of his own. Though he and Ruena have been having satisfying, mind-blowing, literally electric sex for weeks, a tiny part of Rone still wonders what it might have been like had he and Erana finished what they’d started.

“Your hair looks like the tentacles of some strange sea creature,” he murmurs over the water, watching her.

What the fuck, Rone? That’s your first thought?

Erana, completely unfazed by the comment, looks down at her hair. “Why, it does,” she observes. Then her mirror eyes lift up to Rone, made enormous by the lenses of her glasses. “I read once that beyond the edges of the land during the time of the Ancients, there was nothing but miles of the deepest water you can imagine. It was called the ocean, and in its depths there lived creatures as big as buildings. They were called sea monsters and leviathans.”

Rone should have known that any passing comment can turn into a lesson of histories when Erana is involved. “You know so much stuff,” he says dreamily.

She shrugs and glances away.

Rone let his legs sink, then gently wades, shoulder-deep, toward Erana’s end of the pool. “Are you alright, Erana?”

“You’ve already asked.”

“Are you … truly alright?” Is Rone asking for forgiveness? Does he want reassurance that his meetings with Ruena in the plant room aren’t ruining his connection with Erana, if there even is one? Is he really that greedy, to want both women to like him, no matter which one whose sex he samples daily?

“I am thinking about my mother Desura,” she says simply. “I worry about her … and I worry about what my being chosen by the Legacist three Legacy Tours ago has done to her.”

He leans against the edge of the pool, propping up his elbows behind him. The surface of the cool water tickles his nipples and armpits as it ripples gently. “What’s wrong with your mother?”

“She changed. She withdrew from friends. She let the gold of the Lifted City spoil her. Really, it isn’t the Lifted City itself that’s bad, nor the Lifted way of life. It’s the people who are blinded by the gold. They start to see everything in shades of gold. My mother used to be so giving, even for a Hightower. Sixth ward. You know they have a bad reputation, sixth warders, so-called Hightowers because of their tall towers and buildings. Similar to Lifted City citizens.”

“Ah. You’re from the sixth?”

“Yes.” Erana’s eyes drift over to Rone’s. He’s never appreciated how personal her gaze looks when it falls upon him. It’s like they’ve known each other for years. “You’ll find your sister Cintha.”

Rone lifts an eyebrow, caught off-guard by the shift in topic.

“I won’t find mine because she’s dead,” Erana goes on, “but so’s the Peacemaker. And King Greymyn. Sanctum has unraveled. It’d be a surprise to me if the sanctuary in which your sister’s kept has not already broken open, its occupants freed.”

He didn’t realize she had a sister. “Sanctuary?”

“Cintha was deemed valuable. That much we do know. Janlord would not have bothered with putting her on a list otherwise. And if there is anything you can know with certainty, it’s that Sanctum will protect any and all things it deems valuable. That includes a girl from the slums whose Legacy can sway the hearts of men.”

The cocks of men, more like. But he keeps the thought to himself and nods, reassured. “Thank you, Erana. I hope you’re right.”

“I’m pretty sure I know how this ends, too.”

Rone lifts both his eyebrows now. “Do you?”

“Yes. History repeats. Over and over. Nothing that’s happening hasn’t happened already before, really.” Her words pour out of her without a trace of emotion, like a Lifted computer reciting the facts and terms that it was programmed to know. “I think Impis’s reign will be ended by the hand of a single person who turns upon him. All it takes is one person, really. Then the city, in its desperate search for a new leader, will break apart. The slums will divide, even more so than they are now. Did you know in the beginning of our histories, there were no wards? It’s probably already happening, in fact. And when Atlas settles and the people, maybe years from now, at last find a Queen or King to rule them, we will know a long-lasting peace. Like all peace, it will be temporary. But it will be long-lasting. And whether or not I’m alive in the end, that’s yet to be known, of course. We’re all just pawns. But I know I’ll be alone.”

Rone feels hollowed by her last words. He parts his lips. “Erana. Why do you think you’ll be alone?”

“I don’t make friends. My mother has replaced me and my dead dad with the gold I’ve earned her. I don’t have lovers, either.”

She certainly has a way of being blunt. “Sanctum’s unraveling may have changed your mother. Maybe she is worried about you right now, desperately worried, in agony with each passing day.”

“Maybe.” Her eyes lift up to meet Rone’s for a moment, and then they look away again, troubled, pensive. “Ruena is bold. Brave. I can’t help but admire her. Sometimes I … feel deep stirrings within me when I see her. She’s the woman I could be if I was free from my own mind. I know every word Ruena’s ever given to the people on a broadcast. I can recite the speeches by rote … right here. I …” She swallows and stares off, as if picturing one of them. “I admire her.”

Rone smiles. “She is … a very unique woman.”

“She’s powerful. She’s beautiful … in a strange sort of way. She makes my heart fill up when I see her on the screen addressing the people. I wanted her to be our Queen so dearly. I wanted to … be …”

To be her? Rone moves through the water, pulling himself close to Erana. The drips of water from the back of his head and neck echo around them. “You won’t be alone. You have Ruena and I.” Erana doesn’t respond to that, looking off at the doorway. “Erana?”

Rone swallows, studying the side of her face. She’s really quite pretty. Maybe more so than Ruena, who rather has an otherworldly, exotic beauty. If she wasn’t boxed into that academy up here in the Lifted City, she would have boys all over her.

“It’s true,” comes another voice.

The two of them turn. Ruena stands at the doorway by the pool. She is naked from the waist up, her exposed breasts framed by her long white hair that cascades down her body in curtains, more so on the side without the hair-free thick scar that runs from the top of her head, around the back of her ear, and down to her jaw.

“You aren’t alone,” says Ruena. “You have us. And you’ll always have us. We’re together in this. I trust the two of you more than …” Her eyes flicker with joy, a strange, uncharacteristic smile spreading across her face. “More than nearly anyone who’s stood by my side and claimed to wish the best for me. It is a painful thought, to realize how many people only loved me for what I could give them, for who I was, for the cold and ungainly throne I was meant to sit upon. My closest friends betrayed me or died. Janlord. Sedge. My aunt, who I trusted and loved, vanished overnight, fell to the slums, dead. I’m lost without either of you. Truly.”

Rone and Erana listen to her with mouths parted. Rone can’t seem to pry his eyes from Ruena’s breasts, as if each time he sees them is the first time.

His cock rises below the water to full, unapologetic attention.

“Do you …” mutters Rone, his voice slightly cracking in the effort. “Um … Do you want to, ah …” He swallows, quickly glancing at Erana, who is still staring at Ruena with curiosity in her eyes. “Do you want to join us?” he finally gets out.

Ruena shakes her head softly. “I … I’m not sure I trust myself in a pool with other people. My Legacy can be … quite unpredictable at times.”

“I trust you,” says Rone too quickly.

“Really. I … I don’t want to put your lives in any danger,” Ruena insists gently.

It is Erana who moves through the water toward the steps of the pool. She ascends, water running down her body, and offers a dripping hand to Ruena.

Ruena looks at the hand as if alarmed by it. Then, slowly, her eyes soften, as if she remembers that life is full of possibilities and any minute of the day could pull her into yet another new, unusual, exciting experience. Ruena unties the silk at her waist, letting it drop to the stone floor, then lightly accepts Erana’s hand. Together, they enter the pool.

Rone watches every moment unblinking.

“Just relax,” murmurs Erana. “You are in control of your power. You always were.”

“Of course.” The look of trepidation on Ruena’s face is evident, but the longer she’s in the water, the more it seems to ease. “Yes. Of course. I will not harm you. Storms and rain are one thing, when lightning dances erratically in the sky, yes, but … but a pool is …”

“Innocent.” Erana doesn’t let go of her hand, even as they are submerged to their waists in the water. “Safe.” Then to their breasts. “Like home.”

Their breasts seem to float on the water. Rone’s cock is so hard beneath the surface, he feels like any push or pull of the water on it in the wrong (or is it right?) way could make him blow. His breath has stopped in his tightened chest. He can’t close his mouth.

“Thank you,” murmurs Ruena, to which Erana only smiles, shy and wordless. “Your hair is so beautiful. I’ve always wondered what I would look like with hair your color. Black as night.”

“Opposite of yours,” replies Erana simply. “White as pearls.”

Ruena smiles. “I could have been born with fire in my hair from my father’s side, but I took after my mother and her sister, all who come from a line of … pearl-colored hair, as you put it.”

“I thought your whole bloodline had that color.” Erana tilts her head, her eyes bright and wide. She always looks that way when she learns something new. “I had to have been assuming all this time, otherwise I would have already known.”

“And your Legacy.” Ruena sighs with amazement, running her fingers through Erana’s hair with curiosity. “I can’t imagine having such a gift. The gift of permanent knowledge.”

“Permanent knowledge? I … never saw it that way.”

Quite suddenly, Ruena has all of Erana’s hair arranged, and she begins to braid it. Erana adjusts accordingly, her face reflecting some bewilderment as Ruena works. “Most knowledge is just temporary. We are only human. We forget things. We forget to appreciate the precious gifts we have before they’re taken from—” Her eyes wander off somewhere, then return as quickly, discarding the thought she was about to express that might sour the mood. “But to know every little thing you learn … permanently? It’s a gift.”

“I think my power keeps me from truly seeing people. Or from truly being seen by people.” Erana peers down, bringing her hand up out of the water and watching as the droplets rain down and cast little ripples across the surface. “You can claim I’m not really alone, but I still feel—”

“You’re not alone,” Ruena insists again.

“But I am. I see … you two. I know you two are … are …”

She doesn’t finish the thought. She’s not even able to look at Rone from across the pool, appearing too reluctant. Not that it would make much of a difference; his eyes are still drinking in the sight of two naked, wet women only a few arms’ reach from him.

Ruena lets go of the braid she’s working on and cradles Erana’s face in her pale, wet hands, causing Erana’s glasses to lift. She turns her around to face her. “You are beautiful, smart, and worthwhile.” Her eyes are wet with inspiration as her hands slip around Erana, bringing her in for a tight embrace, water slapping between them.

Rone’s breath turns jagged. His hands brace against the edge of the pool, clawing. He can’t blink. His cock throbs under the water.

When their embrace loosens, Ruena puts a soft kiss on Erana’s cheek. “You’re as strong as your rich, dark hair,” she states. “Look in the mirror and see your own strength, Erana.”

“Strength …” Erana’s reflective eyes find Ruena’s.

Ruena cradles her face again and pulls her in gently. This time, their lips touch, soft and velvety. Ruena’s long white hair swims and Erana’s long black hair, half-braided, floats. Their kiss remains light, like a delicate balance of two fragile pieces of art perched upon the tip of a great, golden needle—one’s grace dependent utterly upon the poise of the other. A single breath could topple them.

Rone watches. He can’t believe his eyes. A hundred times this very image flooded his mind when he brought a hand to his own cock to make a mess in private. And now it’s before him in flesh and water and long, flowing hair … black and white.

The girls separate as gently as they came together. Ruena brings some of Erana’s hair into her palm again, then looks into her lensed eyes and says, “Strong hair for a strong young woman.”

“I’m older than you,” murmurs Erana.

The two girls find that funny, and laughter rings through the room, echoing off the walls and the glass and the tile.

Then Ruena’s silvery eyes drift to Rone’s, and the unmistakable magnetism between them pulls at his cock even worse. He’s never been this hard his whole life. He swallows forcefully, his eyes flitting between the two beautiful, naked women in front of him.

Ruena parts her lips. “Doesn’t she look beautiful, Rone?”

“I …” Rone sucks in air, realizing he’s been holding his breath for too long. He swallows a word, then sputters, “Sh … She does.”

A knowing smile crosses Ruena’s lips. “Erana …”

Erana is studying her face curiously. “Yes?”

“Rone looks so lonely over there, doesn’t he?”

Finally Erana turns her head, observing him mutely. It is only now that Rone sees the desperate longing in her infinite, knowing eyes. It is there now, and it’s been there before, regardless of whether she ever chose to show it or Rone ever chose to see it.

Ruena takes Erana’s hand and slowly crosses the pool with her. The two women seem to float like ethereal beings of the sea, like mermaids of children’s fairytales, like whispers of dreams that Rone never thought he’d have.

Erana’s face draws near his, reluctant and questioning. Rone gives Ruena a glance, finding her eyes to be encouraging and full of inspiration. Consider me inspired too. Rone lifts a hand to the back of Erana’s neck, his fingers tangling into her dark hair, and he gently brings her to his mouth. She tastes like apples and spice. Her breath dances across his cheek when he grips her a bit tighter, their kiss igniting with more passion. Her glasses press into his face coolly.

Rone feels the water stir, then notices as Ruena maneuvers to put herself behind Erana’s back, massaging her. Then she pulls dark strands of hair behind Erana’s ear and bends in to apply a gentle kiss, then another, then another. Erana’s breath quickens as Rone deepens their own kiss.

Sandwiched between Rone and Ruena, Erana is consumed with kisses, showered on every inch of her skin that shows—until soon that isn’t enough. Rone’s hands slip down Erana’s body, cupping her breasts in them as his kisses grow with mounting force and need. She gasps with pain—or perhaps pleasure—when Rone gives one of her nipples a playful pinch.

His cock throbs, dancing under the water between her slippery, supple thighs. It’s begging to slip right inside, so close to its home, so close to that place it only briefly got to know. It begs, begs, begs …

Throbs, throbs, throbs …

The tip of his cock finds her entrance. Rone clenches his eyes.

The woman is warm inside, and not-so-little Rone fits perfectly. Erana bites his lip when he enters her, inspiring him to push his cock in even farther, which in turn causes her to bite even deeper.

Rone holds her in place as he pumps her deeply, giving her the fuck they never finished. When their lips let go of one another, Erana lets out an exasperated moan of pleasure at once, as if she’s been desperate to let it out.

Ruena, busy rubbing Erana’s back from behind and putting tiny kisses along her ears and neck, lifts her gaze to meet Rone’s. The To-Be-Queen smiles invitingly, her eyes yearning and bright and full of life. One of her hands slips around Erana’s body and brushes along Rone’s hip underwater, gripping his firm ass and pulling him in time with his thrusts. Her fingers tickle and excite him in the best possible way, and her steely, mystical gaze seems to embolden him, to whisper words of passion in his ears, saying, Enjoy it, take her hard and take her deep as you took me … spill yourself inside her, Rone … spill yourself inside us …

He breathes harder.

Spill for us, Rone Tinpassage, with two Lifted girls hungry for your slum boy cock …

His eyes are drunk with lust. This high he’s experiencing, he can’t imagine any amount of chemical can match it. He moves his face past Erana’s shoulder, and brings his greedy lips to Ruena’s.

We want you so bad. We’re hungry for you.

He’s on the edge, working Ruena’s soft, cool lips. Once when they separate, she breathes a word on his lips before they connect again. What was that word she just said? Fuck? Kiss? Yes …?

Spill for us, he hears. Yes, yes, yes, he answers, and the release he feels when he erupts several times inside of Erana is the closest to a dream he will ever know. When the waters settle between the three of them, out of breath, clutching each other in the pool, Rone realizes he’s found a deep, warm place in his heart for both of these women.

And apparently a warm place below his waist, too.

0164  Link

Twice he hears the Banshee screaming in the sky. Twice it sends a nauseating web of fear through his guts. This can’t be real.

A tunnel leading under a building gives them short reprieve from the busy, crowded streets of the tenth. “You must have many questions, this I know,” whispers the time-walker. “I’ll answer in due time. For now, I need to know everything you saw.”

“No,” Link retorts. “You will answer my questions. And all of them.”

“Of course. My name is Baal. We have moved exactly ten years back in our histories, to the day. Time is my Legacy. Somewhere in this city—in this very ward, in fact—one of the Three Goddesses has escaped from her other two Sisters. We must find her if we hope to save Atlas. Does that answer your questions?”

“Is this real?” Link persists. “Or is this some sort of … illusion of our histories?”

“No. It is the very history from which we came. A little Shye, ten years younger, is in this city. So is a ten-years-younger me, and a ten-years-younger version of your sweet friend here.” Baal turns his face towards Ames, who appears scared to the point of tears. “You will play a very important role, too. It was imperative that I bring you two—and only you two—along for this dire mission.”

Link swallows, hearing the man’s words. At his side, there still clutches an invisible girl by the nickname of Kid. Link hopes she heard his words just as well and plans to keep her presence perfectly unknown. Not to mention that Ames could spill the secret, too.

Thankfully, neither of them move or speak. “My name’s Link.”

“If that is what you prefer.” The man smiles. “Now, I believe you may better understand the importance of that vision you had. My brother wanted to exploit that vision and bring down the Goddesses, and the whole of Atlas with them. He’s devoted his life to it and even misused his unique Legacy in the process. See, the only way to hear the Goddesses is to be so close to death that death itself is imminent. Do you see how that may be tricky for a normal person to receive the vision of the Goddesses … without also dying? That is why my brother played his own role in getting one of the boys of his so-called Brotherhood to see the vision. For whatever reason—if there exists a reason at all—that boy is you.”

“And how are you any different from him?” Link argues, still suspicious.

“You can see me as … the man who wants to save his brother from himself. Baron is a greedy, power-hungry man, desperate for a vision he knew he would never have. I am very different from him because I have seen both the future of what comes as well as the histories of what’s passed. I have been hundreds of years into the past. I have been hundreds of years into the future. I, alone, know the power of the Goddesses, and if your vision can leads us to them, it is my firm belief that we, alone, can save Atlas. Your vision, of course, makes the mission easier … but it will never be easy.”

Ames interjects with his own stupid question. “What happens a hundred years in the future?”

Link scowls at him. “You actually believe this man?” Link turns to Baal, if that’s even his name. “For all we know, Baron was the one who intended to do good with the Goddess Mission. For all we know, it is you who is the greedy, power-hungry one.”

“I have been watching you since the day you were born,” Baal returns. “I know of—”

“It’s not your Legacy I need to be convinced of,” Link interrupts, his eyes narrowed.

Baal tilts his head. “No … No, I think it rather is. If you saw the future that I have seen, you would know where my intentions lie. Why would I have bad intentions with the Goddesses, if they are the only means by which we can save our city? See, my brother Baron only knows thirst, only knows yearning, only knows dreaming and wishing and wanting. He makes you pray for those very things during your three hours of Goddess driveling, doesn’t he?”

“It isn’t driveling,” says Ames, defensive.

“But I’ve only known dreams. I’ve seen them. I’ve lived them. There is no hunger or need or desperation in my heart. I am simply a problem-solver, my children. I am an architect of circumstance and time, with my goal being to ensure that our future is a happy one. I can keep both of you out of danger as long as possible … if you join me in this mission for the Goddesses. We will keep together, all three of us. A trio to save the world.”

More like a quartet. Link shuffles his feet, hoping beyond hope that Kid keeps herself invisible. The way she found them in the Waterways and then followed them to the ruins of The Brae was so accidental. He wonders if this time-walker does know that she’s with them, and if he does, why isn’t he saying so? He’s cockily confessed to so many other things he cleverly knows.

And then the last sight they had before being ripped ten years into their past. Baron, a knife drawn across his own throat. Baron, his heavy white robe turning red. Baron’s last moment of life …

“But Baron is dead,” murmurs Link, “and we are not. How?”

“Because his death is now ten years ahead of us,” answers Baal. “Isn’t that answer obvious? You remain alive until he is not.”

Link’s mouth runs dry as he figures what the man is saying. “So we … we have only ten years more to … to live?”

Baal’s mouth quirks, understanding the full scope of Link’s fear, which appears to be reflected in the beady eyes of Ames as well. The man crouches down, putting himself two heads below the boys, and turning his face up into the orange lantern-light of the tunnel, he says, “When we find the runaway Goddess, I will time-walk to that very moment … and I will move Baron as far into the future as you wish. I will take my brother’s bloodied, dying body and pull him a hundred years into the future, if it is a hundred long years you boys wish to live. I could pull him a thousand years and render you two virtually immortal.” He smiles mutely. “That is my payment to you, for doing the great deed of finding me a Goddess and saving Atlas. I offer you the eternal life my brother only emptily offered you.”

Link and Ames exchange a heavy, meaningful look. The two boys can’t seem to decide, each looking more wary and anxious than the other. You are always so full of opinions, Link would say to his so-called friend, angry. Where is your voice now?

Link suddenly frees his mind. The possibilities … “We could do more than just find him a Goddess,” he realizes out loud.

Ames quirks an eyebrow, not following.

Link turns to the crouched man, his eyes smartened by a sudden inspiration. “We could stop the Mad King from taking Atlas. We could kill Impis Lockfyre now, ten years ago, and—”

“No,” says Baal at once. “No, no. We aren’t here to change the histories. At least, not that history. It is much too dangerous.”

“We could warn the leader of the Wrath, Dran, not to go to that Weapons Show. We could …” Link glances at Ames, a fire in his eyes. “We could stop ourselves from giving in to Baron’s offer of joining the Brotherhood at all. We could get our real lives back.”

Baal rises. “Stop this foolish thinking at once.”

Link faces him defiantly, his neck bent. Baal is taller than his brother by almost a foot; he hasn’t noticed until now, with the man standing so threateningly close. “It isn’t foolish.”

“It is. Think it through, boy. Kill Impis Lockfyre, and you birth a whole new scandal in Sanctum. The current Legacist Ambera lives and Janlord retires peacefully in seven years’ time, his Peacemaker position passing down to none other than Ruena Netheris, whom he admired and mentored. Peacemaker Ruena and Marshal of Order Taylon don’t see eye to eye, and a great rift is drawn through Sanctum, which results in the immediate dismissal of both Ruena and the King, who passes the throne to Kael Mirand-Thrin. She holds zero tolerance for any lip or sly look, and thus sacks Taylon anyway, replacing the positions of both Peacemaker and Order back to her niece, Ruena, who is then murdered one night by a vengeful Taylon and his five most loyal—and corrupt—Sky Guard. The city falls into a rage. No heir is named, and Kael converts her Sky Guard into an Army Of Pearl-Armored Warriors, assuming the position of both Order and Peace herself. Ambera’s efforts to talk her out of it are silenced when the woman is pitched from the top floor of Cloud Tower, and her fall is anything but peaceful. Kael storms the slums with brute force, resulting in thousands of deaths. Need I go on?”

Link steps away, his back hitting the wall of the tunnel. He stares at the dark stone floor, exasperated. He could still be lying, Link reasons. He could have made all of that up just now. Don’t be fooled.

But how many times can Link convince himself not to be fooled by people? Is everyone in the world a liar? Is everyone in the world dark of heart, mean of spirit, and ready to watch the city fall around them? It was the allegedly greedy priest Baron Poe who once asked of Link: When you bring down the Lifted City, upon whose heads, exactly, do you think it will fall? Baron did care. Baron cared to save Link from his own wrath. Baron cared to teach Link a lesson in repentance. He couldn’t have been all bad …

“Or maybe you’re still considering saving the life of Dran, the boy with the black around his eyes? Or perhaps about saving your own lives from the clutches of my brother? Maybe then you’d never have met me, never had the vision of the Goddesses, and it may be some other poor fool I drag ten years into the past with.” Baal smirks. “Or … you’re the only one the Goddesses trusted it with.”

Link didn’t believe that for a second. It makes no sense, that the Sisters would trust him, of all people in Atlas. There is no possible reason for it, so his mind discards the notion at once. “I want to see my family,” he says. “I want to know where they are.”

Baal considers the boy, long and hard. “I will make a deal with you, brave boy with the shadows in your eyes. I will show you anything you want to see … anything at all … as long as you remain a shadow on the wall. You cannot touch a thing. You cannot speak to a single soul. You cannot change any history.” Baal leans in, his eyes heavy and pointed. “Then, and only then, will I show you the things you wish.”

Ames blurts, “Me too. Please. I want to see my parents. I want … I want to see Pharis and Gorde, my parents, my parents that I love and miss so much.”

Link gapes. Ames has never referred to them as his parents, since it was always the rule of the Brotherhood to abandon one’s past and identity. Maybe his heart was never truly turned. Maybe he was, all along, biding his time with the Sister-obsessed priest.

Baal regards Ames with less-than-patient eyes. “Perhaps. Yes. I suspect we could indulge the both of you. After all, we have all the time in the world that we want … don’t we?”

Theoretically. Link inclines his head toward the person that only he and Ames knows is there. Stay with me, he wants to tell her. Don’t let go, under any circumstance.

He realizes he could hint the message. “We … We are just kids,” murmurs Link. “Kid … and kid. We need to stick together. The three of us. We can’t be separated, not for a single second.”

Baal studies him. “Of … course. Why would any of us separate?”

Ames, of all times to decide to speak, does so now. He faces Link. “Are you meaning that we need to make sure that she—”

“She—” Link interrupts at once, turning to him, “will be found.”

Ames quirks an eyebrow, confused.

“The Goddess,” he says, his eyes so fierce, he prays that Ames can catch his hidden meaning. “We must protect her. She … cannot be seen, and certain greedy eyes will be looking for her. You and I …” Link lowers his voice. “You and I must keep her … a secret, Ames.”

At last, comprehension dawns on the boy’s face. “Yes, right,” he agrees, his voice barely audible. “Secret.”

Kid’s invisible grip on Link’s arm tightens. She got the message, too. Link turns back to Baal. “We will find your Goddess before those certain greedy other eyes do. In exchange for eternal life. And …” He takes a deep breath, thinking of his mother, of his father, of all his brothers he misses so much. “And in exchange … for you showing us everything we want.”

“My time is yours,” promises Baal, gripping their shoulders, ready for the command. “Where shall we go first?”

Anwick, Lionis, Halves, Aleks, Ellena, Forgemon … They all have names. Link will never, for any Brotherhood or another, pretend that they do not. “A house in the ninth ward slums,” Link answers.

0165  Athan

A gentle wind stirs through the alleys when they approach the square.

“This can’t be it, can it?” asks Lionis.

Recklessly, Athan barrels out of the alleyway, not bothering with their usual protocol of checking for brigands first. In place of the warehouse they were expecting to find is a collapsed series of metal walls, shattered glass, and rubble.

Athan doesn’t hear what Lionis says. He isn’t listening. With fierce and focused eyes, Athan circumvents the debris, looking for any signs of movement or life. Don’t panic yet, he tells his already hyper-drive nervous system. This could be the aftermath of something. Wick and Juston may have gotten away.

“The earpieces are fucking dead,” whines Lionis as he catches up. “Arrow doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. He can’t even make a proper charm. Hello??” he calls into his earpiece, tapping it over and over. “Hello? Arrow? Prat? Anyone …?”

“Shush,” urges Athan as politely as he can, his voice trembling as he stumbles over the debris, crouching to look underneath the fallen walls as best as he can.

The heart-thrashing insanity that nearly pushed him right out of the Warden’s tower with invisible hands has gone and stayed away since he’s left. Athan pays attention to the absence of the sensation as much as he does the presence of it. It was an unnatural sort of lunacy, he tells himself, mulling it over. I felt at any moment that my life could have ended, and if I didn’t get out of that building …

“Do you hear that?”

Athan stops moving at once and listens. Somewhere in the calm silence of the scene, there is a tiny, high-pitched squeal. Athan and Lionis turn their heads toward one another, brows wrinkled. What is that noise?

The boys come around the damage to a part of the warehouse that is still half-standing, though its entrance is crushed in enough that it cannot be properly entered. Athan thinks he hears the noise from within that half-standing room, but there is no way in. He tries to lift one of the metal sheets that likely made up a wall, but it’s too heavy, even for him. He goes for a smaller piece and, despite pulling and grunting until he worries his back could snap in half, he gives up, staring at the scene helplessly. What good are these muscles if I can’t lift a damn thing?

“Over here,” hisses Lionis, pressing his ear to a leaning, dented part of the building.

Athan comes up to Lionis’s side, putting an ear to the cold metal and closing his eyes. He hears the shrill noise.

“WICK??” calls out Athan.

There is no response.

Suddenly, the building groans, drowning out the odd noise they were pursuing. Athan and Lionis retreat several paces, alarmed, and watch as the rest of what stands begins to lean, farther and farther, until it too collapses with a thunderous crash that reverberates down every nearby street and casts dirt and smog up into the air. Even the dust seems to dance, spiraling and twirling around in little lazy cyclones until they die down, settling with the wreckage.

Athan and Lionis cautiously approach, stepping over the fallen walls. The source of the noise is found after Athan pushes aside part of a toppled shelving unit. A tiny bend of metal is shrieking at them, loud and shrill.

“Charm,” mutters Lionis, wincing and lifting his shoulders to partially shield his ears.

“A broken one. It had to have been Wick’s or Juston’s.” Athan kicks it away, then watches as the little thing skips across the rubble and falls through the cracks of debris, muffling its piercing cry. “And that begs answer to the question of—”

“—where’s my brother and Juston,” finishes Lionis bitingly.

After Athan and Lionis call out twenty-two more times with no response meeting their ears—all while pushing away whatever loose bits of wall and rubble that they can—the boys decide to search the area around the warehouse. At first they search together, scoping the side streets of the plaza next to the fallen warehouse. They don’t find anyone at all, giving them the eerie impression that this part of the eleventh is utterly abandoned by all citizenry—good and bad alike.

Lionis gets distracted inspecting the windows of the abandoned buildings that line the nearby plaza, curious if he’ll find Wick or Juston inside one of them. Athan stays closer to the wreckage and tries to put himself inside the mind of his boy. Where would I go? Would I hide? Would I find my way back to the sixth? For a wild second, Athan wonders if Wick might have gone back through the Core, or taken a different roundabout way instead.

His wonderings bring him down a bending road lined with side-by-side double-decker houses. Were they attacked? Athan keeps his eyes open, as if Wick could emerge from behind a fence, or a wall, or a dumpster. I will find you, baby. I know you’re here. I know you’re okay.

He keeps telling himself that. I know you’re okay. He won’t believe any other outcome.

The street empties onto a main road, wide and damp and, like all the previous areas they’d searched, completely abandoned. Not a soul in sight. A faint smell of smoke hovers in the thick, repellant air. There’s something about this road that gives Athan chills. He feels like he should turn back, but something compels him to keep moving his feet. I will find you …

Athan let his eyes scan the buildings as he walks, all of them looking eerily dead and daunting. Even with the street being so wide, or perhaps in spite of it, Athan feels watched by the towering, silent buildings. The only thing he hears is his own footsteps as he walks the road, which inspires him to walk quieter. The last thing he wants to do is attract the wrong kind of attention, just in case there is someone lurking behind a corner somewhere, waiting for Athan to get close. I was foolish not to arm myself.

He stops when he sees the archway over the street. A rusty sign hangs from its stone arm, the words so faded that Athan can’t read it until he’s nearly standing right under the thing: “Ward 12.”

Ward 12? The realization hits him hard and he steps back, fear chasing through his body. The Forsaken Ward. The Dark Abandon. This is it. He’s never before seen it with his own eyes, only having heard all the creepiest things about it from other Lifted folk. His brother Radley especially loved talking about it, telling him scary stories in the dead of night about the Ward That Once Was. There was even a night once when Radley and Athan snuck out of Broadmore Manor and walked, barefoot, to the other side of the Eastly where the Glassen Square Sweeterie resided. It was closed for the night, and the boys counted on it, because they climbed to its rooftop and overlooked the Dark Abandon. Of course, the ward was still very far away, as there’s no part of the Lifted City that actually hovers directly over the twelfth ward, but that rooftop was the closest any Lifted citizen could get to seeing it. He stayed with his brother on that roof for hours while they shared and made up stories about ghosts and ghouls that manned and haunted the great dark waste that was that corner of the city.

And now, here stands Athan before one of its gloomy entrances. He is as awed as he is terrified. Did Wick go in there? He can’t think of a single logical reason why Wick, if looking for a place to seek shelter of some kind, would dare to enter this dangerous place.

And then there’s a voice in his ear. “Athan.”

Athan spins, startled, but sees no one. He turns to the left, then to the right, confused.

“Athan. It’s Arrow. Athan, are you there?”

He looks down at his hand, remembering a dull ring he’d been given over a month ago. Arrow’s charm. I’d forgotten it utterly. He brings it to his mouth, hoping he’s using it right. “A-Arrow?” There is no response, so he taps the ring a few times. “Arrow? You there?”

“Oh, thank the Goddesses. I thought I was alone.”

So did I. “Arrow, we’re trying to—”

“The Warden has betrayed us,” Arrow says at once, his voice wavering through the charm—or perhaps he’s scared or out of breath; Athan can’t tell. “At least, that’s what we presume. The Wall Breakers had a plan to kill us, but we were a step ahead and escaped. You can’t return to the sixth. We need—”

“Wait, wait.” Athan’s head is spinning. If Wick’s doubled back and is heading for the sixth … “We’re still looking for Wick and Juston. Have you heard from them? They might be heading back there now! Your earpiece charms aren’t working.”

“Because my charms are at the Warden’s tower. All my charms went crazy and started screeching, so I had to abandon them. That means we have no ears on Wick or Juston, either. I only just now remembered that I’d made these dumb rings as a sort of emergency thing, but Wick and Juston aren’t responding to theirs. Listen,” he says, speaking faster than Athan can keep up. “I’m with Prat and … and someone else. We need to meet up with you and Lionis until we figure out where Rain is convening. I don’t have any communication with Gandra or Yellow. They’re totally in the dark.”

Athan sighs, despairing. “I … I can’t find Wick. The warehouse had collapsed. One of your charms was in it, and—”

“I had charms planted there already. It’s possible they may have gotten out. You need to find them.”

“I’m trying.” Athan’s eyes are wild, scanning every building in sight and squinting down the road, begging his eyes to find Wick and Juston staggering toward him in the distance, but no such thing happens. “I’m by the entrance to the Dark Abandon.”

“You crazy? Don’t go in there.”

“I’m not.” Athan glances back at the ghostly road into the ward that seems like its end is swallowed by a great shadowy beast, cast into darkness and shapeless mist.

Then he sees it.

Stumbling past the threshold of the twelfth ward, Athan rushes to the thing he spotted. He crouches next to it, his heart leaping into his throat.

Arrow keeps speaking. “Listen, we’re in the tenth right now. It’s as far as the secret passageways from the sixth could take us. We’re staying underground, right by the exit to the street, until all of us are joined back up, alright? Prat and I think it’s best.”

Athan peers into the infinite dark, fear gripping him by the throat as his fingers play in the soft material of the item he found. “Okay,” he chokes at the ring charm on his finger.

“Find Wick and Juston. With the seven of us together, we’ll be alright.”

Seven. “Where’s Victra?”

There’s a long silence. Then, Arrow’s voice sullenly responds, “She … She didn’t make it.”

It’s Wick’s red sleeveless hoodie that Athan has found, bunched up on the side of the road by a lamppost that makes no light. Tears sting Athan’s eyes as he glares at the darkness of the ghostly twelfth ward before him. “I’m going to find my Wick,” he promises, bringing the jacket to his face and breathing in his slum boy’s scent.

0166  Tide

He moves through the dark streets of the Abandon, which are never really dark when he’s walking them, considering the soft pink-or-purple glow that follows him. It’s predominantly pink lately, but he doesn’t much care about it.

The other outlaws—some have started calling themselves “the neons”—won’t have a thing to do with him. No matter what color they glow or why they were struck or for what crime they were never successfully arrested, it doesn’t matter. Ever since Tide failed his mission and got his partner killed as a result, he isn’t trusted or very much liked at all.

No one steps up to him anymore either. One large man, who was apparently a friend of Scorp’s, confronted Tide with a group of six others. They had very specific plans for him. They were going to pin Tide to the ground, pull off his clothes, and then four of them were going to take turns having their pleasure with the boy. What, precisely, that pleasure entailed, Tide could only wonder with dark amusement. Then, after they were done, the man threatened that he would pull out rusted needles and pink ink and tattoo Tide’s glow marks permanently onto the boy’s body, not caring if he drew blood or infected him in the unclean process. To all of that, Tide grunted, amused, then pulled a hurricane of wind down the street. The men crashed into one another so hard, two of them broke their noses. The others were dragged down the hard, unforgiving pavement of the road, bloodied rashes forming down their legs and arms as the wind ruthlessly pushed at them. By the time Tide’s wind calmed, the men were tattooed in their own blood. Tide’s never been bothered again.

But it isn’t the opinions of the hardened men and women of the streets that matter to him. The Queen has been disappointed by Tide, and he’s not been sent on any missions. If he gets no missions, then he gets no foodstuffs in return. A day and a half it’s been since Tide’s eaten a decent meal. A smirking young man had shared half his stew with Tide just last evening, though he suspects he did it more out of fear—since Tide’s little hurricane assault was witnessed by several—and less out of any kindness that might’ve lived in the young man’s heart. The stew had sat horribly in his bowels, and he found himself crouched in an alley later that night to empty himself of significantly more than what he’d eaten.

Even with the glow, Tide has grown pale. He shivers sometimes and occasionally fights an urge to pass out. That would be the end of him, he knows. If he loses consciousness, the others will descend upon him, and he’ll never again wake. He has no friends here. He’s only made enemies—and worse.

Life outside the Abandon is not an option. Once one begins work for the Queen, they aren’t allowed to leave. The Queen even assigns some people on hunting missions to seek out those who have fled the Abandon without a task. If he flees, he’ll just be another mark on the Queen’s list. He’ll be dead before he reaches his home in the tenth—if it even still exists.

Just give me a mission, he’d beg the Queen if he could. Trust me again. I am so sorry. I fucked up. I fucked up so fucking bad. Please.

He still doesn’t understand what went wrong at the warehouse. That wind, it was not his own. Wick had such a dark look of intent in his little scared eyes. Could he somehow … smell a storm into existence? That doesn’t even make sense. Tide’s jaw clenches just at the thought of Wick’s stupid face and what went down. I should have cut off his stupid head when I had the chance. I should have—

“Tide?? Is that you??”

He looks up. A muscled boy with blond hair stands there.

“Who the fuck are you?” growls Tide, hardly having the energy in him to even shout.

The boy blinks. “I-It’s me. It’s Athan.”

Tide stares at him. Who the fuck is Athan? He studies the boy’s face, his soft-looking greyish-blue eyes, his short, wispy blond hair, the meat of muscle on his body. He doesn’t look like he belongs in the slums at all. This Athan fool couldn’t look more out of place.

“Fuck off,” he growls at him. “You playing some kind of game with me? I’ll suck the wind right out of your lungs. I’ve done it before. I’ve suffocated people with my Legacy.”

Quite frankly, Tide isn’t sure he’ll ever have the stomach to do that again. The visual of Scorp’s terrified, suffocating, lumpy face was the most horrifying thing Tide has ever seen. He can’t even begin to fathom the amount of pain Scorp must have felt in that last, gruesome moment of his life.

“You have a very … strong power with wind,” agrees the boy called Athan, his eyes reflecting a bizarre uncertainty. “I … I don’t know what you’ve been through after the Fall of Sanctum, but—”

“I said fuck off, didn’t I? Didn’t I just threaten your life?”

“Tide, I’m looking for Wick.”

Tide feels the blood rush out of his face. With a grunt, he pushes himself off the ground, staggering to his feet. His knees are wobbly and his stomach feels like a sharp, jagged chasm, infinitely deep. “The fuck did you just say?”

“W-Wick,” repeats this dumb muscled Athan kid. “I’ve lost him. I found … I found this,” he says, lifting up a dirty red jacket. “Have you seen him around here?”

He’s coming for me. That mad-eyed fucker is coming for me. “If you find him, you tell him he better not fuckin’ come near me. Unless he has a wish to die.”

“Tide …”

“And if you have that same wish, keep talking,” Tide growls.

He stands there stupidly, his mouth parted as if he wishes to speak, but suddenly can’t let out the words. If it wasn’t against the Queen’s orders to take eyes from people within our own ward, I’d have her twenty bags full of severed heads—and this Athan fool’s would be at the top. Lucky for him, the Athan fool gives one curt nod, a tinge of regret seeming to sting his eyes, and then he retreats away slowly, the jacket hanging from his clenched fist.

Tide watches him go, glaring. He wonders if the Queen would soften her stance on him if he were to capture Wick—his original tenth head—and bring him in. He could redeem himself, and then he would get missions again and be able to feed himself.

The thought is like a meal, rejuvenating his muscles just the same. Tide’s posture straightens as he walks the streets with a new intent in mind: finding that wimpy fucker. And he’s without his stupid jacket, Tide realizes. I’ll spot him in a second, and the Abandon is my home; I know its streets as intimately as the wind.

He makes it two streets before happening on a sight that stops him cold. Two of the Queen’s guards are marching toward him.

“Tide Wellport,” one of them states when the pair of them come to a stop not two paces before him.

His teeth rattle in his mouth. I’m shaking because I’m hungry, he tells himself. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“The Queen summons you.”

Tide feels his lips parting. His mouth turns dry in the space of a heartbeat, his insides hollowing out. What does the Queen want with him? Is he being forgiven? Is he being given a mission?

Is he being executed?

“This way,” grunts the guard, the other remaining silent.

The two position themselves on either side of Tide as he is walked down the dark street, their armor painted an indistinct shade of pink from Tide’s glow. He masks the trembling in his legs by marching more forcefully than is necessary, each of his footfalls planting into the pavement with a purpose. His eyes never stop scanning the curbs and the darkened storefronts and the creaky porches of houses that line the street. He looks for Wick’s face, but all he sees looking back are suspicious eyes, resentful stares, and faces of people who want him dead.

The doors to the fortress open as dauntingly as they always do. The stairs downward seem to go on forever and ever, and three times Tide has to blink away a dizziness that threatens to topple him down the rest of the steps. Focus, he pleads with himself.

The Queen’s hall is opened to his fearful eyes. When he passes the threshold of the gates, the guards shut it with themselves on the other side. Tide swallows hard, not liking that at all.

He puts one foot in front of the other, slowly making his way down the hall toward the Queen, who waits by the pale brazier at the end. This may be the final walk Tide ever takes, so he tries to enjoy every step. He thinks about that girl Maris with the big boobs he used to kiss back in school and his buddy Westly who he liked because he’d laugh hardest when Tide came up with a new name for some wimpy kid in the yard. Westly was named after a section of the Lifted City, which Tide made fun of when they first met before they became friends over beating up a kid in the bathroom.

He misses all of them. He approaches the Queen. He may never see a single one of their faces again. He keeps moving his feet. This may be the last day of his life.

He reaches the end where five short steps lead to the Queen’s throne. The brazier burns bright and pale, the Queen standing to its side. The light from the fire casts a tall and menacing shadow of the Queen against the stone wall, which dances as the flames do.

She doesn’t look at him when she speaks. “You are being sent away, Tide Wellport.”

He gapes. He hadn’t considered exile as an option. “P-P-Please. Queen. I’m sorry. I know I failed. I—”

“On an assignment,” she clarifies. Her voice is the iron-cold slam of a hammer against the anvil. “There is a girl named Gin. She—”

The shuffling of feet interrupts them. The Queen lifts her face, her heavy-lidded eyes coldly regarding the interruption. It’s a man who’s come with a tray of food. How Tide didn’t hear the doors open or the man walk down the way, he doesn’t know.

“Y-Your dinner, my Queen,” says the man in a voice so small, it could have come from a cricket.

The Queen’s ire is evident, yet impressively controlled. “I am in a meeting. I will take my meal in twenty minutes’ time. As I had previously ordered.”

The man sputters a response, seems to not know what to do with his feet or the tray in his grip for two turnabouts of his brain, then nervously decides to place it on the ground next to the brazier. He leaves after a clumsy bow, rushing hurriedly back down the long way to the gates where he is then let out.

Tide lifts his eyes to the Queen expectantly.

The Queen purses her lips tightly. Tide can imagine a hundred different ideas of how to punish the early-brought meal passing through the Queen’s head this very instant. None of them go voiced, of course, as she turns her cold eyes onto Tide and resumes precisely where she’d left off.

“There is a girl named Gin. She was sent to the first to infiltrate the tri-ward unity. It was her Queen-given mission and she was sent a month ago. She has not returned.”

“The first ward?” Tide has never heard of any so-called tri-ward unity.

“The Coalition, some are calling it. I care not the name it’s been given. It’s lead by a man who wears all white, and if I have a moment of ego to spare about it, I say there’s only allowed one King or Queen known for their white attire, and that will be me.” The expression on her face is almost bored, the way her eyes hang heavy. “Go.”

Tide flinches. Go? That’s all the instruction I’m given? “The … The first ward? I-I’ve never been to the … the …”

“You failed me, Tide. Ten heads I need every month. Not nine. If you cannot appease me, then ghosts will have you.”

“But I need more th-than just that,” he stammers back, thinking on how he’s expected to just waltz into a ward he’s never been in and find this so-called Gin. The first ward is one of the biggest, if he remembers what he’s studied—even twice that of the ninth, the Greens included.

“Ghosts … will … have you.” The Queen’s voice is severe and her tone, prickly. Tide feels ice lance down his chest, regretting at once raising his voice. “Your soul belongs to me, Tide Wellport. Your body belongs to me. Your wind is mine. Your arms are mine. Your every heartbeat and your breath. And your eyes.”

She pulls back her robe and, with a sudden sweep of her hand, draws out a sword as long as her leg. She points it, the tip coming an inch from Tide’s face. He steps back with a start. The blade is as white as a monster’s tooth, brilliant and shiny, and the Queen holds it with perfect balance, as if it weighs nothing at all.

“When one abandons the Abandon, they forfeit their life. If you turn on me, Tide, I swear it by the God I work for, by the demons in the underearth, by the shadows of Cloud Tower and devil’s root, you will become just another stone in my hall.”

Tide’s throat is so tight, he can’t bring himself to swallow. He is trembling so bad, his lip quivers like a child’s. He doesn’t need to turn his head to know what’s there. Lining either side of the long, long hall, buried in the shadows, are chalk-white statues of people. Some of them are missing legs. Some of them, arms. Some of them, heads. No matter, the fact remains true that each of them used to be a person … and each of them defied the Queen. Among the statues are deserters, runaways, betrayers …

And if Tide missteps, he could be among them.

“Newer, better foragers will secure for me ten heads a month,” the Queen states—sword still pointed, unwavering. “A fool like you will never again be trusted with that task. If you want to redeem yourself and bring to light a braver, better, stronger side of what I know to be the lowly rat that is Tide Wellport … then you will find this girl. And you will find her in the first. And you’ll find her alive.”

Tide nods quickly, feeling like his head could fall off on its own.

The Queen seems to regard him a moment too long, as if some thought has circled into her head the way a playful gust of wind dances into a room through the window. “Questions?” she murmurs.

The aroma of the Queen’s meal, still sitting on the tray, reaches him and inspires an earthquake of longing in his empty stomach. To the Queen’s question, Tide shakes his head quickly at first. Then, a second later, he asks, “And when I find her?”

The Queen tilts her head. “You bring her to me, unharmed.”

Tide’s eyes drift down to the brazier and its pale firelight.

“Any more … questions?” she asks, her voice echoing down the hall, as if all the chalky-white statues are repeating her words in a frightful, creepy unison.

Tide screws up his forehead. “What … do you do with them?”

“With what?”

“The h-heads. The eyes in those heads.”

The Queen observes him for precisely ten solid seconds. “If you wish me to take your head, then you will find out.”

“N-No, thank you. I’ll … I will find Gin.”

“Yes, you will,” the Queen agrees, her white robes glowing in the fire. “Your life depends on it.”

The gates shut heavily at his back after he departs the hall. With each step he takes to the surface, he feels his life coming closer to its cold end. All of this is Wick’s fault. Wick put him in this situation. I will find this Gin, he decides, and end Anwick’s life for my reward.

0167  Athan

He holds the jacket to his face, his back against the wall of the alley he’s slipped into. I was an idiot to come in here. Every person has the look of murder in their eyes, like they’d end his life for simply looking at them the wrong way.

And what of Tide? The fool acted like he didn’t even know me. Athan thinks back on the decision Yellow had made, and what Wick said of it. He was certain that it was Yellow’s decision to not take Tide’s memories away. But Athan has never found Yellow to be the most trustworthy of men, and he finds himself doubting whether he can believe in or trust anything that cane-bearing, strange man says. He’s lied to us before. He’s lied to Wick about knowing him or knowing what he took from his brain. He could have gone behind all our backs and wiped Tide’s brain clean no matter the decision.

That very thought upsets Athan the worst.

He takes a deep breath of the jacket. If he closes his eyes, he can picture himself being nuzzled into Wick’s neck as his slum boy slept, cuddling him and feeling the warmth of his body and the steady, slowed rhythm of his sleeping heart. Nothing compares to the sound of an adult as he sleeps—the slow drawing in of breath, the wispy release of it through lazy, loosened lips. It’s music to Athan’s ears. I’ll never again leave you when you sleep, Athan promises. I’ll spend every bout of eight hours by your side, holding you and desperately trying to enter that dream world with you.

“Athan?”

He looks up. Lionis’s face hovers in the dark by the mouth of the alleyway.

“Lionis!” Athan pushes off the wall and rushes up to him. “I’m so sorry. I found Wick’s jacket. He’s here somewhere. He has to be.”

Lionis nods at the jacket. “Yes, I’m sure he is. We …” His eyes nervously flit from dark corner to dark corner. “We can’t be in here too long.”

“Wick’s already been here too long,” Athan argues back. “We’re not leaving here without—”

“Of course we’re not,” Lionis bites back irritably. “But we can’t split up again.”

Athan nods his agreement, then says, “Oh. Arrow spoke to me.”

“Arrow? How?”

“I’ll explain as we go,” says Athan, slapping a hand onto Lionis’s back in some effort to trick himself into feeling safe. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, too.”

The boys move down the street as Athan recalls everything Arrow told him about how their little home in the sixth ward is now compromised. When he mentions Victra, Lionis’s face seems to go blank, like he didn’t hear him properly. Athan doesn’t press the point further, figuring he ought to give Lionis room to digest all of that information first. The boys are silent as ghosts themselves after that.

They move under the elevated railway of some abandoned track that passes between two tall buildings. A tangle of razor-thin wires hang down from it like metal spiderwebs, which they both seem to peer up at with alarm. Everything in this place feels dangerous, or evident of something dangerous that’s happened in the past. This is the place of dead Kings and dead Queens, if the rumors carry any weight. Athan can now say firsthand that he understands the reason for the words.

It’s just beyond that elevated rail that Athan hears it. “Lionis.”

The boys stop. In the distance of the dark streets, the tiny echoes reach their ears. Noise. Like little digital coughs. Static, carried on the wind in little tufts of sound.

Athan and Lionis hurry down the road, which opens into a big plaza that holds an empty set of kiosks—perhaps from the days when this used to be a market square. The sounds bounce everywhere out here, so the boys hunt slower, circumventing the L-shaped kiosks and the half-fallen tents and debris on the cobblestone. At first they think the sounds are coming from one of the windows of a building at the edge of the plaza, then find themselves turned around, skirting the perimeter of the plaza. The acoustics are cruel to them, letting the bursts of noise echo off every surface and making it seem like they are coming from a hundred different places—from the tents, from the windows, the sky, the ground …

Athan comes around the dilapidated, old wooden counter of a merchant’s booth. He sees a shirtless boy sitting on the ground and leaning against the base of the booth, hidden.

“Wick.”

It’s him. Wick looks up, a glint of moonlight coloring his eyes. Athan hurries to him, nearly collapsing onto the ground next to him. It’s up-close that Athan realizes Wick is in bad condition. Cuts and gashes decorate his chest where only the wooden flame trinket rests, hanging from his neck, and there’s blood down his arm. Wick’s lip bleeds too, and he sounds so tired when he finally say, “He’s dead.”

Lionis has caught up, crouching down next to his brother and putting a tentative hand on his bare shoulder. “Who?”

“Juston.” Wick coughs, a bit of blood flecking out onto his chin. “He’s auto-borne. Did you know that? I didn’t.” Wick doesn’t seem able to look at them, not sharing in their joy of having found him at last. “Ever since Juston drew his last breath, I’ve had the pleasure of listening to him show off.”

The tiny bursts of noise still reach their ears from somewhere unknown, except now they seem to Athan more ghostly, haunting, and with each sound that touches him, he feels an unwelcome chill.

“We have to go,” says Lionis, ever the pragmatic one. “Arrow has a place for us in the tenth.”

Wick’s face twitches slightly, as if he doesn’t even have enough energy to express confusion. “What’s wrong with the sixth?”

“Compromised,” Lionis states, short of patience—or perhaps of nerve, considering where they are and how very little any of them want to be here. “I’ll explain it to you on the way.”

“I can’t leave him,” says Wick.

Athan and Lionis glance at each other. The distant jets of noise persist. “Where is he?” asks Athan.

“In the alley across the way, under the red metal canopy. It’s as far as I could carry him.” Wick’s voice is so disconsolate and bereft of emotion, it alarms Athan.

When Athan starts to move, Lionis grabs him by the arm. “No,” he hisses. “He will attract attention. We can’t … We can’t just carry a noisemaker through the twelfth, across the eleventh, all the way to the tenth where Arrow’s waiting. We’ll attract the attention of every damn thief and rogue along the way.”

“Fuck you, Lionis,” mumbles Wick, too tired to express any due offense. “We are not leaving him in the streets.”

“So you’d rather us all become corpses in the street? Is that it?”

“We are not leaving him,” Wick forces out, then winces when a cramp seems to draw all his attention, his hands moving to his ribs and holding them tenderly. “Fuck …” he hisses, trying not to cry.

Lionis shakes his head, staring at Athan and begging silently for support. Athan frowns, as he can evenly see both Lionis and Wick’s points. “Maybe …” Athan finally says, thinking of it and yet not sure if it’s a solution at all. “Maybe we ought to …”

“Out with it,” says Lionis, impatient.

“Maybe we ought to give him a proper send-away.” Athan lifts his eyes tentatively to Wick. “It’s a tradition in the slums too, isn’t it?” He glances at Lionis. “Or is it just a Lifted City way that when our loved ones die, they end—”

“—in fire, yes,” sighs Wick with a flicker of sadness in his eyes.

Lionis blanches. “You’re proposing we burn him?”

Athan gives a heavyhearted shrug, lifting his eyebrows. “It’s the only decent thing I can think of to do to honor Juston. We can keep his ashes that remain in a container. Seeing as we are in the middle of a bazaar, we can surely find one lying about.” He gives a quick glance around him, not seeing one nearby. “We can … maybe find his family. I think they’d like to have it,” he says, still peering around.

After a moment, Lionis says, “Prat will know where they are.”

“Trouble is, we’d need a way to … burn him. We had an Ashery in the Lifted City. Is there such a thing here?”

“Yes,” confirms Lionis. “I have no idea where we’d find one, or if it’d even be active. Maybe Prat would know with all his maps. Seems lately the red light of madness is doing the job of incinerating bodies for us,” he adds with dark distaste.

Athan sighs. “I … I don’t think we have a choice. We have to either burn him here with some other means, or take him back with us—noise and all.” Lionis shoots him a frustrated look. “If you can think of a better option …”

“Good,” says Wick, drawing Athan’s attention back to him. He looks up at Athan, and though his eyes are heavy with pain both emotional and physical, he seems to smile through his eyes. “We get Juston, and we take him with us. That’s our plan.”

Lionis doesn’t look pleased by it at all, but remarkably doesn’t voice his opinion. Athan crouches down by his boy and gently helps him to his feet, then offers him his jacket. Wick takes it with a wince, but doesn’t put it on, likely due to his wounds; Athan assumes that’s the reason he took it off at all, perhaps having dropped it in his struggle to carry Juston. Wick leads the two of them to the alley with the metal canopy, limping every other step as they go. The noises grow louder. It’s in the shadow behind a large grey crate that Juston lies, propped up against the wall and emitting his ghostly shrieks of noise seemingly from nowhere.

Athan’s heart breaks, peering down upon him like this. Juston Markmake was always kind to Athan, even way back when he was first recovered from the wreckage of the Lunar Festival after Lord’s Garden exploded and he fell from his place in the sky. Juston was fun and spontaneous, yet always even-tempered. He was unexpectedly keen. He was brave.

Without being prompted, Athan crouches down and puts his muscles to use, lifting Juston into his arms and off the pavement. Lionis rushes up to help, considering that Juston is not the lightest, being somewhat tall and carrying a decent bit of meat on his bones. They carry him horizontally, Athan bearing the burden of his upper body while Lionis carries the legs. It is an awkward effort at first until Athan and Lionis form a rhythm, moving in parallel.

Through the plaza they go, Wick leading them. By the time they reach the elevated rail with the strange web-like wires that hang, the noises from Juston stop almost instantly. Athan and Lionis share a look, then resume their journey out of the Dark Abandon, which is nothing but the length of a road and two sharp turns until they reach the mouth, through which it feels like, even at night, the world grows infinitely brighter just by their simply leaving that wretched place of ghosts and fear.

0168  Link

The house, strangely, hasn’t changed much in ten whole years. The tree in the front of his house looks … droopier. Is it because it was smaller when I was a kid? He always perceived the tree as a full-grown one, but maybe it has truly thickened its crooked trunk over the years, growing up with Lionis.

“That’s your house?” asks Ames.

Link studies the silhouette through the kitchen window. His mom. Lionis wasn’t cooking their meals yet; he’d only be nine years old. Link himself, he would’ve been … “Six. I was just six.”

“It looks small.”

“It’s my home.” Link can’t stop staring. He wants to go inside. He wants to hug his mother. He wants to talk to his dad, to talk to Anwick, to sit with his older brothers while they discussed their reasoning for joining Guardian. None of them enlisted yet, he realizes. Maybe everyone’s in that house right now, my whole family. Except maybe his dad, who might be at the metalshop at this hour.

Too soon, Baal’s voice comes close. “You know you cannot go inside, Shye.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Sorry. It’s a … a habit.” Baal chuckles, his hand still resting on Link’s shoulder, gripping it a touch too tight. “Don’t kill me if I say the wrong name too many times. Will you perhaps consider not killing me, kind Link? Savior Link?”

“I’m no savior.” He watches the silhouette shifting through the kitchen window. A light flicks on in the den—the broadcast, maybe. Hums of boyish conversation come from upstairs, a curtain by Link’s window shifting. Of course, ten years ago, it was Halves’ and Aleks’s room, not his; he only got it after the two of them went off to live in the Guardian dormitories. Lionis never had a room, always keeping his things in the kitchen cupboard beneath the sink, or in a corner by the laundry-covered couch. Was there ever a time in history when that couch wasn’t completely covered in dirty clothes? He can’t even properly remember what color it is underneath.

“You do what’s best, then,” mutters Baal, a hint of humor in his voice. “Simply say you’ve had enough, and we’ll be on our way to the next.”

“Me, next,” demands Ames. “I want to see my family.”

Link realizes there’s nothing much he can do but stand here in the middle of the street watching a family he cannot in any way interact with. The road is still broken and cracked, even ten years ago. He was hoping there was a time in history when the pavement was even and smooth. Maybe it was long before any of them were born. “Yes,” agrees Link sullenly when he feels Kid’s firm grip. “Him, next. Go. Just go.”

Baal takes them by the shoulders.

Nothing at all seems to happen until Link finds himself walking alongside Baal and Ames. Time-walking is such a weird sensation. There is no perceived interrupt in vision, sound, mind, or body. It is like moving from one room to another, even if everything about your environment changes. Link had somehow expected the act of traveling through time to be so much more dramatic—painful, even.

“That’s my mom,” whispers Ames.

They watch from the cover of neck-tall bushes as a large woman with a bright, round face squats in a garden in front of her house. She’s humming a slow, romantic tune to herself while batting away flies and sweating in the sun.

“You lived in the Greens?” asks Link, observing the dirt road on which they stand lined with bushes and hedges and little fruit trees.

“Just in front of it,” answers Ames longingly. “Born and raised in the eighth. So was my mom, and my mom’s mom, and so on for at least five generations, I think.” His mom loses her footing and falls face-first into the dirt she was tilling. She curses loudly, sneezes, then puts her hands to the soil and continues her work, her humming resumed as if it was never interrupted. “I miss home.”

“Maybe she’s still doing alright,” offers Link. “Maybe we can visit her when this is all over with.”

“I’d like that.” Ames scoffs suddenly, kicking the ground with fury. “I wish I’d never trusted that old, bald priest. I believed in him. I fought for him. I gave my fucking life for that fucking fuck.”

“Easy, easy,” warns Baal, lifting his gaze to the mother, who doesn’t seem to hear or notice them. “Don’t want to draw any undue attention. It’s imperative that we—”

Ames pulls away suddenly, making for the road. “MOM!” he cries out.

She lifts her gaze, looking the wrong way for them.

But before Ames can cry out the word again, Baal has grabbed him by the neck, yanking him right back behind the bushes. And then, easy as a blink of the eye, they’re in the dark of the tunnel in the tenth again.

“W-Wait!” cries Ames, his eyes searching for his mother. He spins around in the tunnel, as if he was still in front of that quaint house in the eighth. “M-Mom? Wait …”

Baal straightens his posture, staring down at the two boys disapprovingly. “That will not do, Ames.”

Ames blinks, tears filling his eyes. “I’m sorry. I … I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Please, can I see her once more?”

“No. Link did not react in such a rash manner. Did you see the restraint he employed? No, I have shown you boys enough. It is time to seek the Goddess.”

“Please!” cries out Ames, dropping to his knees. “Please!!”

“My answer is final.” Baal faces Link, ignoring the blubbering of Ames on the cobblestone. “Tell me what you know, Link.”

Link feels the pressure upon him once again. He hoped to delay this moment for as long as possible. He feels the full attention of Baal bearing down on him. Ames’ despair echoes down the tunnel in tiny chokes and coughs of holding back tears. At least he’s smart enough to keep his sniveling quiet. I forget he’s only fourteen. What a baby.

“You’re hesitant to tell me the vision,” Baal notes. “Why? Does it disturb you?”

Link licks his lips, thinking it over. “It isn’t that it disturbs me. It’s that I … can’t really make sense of it. It was more like … a series of images. Or thoughts. Or feelings.”

“Share them, if you will. You realize you have two other brains here, yes? Perhaps between the three of us, we can piece together the Sister’s puzzle they’ve left you.”

Link notices that Ames has drawn quiet, wiping his eyes and studying the two of them. Perhaps he is as interested in the vision’s meaning as the priest’s brother is.

But what’s to stop the time-walker from simply walking away once he’s learned the whole vision? Link can never overvalue his use here; he knows what it’s like to be cast to the side once his purpose is fulfilled, and he won’t let that happen again. Without Baal, Link and Ames only have ten years left to live.

“I will give you one piece of the vision at a time,” decides Link.

A look of frustration crosses Baal’s face at once. “You don’t trust me, then? Have I not met my side of our deal? Have I not shown you the thing you wished to see?” His eyes flash. “Oh! Or is it that you want your eternal life already? Afraid I’ll forget the other half of the price, leave you with but ten years to live? Can a man be so cruel?”

“Yes,” answers Link simply.

Ames seems to be emboldened by Link’s confidence, his own posture straightening as he faces Baal bravely.

Baal, oddly enough, doesn’t seem offended in the least. He gives a curt nod, then says, “I will prove to you over time that I’m worthy of your trust. For now, I accept your conditions. One piece of the vision at a time. Let us find the Goddesses, kind Link. Tell us. What is the first piece you’re willing to share?”

Part of Link worries that Baal is too agreeable. The other part is desperate for someone to trust.

The rest of him just wishes very much to be back home. He’s so tired of being at the whim of these two brothers, both whom have claimed to know the best interest for him. His life is just a series of seeking men to follow … from his father, to his brothers, to Dran, to Baron, and now to Baal. When will he ever be his own?

“Water,” murmurs Link, thinking of what he saw. “Gold. Gold spilling from the hands of a young girl … a friend of mine, a friend I met in the Waterways, long ago. She stole a purse of gold from me.”

“A purse of gold?” It’s Baal’s turn to appear skeptical. “What is a slum boy your age doing with a purse of gold?”

“I had stolen it myself. She had stolen a stolen purse of gold.”

Baal thinks on that, the gears of his mind working. “Gold, twice-stolen. A girl thief in the canals … where you took my brother and his half-life boys.” Baal’s eyes search the air for answers. “Are we to go back to the Waterways, but now? Ten years ago?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I saw water because I … well, because I was being drowned. In the Waterways. That’s rather dumb.” Link swallows. “I’m not sure if it means—”

“You had the vision there,” Baal points out. “Perhaps you had the vision because you were closer to the Goddesses. Maybe it is in water that they lurk.”

Lurk, he says … like the Goddesses are creatures, lurking in the way a street dog does, or like an alley cat perched on a dumpster …

“I’m sorry,” mutters Baal with a lift of his eyebrows. “I’m not sure if we can go with just one piece of the vision. We need more.”

Link and Ames share a look once again, as if Link is asking through his eyes whether he ought to say anything more to Baal. Ames merely shrugs with his eyebrows and an unsure smirk. A lot of help you are, Link thinks sourly, returning his gaze to Baal. “I heard singing.”

“Singing? Go on. Whose singing?”

Link’s eyes drift, imagining that familiar, moving silhouette in the kitchen window. “My mother’s.”

“Yes? Intriguing. Beautiful. Your mother. What was the tune?”

Link chuckles dryly, staring at Baal. “You wish me to sing it? Put on a show for you here in this tunnel?”

“What is the song, my boy? The song.” Baal’s hands have found Link’s shoulders. “Does it have words? Tell us.”

Link shakes his head. “No. Just a melody.”

“Why would your mother sing it? Was it a favorite song of hers, or … or did she sing it to lull you to sleep as a little baby boy?”

“I wouldn’t remember that far ago. No. It was just a song she used to hum. I would sometimes hear it through the door … when she was …” Link turns his head, as if placing himself within his own house, years ago in his mind. He can see Anwick’s closed door. Why would his mother be in there singing to him the same way one would sing to a baby she was trying to lull to sleep?

“She was what?”

“Singing to my older brother.” Link stares at that door in his mind, hearing the tune.

“A mother’s love,” murmurs Baal. “And twice-stolen gold. And a girl from the Waterways.”

Link remembers that that very girl from the Waterways, Kid, is still clinging to him with a single hand. “Yes,” Link confirms quietly.

“We must search the Waterways then,” Baal decides suddenly. His eyes fall upon Ames. “And if we find another clue, perhaps I’ll take you back to your home to look upon your mother once again.”

Ames’ eyes flash. “Yes. Yes, good. Thank you. I would love that.”

“And you know the price if you act a fool in front of others and draw any undue attention, yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes. I won’t do it again.” Ames’ mood has taken a very abrupt change.

“Very good. It is the number one rule of time-walking, of course. You must never be seen. You must never be known. You must never cause a ripple in the waters of time. Tiptoe,” he whispers, lowering his head with a look of playfulness in his eyes as he repeats the word encouragingly. “Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe …”

With that, the group moves down the tunnel toward the closest passage to the Waterways. Tiptoe, he says, and yet if we do what he claims we are here to do—find a Goddess, save the world—how is that leaving any water settled? To Link, they are preparing to cast the greatest “ripple” that he can possibly imagine—a ripple that, in ten years’ time, could become a tidal wave. And if I’m behind that tidal wave, will I even know it?

0169  Ruena

I could live this life. I could be in love. I could have no care in the world for the fate of Atlas. I could ignore the madness in one way and join it in another … the madness of passion, of lust … of happiness.

“Happiness is a kind of madness,” the To-Be-Queen reasons to the two people rested against her, Rone leaning back on one side, Erana curled up upon the other.

Rone slides his hand up Ruena’s side, cupping her bare breast. He brings his lips upon it, suckling the nipple with a smile on his lips and eyes closed, as if caught in a dream. Erana has her fingers at her own mouth, but it’s more in a gesture of wonder, her gaze lost somewhere on the ceiling of the main den in which they’re lounged, her glasses making her eyes look enormous. Her mind seems to be occupied entirely with a deep, complicated thought.

Rone bites suddenly and Ruena flinches, surprised, and then both her lovers jerk back from the shock that emits through them. Erana finds it funny, giggling as her dark hair starts to curl upward from the static charge. Rone grins devilishly, making Ruena suppose that he’d startled her on purpose.

“Bad boy,” Ruena teases. Rone seems to change his mind about torturing her nipple and, instead, brings his full lips up to crash into hers, breathy and full of need. Ruena reciprocates, hungrily returning the kiss open-mouthed. When she feels the little nibble at her ear, she turns to find Erana’s big eyes waiting for her there, and so she shares a kiss with her too. Ever generous is her love. Rone, their own kiss ended, slides back down her neck with his tongue and returns to her breast, greedy to make work of her already-sensitive nipple.

The morning sunlight finally breaks through the window at the end of the house near the bathing atrium. Even with Erana’s lips lost on hers and Rone’s tongue giving a bath of his own to her nipple, the light catches her eye, and suddenly Ruena finds herself wondering who occupied this house before them. Did they die in the sacking of Sanctum? Were they unfortunate enough to be in the other half of the house when it collapsed? Are they eating and resting and biding their time in a house that still carries the dead previous owners?

She feels Rone’s soft hand sliding down her naked stomach and, easy as a drink of cool water, his fingers find her entrance. She shuts her eyes tightly, feeling him enter her with one finger, then two. He draws them out again and brings them to his lips, wetting them, and then they return to their second home between her legs, sliding in with such ease that it makes her squirm against Erana’s lips, who still kisses her with desperate, insatiable longing.

Rone moves to the other nipple, shifting his body so that he’s on top of her. Round four already? Ruena would ask if her mouth wasn’t already occupied with Erana’s unending lust. Tongues meet one another, and then a second set of hands begin to work her body—Erana’s exploring the feel of Ruena’s skin—and it’s all Ruena can do not to explode already all over Rone’s fingers.

And then Rone draws kisses down her body, and where once fingers were, now an expert tongue finds its place.

“Rone,” she breathes against Erana’s mouth, pulling away from the sudden assault of glorious sensations between her legs. Instantly she feels nauseous with the pleasure of being totally at Rone’s whim. His tongue becomes the master of her, dictating every second of her pleasure that she’s allowed. Her breath quickens, and in a matter of seconds, she feels how drenched she’s grown below.

Erana pulls away to watch, her eyes huge with wonder. Black hair sticks to her face from the sweat, some strands in the back still floating and coiled from the earlier shock.

“Rone,” breathes Ruena, reaching down to grip him by the little bit of hair he’s grown on his head over the months. “Sh … Share.”

Rone lifts his face from between her legs, his bright sapphire eyes shimmering drunkenly. When he turns his head and observes Erana for one lustful second, he understands. His fingers replace his mouth again—giving Ruena a groan of delight—while he slithers his lips up to between Erana’s thighs, diving right in. Erana lets go, her hands up in the air, and then she rocks her head back, emitting a short, jagged shriek of yearning.

Back and forth Rone is tossed and pulled, like he is just a toy for the two women’s delight. His mouth is full of Erana. Then his mouth is full of Ruena. Then Erana again. Ruena. Erana. Ruena. His fingers are put to work on whoever’s pussy he isn’t drowning in a sopping wet wonderland of. Rone is never allowed to catch a breath. His forehead glows with a desperate sheen of sweat from his efforts. His eyes are drunken with joy, with blissful exhaustion, with a disbelief that pours from his deep blue eyes and seems to say—I can’t believe this is happening to me.

Four times Erana reaches her climax. Four times Erana screams her delight all over Rone’s awed, incredulous face.

And when Ruena makes an orgasm of her own, she can’t help but clamp Rone’s face tightly between her thighs, pulling on the back of his head with her hands to get him—and his tongue—as far into her as possible. He moans against her, sending shockwaves up her body, and nothing she seems to do gets him close enough. I have never wanting anything so badly. Not the throne. Not my grandfather’s lordly advice. Not my Aunt Kael’s approval. Not the millions of silks in my palace. I want Rone and I want the eruption that only his wicked, expert, slum boy tongue can give me.

And then she gets that eruption, and it’s all over Rone’s sweaty, drenched, panting face that she comes.

“Put it in me,” she moans, out of breath. “Do it. Do it.”

Rone slides inside, every pulsing, throbbing, hard-as-stone inch of him. He pushes into the back of the couch, his body over her and his breaths cast desperately down upon her face. They look into each other’s eyes as he invades her furiously, a sort of horny, pent-up rage driving his every thrust. The blues of his irises are fierce against the rich, dark bronze of his skin and make the whites of his eyes glow.

“Spill inside me,” she begs. “I want to feel you fill me up. Rone. Rone. Oh, Rone.”

The slum boy’s mouth crashes into hers, shutting up the woman who was almost Queen of all of Atlas. She howls against him as he empties himself inside her, nearly causing her to tumble over the edge again.

In time, the three of them are tangled in each other again in a calm, relaxed stupor, but this time they are among a pile of pillows and blankets upon the tile floor near the tall back window which overlooks the slums. The morning’s sunlight pours over them like a thick golden syrup.

“Every day,” Ruena murmurs dreamily. “It could be like this.”

“For a long while, at least, yes,” says Erana, having to interpret Ruena’s statement literally, as usual.

She likes that about Erana, how precise she is, and how smart. With Rone’s slum boy sensibility and carefree way of thinking, it is the perfect marriage of recklessness and caution that makes Ruena feel so perfectly safe between them. She has the fire in one arm, and the winter in the other.

Rone slips from her arms, rising so quickly that his limp cock bounces. “I’m going to make us a snack,” he announces as he hops away, his feet slapping the tile as he heads for the kitchen.

Ruena and Erana lie side-by-side on the blankets. After a quiet moment of lying there, Erana puts an arm around Ruena, cuddling into her side. Ruena smiles.

“I never thought I would be with a woman in this way.”

It’s Erana who says it. “Oh?” prompts Ruena. “Well, that makes two of us, I suppose.”

“I never thought I was a woman of other women. I simply … I always craved the attention of a boy.” Erana shifts her head, getting comfortable as she rests it on Ruena’s belly, turning perpendicular to her and staring out the window thoughtfully. “Wick was a beautiful boy. And then I met his friend Rone. And now … you.”

“It is quite likely you’re a woman of both men and women,” she tells her, bringing a hand down to play in Erana’s dark hair, combing through it playfully with her fingers.

“Yes, yes. King Michold—the one before Greymyn—I heard that he had male lovers and female lovers, both. For all the information I know, I feel so confused when it comes to feelings.”

“You can know a million things without understanding them,” reasons Ruena. “I suppose your Legacy stops assisting you when it comes to actually interpreting all those thoughts you retain.”

“I might be in love with you.” She purses her lips. “I might be in love with Rone, too,” she then adds.

Ruena smiles, her fingers still dancing in Erana’s hair. “Yes. We can both love him,” she decides. “I’ve never really known love before. I’ve always doubted boys’ intentions when it comes to matters of … intimacy. I always felt like boys wanted to kiss me so that they could one day kiss me as I sat the throne. Or girls, feigning interest in my silks to gain access to Sanctum archival vaults. They just want the power, the prestige that comes from knowing a Netheris girl.”

“I would love very much to see those archival vaults,” murmurs Erana dreamily. “Oh, the things I’d learn. I wish I could go there.”

Ruena feels her first pang of regret all day. She wonders, with a sick twist of her stomach, what Mad King Impis might have done by now to Cloud Keep and all its secrets, all its items, all its repute and treasure. A man with such little regard to Sanctum could very well burn the whole Keep down. He’d even laugh as the flames ate it up.

“Do you think the world would hate us?” blurts Erana.

Ruena feels her heart sinking. “Why?”

“We are here,” she answers in her flat monotone. “We may be the only people in all of Atlas who are safely so close to Impis, and yet we choose to do nothing. In fact, we downright couldn’t care less. We’re having copious amounts of sex. We’re eating plentifully, in a half-fallen mansion on the edge of the city where not even Impis’s people can find us … all while innocent people starve … and die.”

These thoughts are not new. They are simply ones that Ruena hasn’t thought upon since a month ago, before Rone ever touched her with his soft, sexy fingertips and introduced her to a world of comforts she never knew. She’s deliberately suppressed the worries, pushing them far away, declining any responsibility for the citizenry she was seconds away from being Queen over. That’s the very same citizenry she was prepared to devote the rest of her life to protecting and ruling. In one quick, stupid instant, it was all taken from her.

And now, she acts as if she never wanted it in the first place.

“I’ve never known any other options,” Ruena says softly, her eyes drifting across the white ceiling, so far above them. “My whole life, I’ve been shaped to be a Queen. But no one stopped to ask me as a child if I wanted to play in the yard with them. No one invited me to their birthday parties, not unless there was a political angle in it, or some advantageous ulterior motive. Aunt Kael groomed me to be a Queen someday after her, not to be a person. She—”

“So this is your other option?” interjects Erana, getting to the point faster than Ruena was. “To live a life away from all the heavy responsibility of running your Queenship?”

Ruena shrugs. “I’m certainly having a taste of it.” She thinks on her words. “Well … there was one other person who made me feel like a normal human being.”

Erana turns her head, lifting her wide eyes to Ruena’s.

“Sedge,” Ruena answers herself.

Erana nods knowingly. They had all talked about it a number of times before—the great mystery and ultimate betrayer that is Sedge, Ruena’s childhood friend (and admirer) who was appointed as her Marshal of Legacy after Impis was arrested, only to turn on her, free Impis and his Posse, and steal the Queenship out from under her startled, electric fingertips.

Ruena cannot, with any semblance of understanding, grasp the reasons or the motivations behind Sedge’s duplicity. Did he resent her the whole time? She had sent him to the slums to spy on Impis, and many times since she has wondered if it was that particular trip that twisted his mind against her. But Sedge is just a child, she has to keep reminding herself. The boy is hardly even twelve years old yet.

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Erana, studying Ruena’s face. “I’ve sent your mind on a dark path.”

“You know,” says Ruena, shaking her head of all errant thoughts of Sedge, “even if we did decide, just the three of us, to take on the usurper that is Impis, we wouldn’t be able to get close enough to him without succumbing to the mania ourselves.”

“This, I know.”

“But I also realize that we … can’t hide here forever.” Ruena’s eyes close, almost of their own volition. She feels so tired suddenly, her mind exhausted the moment it lets in any of the due obligation that she’s been so adamantly pushing away, the duty of doing what must be done—and being aptly equipped with a formidable Legacy—and yet having no will or strength to do a thing at all.

“He also has countless others at his disposal,” murmurs Erana. “So many Legacies at his fingertips. So many loyal, dark-hearted men and women.”

“And girls and boys,” adds Ruena, picturing Sedge in her silks and jewelry and makeup, dancing around the foyer of her palace.

“It is not something that just the three of us can do. It will take an army to bring down the usurper.”

Ruena mumbles her agreement. “He even had someone who can neutralize my ability somehow. I still remember the feeling of helplessness I had in that Crystal Court … reaching for a storm, for a charge, for anything … and it was so late to come to me.”

“And mind readers,” Erana says, remembering it from a thing Ruena had mentioned. “A mind reader and a mind writer. That is a very, very unfortunate pair of powers for a usurper to have. I am terrified of the thought of them.”

“Don’t be terrified.” Ruena reaches and takes Erana’s hand. She clenches it tightly, her thumb rubbing the top of it soothingly. “You are not alone.”

“I am not alone.”

The young women stare out the window, which bathes them in its pure, golden sunlight. The warmth spreads onto every inch of their skin until it seems nothing cold or wicked or otherwise can touch them at all.

Then naked Rone leaps through the wall next to them, and the girls jump—Erana shrieking and Ruena’s eyes flashing wide.

“Impis has a lot of things,” Rone agrees, a chrome platter of food in one hand and a flagon of brew in the other, “but we … have the element of surprise.” He gives a wink at the women, then lifts the platter. “Breakfast, anyone?”

0170  Arrow

“Oh no, oh no, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”

Arrow rolls his eyes. “Shut up. It’s just a cut.”

“I’m going to die.” Desperate tears spill from Prat’s face as he consoles himself in the corner of the room, embracing his wound as if his whole life is spilling out of his neck. It isn’t. “What have I done to deserve this?? I’m bleeding out. I’m bleeding … out …”

“Just hold the shirt to your neck and stay still. You’re fine.”

It’s Arrow’s shirt, which he donated to Prat to wrap around his neck and apply constant pressure to minimize the bleeding. Arrow’s kept his arms folded ever since, feeling exposed; he’s never been the type to walk about the streets shirtless. Leave that to the seventh folk.

“Bleeding … ugh …” Prat descends into unintelligible muttering and whimpers.

Arrow rolls his eyes. He hasn’t even given proper attention to the deep puncture in his own thigh from the tip of the very arrow that had ended Victra’s life. He wrapped a long sock around it and let it go from his mind, too swallowed up in the desire to get as far away from the sixth as possible. The more Prat cries, the less Arrow wants to. Listen first; feel later.

Standing on a crate by the door, Arrow peers through the slit of window at the top of the wall that aligns with the level of the street. He feels an inch tall through the slit of glass, as if he was a tiny bug on the road. There’s a group of young teens gathered by a nearby trash bin bragging about how they don’t have to go to school. Arrow hears them juggle rumors, like how all the schools are closed until further notice, or all the professors died in a violent accident, or King Impis himself ordered that no lessons needed to be held while he is in power. Two of the kids firmly believe in that last one, thanking the Sisters for King Impis and his freeing them from the chore of going to school. Arrow wonders what the little fools will think when their homes and families are leveled by the great red light in the sky. I wonder if they’ll still be thanking the Mad King then.

“Any word from Athan or L-L-Lionis?” asks Prat miserably.

Arrow’s fist clenches the ring charm tightly. “Not since the last.”

“This isn’t how I wanted to die. Oh no, oh no …”

“Of course it isn’t. And you won’t.” Arrow glances across the room tentatively, but not to look at Prat. The Caldron girl stands against the wall staring at her hands downheartedly, her eyes riddled with worries. Arrow wonders what’s going through that mind of hers. Is she asking all the same questions as Prat? ‘Do I deserve this?’ and ‘Who’ll save me?’ and ‘Is this how I die …?’

“Gandra?” prompts Prat, his voice quivery. “Yellow?”

“Neither.” Arrow returns his attention to the slit of window, his eyes turning into narrowed slits of their own. “We’re on our own. I doubt we’ll ever hear from their like again.”

Prat’s shuffling and sniffling goes still at his words. “You … You don’t mean that, do you? They—”

“They have been dead in the water for months, Prat. Wake up.” The kids in the street are laughing at a boy who’s gone and thrown a shirt over his head, prancing around like Impis and threatening to turn them all into toast with his fancy red Lifted light made of liquid gold. “The only person Gandra ever served was herself.”

“B-But she’s been there for us …”

“I overheard them talking. She’s been trying to avenge the death of her child … her child who died two Kings ago. Even Yellow was trying to make her see what she’s done to us. This whole Rain thing, I doubt it’s anything more than just a sad woman’s attempt to move past the death of her child. We were her instruments of grief and nothing more. Rebellion?” Arrow hisses contemptuously, infuriated by the whole thing. It was all a ruse. “Gandra Gateward is a fraud.”

Prat doesn’t respond to that. The sound of the young teens in the street bleeds into their room. Then Prat sighs jaggedly, another wave of tears hitting him as he says, “Oh, Sisters help me, my maps! All of my maps … oh, Arrow, my fucking maps …”

“You’ll make new maps. Better maps.” Arrow sucks his tongue, trying very hard to keep his cool and still ignoring the pain in his thigh. Everything is shit. Swallow all the words you most wish to say. Only listen. Remember. “If we don’t hear from the others …”

“Oh no, oh no … they’re all dead, even Wick and Juston. Oh … even Victra, even Rone, all of them …”

Arrow closes his weary eyes and lays his head against the brick beneath the window. He keeps seeing the look on Victra’s face, that last look of total trust she had in Arrow’s guidance, and fear of the darkness before her eyes. She died in fear. She died alone. She died in the dark. Arrow shivers, his chest drawing so tight, he worries he’s just a step away from becoming the sniveling, quivering, slobbering baby that Pratganth has withered down to.

Maybe that’s why Arrow resents him so much. Maybe Arrow wants to be the weak one, curled up on the floor and mourning the death of Victra. Maybe Arrow wants to be held and told that it’s all going to be alright.

Listen, Arrow. Listen, and then listen some more.

He chokes back a sob, or else he was about to vomit on the wall. Arrow slips a hand to his belly, praying he can keep from retching.

The other hand bearing the charm comes up to his mouth. His eyes still closed, he speaks into it. “Lionis? Any word?” There is only silence. “Athan?” No answer either.

He pockets the ring and steps down from the box with a wince. Prat looks up, alarmed. The girl drops her hands and glances up too, her eyes still wet with fear and her mouth parted.

Arrow stands near her, his heavy gaze fastened to the damp stone floor and not at either of them. “I think we should leave.”

“Why?” blurts Prat. “I’m wounded, here!”

“Your neck is. You can walk. We need safer shelter. The path is connected directly to the sixth, to the Wall Breakers, to the violence from which we just fled. It’s very likely that they’re—”

“Where will we go?? We can’t just—We’ll die in the streets!”

“We’ll die here. And we won’t be in the streets, not for long. We need an actual safe haven and I think I know just the place.”

The girl takes a step toward Arrow. He lifts his gaze, startled by her approach. “Can I come?” she murmurs softly.

Arrow squints, pained. She thought I was leaving her? “I …”

“Yeah,” blurts Prat, gently rising off the floor while holding the shirt tightly to his neck. “You c-can totally come.”

Arrow shoots him an annoyed look, which he doesn’t seem to notice, his watery, tear-soaked eyes fully focused on the girl.

She turns her delicate head, regarding him for a second, then lifts her cherry cheeks and pouty lips, her striking eyes invading him. “I won’t be in the way. I have no one. The light took my family … my home …”

Arrow looks away from her, bitterly resentful at once that this Caldron girl—who he won’t even dignify with a name—has the nerve to talk to him about family and loss and having no one. “Keep up, then,” he grunts, moving toward the stairs leading to the street.

He doesn’t look back for her reaction. When he hears the shuffling of two pairs of feet behind him, he knows both Prat and the girl are following. It makes no difference to him whether he has both or neither of them.

The sun is breaking its brave light from over the Wall by the time they reach the closest edge of the ninth, and Arrow is muscling through each and every step, refusing to let his thigh slow him. It burns like fire by the time he passes the train station that Rain so often utilized. Of course it doesn’t operate now, not without power. Its windows are dark and its train—still on the tracks—is asleep indefinitely. He passes the third block, then the second block, and finally turns onto the all-familiar first. After a moment of being relieved to find the building standing at all, he peers through the large front window, ensuring that no one or nothing dangerous lurks inside. He sees nothing, so he reaches for the door and gives it a pull.

Inside, the Noodle Shop is dark and its air is thick with dust and mildew and neglect. He sighs, wondering where all the workers have gone, or the owner. Prat closes the door behind them after the girl reluctantly comes in, crossing her arms and glancing around with a mild look of repugnance wrinkling her nose. Arrow turns from the pair of them and gently pushes past the swinging kitchen doors. The back is abandoned too. He hears a scuttling, which alarms him until he spots the rat hurrying off the counter and into a hole in the wall.

“What’s that smell?” moans Prat, arm lifted to shield his nose.

Arrow ignores him and starts poking through the cabinets. He finds them all cleaned out. Someone’s been through here, a looter or a scavenger. He pulls open the fridge, expecting to find an array of spoiled foods; instead, he finds empty shelves. Even the perishables.

He pulls open the door leading to the cold basement where they once kept the Weapon of Atlas, but can’t even descend the steps, as the entire basement is filled with water. A pipeline broke, or else some other thing connected to by that secret passage has flooded the whole way, Arrow deduces, wondering with a chill if anyone was down here when the passages filled. At least this is one less exit to secure.

He pushes past Prat, who has come up too close behind him to get a look himself at the flooded basement. The sunlight is easing through all the smudged windows now, filling the kitchen and the main restaurant area with rich, golden egg yolk. Arrow finds himself appreciating the warmth of color very much after the stark, horrible night they just endured.

He sees Victra’s helpless face again. Her wide, unseeing eyes.

He blinks the image away.

Arrow pushes open the panel behind the front counter and, after a grunt of remorse for his stinging, furious thigh, he ascends the narrow staircase hidden there. His progress is slow, and soon he has to resort to hopping up the steps on his good leg. Prat, ever on his heels, doesn’t ask if he’s okay. The stairs grunt with Arrow’s every hop. The first landing shows the bedroom Wick used to sleep in, the mattress flipped up against the wall for some reason, the bedframe exposed and rusty. Arrow ascends farther to the loft.

The hanging silks and tapestries are gone. The armor racks along the wall are bare. One of the panes of glass that make up the long, wide window on the closest wall is shattered, perhaps by a thrown brick from outside. The room feels haunted and colder than usual, air whistling in through the broken window. Arrow stands at the top of the stairs, his insides sinking at the sad state of the loft. We used to call this headquarters …

“Arrow?”

He doesn’t turn at the sound of Prat’s voice. He keeps staring ahead, pain and heaviness making a nest in his belly. He can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the sad, old table around which all of Rain used to gather. Weren’t there so many of us once, long ago? Arrow wonders. Maybe I should never have joined. Maybe I should have stayed home with mom and sis, looked after them, been there for them. I wonder what they’re doing now.

“Arrow, I …” Prat clears his throat. “I found Mr. Gateward’s key under the loose floorboard by the front register. I locked the doors, both the side door and the … the entrance. I left the scullery open.”

Mr. Gateward is what they called the owner of the Noodle Shop. It’s not his real name. They used to tease that Gandra and he were secretly a married couple. Arrow never found the joke very funny because it always made him wonder what Mr. Gateward’s real wife was like. Did she run another Noodle Shop elsewhere in the ninth? Did she stay home and look after the house? Did she exist at all?

Arrow’s eyes land on the loose metal rods of the armor rack. “I’ll make charms,” he decides. “We’ll need ears everywhere.”

Without waiting for Prat’s response, he crosses the room and starts to disassemble the rack, gathering as many parts from it as he can manage. Anything metal will work for his purposes.

“The emergency one’s missing,” mumbles Prat, having opened a hidden panel in the wall by their small holding room that once held Athan long ago, just after he fell from Lord’s Garden. “Someone must have taken it.”

Arrow grunts an acknowledgement, then takes his rods and bolts and screws of metal, getting to work. He pairs them up, focuses on each individual piece, then carries the sisters in his arms to place them outside. He passes the Caldron girl on his way down the stairs. She watches him, wide-eyed, as if wishing he’d stop and chat with her and tell her sweet, encouraging things. You and Prat can console each other, he thinks darkly.

But when he reaches the foot of the stairs, she speaks up. “Why did you save me?”

Arrow stops, the metal pieces in his clutch clattering together. He doesn’t turn back to face her when he says, “You needed help.”

“But … I mean … w-what were you doing there?”

Six bullets. Five lives. “I was taking a stroll.”

The girl doesn’t speak for a long moment. Arrow, for whatever reason, remains perfectly in place. He listens to her breathe for a while, waiting.

Her feet shuffle, and he hears her descend several steps. From right behind him, she says, “Thank you.”

Arrow’s mouth tightens, and then he’s away from the staircase without another word, pushing through the swinging kitchen doors and out the back scullery exit, heading into the alley.

In the rich morning sunrise, Arrow circumvents the building, placing his charms in unassuming locations. He even plants a few across the street—a screw here, a stray metal rod there.

When he has but one left, he considers the metal cup-shaped thing, not even sure what the hell it is, but it has a matching sister upstairs in the loft that will whisper to him everything it hears. He strolls around the block, wondering where he’s yet to place an ear.

He trips over a crack in the road. The charm flings from his grip and clatters along the pavement. Round as it is, the freed thing runs away from him and plummets into the mouth of a sewer.

Arrow frowns. Well, if we have a visitor from the sewer, I’ll know.

He comes back in through the scullery door, then locks it behind him. He pulls the shutters over the windows, casting the whole kitchen into darkness. He moves to the front of the restaurant and gives a tug on the cord next to the front window, letting a heavy drapery down over the glass, protecting them from spies.

“Will the red light come again?”

Arrow feels his shoulders tense at the sound of her voice. His face wrinkles with aggression, his back remaining turned on the girl, who he quite wishes he’d left on that burning street in the sixth.

“Yes,” he answers darkly. “It comes for us all.”

“I’m immune to fire,” she says suddenly.

Arrow stares at the dusty drapes as they slowly settle into place, still swinging and unrested, like his belly, like his toiling stomach, like his electric head. An arrowhead comes out of Victra’s mouth. Arrow blinks away the image. Victra … killed by an arrow.

“It’s my Legacy. I … I can’t burn.” Her feet shuffle. Arrow keeps staring at the drapes as his fingers tighten into fists. “It’s how I got out of my house without a scratch on me. It’s why I survived and my family … my family …”

And is Arrow’s Legacy the reason he survived the attack on his family so long ago? While his mother was raped and his sister had her brain broken and his father was murdered … Arrow just listened.

“Will you please look at me?” Her voice trembles.

Arrow can’t stand another second of her. He moves around the girl and ascends the creaking stairs. He passes Prat on the middle level, who seems to have laid down the mattress and is inspecting its dusty sheets. Good. He’ll have yet another nice thing to bleed all over.

He reaches the loft and plants himself in front of his symphony of charms. It’s here that he’ll wait. It’s here that he’ll do nothing at all but listen to all his pieces of art and wait for any of them to speak. The rings on his finger. The rods and screws and bolts in the street.

The beating of his angry heart.

The whistling of wind through the broken window.

Arrow closes his eyes and curls up on the floor, ready to cry.

He squeezes his knees up against his chest. Prat had all his time. The girl had hers. It’s your time, now. He wills himself to let out all his tears. He’s allowed himself this space and this time right now to get it all over with, to purge it from his system, to grieve.

His dry eyes stare ahead, seeing nothing.

Seeing nothing, like Victra.

No tears come. He rolls onto his back, letting his legs stretch out frustratedly with a sigh. It’s not just Victra he’s let down, resulting in her death. He let Cintha away from him that day in the Core. He let her get away from him, and it was through a series of events set in motion by that one action that led to her being caught. Cintha’s gone and now Victra’s gone. If I ever see Rone again, I’m certain he’ll end my life in the most impolite way he can imagine.

And then a charm speaks.

“That’s why we wait,” comes a woman’s voice, sly and playful.

“For how long?” The other voice is a man’s, deep and booming.

“Until the city above is broken into pieces by the city above the city above. Let the big beasts eat each other. Then, the littler beasts will battle the littler beasts. And only when all the dust of war has settled down, we rise from the depths and claim Atlas as ours. We can last this siege for many months more. Years, if we have to. We have all the electricity. We have all the water. We have all the food. We—” Her voice echoes away, the charm missing the rest of them as she moves out of range.

Arrow blinks. He picks up the charm, a metal cup-shaped thing, its sister being the one that dropped into the sewer, into the depths below, into the darkness beyond the darkness …

He sees Victra blinking, desperate to see through the dark. The city above the city above … Arrow stares at the charm in muted alarm and waits, listening. Listening.

0171  Forgemon

He sits at the last table in the corner of the enormous commons room picking at a plate of Lifted City meats. It’s one of the best meals he has ever enjoyed. He even has a chrome canteen of berry blood to wash it down with.

Aphne circles around a group of men, appearing suddenly and plopping down in a chair across from him. Her short dark cropped-to-the-neck hair bounces as she sits, the spiky loose bits in the back wiggling. She drops her mottled green eyes to his food, then grabs a bone and gnaws a bit of meat off of it.

“That’s mine,” teases Forge with a smirk.

“Feasting like a King, are we?” She kicks him lightly under the table, inspiring a laugh from him.

“I never thought that a life-sentencing to the Keep would be the path I’d have to take to enjoy Sanctum-quality service.” He sucks the rest of the meat off a bone, then discards it to his plate. “I doubt even the Lifted are eating this prettily.”

“It’s what we get for playing our game smart.” Aphne licks the grease off her fingers, long and slowly; it’s less sexy than it sounds. “Did you hear about how Brane breached another chamber of armor next to the—?”

“Yes,” cuts in Forge. “I did. He was bragging about it for hours. If ever we needed to wage a war, we’ll be so armored that an outlaw’s bomb couldn’t penetrate us if it sat under our asses.”

“Well, let’s not get cocky now.” Aphne gives a teasing wink. “He’s such a brag, that Brane. How unfortunate, to have a name like that and yet have so little of it.” She taps her head. “Brains, I mean.”

“I got the joke.” Forge smiles and drops his last cleaned-off bone onto the tray. He sucks the meat out of his teeth, then goes to picking it out with a fingernail. “Sticky,” he mumbles through his finger.

Aphne squints as she watches him. “Rhine used to do that.”

Forge stops, lifting his gaze to her. He pulls his finger out of his mouth.

“No, no,” she says at once. “I didn’t mean it pained me in any way. In fact, the opposite. It’s kind of cute.”

“Fuck you,” he spits back playfully, plunging his finger back in.

Aphne grins. “Rhine would pick all the food out of her teeth after we ate. We were that comfortable around each other. She and I were just a month or so away from marrying, I’m quite sure. I wanted her for my wife, for my forever, always. That’s how true we were in love, Forge. I’m not sure I ever impressed that upon you.”

He pulls his finger out, then folds his arms on the table. “You did. Rhine occupies your heart. Ellena occupies mine, forever.”

“You need a shave,” she interjects, and Forge isn’t sure whether it’s her sudden attempt to shift topics to something less painful and heart-tugging, or if she is genuinely distracted by the unkempt beard Forge has since grown on his face over the past few months. “I forget what sort of chin you have. Is it cut down the middle like a baby’s ass, or does it come to a point like my grandma’s elbow?”

“It’s hairy like the cat between your legs,” answers Forge, and Aphne explodes into laughter, slapping the table and causing his tray to jump. His sense of humor has grown quite crude over the weeks, particularly influenced by Aphne’s constant presence around him.

And likewise, Aphne has found a certain appreciation for the intricacies of causality. That’s exactly the way she worded it one day when she spent an hour asking Forge questions about his Legacy, curious about the precise nature of it. The inquisition turned into a fit of laughter when he finally answered simply: ‘I know things.’

There is a man whose Legacy can sense the precise position of the sun in the sky, which turns out to be remarkably convenient, as the folk of the Undercity otherwise have no means to tell day from night. It is through this man that they know there has passed two months of war above them on the surface. They no longer refer to their prison as the Keep, as the dignity of being a human being is lost in that name. It is the Undercity, and runs as a city ought to run by all rights.

There was soon deemed a ruler of sorts when Sanctum broke apart, but he wouldn’t deign to call himself a ruler; he insisted that simply his name would suit him just fine. But that didn’t stop the others from choosing a name for him. King of Bones, they’ve come to whisper amongst themselves. The name comes from the peculiar situation in which his Legacy was learned. Shortly after Sanctum crumbled to madness, the Guardian and the keepers in the mines were rebelled against by the prisoners, and the resulting battle caused all four of the four exits to the mines to cave in, and several lives—both prisoner and prison guard alike—were lost.

One life, however, was found in the rubble of fallen rock and dirt. Half-buried, the young man was pulled out, and his bones were exposed along one arm. Snapped was his leg, and crushed was his skull. The miracle was that his eyes still moved, and though he was unable for hours to draw a breath, his lips still parted to say, ‘It was always my fear that I’d one day be buried alive. Thank you for both having me live that fear as well as helping me escape from it today.’

His Legacy was that he could not die, simply put. Cut off his air supply or break all his bones, the young man would live somehow. It was from the grotesque, bone-exposed way in which they had found him that he earned the title King of Bones. ‘If you sit me on a throne,’ he warned them, annoyed by all the attention, ‘I will turn it into a toilet just to show you how very kingly I’m not.’

Forge has found no reason to mistrust him. In fact, he likes him.

“I like him too,” murmurs Aphne later that afternoon when they are perched high atop a pile of barrels containing berry blood. “I think the Undercity needed someone precisely like him to lead.”

Forge studies the young slightly-deformed man, who’s handling a line of people, tiredly suggesting what they should do to manage certain disputes, and offering solutions to troubles they’re having in securing the one and only way out of the Undercity, which is heavily manned by over fifty guards—made up of their own—at all times. He tries to pick up on what is being said, but so many people talk all at once that it is difficult. Regardless of the warring opinions and heated words, the young King of Bones handles each concern with patience—despite the stressed, tired look of his eyes. The young man looks about the age of his son Aleks, though it’s hard to tell with his misshaped arms, scarred and reddened skin, and dented head.

And then he’s thinking on his sons. Here I am, feasting on the meals of the Lifted while my sons fight for their lives in the city above. The comforts he feels are guilty ones. He has only known stress and panic within his mind for decades. This is the first time in so long that he’s known peace within himself. But do I deserve it, when my sons could be dying or dead above me? And Ellena …

Ellena and her tangles of hair. Ellena and the spots of mud on her face and chin. Ellena and her hands that work magic when she puts them on his body. Forgemon Lesser closes his eyes and feels her hands upon him, dreaming of her touch. The way her fingers would bump as they pushed through the hair on his chest, as they clung to his big, metalworking arms, as they crept devilishly lower, lower, lower until he’d gasp with relief when she found her destination.

“Need a hand with that?” mutters Aphne.

Forge opens his eyes and glances downward, noting the stiff protrusion. He does nothing to hide it, turning toward Aphne with a wrinkle in his lips. “Changing our tastes now, are we? Suddenly got yourself an appetite for cock?”

“Aye, the kind I can wear and thrust in a woman’s body.”

Forge laughs. “Those exist?? In what ward? I’ve never—!”

“Oh, you’ve never heard of anything at all, have you?” Aphne lets out a hearty guffaw, slapping Forge on the back in the way his buddies at the metalshop used to. “For someone who knows things, to know so little. How else am I to give my lovely Rhine a good fucking? Am I to grow a dick in a pot and plant it ‘tween my legs?”

Forge snorts, leaning his back against the cold stone wall and watching the King of Bones handle the people. “He’s remarkably patient.”

“Aye.” She reaches over and gives the stiffness in his pants a flick of her fingers. Forge recoils, lifting a leg too late to block the assault, then winces and gives her a playful shove. “I’ve never had a brother. I could make one of you.”

“If you weren’t young enough to be my daughter …”

“Rhine had a brother twenty years younger than her. Name was … shit, I forget. Was. Fuck me, I’m speaking in the past tense again, am I? No, we’ll see them again. We will.” She brings her knees up to her chest, hugging them. “Even if she was executed that day, touched by Metal Hand—destroyed in an instant—or sentenced to another Keep for life.”

“Twelve Keeps,” mutters Forge, thinking on it suddenly. “One for each ward, I’d always presumed. But only four make up this Undercity, as the passages beyond these four Keeps have caved in. Do I have that right?”

“From what I’ve been told, you have that right.”

“Then what of the other eight? There’s eight other Keeps full of men and women. Could we not unite with them and share our resources? Our power is in numbers.”

“No. Your power is in numbers, math man,” she retorts. “Our power is in keeping what we have and letting Atlas starve away before we reclaim it.”

“So our power is in greed?”

Aphne sputters, about to argue something back, but then draws silent. “Well,” she says, “I guess that is sorta what I’m saying. You think it’s a good idea to invite eight other Keeps into our Undercity, though? Eight other Keeps, which might still be run by guards who keep to the old ways? And what of the prisoners, who we do not know? They might have their own leaders. Cruel leaders. Vicious leaders who would turn us over and shake out all our foodstuffs and comforts. No; even they we must be wary of. And besides,” she adds, kicking back and crossing her legs, “the electricity generators and the mines are in our Undercity. The other eight Keeps have nothing.”

Forge smirks, mulling it over and giving his beard an itch. It doesn’t make sense to him that they have nothing. They must have food, too. And water. And perhaps even electricity, even if the main generator is in the Undercity’s control. There may be other means of electrical generation elsewhere. It’d be arrogant to assume otherwise.

“We’re the city beneath the city beneath the city.” Aphne gives a wink before sliding off the barrels. “See you at sundown.”

Forge lifts out of his thoughts. “Where you off to?”

“Some lady with perky tits gave me the eyes in the food storage. I’m going to see if she wants something stored in her pussy.” She gives a lurid wiggle of her eyebrows before disappearing around the corner.

On his own, Forgemon takes to wandering the crowded halls and enormous commons rooms on his own. The math has kept away from him for quite some time, and he doesn’t miss it. There was a time when he was trapped in one of the cells of the catacombs, put there after being caught trying to escape. (There’s a tiny part of him that’s not sure he’s forgiven Aphne completely for failing her half of the plan.) It was in that tiny room in the catacombs—cell nine-thousand nine-hundred and twelve—that Forge’s Legacy seemed to spin out of control. He saw futures of fire and burning. He saw his sons’ deaths—all of them. He saw his wife with arrows in her. He saw birds falling from the sky, birds he thought he recognized as people. He saw a world full of water, the ocean, and through it he desperately swam, swam, swam … unsure until then whether he was even capable of swimming.

His Legacy had haunted him so terribly, and he’s ever glad not to be in that vile place anymore—mentally and physically. If he never again had an attack of the math, he’d count himself lucky.

Forge is in the armory suddenly, unsure how he got there. No one else is around except for another man near the door, who seems occupied with a clipboard he’s studying intently. Forge walks the aisle of armor—white breastplates of the Sky Guard, white gauntlets, white greaves, white codpieces, white leggings … and then the lesser slumborn models, discarded armors from Guardian who have been stripped of their equipment, or outright robbed. Forge stops to consider a leather suit of armor hanging on the rack. It carries the Guardian emblem on its chest. He wonders if Halvesand or Aleksand wear this very same thing.

The door to the armory opens, the awkward shape of the King of Bones slips inside, and then it shuts. The one by the door greets him quietly, then asks a question about something he’s read on the clipboard. The King gives a quick shake of his head, mutters, “Ask me later,” and then carries on toward the armor. The man with the clipboard smirks, appearing slighted, then departs the room.

And the King of Bones, apparently not having seen Forge, lets out a hearty sigh, then collapses under a row of armor. He stares up with big, blank eyes, muttering unintelligibly to himself.

“Hard responsibility, kid?” grumbles Forge lightly.

The King flinches, glances over at him, then gives a shrug. “It’s a long day, that’s all. And I’m no kid.” He sighs. “Not anymore.”

Forge sits down on the floor himself across the way from the young man. “Can’t tell your age, really. What are you? Twenty?”

“Twenty-four. You’re the math man, is that so?”

Forge blinks. “Who told you?”

“Your loudmouth friend. I like her. Her Legacy reminds me of my own,” he says.

Forge is confused by that comment. He isn’t sure how making adaptive copies of objects compares to being unkillable. “How so?”

The King doesn’t answer that. Then, he just grunts and says, “Too many things on the brain. I can’t keep it all straight in my head, all the decisions one has to make. Never wanted to be leader. Math man, tell me, how’s this all end?”

“How does what end?”

“This. Our siege. That. King Impis’s reign. How does it end?”

Forge has been proud of keeping the math quiet. A part of him genuinely fears waking it back up to ponder and calculate what the future may hold for them … or, even more frighteningly, what it may not hold for them. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you do.”

“My Legacy makes me lose my mind a bit. I’m afraid I haven’t tried to … posit a future in quite some time. I prefer the peace in my head.”

“Oh, how I can relate to that. You ought to be in charge, if you simply learn to live with the crazy in your mind. You might be the greatest weapon we have, really. Knowledge is a weapon. The things you know are … things no one ought to know. I’ve met a crazy man or two in my life who said a crazy thing or two. One once told me the world ends in fire. Is that true?”

The words send chills up Forge’s neck. He shifts uncomfortably, thinking of his time in the catacombs. I saw fire. “If it does, I hope there’s a way to prevent that future.”

“Ah, but there’s supposed to be. It’s all about the Goddess. What a bunch of shit that was.” The young man chortles derisively.

“How so?”

“I never got to find out.” He stretches on the floor. “Married?”

“Married? Yes … I am.”

“She here? Or out there?”

“Out there.”

“I hope she’s alright.” He props his head up with a scarred elbow dug into the floor. “It’s remarkable, the things people give up for a little bit of underground safety … and luxury. I’ve considered so many times just pushing through those guards we have at the gate and heading off on some grand adventure to find my parents. If they’re still alive.” He starts drawing shapes on the ground with his toe. “I could do it. Someone else would step up as leader. You could.”

“I can’t lead without the math. And with the math, I’m crazy.”

“You had the math before and you weren’t crazy. I saw you. They gave you twenty, didn’t they? Red? Those fucks. I would’ve liked a chance to turn the work onto them.” He chuckles, biting his lip and looking off. “Alas, compassion and being a leader and all that. What kind of example does it set to make our motto vengeance?”

Forge rests his head on the ground, staring up at the grated ceiling. A hum from some machinery somewhere reaches his ears, a soothing sound. “I’m not sure I’ve anyone to blame for my being here. I protected my son. Sanctum believed a lie. I’m not sure anyone came out proper in the end. I wouldn’t wish the world to be more vengeful. There’s enough of it in our hearts, I agree with you there.”

“Oh, but I didn’t say there’s no room for vengeance.” The young man smacks his tongue suddenly. “Your story is a noble one. Mine is foolish. I’m here because I trusted too easily.”

“That so?” Forge crosses his arms, kicking a foot up onto a metal leg of the armor rack. “Tell it true.”

“My best friend. Likely, my only friend. I was betrayed, and all these years, locked up for the crime of being slumborn. I suspect that is why the majority of us are here. I believe in vengeance. I believe in peace, too. And when I get my vengeance, I will have my peace.”

“Your best friend,” Forge says. “You wish him dead?”

“Aye, but that’s the hilarious irony of it. I cannot have him dead if I wished it. And with every passing day, I’m running out of time.”

Forge chuckles. The small, arrogant minds of twenty-somethings. “Don’t be silly, boy. Years and years more you’ll have. More time in this world than you’ll know what to do with. You’ll have ten loves, a wife someday, kids to care for, years to—”

“You’re wrong,” he interrupts, “and so are all of them. As it turns out, I am not unkillable. I am dying at this very moment. Dying with every passing second …”

Forge turns his head. “You’re ill? A disease?”

“You can call it that.” He sighs shortly. “And one day, without any warning, I will die. But so will he. And I suppose that’s the only vengeance a young fool like me can hope for.” He turns his head too, facing Forge. “You’re a good man with good ears. You’ll make a fine leader. But you’ll want to fight for the position.”

“I’m no leader.”

“You will be.”

The young man is on his feet in the next instant. Forge sits up, nearly knocking his head into a hanging set of greaves. “Where are you going? King?” Forge climbs to his feet. “King!”

He stops at the door, turns his face. “You will be the new King of the Undercity. Trust the madness in your head. It’s the only madness that’s strong enough to combat the one upstairs. And I am no King, not anymore. My name is Ames, and I’ll find my vengeance.”

The door shuts with a resolute thud. Forge is left alone in the armory with a ringing in his ears.

0172  Link

They’ve walked the Waterways for hours now, which look so unchanged that Link forgets they’re ten years in its past. As of yet, no magic passages have opened to beckon Link, nor has anything particularly brilliant occurred to him about his vision, nor has a runaway Goddess leapt out in front of them to introduce herself.

“I’m tired of walking,” complains Ames.

Baal stops quite suddenly. They are at a four-way intersection of canals. The water is surprisingly quiet in this part of the Waterways, nearly as still as a mirror pool. “Yes,” mutters Baal thoughtfully. “As am I. Perhaps we need some more of your great vision, Link, lest we walk all six million miles of the canals in search of a certain Sister who may not even be down here. Might another fraction of your great vision make better sense of the … water … within it?”

Link wonders if Baal means to mock him with the words “great vision”, but figures he isn’t in a position to take things personally. Partly, he doesn’t really even care if he is being mocked. If the vision was so straightforward as to pinpoint exactly where the missing Sister resided, they would be there by now.

“Another piece, please?” prompts Baal patiently. “Unless you feel it is in our best interest to continue—”

“If the missing Sister really wanted to be found,” reasons Link, a touch of his temperament lost, “perhaps she would have thought to leave me a more direct vision in that damn water.”

“Water.”

Link lifts his annoyed eyes to the time-walker. “Yes? Water. Lots of it in the Waterways. That’s where we are.”

“And that’s where you had your vision,” Baal adds with a nod at the mirror-still canal. “In there. Submerged. Drowning.” He steps up to the ledge, peering down at his reflection with curiosity. “Maybe she only connects to you in its depths?”

Link glances at it dubiously. Ever since that day, he hasn’t put his head beneath the surface of the water. The sensation of drowning was too painful, too terrifying … He can’t imagine putting himself through that again. Just the notion of it makes his bowels prickle.

“Try it,” Ames chimes in. “It’s worth a shot.”

Link looks back at an invisible girl, a girl he’s sure even Ames has forgotten about. I have not forgotten you, he’d say to her if he could. Feeling her invisible hands let go, he steps up to the edge of the sidewalk. He peers down stonily and his face looks back up at him, curious and fearful and far away.

“Well, I don’t need breath,” he reasons lightly. “So really, I have nothing to dread. Without breath, I will never drown again.”

“You will never drown again,” echoes Baal encouragingly.

Link crouches down, reminded eerily of Baron’s hand upon the back of his head, pushing his face through the water. But Baron is not here and never will be again. This time, Link will put himself in the water. It’s my choice.

He closes his eyes, then tips forward. The water brushes past him like a cool burst of air, enveloping him on all sides and pulling him into its depths. He keeps his eyes closed as he sinks, deeper and deeper. The canal is usually ten feet deep, sometimes just five; the depths differ. Regardless, it will only take a few kicks for Link to find the surface again, and he lets that knowledge comfort him as his body makes contact with the rough, stone bottom of the canal.

He turns onto his back, the water pulling and dragging on his limbs. Then, he lets his eyes open. Just the wavy surface above meets his eyes. No magic vision. No whispers from the dark. No sudden—

Singing.

He stirs, turning his head to the left. There is just the darkness of water in the canal. He slowly pulls his head right. Darkness. Did he just imagine that voice? He floats, motionless, and waits.

Singing again.

He turns his head toward the intersection where the four canals meet. The world shimmers and twists and dances before him, the water playing with his eyes. He watches and listens, desperate to understand. Is his mind playing tricks on him? The water fills his ears and sloshes around, just as it fills his eyes and nostrils. He must be hearing the pushing and pulling of water, certainly; no more and no less. Still …

He hears the singing again.

This time, he knows what he hears. It is a voice, and it hums that very tune he’s heard his mother sing. Of course there is a sliver of doubt that it’s the exact tune, but he knows he recognizes it, and the voice he keeps hearing is his mother’s—soothing, far away, sweet and gentle and lonesome.

Link can’t stand it anymore. He kicks from his spot, swimming in the direction of the song. His body twists as he swims, and his eyes catch sight of Ames and Baal above the surface. They seem to be following him, alarmed by his movement, if their erratic hands and desperate peeks over the brim are any indication.

But Link pays them no mind. Quite suddenly, he has an urgent, personal need to find the source of the singing. His feet kick faster and faster, harder and harder, until he’s in the intersection.

Three paths face him. One to the left, one straight ahead, and one to the right.

He closes his eyes and listens.

The singing persists, louder.

To the right he pushes, kicking his legs hard and desperately seeking the music. With a twist of his head, he realizes there is no stone pathway over the water for Baal and Ames to follow him upon, but he doesn’t care; if he can return to them with any clue or direction as to where the missing Sister might be, he will consider today a happy one.

The canal grows darker and darker the farther he swims. There is no light this way, he realizes, wondering why. The singing grows deeper, richer, more fluid. He pushes and pushes, kicking his legs as the black waters slowly swallow him.

He sees nothing, still he kicks and kicks.

The music, like a great mouth of underwater music, lets him swim down its infinitely large throat. His arms pull water, scooping it behind him in his crazed efforts to reach the source of that voice, that beautiful, haunting voice.

Then, there is a light. It’s so small that he doubts its existence until it begins to grow. Link keeps swimming, pushing himself toward it, his eyes wide-open. He blinks through the water, finding it turning colder and colder the farther into the darkness he goes. When he glances behind him, he realizes even the intersection is gone and all he knows is darkness in all directions.

The light is coming from above the water. He stops swimming, stilling his whole body. The singing still reaches his ears, tickling them with their alluring notes, some high and full of vibrato, some lower, filled with pain and longing.

Link’s heart breaks, listening to the melody.

It keeps pulling upon him with every long, hypnotizing note.

As slowly as he can, Link brings his head above the water. The song is much, much quieter now, which he finds peculiar, as he’d expected the opposite. The light is from a lantern, but not one on the wall. It’s a lantern being held by a hand, swinging as the figure walks down the path. It’s coming toward him, but is still some distance away, and it’s from this figure that the haunting music comes.

It is a girl. She hums the tune as she walks, the lantern gently swinging side to side. Each time it swings past her face, Link catches a fleeting glimpse of it. She looks young, possibly Link’s age, if he had to guess. Of course, he always thinks pretty young girls are all his age; it took a knocking over the head by Dran to realize that his fiancée Mercy was a good four years older than him.

Why is she singing that tune? She can’t be the Goddess, can she? No, of course not. The Goddesses don’t exist, and if they did and one of them was missing, she wouldn’t be in the form of a girl walking around the Waterways with no seeming purpose whatsoever.

She stops suddenly. Her humming does, too, and the lantern’s light settles. Just her face glows in the light, the rest of her lost in the shadows. Her eyes reflect alarm as she scans the area around her, listening intently.

Link watches without drawing a single breath or blinking. He moves no muscle, refraining even from a single flinch.

The girl glances behind her, the lantern jiggling a bit and tossing her shadow everywhere. She brings a hand to her chest, staring across the water, still appearing to be certain she heard something. Maybe she heard Link swimming beneath the surface. Maybe she heard the water lap against the sidewalk.

Link is drawn in utterly by this girl. She’s beautiful. She’s more than just beautiful; she is alluring. No female has ever had such an instant appeal to Link. Her cheekbones are high and her eyebrows are thin and curved, bent upward in caution. Her lips are perked and her mouth, small. Her eyes are far apart with the bridge of her nose between them being smooth and flat, giving her a unique, exotic sort of beauty. Her skin is warm and reddish in hue, though Link can’t be sure if that’s simply due to the lantern’s light. He can’t see her hair.

The fact remains that, in this sudden instant, he knows that no girl could ever match her beauty. He has an immediate desire to care for her, to help her if she’s lost, to protect her from the dark. If she told me she was a Goddess, I just might believe her.

Shut up, fool. She’s just a girl in the Waterways. Just a girl …

As soon as he has that thought, her face turns and her eyes find him immediately.

Link blinks.

The girl turns, running.

“No, no,” calls out Link, pushing through the water toward the sidewalk. “I’m not here to harm you! Don’t run!”

She doesn’t listen, running as fast as she can, the lantern light flashing and bouncing off the stones like a million fireballs cast down the throat of the canal.

Link pulls himself out of the water, clambering to his feet as he chases her down the sidewalk. “Please!” he calls out, his small voice echoing all around him. “I’m lost down here myself!” he tries to assure her. “Please don’t run away!”

Still running, the girl turns her head to shout something utterly unintelligible at her back. What the hell did she just say?

“Please!” he begs her.

She twists her head to scream another strange thing, the word coming out in half a hiss.

And then the walls shake. Something large falls from the ceiling, crashing into the water and casting a barrage of it at Link, which pushes him against the wall. He shouts out. Something else falls. Is the ceiling falling in? Am I being caved in?

The girl’s bizarre words echo down the hall as she runs away, and then the ground begins to stir. Link loses his footing, his efforts in running suddenly growing impossible to manage. He trips once, slamming into the ground. When he tries to stand again, something big and blunt crashes into his head.

He falls sideways into the water just as the ceiling comes down upon him, burying him deep in its haunting darkness.

0173  Wick

They take a break on the road through the eleventh, resting in the shadows under a paved overpass sandwiched between two tall factories, their chimneys of which issue no smoke. It’s under that cement bridge that he says, “I don’t want to fight this war anymore.”

He feels Athan stir at his side. They’re seated on the ground with Juston’s head rested in Athan’s lap. “Anwick …”

“I just want to go home.”

Lionis isn’t paying attention, or else he’s deliberately ignoring Wick and his outpouring, standing aloof at the other end of the underpass and staring up at the sky. Wick pays him just as little mind.

“What war do you mean?” asks Athan quietly.

“With the King. With the Madness. With …” Wick smacks his lips, bits of blood having dried upon them. Everything tastes like iron and salt. I’m so fucking exhausted. He shakes his head. “I just want to be home in the ninth. Right now. I don’t want to think about making the city right … or chasing the missions of Rain, pretending we have some kind of purpose. It’s all for … for nothing.” Wick feels a stab of sadness suddenly, and his eyes begin to well up. “I want to be home with my mom. I want to be home with all my brothers, safe and … and far away f-from …”

He can’t complete the sentence, his voice breaking down into a fit of sobs and pathetic sputtering. He buries his face in his hands as the tears start to flow. He can’t stop them no matter what he thinks, no matter what he says. He’s in pain all over. His arm stings. He is so tired that he can hardly move his legs. His mind is a delirious mess.

He feels Athan’s arm slip around his back. “I understand.”

“I just want to be home,” moans Wick, feeling like a child. He cries and he cries, leaning into Athan and burying his face in his boy’s muscular chest. He disappears from the world for as long as he possibly can, sobbing. His hands are sweating horribly, pulling upon Lionis’s power.

“I know that things are tough,” Athan says into his ear. “Things will always be tough … but why should we give up now?”

“All we wanted to do was overthrow a King,” whispers Wick, his sobbing having quieted. He speaks with a strangled voice, his nose plugged up. “Then he goes and gets thrown by someone else, and an even worse evil has taken his place. Look around you, Athan. Look around.” Wick lifts his head off of his boy’s chest, giving a nod to the left, to the right. “There’s no fucking city left to save. The slums? We can’t even manage to support ourselves. Look at us. The second Sanctum falls, we degenerate into thieves and killers and …” Wick laughs suddenly, struck by the irony of it all. “We are slum rats. Each and every fucking one of us. Take away the King that we hate so much, take away the oppressiveness, and what happens? We all turn into thieves and killers!” Wick suddenly can’t stop laughing, falling over onto his side in the effort. Soon, the laughs die out, and a ringing silence fills his ears. “We deserve what we got.”

“No, Anwick …”

“We deserve this.” Wick sniffles loudly, still resting on his side, not bothering to sit back up. “We’re the very rats that Sanctum accuses us of being.”

“See?” calls out Lionis, suddenly deciding to join in. “This is the Wick I’ve always known. My brave brother. When something isn’t fun anymore, he gives up.”

Wick pushes himself off the ground, lifting his gaze up to Lionis with eyes wetted by tears and widened with anger. “The fuck you just say?”

“I know you. How you are.” Lionis huffs and turns away.

Wick climbs awkwardly to his feet, a hand holding his ribs where a bruise is smarting. “Why is it always more important to you to correct me or cut me down instead of seeing that your brother is fucking hurting? Damn it, Lionis, LOOK AT ME.”

Lionis shakes his head, refusing to give Wick the attention he’s itching for. “We’re all in this same situation together. I’m calm. I have my wits about me. Athan there, he’s calm too. You’re the one who, like always, has to make a show of your emotions. And now you’re talking—”

“A SHOW??” shrieks Wick, instantly irate. “You think this is some fucking performance?”

“And now you’re talking about quitting the very thing you just unrested my life and yours to join. Now, suddenly, you don’t give two shits about ‘dreaming big’ … you just want to go home to your pretty pillows and dream on your own.”

“Holding that against me, are you? It’s always about the sleep,” Wick spits back, closing the distance between him and his brother. “Sleep, sleep, sleep. Calling me a BABY. You’re such a fucker, Lionis, and you know it. You do it to ANGER me. Condescending me with your knowledge, knowing that I have needs. I don’t blame you for having hot hands! It’s not my fucking fault that I have this Legacy!”

“Sleep isn’t your Legacy,” mutters Lionis smartly. “We all came to that discovery the day I learned that we had a sister you killed.”

The scream that comes out of Wick is nothing he knew he was capable of, and when he topples his brother, he sees nothing but the hazy veil of tears. His fists beat into flesh five times. He feels bone crack. A hand grips his arm, but he thrusts it away, still screaming in the blind, wetted rage of his eyes. He beats flesh again—once, twice, three times—and then arms wrap around him, pulling him away. He fights, kicking everywhere, forgetting his own wounds as they cramp and protest against his erratic movements and fury.

He collapses on the pavement breathing heavily.

“Lionis!” he hears Athan call.

Wick brings his hands to his face, blocking out the world as he tries to catch his breath. His knuckles sting. He hurts everywhere.

Only a short amount of time passes before he finds his breath again. Wick slowly rolls onto his side, then sits up, blinking away the tears and the rage. Athan is crouched over Lionis, who stirs on the ground. He’s moaning, bewilderedly kicking at something that isn’t there while Athan appears to be trying to comfort him, saying soothing things.

Wick drops his head back, clenching shut his eyes. All he hears is Lionis’s words, over and over. We had a sister you killed. We had a sister you killed.

Killed.

Killed.

Wick gnashes his teeth and brings his fists to his eyes, trying to swallow the rage that keeps generating within him, not letting him go. If he were to get on his feet again, he doesn’t trust that he would not simply launch himself at his brother yet again. The fury is so strong within him—at his brother saying that very harsh thing—that he feels no remorse whatsoever for the pain Lionis is feeling right now. Part of him can’t even stand that Athan’s over there consoling Lionis and not him.

We had a sister you killed.

Wick takes a deep breath, suddenly finding himself exhausted enough to drift away to sleep instantly if he let sleep’s persuasive arms wrap around him and take him away.

“Wick?”

He opens his eyes to Athan crouched over him. “Did I kill him? Did I fucking kill him?”

Athan sighs. “We can’t … We can’t fight like this. We need—”

“You did hear what he said to me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You heard what that self-important fucker said to me?”

A look of pain crosses Athan’s face. “That self-important fucker is your brother,” he says softly.

“He’s an asshole.” Wick sighs away the urge to scream, trying with all his might to calm down. If there’s any favor that’s been done, every ounce of grief he had earlier has now been completely converted to anger. Thanks, Lionis. “He’s an asshole. I didn’t kill my sister. Kill would imply that I meant to.”

“No, you didn’t,” agrees Athan gently.

“It was an accident. He even knows that. You FUCKER,” spits out Wick, half-sitting up. “You FUCKING KNOW THAT.”

Athan’s hand rests on Wick’s chest, but he’s glancing back at Lionis with a saddened crease to his brow. Lionis has sat up too, and it’s only now that Wick sees the trail of blood that runs from Lionis’s nose down his jaw, down his neck, and disappearing under his loose grey shirt. A red welt has already formed on his cheek, to which Lionis has tentatively placed a hand. Lionis seems to be looking at anything but Wick. Shame, Wick decides. He better fucking be feeling shame for what he said.

“I’ll be first to admit,” says Athan suddenly, his voice still calm and gentle. “My brother and I never fought like this. We did have our disputes when we were younger, though, and they led to some ugly arguments. But with his Legacy, he always had a way to manipulate a sense of calmness into effect. I wish I had that Legacy. I’d …” Athan loses track of his words, his eyes drifting. “Without my brother, I kinda feel like I’ll never be calm again.”

Those last words sober Wick. He sits up completely, drawing Athan’s saddened attention to him. He stares into his boy’s faraway eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Wick whispers to him.

Lionis tries to talk, then spits up blood on his chin instead. He coughs through it, holds his cheek, and asks, “Where’s my apology?”

Wick stares at his brother. “You’re choking on it,” he answers.

A muffled burst of static echoes down the underpass, and the three boys turn to look at Juston’s body. The muffled sound is then followed by a series of other tiny little emissions of noise, the Legacy that lives eternally within his corpse waking up suddenly for the first time since the Dark Abandon.

With a grunt, Wick lifts himself up from the hard pavement and staggers over to Juston. He crouches down by his side, then starts to stroke his dead friend’s blond, shaggy nest of hair. “Good morning, Mr. Markmake.”

He is determined not to be creeped out by the strange nature of auto-borne individuals, whose Legacies persist beyond their death. Instead, Wick will see it as endearing—Juston’s little way of saying hello to them from beyond the plane of the living … and reminding them that life is short, that it can be given or taken in the blink of a slummer’s eye, or in the burst of a sound, or in the flash of a red, angry light from the sky.

0174  Sedge

Another person hangs in the air by the telekinetic power of Yoli, who only needs to stare to keep a person in the air.

The day ends without Ruena. A body drops from the sky.

Splat.

The shattered Crystal Court has become a favorite spot of Sedge Arwall’s, and he can’t quite deem why. No one seems to come here. Despite the offputting atmosphere, it is remarkably calm. During the day, the sun is beautiful and glimmers through all the glass pillars and walls, creating a light show across the seats and the stage.

Another person hangs in the air—a man with long, curly hair. Yoli concentrates, his wide eyes and furrowed brow keeping him there.

The day ends without Ruena. The man falls. A scream.

Splat. The world is a splat.

Sedge is afraid of and in awe of Impis Lockfyre. He sees him so seldom lately, which gives Sedge both a sense of sadness as well as deep relief. He isn’t sure what he expected his life to be like up here with the new regime. Sedge didn’t quite have a plan when he freed them from their cells that day long ago. In fact, he’s not even quite sure he remembers making the decision. The day seems to change shape in his mind each time he recalls it, as if even his memories have a way of shape-shifting.

One evening when Yoli is occupied keeping another poor soul afloat over the edge of the city, the rest of Impis’s Chaots gather at the foot of Cloud Tower, which now leans slightly, and from the highest balcony, Impis stands proudly, his silks flowing in the wind and his vibrant colors visible even from down in the courtyard, which is littered with the likes of broken stone and shattered glass that has blown here from the Crystal Court, giving the courtyard the look of a great, dry plain of ruins—one single tower jutting out from its center at a slight angle.

“More powers!” Impis cries with delight, his voice carried to the people in the court by the Legacy of one of his Chaots, which Sedge doesn’t know or care for the precise nature of. “Legacies! Powers! Give me more powers! More, my Chaots! More, more, MORE!”

Sedge assumes the word “Chaots” had come from some random exchange of words where a fool tried to say the word “Chaos” and got tongue-tied, and ever since, the people took to calling Impis’s Posse his “Army Of Chaots” instead. Sedge doesn’t care if that story isn’t true; he’ll believe it over any other he hears.

“MORE!” shouts Impis, and the crowd of seventeen—or has it since dwindled to sixteen?—cheers him on. More, more, more …

Another day passes without Ruena. Another body falls.

Splat.

One day, Sedge Arwall himself could be standing at the top of that tower, though he might invest in a few strong builders to right its unsettling lean. It’d be an unfortunate way to start his Kingship by conducting court, only to have the whole of Cloud Tower tip right off the edge of the Lifted City, landing somewhere in the third or fourth with him and his Council and appointed Marshals inside it.

‘If you want to rule, you need to take strength, be near strength, or become the strength.’ Sedge read that once in school, and he always thought the wording to be peculiar. Why is taking strength the first suggestion? Being near strength made sense, as one might learn from it, much in the same way that Ruena was always running away to Cloud Keep to speak to her grandfather (it always annoyed him so much that she never took him with her) and becoming strength also made sense, as one fought to become strong.

But taking strength …?

He finds his answer in the least likely way he could possibly have expected. Sedge finds himself standing in front of the Mirand-Thrin Palace, which still sits in the same place it’s always proudly sat. The pearl statues are in the yard. The grass is even still green. The dazzling midday sun pierces the windows and makes the palace glimmer before him.

Just like old times, he morphs into a shapeless blob and slips through the grate at the side of the atrium, and from a pool of flesh and Legacy on the cool tile, he forms back into a boy. Sedge walks the inside of the palace, eerily quiet—even more so than it was when he used to slip in here without Ruena even being home. He moves into the enormous foyer, through which a spiral staircase gives access to the second floor, to the landing of the third, and then farther up into a sun tower in which Ruena used to read.

He stands in that foyer for a very long time staring up at that staircase. He tries to picture Ruena descending the steps hurriedly to answer the door. ‘One minute, Sedge!’ he’d hear her voice echoing. That makes him smile the most.

He finds his way to her room next, and from her closet, he pulls the prettiest, longest, silkiest silk he can find. It’s a shade of lavender and blush, mottled together as if the silk can’t make up its mind of which color to be. That’s okay, Sedge tells it. I can never make up my mind of which shape to be. He tosses the silk around himself, draping it over a shoulder and loosely knotting it at the neck.

King Sedge, the Silk King.

He prances to her vanity, opening her colors and her powders and her jewels. He tries on each and every ring, filling his ten fingers with ten dazzling gems. He gives his hands a wiggle in the reflecting glass, holding them at his chubby cheeks and blinking dreamily. He imagines his life upon a throne in the sky, kicking up his feet.

King Sedge, the Jeweled King.

He rubs the rouge upon his cheeks, sucking them in like Ruena once taught him. He draws purple upon his eyes, then dusts the blue of sapphires to his temples, like wings.

Sedge dances across the room in Ruena’s heels, and the clacking they make along the tile echoes through the house like castanets. I know what castanets are because of Ruena and her music and her love for the Ancients, Sedge tells himself, humming a made-up tune from the music Ruena once played him in her secret glass basement. And I know what a viola is, and a clariflute, and a pianochord, and a taiko.

His dancing ends at the full-length mirror before Ruena’s bed that they used to cuddle in and share stories. He stares at his chubby cheeks and his round belly and his stubby fingers.

The silk looks ugly suddenly.

The color on his face, hideous, out of place, ridiculous.

The heels, oversized and clumsy.

Sedge takes a step closer to the reflecting glass. He can’t stop seeing a stupid boy dressed in a woman’s clothes. His eyes drift to the shiny heels, to his weird belly, to his sunken shoulders. He sees a boy who gave up his only friend for a reason he can’t even name.

The taste of the makeup on his lips repulses him suddenly. The smell of Ruena—in her silks, in the makeup, in the light perfume that haunts the whole room—invades him like a sickness.

He unknots the silk, lets it drop to the floor. He pulls off Ruena’s rings and lets them drop to the tile one by one—ten tiny crashes. He kicks off the heels, letting them fly across the room, forgotten.

Sedge Arwall stands naked before the mirror. He watches his shape, dreaming, longing, lonesome. Slowly, and with the careful, delicate effort of a sculptor, Sedge watches as his body changes. He morphs his chest into two breasts, the best he can imagine them, having seen so few. He morphs his belly in, his hips out, and his legs a touch longer. The effort begins to exhaust him, sweat decorating his brow and appearing like tiny diamonds. He strains to lengthen his arms and bend his shoulders properly. He lets his hair grow long, long, longer, and the sensation is not unlike a person pulling upon his hair with anger.

His face is the worst of work. He forces his cheekbones up, which hurts. He pulls his lips longer, wider, which aches like a smile held in place for hours. He lets his eyebrows lift and his eyes shrink, and his nose pinches like a pretty button.

Sedge stares at himself in the mirror. A warped, deformed, odd, clumsy, elongated version of Ruena Netheris stares back at him.

Queen Sedge, the Unforgiveable Queen.

Queen Sedge, the Betrayer Queen.

Queen Sedge, the Freak.

He takes one step. With his unfamiliar feet, he collapses to the floor in front of the mirror. At once, his shape begins to revert, his legs shortening, his belly pushing out, his breasts pulling in, and his hair sucking back into his skull. He moans, feeling sick as his body rebels against him, exhausted of the shape he was trying to keep. By the time he settles, he’s curled up on his side, staring up at a mirror and seeing his pudgy little form staring back.

Why is shapelessness so easy? Why is becoming a human being so hard?

“Don’t cry.”

Sedge lifts his head at once, then melts into a puddle on the floor—a puddle with eyes that stare up at Arcana, the mind reader who stands by the door in a white, skintight suit that covers her body from ankle to neck, only her ebony hands, feet, and face showing. He glares at Arcana, furious that she’d found him. Did she follow me? Did she watch me dancing in Ruena’s clothes? Can she read my mind when I don’t even have a proper brain in this form?

“Yes,” she answers, “I can.”

Sedge slithers his form underneath the bed, hiding from her. His eyes keep a firm connection to hers, just so he can continue glaring.

“You’ve missed a meeting with the King,” she announces.

Sedge makes no response, partly because he’s without a mouth, and partly because he does not wish to admit that he didn’t know of any meeting today.

“Of course you wouldn’t know. It was spontaneous.”

It is so infuriating to not have a human’s right to the privacy of one’s own mind.

“Are we not friends, Sedge?” She pulls the chair out from the vanity, angles it toward the bed, then sits in it. “Do you not trust me? Is my sister Axel too scary for you?—what she can do?”

He tries to keep his mind as blank and thoughtless as the cool tiles beneath his amorphous pool of a body.

“Would you like to learn a secret?” Arcana crosses her legs. “My sister cannot control your mind unless you’re in human form. I can only read your mind because, well …” She shrugs. “I suppose I’m just better at what I do. Maybe my method of accessing the mind differs from the method my sister employs in … manipulating it.”

Sedge forms a mouth at the other end of the mass he’s become, opposite his eyes, simply to say: “Go away.”

Arcana narrows her eyes, nearly looking like a cat folding back her ears. “That secret was meant to comfort you.”

“Go away.”

She sighs and gives her head a shake, the one tight ponytail she keeps her hair in jostled for a brief second. “I think you mislike me because I heard your thoughts about Ruena Netheris, the runaway Queen we are killing one person a day to recover.”

Sedge looks up at her, listening.

“You think I’m going to hold that over your head. You think I’m going to run to King Impis and tell him your doubts. You think your place here in the sky is at stake due to the truth I can supply him.”

Sedge doesn’t need to think at all; Arcana can confirm or deny her own claim with just a peek into his mind, wherever it is.

Arcana leans forward in her chair. Her voice, despite the taunt behind her words, is calm and soothing. “I have no intention at all of revealing you to King Impis. I would be a fool to do that. Do you feel your sanity, Sedge? Do you feel that control you have over your dear and precious mind?”

Flaps of flesh draw over Sedge’s eyes to resemble his narrowing eyelids as he studies her, answerless.

“Me too,” she murmurs. “We still have our will. We have not given into the mania … and for a reason. Impis needs us. He needs us to think. He needs us to work. He is surrounded by idiots … and then he has you, and he has me.”

Sedge wonders why she doesn’t include her sister. Does she feel animosity toward her? Are the sisters secretly enemies?

“I wouldn’t say that much,” says Arcana, answering his unasked question. “But her heart and mind is filled with more darkness than I can stomach. It pains me sometimes to feel her thoughts … especially while she controls another’s. It’s a dark irony for a mind controller like her to have so little control of her own. To think so little with it.”

Sedge always thought Axel seemed more malicious than her sister. He noticed it ever since he saw them work on that boy in the slums with the claws-for-fingers, the one who was made to pull out his own father’s heart—his mind robbed, not knowing what he was truly doing.

“My sister has an especially cruel talent of being able to plant ideas,” Arcana goes on to say. “Sometimes, the effects of her Legacy can linger in the minds of those she touches. It’s scary. I can feel their brains pulsing with her power long after she’s let them go.”

“Why are you telling me this?” mumbles Sedge from his mouth, which slowly creeps over to his face where a few fingers and a chin has formed.

“Because I want to be allies with you, Sedge Arwall. I did not mislike the To-Be-Queen Ruena, not like my sister and Impis did. I believed she would be the change that our Last City of Atlas needs. I share your thoughts, Sedge, and like you, I cannot voice them. And, like you, I carry a certain …” She searches for the word. “Admiration. I carry admiration for King Impis. I fear I do not mislike him either.”

“He was my idol,” mumbles Sedge miserably.

Arcana heard that one word. Was. She nods knowingly. “He will be again soon, Sedge. Make no mistake. Impis himself is not his madness. He knows precisely what he does each day he spreads his chaos and his abandon and his reckless influence into the world.”

“More, he kept chanting. More, more, more.” Sedge shivers in fear each time he hears that word.

“More, indeed. Do you know what he seeks more of?”

“Power,” answers Sedge, two nostrils popping into existence under his eyes, soon shadowed by the bump of a nose.

“Think bigger.”

Sedge feels himself oozing out from under the bed. His hand takes hold of the silk, pulling it over his form like a great silken bed sheet. “He wants his Twenty-Two back.”

“Bigger, Sedge. Bigger, bigger.”

He rises slowly off the floor, holding the silk over his shoulders until soon he’s himself again, standing before Arcana with Ruena’s prettiest silk wrapped around his body.

“Outliers,” he finally says.

Arcana’s eyes are alight with intent. “Impis has sent Chaots into the slums with the lists he’s made from every Legacy Tour. He wants them gathered and their minds bent to his will. Of course, you know this already because you were with me at the top of that tower.”

Sedge feels himself grow cold. “Yes, I was. He did the same thing with the Weapon of Sanctum, didn’t he?”

“Yes. His precious Weapon that got away from him. Yes, you know of it. So Ruena has not kept you entirely in the dark, it seems.” Arcana gives a wink at him.

He doesn’t return it, still unsure whether he can trust her. He holds the silk tighter around his body, his eyebrows pulled together as he stares at her cautiously.

“With each soul Impis brings close, it’s another power at his disposal. He will amass an army of Outliers to do his bidding. Forget his Posse, dear Sedge. Forget his Twenty-Two. He’ll become a King with Ninety Legacies to play his games with.”

“Ninety …” Sedge can’t imagine where he himself fits into this grand plan. He feels so alone suddenly, so outnumbered, so lost in the nightmare of his own creation …

“Don’t be afraid.” Arcana takes a step toward him. Sedge takes a step back. She smiles ruefully, then says, “Don’t be afraid, for I have a plan. And my plan involves one of those boys on one of his lists … a boy who slipped through his fingers in the ninth.” Arcana purses her lips, blowing Sedge a kiss. “Wear your colors proud, my doll. You are a beauty this world has never known.” She turns to leave the room, her feet softly padding along the tile.

Sedge stares after her. “How will this boy help you?” he calls out to her, his voice echoing down the throat of Ruena’s empty palace as he follows her to the front door. “What is your plan?”

Arcana stops, turns her head, then says, “It isn’t much of a plan if I don’t get to him before my sister does.”

The doors to the Mirand-Thrin Palace close softly behind her. Sedge stands there in the enormous foyer with hope burning in his chest, and Ruena’s long, colorful silk hugging him as tightly as a lost friend’s consoling embrace.

0175  Rone

Rone stands at the island counter with juice dripping down his chin from the fruit he’s taken too big a bite out of. Ruena watches on the other side, her eyes curious and full of thoughts.

“Delicious,” he says through the bite, flecks of juice spraying onto the counter between them.

Ruena bats at his hand playfully. “If you want to be a proper Lifted Lord, then you will learn to not speak with your mouth full.”

Rone screws up his face. “Lifted Lord?” he blurts through a full mouth of fruit. “Lord Rone? … Really?”

“Lord Tinpassage, they’d call you. And you must own a home in the Lifted City. And your father must be a Lord. Those are the rules.”

The mention of his father brings his mind instantly to a dark moment in his life. If Rone blinked, he’d see it all in one fast, painful instant. The Lifted City man who was being robbed. Rone’s father, who saved the man and chased off the robber. The Guardian who came, and the wrong assumption that was made. Rone’s father being arrested for the robbery. The Lifted City man who didn’t speak up to correct the mistake of the Guardian. The Lifted City man who only looked down at young Rone and said that all slum rats are the same.

“What’s wrong?”

Rone lifts his eyes, realizing he’d let his face go as dark as his mind just did. “If one’s father must be a Lord, then how does one born of the slums ever advance to the Lifted City?”

“A Lower City citizen,” she corrects him, “would prove himself in a Legacy Exam. If that opportunity doesn’t appease him, he could attain a job under a Lord or Lady, eventually working himself into a position of due respect and reward. He—or she—would be deemed an honorary Lord or Lady, and may find a place in the Westly, or in the Glassen District. Once he or she has a child, then that child will be a proper skyborn, and in his or her life, will earn the Lord or Lady title when they come of age.” She smiles, proud of her rhetoric.

Rone simply stares at her, somehow even further incensed by the long, annoying explanation. Thoughts of his father only further redden his anger. Ruena has lived a life of privilege and wealth. She may sympathize with the lowborn, but she doesn’t know what being lowborn means … and she never will.

“So he must jump through fire, cast a magical spell, and then wish upon a star? Is that how a slum rat like me becomes Lordly?”

Ruena picks up on his sarcasm, her face reflecting it with due sourness. “Well, I didn’t very well create the system, now did I?”

And now she sheds herself of any guilt. What a typical Lifted thing to do. “No. You simply lived in it on the daily,” grunts Rone.

“It was going to be part of my Queenship to change that very system,” she argues lightly, propping her elbows upon the counter.

She snatches the half-eaten fruit from Rone’s wet hand, helping herself to a dainty bite. He watches her, his heart pushing through a tunnel of anguish in which he keeps seeing his dad at the end of that alleyway and a haughty Lifted City asshole telling him who he is.

“What’s that?” she asks suddenly after swallowing.

Rone follows her eyes to the small vial he’d taken out of his pocket. He snatches it back into his palm, gives it a rueful look, then says, “My last swig of chemical.”

“Chemical?” Ruena lifts a suspicious eyebrow. “Do you mean … illegal chemical?”

“It is quite common in the slums. And no King’s rule I know of outlaws the imbibing of this tasty, necessary substance.” His words carry a bite, as his mind still dwells in that fateful alleyway with his father and that heartless Lifted man.

“Let me have that swig,” Ruena decides suddenly, her back straightening. “I feel I’ve earned it. I want to know what it tastes of.”

“No.”

The cold word seems to startle Ruena, as if it’s the first time in her life she’s ever been denied something she’s asked for. “I believe that the Queen has requested your last swig, Rone Tinpass—”

“I am saving it for when I find my sister,” he answers, the play and the humor gone from his voice as he stares down at the vial, his eyes hardened.

Ruena doesn’t seem to regard his emotion, taking another loud, demonstrative bite of the fruit. As she crunches away, Rone thinks on the first several swigs he’d taken from this vial, and the day he realized he had but one little pinch remaining within its glass walls. I’ve one swallow of chemical left. I’m saving it for when I find you.

“And you think Greymyn would’ve approved of your change in the system?” asks Rone, pocketing the vial and folding his arms over his bare chest. He cocks his head, staring at Ruena’s confused face. “Y’know, your little system for how a slum rat can climb their way up to the city of gold? You think that screaming buffoon in the sky would’ve liked your ideas, Queen of Unity? The very one who likely executed my father that day long ago for a crime he didn’t commit?”

Ruena stops chewing. Her eyes dry up and she swallows her bite. “Excuse me?”

He hadn’t told her the story. She knows nothing of his father, yet Rone goes on anyway. “The truth is, this city only works when the rich are kept rich and the poor grovel at your pretty feet. Work for a Lord or Lady? Impress them? Play a lottery of Legacy Tours? The skyborn should be grateful our kind exist. That fruit you’ve got in your pretty little hand?” he blurts out, pointing at the fruit like an accusation. “That fruit was picked from a garden in the Greens by a hardworking slummer with sweat on their brow and so little money in their pocket that I doubt they could even afford to buy the very fruit they’re paid to pick. We starve. You feast. We work. You bathe in pools twice the size of my living room.”

“Rone,” she says sharply, dropping the fruit onto the counter.

“Don’t like what you’re hearing? How about this: In the slums, I was a member of an elite group of rebels called Rain. And our one and only mission—”

“Rain … Let it rain …” murmurs Ruena pensively.

Rone continues over her words, ignoring them. “Our one and only mission was to find our way up into your precious city, get into Cloud Tower, and rip out the tongue of the Banshee once and for all. We lived, worked, and bled by that dream.”

Now Ruena looks as if he’d reached across the counter and slapped her. “That’s my grandfather you’re talking about.”

“Well, it doesn’t much matter what our purpose was anyway, now does it? Someone’s gone and done the job for us.”

Ruena’s gaze drops. At first, she seems to want to refute what he says, a certain storm brewing in her eyes. Even her hair seems to grow disturbed, as if electrical charges were building up inside her like an automatic defense mechanism.

Instead, she takes a short breath, then says, “I’m sorry.”

She says the words sullenly to the counter. Rone wants to accept the apology, but he knows not for what she’s apologizing. She could be sorry she ever let the slum likes of him inside her. She could be sorry that he was born in the slums at all. Perhaps his life—and hers—could have been so much more different had he been born to a quaint, adorable, slipper-wearing family in the Westly. How lovely their lives could have been, sharing polite afternoon cups of tea and pretending to listen to each other over the pomp and clatter of silverware during family dinners.

“You were going to save the slums?” he asks, though his tone hardly indicates his words as a question. “That was your plan as the next Queen of Atlas? To save the slums?”

Ruena still doesn’t look at him. Her sadness is starting to look a lot like sulking, which annoys Rone even worse.

“But then you gave up, didn’t you?” he keeps going. “You let a madman take the throne. Now where are all your wishes and plans? Who’s going to save the slums now? … or my sister?”

“I never wanted to be Queen.”

Rone watches as the young woman before him seems to wither, her eyes mourning the fruit she’d just dropped onto the counter. She takes another short breath, then steps away from the counter and leaves the kitchen.

He follows her halfway into the den. He watches as she moves to the side of the den that’s fallen in. The ceiling is folded downward, becoming an unintended wall of rubble and cracked stone that block anyone’s way in or out. She puts a hand to that ceiling, as if listening to some tale of heartache it was silently sharing. Maybe it does have such a tale. Maybe it knows its occupants and mourns their loss, every day. Maybe it despises its new tenants, how they disrespect the memory of the Lifted family that once lived here, how they bathe and fuck in their pool, how they lie about and fuck in their den, how they grope each other and fuck in their indoor garden, how they eat up their food and fuck.

“We could end Impis,” murmurs Rone across the room, curious if his words can still touch Ruena, or if his bitterness has gone too far. “You, me, Erana. We just need a plan. A really good plan. We are here. We are here and they … Impis and his crazies … they are right outside our door.”

“We can’t do anything.”

“You have storms in your fingers. Walls and doors are nothing with me. Erana permanently knows every detail of what she saw the day of your coronation, down to the very color of Janlord’s shoes.”

“Don’t you speak of Janlord,” Ruena hisses, her eyes shut and her palm flat against the rubble.

“Good. Be angry. I’m angry, too. And it’s that anger that will get us into Cloud Keep. It’s that anger that will fight for justice. It will get my sister back. It will mend this Lifted City. It will pacify the slums. It will get your throne back.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Then it will rid the throne of a madman and allow the buttocks of a better Lady or Lord upon its cold surface. I don’t care. I just want my sister so I can finish off this last swig of chemical, and the only man knowledgeable of her precise whereabouts is dead.”

He only just now notices the hum in the room. Ruena’s hair is starting to stand on end, and her hand has not left the wall. Rone takes a few steps back from it, suddenly ready to phase himself if the To-Be-Queen decides to have an unplanned ejection of electricity; he’s been in its path before and only narrowly escaped its full charge.

“Ruena?” comes a voice from the garden.

The hum in the room begins to subside. Ruena’s hair is almost fully risen, all of it floating about her as if held up by invisible strings. She turns, her eyes faintly aglow, and stares at Erana with a weary, emotion-wrung face. The women watch each other for a long while, neither of them seeming to even draw breath.

Then Ruena does, and with her breath she says, “And what is your take on it, Lady Knowledge?”

“I-It would be Lady Sparrow. That is, if I were a Lady, which I’m not. I’m slumborn, too. Sixth ward.”

“Do you prefer to fight a temporary war with a King, or enjoy a temporary peace here with a Queen, Erana Sparrow of the sixth?”

Erana lifts her little eyes at the full title of her slumborn name, seeming to be inspired by it. All her dark hair is pulled over her left shoulder, resting over her breasts. The hair moves with each breath she draws, which Rone can’t help but notice.

“Peace,” Erana answers simply. “I’ve never known the pleasure that I’ve known within these walls, all my life. Rone. Ruena. You two have given me more than a hundred permanent memories ever can. The usurper didn’t gain a throne that day. Not to me. You did, Ruena. He merely sits in it wrongfully. You are the true Queen. You are my Queen.” She pulls on her own hair, fiddling with the ends and running her fingers through it. “That’s my take.”

Ruena moves her faintly glowing eyes to Rone. “And you, Rone Tinpassage of the ninth?”

Rone presses his lips together, considering her for a long while. Then, almost lazily, he gives a short nod and says, “War. And peace.”

“And if you could pick just one?”

He considers. “You … are the only authority in Sanctum that I would honor. My heart may not be truly complete without knowing that my sister is safe, but …” He takes a breath. “I will make it my own war if it will not be yours.”

“You still have yet to answer the question,” she points out.

Now he feels the pinch of a smile on his scowling lips, enjoying how Ruena pushes him. “Peace. And I have known that I wanted it since the moment you threw lightning through my phased chest. You are Queen Netheris, the Queen of Unity.”

Her eyes smarten, listening.

“Unity,” he repeats, a touch louder, stepping forth. “As in, the one who will unify slum and sky … Lower and Lifted … peace and war …” He brings himself up to her front, unafraid of the charge within her. He puts a palm on her cheek. “Why can’t we have both?”

“Because one is the cost of the other,” she murmurs, “and I am so tired of feeling like the piece between two great forces … when I’d much rather be the peace.”

Even with the words sounding the same, the meaning is clear to Rone, who gives a short nod, then draws her in for a tight embrace. And it’s behind her back with his eyes locked knowingly on Erana that he makes the decision. I must leave our false heaven without their knowing. The quest to find my sister is my own. Not theirs.

0176  Link

He opens his eyes. Waterways. Round ceiling. A dome, perhaps.

He tilts his head to the left a bit. A glowing light from a lantern illuminates this domed room. He still seems to be in the Waterways. Water pours from a long, rectangular hole in the ceiling, raining down in a smooth, gentle sort of waterfall that is nearly soundless.

Or perhaps it’s that Link’s ears are filled with water. He gives his head a tentative shake, confirming the theory. I’m all full up. When he finally sits up, he discovers precisely how “full up” he really is as water slowly pours out of his mouth. With only a moment of dread, Link finally turns himself over as best as he can and begins the laborious and annoying process of emptying all the water from his stomach and throat, coughing and heaving until he feels himself adequately emptied.

When sound returns to him, he hears a shuffling across the room. His eyes don’t deceive him; he saw the girl for just a moment before she hid herself from his line of sight, putting the wall of water between them.

He peers around the room. It appears to be a dead-end to one of the canals. He hasn’t until now realized any of the halls have an end. Link slowly rises off the ground, observing the room farther. There is a gathering of pots and clay vases in one area. Farther off, he sees a lived-in pile of pillows and blankets and clothes. The room is a dome of stone, and a channel of water—fed by the long hole in the ceiling—starts at the center of its floor and leads out through the only visible entrance or exit. Beyond that exit, Link only sees a single canal of water that disappears into the empty lightlessness.

He glances back at the waterfall, catching the girl peeking out again from behind it. She hides.

Link tilts his head, attempting to regain eye contact. He circles the waterfall clockwise. She does the same, keeping the gentle flow between them. “Hello?” Link calls out softly.

The girl says nothing.

Link stops, studying her figure through the thin waterfall. He can’t tell much, the wavy water distorting her. For the first time since his drowning, he finds himself thankful for Baron’s gift of unlife; there is no possible way a person could have survived being crushed in by a falling ceiling and being pinned deep underwater. Not many can say they’ve survived drowning twice.

“I really won’t hurt you,” he promises. “I have no intention. I … I don’t even know who you are.”

The girl whispers. Link doesn’t understand anything she says. Through the distortion of the water, he thinks he sees her hands go up to her mouth as she hisses into her fingers.

Then the water stops pouring at once. The curtain dropped, the two stare at one another across the canal.

Her Legacy is in water, he realizes, staring at her in wonder. And she is quite a curious sight to behold, indeed. She doesn’t have a single hair on her smooth, spritely head. The girl’s eyes are beautiful and vibrant, perhaps even more so with the lack of hair. And despite them being strange and curious and far apart, Link finds them utterly hypnotizing, like he could stare into them forever. Her eyelashes are long, giving her a sweet, fragile appearance. The only bit of clothing she wears is a slip of fabric to cover her full breasts and another that hangs off her hips. She has nothing on her petite hands or feet.

The room fills with silence and peace, the water below having been stilled by her words and the water above no longer pouring.

He’s stunned by her ethereal beauty. Maybe she is one of those exotic women from the second ward who know other languages, far from home. He had heard the girl say a word or two that he didn’t understand. That was right about when the ceiling caved in on him. “M-My name is Link.”

The girl says nothing in return. She only watches him, though now she appears somewhat less afraid. Her lips are parted with the possibility of wanting to say something, but she doesn’t. She only breathes softly, one hand on her chest, as if to express her caution, the other hanging loosely by her side.

“I … I was separated from my friends,” he goes on. “I came here with two … well, with three of my friends. We were looking for something in the Waterways. Well, someone. Kinda.”

She still says nothing.

“I heard singing.” Link catches himself wringing his hands, then lets them settle by his sides. “I felt compelled to follow it. The tune was familiar, actually. Was that … Was that you singing?”

Her eyes soften and her breaths come slower. She seems curious and attentive. Link can’t tell if she’s coming to trust him, or might still run if he tries to approach her. For all he knows, she doesn’t even understand a word he’s saying.

“You have a beautiful voice,” he tells her.

“Thank you.”

Link lifts his eyebrows, startled by her unexpected answer. The sound of her voice is musical in itself—crystalline and smooth. He is awed at once, hearing her unusual voice. “Oh. So you do speak my language. M-My name is Link,” he says again, then extends a hand.

The girl stays right where she is. Her wide eyes flit downward. Link realizes how foolish he must look, reaching out for a handshake while he’s halfway across the room.

He drops his arm when he realizes she’s not taking it. “Do you live down here?” he asks. “W-With the water? Is it because of your Legacy?”

She shrugs. The gesture is oddly casual.

Link feels lightened at once. “Maybe you are lost too, then. Lost like me. Lost like … like the person I’m looking for.”

“Is the person your friend?”

Hearing her voice again sends chills of delight up his arms. “Um, yes,” he says, figuring it a better answer than the full explanation, which he’s not sure he even wants to believe. “I have a strong feeling that she’s down here in the … canals.”

“I’m sorry.”

Link lifts his eyebrows. “For what?”

“For hurting you. And for your missing friend.” She frowns, her big, gorgeous eyes hypnotizing Link even when they’re sullen.

“It’s okay,” Link assures her. “I’m … strong.” He’s never felt it appropriate to say that about himself, ever. He’s always been the smallest of his brothers, and has never felt strong or big or powerful. “Where are you from? The ninth?” She shrugs again. “I’m from the ninth,” Link volunteers, “but I don’t know these parts of the tunnels. My … f-friend could be anywhere. She can be—”

“Do you need help finding her?”

Her voice is so kind and genuine, untouched by the heaviness of hardened slummers. She’s a girl of the Waterways, Link decides. Orphaned and on her own. She’s not a Goddess. Quit thinking it. I know it’s what you’re thinking, foolish self. “If you know your way around these tunnels, I … I think I could definitely use the guidance. You’re very kind to offer.”

She doesn’t smile, but her eyes seem to. “Thank you, Link.”

Perhaps she’ll just tell me she’s a Goddess. Would it be that easy? “W-What do I call you?” he asks tentatively.

“Faery.”

He smiles at that. He isn’t sure what name he expected, but it certainly wasn’t Faery. She pronounces it with a strong emphasis on both syllables: Fay-Ree.

“Faery,” he repeats back to her. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too, Link. And thank you for—”

Before her words are finished, a light appears in the tunnel leading out of the domed room. Link and Faery back away from the approaching light, wary at once. It is from a torch, glowing and fiery and dancing. It lights up two faces.

Ames and Baal. “I don’t believe it …” murmurs Baal.

“That’s her?” blurts Ames, his eyes wide and unblinking. “That’s the Goddess?”

Faery grips Link at once, half-hidden behind him and trembling.

And now it is Link who experiences a storm of self-doubts and confusion in his mind. They think she’s the Goddess, too. Am I being completely naïve? Am I a fool not to see what’s so clearly in front of me?

Or rather, directly behind me? “She’s lost down here,” Link tells them, his voice faltering slightly. “She’s … going to help us.”

He still feels Faery trembling behind him. Why is she scared at all, after the power she displayed to him? She has the seemingly infinite command of water at her grasp. Can’t she instantly drown the ones who threaten her? If Link was her, he certainly wouldn’t be afraid of a middle-aged time-walker and a wimpy-looking half-burnt boy with a torch.

“She’s not a Goddess,” Link states with more confidence. “Does she look like a damn Goddess to you?”

The two stare at him through the dancing torchlight, their wide-eyed expressions seeming to answer his question. Link would be a fool not to acknowledge the girl’s odd beauty and otherworldliness himself, but he hardly thinks that it proves she’s one of the Sisters.

Faery whispers into his ear, “Your missing friend is a Goddess?”

Now it’s Link’s turn to shrug lightly. “I guess so. Something like that.”

Faery smiles. She wears the expression adorably, making Link’s heart light at once. “This sounds like fun!” she sings privately to him.

Link feels warmed by her clinging to him, giving him a heroic sense of pride and power. She trusts me. I am her defender, this girl of the Waterways with the power of water at her disposal—a true and powerful Elementalist.

But if there is a tiny possibility that this strange girl could be the Goddess—pieces of his vision having led him directly to her, where she was humming the very song he’d heard when his first life ended and this second life began—he’s not sure he’s ready to give her up so easily to Baal. I wonder if I can trust him any more than I could trust his brother.

Link faces the others with a plan. “It’s possible that the Goddess is down here. But … maybe we’re not in the right spot. We should consider the other parts of my vision and … maybe … we can find her in the Dark Abandon.” He spontaneously borrows a suspicion that Baron had had before. “I s-saw darkness when I was drowned. Lots of darkness. I saw ghostly figures, too. It makes sense to me that—”

“You take me for a fool, Link?” asks Baal.

The question comes out sounding oddly polite. Link lifts his eyebrows, unsure what to make of it. “Not at all. It’s the truth. I saw darkness and three ghostly figures that may or may not have been the Sisters. They looked like the murals of the Sisters at The Brae.”

“He tells it right,” confirms Ames, his suspicious eyes studying Link’s from across the room, and for a moment, Link can’t tell if Ames is catching on to Link’s guardedness and is playing along, or if he is just as easily falling victim to Link’s game with Baal, assuming the girl to be just a girl and nothing more. “B-Back in the Waterways in our own time. He mentioned three figures in his vision …”

“Ghostly figures,” corrects Link. “And they were Three Goddess, most likely, and they were in the dark.” Link lifts his chin to appear far more brave than he feels. “I think the Dark Abandon is our place.”

Baal’s eyes, heavy-lidded and reserved, speak a thousand words that his twitching, thin-lipped mouth cannot. After the pummeling sound of water gushes in their ears for a solid minute, the man finally gives a curt nod. “Very well. We will make for the Abandon, then. Your new … friend … can help guide the way there, yes? Your girl of the canals?” he asks, his words clipped.

Link fears his ploy is not starting on a strong foot. Faery holds on to Link tightly, which warms him. He turns his head slightly, leaning into her. “Would you … like to help us find a Goddess? Your Legacy of water could prove really useful.”

Her eyes seem doubtful, and for a worried second, Link assumes that she’s changed her mind. But to his surprise, she nods meekly.

Ames waves his torch, impatient. “This way, then. We found a path around the cave-in.”

The moment Link takes a step toward his friends, he finds Faery joined to him like an article of clothing, and her hand shoots out to take his. He smiles mutely, accepting the grip and feeling like a sort of guardian over her—this strange, beautiful girl of the canals. He joins Ames and Baal who lead the way into the jagged shadows.

Only when the darkness swallows them whole does Link feel the invisible brushing of yet another presence at his side. He allows himself a private sigh of relief.

0177  Wick

They pause again in the eleventh by a barred sewer opening, through which they hear the endless rushing of water. The noise of the water and of the coughs of Juston’s Legacy seem to cancel one another out.

“We can’t sleep yet,” murmurs Athan in Wick’s ear, stirring him from a half-remembered dream of a river, the sound of rushing water in his ears. “Just a bit farther before we meet up with Arrow, yes?”

And even farther than we’d planned, Wick would grumpily spit back, but he hasn’t the energy. Arrow and Prat had relocated back to the Noodle Shop at the end of ninth, lengthening Wick, Athan, and Lionis’s journey by the distance of two entire railways. Every alley they pass, Wick mourns, thinking it the perfect place to put down his head and drift away. So furious is he at himself for having this most inconvenient condition.

Yes, that’s what he calls it. It isn’t his Legacy anymore. It’s an illness, a disability, a broken part of him that doesn’t conform with all the rest of the citizenry of Atlas. “Why?” he muses out loud as they stagger down a backstreet of the tenth. “Why dreams? Why sleep? Why the curse …?”

Lionis hasn’t said a word since their fight in that underpass. He breathes funny now, his nose stopped up with dried blood and likely broken, if that cracking sound when Wick’s fist met his face was any indication. Wick hardly recalls the fight at all; it’s like some bizarre dream he had days ago. Twice he’s fought an instinct to ask Lionis what happened—until he remembers what he said. Those words, I’ll never forgive him for. How dare he think he can get away with any thought he lets fly from his stupid, arrogant mouth. Juston’s body is now slung over Athan’s shoulder like a sack of meat from the ninth ward market, his arms dangling down and his Legacy coughing out a sudden, startling noise every few paces. The boys have since grown used to it, and no rogue in the night has disturbed them.

“Broken broadcast,” murmurs Wick sleepily. “Just like one.”

“What?”

“The noise. Juston.” Wick staggers, nearly colliding into a trash bin, then rights himself and keeps up with the others. “He sounds like a … just like a broken broadcast.”

The boys pay little mind to Wick’s half-asleep mutterings, much to Wick’s comfort. For most of the way, they’re silent. Twice, Lionis offers to share the weight of Juston’s body with Athan, to which he seems quite grateful, and though it makes the endeavor of carrying Juston a touch more awkward, it also makes the poor boy lighter.

When the familiar street looms ahead, Wick feels his heart grow as weightless as a bug bouncing from plant to plant in the Greens. The boys turn onto the street that was once their home away from home. “Arrow,” moans Wick drunkenly, hardly able to lift his voice enough to make a shout. “Arrow. Please. Let us … Let us in.”

Arrow is at the front glass doors in five seconds, pushing it open to let in three exhausted boys and a friend’s corpse. Juston is laid across one of the booths in the Noodle Shop, and Athan and Lionis stare at him a while silently. He could be mistaken as a boy who’s been knocked unconscious; it’s the closest thing to sleep that anyone above the age of two can hope for.

Except for Anwick Lesser of the ninth, who curls up in a dusty booth at the opposite end of the restaurant and shoves his red hoodie under his head for a pillow. The world is gone the very second he closes his heavy eyes.

0178  Athan

Athan stands at the top of the stairs while Arrow fishes through a bucket of supplies for something to nurse Lionis’s wounds with. Prat sits at the old wooden table by the window, a big, dramatic bandage wrapped about his neck and shoulder. “Really bad gash,” Prat had explained earlier when Athan looked his way. “I was bleeding everywhere, Athan. I soaked clean through my shirt. The pain was unimaginable.” But now Prat simply sits there sullenly, his expression blank as he stares at the floor, not really seeing anything or moving at all. Athan suspects the news of Juston’s death has gutted him worse than he already was; they were quite close. Now, that gash on his neck seems long forgotten.

“Thanks,” mumbles Lionis as he applies the salve to his aching nose and bruised cheek. “No, I’ll do the bandage myself,” he insists when Arrow tries to do it for him, taking the supplies into the loft bathroom and shutting the door partway, a crack open for light. Arrow heads downstairs to check on Wick and the doors.

Athan sits across from Prat, but his eyes are on the pretty girl on the other side of the room. “Who’s she?”

“Ivy,” Prat answers quietly, though Athan suspects his voice carries across the whole silent room anyway. “Arrow had saved her from … from the red light,” he adds with a hush.

Athan lifts a dubious brow. “How is that possible?”

“After it struck,” Prat clarifies. “She fainted. He carried her to the Warden’s tower. The girl is immune to fire.”

“Wow. That’s quite a Legacy.” Athan observes her. Ivy’s one of the prettiest girls he’s ever seen, even more so than some of the dolled-up flashily-adorned Lifted girlfriends his sister Janna used to bring to the house. “She need never fear the Finger Of Madness.”

“Oh, but she’ll fear it the same,” whispers Prat, leaning over the table and causing his bandage to crinkle. “It took her whole family from her. She’s the last surviving one.”

The news sits cold in Athan’s belly. I suppose I could relate to that, he muses, surveying her once more with a new understanding.

Arrow returns from downstairs. “Exits are secured. Wick is still asleep.” He stops at the top step. “Any idea how long we need to wait for him to finish his … rest?”

“He’ll sleep for several more hours,” explains Athan. Though he doubts he needs to, he is the one who’s with Wick during all of his hours of slumber, and the most of what people think about sleep is assumed from the patterns of babies and toddlers. “Six to seven or so, usually. Maybe longer. He’s been through a lot.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” mumbles Prat, speaking of his friend Juston.

Arrow takes a step toward the table. “Did Wick tell you what happened? At the warehouse?”

Athan shakes his head no. “Lionis and I found the whole thing collapsed. We searched the area for an eternity, and that search led me to the Dark Abandon where I found him and Juston. We couldn’t leave the body.” Athan sighs, leaning his back against the window, the chair creaking in the effort. He lifts his face to Prat. “We thought we might find an Ashery and burn his body. Do you know where his family lives?”

Prat nods. “Yeah. Assuming they’re … still there.”

“I wonder if we might do the same for Victra,” Athan offers.

Lionis’s sudden voice at the bathroom door catches them all by surprise. “Where is Victra?”

Arrow turns from the table to face him. A thick silence sits upon the room, a silence through which no answer seems to come. Prat and Athan share a puzzled look. The pretty girl Ivy in the corner doesn’t move, her shimmering eyes fixed on Arrow and too long awaiting an answer.

“So?” prompts Lionis curtly. “Where is she?”

Arrow sputters, “I … I told Athan that she’d—”

“I know she didn’t make it, Arrow. I am asking about her body. So we can burn her and give her ashes to her family, Arrow. You know. To honor her. Where is she?”

Arrow gives a tiny uncomfortable shrug. “I …” He makes an odd sound with his throat—half a swallow, half a grunt—and then he says, “I … I was being shot at. They were attacking us. I … I had to—”

“You just left her?”

His voice is frosty, as if he’s borrowing the tone from every admonishing, disappointed professor that has ever stood before a classroom in all the schools of Atlas. It’s the tone of Athan’s mother’s voice when she reprimanded him for his questionable choices in behavior. Athan feels a stab of indignance on Arrow’s behalf as he considers the hypocrisy. You had wanted to leave Juston behind …

“I-I had no choice,” Arrow sputters. “They were attacking! They had ranged weapons. Crossbows. Arrows. If I’d tried to take her with me, I would’ve been shot dead too!”

“You did the right thing,” murmurs Prat in half a voice.

Lionis huffs irritably, rolling his eyes and heading for the stairs. The sound of his heavy footsteps drum harshly—loud and wooden—until he reaches the bottom where the restaurant, a sleeping Wick, and Juston reside.

When Arrow faces the table, the fury is evident. His jaw is tight and his eyebrows are pulled together. Prat and Athan share yet another worried look. Nothing they say can possibly touch Arrow. Too much has happened between all of them, too much to even discuss or console one another about. Their little world seems so much bigger now, and it’s quite suddenly spinning out of control.

“I did my best …” Arrow finally mumbles, his hands pressed into the table as he stares down at it the way one peers into a bottomless well, all his rage and despair and helplessness pouring from his stern, tearless eyes. “It wasn’t good enough.”

“Arrow …”

“She’s dead. Rain is broken. My charms failed me. Eyes and ears. I should have outed Yellow and Gandra when I had the chance.”

Prat sighs. “Maybe … Maybe you misheard them.”

“I mishear nothing,” hisses Arrow, taking offense to that at once. “Those two fled. They’ve lost the charms I gave them. Deliberately, if I might be so bold to presume. We’ve been led by cowards, and they have led us into an abyss of death and hopelessness. If I saw either of them on the streets, I’m not sure I’d hide precisely how I felt, if I wasn’t so perfectly confident that Yellow would steal my memories just to save his own hide, and that Gandra would … do whatever the fuck it is she can do, if anything at all. I bet she’s as weak as her ideas, as weak as her ability to lead us, as weak and empty as the promises she made us—all of which she’s broken.”

After his storm of words, Arrow moves to the ladder leading up to the roof. Prat and Athan and Ivy watch him as he ascends, his hands and feet slapping each rung with anger as he goes. The roof hatch opens with a loud bang, then crashes shut.

Athan shakes his head. “I … I didn’t know. Yellow and Gandra abandoned us?”

Prat nods. “He told me after we fled the sixth. I don’t know what exactly it is he heard, but …” He shakes his head. “I’ve always kinda wondered that same thing, if I’m being honest. About Gandra.”

“You mean her Legacy?”

“Yeah. I kinda wonder if … if her power is in her secrecy. I was told when I joined Rain that she could kill people with just a glance. I was told not to look her in the eye if I ever saw her, but of course, until recently, none of us saw her at all. I thought Yellow was her and that this ‘Gandra’ was just a tool by which to scare us into obedience, but of course I see that I was wrong. And maybe I’m wrong now. Maybe her Legacy is formidable and as deadly as they say … but what if it isn’t? What if she never reveals her Legacy because the fact that we don’t know it … is scary enough? What if her power is in her secrecy?” Prat shakes his head, then slaps a hand to his cheek. “It doesn’t much matter anymore, does it? We’re totally without their knowhow now. And we’re without all of my maps. We’re without computers or weapons or armor or … well, any means at all, really.”

Ivy shuffles in the corner, then sinks to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Athan observes her for a moment, curious. He can’t quite picture Arrow diving bravely into a place struck down by the Imp’s red light. He can’t even imagine what sort of insanity had to take over Arrow’s mind to do such a thing, if that’s the way of how it went. Maybe some things seem more grand in their mystery. Maybe Prat is right and Gandra’s power is in the world not knowing what she can truly do.

The hours pass by with spots of idle conversation and a whole lot of nothing. Prat changes his bandage twice out of habit, only to discover that the bleeding stopped long ago. He can’t even properly recall what cut him in the first place. Arrow comes and goes from the roof, adjusting his charms and listening like a scientist. Twice he leaves with Prat into the streets, planting his ears farther down the way and scoping the neighboring blocks, which seem surprisingly deserted, they later report. The nearest buildings have clearly been picked through by looters and foragers, as they can’t find a speck of food. The hours drift by and their stomachs complain about it.

When Wick stirs, the sun is already setting. “Hey, baby,” Athan coos at him, having taken a seat in the booth and pulled Wick’s head onto his lap. He brushes hair off his boy’s forehead. “You sleep well?”

Wick’s groggy eyes meet his. “I had this dream where I was in a big house in the sky with you. We were married.”

Athan chuckles at that, which draws a sleepy smile out of Wick.

“And our house was so big,” he goes on, “that I couldn’t seem to imagine what to do with all the rooms. I kept walking around and discovering new ones, even after we’d been living there for a while. We had, like, seven different living rooms and three kitchens.”

“How many bedrooms?” teases Athan.

“One really, really big one. I don’t know.” The boys laugh lightly together. Wick grips Athan’s arm and strokes it. “How are you and the others holding up? Did I sleep long? Fuck, it’s dark already.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Athan keeps gently moving his hand over Wick’s forehead and hair while his arm gets stroked. “We don’t have a good food source here, so we’re figuring out options of how to keep our bellies full. We might have to forage way out and bring a cache back here.”

Wick’s eyes drift away. “Or we could go to my house.”

“Your family,” murmurs Athan thoughtfully, and to that, Wick gives a short nod. “I’d love to see your mother again. Are you sure you want to give up this war, Anwick? Are you—?”

“You only ever say my full name when we’re talking serious shit,” notes Wick with a crooked smile.

Athan laughs at that. “Well, I suppose this is serious shit.”

“And we’re not in a war. Athan, I think the Madness is going to wear itself out. I think we should let it. We can’t do anything in our position. Rain is over with as we know it. We have no numbers. It’s just us, my brother, Arrow, and Prat. Oh, and Ivy.”

“No numbers,” agrees Athan quietly.

“We have no business at all standing at the frontlines of a battle, fighting in the name of the slums and acting like heroes when even we slumborn are viciously fighting each other for whatever scraps remain down here. We’re as despicable as the forces above us.”

“Some of us are good.” Athan leans over and gives Wick a kiss, their soft lips touching and igniting a warmth Athan’s needed within his chest for too long a time. He seems to inspire a little groan of approval from his boy. “And some of us are too good.”

“Way too good.”

“I think the others will be heartened by this decision,” Athan says encouragingly. “We all need to recover. We’re wounded. Even if we later decide to take action, or—”

“No more action.” Wick folds his arms, nuzzling his head into Athan’s lap, nearly burying his nose in his crotch. “Just peace. Bliss. Forever.”

“Peace, bliss, forever,” Athan agrees, petting Wick’s hair. “Lionis will especially enjoy it. Back home, the both of you.”

“I could give two fucks what Lionis thinks,” mumbles Wick into Athan’s crotch, his voice muffled.

Athan smirks, holding his boy as he turns his head and watches the darkness of nightfall grow in the front glass windows. Juston’s noise has dissipated for now, and all Athan knows in this moment is a hope of peace … desperate, needed, longing peace.

0179  Ellena

She learns the boy Guardian’s name while they eat food rations on the old wrap-around porch of some abandoned home-for-the-elderly in the outskirts of a ward Ellena can’t identify. Sixth? Eighth? She doesn’t care.

But the boy’s name is Cope. And what else does one do with pain they can’t be rid of … but cope with it? The ironies of his name strike her the moment she hears it pass from Bee’s thin lips that she chuckles lightly to herself, then silences her mouth at once and gives a nod of apology at the others. To her surprise, Gabel doesn’t bite at her with his usual attitude. Neither does Bee say something dark or insulting. In fact, the two lift their eyebrows, as if they patiently await Ellena’s explanation of what’s funny.

Cope doesn’t aim the gun at her any longer when they are on the move. Bee doesn’t bother keeping watch of her, several times keeping her back to Ellena without any sign of mistrust. Gabel treats her like the fourth in a group of Guardian who are casually passing through the wards—to where, Ellena doesn’t know. If any person were to observe them moving down the street, they’d not distinguish between Guardian and prisoner.

But it doesn’t make Ellena feel any freer than she did before. Sure, she no longer has the restrictive gloves on her hands, and she isn’t being forced to work half the day cleaning linens and pans, but following her desire of going home isn’t exactly an option. Dropping by her sister’s to kiss and hold her sweet Lionis isn’t viable either. It’s suddenly such a priority, now more than ever, to have her family together and safe. They’re all that matters to her in the world.

After what happened with Eunice—or rather, the “Thorn”—she finds that traveling in the company of three trained Guardian makes her feel substantially safer than if she were to be walking these dark, unfriendly streets alone. A slumborn like me ought to feel safe in the slums. After all, this is my home. Who ever thought, had one known what would come of our city with a new King, that a Banshee in the sky would be the preferred option?

That dead Banshee in the sky sentenced Forgemon, the love of her life, to the Keep for the rest of his days. She cannot forget that. And now Forge is dead because of the Banshee … who is also dead.

The distant noise of chatter reaches them. Gabel has his gun at the ready, leading the group down the main road, which runs parallel to a dead elevated rail. Ellena feels a strong familiarity with the area, wondering if they’ve already made it to the border between the eighth and ninth. I know that rail, she tries to tell herself, but with the city being so changed and darkened by lack of electricity, its roads only occasionally lit by a weak, self-sustaining streetlamp, she cannot be certain of their location.

The chatter grows more and more until they find themselves approaching a great expanse of road that passes under the rail and cuts deep into whichever ward they just came from. It’s an avenue with a long median of grass and spaced-out trees. Along the sides of the road there are groupings of people milling about, some in social clusters of laughter and banter, others seated on tapestries, upon which they appear to be selling wares and food and other items.

Gabel puts away his gun when he sees the scene before him. Bee and Cope follow suit. The four of them move down the street. They pass a woman bartering the price of a bag of corn. They pass a group of men talking about the change in the season, one of them complaining about the oncoming winter. They pass two children fighting over a jacket while their parents ignore them, discussing something heatedly.

Ellena marvels over how … normal everything seems here.

“We’ll rest here,” Gabel decides, muttering quietly to the others, “as night is crawling upon us. In the morning at the first sight of dawn, we continue.”

“Where are we headed, exactly?” interjects Ellena.

Cope has already parted from the others to inquire about the price of a bundle of carrots, so it is Bee and Gabel who turn to her. Bee is the one who speaks. “Another Guardian holding.”

The answer isn’t what Ellena wanted to hear. What did you expect, fool? That they were escorting you home? That you’d offer them mugs of slum tea and stale bagels when you got there? “Of course,” she mutters in response, nodding at Bee.

Gabel takes a step forward. “Come. We’ll seek out a place for all of us to hole up for the night. Bee, you stick with Cope. Earpiece at the ready.” Bee nods and keeps to the boy, who has started to argue about the overpricing of a handsome middle-aged man’s produce.

The two of them stroll down the bustling street, Gabel with his eyes alert regardless of the seeming normalcy, and Ellena with her arms folded protectively over her chest. For a healthy moment, she forgets there’s anarchy in the sky at all. She might as well be taking a stroll through the market in the ninth looking for something colorful and cheap for Lionis to make a dinner out of. Neither say a word to each other as they walk, but Ellena catches him twice peering her way, and when she lifts her face, he looks away the next instant, playing it off as if he was casually observing the windows of the building above her head.

They find an unoccupied space in an area where the road opens into a small circle, its center filled with grass where people are lying upon blankets, looking up at the sky as it slowly succumbs to night. Gabel and Ellena take a spot by a trash bin near the curb, sitting on the grass and stretching their legs. Ellena leans back with her upper body propped up behind her by her elbows, her eyes swimming in the dark blue sky above, interrupted by only one arm of Lifted City.

“Why do you suspect they hate us?” asks Ellena.

Gabel, cross-legged and picking pointedly at the grass by his armored shins, lifts his stony face to hers. Despite his lack of smile and his (frustratingly) serious expression that he wears at all times, his green eyes seem lighter than usual.

“Who?”

“Them,” she answers with a chin-lift at the Lifted City.

Gabel’s mouth tightens. “I don’t suspect they hate you at all.”

“Oh, but they do. Even if they think they don’t. They do.” Ellena remembers the woman with the big decorative hat who had come to the flowers that one day in the Greens, the one she helped add a bit of pink to her spreads—much to Eunice’s ultimate vexation. “They might not mean to, of course. Hate can be innocent.”

“Innocent hate?” Gabel seems amused by that idea, showing so with a light lift of one of his dark, handsome eyebrows. They’re just eyebrows, Ellena; they can’t be handsome ones, you fool.

Ellena lifts her chin haughtily. “Yes. Innocent hate. You look down upon this field of grass and you admire how beautiful and green it is, yes? You admire how little of it we encounter in this city, unless you live near the Greens, yes?”

“Sure.”

“But then you sit upon it,” Ellena continues, “and find the feel of it to be rather … itchy.”

Gabel lets out a light chuckle. “So you suppose that Lifted folk only like your kind … from a distance?”

“Yes. That might be a way of—” Ellena is struck by his wording. She lifts a light eyebrow of her own, her gaze moving to him at once. “Your kind?”

Gabel picks a blade of glass, flicks it from his finger.

“Your kind?” she repeats with a touch more emphasis. “Do you mean that you … are not one of us? You bear the Guardian uniform.” Her eyes scan him over, as if wondering if she’s been mistaken this whole time. “The only Guardian in the slums are of the slums.” She keeps staring at him. “An answer might help me work this over in my head better, you know.”

“I’m from the Sky Guard,” he answers, “and I’m skyborn. My mother is Qaea. My father is Lune Wayward, the grandson of King Vorne Wayward, the Goddess King.”

Ellena’s jaw drops through the grass, plummets four-hundred feet into the ground. “You are great-grandson to the King who filled the wards with temples devoted to Three Sister?” She gives a shake of her head right away. “No, no. I don’t believe that. You’re joking with me. You’re mocking me for my love of the Sisters.”

The first hint of an actual smile creases Gabel’s lips.

“Y-You’re not mocking me?” Ellena asks, her face going straight. “You … You really are the descendent of a King …?”

“The prestige of the Wayward family only carried us four and a half years on the throne before the Council of Elders decided that a King with his head full of Sisterly fantasies was not fit to govern a city that has long abandoned belief in Three Goddess. Dedimon the Heavy took my great-grandfather’s place before he’d even removed his things from the King’s chambers. Or so my father told me.”

“That can’t be true. Or not completely. There are many who still worship the Sisters.” Ellena’s last memory at the Wayward, a temple she used to frequent both for worship as well as greensmith lessons, is not a pleasant one; they all shunned her after news spread of her husband’s arrest and sentencing. “I still do,” she adds quietly.

“I know.” Gabel looks up into the sky. “I used to.”

“I know. Why did you stop?”

His face turns hard, much in the same way it did so long ago when she first asked him that very same question. Gabel Wayward, stern and cold, yet burning hot, brings his bright, keen eyes down to look upon Ellena’s face, then her neck … and then lower …

Ellena swallows, wondering what’s suddenly upon his mind. “If you are of the Sky Guard, then why are you not still in the sky?” she asks to change the subject, partly alarmed by his sudden shift in behavior, and partly finding her thighs squeezing together by the memory of that one heated night they shared.

Gabel still doesn’t acknowledge her questions, his eyes sliding down her much in the same way a pair of hands would, appraising her body like a juicy piece of meat in the market they’d just walked through. His tongue slips out, giving an absentminded lick to his lips. His nostrils flare, likely because an errant thought or two has flared in his mind as well.

“If you’re going to keep ogling me like a woman whose body you want to use for a meaningless fuck,” mutters Ellena, her eyes on fire with the spice of danger, “then you’d better have a good reason for doing it out here on a grassy knoll full of slummers.”

“I stopped worshipping the Goddesses … because I was bad,” he answers finally and suddenly, leaning forward to push his knuckles into the grass, turning onto all fours like a beast on the prowl.

Ellena’s breath stops short at the muscular, beautiful sight.

“I’m no longer in the sky or Sky Guard … because I was bad.”

With his knuckles digging into the grass upon each footfall, he crawls toward Ellena until she’s pushed back upon the grass and his meaty body is over her, his face bearing down with deep, deadly want in his sharp green eyes.

“My reason for ogling you so is because I am … very bad.”

I’m so wet. “Gabel …”

His mouth crushes into hers, shutting her right up. Heat flares between their bodies. Her hands shoot up to his chest. For a moment, she doesn’t know whether she means to push him off of her, or pull him closer to her body so that she can feel his every inch.

She opts to pull him closer.

And she feels every hard, throbbing inch against her thigh.

Their mouths detach. She stares up into his eyes, out of breath. He breathes heavily upon her face. “Do you want this?” he growls.

“Don’t ask,” Ellena whispers desperately. “Please don’t ask.”

“If you don’t want this, I will stop.”

“Don’t stop.”

“So you want it?” he persists. “You want me … inside you? You want to feel every inch of me buried into every inch of you?”

Ellena clenches shut her eyes, unable to bear looking up into his gorgeous ones. “Please stop asking me.”

“Say yes and I’m inside you.”

“We’re on the street,” she breathes. “People are … are …”

Gabel makes a sudden movement. Ellena flashes open her eyes in time to watch a thick blanket fling over their bodies by Gabel’s hand. It drapes over even their heads, covering them. Warm breath and darkness become Ellena Lesser’s unknown world.

It is a darkness that has many shades. It is an uncertain darkness and an exciting darkness.

Gabel shifts some more, and she feels the weight of armor, of pants, and of other things slipping off his body. Only tiny slivers of light that peek in from the edges of their dark world give hints to the muscular form that now hovers over her, and the plentiful meat that eagerly awaits near her hips, throbbing and ready.

“Say … yes,” Gabel whispers, deadly close, into her ear, “and … I’m … inside you.”

Ellena squeezes shut her eyes. Please don’t ask me, she’d begged him, but soon her lips betray her, and in the darkness granted by a slummer’s lost blanket, Ellena parts her lips and whispers, “Yes.”

0180  Forgemon

“He just … left?”

Forge spots a long, thick fissure in the roof of the cave as they pass through. He makes a mental note to add more braces in this tunnel. “Yes,” he grunts.

Aphne is so fidgety, picking at her hair and letting her eyes flit about everywhere as she panics. “Why? The fuck is he thinking?”

“Something to do with vengeance. And how he values that over keeping any peace here.” Forge stops, picks up a shiny stone off the ground, gives it a casual dusting off with his other hand. “I’m not sure I could have convinced him to stay.”

“We have it so good here. He’s not the only one with unfinished business on the surface. We all have fucking unfinished business.” Aphne kicks the jagged rock wall, sending a spray of dust into the nearest hanging lamp. “Coward.”

Forge keeps the bit to himself about how their former King of Bones insisted that Forge would make a good leader. The last thing he wants is to lead anyone.

Or maybe, more accurately, the last thing he wants is to unleash the madness in his head that he’s kept so expertly imprisoned.

“People can’t find out. We need to execute this perfectly.”

Forge lifts an eyebrow at his friend. “Execute what?”

“A shift in power. If the wrong people realize he’s gone, they’ll take advantage. We’ll have some power-hungry tyrant step up in his place and it’ll be like the Keep all over again.” Aphne looks at him pointedly. “We need to stage a succession.”

Forge scoffs at that. “What are we, the Lower Sanctum?”

“Yes. And you are the King of Bones’s successor. I’ll verify. So will half the mining crew once I tell them. And so will—”

“I decline. You’ll be successor.”

“Decline? Fuck you, Forge. You’ll lead.”

“No, I won’t.” So much for me not being styled the next leader.

Aphne cuts in front of him and grabs his shoulders. “You are the only option. People fear you—but for a good reason. You have a good heart and you’re full of love.”

“Shut it.”

“Full of love,” she persists, “and, above all, you know things.”

Forge huffs, shaking her hands off of him and moving down the tunnel where it opens into a huge cavernous room, multileveled, around which a single walkway circumvents the chasm. Bins-on-wheels are filled with ore and stone. Pickaxes are scattered about one wall where they lean. A rope-pulley elevator shaft leads to a level one above them and a level one below.

Forge comes to a stop at the wooden railing before the chasm, peering over into the endless dark. Beyond the floor below them, he wonders how deeply the chasm goes. He knows that no one in all of Atlas’s history has—or even can—build beyond the Wall, since the world is decimated and utterly inhabitable in the Oblivion. That is why the city is built upward and downward—the Lifted City, and the Keep, and the Catacombs even deeper, and the mines. But how deep does it truly go?

Staring into its depths, Forge wonders a hundred possibilities. He realizes that the structure of the city above is compromised if too much is hollowed out down here. The slums could fall inward, the entire city swallowed up into a great sinkhole. The Earth beneath our feet is what we should fear, Forge thinks, seeing the slums crumble as they drop inward. Even the Lifted City would fall with it, its pylons that hold it up depending on the stability of the ground below. Fuck what the Bone King said. It isn’t Fire that’s our end; it’s Earth.

“Just think it over,” Aphne urges him when she comes to his side and leans against the rail, peering down into the abyss herself. “I know how you are. You panic first, then you think it through, and then you see the aim in it all. It’s how your math works, isn’t it?”

Forge itches his beard, staring up at the stone ceiling. He feels a cold air dancing across his bulging arms as he scratches the hairs on his cheek, squinting at the stone, a thought coming to him. Beasts in a cage. Monsters under the world. One exit. Forge wonders, wonders, wonders … We need more exits.

“Hey, Forge? The hell?”

Forge’s eyes are zeroed in on the ceiling, spotting yet another deep fissure in the stone. That crevice steals all his attention as his mind starts to recall each and every exit that once existed, the ones that caved in included. He remembers old probabilities he deduced—the number of people down here, the number of prison guards, the number of tunnels …

“Forge?”

And newer numbers: the capacity of these caverns and the commons rooms and the food storages, the amount of food they have, the number of weapons and of armors …

The ratio of food to people, of equipment to people, of able-bodied, of less-abled, the ratio of space to person, person to space …

The number of greedy eyes he’s seen, the causality of their rebelling against the King of Bones had they dared, the probability of others joining, the resulting possibility of others defending the weak, the possibility of them not, the likelihood of a war brewing in their midst amongst the people hungriest for power and hungriest for peace, and one exit should any choose to flee …

The possibility of trampling, the possibility of death, the amount of space they have, the amount of space they don’t, and one exit …

The delicate balance and the likelihood of that balance tipping, and one exit …

That fissure in the roof of the cave, the possibility of that fissure drawing itself longer, the likelihood of the earth itself rebelling, all the earth and stone around them turning against them, just as likely as the people contained within its depths, and one exit …

And one exit …

“Forge?”

He blinks. The madness in his mind is already returning. He sees so many things at once, he finds himself backing away from the railing, dizzied by the racing thoughts. His back finds the stone wall—as well as the uncomfortable handle of a pickaxe, if he’s right—and he stares ahead at nothing, the numbers racing by.

And one exit …

“Forge, talk to me. I’m here. I’m right in front of you.”

“We need to get out,” Forge says at once.

Aphne’s startled eyes are in the peripheral of Forge’s awareness, despite them being directly in front of him. “No, we don’t.”

“One exit …” Forge murmurs. “Only one.”

“Forge. Look at me. Listen to me.”

“We’ve been freed, yet still we’re prisoners of the earth,” he says to the numbers, to the calculations that are still feverishly working—like an office full of frantic workers pulling papers from computers and tripping over themselves to draw their conclusions, to draw their predictions, to figure precisely what could come.

“Have you not noticed the lack of chains about our legs, Forge? Look at me.” She snaps her fingers. He still stares ahead, the workers in his mind racing about. “There are chains we can see, and chains we can’t. Chains in our minds. Chains in our hearts, our souls. Oh, Forge … the strongest chains are the ones that aren’t made of metal.”

Number of families broken apart by who’s down here and who’s up there. Number of lovers desperate to reunite. Number of vengeances yet to be realized. And one exit.

“Just break free,” Aphne urges.

“Free,” murmurs Forge, seeing the bodies pile up as everyone in the Undercity flees, and soon their only way out is blocked like all the others, except in place of fallen stone and rock, there is flesh, bone, and kicking legs. “We have to leave. To survive. Now.”

Aphne’s body slackens, the words finally reaching her. In a tone that’s soft and faraway, she says, “You’re seeing the math again.”

Forge nods sullenly. She sighs, her breath brushing over Forge’s face. He smells the brine on her tongue from their lunch an hour ago.

“He told me to mind the madness in my head,” murmurs Forge, pushing away from the wall, “and yet told me to rule in his absence. But the madness tells me to leave.”

“Then we leave,” Aphne decides, stating it to his back while he stares into the chasm. “I trust your math more than my … passions.”

“You are not a person of passions,” says Forge, turning to give her a look. “You’re a person of instincts. And we need them, Aphne. We’ll need each and every one.”

A look of determination tightens her face. “To the surface.”

“To the surface.”

But twenty minutes later, before they even reach the tunnel that ascends through a network of hallways and stairs towards the one and only exit, the news reaches them. “It collapsed!” cries out one of the fifty guards on duty, a gash across his forehead. “The King of Bones, I saw it! Fought his way through and blew up the walls!”

“How the fuck did he manage that?” cries a fool from the crowd. “There’s no bombs anywhere!”

But the question has no answer, lost to a symphony of shouts and other ignored questions. Forge and Aphne stare at the crowd of scandalized men and women, each spitting their own protests and suspicions and theories. Forge stares at the smoke that hovers in the busy air, the madness in his head working hard to adapt to this unpredicted change in numbers. “Zero exits …” he whispers.

0181  Ruena

Ruena feels weightless with disbelief. Her hair may literally be floating at her back.

“W-What do you mean he’s gone?” Ruena asks.

Erana stands there, wearing only her glasses and a silk around her waist—Ruena’s silk, at that—and she can’t seem to say anything at all. She seems to be in as much shock, unable to process the reason behind his sudden departure.

Ruena moves to the wall of rubble that keeps them in as well as keeps others out, and she puts a hand to it, feeling the energy she’d buried there before. She wonders which wall he’d passed through. Was it the one they leapt through to get inside, or another entirely? Why would he just leave us?

“Maybe he went to get more food,” reasons Erana meekly.

“Oh, to the Sister’s depths with that fool!” Ruena spits, furious at once. “We have more than enough here! We have a kitchen and a pantry full of … of sustenance that would have lasted …” She can’t even complete her own thoughts, a hundred of them racing past her flitting eyes. Why would he leave?

Suddenly a madness has taken Ruena, and she begins feeling each wall in the house, trying to discern what’s on the other side. He has gone through a wall, she keeps repeating to herself, and I will find it. He has gone through a wall and I will find it. He has gone …

He has gone. He left them. He knew the food would last longer without him here and the two women could comfort one another.

“There are no other walls he could have gone through,” Erana points out, anticipating the point of Ruena’s mindless rummaging.

Ruena ignores her, moving into the indoor garden and studying its layout. The way into a formal dining hall is blocked by a collapsed roof. The outer two walls face the brim of the Lifted City, on the other side of which is just a very far fall to the slums. He would not have leapt out these walls, she knows, stating the obvious just so that it can be stated and so that the fact can somehow calm her.

She’s standing in the middle of the indoor pool, half submerged in its cool waters when the tears find her eyes. Her heart has sunken so deeply, she feels her own pulse at the end of every fingertip. She can’t stand the absence of his beautiful, sapphire eyes … of his lean, panther-like, muscular form … of his charm and his charisma and …

She grips her hair and screams with frustrated rage so loudly, she wills the windows of the bathing atrium to shatter—but they don’t. She does, however, feel the water ripple and spark with the promise of her power, and that’s when she calms herself, not willing to risk summoning a storm; the last thing she needs is another ugly scar running down her head to match the first.

“Ruena …”

She turns her head. “Don’t get near the pool,” she warns.

“I won’t. But I found a note.”

Ruena turns completely, her eyes dropping to the little paper caught in Erana’s fingers. Her eyes seem to stare through the note, a burning wave of hope rushing through her that the note simply states that Rone will be right back, that he longs for the eternal companionship of both of them, that he has taken just a quick visual survey of the Lifted City for supplies and information.

“Read it to me,” says Ruena, nearly out of breath. “My hands are wet. Read his words.”

Erana lifts the note, wasting no time in reading Rone’s words. “Ruena, Erana. You deserve your peace. I may not deserve my war, but I will find my sister. If we are thirsty for a war when I get back, maybe we can fight together to make our peace less temporary.”

Ruena shakes her head. “No, no. He can’t have. No.”

Erana drops her hand. “Love, Rone.”

“No,” mutters Ruena, staring at the floor, wide-eyed. “No, no, no. He … Where could he possibly …?”

He’ll be combing the dangerous Lifted City for days, for weeks. He’ll be caught. He’ll be executed brutally. He’ll find his way back to the slums. He’ll be murdered. He’ll quest to the end of his days for his missing sister, who’s likely been secured in some hidden, faraway Sanctum chamber that even Ruena knows nothing of. Fears of every kind flood her heart. Peace? I’ll never know peace again.

Erana sits by the bathing pool, keeping her feet out of it. She stares down at the note, letting it rest in her lap limply.

“Fuck you, Rone,” mumbles Ruena, glaring at the glass of the window, which shows a darkening night sky full of stars she can’t appreciate … not without him in the waters by her side, not without Rone, who she’s grown to need as deeply as the air in her tightening, aching lungs.

“Ruena …?”

She closes her eyes, ignoring Erana. She moves to the far end of the pool and folds her arms over the edge, staring out the window and observing the tall, smoggy, lightless shapes of the city below as they’re slowly swallowed in the darkness of nightfall.

“Ruena, please don’t do anything rash.”

“I’m a Queen,” she says at once, narrowing her eyes, but even those words fall flat as her deflated heart. I’m not a Queen, she thinks the moment after she utters the words. And I don’t want to be. I just want a normal life. I want happiness, I want laughter, and I want sex.

All three of which, Rone gave her. All three of which, Rone took away with one slip through the wall and a little note.

0182  Arrow

The decision to head for Anwick’s house at the other end of the ninth is one that is easily—and quickly—accepted by the group.

But before they make their way, Lionis provides them with a new thought he’d had during the day while Anwick slept. “Perhaps there isn’t an Ashery that would realistically entertain our needs, with the electricity cut and the madness in the streets. I propose that we … honor our dead in the way of the Ancients.” No one seems to follow, so Lionis—ever ready for a lecture—spells it out for them. “I wish to dig two graves. One for Juston, and one for Victra. We may have just one of their bodies, but hers will be in her honor. It’s here that they devoted themselves, and whether the sky rained at all, or if it just rained upon us, I feel it only fitting that their spirits keep here.”

“You wish to bury them?” murmurs Prat, slow to react, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Where? How?”

Arrow catches the thought before Lionis can voice it. “There is a spread of soil out back around the corner from the scullery. A tree grows there that seasonally gives shelled nuts.”

“That tree,” says Prat, putting it together. “Mr. Gateward told me he liked using the nuts for his specialty bowls. He’d make pies with them, too.”

“What a lovely idea.”

The boys turn to the unexpected sound of Ivy’s voice—all the boys except Arrow, who keeps his eyes trained on the floor, filled with thoughts of so many people who’ve died or been lost to them … and the cruel unfairness of the world to spare the life of one of his sworn enemies. He cares not the sweetness of her voice, or how her face is that much sweeter yet. He still has a gun in his possession, a gun with six bullets. A gun he could have turned upon the person who put an arrow through Victra’s head, had he been able to see him or her. A gun he could have turned upon the person responsible for Juston’s death. The sweetness of her voice only fuels the anger and the hatred in his heart.

“A lovely idea indeed,” agrees Athan quietly.

And with a resolute nod of Lionis’s, the boys and Ivy head to the scullery for two spades. Outside, Athan digs one hole while Arrow bothers with the other. His wounded thigh begins to cramp, causing him to wince in pain, so Lionis takes over to finish the work. Wick and Prat stand to the side with Ivy, the three of them watching with a quiet glumness about them. Soon, two shallow pits lie beneath the tree. Lionis and Athan carry Juston’s body through the scullery and out to the first pit where he is gently laid to rest. The six of them stare down at their fallen comrade. No one seems able to say a thing, the nightly breeze dancing between them as it snakes its way down the alley.

“They used to bury Kings and Queens, long ago,” notes Lionis thoughtfully. “It was a Lifted practice.”

“It was,” murmurs Athan, who takes a short step forward and crouches by Juston’s side. “King Juston …”

The others keep quiet, no one even seeming to move a muscle. Each person is buried in their own thoughts, by the look of it. Wick is standing by Prat, the pair of them pensive and their eyes blank. Lionis is leaning on the spade, staring down at the empty pit with his lips pursed and his eyes half-closed, whether by headache or by his own exhaustion, Arrow doesn’t know. Ivy stands on her own, her arms crossed over her belly as if she’s cold. Arrow finds his eyes lingering on her, wondering what sort of thing she could be thinking of right now.

“King Juston, the King of … Noises …” murmurs Athan.

No one responds. Athan looks back at the others, his eyebrows lifted. “King Juston, the Static King,” he says, trying to inspire them.

Prat nods, then returns, “King Juston … King of Surprises.”

Athan smiles appreciatively. He glances over at Wick, but Wick doesn’t seem able to add anything in.

“King Juston, the King of Encouragement,” Prat adds. “Juston the Spirited. King Juston, the Blond King.”

“Blond,” agrees Athan, his eyes shining. “King Juston, the—”

Suddenly, Prat chokes, tears flooding his eyes. The boys draw quiet as he grips himself tightly, his bottom lip trembling. Arrow realizes that he’s never seen Prat cry, not truly. All the whining of his neck wound after they fled the sixth, that wasn’t true grief, not like now. Prat can’t seem to say anything else, and it is Wick who brings Prat’s head to his chest consolingly, wrapping an arm about him and holding him close.

Arrow’s gaze drifts to the empty grave. In the soft noise of Prat’s muffled tears, Arrow speaks next. “Queen Victra of the Electric Blue Eyelids.”

Wick looks up from his consoling of Prat. Athan meets his eyes as well as Lionis, whose attention is pulled at the sound of Arrow’s calm, even voice.

“Queen Victra,” Arrow goes on. “The …” He takes a deep breath, then finishes. “… the All-Seeing.”

Prat sniffles loudly, lifting his face off of Wick’s chest. Then he offers his own contribution through a quivering, tear-ridden voice. “Queen V-Victra, the Queen of … of Sights.”

“Queen Victra, the Uncompromising,” puts in Athan, his tone serious, respectful, his chin lifted proudly.

“Queen Victra, Queen of Ten Thousand Eyes,” says Lionis.

Wick speaks up. “Queen Victra, the Lover Queen. King Juston, the Quick Of Wit.”

“Queen Victra of the Sister’s Vengeance,” adds Prat with a bite.

“King Juston Markmake … the King who Made his Mark,” says Athan with a smile.

“King Juston, the King Who Reigned … with Rain,” says Lionis.

The names come and come, until finally a warm peace falls between them and no more names are uttered. A tiny drop of water touches Arrow’s cheek and he glances up at the sky. Rain. He smiles suddenly, then peers at his friends to see if they’ve noticed. They have. Athan rises, his eyes full of wonder as he looks up, and then his gaze comes down to connect with Wick’s. The two of them come together, even with Prat still in Wick’s clutch, and the three of them peer down at Juston’s peaceful body and the empty grave.

Lionis taps his spade. “Should I …?”

Arrow reaches for his thigh and unties the bandage that dressed his wound, pulling it off. He steps over to Victra’s grave, crouches down by it, and takes from his pocket a charm. “The wound that took your life, I also shared.” He wraps the charm in his bandage, tying off the end, like a gift. “Your blood is my blood now, Victra. You will never truly leave us. Your valor and your …” He closes his eyes, seeing that last sight of her again. I’ll never stop seeing her, in that last moment when Victra Kingsword couldn’t see a thing. If he had some other Legacy, if he could do something other than listen, maybe Victra wouldn’t have been left on a street in the sixth. Maybe she would be here in this shallow grave to share the final sleep next to Juston. “Your valor and your … sight,” he finishes at last. “May we always … see … with clarity and focus of mind. And …” He sighs, the words so hard to say. He feels the weight of life and death sitting upon his chest. “May we have the wisdom to always … listen.” He looks down at his gift-wrapped charm, then sets it into the grave. It lands with a short, soft thud. “May we always be connected.”

The raindrops come more frequently, tapping along the brick and the stone. Arrow rises from the grave and steps back as the rain gently drizzles along his head, tiny droplets running down his face.

Figuring the rain to be more of a problem and less of a symbolic call from the ghostly plane of the unliving, Lionis begins filling the graves with dirt, one scoop of his spade at a time. Soon, two graves are filled, and the six of them watch as the rain slowly darkens the soil, covering their world in its gentle, soothing noise. For a while, no one seems to know it’s even raining. Their thoughts don’t flood with water from the sky, but with longing thoughts and memories of the two brave friends they’ve lost.

The six of them pile back into the Noodle Shop for a short reprieve while the rain grows more intense by the second. At the front window next to the tables and booths that once held customers made happy by many a spicy bowl, they watch the city be drowned in rain. And for the whole hour that the rain falls, the six of them feel like one living being, breathing as one, silent as one, listening as one.

0183  Wick

The moment the city gives way to the spread-out, broken roads of his neighborhood, sparsely lit by dim, self-sustaining lamplight, Wick’s heart swells. Along the street runs the cramped houses that look like a series of shacks and metal forts sewn together. Some have brick annexes that seem added last-minute, with wooden patches over the missing windows and fallen walls. A dead or dying patch of grass stretches in front of some of the slum houses, dirt and sand in front of others. Some houses look like two stacked atop one another with any sudden wind daring to make them fall.

People are everywhere. Neighbors that Wick has known and grown up with are on their lawns or porches chatting and sharing stories. Two women from a house down the road, Iranda and Auleen, give a short wave at Wick and his friends as they pass, a baby sleeping against Auleen’s chest in a rough, woolen blanket. Kids chase each other in the broken street, hopping over the cracks and laughing carelessly. Out here in the boondocks, there is very little Lifted City in the sky. One arm of it runs overhead, only two pylons visible. Wick misses being able to see so much sky out here. It fills his heart instantly with joy, the sights, the smells, the people, the atmosphere. It’s like the madness never happened.

And it’s at the sight of a very familiar house with a big, stumpy reading tree in the front lawn that Wick takes off running, his red hoodie turning into wings as it blows behind him. He nearly crashes into the door when he opens it. “Mom??” he calls out.

The air in the darkened house is thick and warm, as if the doors hadn’t been opened for weeks. He doesn’t hear a sound from within.

Lionis nearly crashes into his back, catching up. “She might not be here,” he says, out of breath. “Remember? She’d gone, I think …”

The realization is slow to come to Wick. She wasn’t here when he and Athan came to get Lionis and bring him to their hideout in the sixth so long ago. They never learned where she went.

“Mom?” he calls out anyway. The front door opens between the kitchen and the den, which is basically the same room divided by an island counter with three uneven, mismatched stools at which Wick and Lionis have shared countless meals. Straight ahead is the glass back door that leads into a cramped, overgrown backyard in which Lionis has another of his reading trees, next to which there lies the giant scrap metal disc thing, half dug into the ground where it likely fell from the Lifted City far above. The body of the house mercifully drinks in the light coming from a self-sustaining streetlamp in front of their house as well as one from the street behind them, giving light to the otherwise electricity-deprived dark domicile.

Lionis pokes his head into the small, windowless room under the stairs, which their parents once used as a bedroom. Wick moves up the narrow stairs to investigate the second floor. The bathroom at the top is empty. His old bedroom—which is really a windowed closet made out of a thin wooden partition wall—is also devoid of anyone, the mattress on its floor dusty and worn. He takes two more steps down the short hall and finds himself in Link’s old room, which makes his hand go up to his chest to clutch the wooden flame trinket hanging there. This room belonged to Halves and Aleks before Link, until Guardian turned them into soldiers. I hope Guardian is treating my brothers better than this sad, cramped room ever did.

But what of his mother? Is she truly gone, having left without a trace so many months ago? Maybe she’s made a new home for herself in the Greens somewhere, hiding from the world. That has to be it.

Footsteps come up the narrow stair, and then Lionis is behind him. “I was thinking, maybe she’s hiding in the Greens,” he reasons.

Wick only nods, not looking at his brother or acknowledging their shared notion. The tension is still taut as a wire between them, and Wick cares not to give it any more attention than is possible. He slips past his brother and moves down the stairs with a huff.

Outside on his lawn, he finds Prat, Arrow, and Athan caught in a conversation with his neighbors—Iranda and Auleen Penling—who have come across the yard bearing many questions, by the sound of it. Athan turns when he sees Wick at the door.

Wick comes forth. “Have you two seen my mother?” he asks at once, interrupting their conversation.

Auleen is gently rocking her baby in her bony arms. Iranda’s mad curls of hair bounce as she shakes her head and answers, “No. Not since months ago when the King came down and had a talk.”

“It wasn’t the King, honey,” Auleen cuts in. “It was Impis, and he came with his Legacy Tour caravan. It was a big and flashy ordeal,” she adds, giving Wick a look. “Did you do well on your exam?”

“He’s the King now,” Iranda butts in with a smirk.

Wick knows all about Impis’s visit and how it scared Lionis and Ellena away from home. It’s the Mad King’s fault that my mother is not here, he thinks bitterly. “Yes,” he replies. “I did. I was summoned to the Lifted City Academy. The, uh … Windstone-something.” He feels a pang in his gut thinking on the weird, glasses-wearing girl Erana and his best friend Rone. “So you haven’t seen her … at all?”

“No. Lionis?” calls out Iranda. “Didn’t you say something about you and her visiting her sister’s, sweetie?”

“Yes,” answers Lionis, folding his arms.

“Hopefully she hasn’t fallen wayward and gotten herself locked up,” moans Auleen, squeezing her baby tighter to her nearly non-existent bosom. “Oh, dear. Don’t you two worry. I don’t for a second believe your father was at fault. Sanctum is a corrupt cesspool of nastiness. I pray the Keep split right open during the madness and let all the innocents out.”

“Out with the innocents come all the not-so-innocents,” grumbles Iranda. “Careful what you wish for.”

“Shush, you,” Auleen spits back with a sneer. “Anyhow. Please look after that house. It’s such an eyesore since you all left.”

“Yes,” agrees Iranda. “I have to stare at that overrun backyard every evening when the stars are out and I just … I get so depressed thinking about all of you as boys, running about in that yard and … and now there’s none of you there at all.”

“Yes, yes, please stay,” urges Auleen. “The whole street here is pitching in. We’re all helping each other. It’s a communal sort of thing, see. Your food is my food is their food, understand? We’re even trying to grow our own so that we depend less on the Greens, since they’re so stingy with what they take for trade. Bartering is an awful business I do not excel at. If only our soil didn’t kill everything we tried to plant. I hear the next street over is having better luck. Neither of my thumbs are green, I swear it.” She brings the baby boy to her face and tickles his nose with hers. He makes a squeaky, sleepy sound of joy. “All of your friends here should stay. More the merrier. Arial, was that your name? And Pragmatic, here?”

“Arrow. Pratganth. And Ivy,” says Athan on their behalf with a nod at each one, indicating. “Thanks so much for your hospitality.”

“You look familiar,” says Iranda, leaning in and squinting with her curls of hair tilting along with her head. “Doesn’t he look damn familiar?”

“Nope, never seen him,” grunts Auleen.

Athan smiles at the two women. “I, ah … I wasn’t allowed out of the house at the time due to an unfortunate, unique circumstance, but I was, in fact, staying at this very house the day you gave birth to that baby boy,” Athan points out, nodding at the little one in Auleen’s arms. “Wick’s mom delivered, I believe, with Lionis’s help.”

The two women stare at him in disbelief. “You’re the Lifted Boy! You’re the one Forgie-Forgie was arrested for harboring!” exclaims Iranda. “Damn it, I knew he was falsely arrested! Corrupt Sanctum scum! You were here all on your own, weren’t you? I knew it!”

Athan laughs, shooting an apologetic glance at Wick for stirring up such a scene between the women. “We tried many things to get Forge freed from the Keep, or to have his sentence reduced to a matter of years, but … well, it came down to waiting upon Queen Ruena’s inheriting of the throne as our last resort.”

“Aye, and so much for that fleeting hope,” says Iranda, giving a rueful shake of her head. “No matter, we’re happy to have you. Oh, and you are all going to need to participate tonight, because we are going to celebrate. News will go around like fire, my dears, and everyone will be so thrilled with the return of the Lessers on our street! Even if there’s just two of you. Give us an hour, we’ll have the party partyin’.”

Celebrate? “Really, there’s no need,” Wick cuts in, a light laugh coming from his lips. “We just—”

“Stop right there,” she blurts back, pressing a finger to his lip. “Allow me to rephrase. Our neighborhood needs a reason to party. And we are peaceful—and free—out here. We are ungoverned by any form of Sanctum. The Red Lightning doesn’t even reach—”

“We don’t know that,” hisses Auleen, holding her baby away as if he might understand her words.

“Whatever. We’re partying tonight in the streets, and everyone is invited. Each and every one of you. We’ll have food and sweets and … for you naughty ones … a bit of liquids to make your heads dizzy.” She gives a wink. “I’ll let you boys get cleaned up. The water runs out here, it does. Not warm water, but still it runs. We’re on the Greens’ water grid now, see? Hey, why’s that one limping? Arial, you have a broken foot?”

Arrow winces politely. “Wounded thigh,” he explains.

“Come here with us! Don’t you know we have friends down the street who used to work at the hospital in the ninth before it fell? Yes, they pilfered it of supplies long before it did. Wick, I want to see you and your friends in the street in an hour’s time.”

The women give waves and return to their house with Arrow limping between them. Wick is left in the yard with his eyes drifting over all of his neighbors’ houses. He sees several waving hands of familiar faces who’ve spotted him, giving them a short wave back.

When he turns back to Athan, he’s smiling, his spirit revived. Athan interrupts that smile by planting a kiss right in the middle of it. “Welcome home, Anwick of the ninth,” Athan murmurs.

Soon, the boys and Ivy enter the house. Lionis takes Prat into the kitchen, distracting him by making him go through the cabinets with him to check what they have and take a quick inventory. “Old, all of that,” gripes Lionis, rummaging through an old vegetable bin. “Spoiled. Ugh. Throw half this out. Check the pantry. We have cans, if I didn’t go through them all.” Prat keeps up with him, taking notes on a slip of paper he fetches off the counter.

Ivy curls up in the big chair in the corner of the den, curiously peering about. It’s the chair Link always glowered in, brooding in some cloud full of young, teenage darkness that Wick could no longer understand. He can’t stand the ache he feels in his chest when he thinks of his younger brother. He used to feel so protective over him. Wick clutches the flame at his neck, squeezing it so tight that he swears he feels the warmth of it as if it was real. Then he considers his proximity to Lionis and worries he’s just using his Legacy again.

“Here,” murmurs Athan, pulling Wick up the narrow stair and knowing precisely where he wants to put him.

The door to Wick’s bedroom opens, and once the boys are in the cramped makeshift room, it shuts behind them. Wick lowers himself to the dusty mattress, giving it a pat and sending clouds of sneezes into the air. Wick pries open the window his dad built into the wall, letting the dust and the stagnant air draw out of it and into the whimsical night.

Athan snuggles up against Wick’s back, pulling him into his body and squeezing him tight. The Lifted Boy burrows his face into the back of Wick’s neck. The tip of his button nose is cold, almost feeling wet.

“I’ve missed you,” Athan moans.

Wick hugs his arms, loving the warm, helpless feeling of being trapped within Athan’s tight, muscular embrace. It’s the safest place in all of the Last City of Atlas to be.

“Now that we’re here,” murmurs Athan into his neck, “I think I am feeling the same as you.”

Wick listens to the sound sneaking in through the window of his neighbors talking and the kids chasing each other in the streets, laughing. “Same as me?”

“I just want to stay right here. I want to stay right here with you in my arms and … I don’t want to fight any war. This place, this room … This is my home now.”

“This is your home,” Wick agrees, wondering how much depth lives in those very words Athan just uttered.

The murmur of voices—Lionis and Prat—passes by his door as the two boys sound as if they’re relocating to Link’s room. He hears the hum of Lionis’s voice and the bass of Prat’s responses, though no words are particularly distinguishable. For a moment, it feels like Wick is back home with his family. He could almost mistake Prat’s voice for Halves or Aleks. He could even be Link with a stuffy nose. When the voices pass by his door again, there’s a soft knock before Lionis asks, “Need the shower, you two?”

Athan lifts his head. “We’ll go after you,” he calls back for the both of them.

The door to the bathroom shuts, vibrating the makeshift wall, and then the sound of a shower running is heard. Athan buries his face back into Wick’s neck, and Wick lets his eyes shut, enjoying the safety of his Lifted Boy’s arms. “I think the others will take kindly to the idea,” Wick whispers. “Prat is visibly shaken to the core by what happened in the sixth—whatever happened. Arrow is walking about like the world’s already ended. Lionis needs focus. That new girl Ivy has no family anymore. It’s so clear to me that this is the answer we all need.” Wick smiles to himself. “We need to live here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” says Athan into Wick’s ear.

Wick lifts his eyes to the window, able to see some neighbors gathered on their porches, chatting and laughing and sharing drinks and milling about. Wick realizes with a start that most of these people probably had jobs before the Fall of Sanctum. So much order has been broken. Businesses have likely collapsed. There is no system in place for people to continue paying for their homes. There is no power governing whether the children or the teens are attending school. There is no obligation—or a necessity at all—for anyone to go to work. Wick wonders how long such a curiously laidback society can possibly last. The food is not infinite, surely, unless they have made some sort of peaceful arrangement with the Greens. And what power or authority is keeping this delicate balance from being tipped by a jealous, greedy, or resentful ward or band of rogues? Is it foolish to think that this neighborhood is truly a peaceful, isolated utopia that even the madness cannot touch?

It all sounds like a dream. And it’s a dream Wick is more than happy to believe in. As long as I don’t have to ever wake up from it.

0184  Kid

She sticks to Link’s side, the weird girl being glued to his other.

They finally make it out of the darkness and are soon walking down the more familiar stone walkways that have frequent lanterns along the walls. Following the torch and the silhouettes of Ames and the man named Baal in the dark was exhausting, even invisibly; this is so much easier.

The girl called Faery walks with Link’s hand in her own. Twice, she seems to glance in Kid’s direction, and both times Kid gives an honest thought of whether the strange girl can see her. Kid isn’t sure she trusts the girl any more than she trusts Baal, the creepy man who can twist time. Anyone who can twist time must have twisted insides, too. That includes a twisted mind and a twisted heart.

Kid has seen a hundred people lie about who they are and what they truly want. She’s seen men wear masks and pretend to be full of courage when they’re simply full of hate. She’s known cold boys and hotheaded ones. I know a liar when I see one, she reminds herself, and perhaps this girl is just another. Maybe she isn’t lost at all.

Kid keeps wary. She will never let her guard down again. I am ready, she says, steeling herself for the worst.

“Which way?” asks Ames, lifting his torch that he no longer needs, making the bumpy white-and-red scars on his face glow.

“This way, I think,” mutters Link, directing them.

Oh, yes. They are headed to the Dark Abandon. Kid nearly forgot, having tried several times to push it out of her mind. Kid needs to explain to Link—and soon—why she cannot go with them. She needs to tell Link how a ghost train nearly flattened her on an abandoned rail in that Dark Abandon, a ghost train that had no business being there at all—if it weren’t for the boy who stopped that train with one bare hand.

That’s the place where I became a ghost, and ghosts cannot die.

Just like Link. If only Kid could get him away from the others and speak to him without anyone hearing … but they are all so annoyingly close together all the time that it is impossible.

“Up here?” questions Ames with a jerk of his head. “Isn’t that right, Link? Is the way still the same ten years ago?”

“How would I know?” protests Link with half a chuckle. “I don’t know these paths as well. We turned around in ten circles looking for the way to the Abandon in our time. I wouldn’t know the damn way if I had a map.”

“Don’t you recognize this?” Ames points up at the ceiling. All eyes follow, spotting a fissure across the roof that cuts down a pillar in the center of an intersection of canals. “Didn’t Gilla make a joke about the ward above us falling in? I think this is the way.”

“Who’s Gilla??”

Ames’ face tightens at the question. He takes two steps toward Link, getting right in his face. “The first boy who turned to dust because of your lie to Baron. That’s who. One of my friends. Gilla Dane of the eighth. Remember his name? He had a mark above his eyebrow from a fight he got into at school and he used to wash clothes in the basins with you back at The Brae.”

Link’s face still seems confused, which only exasperates Ames worse. But before he can say anything more, Baal steps between the boys. “It matters not. We mourn the loss of your friend Gilla, truly, but remember that it is my greedy brother who is at fault.”

“You didn’t even remember his name,” growls Ames at Link, whose eyes seem wet with resentment.

“We have a goal, boys. A common one. And it matters not the death of one, or the deaths of two, or twenty, or even a hundred. We have the lives of tens of thousands upon our backs,” says Baal, his voice firm and echoing down the halls. “Those people above us … they depend on our work to save Atlas, remember?”

“Save … Atlas?”

The two boys and the man glance at the girl who spoke, Faery. Her eyes are big and full of wonder all the time. Why are her eyes like that? She acts like these are the first people she’s ever interacted with. Did her slumborn mother keep her in a closet half her life?

“Yes,” mutters Baal softly. “That is our work, Faery. We are on a hunt for …” He sucks in his lips with thought, then lifts his eyebrows lightly. “Poor choice of words. We are desperately … urgently seeking a woman who has gone missing. This woman is the key to saving all of Atlas. Without her, the world will burn.”

Link turns to Baal, his eyes flashing with confusion. “Burn …?”

“I told you before. Maybe you were not comprehending the severity of our mission and why it is of the utmost importance that this missing Goddess be found. I have not shown you the future, but I don’t think it is something you need to see. The world ends in fire. Well, five kings and fire. But it is the woman … the Goddess,” Baal continues with soft, searching eyes that flick back over to Faery, “who is the key to saving the world from that horrible fate.”

Faery lets go of Link’s hand, taking one step forward. “Why the woman?”

Baal’s eyes shift between the two of them, and then he answers, “Well, it’s quite simple. There is a missing Goddess today. She will be found soon by the wrong people. Those wrong people will then use her to start a very delicate chain of events—all of which I’ve studied—that lead to her complete absence in the future.”

“Her … complete absence?” echoes Faery. “Does she … die?”

“Yes,” he answers bluntly. The hall echoes with that word, Kid growing cold by it. “And without her: the five kings, and fire. Kings. Fire. Doom. The end.” His ghostly stare drifts over the boys, as if to ensure that the depth of his words is received.

“I don’t want the city to burn,” she murmurs.

“Faery …” warns Link quietly, seeming to sense something off. Kid senses it too, her body tensed at once.

“It would be most unpleasant,” agrees Baal, his eyes scanning the girl from head to shoulder to toe. Then his needle eyes meet hers, squinting with distaste.

Even Ames is alarmed, his little beady eyes flicking anxiously back and forth between Link and the man as the girl draws up to Baal, peering up at him with her compassionate eyes.

“I knew it was you …” whispers the man kindly.

“Who?” asks the girl, confused.

Baal’s kindness doesn’t touch Link, whose eyes widen in horror. “He’s going to steal her away,” he whispers under his breath.

“Stop him!” hisses Ames.

Faery seems to hear them perfectly, because the gentleness of her eyes is fast replaced with fear, and in that same moment, Baal makes a mad lunge for her—but she’s too quick, leaping back with inhuman speed and a creature-like hiss of protest when she slams into the stone wall.

All it will take is one single touch of Baal’s finger on the girl, and the two of them will rip through time, gone from them forever.

This much, Kid knows.

When Link makes an awkward effort to shield Faery, Baal shoves him aside with ease, causing Link to lose his footing and fall into the water with a shout. Unhindered, Baal makes another grab at the girl, but Ames charges between them this time, desperate to keep the man away from her.

The knife zips through the air in one instant, burying itself into Baal’s chest.

He staggers backward, uncomprehending. The man looks up with bewildered eyes, sputtering … and he sees Kid for the first time.

“You …” he whispers.

Ames turns, his eyes flashing as if he’d forgotten that Kid was with them all along. Link is clinging to the edge of the sidewalk, interrupted in his effort to climb out, his mouth agape.

Baal hisses as the red bleeds down his front, just like it did his brother Baron. He clutches the handle of Kid’s knife, the weapon that’s now become a part of him.

“You …” he says again, his eyes never having left Kid’s since the moment he saw her. “It’s … It’s always been … you …”

Clumsily, he reaches one last time for Faery, one last desperate effort, but Ames and the wide-eyed girl back away. Baal drops to his knees, gasping and retching, his hands beginning to tremble.

“Me?” whispers Kid, alarmed.

“The one I can’t see,” he hisses. “She’s the one … the one who … who …”

And then Baal begins to giggle at some dark, private joke, going hysterical as a madman. Kid’s knife wiggling in his chest causes his little laughs to come out in bursts of sickly, strangled noises.

“The joke … I’d said it all along … a person I could not see would be my end. I was warned, and yet … yet, I …” Baal’s eyes flit to the boys, first Ames, then Link. “Oh, but the sickest joke yet is on you two … oh, you’ll never know where I took him … my brother … or when. I moved him, you fools. I transported him in time, and you’ll never … ever … ever … ever …”

Ever, ever, ever … The sputtering man falls face-first to the floor. The very last breath he’ll ever draw escapes his lips. Then, only the sound of rushing water fills Kid’s ears.

Cintha’s Weapon

All fields of study have been suspended until further notice. The teams of scientists are busy putting things into boxes and leaving in pairs. Some, Cintha noticed, have not returned.

“What does this mean?” murmurs Aryl.

Cintha has no answer for her. Ever since three hours ago when they saw Ruena’s coronation go all wrong on the broadcast, chaos has broken out in the facility. The patients, of which there are only eight in this wing, are confined to the lounge where the broadcast now only shows a reflection of their own alarmed faces in its blank, unpowered screen.

She puts a hand on Aryl’s shoulder, trying to soothe her. “Pay it no mind,” she murmurs. “There was a … a situation with Ruena and the coronation, and once they get it all sorted out, the Queen will come onto the broadcast and address us. Don’t worry a moment about it, sweet thing.”

“That was no situation,” says Aryl. “That was a disruption. That was an attack. The Queen was attacked.”

This, I know. Cintha lets go of the girl and moves to the locked double doors of the lounge, which each bear only one small circular window. Through one of them, Cintha watches the commotion of hurried bodies, men and women hauling boxes full of things, and doors flinging open and shutting everywhere.

She catches the gaze of the woman with the red eyes passing by, who looks away quickly, carrying on with the business of lugging a crate full of colored vials down the hall and around the corner.

“I think I even saw it,” says Aryl, her voice light and shaky. “I saw red. I saw so much red … like the Crystal Court was on fire. Big bursts of red.”

Cintha turns from the circular window, deciding to help distract Aryl from the chaos. “Red? I still marvel at your Legacy. You can truly see temperatures? Even from a distance? Across a city?”

“Extreme temperatures. Red is warm. Blue is cold. I saw bright red when it happened. It had to be the Queen’s coronation I saw!”

“Bursts of red?” Cintha nods calmly, putting a thoughtful finger to her chin and deliberately taking her time to think. “That sounds like bolts of lightning to me. Not fire. Maybe the Queen is bravely fighting the attackers with her powerful Legacy.”

Aryl’s eyes shine with hope. “Do you think so?”

“It would certainly make sense. Isn’t Queen Ruena brave and wise for her age? The city is hers, now. She’ll protect it with her life. She’s sworn to do so, in fact.”

“But she hadn’t sworn yet. They didn’t make it that far into the ceremony,” Aryl says, her shoulder sinking.

Cintha peers up, spotting the old man Kirin sitting in a chair in the far corner of the lounge reading a book. For a moment, she is distracted wondering what book he’s chosen to read and whether it is doing the trick of convincing him that everything is okay.

Cintha decides she needs to keep talking to her friend. When she isn’t talking, she starts to think too much and panic. “Tell me where you saw the big red flashes. Up here?” she asks, pointing at the ceiling where she’d imagine the Lifted City to be. “Or over here, maybe?” She turns a bit, pointing upwards at a different angle.

“No,” says Aryl flatly, pointing straight ahead at the wall.

Cintha follows her finger, perplexed. That’s odd …

Then the double doors crash open, and three men in masks are standing there. Cintha and Aryl pull away from it, moving to the wall as the others in the room rise from their chairs expectantly.

“Patients one and two, follow us. The rest of you, please remain calm and quiet.”

Kirin remains neither calm nor quiet. “What the fuck happened? Why the commotion? Why the disturbance? We want answers!”

“Patients one and two,” repeats the masked men, though Cintha is uncertain which one of them is speaking, considering she can’t see their mouths.

With a start, she realizes that she’s patient two. A soft-eyed man with dimples and shoulder-length curly hair seems to be patient one, as he brushes off his beige pants, gives a tug to his beige shirt, then approaches the masked men.

Cintha gives a reassuring squeeze to Aryl’s shoulders. “I’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Or else we’ll reunite wherever they’re taking us. I’m sure it’s a precaution. You know, to keep us safe.”

Aryl nods, but her eyes are heavy with doubt.

Cintha does her best to ignore the doubt, as if to pretend that it doesn’t thrive in her own heart, as she follows suit with patient one and leaves with the masked men. They move as a unit, two men in front and one man behind Cintha and patient one. Down the hall and around the corner they go, bypassing the steady, foot-scuffling commotion of hurried doctors, scientists, and white-garbed officials.

In front of a door, they stop. “Step inside, please.”

Patient one does so first, pulling open the door. Cintha follows with a pinch of reluctance, her footsteps beginning to slow. Inside the room, she sees the red-eyed woman who was in charge of her Legacy-removal treatment. The room is small and windowless, as they all are, but in the middle of this one rests an exam table, upon which there are two sets of plain white robes. Two vials of water are set next to them.

The door shuts heavily at her back, startling her. Only one of the masked men have stayed, watching with his arms crossed.

“Hello, Cintha,” greets the red-eyed woman, drawing Cintha’s attention back to her. “And hello, Lanis. If you would please change into these robes, drink your vial of protective serum, and then lie down on the table, we can begin the transportation process.”

Cintha wrinkles her face. “T-Transportation? Is it not safe here anymore? Is this because of what happened at the coronat—?”

“There’s nothing to worry about. You can trust me, Cintha.” She smiles her warm smile. Her eyes are red and her skin is smooth and her hair is perfectly in place … and Cintha feels so unsettled.

The dimpled man, Lanis, wastes no time in doing what he has been instructed. He removes his shirt, setting it on the empty part of the exam table, then slips on the robe, underneath of which he starts to undo his pants.

Cintha stares at him, wide-eyed. Am I to be afforded no privacy at all? She has gotten used to the examinations, to changing her clothes in front of the red-eyed woman whose name she still does not know, to even drinking the chemicals that make them ill for a day—chemicals that are supposed to prepare them for testing and treatments. But now she’s expected to change in front of a masked man? In front of another male patient?

Cintha moves next to the examination table, taking the robe in one hand, but then grows still. In her hesitation, she looks up and watches the dimpled man swallowing his water. He squints a bit as he drinks, and then he looks at the emptied vial with a small frown, as if thinking something.

“Nothing to worry about at all,” murmurs the red-eyed woman, and it’s only now that Cintha notices the tightness in her smile.

Cintha, her gaze still on the woman, takes the vial with her other hand. She starts to bring it to her lips.

“No adverse reactions?” blurts the woman suddenly.

Cintha stops the vial at her lips, not yet drinking it. “Sorry?” she murmurs, inches from the glass.

“To your Legacy removal treatment,” the woman clarifies, her red eyes curious. They shimmer with disquiet, and her jaw sets so hard that Cintha hears her teeth grind.

Why would she ask me that? She knows that I … “I was seventh in line,” Cintha reminds her slowly, the vial hovering at her mouth. “I … I still haven’t received the treatment.”

“Oh,” the woman says plainly. “So you still have your Legacy?”

Cintha blinks. She glances at the dimpled man, who seems to be breathing heavily. His eyes look glossed over as he climbs onto the exam table, his hands clumsy, and when he lies back, his head seems to drop faster than he means it to, causing a loud bang. He hardly notices, for the mumble of acknowledgement he gives it.

“Normal reaction to the serum,” explains the woman, giving a glance at the masked man near the door. “Don’t mind the Guardian at the door, either. He is here to protect us during the process. You can’t tell how handsome he is behind that mask of his. I always tell him he should have a wife by now with a face like that, but—”

“Enough,” grunts the masked man.

“Of course,” agrees the woman. “I’m distracting. My apologies. The man hasn’t had a date in months.” She smiles, though even her attempt at humor seems strained. Cintha notices it all, watchful and observant as ever. “You’re safe from the commotion outside, Cintha. Don’t worry. He is even armed with a gun,” she points out.

Cintha glances at the masked man—who she’s now been told is, indeed, a man. An oversexed man, if Cintha follows what the red-eyed woman is implying. But a Guardian? The woman has to know Cintha better than to think she’d believe this masked man is a Guardian. Clearly he is not. So why would she say that?

Is the red-eyed woman trying to tell her something? ‘So you still have your Legacy?’ she’d asked.

Cintha lifts her gaze to the masked man. “C-Can you … Can you turn around, please?” she asks him innocently, setting the vial down undrunk and clutching the robe to her chest.

“I’m here for your protection,” he recites in a monotone.

Cintha glances at the red-eyed woman once more. She only stares back, silent but for her eyes, which seem to say six hundred things at once. Taking a guess at one of those six hundred things, Cintha starts to approach the masked man. “You are very kind to protect me,” she murmurs, smiling, reaching for him with something other than her hands. She feels that other something grip him tightly.

His body stiffens in response. Even through the mask, she hears his breath accelerate. “S-Stand back, patient two.”

Unheeding, Cintha slowly advances upon him. “This robe … it’s so itchy,” she complains, letting it slip from her hands. She hugs herself, feeling her power throbbing around her in all directions, like some unseen energy that pulls at the hairs on the back of the neck.

“B-Back,” he breathes, sucking in air so deeply and desperately that he already sounds like he’s speeding towards an orgasm.

“Is something wrong, sir?” Cintha asks, her voice light, knowing full well what her power is doing to him. “Are we in danger? Maybe you should give me your gun so that I might better protect us? I’m really good with guns. My brother taught me well.”

Suddenly, the man grabs her, unable to contain himself for a second longer. She shrieks once, and then the man is atop her on the cold tile floor. His feral eyes shine through the eyeholes of the mask as he kicks her legs apart, sucking in jagged breaths of need on the other side of that false face.

“Aye, I’ll give you my gun,” he growls. “It’s rock hard.” Gripping her wrists as he pins her to the floor, he leans into her ear. “And I’d love to see how good you are with my gun.”

Cintha clenches shut her eyes, screaming in his face. She feels his weight descend upon her as he fumbles with his pants in his psychotic, sexual rage brought on by whatever foul seed of hunger lived within the man—and the little stroke of her Legacy that stirred it to life.

Then Cintha stops screaming, staring up into the man’s greedy eyes. In an instant, she’s consumed by one very curious observation. You quicken the hearts of men. Rone told her that once, and she thinks it now, calmly pondering the man who’s trying to put himself into her as fast as humanly possible.

‘So you still have your Legacy?’

Yes, I do.

Cintha lifts a hand to the man’s chest, then focuses her Legacy even more. The man stops moving at once, his muscles tightening. A moan that’s nothing human emits behind that mask, muffled and desperate, his eyes wet with animal desperation. She feels his pulse shoot up, up, up. It’s like a drum beneath her hand, a drum that’s rocketing faster than any drum ought to.

The man gasps, humping the floor once, twice, three times, and then he lets out a choking sound, his eyes growing as wide as the eyeholes themselves.

His muscles contract again, and then he rolls off of her and onto his back, clutching his chest. He kicks at nothing—a spasm, a man or woman standing there in his imagination, a phantom—and he sputters in an attempt to cry out for help. Then, there is an awful gurgling sound, a wet and unseemly cough, and then nothing.

Cintha, trembling everywhere, rises to her knees and stares down at the man on the floor in horror. He lies there on his back, dead, with an obscenely erect cock poking straight up at the stars. Without thinking, she grabs his mask and pulls it off in the very next moment. His face is covered by the blood he’s coughed up from his own exploded heart, painting his mouth and nose in crimson.

Cintha’s eyes shoot up to the woman with alarm. The mask still hangs in her hand. “I … I … I didn’t—!”

“Take his gun,” orders the woman, walking briskly over to the table Cintha was supposed to occupy, and swiping the vial of serum. “Now, Cintha. Hurry.”

Her hands trembling so much she can hardly see them, Cintha grabs the gun from the man’s holster and fumbles to free it. The thing is heavier than she expected.

Cintha shakes her head. “What do I do …? What did I just do??”

The woman answers without turning around, still busied at the table. “Change, Cintha. The uniform. Now.”

Cintha doesn’t comprehend until she peers down at the man’s clothes, which look two sizes too large for her. After a quick glance at the door, hearing all the commotion on its other side, she spares no moment in pulling off her own clothes now. She has to flip the man on his side to remove his uniform top, followed by his pants. Standing, she stumbles in her efforts to pull them on, nearly toppling herself into the exam table of patient one, Lanis, who seems to be chemically asleep or dead. Cintha doesn’t want to know which, seeing as she was seconds from swallowing that serum herself.

As Cintha buttons the top, the woman turns around with a filled syringe, to which she quickly applies a plastic cap over its needle. “The mask, Cintha.”

She stares incredulously at the woman. “H-He coughed his last blood all over the inside!” Cintha exclaims, lifting the mask to show her. “I can’t—!”

“It’s a matter of your living or your dying,” the woman states plainly. “And if it was up to me, I’d much rather you live.”

Cintha stares at the woman as if the whites of her eyes had gone red too. “Why??” she blurts. “Why are you helping me at all??”

The woman comes up close to Cintha, nearly nose to nose. “The King has died today. Sanctum is upending itself. The existence of this facility is a secret only held by two individuals in this world: Ruena Netheris and Greymyn Netheris. One of them was just assassinated before the world. The other has fled the throne. The instructions are simple. If both are removed from their power, then we must dispose of all evidence of our work here.” The woman’s eyes narrow. “The patients are part of that evidence.”

Cintha nearly drops the mask. “You … You mean …?”

“Mask, now. Hurry.”

With due reluctance, Cintha brings the thing to her face, slipping its bands behind her ears, keeping it in place. The mask is too big for her, but the cheeks of it still touch her own, and the scent of blood fills her nostrils. “I’m gonna be sick,” she mumbles behind the white thing.

“Help me lift the man to the table. Now, Cintha, now.”

Cintha crouches next to the man and, after staring through the awkward eyeholes of the mask to judge where the woman is, picks up the man’s legs while the woman bears his upper body. After a few grunts and a couple paces, the man is dropped onto the table with a resounding metallic thud. The woman throws the robe that Cintha was supposed to don over his body.

“We were all going to be killed?” Cintha can’t help but ask. “You mean that serum was—?”

“Follow me. Now.”

The woman moves to the door. Cintha thrusts her gun into the holster attached to her new pants. It hangs heavily on her loose waist and nearly feels as if it’s going to pull her pants down. Following the woman, Cintha self-consciously clutches at her waistband to keep her pants from falling. After a moment’s breath, the woman opens the door and moves with the same hurried stride of the others in the hallway. Cintha heads out after her, letting the door shut at her back.

“I can’t leave my friends behind,” whispers Cintha as they hurry down the hall, the warm breath of each of her words beating back against her face from within the mask. “My friends Kirin and Aryl … Aryl, she’s just a girl! They’re going to kill a girl!”

“No talking until we’re out of the facility,” hisses the woman as they round about a corner. The bodies keep moving past them, both doctors and masked individuals.

They reach an elevator lift. The woman touches the button, and then the two of them wait.

Cintha glances over her shoulder. She sees no other patients being brought to other rooms. For all I know, Aryl and Kirin already drank their vials. They’re lying on tables right now, as dead asleep as that Lanis man. The thought chills her. She feels so alone suddenly.

She finds herself thinking of Aryl pointing at the wall where she saw the big flashes of red during Ruena’s coronation. Suddenly, the realization rushes to her.

“We’re in the Lifted City,” Cintha blurts out.

“Yes,” mutters the woman.

She can’t believe she’s been in the Lifted City this whole time. For some reason, she’d pictured the facility to be in some corner of the slums. She wonders how in the world they’re going to manage safely passing through the Lifted City undetected, if that’s the plan at all. And that’s assuming this woman even has a plan.

Of course she does. She orchestrated this whole setup to free Cintha from this place, didn’t she? But why? “Why’d you save me?”

“No talking.”

Cintha takes a deep breath. Through the corner of her eyehole, she sees the syringe in the woman’s grip. “What does the serum do?”

“I said no talking.”

“Tell me. Please tell me something.”

The woman’s face tightens. Then she turns her head slightly, her eyes still fixed expectantly on the chrome elevator door. “It is a failed prototype of our Legacy neutralizer. It only works nine percent of the time. When it doesn’t work, it results in a final sleep.”

A final sleep. “It kills them,” she states, as if needing it to be said outright, as if needing it confirmed.

“To those who drink it. But for those who are injected with it,” she says, flinching, “much worse.”

The elevator doors open. The two women step inside, and then the doors shut. Silence swallows them as the lift slowly moves.

“Injecting this failed serum induces a coma,” the woman says, her voice quiet and detached, “which traps the victim in a permanent nightmare. It awakens your deepest fears and unleashes them on your vulnerable, altered mind. Only with an antidote—every vial of which has been destroyed—can the victim be brought out of the state. Unless they are one of the nine percent upon which it does work, in which case they will awake after a matter of hours … or days.”

“It … It seems so random,” whispers Cintha, terrified by the idea. Is that dimpled man Lanis lying on that cold metal table right now, trapped in a vivid nightmare of his own brain’s making with no means to break free or ever wake up? No, she said it only works that way when injected. If imbibed, it means death. The Lanis man is dead, and you were a second from following him to your final sleep, if it wasn’t for this woman. “W-Why the nightmare?”

“To eliminate one’s Legacy, the serum must access specific parts of the brain and awaken the parts that are used in your Legacy. Each person’s mind is different, so the serum must be potent enough to probe deeply. It activates your emotions, personality, memories … it must stimulate them in order to anesthetize them. This failed serum stimulates the darker parts of the brain—fight or flight responses, primal instincts, fear—but doesn’t always succeed in reaching the Legacy. Only nine percent of the time.”

“But you have a serum that does work? To eliminate Legacies? Isn’t that was I was seventh in line for?”

“Yes. And all that serum will be destroyed, too. All our work.” The woman sighs. “I really shouldn’t be telling you all of this. These secrets are the very reason we are destroying the evidence, now that Greymyn is dead. But I can’t stomach losing what we’ve gained.”

“You have learned so much about Legacies here,” agrees Cintha, wondering what else they’ve discovered in this strange, secret place.

“This failed serum—as well as the successful one—is a result of the greatest discovery Atlas has ever made,” the doctor explains. “Can you imagine that? This little thing,” she says, lifting the syringe in her palm, “is created from the cells of the only known Meta in all of Atlas’s history.”

“Meta?”

“It is a special type of Legacy,” she answers. “A type that is not known to the public because, well, it could easily be identified as Outlier. It is a Legacy that affects other Legacies.” The doctor lifts an eyebrow. “You are listening to me, aren’t you? We have to keep this knowledge alive—and secret. It won’t exist in a database of any kind after today. Just in the palm of my hand and in your brain and mine.”

“Yes,” promises Cintha. “I’m listening. I’ll remember.”

“This serum was created from that Meta. Its effects are harmless to the Meta and to any who is of direct blood relation to the Meta, as they would share her genetic makeup.”

“Her?” murmurs Cintha, having caught that word. “The Meta is a her?”

“A mother,” answers the doctor, her face tightening. “A very brave, very foolish mother.”

The lift jerks to a stop. The doctor slams a finger into the button, keeping the doors closed, and then she faces Cintha importantly.

“When we get off the lift, you must make your way straight to the Sky Rail out of the back exit. They’ll be boarding masked folk like you and doctors like me, but you must go alone. I have other tasks to do before my time. That train—”

“W-We can’t separate,” Cintha blurts.

“Listen. That train will take you down to the emergency refuge for Sanctum survivors where you will be given a safe place to stay until a proper King or Queen is returned to the throne.” The look of fear must be evident on Cintha’s face, for the woman rolls her eyes impatiently and says, “You and I share a secret of Sanctum, don’t you understand? You’re one of the Nether, now. The folk in the masks. You are one of them. Go and survive. Your time with me is done.”

“What about the others?” murmurs Cintha, trembling. “I … can’t just leave them behind. I can’t.”

The doctor stares at Cintha as if she’s Atlas’s greatest idiot. “So you wish to throw away this opportunity I’ve given you?”

“N-No. I just … I just wish to share it with someone else.”

The woman shakes her head, irritated at once. “The reason I saved you, Cintha Two of the ninth, is because I trust in your spirit. You are quiet and calculated. You are watchful. And—”

“I just made a man’s heart explode,” Cintha murmurs back.

“Yes. That was my next and final point.” The woman squints at Cintha knowingly. “You have what it takes … to survive. So please, for the sake of our friendship, respect my wishes and survive.”

Cintha doesn’t respond, staring at the woman and feeling her insides running cold with anxiety. If I am the kind, watchful survivor that she claims I am, wouldn’t I stay to save my friends from the fate I almost suffered? Wouldn’t it make me a coward to just … run?

“Very well,” the woman says, pushing a finger into the button and opening the elevator doors to step through the threshold. “Do what you will. It’s your life. And if it’s your wish to waste it on your friends who might already be dead, I overestimated your smarts.”

“I’ll make it out,” Cintha promises her.

“I hope you do,” says the woman.

And then a bullet flies through her head.

Cintha jerks away when the woman’s blood paints the front of her mask to match the back of it. The bullet went clean through her head, leaving a hole in the wall of the lift.

A figure in a mask drifts by the entrance to the lift, stares at Cintha, his gun drawn, then gives her a nod. “All clear?”

Cintha is trembling within the oversized clothes that aren’t hers. “Y-Yes,” Cintha manages to grunt through her shock.

“Find another doctor, let them finish with a patient, then bring them down as you did this one,” the masked man directs, lowering his gun to grab hold of the woman’s ankle. He drags her out of the lift like a sack of freshly-picked Greens.

On her way out, her palm happens to open, leaving something behind, and then the elevator doors close.

Cintha stares at the syringe on the floor. She still grips the gun at her hip, the weapon tight in its holster. The masked men, they’re the true ones in charge. They’re systematically ridding this place of all evidence of its existence … the doctors included.

She smashes her finger into the button of the lift, making it go up. If I’m not too late, I can save Kirin and Aryl. She shakes in the man’s boots she wears, hoping she can move quickly enough in them. In this mask, no one will know who I am. In this mask, I am safe. I am a Nether now, which I guess is what the folk in the masks call themselves. The Nether … Netheris …

King Greymyn Netheris is dead. The lift draws up, up, up, a slow, crawling pace. The King is actually, truly dead.

Cintha takes a deep breath, glancing down at the syringe again. A permanent nightmare. Nine percent chance of working. She stares at it, terrified by its power.

The elevator stops.

Cintha crouches down and snatches the syringe off the floor in one quick instant, then holds the dear weapon close to her. Survive. You must survive and see Rone again. He’s waiting for you. She holds her breath and doesn’t let it out, her eyes focused on the elevator doors with the severity of an assassin. She will be clear in the head, and her heart will be made of steel. She will survive this.

And then the doors open.

ACT 3

0185  Tide

The rain brushes by in sheets of fury as he huddles against the side of the building with but a lip of brick stretched over him from a windowsill above, shielding him from the elements.

He had spent a while pushing the rain away from him with his wind as he walked, but the hungrier he gets, the more exhausting his Legacy is to perform. He isn’t sure he could even push a light breeze in his current state.

“Fuck you,” he grunts at the rain as it blows by punishingly. It’s like nature itself is showing off to spite only Tide, who still thinks he can name himself Storm King someday. I’ll be the second Storm King. Fuck the rule about no duplicate titles. I’ll make people forget that Atlas even had a first Storm King. He glares into the rain, squeezing himself tighter as the wind blows harder still, slapping him occasionally in the face with rain.

An hour later when the rain has let up, he continues his slow move through the outskirts of the first. In this part of the slums, the Lifted City can’t even be seen unless one gets a view that isn’t obstructed by all the enormously tall buildings of the area, thus the completely unblocked downpour of rain. Tide has passed a number of people along his way, but most of them seem as suspicious as the folk in the Abandon, which makes him wonder if they are folk from the Abandon. It does have an entrance into the first ward, though it is narrow and it is heavily guarded. The only other way into the first from the Abandon is by circumventing through the eleventh, across the Core, into the sixth, and then cutting through the wards the back way. Tide opted to take the quickest path of least resistance.

Unfortunately, that also seems to have been the path of least sustenance, too. He has walked the streets of the first for four sunsets now and has only had one stale butt of bread, a clump of sour berries at the top of a trash bin, and a swallow of salted meat along with half a flask of warrior’s wine, which is really just a fancy name for slum-grade tea. No one knows anyone by the name of Gin, and no one seems motivated in the least to help him. Why should they? Tide is a stranger in these parts. If he wasn’t so sure that the Queen would have turned him instantly into one of those chalky white statues, he would have made a mad grab for her meal—the scent of which still haunts his nostrils.

It isn’t until the fifth day of mindless meandering through the streets that the tall buildings give way to a spread of very low ones, something like a neighborhood. The thin roads are lined with small multicolored slum homes, much like the ones on the outskirts of the ninth and tenth, but there are countless intersections, the roads constantly weaving in and out of each other. Each block—if they can even be called that—only holds four to five tiny houses, making the area seem more like a sprawling courtyard with clusters of houses pinned here and there. Cables that once transmitted electricity hang between the homes and dangle over the streets, interrupted here and there with a tall metal pole toward which the cables centrally attach to. The area is far more heavily populated than the outskirts of the first, and the people all seem busied carrying baskets of clothing, vases of water, bins of seed, and rolling barrels down the roads.

Tide feels an overwhelming sense of gratefulness for happening on the inhabited area of the first, especially after having traveled through so much nothing for days. He approaches the first person who meets his eyes, a woman with short grey hair leaning against the doorframe of her doorless home. She knows of no Gin. “But if it’s a beggar’s bread you’re looking for, head down the road a ways and see if the Giving has a bowl for you.”

He drinks in those words like a cool glass of mother’s milk, but his response is not gratitude. “You think me a beggar?” he spits back, scowling. “Piss on you and your Giving.” To that, she just rolls her eyes and lifts the decanter she’s drinking from to her thin, dry lips.

Despite his irritability, he does precisely what she advises and continues down the road. He doesn’t get the suspicious, dark looks anymore, not here in this curious community. Instead, he seems to be outright ignored, every single person being too busy working or heading somewhere that they don’t even lift their heads.

What Tide perceives to be the main road leads by a sanctuary of sorts that has no walls, but rather columns under which there are tables and chairs set out. The intoxicating smell of smoked or grilled food draws him forth. He ascends the three steps that lead into the cement covering, lit only by the cool grey light of day spilling in through the columns and the cooking fires that burn in large red cauldrons in the center of the space. People in rags and cloaks and tattered clothes are lined up for their helping.

Tide gets in line, hugging his arms to his chest. The pink glow from his body becomes more evident in here where it is darker, the pink color illuminating the backs of the people in the line ahead of him. His light draws forth the attention of a few who pass by, giving him a worried glance. He returns their glances with a scowl of his own, resisting his urge to tell them all to piss off. His hunger is so extreme, he worries even spending the energy to shout is too much and might result in his keeling over.

When he reaches the front of the line half an eternity later, the woman before the cauldrons of stew and fire, over which the meat and vegetables cook, studies him with squinted, suspicious eyes. “You aren’t of the first,” she grunts.

Tide gives a shrug, still holding himself and scowling. “So? This is the Giving, isn’t it? So give.”

“I only give to citizens of the first, boy.”

“I’m no fucking boy,” Tide spits back in a voice low and devoid of energy. “I’m fucking starved. I haven’t eaten in days. I came here for a giving.”

“You got a token?”

Tide has no patience for the woman. “Fuck your tokens. I want a bite of that meat. And I want a bowl of that,” he adds, nodding at the stew. “Give it or I’ll take it myself.”

“You need to see the Slum King and you need to get yourself a token if you wish to be given a damn thing.”

Slum King? This tri-ward unity calls their leader the Slum King? “I’ve a token,” Tide lies. “I left it at home. I’ll have a bowl of that stew now.”

She doesn’t budge, staring at him sternly. Tide reaches for one of the empty bowls at her side, figuring he’ll just fill it himself, when she slaps his hand away. “Show your token, I’ll show you my stew,” the woman states.

The next instant, Tide grabs the nearest vegetable directly off the grill with one hand—a green pepper, whole—and a knob of meat with the other, then takes off running. Seconds later, his hands burn, and instead of dropping the food, he crams the scalding hot meat into his mouth, only to stupidly discover a completely different sort of burn. Racing away from the Giving and from the scandalized shouts of the serving woman, he spits the meat back into his palm, tossing it lightly several times while blowing on the pepper in his other hand, which he now holds only by the stem.

After turning down two roads and rounding a corner, he slams his back into the side of a house and blows feverishly on the single pepper he stole and the meat, tossing it to help cool it off. Without caring for the state of how cooked it is—if it’s cooked at all—he shoves the whole of it into his mouth, which is still burned from his first attempt at eating it, and he chews excitedly, desperate for the nourishment. He can’t even taste it, so burned his tongue is.

Without even bothering to swallow the meat, he bites off the end of the pepper, ravenously chewing and chewing and chewing. For no reason at all, he remembers when his father used to deny him dinner when he misbehaved, or when he was sent to the Headmaster at school for disrupting class or beating up Link, or when he talked back to his mother who never paid much attention to him anyway.

He chews and he chews, wondering where his mother and father had gone to. His father must have finally had enough of Tide’s fury and taken off, with no regard to his own. Didn’t his father ever think that maybe his own anger was inspiring his son’s? Didn’t his father ever wonder whether he ought to teach his child compassion? Tide always wondered this to himself as he stared at Wick and Link from across the schoolyard when they didn’t notice him. Tide would watch as Wick comforted his weak little brother, patting him on the back and saying things that’d make him laugh. He even watched the way Rone and his sister would interact with them too, all four of them, friendly and sweet and compassionate and supportive.

Tide resented them all. He resented the sweet, loving families they would go home to. He hated the idea of Link having a mother worry over him and make him meals and encourage him during his homework, even if he never witnessed any of that. The only time he can ever recall seeing Link’s mother was when they were called to the Headmaster together. Watching Ellena across the room, Tide felt a stab of anger … and a stab of yearning, wondering what his life could be life if he had a mother like that.

And it only made him hate Link Lesser worse. Link and Wick, they are the spoiled brats of the slums. They don’t know what they have and they sneer in the direction of Tide, thinking him to be lowly and ugly and brutish. “I’ll have you by the throat one day,” he promises those two boys out loud, still chewing as his nose runs from the heat of the pepper, mucus gathering upon his upper lip. A tear escapes his eyes from the pepper. “I’ll end you, Wick Lesser.”

And if it wasn’t for Wick, Tide would have his one and only friend, Scorp, at his side right now. Scorp was the one who found him on the street that day long ago. It was the worst day of Tide’s life. One moment, he was running away from the Weapon Show, the next moment he sat in a chair at home watching a man with a cane leaving his apartment. He can’t even remember the man’s face. He was so confused and felt dizzy. He stared at the window for an hour, watching as the sun rose. Morning, he had thought.

Then he left his apartment. He thinks he was wondering where his parents were. He moved out into the streets, lost, and didn’t understand why people were staring at him and running away, alarmed by his presence. What the fuck you looking at? he had thought of them.

He was turning a corner and saw a group of Guardian at the end of the street. Maybe they were  handling some sort of incident. Tide didn’t know. But the next moment, he was pulled into an alley by a hand and an urgent whisper. “Where’d you get shot??” came the voice of this strange boy Tide’s age, this boy with hair cutting down the middle of his scalp, the sides of his head shaved. Tattoos decorated his whole shirtless front. Tide had no idea what he was talking about, too dizzied to notice the pink and orange glow all over his own chest that showed even through his clothes. “My name is Scorp. What’s yours?” Tide was too confused to even answer that, his foggy brain still trying to desperately grasp at something that was almost there … and almost gone. What was he trying to recall?

Hours later, he was in some sort of secret basement, a bunker of sorts just beneath a gymnasium in the eleventh. “Stay by my side,” Scorp told him. “I have a group in the twelfth. There are other glow-hit folk there. They call themselves the Neons, but you can stay with me. I’m safe. I’ll protect you. What’s your Legacy?”

Tide pushes the memory away, feeling a deep twitch in his stomach. Is it the meat he’s eating, or is it pain from the memory of Scorp, who the Queen forced him to kill? If I hadn’t killed him, Tide has to reassure himself, then he would have killed me. He would have cut my throat open and spilled my ninth ward blood all over his boots.

Tears swell in Tide’s eyes, and he doesn’t know whether they’re inspired by the pepper or the memory. He sniffles loudly, drool falling from his mouth now as he keeps chewing the remainder of the pepper. He hears the scuffling of feet, so he starts moving again, despite his stomach quite suddenly beginning to turn over. Water, he realizes. I need water. Lots of water.

The burning in his mouth is nearly ignored as his face drains all over itself—tears from his eyes, from his nose, from his lips. He keeps his feet moving. He pulls the length of his arm across his mouth and nose, wiping away as much of the grossness as he can.

He slams his back against another wall the moment he turns a corner. The trouble with the layout of this part of the first ward is, it is so difficult to hide. There are no true alleyways; every road is one lined with houses. If he wasn’t running from whoever is chasing him—likely that woman from the Giving and maybe an army of others who work there—he’d stop to appreciate how warm this place feels. It’s a community. It’s full of faces and families. It’s full of life.

“Running?”

Tide flinches at the voice, which comes from the side door of the house upon which he’s leaning. It’s the voice of a boy his age, or perhaps a year younger. He is a head shorter than Tide, thin of body and round of face, and his eyes are soft and brown—two chocolate buttons. His hair is short and clean-cropped, a tuft of brown at the front, flipped up. He wears a white fitted t-shirt and green, woven shorts with nothing on his dirtied feet.

“The fuck’s it matter to you?” spits back Tide.

The boy blushes at Tide’s brash demeanor. “You … want to hide in here? Maybe? You don’t have to. I just, um …” He swallows hard, his eyes drifting down Tide’s body. “D-Do you need …?”

Tide hears the footsteps approaching, so he darts past the boy without waiting for the rest of his words. The boy softly but quickly shuts the door at his back.

The square-shaped room seems to be the whole of the house. There is a soft couch on one end, a broadcast on the wall, and a small basket of thread and cloth by a table in the nearest corner, which sits under two windows that bear tattered curtains that are transparent, the sunlight warmly seeping in and lighting the room on fire.

The boy comes around to his front, observing him. “You look like you need a cleaning up,” he observes, studying him.

“You’ve a toilet?” Tide asks at once, hand clasped to his belly.

“Maybe I could offer you a … a b-b-bath,” he goes on to say, his gaze seeming to be trapped on Tide’s big chest and unable to meet his eyes. “I have soaps that I traded for last week and … and oils that I was saving for an occasion, but thought, um …”

“Bathroom,” Tide growls, interrupting him.

The boy points at a small door in the corner of the room behind the broadcast. Tide tumbles for the door, having to bend his neck to get through it, then pulls it shut unkindly and sits upon the toilet there, staring at the small shaded window that rests above him as his bowels less-than-gently turn inside-out.

It is not a pleasant experience for Tide, and twice he fights and gives in to an urge to cry.

What feels like an hour later, Tide’s insides have settled, leaving him feeling twice as empty and hungry as before. He cleans up with one of the boy’s towels hanging under the window, wiping his face all over it until he’s dry, then discards it onto the floor carelessly.

He pushes out of the toilet room. “Better pull open a window,” Tide warns him.

The boy is standing in the exact same place he was when Tide had gone into the bathroom. He nods quickly. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

Tide squints. The fuck is up with this guy? “Where are they?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think, idiot? The ones who were chasing me.”

“Oh. Gone. They went past.” The boy pushes the curtain to the side to get a glimpse out the window. “Yes. No sign of them.”

Tide grunts, then moves for the side door again. After a second, he reconsiders, going for the front door perpendicular to the side one instead.

“Leaving so soon?”

Tide stops with his hand on the doorknob. “I have business to handle.”

The boy lifts a bowl of apples off the table nearest him. “Do you want to eat? Before you take off running again? You look pale.”

Tide sneers, annoyed, as if being called pale is an insult. Then he reconsiders precisely how he might appear at the moment. I just turned out my insides. I don’t have the energy to run. But he wouldn’t dare admit the shakiness in his legs, or the weakness in his arms, or how he feels like the shell of a nut that’s been smashed by a boot, its meaty insides shattered and splayed about him in chunks.

Without a word, Tide moves to the bowl and palms an apple. He brings the thing to his mouth and rips out a bite as if the apple had done something to anger him. He crunches it with his eyes closed, chewing and melting into the sensation. Nourishment seems to flood through his veins in one instant. He feels a warm sense of giddiness followed by a ringing hopefulness that lightens his head.

“Apple’s gritty,” he complains through his chewing as he opens his eyes onto the boy. A tiny fleck of the apple leaps from his mouth and lands on the boy’s cheek, who doesn’t flinch at all, his brown eyes locked onto Tide’s chest, still unable to lift them any higher.

“I’m Dag,” he says.

Tide stops chewing, lifting an eyebrow. “That’s your name?” He nods. “Dog? Like the animal?”

“Dag. It’s … It’s Dag. But you can call me Dog if you want.”

Tide’s eyes lighten, amused by the boy. He takes another huge bite of the apple, crunching loudly and smacking his food with his mouth open. “Dog? Think I should call you Dog, then?”

The boy shrugs. “If … If you want. I mean, you know. O-Only if you really want.” He thrusts his hands into his pockets, watching as Tide consumes the apple bite after obnoxious bite.

Tide knows he’s being obnoxious. He enjoys the power he’s got over this boy. Seventeen is he, like Tide? Or sixteen? Maybe the boy is even older, one of those nineteen-year-olds who never lifted a weight in his life, who’s never grown fully, who is as weak as a lazy breeze in the summer. With every boorish chomp of his teeth on this boy’s apple, he’s testing him, much in the same way he’d poke his friends in the chest repeatedly to see if they’d fight back.

“Yeah,” Tide decides after swallowing. He bites into the apple again, the crunch of water spraying out, a drop or two landing on the boy’s forehead. “Yeah, that’s what I want to call you.”

Dog—as Tide insists on calling him—lets on a tiny smile, almost shy, then gives a wave of his hand to the table. “I have water, too. It’s lukewarm, as I’d fetched it in the night, but you’re welcome to—”

“Lukewarm?” Tide gives a huff through his bite of apple. “Who the fuck drinks lukewarm water? Might as well drink piss.”

“Sorry. It’s, uh …” Dog gives a nervous glance at the small vase of water, neatly set next to two clay cups. “It’s all I have, really.”

“You can’t fetch fresh water for your guest?” Tide spits back through his mouthful.

Dog’s lips part, half a sputter coming out of his lips, and then he swallows. Tide gives the nervous boy a onceover, wondering if he’s enjoying this. He’s just like Wick, a boy of other boys. I can tell. He wants to see what I’ve got under this shirt and in these pants. He’s got a stiff one for me, I know it. Could Tide’s luck be any better?

“Well?” Tide prods him. “You gonna fetch or what, Dog?”

Dog nods quickly. “Of course, yeah. I’ll, um … I’ll get more.”

“Nice couch,” Tide mutters as he walks over to the one at the end of the room just under the shaded window. He carries the bowl of apples with him, plopping down on the couch and putting his feet up, taking up the whole length of it. He shifts, getting comfortable. “I think I’ll stay here awhile.” He takes another merciless mouthful of the fruit, letting the crisp wetness dress his chin in careless flecks of juice. When he brings his gaze back to Dog, he finds the boy staring at Tide’s legs, bewildered. “The fuck you looking at?”

Dog snaps his eyes up. “Nothing. I just … I’d just cleaned the couch, really. It was … I-I’m …” He stares at Tide’s feet.

My boots have mud and dirt on them. I’m soiling his couch. “If I’m wrecking your pretty little house, then I can leave,” retorts Tide.

“N-No. No, no, it’s okay.”

“Say the word. I’m taking these apples if I go, but say the word and my ass is out.”

“Don’t leave. It’s okay.” Dog nods quickly, tripping over himself as he backs away toward the side door. “Just … um, please don’t go to the windows. Or look out of them. Or answer the door. I’ll … I’ll keep you safe in here, from whatever you’re running from. I’ll get some fresher water. If you, um …” Dog swallows, his hand already on the doorknob. “If you want, when I get back, maybe you can tell me what you’re running from …?”

Tide furrows his brow challengingly. “And if I never tell you?”

“Well, that’s … that’s fine too. You can stay.”

Tide nods. “Good Dog. Now go fetch.”

The boy issues a weird sort of sound—something between a sigh and a moan—then slips out of the door. Tide tosses aside the apple core, letting it land on the floor somewhere, then fists the next one in the bowl. King Tide, Storm King. This isn’t much of a throne room, but it’ll have to do for now. He considers whether he ought to leave. A girl named Gin is somewhere out there, and until he brings her back to the Queen—alive—his life in the Abandon is forfeit.

0186  Kid

She sits by the water with her legs dangling off like two limp legs of a doll. She stares down at her rippling face in the water and wonders what the hell she just did.

“We … are … fucking … stuck.”

Kid looks up. She sees Link is still leaning against the wall with the weird Faery girl, and the pair of them are staring down at the dead body. No one seems to be able to say anything.

“Stuck. We’re stuck.”

Except for the Ames boy, who won’t shut up. He’s pacing back and forth down the sidewalk muttering like a crazy person.

Link sighs. “Ames …”

“We’re stuck. We can’t get home. We won’t get home.”

“Ames, calm down. Please.”

“Ten years, Link!” Ames’ voice has reached an impressive new level of squeakiness and desperation. “Ten fucking years! We know no one here! We’re alone! We have no way to get home!”

“Wrong.” Link doesn’t look at Ames when he speaks, instead keeping his eyes on the floor. “We know ourselves ten years ago.”

“I’m not making jokes!!”

“Neither am I.” Link gives a short shrug. “We are somewhere in the tenth ward Waterways, ten years ago. There is a six-year-old version of me up there. There’s a four-year-old version of you.”

Kid thinks about that notion. I wasn’t even born, she realizes. Unless I’m actually eleven. Or twelve. Or thirteen. It’s pretty frustrating sometimes, to not even know your own age. She wonders if there’s a younger version of her out there right now. A baby who …

Kid’s eyes shoot wide open. A baby who still has a mommy and a daddy. “A baby of me.”

She feels the attention of the others suddenly. Kid looks up. The eyes of her three companions stare down at her. There is fear in all their faces, and it’s only now that Kid feels a cool wash of worry run through her. They all think I’m a killer. Especially Ames, whose glare is twenty times darker than the others’.

“You’re the reason we’re stuck,” he says, low and cold.

Link sighs. “Ames. Don’t. Just stop.”

“It’s her fault. It’s all her fucking fault. She killed him and … and we could be next.”

“We can’t die.” Link folds his arms, annoyed at his friend. “Do I have to remind you of that fact? And besides, she was protecting us. We ought to be thanking Kid.”

“Baal moved his brother! Didn’t you hear him?? He moved his brother to some other time, Link! We don’t know where he took him and now we don’t know how long we have left! We could be alive for just another year! For just another month! We don’t know!”

“We could be alive for twenty more years,” says Link. “Or even a hundred. Doesn’t matter. All our lives were cut short the day the Mad King took the throne. All the lives of everyone in Atlas.”

Kid glances at Faery, who has been strangely quiet throughout the whole exchange. The girl returns her glance, her big eyes wide and fearful.

Ames doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer. With a growl and a shriek of frustration, he stomps off like a child, rounding the corner and letting off another howl or two of anger. Link does not follow him, sliding down to the ground and hugging his knees instead.

They sit there for a long while more, listening to the rushing of the waters and saying nothing at all. Whether the three of them are deep in their own thoughts, no one can say. Kid can’t seem to focus on anything but a pang of hunger that lives in her belly.

Finally, Link speaks. “Are … Are you really a Goddess?”

Faery drops her eyes to him. “Am I a what?” she returns softly.

“That man right there,” says Link, nodding in his direction, “was under the impression that you’re … one of the Three Goddesses. He seems to think that you’re missing. That you got separated from your other Sisters or something.”

Faery doesn’t respond, her eyes drifting to the water with worry quivering in them.

“H-He was weird,” Link says at once, seeming to backpedal. “He was just as obsessed as his brother, it turns out. Don’t be scared. He thought I had some magic vision. They both did.” He laughs now. “I was just hallucinating while I was being drowned. It makes sense to me now. I just wish …” Link sighs and slaps a hand to his forehead. “I wish I’d realized all of this before.”

Faery crouches down and starts picking at something on the pavement. “What are the Three Goddesses?”

Link chuckles at first. When he meets her eyes and realizes that the question was genuine, his face straightens. “Oh. You don’t know what they are?” Faery shakes her head. “They, um …” Link glances at Kid, who turns away quickly, returning her gaze to her own reflection in the water. “They’re what some slummers believe in. A lot don’t believe in them anymore. We, um … we believe they’re the reason that we have Legacies. We believe they’ve been around for … hundreds and hundreds of years. Thousands, maybe. They are almighty beings of energy and, like, they’re immortal … and one of them dreams.” Link gives an apologetic shrug. “I really don’t know what they are.”

“Who cares?” comes a soft voice from down the way.

Ames has returned, strolling down the path toward them. His voice is lighter and sullen, as if he spent the last hour screaming out all of his energy several canals away and is now returning, deflated and spent of all his fury.

“Faery asked what they are,” Link says tersely.

“It doesn’t matter what they are, really.” Ames comes to a stop near the water. His shoulders are slumped and his eyes seem red with expended emotion. “We need to figure out how we’re planning to survive.”

“Just like we did in the Brotherhood,” Link decides. “We make runs to the surface for food. We live here in the Waterways, hidden. We stick together, all four of us.”

“I’m not sticking around with her here,” mumbles Ames, his eyes on Kid.

Link rises and moves to his friend. “Perhaps you aren’t seeing the sheer beauty of having her with us. Kid’s Legacy can render her invisible. Thereby, she can render all of us invisible. She is our key to staying unseen, to keeping hidden. With her, we are protected.”

Ames studies Kid guardedly, taking in what Link just said. Kid studies him back, feeling guilty for their whole situation all over again. Link’s kind words of defense don’t seem to touch her.

“Yes,” Ames says suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “Yes, yes, yes. Oh. Link. Link! There is a sheer beauty in her being with us. Link!” He grabs Link by the shirt, his eyes wide with excitement. “We are in the past! We can save the world ourselves!”

Link’s face transforms from wide and surprised to furrowed and concerned in one second. “Ames …”

“The Banshee King in the sky! We can slip into the Lifted City, Link. Fuck that Mad King in our future. We should be the ones to end King Greymyn’s reign! We should be the ones to take the throne! We could rule Atlas, the four of us!”

“Ames, stop it. We can’t—”

“Kid will be the Marshal of Legacy. You’ll be the Marshal of Order. Your friend Faery here, she can be, well, the Marshal of Peace, I guess, because she’s so damned quiet. I’ll be King Ames. Ames the Undying. Ames the Immortal King.”

Link shakes himself away from Ames’ hold. “We can’t do that.”

His face turns sour instantly. “Why not? You want to be King? Is that it? King Link, the Colorful King?”

“No. We can’t change the past,” Link says. “Didn’t you hear Baal before? Tiptoe, remember? Any little thing we do here can cause a tidal wave in our own time. A dangerous game we play, sitting here like stones in the past. We can’t change a damn thing.”

“We can. And we should. It’s our responsibility. This is a gift we have been given, Link. Kid here, she can mask us. No one will see us! We’ll be saving the world unseen. That’s not breaking any rules, is it? Baal told us: ‘We cannot be seen.’ Didn’t he say that? He must’ve known that we’d find some means to stay invisible. That girl right there, that Kid, she is our key!”

Link looks over at Kid, who can’t help but watch the exchange, her own heart quickening in her chest. “Well, Kid?”

She lifts her eyebrows, surprised that he’s including her. For a while, she was much preferring to remain invisible, even if she didn’t literally turn so. “M-Me?”

“You,” confirms Link with a mild look of patience on his soft, tired face. “Tell us, Kid. What do you think about all this?”

Kid moves her gaze between each of them, curious. Link seems patient and interested, despite the dark look to his eyes that she has gotten used to. Faery always looks lost, almost like she doesn’t even understand the language they’re speaking half the time. Ames looks kinder than he did before, inspired and full of passion. Are the three of them really waiting on her opinion?

“Do ya think he was lying?” she asks suddenly.

The expression on the boys’ faces falters. It’s Ames who speaks first. “What do you mean? Baal?”

“Him,” Kid says, dropping her eyes to the dead body between them. “Do ya think … Do you think he was lying? About moving his brother’s body? About saving the world? About … everything?”

Link and Ames exchange a look. Perhaps the boys hadn’t truly considered it until just now. Ames gives a mild shrug, still looking at Link. “I guess, uh …” He bites his deformed lip, then looks down at Baal. “It’s a possibility that he … never meant to save the world.”

“Maybe he was the one responsible for destroying it,” puts in Link. “Maybe he was going to use the Goddess to do it.”

“And maybe … maybe in our killing him, we’ve … already saved the world.” Ames lifts his eyebrows after saying that, as if that very possibility has just occurred to him, putting together all the pieces.

“Did he ever separate from you guys?” asks Link suddenly.

Ames asks, “When?”

“When I dropped into the water and swam away. When I went into the dark tunnel and found her,” Link elaborates with a nod at Faery, who is still picking at something on the ground and looking between the others with bewilderment in her big, far-apart eyes.

“No,” answers Ames. “At least … At least I don’t think he did.”

“If he didn’t separate from you, then that means he never left us during the time that we’ve been here in the past. So if he never left us,” Link goes on to say, piecing together his own narrative, “then that means he couldn’t have moved Baron someplace else. He must have been lying.”

“Well, that means we definitely have only ten years left to live,” mutters Ames miserably. “I’m not sure I feel better about that.”

“Or maybe it would only take him an instant,” Link considers, his eyes drifting to the ceiling as he mulls over the possibilities. “He could pop ten years into the future, do whatever it is he needs to do, and then pop ten years back, right into the exact second he left. We wouldn’t have noticed a thing.” Link’s eyes turn fearful as he glances at Kid, and then at Ames. “Do you think he’s that … perfect with his skill? It’s unlikely, isn’t it? Wouldn’t we have noticed?”

Ames doesn’t seem able to answer, suddenly scared by the idea. He folds his red arms and lifts a hand to his mouth, pensive, worried.

In the tense silence that swells between them, Kid decides to answer Link’s question from before. “Yes. I think we should do it.”

Link turns to her, confused. “Do what?”

“Things. Going places. Looking at … things.” She casts her eyes down at the dead body. She sees herself under a table when she was just six, hiding like her dad told her to do, invisible, and the masked men who invaded her home and killed him right in front of her. “Looking at things,” she repeats, looking at the thing, the memory, the dead body of Baal, the dead body of her dad.

And then Link is in front of her. His sudden appearance startles her, but she remains there, looking up at him. “And what is it,” he asks, “that you want to go and see here, ten years ago?”

Kid smiles suddenly. “When I was six, mommy said she’d be right back. I never sawed her … never saw her again. Then someone knocked on my door that night. Daddy told me to go hide. I did. He answered the door and the mask men … masked men came in and killed him. I watched.” The smile on Kid’s face has died. What lives there now is a fierce look of determination as she looks at Ames. “I want to see them again.”

“Where do you live?” asks Ames quietly.

“Burbs of the tenth. By the Wall. Edge of Atlas. Have you ever being there?—ever been there?”

Ames shakes his head. Link gives her shoulder a rub, drawing her attention back to him. He gives a short nod. “To the tenth we’ll go, then,” he decides, then turns his head to Faery, who watches the exchange wide-eyed. “Do you want to come with us? No one will see you as long as we all hold hands. You will be safe. You don’t have to live down here in the shadows of the canals all alone.”

To that, Faery smiles, her eyes alight. “Yes,” she murmurs softly.

Link seems to breathe a sigh of relief, returning her smile. Then, he extends one hand to Faery and the other to Kid. “You know the way. Take the lead.”

She gives a nod, feeling a burst of hope in her chest that she’s long been missing. Then her eyes fall down to the dead body again and she frowns. “What do we do with the bad man?”

The four of them stare at the corpse. No one moves or says a word.

Then a furious cry comes out of Ames, scaring them all, as he throws his body at the man in an effort to move him. It isn’t enough to roll him over, so Ames does it again, putting all his weight into a second angry shove. The man finally slides over the ledge, the tails of his stylish leather jerkin slithering across the stone as he drops. The rushing water swallows him with a loud splash, then carries him away. The pool of blood has stained the walkway where he’d died, and it now spreads in the water below as he drifts away, carried off in a cloud of crimson gloom.

After the man has floated out of sight, Ames speaks in a low, solemn voice. “Thank you, Baal, for the gift of time that your brother took from us. We will be sure not to waste it.”

Link gives Ames a meaningful look, which Ames then returns with the hint of a smile. He reaches out, and the boys clasp hands. Link reaches to take Faery’s, who accepts it quickly, her eyes soft when they look upon Link’s.

Kid skirts the bloodstain upon the floor and takes Faery’s other hand, who seems to jump at the touch. “Don’t let go,” she warns her, to which the strange girl nods.

Then they vanish from sight, and in their own private world, the four travel together, unseen.

0187  Arrow

“Good as new, isn’t it?”

Arrow nods wordlessly, letting some of his weight down on the bad leg. The bandage is wrapped tight about his thigh, giving him a spring to his every other step.

“Keep your weight off it for a few days,” the healer suggests, his buzzed-short grey hair in addition to his wormy face making him look like a prickly cactus from the dry gardens. “Keep on your bum. Two sunrises, I think you’ll be good to walk on it. Aye?”

Arrow nods, then grunts a quiet, “Thanks,” before departing the house.

The celebration that was supposed to welcome the Lessers back home has gone on for a day and a half now. No one seems to mind much, considering the amount of laughter and levity that rings down the streets. Despite Arrow’s greatest efforts to try and shield himself from letting in the merriment, it finds a place in his heart anyway and makes him feel light. He won’t dare show it on his face, but he can privately feel the mild, floating joy within him.

“Try these,” says Prat drunkenly when Arrow meets him in the middle of the street where a table full of communal finger foods has been erected. It’s a platter of what appears to be berry paste on tiny leaves. “There’s alcohol in the paste,” Prat whispers. “The distilleries in the tenth are at our disposal. Nothing’s being sent to the Lifted City. Arrow. All that spare stock … all of that’s the slum’s, now!” He hiccups and then laughs in Arrow’s face for no reason, which is both annoying and unsettling at once.

“It’s true,” mumbles Lionis.

Arrow glances up. He hadn’t noticed Lionis lurking on the other side of the table chewing a berry paste leaf with a deadpan stare. Lionis’s cheek is still bruised pretty bad, having shifted to a more purplish color as it slowly and agonizingly heals. He wonders if the brothers always fought like that and if Lionis is used to carrying a bruise or two.

“Hi,” says Arrow flatly. “Is this what it’s always like out here in the ninth?”

“No.” Lionis glances at the squatty house behind him, his greasy face shining in the light from a nearby fire pit. “Wick and Athan have been in that bedroom for days, it feels like.” He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Didn’t realize it just takes a dick in your mouth to make you forget about everything important in life. Like rescuing a city from a Mad King.”

Prat’s eyes are glassy as he pops another treat into his mouth. “You don’t think love is important?”

Lionis appears to want to respond hatefully to Prat’s question, judging from the irritated roll of his eyes, but then he seems to reconsider. He gives it an honest thought. “I … guess it is. I just never took my brother to be much of a lover.”

“Everyone’s a lover!” Prat exclaims ecstatically. “Arrow loves his charms. I love my maps, yes I do. Wick loves Athan’s dick. You love your brain so much you’d fuck it if you could.” He lifts his eyebrows at that, surprised by his own words. “Sorry. I get vulgar when I’m touched.”

“Touched?” Lionis shakes his head disapprovingly. “What are you, sixty years old? Drunk. High. Those are the terms for it.”

“Sixty years is a beautiful age. I bet it’s Gandra’s.” Prat giggles at his own words. “If I look anything like her when I’m sixty …”

“She’s fifty,” mumbles Arrow.

Prat and Lionis turn to him, as if they had already forgotten he’s standing there. Arrow is used to that.

Arrow turns to Lionis. “Speaking of, I heard it’s your birthday.”

“A few days from now,” Lionis confirms unenthusiastically. “I’m not a celebrator of births. Too many of them in this city, if you ask me. I don’t mind twenty. Twenty-one, though, isn’t a number I like. My dad loved it. Threes and sevens are his favorite integers.”

It takes Arrow a moment to make sense of that. Seven made three times is twenty-one. “I would’ve liked to meet your father.”

“If the rumors are true and the Keep has split open, you may very well get that chance,” Lionis muses.

The comment stings Arrow as it makes him recall something he had heard from a charm in the Noodle Shop—the charm that had accidentally fallen down a sewer grate. The Undercity … resources … waiting for the right moment … Arrow heard the voices clearly, but he never put together the pieces of the puzzle nor has he bothered to share them with anyone. What’s the point in sharing them if he can’t make sense of the whole thing himself? Is there a community of sewer-dwellers who are planning and plotting amidst foul rivers of the slumborn’s piss and shit? Good luck, thinks Arrow humorlessly, not envying their seemingly proud underground residence.

But what if those people were from the Keep? What if those people had escaped the Keep, or if the rumors of all the prisoners breaking out are true? Arrow listened, and Arrow heard.

Fuck the sky; people could be plotting beneath our feet.

“Of course,” Lionis goes on drowsily, “by that very same logic, I can’t imagine a reason why my dad’s first destination wouldn’t be here. Which means one of two things. He’s found another family to keep him cozy, or he’s dead.”

Arrow studies him for a moment, feeling strangely bitter at Lionis’s words. For half a minute, Arrow decides not to say a thing. Then, just as Lionis is about to say something to Prat, Arrow lets go the words before realizing anything has come out of his mouth at all. “You are so very, awfully contradictory at times.”

Lionis lifts an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Listen. Swallow the words … yet here is Arrow not listening once again and swallowing nothing. “You try much too hard to remind us all the time how very interesting and smart you think you are,” says Arrow, his eyes half-lidded and his mouth tight. “And I’m left to wonder … why? Should I be impressed by your offhandedness with regard to your father, who might be coming home when others’ fathers will never again return to them? Pratganth’s? Ivy’s? Athan’s? Rone’s? … Mine? Should I be impressed with your incessant need to tell us how very unimpressed you are with … everything? Is that supposed to impress me? Is that supposed to impress Prat, here? Your feelings about love? Mocking your brother and the happiness he’s found in Athan? Mocking your father, who might be dead?”

Ten very flustered looks cross Lionis’s face as he blinks several times, opening his mouth and closing it over and over again as he changes his mind about what it is he wants to say back.

To Lionis’s ruffled face, Arrow leans in and says, “May I suggest a piece of advice?” His eyes narrow importantly. “Listen, Lionis. Listen. And swallow all of those smart, golden words you are most dying to spill on our ears.”

All of his flustered expressions become one—a wide-eyed, lip-hanging, offended one. Then, after closing his mouth and giving a nearly undetectable smirk, Lionis turns away and strolls across the street importantly, catching the eye of a circle of neighbors who call out to him and pull him into a chatty storm of laughs and half-hugs. Arrow watches him awhile, and despite the tiny victory he just had over Lionis, he feels defeated. I miss my dad, he realizes. Would he be proud of my decision to join Rain, or furious at my abandoning mom and sis? She’s with someone else now in the tenth, a metalworker. She’s taken care of, isn’t she? I wouldn’t have left them otherwise.

“You don’t think that was too harsh?” asks Prat, coming up to Arrow’s side.

Arrow doesn’t answer, still watching Lionis across the street thoughtfully. In watching him, his own eyes suddenly drift a bit to the left where he spots Ivy leaning against a tree near Wick’s house with her arm halfway around it, as if she had gone to hug the tree and decided instead to lazily slump against it. The awkward pose itself draws Arrow’s curiosity.

A few seconds’ more observation reveals to him the reason: she’s crying. Is it the loss of her family? Good, cry all the tears your little Hightower body can possibly generate. Is she feeling lonesome and emotionally broken? Good, perhaps then you’ll know the years of anguish I felt taking care of my broken sister and my mourning mother while bearing the weight of my dead dad’s ghost, who haunted me. I still have a bullet for you, Caldron girl. I still have a bullet. My job isn’t done. You and I have business that a Red Light in the sky did not finish.

And yet still, staring at her sobbing against that tree from across the street, Arrow feels a hot and inconvenient stab of shame for his thoughts. He can’t hate her while she’s crying. Resent her? Maybe. Feel annoyed by her? Definitely. But he cannot hate her.

At least not tonight.

“I’ll try one of those berry treats,” decides Arrow, speaking to Prat who isn’t listening, as he snatches the closest one off the table and thrusts it past his lips.

0188  Wick

The two boys stroll down the busy street as the partying and the chatter and the laughter continues to crash around them like a storm. “I didn’t know so many people lived out here,” observes Athan with half a chuckle.

Wick takes a swig of spiced apple from the bottle, then says, “I didn’t either. Lionis was saying something about how a shitload of scared Lifted folk flooded out of the Lifted City when the Crystal Court was thwacked by Impis and his people.”

“We kinda did,” murmurs Athan.

Quit pulling his mind back there, idiot. Wick blinks and then slaps a wet kiss on Athan’s cheek. “This spicy apple stuff is making me dizzy.”

Someone calls out from a nearby yard. Wick glances and sees a man he remembers who lives down the road, some friend of his parents. He just gives him a wave, which inspires five other waves and hearty shouts from other men and women who are standing on his lawn. Wick keeps walking with Athan, opting not to engage in too many conversations tonight. Something inside Wick is feeling anxious, like he needs to stay next to Athan this whole night. Just the thought of separating from him sends a chill of deep terror down to his stomach.

If Wick were to guess, Athan seems to feel it too, since he hasn’t let go of Wick’s hand the entire time they’ve been out in the street. Wick finds he very much appreciates his Lifted Boy’s clinginess and cuddliness, especially tonight.

Athan comes to a stop and faces Wick. “I love you.”

Wick, caught off-guard, laughs. “I know that, Athan. I love you too. I—”

Athan’s face crashes into Wick’s right in the middle of the street. Wick feels the world spin, as if this kiss was their very first. His own arms are in the air, floating, unsure where to go, while Athan wraps his own around Wick’s slender form, squeezing him like a tube of smithing oil. Wick has no balance of his own, the apple drink making a spin of his head, but Athan holds him right in place as their mouths assault one another.

Then Athan thrusts his tongue out, surprising Wick anew. He is a fierce beast, Wick decides, grinning into Athan’s kiss as his own tongue comes out to make a mess of their faces. The boys taste one another’s lips. Their tongues wrestle tirelessly, and then the bottle in Wick’s hand finds a new home on the pavement, shattered. Wick hears applause and laughter behind him and he revels in it, his freed arms now wrapping around the muscular, broad-shouldered build of his boy. Wick’s breath beats against Athan’s cheek while Athan’s kissing is more calculated, controlled, focused to the point of almost being angry.

Judging from the tightness in Wick’s pants, that angry focus is a major turn-on, and Wick makes a mental note to get Athan angry next time they’re closed up in his room on that old dusty mattress.

Wick’s hands rush down Athan’s firm backside, coming to rest on his boy’s meaty butt. He lets Athan’s cheeks fill both of his palms. Athan’s chest presses even harder against his in response, his two pecs meeting Wick’s, and their hips are drawn together like magnets. He’s so hard, Wick chants inside his head. I’m so fucking hard too. The two of us, foolish slum lovers making a bone out of ourselves in the middle of the street.

“Get a room!” teases one of the neighbors. “Get a hard fuck on!” shouts a drunken lady, inspiring cackles from her friends. Wick does not bother to wonder whether these neighbors who shout lewd and vulgar suggestions at him have known him since he was a little kid. I wonder if any of them changed my diapers. The thought makes him laugh as he continues to push his face into Athan’s and his hands in the gift of his boy’s ass.

Wick and Athan pull apart at once, out of breath, then gaze into each other’s eyes. Wick will never get used to those two bottomless pools of crystalline grey-blue wonder. He will never get used to the golden-yellow glory that is Athan’s mess of hair, which he gives a quick run-through with his fingers.

Athan seems to stare wonderingly into Wick’s eyes in return, and he has no smile on his face. He wears an expression that is so deep, so serious, so focused that it makes him seem strangely bold and hardened—not unlike the things that have hardened beneath their waists, pressed between them like prisoners.

“Something on your mind?” Wick asks gently.

“You.” Athan still doesn’t smile, his eyes piercing so fiercely into Wick’s that it makes his heart thrash excitedly.

Wick is the one who smiles. Maybe it’s the spicy apple that has him feeling so loose and dreamy. “What about me?” asks Wick, his tone light and playful. “Is it my fabulous fuckin’ hair?”

Athan snorts with amusement, but his lips remain straight and his eyes, needlepointed upon Wick’s. “Your hair’s a mess, baby.”

“Oh, I got another guess. It’s my cock, isn’t it?” Wick flexes it in his pants, pushing it against Athan’s thigh. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Now Athan smiles, his straight-faced expression broken as he chuckles. He looks so fucking beautiful when he smiles. His whole face lights up. Athan is a fire, he always was.

“My cock’s on your mind,” Wick teases him, giving him a little push. Athan giggles, pulling Wick into his body again, refusing to let any distance exist between their hips. “Addicted to me?”

Athan lifts his chin cockily. “I think you have it backwards.”

“Oh, do I? Is that the way of it?”

He gives Wick a cheeky lopsided smile. “Tonight, when you’re asleep, I think I might have to take advantage of your helpless body and …” Athan purses his lips, glancing down between them. “I might just have my way with you, and you won’t know, lost in your dreams for six whole hours.”

Wick lifts a challenging eyebrow. “Mmm, yeah? Not sure sleep works that way. I can be woken up, you know.” Wick gives Athan a smack on his tight ass, which straightens the Lifted boy’s face right away and inspires a playful growl from him. “And if I wake up with your mouth on my cock …”

“Oh, my mouth will be everywhere,” Athan promises him. “I’ll have covered every … inch … of … your … body … by the time you come back from dreamy-land.”

Wick wrinkles his face in mock sadness. “Gonna leave me all out? Gonna have the whole party without me?” He smacks Athan’s ass again, his face turning devilish. “Can’t let that happen.”

“You’re driving me crazy, Anwick Lesser.”

Then their faces glow red.

Wick and Athan look upwards. The laughter and noise of the street dies down at once to nothing. All eyes lift to the reddened sky, the Lifted City aglow with the threat of an imminent strike.

Wick’s eyes are wide. The boys are frozen in place. The street shimmers with the red glow of the impending Finger Of Madness as they wait with held breath to learn where the lightning will strike. No one seems to breathe. The sky stares back soundlessly. Is this when their lives end? Is this their final moment?

Is this the end?

And then the lightning strikes somewhere deep in the slums. It strikes once, twice, three times—and once, twice, three times a crack of sound ripples across Atlas, the echoes reaching their ears.

Then the red glow rushes out of the sky in an instant, the dim late-evening blue returning to the world.

Slowly, the chatter returns as if nothing happened at all. A man laughs somewhere. A woman cackles amidst the reviving banter and partying, and in a matter of seconds, the street has picked up their celebrations without any seeming memory of the interruption.

Athan and Wick are still staring into the distant sky, the two silent souls on a street full of cheer.

Wick wonders how many lives were just taken at the other end of that red bolt of fire. He wonders whose house was leveled, whose family business was set ablaze, whose night was just cracked in half by the Mad King.

“We can be happy,” says Athan suddenly, though he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of his own words. “We have a house. We have friends. We have food. And we are away from the … the …”

The Madness. The death. The looting. The Wall Breakers. The dark will of the hungry and the scared and the desperate. The Abandon.

Wick turns his boy’s face with a finger to his chin, and puts a kiss on his lips, gentler than before, soft as Lifted City silk.

Athan smiles when they pull apart, but the smile doesn’t touch his eyes. He’s afraid, Wick realizes. “You’re safe, Athan.” Wick runs a hand through his boy’s hair, feeling the soft, short strands of yellow gold flitting through his fingers. “We have a house. We have friends. We have food. Just like you said. This is our home and we’re going to live here. You said it yourself, didn’t you? Someone’s going to put a sword through Imp’s belly.”

“Imp,” echoes Athan, the ghostly smile still pulled across his face, his eyes glassy with thoughts.

“And when a lucky lady or lad does that, the Madness will end. The Queen will take the throne,” Wick assures him. “Say it after me, alright? The Queen—”

“—will take the throne,” says Athan. He lifts his chin, mustering confidence somehow from shaky nerves and uncertainty. “It will be Queen Ruena. She’ll take the throne and restore peace to Atlas.”

Wick nods. “Peace,” he agrees, wondering what that may entail.

After that, Athan and Wick resume strolling down the street, having forgotten the impassioned sexual heat that had built between their bodies a moment ago. The two seem to be lost in their own thoughts, the partying and the laughter and the craziness around them ignored utterly, fading into a background of white noise.

The two end up back at Wick’s house, the peace within its dark rooms being a welcomed one. Wick pokes through the cabinets for something to eat while Athan sits at one of the mismatched stools, idly playing with a spoon that had been left on the counter.

“Tide tried to kill me.”

Athan lifts his face from the spoon. “What? … Tide?”

“Yep. And Yellow took all his memory of us since the moment he joined Rain.” Wick shakes his head as he pulls a container of nuts and grains from the cabinet, only to discover that it’s nearly empty. He gives a shrug and sets it on the counter anyway, opening the lid to snack directly from it instead of getting a bowl. “Can you believe that? He still thought my ability was being able to smell really well. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

“I saw him in the Abandon.”

Wick snaps his eyes to Athan, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Athan’s gaze drops to the container where Wick’s hand has frozen inside it at his piece of news. “I was completely thrown by the whole Juston thing that I forgot to say anything. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby.” Wick reaches across the counter and takes Athan’s hand, the near-empty container of nuts forgotten. “Did he try to hurt you? Did he even recognize you?”

“Neither. He had no idea who I was, but the second I mentioned you—that I was looking for you—he got angry.” Athan lifts his eyes to Wick’s. “Something’s wrong with him.”

“He’s gotten all tangled up with a band of rats,” spits Wick, his insides recoiling at the thought of Tide speaking foully to Athan in any way at all. “He’s such a big dumb idiot, that Tide. He is totally lost, clearly, and he’s fucking aimless.” Wick sighs, his experience at the warehouse suddenly revived and pulled to the front of his mind as he lets go of Athan’s hand and leans against the counter, slouched. “Maybe it’s his wind that makes him … how he is. I felt so powerful with his Legacy in my grasp. With that much power in you, it has to do something to your psyche. You start thinking you’re invincible. As a kid, you learn to get what you want with your power. It has to corrupt your mind over time, doesn’t it?”

Athan tilts his head. “I’d like to think it depends on the person. Put power in the right hands and they will use it for good purposes. I don’t think all power is evil.” He glances out the back window where one of Lionis’s trees in the backyard reaches the glass with a single branch, scratching its greetings with every sway of the late-evening breeze. “Ruena has formidable power. Ruena isn’t evil.”

“But we haven’t seen her sit a throne yet,” points out Wick.

Athan folds his arms on the counter, pushing the spoon that he was playing with away. “Maybe I’m naïve to think this way, but I believe all wayward souls can redeem themselves. I believe we are all good people and …” His face tightens suddenly, like a dark thought just struck his brain from the side, startling him. “And some of us make bad choices.”

Seeing the worried look in Athan’s eye, Wick circles the counter and brings himself up behind Athan, wrapping his arms around him. “You and I will make good choices,” Wick murmurs into his ear.

“We will.”

“It’s my choice to live in this house with you for as long as we’re able to.”

Athan hums his approval. “I like that choice.”

“It’s my choice to not put either of our lives in danger,” Wick also decides. “We’ve been on the go for so damn long, I don’t know if we even know how to properly enjoy our time together.”

Athan chuckles dryly, leaning back against Wick and hugging his arms against his body. “I imagine it has something to do with touching each other at all times.”

Wick grunts his agreement against Athan’s ear, causing Athan to moan softly. “Whether in a hug …”

“Or by our lips …”

“Or holding my hand …”

“Or slipping between the sheets of a bed …”

“My bed doesn’t have sheets,” Wick points out.

Athan sighs mockingly. “A shame. I guess we’ll have to make do without our sheets or our clothes.”

“Clothes?” mumbles Wick, confused.

Athan sorts that confusion out with a quick turn of his stool and a tug on Wick’s red hoodie and loose jeans. Wick responds by giving a similar yank on Athan’s too-tight shirt and pants, and before either of them make it halfway up the narrow stair, the boys are naked. Wick’s door shuts as clumsily and loudly as it’s opened, and on that mattress in the cramped makeshift room that overlooks the roof of Wick’s porch and a street full of oblivious, drunken, happy idiots, the boys enjoy an hour or two of sweaty wrestling, unhindered groping, and otherwise shameless behavior.

0189  Ruena

“Erana?” she calls out.

Erana emerges from the indoor garden carrying a small potted plant, which looks dead as plants can be. “Yes?” she breathes.

Ruena paces slowly about the den, her arms folded. “You know Impis’s Posse, yes? You’ve seen them at the Windstone Academy.”

“I know most of their names and Legacies.”

“Most?”

“Some of his Posse he’s acquired from his most recent Legacy Tour, those of whom I have not met,” Erana points out. “Others he’s never brought back to the Academy. Some are at Cloud Keep and no one’s met them.”

“How many have you met?”

“Thirteen of the Twenty-Two.”

Ruena stops pacing to smirk from the other side of the room. “That’s barely more than half. How is that most?”

“Anything more than fifty percent is most,” recites Erana.

It’ll have to do. “Tell me about them. Each one you know, and their Legacy. Only the important things.”

Erana seems to stare through the dead plant in her hold as she pulls the requested information from her mind. “Umi, a large woman with curly hair who can summon hundreds of tiny balls of light that, when looked at upclose, are actually people, each an inch tall. She calls them her will o’ the wisps. Then there’s Nightly, a girl with luminescent hair and nails, which is her Legacy. Kellen is a gaunt pale man with long white hair—much like yours—coming down to his thigh. He can produce blades when he lifts his arms up high. The blades seem to fall out of his elbows, and he catches them to engage in two-handed swordplay. The swords disintegrate in a matter of minutes, so he must produce them over and over. Wire-Fire, a girl of fourteen years, she has eyes that turn red—even the whites of them—and whomever she focuses upon starts to experience a bad headache that sometimes causes them to bleed from the ears and nose. If she uses her power too much, she too bleeds from her ears and nose. Then there’s Aegis who becomes a human shield by lifting his forearms, which flatten out somehow. He’s about twenty years old, blond, looks like a Son of Sanctum even though he’s only lived here for one year. Nermia can blind people when she claps feverishly at them—some tease her and call her the city’s worst audience, naming her Legacy as ‘the applause’. She cannot sustain her ability however as the affected slowly regain their sight, and some don’t go completely blind. She is also only able to focus on one person at a time, though she has trained for a while to expand her powers. Lyth is nineteen years old, thinnest woman I’ve ever seen, celebrated her birthday the day she was picked from her Legacy Exam. She sings and then people’s muscles begin to atrophy. While she never inflicts complete paralysis, her Legacy certainly hinders anyone trying to run at her—or run from her. Ogre—that’s a nickname, not his real one—has a Legacy that the others describe as, and I quote, ‘crazy strength’, which is ironic since he’s quite petite and unassuming, only thirteen years of age. Baigan is enormous and has an ugly face and reddened skin, but I do not know his Legacy, nor do I know that of his friend Splinters—the two never leave one another’s side. Zyeni is a girl who has no hair and no eyebrows, and when she screams, no one hears it except the one person she focuses on—and that person hears a thousand screams within their skull. They call her the Psychic Screamer. And finally, the mentalist sisters Arcana and Axel, who can read minds and who can plant ideas into the mind, respectively. They are twins, dark of complexion, long of hair, and alike in every way except for a tiny scar above Axel’s right eyebrow that sets them apart.”

Ruena blinks. She feels like the ceiling just fell in on her and squished her to the floor. “Um …”

“You asked for it,” Erana points out.

Yes, I most certainly did. Ruena resumes pacing contemplatively. “Thank you, Erana. It’s crucial that we know who we’re up against. Would you be able to identify any of them if, say, we happened upon one on the Lifted City roads?” She paces around the couch, slowly strolling past the large window from which the morning sun pours in, thinking of her plan. “Well? Would you?” she asks again.

Erana does not reply.

Ruena stops and looks up at her. “Erana?”

“I … I thought we were waiting for him to return. Rone.”

“Yes, but … Come here. We need to talk, you and I. Woman to woman.” Ruena takes a seat at one end of the large, cushy couch, sinking into it. She pats the spot next to her. “Come, I said.”

Erana comes, still carrying the plant. She sits next to Ruena as instructed, the sad potted dead thing in her lap. Through her thick glasses, Erana sullenly meets Ruena’s eyes.

“This morning, I happened to remember a specific conversation I had with my grandfather regarding a place called Facility.”

“I must be rubbing off on you,” jokes Erana with no humor in her flat voice whatsoever.

Ruena smiles, appreciating the humor anyway, then takes the end of Erana’s dark braid, playing with it thoughtfully. “I had made nothing of it at the time, but he was insistent that he and I were the only ones who knew of its existence. However, Janlord was just outside the room.” She presses her lips together. “I am getting an unsettled feeling that … perhaps … Janlord did, in fact, know of this Facility, and his death interrupted a plan he had set in motion. A plan that may or may not have involved Rone’s sister.”

“Because Cintha was on the Peacemaker’s list?” Erana whispers the question, putting it together plainly.

“The Peacemaker only kept a list of those he deemed key in maintaining the peace of Atlas. He told me so himself. But Cintha does not seem to fit such a list. I suspect he had a secret list in your database, a list he put Cintha on—for a reason that I can only guess at.” Ruena tries to put herself in a room with Janlord. She tries to hear his voice from the other side, positing what it is that the wise Peacemaker may have been planning with Cintha and whomever else was on that list. Why didn’t he tell me?

“But you think the reason is Facility? You think Janlord heard you and the King discuss about its existence?”

Ruena nods. “See, because I happen to know that certain people Guardian arrest—who are not sentenced to the Keep or otherwise—may be retained by the King and sent to Facility. Cintha must have been one of those people, though I was not aware of it. Maybe my grandfather sent her. I cannot say. And if Janlord noticed that she vanished after her arrest—neither being brought before the King nor sent home—then he might have speculated that Cintha was sent to Facility, and thus put her on a secret list for his own records. Perhaps Janlord was trying to figure out what, exactly, Facility was.”

“What is Facility?”

Ruena does not hesitate in answering this question. Really, what importance does the task of keeping the whole thing a secret carry anymore? Sanctum is split wide open, and all its secrets are on the table now. “It’s a place my mother June established where Legacies are studied to learn what, precisely, they are. Can one be altered? Can it be transferred? Can a Legacy be … eliminated?”

Erana’s eyes grow wide. “Oh, to be without the memory. What a peace that’d be.”

“Of course, my grandfather had ulterior motives for its research. He believed that what we learned there could help us hunt Outliers in the city. He was terrified of them, Erana. He believed an Outlier would destroy all of Atlas somehow. He believed Outliers were the most dangerous of things in this whole silly world.”

“It’s just a word, really.”

“Tell that to the ghost of my grandfather.” Ruena chuckles dryly and lets go of Erana’s braid, placing an arm along the back of the couch as she glances out the large window. “If Rone passes through every wall in this city, I think it’s likely he’ll happen on Facility. And if my suspicions are right …”

“Then he’s found his sister by now,” Erana finishes.

Ruena nods. “Of course, if I’m wrong …”

“Then he’s been caught by one of the Posse and we will need to save him.” That last sentence she utters scares her suddenly, her eyes wide as she averts them, staring at her sad plant in terror. “I don’t want to leave this house.”

“We may have to.”

“No, we do not.” Erana stands suddenly, gripping the pot so tightly, she might crush it. “Rone will come back. Rone said he would. If he really did find his sister, like you said, then he’ll bring her right back here and then together we’ll fight to make our peace less temporary. Those were his words. I remember them without seeing the note, Ruena. I remember them.”

“I do too,” she responds, but Erana is already heading back to the garden with her plant, ignoring whatever else Ruena might say.

Ruena sighs and leans forward, staring down at her hands. The weight of her fallen Queenship has never felt heavier upon her thin shoulders, and she finds herself inescapably drawn to the last thing her grandfather said to her. Her mind descends into the dark place of that day when she sat in the King’s bedchambers and he gave her the gift of knowledge—the King’s secret that has passed from hand to hand to hand … a secret that, she fears, she is the only one to know.

‘The girl,’ her grandfather had said. ‘I failed to find the girl …’

Ruena sighs, falling back onto the couch as her mind spins and spins with some of the final words of her grandfather. ‘They are real,’ he’d told her, his words swimming. ‘They are real, all three of them. I have not found the girl and so … so I die …’

She shakes her head, trying not to hear his voice, trying not to listen to the words. It’s nonsense, she says to him, to the King’s ghost. It’s utter nonsense. Everything you told me. It’s a fantasy, the gift of knowledge, what you said to me. A fantasy of a King who longed to be just like the Immortal King, the Twice King … who is long since dead. You believed in a fantasy, grandfather. To live forever. To heal yourself of your own broken throat. To chase after a mythical girl …

Oh, grandfather … You were a fool to believe in fantasies, and so am I. She glances back at the fallen ceiling that is now a wall that keeps the two of them confined in this little piece of heaven they’ve made for themselves. Oh, but how it’s starting to feel like a little piece of hell, Ruena thinks bitterly.

0190  Tide

Dog sits in the chair by the window, working an instrument that needs no electricity and turns thread into clothes. Tide watches him with mild interest, still stretched out on the soft couch with a bowl on the floor next to him and a clay cup of water in his palm, resting on his stomach. His other arm is folded behind his head, his feet kicked up on the other end of the couch.

Tide decided to stay. Dog hasn’t done anything strange or made any perverted requests, so Tide has to assume that he’s relatively safe. Also, if that isn’t good enough, Dog seems willing to do just about anything Tide asks of him. If he wasn’t so sure that Dog would enjoy it too much, he’d make the boy take off his muddy boots and rub his feet like some lowly servant, for as sore as they are from his endless days of walking the outskirts of the first.

“What you working on?” Tide spits out from the couch.

Dog lifts his eyes. “A garment,” he answers simply. “I have but only three of my own, as the rest I trade and sell for food and other necessities.”

Tide smirks. He’s been wearing the same shirt he’s had since he left his apartment and got roped into the Abandon by Scorp. It had only received a periodic cleaning every couple of days in the channel of water that served as a border between one part of the eleventh and the twelfth, halfway to the Wall. Tide lifts an armpit to give himself a sniff. Dog watches.

“I need a new outfit,” says Tide. “My clothes are worn and those who were chasing me know what I wear.”

Dog blinks. “Y-You want me to … to make you one?”

“Yeah. Quickly, too. Whatever you got there,” Tide decides with a lift of his chin. “Use it to make me something.”

He glances down at the garment he was working on, then stares at his materials, calculating. “I, uh … I’m going to need more. This was going to be a shirt for me. The size is … it’s too s-small for—”

“Make it work for me, then.” Tide stretches on the couch, then snatches the last apple out of the bowl. “Gonna need more of these.”

Dog nods quickly. “I can get more. I haven’t yet taken my ration for the day. I thought I might skip, but—”

“Your ward gives out daily rations?” Tide blurts. “And you don’t take them?”

“Just sometimes. See, each household gets their own ration of food. And, well, as you can see, I live alone. I have no family. So I like to be generous and … leave more for others to take, others who are more in need.” Dog lets the garment he’s working on rest in his lap. “And it’s not the ward that gives us the food. Not exactly. It’s the Slum King.”

Tide grunts his understanding. “Slum King. Yeah, I’ve heard of this fool.” He chuckles under his breath, tossing the apple into the air and then catching it. “Unless he’s got the means to take the glow from my skin, I don’t give two shits about no Slum King.”

“Where did you get the glow?”

“Don’t know.” Tide slurps on his water, then lets the cup rest on his belly again. “Don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry. No one seems to care for or mind the glow of others anymore. It isn’t a sign of a criminal anymore, not since Guardian has disbanded.”

“They haven’t disbanded. There’s a group of them still operating out of the eleventh.”

“Oh.” Dog has taken a knife to his threads, reworking the shirt he’s been making for the past several hours. Tide smirks, watching him work and wondering if he’s having to redo work in order to make a shirt that fits Tide’s big frame. It doesn’t make him feel any pity; it amuses him. Maybe when he’s finished making me a shirt, I’ll pretend it isn’t good enough. Tide might enjoy testing the patience of his friends too much. He wonders what Dog’s breaking point is, and how soon he’ll find it. “Well, that’s news to me,” he says with a little shrug. “No Guardian roams these parts, I can assure you.”

“Consider me assured,” grunts Tide, tossing the apple in the air again. He miscalculates the throw, so he uses his wind to guide the apple a bit to the left so that it lands in his palm.

Dog must have felt it. “What was that?” he murmurs, checking the window at his back.

“Wind. My Legacy.” Tide puffs up his chest, then pulls another wind through the room for good measure. It takes more effort to pull on the air in a closed room, but he manages anyway. Maybe he’s able to draw the wind through the cracks in the door, or a cracked window he isn’t aware of. Dog’s hair dances for a second as the wind drifts by, causing his posture to straighten. “What’s yours?”

“Oh. Um …” The boy seems to shuffle uncomfortably, his eyes dancing around his work, as if praying that something will happen to prevent him from having to answer.

This intrigues Tide all the more. “Come on. Tell me.”

Dog fiddles with his fingers. Then, after yet another moment of mindless sputtering, he manages to say, “Food. Feelings.”

“Food? Feelings? The fuck kind of Legacy is that?”

“I can put feelings into food.” He looks down at the fabric in his clutch. “This one time, I really wanted to visit all the gardens of the sixth—you know, right where the Greens ends. I was just nine years old, and my mother thought it a dangerous journey for us. See, we lived in the third. It would have involved a long train ride. Finally, I poured all my compassion with a pinch of recklessness into a grape, which I put into the salad she was to have for a middle-night snack. By morning, she changed her mind and we went to the gardens.”

Tide tosses the apple into the air, catches it again. “I see. So you make people feel whatever you want them to feel … as long as they eat the food you put your feelings into.”

“Yes. You’re correct. You’re so quick to understand.” Dog smiles, running two slips of fabric through his instrument.

Tide feels his face pinch with appreciation. Living in a house with a lonely guy who’s infatuated with him and offers him constant flattery might be the best thing to have ever happened to Tide. He tosses the apple once more, catches it, then brings it to his mouth.

And then he stops, staring at the apple. He stares at it long and he stares at it hard. A thought cuts deep into his chest.

He’s on his feet in the next instant, the apple dropped to the floor. Dog looks up just in time to witness Tide grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him up off the ground. Dog yelps as Tide roughly pins him to the wall by his shirt, his feet dangling. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO THOSE APPLES, DOG??”

The boy can’t seem to speak, so overwhelmed with Tide’s quick reversal. “I didn’t—I’m—I was—Listen, I—!”

“ANSWER ME.”

“Happiness!” the boy squeals out. “Laughter! Wholesomeness! I swear, I’d already put feelings into them long before you came through my door! I swear it! Only good feelings!”

Tide reflects on precisely how he felt when he ate the very first apple. Indeed, a feeling of giddiness had coursed through him. He’d attributed it to the fact that he was hungry and had just gotten sick from the meat and peppers doing a cruel job to his bowels. Is that why he feels so good in this boy’s house? Is that why he decided to stay, flooded with so-called wholesomeness and mirth and glee?

Can he even trust his own feelings right now?

“You fucking manipulated me,” Tide decides, his face an inch from the boy’s, his voice low and gravelly and deadly serious. “You knew if I ate those, I’d be more keen to stay.”

“I-I-I-I knew you’d be … b-b-be happy,” he manages to respond.

“Happy.” Tide huffs in the boy’s face, causing his brown tuft of hair to jump. “What would make me happy, Dog, is if I found a girl named Gin and brought her back to where she fucking belongs.”

The boy tries to even out his breath, despite being pinned with his feet off the floor and his back to the wall. “G-Gin? You’re looking for … for a girl named Gin?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it? Or was I speaking in some weird second ward language you can’t understand?”

Dog licks his lips, his eyes zeroing in on Tide’s, and he responds gently and meaningfully. “I … will help you. I will help you find this Gin girl. I just want … I …” His eyes turn wet. He stops struggling. “I just … want you to be happy. And … healthy. And …” The boy lifts his neck, swallows, then finishes. “And safe.”

“You’ll help me find Gin?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll ask around? Do whatever it takes?”

“Yes.”

“I need her alive,” Tide presses on. “And I need her so that I can keep my life. Otherwise, I’m dead. You fucking understand? Dead.”

A look of concern crosses the boy’s face. “I … I didn’t realize …”

“You knew I was in obvious danger since I ran through your door a day ago. Wasn’t that much clear? I’m here for that girl Gin. That’s my fucking purpose, and then I’m out of your hair. To hell with your Giving that doesn’t give shit.”

The boy nods. “Gin. I got it. The girl.”

Tide lets go of Dog, letting him drop back to his feet. He moves back to the couch and finds the apple on the floor where he ditched it. He palms it and turns back to Dog. “And I want clean fuckin’ fruit. Your Legacy is never going to touch my lips again. You understand?” The boy quickly nods his understanding. “Good. Now go fetch, Dog.”

0191  Link

Faery’s hand is so soft and her touch, gentle. She holds his hand with such care that it makes him feel like he’s the most important person in all the Last City of Atlas. Maybe to her, he really is. He found her in the depths of the Waterways. He protected her, just like he said he would. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Kid is the one who has protected them—her and her talent for being unseen.

“I’m sorry for getting angry at you,” says Ames when they come to a stop near a busy intersection where people are bustling by with their sacks of groceries and wares from a nearby market.

Kid nods. “It’s okay.”

“My temper’s quick lately. I was so much calmer when I was at The Brae. The regular routines there kept me grounded, I think.”

Link glances at Faery, who returns his glance with a shy smile of her own, her smooth head shining in the streetlight and making her eyes sparkle. He turns away suddenly, annoyed when his face starts to flush warmly. His hand that holds hers is so sweaty. Why is my hand so sweaty? The one that holds Ames’ isn’t.

“Can we visit the eighth after we go to your house?” asks Ames. “I really want to see my mom again.”

Link slumps his shoulders. “Ames …”

“I’m serious,” he declares sternly. “And I won’t shout for her or do anything stupid this time. Even without Baal’s reprimanding, I know that what I did was wrong. I know I could do something really stupid and, like, erase my whole childhood.” He scowls at nothing in particular, his face wrinkled with frustration. “I just want to see my family again. I … I miss them. Don’t you miss yours, Link?”

Link feels his chest growing heavy. “Of course I do. I miss them every damn day.” He lifts his eyes to Ames. “It surprises me, how fast you gave up Baron’s philosophies about letting go your past. A man named Gorde, you’d said, like your father was just some man you used to know. A woman named Pharis …”

“I doubt—” Ames starts to say, then grows silent as a group of school kids move past them, laughing and throwing jokes at one another. The four of them squeeze tightly together, invisible. After the kids have passed, Ames resumes, but in a quieter voice. “I doubt any of the Brotherhood truly severed their hearts from their pasts.” He gives a curt, derisive grunt. “I bet they all were liars, just like me. I bet they cried for their families when Baron wasn’t looking.”

“Come,” instructs Kid, and the four of them cease their chat as they cut across the intersection unseen and move in silence down the long winding street.

Soon the buildings give way to houses which gradually become farther apart, lawns of sand and sparse grass set before them. They pass two brown-and-white vehicles on the road, which startles Link, since he hasn’t seen one in so long. It’s two houses down from one of those vehicles that Kid comes to a stop, staring ghoulishly at the little house before them.

Link and Ames and Faery stand behind Kid, all their hands still linked, as they stare at the house. It is bigger than his, perhaps twice as big, but flatter. Two tiny dormer windows protrude from above the main front window, giving an indication of a second floor. The yard is full of grass cut short, only dying off near the street where it is more sand and stone. A wimpy tree grows near the front of the house, one of its branches resting atop the roof, as if it has its arm thrown over the shoulder of the house.

“This is your home?” asks Link.

“Ya.” Kid glances to the left, her eyes observing the neighbor, and then to the right, where there is a longer spread of grass and dirt, putting more distance between her house and the next one. She doesn’t say anything, staring pensively to the right until her eyes lift and observe the Wall in the far distance.

Ames has been looking at the Wall this whole time, his face tightened with thoughts. Link gives him a small nudge, since their hands are still clasped, and Ames shrugs and says, “I’ve never seen it so close up.”

“It’s big, isn’t it?”

“Daunting.” Ames cranes his neck. “How did such a thing get built? I can’t even tell what it’s made of.”

“I don’t know,” Link admits. “I always imagined there lived a great Queen or a King in our past who pushed out a tall slab of stone all around the perimeter of Atlas, protecting us from the Oblivion beyond. Or maybe it was a gift from the Sisters.”

Ames turns suddenly to give Faery a smirk. “Well? Was it a gift from you?”

To that, Faery furrows her brow, confused.

“Ames, don’t mock her,” says Link, annoyed. “She’s separated from her family and got lost in the Waterways. Isn’t that the way of it?” he asks, giving her a questioning lift of his eyebrows.

Faery looks at his eyes, and instantly a softness comes to her own. Link enjoys very much that he has a calming effect on the girl; it makes his own heart light. He watches as Faery visibly relaxes and lets on a smile, but she doesn’t answer his question.

“I want to go in,” blurts Kid suddenly.

Link was afraid this would happen. “If we go in, we still can’t be visible. You know that, right? You can see your parents, but we can’t let them see us. We can’t disturb time in any way at all.”

“I understand.”

Link glances at his other companions. “This goes for all of us. We have to keep our hands linked. Kid, you gotta keep us unseen, no matter what. Ames, this goes for when we visit your family, too.”

The hardened expression on Ames’ face loosens when he hears those words, as if he believed he wouldn’t be allowed near the eighth again. “Yes,” he agrees at once, eagerness tightening his throat. “And yours too, Link. When we come to meet that man you once knew called Forgemon. I assume he’s your dad?”

Link marvels at how good a memory Ames has. “Yes,” he says. “And a woman called Ellena. My mother. A boy called Anwick … Lionis. Halves. Aleks … my brothers.”

Kid pulls on their hands, and the group move as an invisible unit toward the side of the house. Link assumes she’s directing them to a back door or a side window where they might more easily sneak in. Link’s suspicions are confirmed when they come around to the treeless backyard where a short back porch leads to a sliding glass door, which reminds Link of his own. Kid pulls the door open, as if she knew it would be unlocked, and the four of them enter.

The small dining area they’ve entered into is empty. The living room that it’s attached to is empty as well. Coming around to the front entryway, and then to a narrow kitchen, and back to the dining area, they find the whole first floor empty.

“Up,” whispers Kid, directing them to the stairs at the entryway. There are two rooms up here, one of which faces the back of the house—empty—and the other of which has the two dormer windows that face the street. It’s in this room that Kid lets go of their hands, moving to the window and staring out of it, her eyes faraway and misty. She seems to be confused, thinking about something intently.

“There’s no furniture,” observes Ames with a frown.

“Yeah. Empty.” Link is by the banister of the stairs, looking down at the front entryway below. “Not even a fridge in the kitchen. Or a broadcast. Or—”

“I doubt anyone lives here at all,” blurts Ames, turning to Kid, who still stands by the window. “Sure you have the right house?”

“Yes,” she answers sullenly.

Link glances at Faery, who stands in the doorway of the other room that faces the back hugging her body and staring toward the window, the mild light from outside touching her beautiful face and smooth head. Link feels his heart stirring as he watches her, his eyes taking in every inch of her body with curiosity.

“So there’s nothing here,” says Ames impatiently. “Can we go to the eighth now?”

Link snaps his gaze away from Faery. “I think we should stay here awhile. For all we know, Kid’s parents haven’t even moved in yet. Or maybe she was born elsewhere and her parents are living in an apartment deeper in the tenth right now. Maybe … I don’t know.” Link shrugs and faces an indignant Ames and a listening Kid, who’s turned away from the window at his words. “Maybe your parents moved here after some time when they figured they would need a bigger house and could afford it.” He looks from Ames to Kid and back again. “I’m just trying to brainstorm some possibilities.”

Ames sighs. “So you’re saying we’re a few years behind. We can’t sit here for years waiting on Kid’s parents to show up. We’re running out of time.”

Link is tired of the panic and the doom and the countdown. “We have ten years, Ames. We are not going to rush through all of this. There is plenty of time to do everything we want to do. We can see your parents a hundred times. We can watch ourselves grow up. We can do everything we want. Ten years is a long time.”

“And you’ll be the fool still saying that when we have ten days left,” growls Ames, furious suddenly. “No one’s here. I want to go to the eighth. I want to go now. I abandoned my family too soon to chase a stupid dream with Baron Poe. I have time to make up.”

“I abandoned mine too,” says Link calmly, trying to reach Ames however he can. “Ames … we have to be smart. Please. Let’s at least take some time here to gather ourselves, to rest, to eat. We might be unkillable, but we still need to eat, you and I.”

“Fuck eating!” Ames breathes heavily, so angry that his face wrinkles, exaggerating all the swirls and bumps of his burns as they fold with his every changing facial expression. He pulls back his fist to throw it in the wall, then stops himself with a sigh. After taking two more breaths, he nods once in surrender. “Fine. Okay. You’re right. We …” He swallows. “We have a safe place here. This is safe. No one will find us here.”

“We can … still explore a bit,” reasons Link cautiously, taking a glance at both Kid and Faery for support. “We can gather food, yeah? We’ll live here and take journeys to the eighth and ninth to visit our loved ones … from a distance.” He faces Faery. “Your loved ones are of this time, so really, if you want to lead us to them and actually visit with them, you can do that. We can take you there safely.”

Faery shakes her head at once. “N-No,” she murmurs. “I don’t want to go back.”

Link wants to ask where she’s from and what happened to her that causes her to avoid home with such fear, but it is a very taxing effort for Link to keep his eyes on hers and not let them drift to her full, round, beautiful breasts wrapped in that slip of fabric. A boy of his age is too easily distracted. “Okay,” he says. “We don’t have to.”

The four of them, figuring it to be safest to stay together, make a temporary home out of that front bedroom, the dormer windows acting as their watchtower, providing a view of the street below. Ames and Link make a quick trip around the house to ensure that all the windows and doors are locked—especially the back one through which they’d snuck in.

By the time night falls, the streetlamps are the only source of light, their amber glow pouring in through the windows. Link finds himself downstairs in the empty living room, sitting on the floor by himself and peering up at the wall, thinking on his family right now. What are they doing? What is little Link doing? What about Anwick and Lionis?—fighting as usual? Or Aleks and Halves, racing each other down the broken street on which their house is built? Is Ellena at the hospital working, or has she already lost her job and got hired at the Greens? Link can’t quite remember when she changed jobs. If he went to the metalshops, would he find his father there, banging his hammers at the anvils? He remembers a day when his dad took him to work to show him all the things he did. Link must have been nine or ten. He remembers thinking that Forge’s boss was a jerk. He was a big mean guy with an orange puff of a beard that hid his lips completely. Forge made Link laugh a lot, but almost hammered into his own fingers in the process, not paying attention. It’s one of Link’s happier memories of his dad.

“Have you ever met the Goddesses?”

Link turns his head to find Faery standing near the sliding glass doors. “Sort of,” he answers her. “When I did my Three Hours.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, when I was part of The Brae—that’s a sanctuary devoted to Three Goddess—I learned how to pay my respects to the Sisters. It was through Three Hours of prayer, an hour for each Sister.”

“Who are these Sisters?”

Haven’t we gone over this before, back in the Waterways? Link doesn’t seem to mind, feeling strangely overjoyed that Faery keeps gravitating toward him, as if he’s the only person in the whole world that she trusts. “From what I was told, there’s the Sister of Want. She might be the reason we all have Legacies. But it also might be the second sister, the Sister of Chaos. And then there’s the Sister of—”

Link stops, thinking on the name Baron had given her, which had made Link wrongly presume what the Third Hour was. It wasn’t an Hour for dreams; it was an Hour for death. Link much prefers the other name and doesn’t wish to alarm Faery.

“The Sister of … Dreams,” he finishes. “That’s the three hours, too. In the Hour of Want, you pray for all the selfish things you want. In the Hour of Chaos, you pray for all the obstacles in the way of the things you want. And …” Link looks away, his eyes detaching from the beautiful figure of Faery. “Well, I was left to presume what the third Hour meant. I figured the Hour of Dreams was an hour to … dream of the way you might obtain what it is you want. But maybe I’ve been wrong. I …” Link sighs, closing his eyes. “I wish sometimes that I could just … just …”

“Just what?”

He opens his eyes and turns, startled to find Faery sitting next to him suddenly. She is so beautiful and attentive and curious. She is what I used to be before I filled with anger and dyed my hair black and joined the Wrath. It is so refreshing to be in her presence.

She blinks, waiting for his response.

“I … I wish I wasn’t so afraid to just …”

“You don’t look afraid.”

“I’m … He’s … It was …” What is he trying to say? “I just wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted to be big. I was so tired of being seen as weak and small.”

Faery looks confused. “But you’re strong. I … I pulled down the ceiling underground and you survived. You drowned and you came back up. You fought off two brothers who wanted to end your life.”

“One of those brothers did end my life,” Link points out. “He’s ended it twice. It’s just that … the second time hasn’t happened yet.”

Faery seems to be getting closer to him. How is that possible? Is the room shrinking? Are they pulling together?

“I’ve never really had a life,” she tells him, her voice making the tiny hairs in his ears tickle. “I was so lonely. I lived in a room and I dreamed of worlds, of people, of marvels, of incredible things. I lived in that room for so long and I kept everything—and everyone—out.”

“You’re beautiful.”

The words leapt out of Link’s mouth so quickly, and now he can’t take them back. Faery stares at him, her eyebrows lifted and her mouth parted. She says nothing.

“I-I mean …” Link swallows hard, feeling his face flush. I can’t believe I just said that. “O-Obviously you are. I mean, I’m just …” His imaginarily beating heart dances funnily in his chest. His stomach is trying to jump out of his neck. His hands won’t stop sweating. “I just needed to say it.”

“I think you’re sweet.”

Link flushes even worse. “Sweet?” He manages a chuckle. “I’m not sweet. I’ve done bad things, Fae. I’ve—” Link screws up his eyes. Did he just give her a nickname? “Sorry. Faery. I’ve had to do—”

“I like it.” She smiles. “Call me that again.”

He meets her eyes, alarmed. “W-What?”

“Call me that name again.”

He lifts his brows. “F-Fae? You want me to call you Fae?”

She giggles, pulling her knees up to her chest. She seems to be sitting right next to him now. There’s so much space in this room and they couldn’t be sitting closer together on this unforgiving floor. “I like it a lot.”

“I like you,” he mumbles, barely able to get the words out.

“And everyone does bad things, Link. I dream of it all the time. Even the sweetest people in the world do bad things. I dream of bad people doing good things, too. I dream many things.”

Link studies her eyes, her beautiful, swelling, otherworldly eyes. “The Dreaming Sister …” he hums.

Her eyes gleam at his words. “Is that who you think I am?”

Link can’t dare say it. She is mesmerizing, yes. She is unlike anyone he’s ever met, of course. But she is no glowing, spiritual, magical Goddess. She is just a girl of the slums, like him. She is a girl with eyes that transport him across the galaxy. She is a girl who stirs feelings inside him he’s never experienced before. Fae fills his heart with hope and makes his head dizzy—and he likes it. He wants her to steal all of his breath. He wants to stay next to her because it makes him tremble. He wants to know what her lips feel like against his.

“Fae …”

“Yes, Link?”

And the look in her eyes is hopeful, too. She inclines her body toward him, like she’s expecting the very thing he wants. She doesn’t seem to blink at all and neither does he, not wanting to miss a single moment of Faery, the girl who can command water … and his heart.

“I … I want …”

“What do you want?” she asks quietly.

“I want …” Link swallows. Sisters, help me. “I-I-I want …” Link is staring at her lips. He’s never kissed a girl before. He feels so terrified suddenly. Why does this excitement feel so much like terror?

“Yes?”

You’re not alone. “I … want to kiss you,” he chokes.

Fae leans forward. He closes his eyes. Their soft lips touch, like an experiment.

A flood of desperation rushes through Link, from his heart to his face to the tips of his fingers. He has never Wanted so deeply. He has never felt such beautiful Chaos in his heart. He has never known that a Dream could be this fulfilling.

When their lips part, Link still feels her on them. He opens his eyes. His astonishment is reflected on her brightened face. Was it her first kiss, too?

“I want to kiss you again,” he whispers.

“Me too.”

And so the two kiss again. And again. And again.

And again.

0192  Mercy

She sweeps quietly down the hall to the linen chambers with a fresh stack of dry robes. At the foot of the steps leading to the room, she stops, hearing a sigh brush down the steps.

Soundlessly, she ascends the seven steps and peers into the dim chambers lit only by two slits of window at the far end of the room. Sitting at a table near one of those slits, the boy Sister has his face buried in his hands. The sigh he emitted is followed by chokes and quiet curses and sobs.

Mercy narrows her eyes. Lovely. The boy is a crybaby.

“Why …? No, no,” he mutters to himself in voiceless rasps. He sucks in air, then crumbles into another fit of soundless blubbering, muffled by his hands.

Mercy smirks, then pushes farther into the room to put her stack of linens on the shelf where they belong. Regrettably, that shelf is right behind the sniveling fool. She pays him zero mind as she reaches the shelf.

He, however, pays her all his mind. Not having seen her come in, he quickly wipes away his face and sits up, glancing out of the window as if he wasn’t just a second ago crying.

The linens slip onto the shelf with a soft swishing sound. Mercy starts to leave the room.

“Mercy?”

She stops, stunned at the sound of her name. She turns, putting a cold gaze upon the robed boy at the table. His tiny mouth is parted and his button nose is red as the lines of his eyes from crying. His face is like a small hairless peach, smooth and baby-like.

He runs a hand quickly over his bright yellow hair, which is still parted with the precision of an architect. Mercy doubts even a sneeze could disturb its perfect placement.

“Sorry. I know we’re not supposed to use names. Sister,” he says quietly. “I was wondering—”

Mercy has the retractable knife at his throat in the very next second. The boy’s eyes go wide. “How do you know my name?” she barks at once. “Who are you? Have you been sent to kill me? I will have you dead before you draw another breath. Your soft sad baby act doesn’t fool me.”

His eyes glimmer with fear. Even afraid, they show no will to attack, no fierceness, no strength, nothing. He is the sort of boy who would cower at the corner of the room if a blade descended on him. He wouldn’t fight back. He might not even scream.

The truth of it strikes Mercy cold. She pulls away from him suddenly. “You really are a soft sad baby,” she mutters.

He’s still trembling even after she lets go, his hands hovering by his face as if expecting she might launch at him again. His lips shake and his eyes stay locked upon hers, terrified. What the hell has this boy been through? Mercy wonders.

“Answer me,” she goes on, her voice softer now. “How do you know my name?”

He swallows before speaking. “I heard another Sister say it.”

“You lying to me?”

“No. The one who looks like a crone. Creepy, unsettling eyes. She has a … a … a thing in her hair all the time. A net, I think, as she works with the food on the d-d-daily.”

Mercy rolls her eyes. I’ve got him stuttering now. “Put down your damn hands. I’m not gonna cut you.”

He drops them at once, palms slapping the surface of the table. His eyes are still glassy with fear and his tiny mouth won’t shut.

Mercy smirks. “Mother? Lady Agdanagon?”

“Who?”

“Was it her?” she asks patiently. “Lady Agdanagon? The one who used my name?”

He shakes his head. “N-No. The one who looks like her. She sits across from you at the mealtimes.”

Her biological, actual sister. “And she’s used my name? Who was she speaking to when she uttered it?”

“Another of the Sisters. The one with the … the hair.”

“Frizzy hair? The one who sits next to me at mealtimes? Nosy as fuck?”

He shudders, as if the use of the word “fuck” walloped him in the gut. Mercy tries not to roll her eyes. “Y-Yes. Her,” he confirms.

Mercy pockets her knife with a huff. How do Lady Agdanagon’s twinkly-eyed biological sister and that nosy one know her name? Had Mercy accidentally muttered it once, or is there a darker work happening beneath the surface? The frizzy-haired one asks Mercy questions of her past all the time, despite knowing that they’re not allowed to talk of pasts and sins and names. Perhaps she’s not just been nosy; maybe the woman is digging for information. Maybe the pair of them are in on some sort of plot to oust Mercy, to turn up her darkness, to find a reason to kick her out.

Or maybe the plot is deeper and darker yet. Maybe they are kin to someone Mercy has killed. Maybe they are seeking their own evil revenge under Mercy’s nose. They can try to poison my meals, Mercy jests to herself, but their poison will just be more spice to my bite.

Regardless, the notion unsettles her. Mercy turns at once, her grey robe brushing along the stone as she returns to the steps.

“I won’t say your name again,” the boy promises, his voice light and timid as it skitters through the room.

“No, you won’t,” she agrees, turning around to face him, “if you plan to still be able to say a thing at all after uttering it.”

He swallows, understanding the threat, then nods quickly.

When she starts to head out again, his voice stops her once more. “M-My name is Scot,” he blurts. After a second, he adds, “I just figured if … if I knew yours, perhaps you’d feel safer knowing mine. I don’t mean to compromise your anonymity. I know there’s no room for the self here in the Sisters Of Sisters, but—”

“How does a man come to be a Sister?” questions Mercy without facing him.

“I …” He sighs. “I … come from a family of women. I have five sisters of my own. I have always lived to serve the needs of others. I was a medic at Maiden’s Mercy. I helped people. I wanted to keep doing so.”

Mercy smirks at the name of that hospital. She’d always thought it was called Maiden Medical.

“There are a number of Sisters who have come from hospitals,” he points out. “No one from Maiden’s Mercy, I’ve learned. But some from Sixth Grace, which is no longer in operation since … well.” He shuffles his feet on the floor, causing Mercy to turn slightly, setting off her self-preservation instincts. When her eyes find him seated at the table and not advancing upon her, she relaxes. “We have a lot of healers among us. A-Are you a healer?”

Mercy could laugh at his question, but instead it pains her. He must notice because his face flushes and he looks away suddenly, as if wishing to withdraw his question.

But he asked it, and now Mercy is forced to think of her brother, who fell ill because of her poisons. It was a terrible accident, but it happened, and when Mercy desperately tried to create an antidote to her own poison, she only intensified its effects instead, pushing him past the brink of saving. Healer? The word turns her sour at once.

Without acknowledging his question or his proceeding silence of regret, Mercy turns to leave. This time, he does not stop her.

At the morning’s meal the next day, Mercy stares at the woman in front of her with the sweet, twinkling eyes while they eat. The woman only gives her one nod, smiling kindly, then seems to ignore Mercy’s incessant, burrowing eye contact as they resume their meal. The frizzy-haired woman at her side asks no questions today. Mercy only once glances down the table, instantly meeting the eyes of the boy, who watches her knowingly for a while before continuing to slurp his soup one timid spoonful at a time.

Lady Agdanagon joins them at the conclusion of their meal with news. “Mother,” many at the table say, giving a short bow of their heads. “Mother.” “Mother, bless.” “Oh, Mother.” “Good Sisters’ day.” Mercy’s greeting comes in the form of an icy stare.

“Thank you, Sisters,” the woman responds, her hands clasped in the back, making her long hanging grey sleeves look like two folded wings of a great bird. “I will get straight to the point. It has always been our duty to serve Atlas. Now, I believe we should continue to do so … outside these walls.” She takes a deep breath, then decorates her face with a stretched, warm smile. “The Red Light has struck our neighbors. They are in need of our help, Sisters. We must go to them now. We must help.”

A number of the Sisters stir, alarmed by the idea, or downright scared of it. One Sister looks away, her eyes so wide and wet with fear, she looks a step away from crying. The boy stares blindly ahead with his tiny mouth shut, seeing twenty nightmares before his eyes.

“I know,” says Mother, giving a weary shake of her head. “The looks on your poor faces. I know. Many of you have come here with your own thoughts of safety in mind. Many of you stay here because it is good to help others … but it also helps you. These walls are tall. These walls are thick. And within them, you wouldn’t mind bringing a hundred wounded souls to perfect health and mental wellbeing. But Sisters, my Sisters, we are not truly serving Atlas. Not in here.”

“I can’t,” whispers one of the Sisters, drawing attention. She says nothing further, terror in her eyes as she brings a tiny hand to her mouth and shakes her head, traumatized by the idea of leaving.

Lady Agdanagon regards her with a soft, sympathetic glance. Then she lifts her gaze to the others. “The only comfort I can give you is, we will be together. All thirty of us. Even …” She steels herself before them, her posture straightening and her mouth tightening. “Even I. Do you not realize I haven’t stepped foot outside of this very building in over thirty years? This is no small decision, but it is one that I must make with the whole of my heart. If we are truly Sisters Of Sisters, if we truly follow the selfless, giving, tireless ways of the Goddesses, then we must devote ourselves completely. Mind, body, spirit, and will. Atlas is wounded right now. Atlas is hurting. Atlas is desperate for the healing that we are able to give it. You,” she says, a nod at one of the women. “You,” she says, a nod at another. “You. And you. And you. And you.” She nods at Mercy. She nods at the boy. She nods at her real sister and the other Sisters. “You can save a life. You can save a city.” She smiles. “We are the shield against the madness, my Sisters.”

Some of the women need a hug after the spiel. Some of them need a private pep talk of sorts. Some just need their space to grieve the loss of their own comfort and security.

The decision is made to have one final dream in their rooms, after which they will leave an hour before the next sunrise. “Speak to the Sister of Dreams, and seek what it is you truly envision for the welfare of Atlas. Think as a Sister thinks, and know that we are but vessels for the comfort and love and peace of others. Others first, always. Others’ happiness. Others’ care. Others’ needs.”

When Mercy is in her room, she spends the whole of her five hours preparing. She slips on the jeans she’d arrived in weeks ago, keeping them as a secret beneath her grey and greyer robes. Always be prepared. She wedges Dran’s gift of the retractable knife into the back of her pants, feeling its cold handle against the small of her back like Dran’s fingers when he’d hold her there, pull her into him, and plant a kiss upon her lips, from which she’d hold back the poison. I’d never poison you, she says to him, closing her eyes to picture the kiss for one fleeting moment.

She pulls out her tiny container of ashes from the small drawer and pockets them after giving the lid a short kiss. Next, she grabs her fingerless gloves and pulls them on one at a time. She does it with a ceremonious air, feeling the material as it covers her palm the way Dran’s hand would cover hers as they went for a stroll in the ninth or the tenth. They were invincible together. ‘I name the star right there, right by the moon …’

Mercy chokes back a sob, annoyed at herself, then lets the long sleeves of the grey robe fall over her hands, hiding the gloves as well. She reaches into the drawer for her final possession.

‘I name it the black star of mercy …’

Her hand finds nothing.

She cranes her neck, bending to peer deeper into the drawer. She feels around, panic racing up her spine. She checks the pockets of her jeans and the folds of her robe. She inspects her gloves. She opens the container of ash, looking inside. She glances down at the floor, lifting her feet and pulling her grey robe out of the way.

Mercy stares at the drawer. Dran’s ring is gone.

The next instant, she’s stalking down the hall of chambers. Each door is closed up for the night, not one of them open. One of them took it, she knows. The nosy one. Or the Mother’s sister. Or another.

Or Lady Agdanagon herself, the one who innocently changes their linens, who found the retractable knife under her mattress by “accident”. Mercy’s eyes narrow. She knows better than to trust any of these fools.

She raps on the woman’s door three firm times.

It opens softly. Lady Agdanagon’s face meets hers, and concern crosses it at once. “What’s wrong, Sister?”

“It’s your sister, Sister,” says Mercy, deciding to be clever in her accusation. “She’s taken something that belongs to me.”

The Mother looks affronted for a moment. Then, she slips out of her room and closes the door behind her. “Come, come. To the galley upstairs,” she whispers, lifting a lantern off the wall as she hobbles away. “It’s much too quiet down here.”

Mercy follows her down the hall and up a flight of stairs. They stop at the foot of the dining table at which they eat their meals when Mercy puts a hand on the Mother and spins her around.

“I won’t be going with the lot of you,” she states to the startled Mother’s face. “Your piety is a mask. Their smug sense of altruism is not only fake, but only lasts as long as their measly comforts do. I’m not a woman of comforts. I have been dragged by my teeth through the deep tunnels of emotional torment. I have felt suffering deeper than any of these foolish, cowardly runaways could possibly dream up in their five hours a night. And among their self-righteous toil, there stands a thief who has taken something precious from me.”

“I … I just don’t understand how you presume to know that it is my sister who’s stolen from you.”

“Because your sister knows my name.”

Lady Agdanagon’s eyes were not wide before. They are now. “H-Had you two met before?”

Mercy gives her the benefit of the doubt. If she’s playing dumb, Mercy will know soon enough. “Not to my knowledge.”

She frowns, her lips pursed with heavy thought. “Mmm.” She leans against the table and lets down the lantern, which burns like a little fireball, their only source of light in this darkened hall. The dark wrinkly skin of her face glows rosy and warm in the light. “Mmm, a curious plight.” Her lips draw thin and her eyes, thinner.

“Not so curious,” says Mercy. “Open her room and get my ring.”

“And if you are wrong, my sister may take offense. I know her to be no thief.”

“Then you must know her to be a spy,” Mercy decides, pushing the subject. “She knows my name. Her and … the one who sits next to me during mealtimes. They’ve whispered my name between them and others have heard.”

The Mother takes the information the way one takes on a bag of fifty onions, her body physically drooping when she hears it. “Dear.”

“If this breaks the ‘sacred’ rules of your Sisterhood, I care not. I’ll be on my way—as soon as I get my ring.”

“No. I will not exile you for a name, so help me. I might as well exile myself for the sake of no one being able to properly pronounce mine.” She huffs irritably, completely rattled, then lifts her chin. “I hope you are certain of what you know, Sister. This will be quite devastating to me if your claim is proven true. Perhaps more so if it’s proven false. A stroke of discord can unravel all the Sisters, and they are so fragile already after today’s news of the Red Light. I feared half would leave during the night.”

“Half of them may,” Mercy agrees. “One of them with my ring.”

Lady Agdanagon sighs. “Cannot we trust that, maybe if the ring was stolen and not merely lost—”

“It was not lost.”

“—that it may turn up in time anyway?” she finishes. “Give it to tomorrow. Upon our move, a ring may not be easy to conceal. You’ll keep your eyes open, and so will I. The thief will out. Remember,” she says, reaching out to take Mercy’s hand. Mercy pulls away, not letting her. The Mother lifts her half-lidded eyes, weary. “Remember, these possessions of ours, they don’t come of use while we serve the Sisters three. We’re not the material things we have. We are the immaterial love we keep.”

“Aye,” agrees Mercy, “and that immaterial love of mine is in that ring. And I will have it tomorrow.” With that, Mercy turns her back on the Mother and stalks the dark halls alone, returning to her room.

This night, she dreams with her eyes open.

0193  Halvesand

He sits at the end of a table in the cafeteria, surrounded by the noise of fellow Guardian as they chat and eat an early-morning meal. The atmosphere revives Halves in a way that no medicine or kind words or treatment ever could.

The guys across from him are talking about a bunch of dumb kids in the tenth who are pretending to be Mad Kings themselves, racing from street to street setting things on fire. All of them have been apprehended and celled up somewhere on the first floor, but none of them will confess to whose idea it was to do what they did; whenever they’re asked, they all start laughing maniacally in unison. Halvesand grins the whole time they’re talking, listening to the story and feeling elated to have any part of it—even if he can’t respond. He is regarded sometimes as more of a patient of the hospital than as a fellow Guardian, but they all trained together in the eleventh under the strict tutelage of Obert Ranfog, who gave them all hell at some point or another, and the camaraderie between the men and women fills Halves’ heart.

Last night, he just got the approval he’s been waiting for. “Yes,” the nurse had said, his eyes glowing with the lightness of the good news he was about to deliver, his hand gripping the clipboard tightly. “You are cleared of your bedridden state, Mr. Halvesand Lesser. Your only restriction will be a cane, which has in its base two controls, see? Right here. Allow me to demonstrate, sir.”

One control is used to stabilize the cane upon the ground, turning it into a rigidly upright post that cannot fall over, which Halves can use if he were to fall over. The other control can issue a loud sound, which simultaneously alerts a nurse or emergency medic to his exact position in case he is in need of immediate help, since he is without voice and cannot properly call out for it.

“Dude, do that thing it does,” says Marte, the guy sitting across from him at the table.

Halves smirks. He rests his cane on the ground, then taps the control. In an instant, the cane flips upward, standing straight up at once with a whirring metallic sound.

“Fuuuuck,” groans Marte appreciatively. “Dare you to do that in front of your brother. Make the cane knock him in the nuts.”

The others at the table laugh at that. Halves cannot join in the laughter without feeling the razor-cutting agony in his throat, so he simply smirks appreciatively and gives a nod, then returns to sipping on his vegetable juice, which tastes like celery and tomato when it hits his tongue, then turns into something bitter and awful as he swallows it down past the damage in his throat.

“Doesn’t that suck?” asks the guy at his side after nudging his elbow, which makes Halves wince since his skin is still annoyingly sensitive. “Like, to only be able to drink all the time? Can you really never eat solids again?”

“Dude, he can’t talk, idiot,” blurts Marte.

“Oh yeah. Does that suck?”

Marte throws a spoon at him, and then the guys start spitting teasing insults at each other, and Halvesand grins ear to ear with laughter he can’t let out.

Suddenly, a hand rests softly on his shoulder. Halves ducks from it slightly, then turns his head.

It is Ennebal. She looks down upon him, her face framed by two curtains of dark, perfectly straight hair cropped at her chin. “Sorry,” she murmurs, retracting her hand.

The grin on Halves’ face fades away. He gives her a small nod of forgiveness, then tries to smile. It feels flat on his lips.

Ennebal leans in toward his ear. Her lips tickle when she says, “Can we talk?”

Halves studies her eyes, the flat attempt at a smile fading away too. He nods, slipping out of his seat with his hand gripping the cane and his other palming the decanter of vegetable juice—the remainder of his lunch. The guys at the table have drawn quiet, likely watching as the pair of them leave, Ennebal walking slowly as Halves moves with his cane one step at a time.

They come to a stop at an elevated crosswalk that runs over the main lobby of Eleven Wings. The banisters are as smooth as Lifted City chrome, polished and shiny too. Their view to the left is a lobby below them, and to the right is a wall of glass that overlooks a road that runs deep into the eleventh, likely running straight to the Dark Abandon itself. Halves experiences a strange moment of wondering what this view looked like centuries ago when there actually was a twelfth ward they could walk to if they continued down that road.

“Halves.”

He brings his gaze to Ennebal, who leans backwards on the banister with her elbows propped up. The pose accentuates what little breasts she has, hugged in a formfitting black leather jacket. Her legs are squeezed into black leather pants that shine like rubber. All the black of her attire and her hair makes her fingers and face glow as pale as a ghost, and her lips flush pink as roses.

“I need to tell you something.” Her mouth tightens as she looks away, apparently figuring that this “something” she needs to tell him is not a thing she can say while looking him in the eyes. “I had to wait until you were better again.”

Halves isn’t sure he’s ready to hear this. You’ve been with my brother, he’d say at once, interrupting her and saving her all the trouble. You made a sweaty play at him in the dormitories. It’s why Aleks was so guilty-looking when he saw me wake up that day long ago after I was recovered from the Lifted City half-dead. It was Pace who told him, his old partner who died at the knife-bearing hands of that same poisonous street rogue who did this to Halves. He already knows. He doesn’t need Ennebal to push her own knife into him; he’s already had a knife pull across his throat, and that’s enough knifing to endure for a lifetime.

He turns from her, aiming his stony stare toward the window as he studies the skyline and the Lifted City that interrupts it. He stares at its tiny needles of exhaust pipes and power cables and Pylons that run down to the slums like long black teeth, cutting into the sky.

“I have a baby in me.”

Halves doesn’t hear her. For a solid moment, he thinks that she has changed the subject and wants to trade gossip with him. His lips part when it occurs to him that that’s the news she’s brought him.

“It’s true,” she says. “We’re in a hospital, after all. I’ve confirmed the state I’m in. It’s a fact that a little life is growing inside me.”

He doesn’t need a diviner from the ninth to distill the blatant fact from her words. He and Ennebal have not had sex since before his abduction and near-death experience. He knows already who the father is.

Or does he? Has Ennebal been busy since Halves went and got himself broken? Has she made the rounds in all of Guardian? Halves can only assume so, with a flippant attitude like hers. So, you’ve had countless knocks on that pussy of yours and now one of them’s stuck in you. Congratulations.

Her hand touches his arm, feeling like it’s made of needles.

He turns his head to her. Ennebal’s eyes are as cold and flinty as they always are, but her eyebrows are drawn together pensively and her lips are pursed.

“I know this isn’t what you asked for. It certainly isn’t what you needed. Hell, it isn’t what I needed.” Ennebal blows air past her lips as she turns away, her hand slipping off of Halves’ arm and sending a wave of nauseating sparks down his body. “I also could have told you sooner, sure. But if I’m perfectly honest, I didn’t even notice that I’d missed my bleed. Took me two damn weeks to get a check with the doctor. I thought I had a damn disease. You’ve been clinging to the edge of death for the past two months, I couldn’t tell you. I had to keep this information to myself. Well, myself and my Lead Officer, who isn’t Obert anymore, by the way. Some cocky fucker from the sixth is giving us orders now.”

Halves is staring at Ennebal, stunned. Even if he had a voice, he’s not sure he’d be capable of using it right now. She’s known of this for two months? Ennebal’s been pregnant since before … all this?

Ennebal meets his eyes again. “No, I haven’t told your brother. If that’s what you’re thinking. Sure, he’s my partner, but fuck him. He gets on my nerves and he’s always showing off. He doesn’t need to know of his impending doom as an uncle someday to some little boy or girl. That’s assuming you want me to go on with this thing.”

Halves staggers a step away from her, stabbing his cane into the ground and letting his thumb mash into the control that keeps his cane upright. He doesn’t feel capable at all of keeping himself up suddenly, his head spinning.

“Too soon?” she asks with a subtle lift of an eyebrow.

He grips his cane with both hands, balancing himself. Then he shakes his head.

“My sister was baked in her own clay casket before she ever got the chance to experience motherhood. I figure I owed it to her to at least try it once.” Ennebal folds her arms and sighs, staring off at the lobby below. “If it’s a girl, I hope you don’t mind if I name her after my sister. Jenevin.”

She is putting on an air of indifference because it’s the way that Ennebal Flower deals with any stress or heartache. She shields her feelings with hardness, much like she does when using her Legacy of rendering her body impervious. Halves wonders if she’s ever shed a tear in front of him or if she ever will. Can he ever truly connect with a woman so guarded as Ennebal, a woman who will mask every one of her weaknesses and never let him soothe her? And on that note, can he even soothe her in his new physical state? He wonders if he’ll ever be able to fuck anything again, even his own hand.

“Jenevin Lesser,” she goes on, musing. “Nice sound to it, if you prefer the baby to take on yours. Not that I’m planning to hook you for life, Lesser. Unless you wanted that.”

Halves feels his knees trying to give away, and he finds himself suddenly very thankful for the cane upon which he’s putting all of his weight. Surprisingly, the unassumingly wimpy rod of metal holds its ground, keeping him completely upright.

“Weddings your thing, Halves? Ever been to one?”

He coughs suddenly, then brings a hand to his chest, giving it a bit of a rub. He forgets that he’s holding the decanter of vegetable juice in that hand, pressing it to his chest as he rubs. He shakes his head no to her question without looking at her, his eyes cast to the floor as he rubs and rubs. His breaths are drawing short.

Ennebal shifts her legs, her boot scraping against the tile floor. “You look like shit, Halves. Listen, you don’t gotta be a father if you don’t want to be. We live in a volatile time. Not ideal to bring any damn baby into this mortal coil.”

He coughs again, a bit harder. His chest feels really tight, like he can barely breathe. He hears a rasp each time he draws a breath.

Ennebal straightens up. “Halves.”

He looks up to find her alarmed and her eyes on his mouth. Idly, he runs his forearm over his lips, then draws it back to find a streak of blood down its length. You’re coughing up blood, he tells himself the way a parent tells a child some simple fact. Parents. Children. Am I going to be a father?

The decanter slips from his hand, crashing to the floor. A spray of red soup explodes across the tile, not looking unlike the blood that just sprayed onto his chin from his recent cough.

“Come.” Ennebal is at his side the next instant. “I’ll take you back and get a white-coat to come to your room.”

He gives a short nod, then releases his cane from its upright lock and uses it to guide his steps while Ennebal slowly walks beside him. The leather of her pants squeak with her every stride. Halves coughs twice more, his mouth tasting of acid and iron and something foul. Was it the unreleased laughs in his throat that caused this? Can he not even feel amusement without the poison in his throat punishing him? Must he not even use his voice to sigh or breathe deeply or draw too much breath?

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of the woman with the ash around her eyes—like Dran—and the poison on her green lips. He thinks of all the dozens of different little opportunities he had to murder her and prevent this from happening to him. He thinks of all the chances he let slip through his stupid fingers before she drew that knife across his throat. And if I was paying attention in that last moment, if I hadn’t let my guard down, I could have stopped not only the blade, but the poison too.

The bed creaks under his ass when he’s lying on it again. Mercy pulls the sheets over him and brings her face close to his.

Mercy? Halves looks at her and jerks away, blinking his eyes rapidly and retracting his hands.

Ennebal lifts her hands and takes a step away from him. “What? Did I do something?”

He keeps blinking and blinking the image away. She isn’t Mercy, he has to tell himself, again like a parent to a child. She isn’t Mercy. This is Ennebal Flower, the woman who just told you she’s two months pregnant with your child. This is not Mercy. You are safe.

“Halves?”

Before he can reassure her of anything, the doctor has entered the room with the nurse who’d instructed Halves about the cane. Ennebal stands in the back of the room near the window as the two men care for Halves, cleaning up the blood on his chin and giving him an oral medicine to help with the bleeding in his throat. The nurse gently massages Halves’ neck at the doctor’s command.

“Trying to speak again, aye?” says the doctor, who isn’t Halves’ usual one, Dr. Turtle. This is a new doctor who’s recently arrived from a hospital in the fourth. “No good. Keep ye mouth on the dead, Mr. Lesser, like ye don’t have one. Speak with ye hands, it makes it all easier.”

“He’s supposed to learn a hand language now?” asks Ennebal, throwing her question at him in a harsh tone that sounds like an accusation. “He hasn’t spoken a damned word all day.”

“Aye?” The doctor, so old and wrinkly that his skin looks like it’s melting straight off his face, lifts his glasses as he peers down at Halves. “That the truth of it, Mr. Lesser? Give a nod of ye head if it is. No, no, a nod can hurt ye neck. Rather a blink of yer eye for a yes.”

Halves blinks once with meaning.

“Hmm.” The doctor puckers his lips as he squints and thinks, a finger or two drumming along his chin. “Well, Dr. Turtle was against the idea, but I’ll run it by ye in case ye got a different take on it.”

“He vetoed a neck operation,” interjects Ennebal, anticipating the doctor’s words.

“No, no. I propose something less risky, but still risky even so. The poison’s living in yer neck, aye? And Turtle’s tack is to ignore it and bear with the suffering because it could rupture and kill ye.”

“Get to your point.”

The doctor shoots her a tired look, then faces Halves. “What I propose is that I take a needle to it, then—”

“Already tried,” Ennebal cuts in, crossing her arms and leaning against the back wall. “The poison can’t be removed, obviously, or it would have been taken out by now.”

“No, I wouldn’t remove it. I’d take a sample of it, see? Suck out a bit and take it to me lab.” The doctor nods. “With a sample, I’d test it against my other specimens from every known poison in all of Atlas. We’ll find its mother poison and deduct a proper antidote, aye? Then with a month or two of treatment—”

“Another month or two??” blurts Ennebal.

“The poison may start to fight itself, aye? Then soon, clear itself of ye neck completely. Antidote does all the work.” Ennebal makes another snide comment, but both the doctor and Halves ignore it. “It is a choice up to you, Mr. Lesser. We try it or we don’t, result’s just the same. But if ye coughing blood without using yer voice at all …” The doctor gives a shake of his head. “I can’t promise that sack a’ venom in ye neck isn’t gonna someday burst anyway, operation or not, killing ye the rest of the way.”

The room is stirred to silence by that last comment. Halvesand feels a ringing in his ears, unable to even process the soft beeping of the heart machine by his bed. I could still die? asks Halves, the child in his mind. After all the recovery I’ve been through, after all the work, after all the time and the suffering, the poison could still win?

“Or ye could be lucky,” the doctor goes on with a shrug, “and the poison may never let itself out. I could devise a brace for ye neck so ye can’t turn it or nod or look up or down. It’d keep ye neck as immobile as possible. I imagine that’s what’s got your whole throat a’ bleeding.” He licks his lips, then gives Halves a curt nod. “Take ye time, Mr. Lesser. Think it over. Ye got options.” As the doctor passes by Ennebal, he leans into her and mumbles, “Good for ye for being a champion to him. He’s gonna need one.” Then, the doctor leaves. The nurse, a rueful look on his young face, only lingers a moment longer before dismissing himself as well.

Ennebal’s face replaces the doctor’s, hovering over him with her short curtains of hair hanging down. The two stare at each other, not saying a thing for the longest while.

“Decision’s yours,” she says finally. “Baby. Poison. Neck brace. Antidote.” Ennebal sighs, her breath wafting over his face and disturbing his hair, which has gotten so much messier and longer and unkempt over the weeks he’s been bedridden. “I’ll write the two options on a piece of paper and you just circle what you want to do. We’ll make it easy for you, alright?”

Halves only stares at her. I can’t even nod. I can’t even shake my head. I can’t fucking move without daring the poison to consume me.

Ennebal seems to sense this, or else she is simply the intuitive type who knows precisely what to do, as she goes for some paper and a pen. After scratching some words on its surface, she sets the paper and pen in Halves’ lap. He lifts the paper up high so as not to need to bend his neck down to read it.

It has a few words upon it: Antidote. Neck armor. Two Answers. Both have the same risks: try to live and possibly die anyway. Why does it feel like he’s picking his means of death on this unassuming sheet of paper?

And who’s to say Ennebal wasn’t already letting Aleks between her legs two and a half months ago when they were assigned as partners? Who’s to say it isn’t Aleksand’s baby growing in her belly? In six and a half more months, will I become a father or an uncle?

The slip of paper caught in his fingers may determine whether he lives long enough to become either of those things. He stares at the words long and hard, taking his time, spending his minutes, and savoring his hours. He spends so much time that Ennebal retreats to the window to stare out of it, then sets herself into a chair to play with a weapon of hers—pulling it apart and lazily putting it back together—and then finally pacing into the hallway where Halvesand overhears her inquiring to a nurse about the maternity ward and how often they conducts births and whether any of the doctors are “completely incompetent morons” that one might avoid.

It’s when he’s alone and the afternoon sun is burning through his window brightly that he finally circles a word.

0194  Kid

It’s the very next morning that Ames gets his wish.

Kid stares longingly at the house as they depart, eager already to be back within its walls. Even without furniture, it still feels like her one and only true home. She did, after all, live in it all by herself for years after her mother disappeared and her father was killed, his body dragged away by the masked men.

She wonders how differently she would see the scene unfold if she watched it now. There is still fear in her heart, but she has grown smarter and stronger from it. For I am a ghost now, and ghosts …

Well, ghosts can die, it turns out. Looking up at Link, her ghost in the flesh, her friend who is as much alive as he is dead, she realizes that he is walking upon a countdown. Ten years later, he will be dust and bone in one quick instant, so he says. The same fate will befall Ames, though she can’t seem to figure out how she feels about him. He’s annoying. He’s selfish. He blamed her for their situation … and Kid isn’t so sure she isn’t to blame. I put that knife in Baal’s chest. I took away their only chance at extending their lives.

Soon, the tenth ward gives way to the ninth. They manage to board the nine-north, which circles around to the eighth, and get a car all to themselves, so they let go of each other’s hands between the stations. Kid sits by the window, excitedly watching the city fly by as the train moves.

“What if, ten long years from now, we get ourselves to The Brae at the exact time at which Baron kills himself?” poses Ames eagerly. “What if we prevent him from dying, thus saving his life and ours?”

“Unlikely,” mumbles Link.

“How?? It’s so fucking easy, Link. We just … be there when it happens. We can stop Baron. Hell, we should even go a step further than that and actually find ourselves before Baron pulls the knife. We can intercept ourselves in the Waterways and save all the boys’ lives. I can stop myself from telling him—”

“You’re not going to do that.”

Ames doesn’t stop talking. “Oh! I’ll just find myself when I’m in The Brae. I’ll wear a disguise, I’ll visit The Brae like I’m just a visitor wanting to worship Three Sister, and I’ll tell my younger self every damn thing.”

“And then what?” blurts Link, impatient. “You’ll undo us even meeting Baal and then we won’t have gone into the past at all, which then undoes what you’re trying to do in the first place—I think. Or is that even possible?”

“There’s a word for that,” mumbles Ames. “Like, it’s when you take time and tie it in a knot and …” His voice trails off, squinting at the empty seat across from him, lost in a horror of thoughts.

Kid lifts her gaze to Faery, who stares back. Sitting next to Link, Faery gives a tiny smile to her, which Kid does not return.

She doesn’t know what it is exactly about Faery. It’s not that Kid doesn’t trust her. In fact, she thinks she likes her. Maybe. Is it the fact that Faery and Link have gotten really close in such a short amount of time? It confuses Kid because she’s always known Link to be an angry, lonesome type—like her, except without the angry. This new Link, this bright-eyed Link, this curious, adventurous, free-spirited Link … Kid doesn’t know him at all. Maybe that’s what scares her.

But it’s a good thing, isn’t it? Not everything has to be coldness and death and revenge, like Kendil taught her. There are happy times to be had, too. There is laughter to share. There is compassion. There is the sweet embrace of a mother. There is the warm pat of a father’s hand on the back. There is a friend to sit by your side in the night and a companion to join you on an adventure.

Kid once had none of that. Now, she has three companions, and they are on a very unique adventure together. She feels like she has a family now and somehow, this family feels far less temporary than the ones she’s formed before.

Two hours later, the four are hiding behind a familiar set of bushes on a dirt road in the eighth. Walking here on foot was a much different experience than time-walking here. The city gave way to sparser buildings, and then to hardly any buildings at all. This dirt road is lined with tall grass and the houses are spread so far apart, Kid wonders how the neighbors even know of one another’s existence. There isn’t a speck of Lifted City in the sky, which makes Kid long to see it at nightfall. I bet there’s a lot of stars out here, she wonders dreamily. I bet it’s just like the Lifted City sky.

“She’s not outside today,” complains Ames.

“We’ll sneak by a window.” Link nudges Ames encouragingly. “You were an idiot when we came here with Baal. You’ll be smarter this time. Plus, we have my buddy Kid here to protect us.”

My buddy Kid. Kid grins at the sound of that, then gives Faery and Link’s hands a quick jerk. “Come,” she urges them.

The four slip through the field, the grass parting for them as they edge up to the largest window unseen. Through its glass, Ames and the others get a front row seat to a woman and a man and a boy at the table eating their midday meal. His mother, his father, and him as a four-year-old.

“Ames, you’re so cute,” taunts Link, to which Ames scoffs and gives him a playful bump of an elbow. “Pharis. Gorde.”

“And me.” Ames shakes his head, watching wide-eyed. “Maybe I could just leave myself a note …”

“No.”

He sighs, though the look of surrender on his face seems to indicate that he already knew it’d be out of the question. Kid finds herself studying his face more than the ones through the window.

They stay near the house for hours. Twice they relocate to a different window, watching as the family sits on the couch in the den to watch a lavender-eyed woman give a speech on the broadcast. “Legacist Ambera,” mutters Ames. “I barely remember her.”

“Didn’t she get sick and die?” asks Link, his face wrinkled.

“Impis killed her. That’s how he took over as Legacist.”

Link snorts. “That’s just a rumor, though.”

“It’s the truth. Ah, look, the Peacemaker.” Ames’ eyes light up as he scoots forward to get a better look, nearly pressing his nose to the glass. “Janlord Weathric, Marshal of Peace.”

“I still can’t believe he’s dead,” says Link.

“But he isn’t.” Ames speaks with inspiration, all the bad ideas flooding into his heart again; Kid can see it. “Not today.”

“Ames, don’t start.”

“Is it really such a bad thing to want to guide the world into a better state? Baron was a fraud. Baal was a cheat. But we …? We are the true saviors of Atlas, Link. We—”

“Please, Ames. Please … don’t make me have to shut you down every damn day for the next ten years.”

“Come on, Link!” Ames’ voice is rising. “You’re lying if you tell me there isn’t something you want to go home and warn your mother or father about. You’re lying if there isn’t something you’d scribble on a note and leave yourself. It’d be so easy. You’re just a ward away.”

“Ames, you ought to remember just as well as I how strictly King Greymyn ruled Atlas,” says Link, his voice low. “People were executed or imprisoned for life for the smallest of crimes. Even my own father mentioned a man at the metalshop—Rychis Bard, I recall the name—who was sent up to the King and never returned. His crime? Losing his temper at his job and damaging a machine, which was later fixed anyway at no cost. Even a common thief might be executed, no matter how little they steal. You can’t be reckless.”

“We won’t be reckless!” Ames says, nearly a shout. Kid notices the mother glance toward the window. Of course the mother doesn’t see them—but she can still hear them. “We will be calculated, Link! We will be careful! We’ll have a plan and work as a team!”

“Your voice,” hisses Link, noticing the same thing Kid notices.

The four of them turn to the window as the mother Pharis comes right up to the glass at once, peering through it with squinted eyes. All four of them stare at her, motionless, wordless, wide-eyed. She glances back at her husband and tells him she thought she heard something, then returns her gaze to the glass with a hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun. The husband seems far less concerned, mumbling something that they can’t hear through the glass. Then Pharis finally gives up, returning to her spot on the couch where a little wide-eyed Ames stares at the glass himself—and for a moment, little Ames and big Ames seem to be playing a staring contest with one another.

“I have to let go,” hisses Ames. “Let me see myself. Please. Let me have this moment.”

“No, Ames. Don’t you dare.” Link grips Ames’ hand so tightly, Kid feels him squeeze her own almost to the point of pain.

“Please. Please, please, please.”

“NO.”

Ames wrinkles his face in anger, furious at being held back, but soon succumbs to the wiser decision of staying put—and invisible. He takes a deep breath, his eyes heavy with pain and frustration. Then, with a short huff, he says, “I’ve seen enough.”

Link looks sympathetic at once. “Ames?”

“I said I’ve seen enough. Fucking go. Ninth, your house. Tenth, Kid’s. Whatever. Let’s just fucking go.”

And with that, they do. The grass whispers as they slice through its tall, plentiful disguise. Another hour of walking finds them aboard another tired train, this one smellier and more cramped, but the four of them manage to stay together in the back of a train car away from the other passengers. Kid feels the tension in Link’s grip, and she sees the frustration in Ames’ face as he stares out the window with a look of hopeless longing.

She doesn’t like the unsettled feeling that Ames is just a bomb waiting to go off and ruin their cover … but she also can’t blame him. Kid wants nothing more than to embrace her parents again and to warn her stupid father to not answer that door that one fateful day when she was six years old. Kid wants to tell her mother not to go wherever it was she went, warning her that she’d never come back.

How can she possibly think ill of Ames for his wishes?

And her own wishes extend beyond her family. Kid wants to be at the orphanage in time to pull her friend Aryl from the chaos so that she’s not taken by the masked men. Kid wants to find the cold boy Kendil and ward him away from the evil folk who did him wrong. Kid wants to already be at The Brae that day that Link and the black-about-the-eyes boy and his Wrath invaded them and broke a man’s back.

Kid wants to thank the other Lesser boy who stopped a train and saved her life. Did she ever tell Link that story? She glances up at him, still seeing the deep tension in his brown wistful eyes. Another time, she decides. A better time.

And all they have is time now.

After disembarking in the ninth, the four of them walk many a street until the hanging lamps at the side of the roads turn on due to the waning light of day. The buildings turn into houses as they walk, becoming multicolored and squattier. In the middle of a particularly more broken road than the rest, they come to a stop in front of a house that glows with the warmth of the light from within, one of its windows painting a large tree in the front yard a yellowish hue.

There is a boy in that tree with a book.

Link sighs longingly. The four of them stand on the curb of the street, their hands gripped and sweaty. “Lionis …” he whispers.

I remember his name. Kid is sure he intended the name to only be heard by them, but the boy in the tree lifts his little eyes from his book, confused for a second. He’ll think it was just a stray bit of wind, Kid decides, feeling herself twenty times more forgiving of Link for his mistakes than she was of Ames, who acts as recklessly as a slummer at dinner. The boy in the tree returns to his book, giving up his quest for the rogue name that the wind carried to his little ears.

Then a pretty woman is poking her head out of the door. His mommy, Ellena. I know hers, too. “It’s getting dark, sweetheart. Come inside.”

Little Lionis hops out of the tree and rushes inside at once.

Link takes an automatic step forth, his eyes wide, as if he boldly wishes to follow them right into the house, but he stops, perhaps reminded of the hands that firmly hold either of his.

After a moment of gathering his wits, he gives a nod to his friends, and then the four of them advance upon the window to look inside. The mother is at the kitchen counter and there are three boys sitting on the mismatched stools before it. One is the boy from the tree, who looks to be about Kid’s age. The two other boys look just a touch older and they don’t look very happy. Kid wonders if they just had an argument or if something’s wrong between them.

Seconds later, two more boys appear, seeming to have come from the stairs. Kid needs no prompting to know exactly who those boys are. Little Link and his brother Wick, the one who would sneak out to the Noodle Shop at night, the one who pretends to sleep; she’s watched it through his window many times. Maybe I’ll admit that to Link too someday. I’ve met all of his brothers but one, in fact.

A girl on the couch lifts her head, a girl Kid hadn’t noticed until now. She seems to be listening to something the mother is saying, then brings her hands to the back of the couch, leaning against it to hear. Her hands are gloved.

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” mumbles Ames, having noticed the girl himself.

Link stares at her for a while, then shakes his head. “I don’t. It’s one of the …” He shakes his head again, watching. “It’s one of the girls from down the street, maybe. I think. We … We must’ve been babysitting her while the parents were at work or something.”

“Oh.”

All the boys turn to acknowledge the girl—all except the two oldest, who seem to be in the middle of an argument—and then quite suddenly the mother rushes to the living room and grabs the girl from the couch, lifting her in the air and spinning her around. The mother laughs as the girl squeals with delight before being set back onto the couch.

“Your mother’s sweet,” observes Ames thoughtfully.

Link doesn’t respond, his eyes wet with astonishment at what he’s seeing.

Kid looks upon the two older brothers. She can’t tell which of them she will, in roughly ten years’ time, be thanking for stopping a train and saving her life. They look so similar—in height, in face, in hair, even in clothes. Half-Sand, she remembers the name, though it sits in a cluster of syllables on her tongue.

The girl soon joins the boys at the counter. A meal is shared among them, which makes Kid’s stomach growl with frustration, since the four of them haven’t eaten all day. Soon, four of the boys head upstairs while little Link and the girl retreat out back, Link taking the girl by her still-gloved hand. The mother cleans up in the kitchen humming a tune to herself.

Suddenly Link takes a step forward and Kid watches as his face falls apart. His mouth opens. His eyes flash wide. He holds his breath as the mother’s tune vibrates gently through the glass, touching their ears. Kid sees a tear in Link’s eye, which grabs her by the heart. Why is he crying?

Then Faery starts to hum the tune. Kid turns to her, caught off-guard, as if just now remembering that the strange girl is with them. Faery’s eyes close as she hums along, following the melody note for note. Link joins in, but only for two little squeaks of his throat before he draws silent, staring at his mother.

“Are you okay?” asks Ames gently.

Link nods. “That song, Ames.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s the song.”

After a moment of being perplexed, Ames’ eyes suddenly flash. “The song? That your mother sang? The one in your vision?”

“Yes. Fuck. I never thought …” He closes his eyes and a tear traces down his cheek. “I never thought I’d hear it again.”

The mother, her chores in the kitchen done, moves up the stairs. A moment later, she appears in the window of the Wick-boy’s room, where she resumes the humming after shutting the door behind her. The four of them step back from the house to peer up at the second-floor window, though it is dark and they can only listen.

Not long after that, a man approaches the front door. He is a brawny man with a beard and short hair, his arms so big that they pull on the sleeves of his grease-stained shirt, wet at the armpits. The mother meets him at the front door, then steps outside to join him on the front step.

“You look weary,” she murmurs.

“Tough days lately at the shop,” he grunts back, then gives her a deep kiss, his breath jagged as it ripples over her cheek and disturbs the loose strands of hair by her ear. “Anwick asleep?”

“Just got him asleep, yes.”

Link’s face wrinkles, pulling Kid’s attention to it. She watches the confusion unravel in him through his pinched eyebrows.

“Forge, it’s getting worse.”

“Anwick? He’s sleeping less, you mean?”

“No, no. It’s Elle. Her hands, Forge. Everything she touches …”

“I know.” The man—Forge—sighs, then wipes his face with a large hand before shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t know. I’m out of options. I don’t know.”

“Stronger gloves, perhaps? Or a different material? We should try the textile markets in the seventh. It’s quite a bit of ways, but—”

“If I could make her a gauntlet,” Forge reasons, “maybe from a light metal, that might resist the stone-touch. We haven’t yet tried metal. I may have to find the right alloy.”

“A gauntlet,” moans Ellena. “She’s just a sweet little girl.”

“I know.”

“A sweet little girl in gauntlets … gauntlets …” Ellena wraps her arms around Forge and squeezes him, hiding her face in his chest as she starts to weep soundlessly.

He rubs her back, lays a kiss on her head, then says, “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she lies.

After a moment more of comfort, the two enter the house, its door shutting softly at their backs, and they retreat to a room under the stairs. Soon, no one is in sight through the front windows. The sounds of the three older brothers laughing and chatting upstairs is all that is heard.

The four walk away soon after to fetch food, but Link’s mind seems to be anywhere but on his stomach. “I had a sister,” he says, as if it was the strangest word in the word—sister. “What happened to her? Where’d she go? And my b-brother … My brother Anwick …”

“It could just be a strange anomaly,” reasons Ames. “I always wondered if, like, maybe there was a kid in the world who slept until the age of three. Or even four. I mean, really, what is it that’s so special about the age of two?”

“But Anwick is seven right now. Or … fuck, eight.” Link shakes his head. “His birthday’s just past. He was sleeping when he was eight years old? Does he still sleep?”

“Yes,” mutters Kid.

The three others turn to her. She clenches shut her eyes, afraid of Link’s reaction.

“You knew?” asks Link.

She sighs, coming to a stop near the train station, then faces Link. “I followed ya. A lot. I even followed ya to the Waterways that one day when I took the gold from ya. From … you. I followed you … and even followed you to your home.” Kid dares to bring her gaze up to Link’s and is surprised to find him looking more curious than angry. “And your older brother saved my life.”

Link lifts an eyebrow. “They’re all my older brothers,” he says. “Which one? Wick? Lionis?”

“Half-Sand,” she answers. “Half-Sand stood in front of a train as it was coming for me. And he stopped it with just his hand. He stood there and he … stopped it.”

A smile crashes over Link’s face. Then, he starts to nod. “Yeah. He … He can do that. Stopping things. A momentum-catcher.”

“He saved my life,” says Kid. “I hope someday I can repay the favor.”

“Maybe you can,” murmurs Link thoughtfully, but then his eyes detach again, lost in the cacophony of things he’s learned tonight. His brother’s sleeping. His sister’s existing. He doesn’t seem capable of making any decisions in his current state.

So Kid figures she’ll make them for the group. “To first block!” she announces. “I know where I can get us a tasty dinner!” Then, she tugs on their hands and drags them to the train station to board the one she knows will take them to a block full of delicious options. A Noodle Shop that will someday be host to a rebel group, if it isn’t already. A bakery at which she’ll someday meet a man whose porch she will deposit a purse of twice-stolen gold upon. It’s strange, she muses, to remember things that haven’t happened yet.

0195  Ruena

“You are welcome to come with me, or you are welcome to stay here,” says Ruena. “The choice is yours.”

Erana sulks, her arms folded tightly to her chest as she stares at the window, the afternoon sun painting her yellow from head to toe. “I’m dead out there. Girls like me don’t survive things like this. It’s historical. I ought to know.”

“You know lots of things. You’re very smart, Erana. It’s why I’d prefer you to come with me. You know all of the members of his Posse, who are likely the only ones who’d occupy the streets, and—”

“I only know most.”

“Better yet. Put that knowledge to use. Come with me.”

“A smart person wouldn’t come with you.”

“Then be a fool with me, damn it,” blurts Ruena impatiently, sighing as she turns to face the wall that carries her power. Just a push more of her Legacy can send the wall crumbling to the ground. She presses her hand to it for the twenty-second time this week. Today, I will break down this cursed wall and resume my life.

“Rone said he’s a member of Rain,” murmurs Erana, poking the bridge of her glasses with a finger, “but I already knew, it turns out. Athan Broadmore said it once when he came plunging into the Windstone Academy the night his family was murdered. I think they wanted me to think he was misremembering Rone’s name, calling him ‘the Rain guy’ … but I hung on to that slip of Athan’s tongue. Of course I did; I hang on to everything, forever.”

Ruena blinks several times, annoyed. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I wonder if they were all members of Rain. I wonder if Rone was involved with a deep, underground effort to dismantle Sanctum. I know it seems like a radical leap of logic, but it aligns with about thirty-three other things I’ve overheard or observed in the past year. That’s exactly thirty-three things,” Erana points out. “I counted.”

Ruena looks away, a thought suddenly striking her. “Rain. Let it rain. I heard that before. No,” she decides just as suddenly. “No, they can’t be related. That’s foolish.”

“Let it rain. Those were the words painted on the ceiling of the arena by blue paint bombs,” recites Erana. “That was a rebel crime of treasonous intent for which Dran and Fylan, brothers from the tenth, were executed. Fylan at the hands of King Greymyn. Dran at the … hand of Metal Hand. The crime never quite befit the punishment, in my opinion. But that’s judging from the three hundred and sixty-one executions I have witnessed.”

Ruena’s face snaps back to Erana, wide-eyed. “How many did you say? Three hundred and … and sixty-one??”

“Yes. Two hundred and twelve were by Metal Hand alone. Dran was the last execution broadcasted, however.” Erana sighs and gives a short shrug. “I don’t know how they were all involved, but I am certain they were. Athan. Rone. Wick. Dran.”

“Rain.” Ruena feels like all the breath has been pulled right out of her. “How could I have not seen this?”

“I should’ve said it sooner. It was the day Rone told you about his involvement with Rain that all the pieces fell together in my head. I heard it from the couch. You two were arguing quite loudly.”

Ruena bristles at those words. I didn’t see it as arguing … not exactly. “Well, it makes no matter. Rone’s involvement with Rain or with … with Dran is simply no matter. At least not now. We can discuss it when we find him.” Ruena resists a sigh of frustration, thinking on her brief time in the cells where she interrogated Dran and he made her body flush with heat in more places than just her cheeks. The heavy emotions burst through her so potently, she feels like Dran’s still in the cells awaiting her final verdict and her weary grandfather is still alive, patiently waiting for her to do the right thing. I didn’t know what the right thing was back then, and I certainly am no closer to knowing it now.

“Athan was a kind boy …” Erana starts to say.

But the name of the Broadmore boy makes Ruena think of the other, Radley, who nearly professed his undying love to her with all his passionate words of futures and Kings and peace. Ruena quite instantly decides her heart has been played with enough for a day. “Enough, Erana. I have heard enough.”

But perhaps Erana feels she has, in fact, not said enough. “The dream you shared with Rone and I. Us, living here as long as we want. We can still live that dream, Ruena. You and I. It would have been nicer with Rone, sure, but we—”

“I can’t LIVE with this on my shoulders, Erana! If Rone were to die out there …”

Ruena didn’t mean to snap, but she did, and now she feels the cold, stunned silence of Erana at her back. The girl doesn’t respond after that, the two of them standing still.

Ruena feels a pang of regret from her words, wishing there was an easier answer to this. They both know that once Ruena breaks her way out, she is also compromising Erana’s security here and might be inadvertently forcing her to join Ruena anyway. Am I really even giving her a choice at all? Is this the bossy brain of a Queen who makes choices for her subjects after giving them the guise that they have any say in the matter at all? Is this the kind of Queen I want to be …?

“I am not a Queen,” murmurs Ruena to herself in answer, then brings her hand to the wall again.

Erana starts to say something, but Ruena has already pushed her electricity into the fallen rubble, and it responds, vibrating out of control. Ruena backs away, holding onto the current as it flows and crackles with power. She feels her hair rising slowly, the sound of pure electricity pouring before her like a boiling soup of energy.

In this moment, the room is on fire with purple, buzzing light.

Ruena must push her charges seven separate times before there is a manageable clearing over which she—and Erana, if she chooses to follow—may cross. The electricity dies away, but the effort of her Legacy has left Ruena’s hands trembling and her hair floating all around her as if she was submerged underwater.

She hears a single footstep. “Stay where you are,” warns Ruena. “My power is everywhere. Give it time to dissipate.”

“Okay.”

The two girls stand in place, staring at the opening Ruena has created. The afternoon sky is pouring in from the now-crumbled wall, golden-white and warm as Rone’s breath when they’d be curled up in each other’s arms, caught in a mess of pillows and silks and blankets on the floor. She already misses him so much. Dran … Radley … I’ll never let myself get close to another man again.

Unless that man is Rone.

Is that the real reason she broke down this wall? Does it have anything to do at all with her conscience, with the welfare of the Lifted City and her people, or with retribution? Or is her reasoning entirely a selfish one of the heart?

Ruena crouches down slowly, placing her hands on the floor. She closes her eyes and feels for the presence of her electric current, drawing it towards her as carefully as she can. In a matter of seconds, she feels nothing more. Rising, she takes a few tentative steps, then crouches by the fallen wall and tests it once more, feeling for energy. When she’s certain it’s gone, she rises again and turns to face Erana, who still stands in place with her glasses reflecting the sunlight and making her eyes look like two enormous gold coins.

“If you come with me …” Ruena starts.

“I’m coming.” Erana faces her and sighs. “I don’t want to go. But I know you will protect me. And I will guide you. We are stronger together, yes, I know this.”

Ruena experiences an inner sigh of relief, grateful Erana sees the truth in it. “Of course you do.”

“Also you have left me no choice.” Erana pokes a finger into the bridge of her glasses. “Is it safe now?”

“Safe is a relative term to use.” Ruena extends her hand. “Come.”

Erana crosses the room and takes Ruena’s hand. Her hair still crackles as the bits of static discharge and release, the long white strands slowly dropping a few at a time. The young women cross over the rubble without very much difficulty, but also without very much grace, the effort somewhat awkward as they climb overtop a chunk of Sky Rail debris or two, which had helped keep them safely inside. The sun pours over them as they soon reach the short summit of the pile, and a view of the Lifted City greets their eyes.

“What’s your plan?” asks Erana as they scope from the top of the rubble.

“To Cloud Keep,” she instructs.

“That’s a horrible plan.”

“It’s the only way to Facility. It is not my wish to bring harm to anyone, but anyone who works for Impis is a part of the Madness, and …” Ruena sighs, not liking the tone of her own words.

“And deaths may occur,” Erana finishes for her. “Perhaps you have the option to simply incapacitate them with your power?”

“It is not so simple. It is unpredictable. It is dangerous. You must stay behind me at all times. Keep hold of my hand so that you retain a grounding from the electricity … and do not let go.”

“I won’t.”

Ruena faces forward. “There is a secret way into the Keep that only Kings and Queens learn of. My grandfather shared it with me, since I was his only blood and he knew I was soon to take the throne. It is a secret way that Impis himself will not know.”

“Where is it?”

“Through the Glassen Garden. Come.”

Soon, the half-fallen house that was their safe haven is at the girls’ backs, and only empty, quiet roads lie ahead. Ruena and Erana strive to be the same: quiet as the shadows cast by the afternoon sun. They never let go of one another’s hands.

They stop at the first distinctive sound of footsteps—footsteps other than their own. The chrome column of a candy parlor’s glass awning finds their backs as they hide, hands still clasped, and listen for the feet. It’s incredibly unsettling to hear someone walking by and not knowing who they are or where they’re headed—a someone who could most certainly mean their end.

“The moment you see who it is …” whispers Ruena.

“I know,” whispers Erana back.

The footsteps fade off, and soon there is silence. Ruena peeks around the column, a stray breeze catching her hair, and then she makes her way farther down the street, Erana tugged behind her.

The two make it down two more streets lined with tall, slender trees that have no branches until two-thirds of the way up, the leaves bright and green and glimmering in the sun. It’s near the last set of trees on the street that they hear voices. The girls stay behind a wall while they listen, waiting for the voices to go away.

Instead, the voices grow closer. Ruena holds her free hand steady, ready to gather a charge and cast it at whoever comes around the corner. The anticipation tightens Ruena’s chest. She feels the crackle of power in her free hand.

A pair of faces emerge. One of a young teenage girl. One of a woman with glowing hair and nails. They seem as surprised to see Ruena as she is to see them.

Ruena experiences a brief moment of not knowing whether the women before her are friends or foes. The only emotion that seems to transfer between them is curiosity.

The young teenager squints and makes fists from her fingers.

“Queen!” someone cries out—who Ruena can’t identify because she’s doubled over with a searing pain in her temples.

Unable even to open her eyes from the crippling headache, Ruena aims her free hand and blindly discharges a bolt of energy from her palm, not seeing where it lands.

The pain subsides. Either she struck, or the attacker’s focus has been broken. Ruena takes the chance to open her eyes.

The two women have scattered, the one with glowing hair and nails seeming to be running away while the teen girl takes cover behind a lamppost across the street.

“Which one made my skull feel like it was caving in??”

“The girl,” answers Erana. “But she’s out of range now.”

“If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay out of—”

She doesn’t. The girl darts out from behind the lamppost with speed that could combat Ruena’s lightning, heading for the shelter of a waist-high wall that protrudes from Maline’s Marvels across the street. Ruena, still gripping Erana’s hand, steps forward with her free palm outstretched, drawing an electrical charge.

Just as she prepares to release it, two others appear around the corner. One is a huge red man with muscles that are so big, he looks like he stuffed the meat of three other men into his arms and legs. The other is a tall, gawky fool with olive skin who seems to be competing with Impis in terms of wearing odd, mismatched clothing.

Ruena holds her extended palm toward them now, uncertain, then brings her palm back to face the girl. Which is more of a threat? Migraines or red meat or bad taste in clothing?

Bad taste in clothing, it turns out. He lifts his fingers before his face, and they seem to grow five times in size, which is as alarming as it is unsettling. Then his fingers grow points and he aims them at Ruena and shouts, “My splinters will discharge as quickly as your lightning will. Put down your hand and I’ll put down mine!”

Ruena glances at him, annoyed at the pincer she suddenly finds herself in. Light is always quicker, but do I want to take the three lives of people who could potentially be influenced by the Madness and who are not of their true sound minds?

“Drop your hand, Fell Queen!” shouts the man once again.

Necessary risks, decides Ruena, releasing her electricity onto the man. He makes one small effort to deflect the attack with his hand, but the full force of the current seems to connect with the tip of all his fingers at once, and for a brief second, one would not be able to tell whether it is Ruena discharging the power or him.

The man flies back, slamming into the red beast behind him, and then his fingers seem to fly off like arrows—five sharp darts launched in five random directions. One of them rips through the air as quick as lightning and finds itself an unfortunate and ironic place to rest: through the teenage girl’s head, giving her a certain and final headache. It is like a sick slummer’s jape, the fate the girl endures as she draws one last quick breath, rolls her eyes back, then drops to the chrome street like a stone.

The red beast of a man charges forward. Ruena lifts one hand to summon a bolt of deadly power as she tugs Erana with her other, pulling Erana protectively behind her. The red beast makes a swipe at Ruena’s hand, but Ruena parries and slams her palm into him, thrusting all the electricity she can manage into the bizarrely big and muscled man.

It is not the shrieking growl of the man in front of Ruena that alarms her, but rather the anguished scream at her back.

She turns, too late in realizing her error. Ruena lets go of Erana’s hand at once, horrified as Erana falls backward and clasps her own hands together, screaming in agony. A sick hissing, crackling sound issues from Erana’s now-charred hand as she screams and screams.

The red beast, proving an unfortunate match to the electricity, grabs Ruena’s slender neck and lifts her right off the ground like a chicken. Ruena kicks once, twice, and then casts her electricity into the big red juggernaut by gripping his massive forearm and pushing all the current she can muster. Taking every watt and spark and fiery surge of Ruena’s Legacy, the red man howls and grunts and sputters as he endures the pain, but his grip on her neck does not relent.

Or perhaps his grip is strengthened by her Legacy. Ruena will never know as her consciousness, second by second, is slowly stolen from her. She gasps for a breath that never comes, then feels the world slip away as she fights the darkness that sits upon her closing eyelids. She kicks, kicks, then goes limp.

0196  Wick

It’s the moment just before Wick realizes he’s dreaming that he stands before Impis Lockfyre, who lifts a sword to Wick’s neck, and in his airy, sing-song voice, the King asks, “Any last words, Anwick Lesser of the ninth?”

To that, Dream-Wick lifts his chin, reaches for Impis’s Madness, and declares, “Yeah. You’re going to die laughing, you fucker.”

Then the Mad King laughs, and Impis’s blade becomes Wick’s somehow. He begins to duel Impis before the whole world. Every single broadcast in all of Atlas displays the final battle between slum and sky, between the Madness and the Mighty, between wind and Rain, between the wild fire of the candle and the wick—the Wick.

Dream-Wick makes a slice at Impis’s hair, and three of his dumb ponytails drop to the floor. The crowd—wherever they are—erupt into laughter. Impis looks furious, and to that, Wick says, “What is the matter? Don’t like your haircut? Let me give you another!” And he goes for Impis’s hair once again, but cuts a silken scarf at Impis’s neck instead, causing it to float to the floor. “Ah! A change to your wardrobe is what you want!” taunts Wick. “Why didn’t you say so?”

In this beautiful moment, it is not Impis Lockfyre laughing, but the world. They laugh at him for once. Wick holds the sword over the wicked Mad King, ready for the final strike, ready to end him, ready to free the world from his cruel, chaotic dominion.

And then he sees a pinch of hurt in Impis’s eyes. The world has always laughed at him, Wick realizes just now. It was always them laughing at Impis, thinking him a joke, thinking him a fool. He’s been, his whole life, ridiculed and mocked …

The point of Wick’s sword touches Impis’s nose, and Impis does not flinch, as if accepting his defeat. His eyes are sad and, for once, they are human. No insanity touches them. Even the white powder from his face seems to fall off, flaking away like snow melting off the bark of a tree.

We did this to him, Wick realizes. We created Impis Lockfyre.

We are the Madness.

Wick’s eyes flap open, the dream disintegrated to nothing but scattered thoughts and colors in the next instant.

He props himself up on his elbows and finds Athan at his side, snoring. Wick scrunches up his face, confused as he watches his Lifted boy snore demonstratively, curled up with his eyes closed as his every exhale turns into a whistle of air sputtering out of his lips. Am I still dreaming? Wick wonders, staring at him incredulously.

And then the snoring stops at once and Athan peeks an eye open, grinning.

“Really?” blurts Wick. “Mocking me? Mocking your boyfriend?”

Athan giggles and tackles him back to the floor, then plants a kiss on his nose. “Good morning, boyfriend.”

Wick chuckles, kissing Athan back. “But really, do I sound like that?”

“Sometimes.” Athan lets out another giggle, resting his chin on Wick’s chest as he speaks. “You called me your boyfriend.”

“I did. Isn’t that what you are?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be.”

That particular wording gives Wick a wicked idea or two. “Put your face in mine and I’ll show you exactly what I want you to be.”

An aggressive shove, a rolling-over, and a laugh erupt between the boys before they settle against one another, Wick on top and Athan’s muscular body beneath him, and the boys make an assault on one another’s mouths. Wick tastes fruit on Athan’s lips, which deepens when Athan’s tongue joins the ardor of the moment.

“Up, up, up,” gasps Athan between their feverish kisses.

The boys are too heated to contain their pants any longer, and so Wick’s suddenly finds his thighs while Athan’s slips off entirely. A firm wiggling of Wick’s body upward and Athan’s downward ends with Athan’s lips latching onto the prize below. Wick discovers a new depth to his moan as Athan’s mouth works the whole length of Wick’s cock. In only a matter of seconds, Wick is ready to blow.

But he doesn’t. With a grunt, he flips his Lifted boy’s body over. Wick kicks Athan’s legs apart and hooks his hands under his boy’s armpits, latching onto him as the tip of his cock slips between the firm cheeks of Athan’s ass, finding the entrance and slipping in with little resistance.

Athan moans loudly, his eyes rocking back and his lips parting as Wick pumps away. Even with all the partying that never seems to end in the street outside the window, no one knows a joy deeper than what the two boys feel right now.

Wick feels himself slip past the point of no return, his insides coming alive like lightning as he shivers, groans, and spills himself. Aftershocks crackle down his skin and end in a fit of joyous laughter that breaks from his mouth, turning him half into a Mad King for this precious moment of unabashed delight.

Without giving himself a second’s rest, he flips Athan back over to find Athan grinning dreamily up at him. “You’re next,” Wick says to him, then grips his boy’s meat firmly and goes to work, first with his hand, then with his mouth, then finishing with his hand. Athan reaches the edge the moment Wick plants a deep kiss on his mouth, then hovers over his face to whisper, “Come for me … boyfriend.”

And he does.

The boys clean up in the shower together, despite the water being far from warm. The heat of their own bodies is warming enough as they take turns under the wimpy spray of water, trading a bar of soap between them. Drying off, the boys kiss naked in front of the bathroom window without a care for who might be seeing them from the street in the broad daylight.

Athan pulls on his too-tight shirt, jeans that hug his ass in every right way, and a pair of white shoes that belonged to either Halves or Aleks, but they fit his feet perfectly. Wick slips on his red sleeveless hoodie—freshly and mercifully washed last night—and a pair of loose jeans, complemented by his shoes with the red stripe up the side.

The boys hop down the narrow stair and find Lionis cooking up some breakfast. Wick’s brother, as usual, looks annoyed.

“Something crawl up your butt?” asks Wick lightly, hopping onto the stool at the counter by Athan.

Lionis ignores the jab. “Arrow, Prat, and the girl already ate. I believe they’re visiting the wives down the street.”

“Do you know anything about that girl?” asks Wick suddenly, watching as Lionis holds a bowl of water, warming it in his palms.

“Other than Arrow recovered her from a strike of Madness in a rich suburb of the sixth. No idea past that. No idea what the hell he was doing in that part of the sixth, either. I feel like there’s more to the story than we know. He’s like to have formed a crush on her one day when he was planting charms, maybe got a bit of wood in his pants, then upon visiting her, ended up rescuing her.”

“Romantic,” murmurs Athan dreamily.

“Psychotic, more like,” blurts Lionis.

Wick smirks. “You know, Lionis, if you spread all your fingers apart, you’ll gather more heat.”

To that, Lionis snorts. “I’ve had my Legacy my whole life. Don’t presume to tell me how to use it better.”

“But you can. I’ve tried it. Let me show you.”

“Let the cook cook,” says Lionis, annoyed.

Wick slips off his stool and rounds the counter, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet. He fills it with water from the sink, then brings it next to Lionis, holding it up by its bottom just as Lionis is, but with his fingers spread. Wick draws from Lionis’s Legacy, feeling the warmth gather in his palms. Instantly, he feels sweat between the glass and his skin. Somehow, the heat surging into the glass and the water doesn’t burn his hands, though it is mildly uncomfortable. He focuses, feeling the muscles in his hands tighten.

The water in Wick’s bowl begins to stir by the subtle evidence of bubbles rising, while Lionis’s water remains asleep. In a matter of one minute, Wick’s water is bubbling.

Lionis doesn’t seem sure whether he wants to express fury, outrage, or jaw-dropped admiration. Finally, he just sets his own bowl down and grabs the one from Wick’s clutch, then finds it too hot, a yelp coming out of his mouth as he quickly sets it down onto the counter. Lionis glares at Wick incredulously, perhaps both angry and embarrassed that Wick was able to get the bowl so hot that it is too hot for Lionis to hold.

“Incredible,” murmurs Athan.

That word does nothing to ease the ire on Lionis’s face. “Always needing to show off,” the brother mumbles under his breath, then grabs the bowl at the sides instead of the bottom, taking it to the stove where his chopped-up vegetables are gathered and waiting. Wick leaves him alone to cook, reclaiming his seat next to Athan and giving him a little kiss. When the salted root-and-onion stew is ready, Wick and Athan shoot playful glances and smiles at one another as they eat. There’s a tiny bit left in the bowl after Wick and Athan get their servings, so Lionis helps himself to the rest, eating in silence across from them.

“I want to show you something,” Lionis says as he takes their emptied bowls.

Wick lifts an eyebrow. “What?”

The bowls find a quick rinsing under the faucet, and then Lionis leaves them overturned on a towel to dry. “Come with me. Let’s take a little trip down the road.”

Without any further explanation, the boys follow Lionis as they depart the quiet house and start down the broken road. Everything is a lot quieter during the daylight hours, likely because half the people on this street are nursing headaches from the drinking and partying of the night before. The daylight is so bright that the long arm of the Lifted City above looks black in contrast, like a thin section of sky has been ripped away, revealing the night and the stars beyond. It looms over them like a cliff, but even its presence doesn’t seem to bother Wick, not anymore. That’s not my war, he tells himself for the hundredth time since he returned home, no matter how many times I dream of being the one to put a blade in Imp’s belly.

When they come around the bend in the road, Wick realizes with a sinking feeling what Lionis has dragged him down here to see. They cross the street and end up at the face of a metal shed, which looks so different during the day. Wick is far more used to seeing it at night when his father would wake him and pull him here for middle-night training.

“Here,” mumbles Lionis, opening the door and standing aside to let the boys in first.

The wood and metal workbenches all look the same as before. He notices a strange half-abandoned project at the end of one bench, as if someone on the street thought to come down here and try their hand at smithing, then gave up. This is, after all, a community shed that anyone on their street is welcome to use, but Wick’s dad seemed to be the only one who ever did, and everyone knew it. Scraps of metal are bundled and leaning against the walls in the back by the grimy window, which is covered by a ratty fabric torn near the end, revealing a slice of the window.

While Athan stays near the door, Wick drifts over to the other rack on the wall that still houses weapons he and his dad used when they trained. The beaten-up scimitar. The long, awkward sword. The different lengths of rods and wooden staves. The hammers.

It’s one specific hammer that Wick pulls from the weapon rack. Someone must have stored it there, thinking it was just any other hammer, but it isn’t. This is his hammer. Wick turns it over to look at all of their names etched along its back. Aleksand, Halvesand, Lionis, Anwick, Link …

And Elle.

“Elle,” echoes Lionis from behind him, as if drawing the name from Wick’s brain the moment he reads it.

Wick doesn’t turn to acknowledge his brother, his emotions too stirred at the sight of the name etched into the hammer. My dad knew, he has to remind himself. My dad carried the secret all these years. He carried the burden for all of us—but for me especially, so that I could live a normal life. What other secrets did he keep?

“Look at me now, dad,” Wick whispers to the hammer. “Such a normal life I’ve found.”

Lionis speaks from the other side of the shed. “Anwick.”

After letting himself enjoy one more moment of thought, Wick turns and, hammer still in his grip, crosses the shed toward his brother, who stands near a pile of something covered with a shroud.

“Do you want to see her?” his brother asks.

Wick lifts his gaze, alarmed. It hadn’t occurred to him until just now that his brother was entirely serious long ago when he told him there was a statue of a girl in the shed. “It might not be her,” Wick blurts at once. “W-What if dad took to carving a statue in her honor? What if he—?”

“Do you want to see our sister?” his brother asks again, his tone a touch impatient.

Wick frowns, his eyes on the ugly shroud that he now knows covers a stone statue of a girl that might or might not be his actual sister. He experiences a rapid series of thoughts that both reason why he should and why he shouldn’t see whatever is beneath that dusty covering.

Athan draws up to Wick’s back slowly, but doesn’t touch him, knowing his mind is in a spin of emotion thanks to his brother, who is likely doing this just to torture him. Despite the horrors and the hurt and the memories that race past his eyes, Wick finally gives a short nod, since he’s unable to speak.

Lionis pulls the covering off, sweeping it away and kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake.

The dust settles to reveal a girl made of stone. She’s reaching up, seemingly at nothing in particular. She wears a dress, every fold and wrinkle in its fabric too real to be some art project of his father’s. He knows that this girl must be his sister, though the memory, even after being unlocked, is still so far away that he can’t recognize her outright. In fairness, he hasn’t seen his sister in many, many years.

“Anwick,” shouts Lionis, alarmed.

Wick glances down to find the hammer in his clutch turning to stone. With a gasp, he drops it to the floor, only to find the floor at his feet turning to stone. The grey matter pools out from his shoes. Athan backs away from it.

Terrified, Wick lifts his hands, afraid to touch anything, then races for the shed, shouting, “STAY AWAY FROM ME!” in a panic. His every footfall stamps a stone imprint of his shoe into the floor of the shed, and then turns blades of grass to stone as he makes it outside, racing away from the shed as fast as he can manage. Tears of desperation sting his eyes as he runs down the street. He runs so fast that his shoes—which have also turned to stone—become too rigid to move in, and one miscalculated step catches his foot into a thick crack in the pavement, sending Wick tumbling to the ground.

He stares at his hands as they brace himself against the street. He doesn’t see the grey matter anymore. He doesn’t see stone. His heart is in his throat as a thousand fears from his past pour into his face and then empty in the form of tears. “ELLE …” he shouts, his voice squeezed by anguish. “OH, ELLE … FUCK!”

Wick sits back on his knees, ass to his heels, and he feels the stone texture of his shoes, which makes him immediately twist around to kick them off in anger. Barefoot and on the ground in the middle of the street, Wick buries his face in his hands and cries, unable to help himself. He doesn’t care that neighbors are likely staring at him from their porches and their windows, having heard his screaming. He feels subtle pulls of their Legacies too—maybe one of them rendering him overly emotional, maybe one of them giving him calmness, maybe one of them making his elbows tickle, maybe one of them causing his nails to grow. It doesn’t matter.

The one and only Legacy that he felt without a doubt was his sister’s as it crept into his hands and turned his father’s hammer to stone. He only drew on it because he looked at her, because some subconscious part of him reached for her. If he stayed in there any longer, he would have turned his brother and his boyfriend to stone too, letting them enjoy the same eternal slumber as his sister.

“Anwick!” shouts Lionis in the distance.

Wick lifts his tear-filled face, watching his brother race down the road with Athan trailing behind.

“Are you okay??” his brother asks, coming to a stop in front of him, out of breath. “I didn’t realize—”

“WHY THE FUCK,” Wick starts, already screaming his every word, “DID YOU DO THAT TO ME??”

Lionis’s eyes flash. “I … Anwick, I didn’t know that our sister—”

“YOU FUCKING DID THAT ON PURPOSE!” Wick screams, his hands shaking, snot and tears dripping from his face. “ALL YOUR LIFE, YOU HAVE NEVER FORGIVEN ME!”

“Don’t be silly,” blurts Lionis, annoyingly calm. “I never even knew until you got your memory back.”

Wick’s voice reduces to a deadly cold timbre. “Your mind forgot. Your body didn’t. You’ve hated me ever since I took our sister from us. You’re desperate for me to feel the amount of pain you and our brothers and our parents felt when I killed her.”

“You didn’t mean to,” Lionis says tersely.

“Well, I did. And you brought me back to that fucking shed and you almost made me kill you and Athan too.”

Athan stands next to Lionis, the pain and the panic living in his eyes. It’s that pain and that panic that Wick can’t stand to see, and so he sinks his head between his knees and forgets the world.

Lionis sighs. “I didn’t realize our sister was auto-borne. If I had known, obviously I wouldn’t have—Damn it, Wick, stand up.”

“Fuck you,” whispers Wick, not wanting to hear any more of it.

He hears his brother’s footsteps as he leaves, whether to go home or somewhere else, Wick couldn’t care less. Athan’s footsteps are softer as he approaches. He crouches down next to him.

When Athan reaches for him, Wick says, “Don’t touch me.”

“But Wick …”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t touch me.”

Nothing is said between them for a moment. Athan only sits on the pavement next to Wick, honoring his wish of not being touched. A soft wind brushes past them, reminding Wick of how lovely he thought the day was only ten minutes ago. How fast things change.

“You won’t hurt me. I know it,” says Athan. “It’s my Legacy to know it, isn’t it? Wouldn’t I be having a panic attack or something if your presence was dangerous to me?”

Wick doesn’t respond, his head still buried. Athan continues not to touch him, but stays by his side, refusing to go. After another soft breeze tosses his hair, Wick realizes how badly he does want Athan to touch him. He can feel that his sister’s Legacy is no longer in his fingers and toes, but can’t bring himself to accept Athan’s touch. He understands, Wick tells himself. Athan always understands me.

An hour later when the boys are back in the house cuddled up on the couch, Wick enjoys the safety of Athan’s tight embrace.

0197  Kid

The situation with Ames is not better. Twice during a food run, Ames dares them to sneak toward the Core, curious if they can find a way to the Lifted City. “Invisible, we have to be able to find a way up there. It’s gotta be so easy! No one will know!”

Kid told him about her friend Aryl who could see temperatures as a means of warning. “She could see me,” Kid tells him. “She called me Red. Maybe others have Legnasies that could see us, too.”

“Legacies,” Ames corrects her, though it sounds like ridicule.

When they’re back at the house, Kid watches as Link and Ames argue yet again about why they can’t run around trying to change the course of history every day. “Who knows what the hell we’ve already done!” shouts Link, infuriated. “Every little bit of food we steal is changing history!” Ames shouts back. “We are already doing it, so let’s do it more!”

The fighting is endless, and most of the time, Faery and Kid just sit together at the other end of the house. Faery asks odd questions, sounding a lot like a child who’s never seen the world, and Kid gives the best answers she can, feeling important when doing so. But then Kid decides to turn the tables and ask Faery a question or two. “Do you and Link kiss on the mouth?” and “Are you and Link boyfriend and girlfriend?” and “Where’s your mom and dad?” all earn Kid precisely zero answers, unless the flushing of Faery’s shy face and smooth, hairless head can be taken for an answer.

Kid makes the decision one early morning when Link and Faery are murmuring to each other on the other side of the closed door to the back bedroom. It’s a decision she doesn’t make lightly.

“Want to go with me?” she asks.

Ames stares down at her with half a frown. “Link and Fae-Fae are busy.”

“Just us,” she says. “We can make a breakfast run together and be back before they even knowed we’ve gone.”

“Know,” he corrects her, his eyes squinting. “You … don’t think that’s a bad idea?”

Kid pouts her lip. “I’m hungry.”

Ames glances back at the closed door, the two of them listening to the murmuring of Link and Faery, which quickly turns into the unmistakable sounds of smacking lips. “Yeah,” he says with a smirk. “Better we go on a run just to avoid listening to that all day.”

Kid smiles tightly with appreciation, though no laugh touches her. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty. You’re doing the right thing.

“Ready?” he asks when they’re at the sliding glass door.

“Mmm-hmm,” Kid returns, not looking at his eyes.

Ames and Kid are walking down the street of a tenth ward back alley a half hour later. Their hands are joined tightly and the city is alive with people moving briskly, their hands thrust into the pockets of their oversized tattered coats. It’s a cold morning, a kiss of winter upon the morning air, and the two of them start to smell the cloying scent of baked bread, pastries, and cinnamon.

“You believe in fate?” asks Ames as they stand at the window of their target bakery.

Kid lifts her gaze to meet his. “Fate?”

“Yeah. Kinda like believing that our futures are already in place. Like there’s nothing we can do to change it. Do you believe in that?”

Kid scrunches up her face. “What an awful thing to believe in.”

“I agree. See, that’s why I know you’re on my side. Not Link.” Ames breathes in deeply, likely tasting their breakfast already with dreams fluttering in his stomach. Kid stares at his burnt, bumpy face, the way his white scars crash and twist with his red ones.

“Your side?” she prompts him, studying his scars. If he can make sure that his face is never burned, will he?

“I just need to convince the others that we can’t waste these ten years. This is a gift, Kid. Is that your real name?” he asks suddenly, giving a silly quirk of an eyebrow. “Kid, we need to convince them to embark on a journey with us. And with or without them, you and I are gonna change our histories. We’re gonna slay the Banshee and stop the Marshal of Madness from ever rising to power.”

Kid listens, saying not a word.

“You and I,” he says, looking down at her. “Maybe we can do it and remain unseen, with your beautiful Legacy.”

“What’s yours?” she asks, trying to mask the anxiousness in her tightened throat.

Ames looks off, her question taking his mind somewhere else entirely. For a second, it’s as if he’s forgotten his Legacy completely.

“You gave it up, right?” asks Kid. “Just like Link gave up his pink fingers? What was your Legnas—Legacy …?”

He smiles suddenly. Then, with a smirk, he says, “Once, long ago, a boy named Ames could paint his skin with his own feelings. At school, the other boys thought I had gotten tattoos with a trip to the Inkery. But the pictures on my skin could go away as easily as they appeared … though it wasn’t always in my control. When I was frightened, black webs would draw across my face. When I felt deep love … or shame … my arms turned pink and red.” He tilts his head down at Kid, who’s taken a different expression towards him. “You probably wondered why I’m so comfortable with my unseemly skin since I burned it when The Brae burned down. To be honest, I’ve always been used to having peculiar colors and designs all over my skin. I’ve been this way since I was a child. Just … now …” He shrugs. “Now I’m sort of stuck with these … ‘pictures’ … I suppose.”

Kid sucks on her own lips, her hands starting to tremble. You can do this. It’s for the best.

“Nervous?” he asks, picking up on her trembling hands. “We’ve done a hundred of these runs already. Let’s just slip in and get the food and be back before Link and Faery even leave their room. You do realize they’re having sex, don’t you?” he blurts with a snort.

Kid wrinkles her face. “Shut up. That’s gross.”

“It’s human nature. Give yourself a few more years, you’ll start to feel your own confused feelings. I guess that’s my only regret, really. I wish I had found love before I gave my life to Baron Poe.” He sighs exasperatedly. “Another thing to add to the list of what you and I need to do. My life in the Brotherhood would’ve been so much easier if I was a boy of other boys. Maybe I am. Maybe I just need to try it out.” Ames makes himself laugh with that last comment. Kid notices a nearby woman pick up on his laughter, her eyes searching for the source, like she’s wondering if someone’s laughing at her.

Kid closes her eyes, takes a deep breath in, then lets it all out. Now or never.

She tugs on his hand and moves toward the door of the bakery. Inside, the delicious smell is staggering. Kid nearly folds in half, for the longing, ravenous reaction her stomach has to the ever-appealing aroma. She ignores it all, moving with Ames as they cut through the bakery and into the kitchens.

With his one free hand, Ames is already poking through the pastries on the trays that have not gone out to the front of the store yet, awaiting their turn in the display glass. He mutters out loud, choosing which ones he wants—the best ones, of course—and which less superior baked goods he’ll bring back for Link and Faery.

And Kid peers around the kitchen at all the bakers. There is no exit back here, she notices, which makes her tremble all the worse. I can’t do this, she realizes, terrified. I can’t and yet I must.

Ames starts to eat a cinnamon sticky bun, the gooey sugariness gathering at the corners of his lips and sticking to his nose. He moans as he eats, savoring every bite.

Kid glances at the kitchen door when it swings open, a chef making his way in. Outside at the counter, two Guardian are peering into the glass and teasing each other about which pastry they want.

Kid stares at them, wide-eyed and terrified.

“To changing the world,” says Ames for a little toast, his words muffled through his mouthful of cinnamon and sugar and dough. “You and me, Kid, versus the future.”

Kid takes one last breath, then lets her hand slip from his.

Ames turns her way, alarmed, his mouth full and his eyes, fuller. He reaches out but doesn’t find her hand. He reaches again, frantic, but Kid has backed away to the wall, far out of his reach, invisible.

He pulls the sticky bun out of his mouth and sets it on the counter. “K-K-Kid?” His eyes dart around the vicinity of where she stands. “W-What are you doing? Kid?”

“HEY!” shouts one of the chefs. “The fuck you doing back here?”

Ames makes a quick calculation, then darts for the kitchen doors, running. The chefs shout out, chasing after him. The stores of pastries Ames had gathered are abandoned on the metal counter, his half-eaten sticky bun dropped to the floor.

The kitchen doors swing back and forth after their departure.

She hears shouting on the other side of the door. Kid rushes up to it, her eyes shimmering with regret already. Was this a mistake? she asks herself as she watches the two Guardian fumbling with Ames, having caught him. He screams out, thrashing against the two powerful Guardian who hold him perfectly in place without even the assistance of their Legacies, whatever they are. After several kicks and a twist of his torso, Ames is brought to the ground, a Guardian holding his knee to Ames’ back, pinning him.

Ames stares up at the kitchen door, a mixture of horror and hurt in his wetted eyes, which are fast filling with tears. “KID!” he shouts, desperate. “KIIID!” The boy is beginning to sob uncontrollably under the Guardian’s weight as a set of cold metal cuffs are applied to his wrists. “HELP ME! KIIID! HELP!! DON’T DO THIS!! PLEASE!!” He screams until spit hangs from his chin. His eyes desperately seek her.

The Guardian both pull him to his feet, then one of them starts to pat down Ames’ body as he cries loudly and shivers with fear. He screams her name a hundred times.

And then he’s out of screams. The anger comes next, his eyes furrowing as he looks around the room, determination burning in his pupils and anger wrinkling his nose.

“Both of you,” he growls, murder in his voice. “Both of you were in on this. You and Link. You wanted me gone. It was both of you. I will kill you. I will kill you. I will kill you.” Then the Guardian are dragging him away through the front doors and Ames’ face changes once more to desperation and agony. “KIIIID! PLEASE!! KIIIIID!”

The door shuts after them, the sounds of Ames’ screaming cut off at once. Kid stands there in the kitchen, the swinging door still slowly flapping back and forth, back and forth, like the pendulum of a great clock—tick, tock, tick, tock.

0198  Link

Link stares at the wall, speechless.

Faery holds his hand, leaning against the doorframe by his side. The house is so quiet, they hear the afternoon’s lazy wintry breeze drifting over the yard outside, drawing out the secret whispers of grass blades and swaying trees and tossing loose leaves.

Kid is hugging her knees near him, scrunched up on the top step of the stairs. She hasn’t said a word since she told them the news, that Ames was careless and let go of Kid’s hand, that he got himself foolishly caught by a pair of Guardian, that he was taken away.

After what seems to be countless hours, the silence is broken. “A ripple in time,” murmurs Link. “This is all wrong.”

Faery and Kid look up from their respective daydreaming.

“No one should know we exist. We aren’t supposed to disturb time. Now Ames will be taken to the Lifted City and tried before the King. They’ll probably try to execute him, if they can. Thieves are judged as harshly as murderers. Ames has no chance, even being as young as he is …” Link swallows hard, thinking of his own father. It was Ames who broke that news to him long ago, even when Link was too sore to believe it.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” whispers Kid, her eyes detached.

“It’s not your fault,” Link assures her without looking at her, his thoughts too scattered, his heart heavy with fear. “Ames was the … the zealous one. This was bound to happen at some point, Kid.”

She looks up, brightened. “Really?”

Link takes a deep breath. He’s not sure he believes the words, but he offers them anyway. “Yeah … really. If he hadn’t let your hand go at the bakery, he would have done it some other time. He would have overstepped during the next visit to the eighth. He’s hungry to make changes … to affect things … to break history.”

Kid hugs her knees tighter, shivering.

Link doesn’t want to blame Kid for what happened, but he feels like she could have been cleverer or more diligent. How did he let go and she not be able to just grab onto any part of him, rendering him invisible again? It didn’t quite make sense, the way she describes it. The only explanation would be that Ames meant to break away from her, that he let go of her hand and ran, that he actually wanted this to happen. Maybe it’s the only way he thought he could get to the Lifted City. Maybe this is his way of meeting the Banshee King and saving the world from Impis Lockfyre, who isn’t even the Marshal of Legacy yet.

Kid rises suddenly and rushes down the stairs. Link makes a move to follow her, but Faery puts a hand on his arm and gives a soft shake of her head. “She’s hurt,” says Faery. “She needs time to hurt. Let the child be.”

Link sighs and leans back, dropping to the floor. “I don’t know what to do. Fae, we’ve got ten years of waiting to endure before we can stop worrying about disturbing the flow of history. And Ames is out there now and … and he could be ruining everything.” Link feels his jaw tighten. “We need to make a plan. It’s as simple as that. We will keep our heads low. We must stick together, all three of us, and remain unseen by all. We will get through these ten years together and … and then at the end of it, we will be able to live our lives.”

“Ten years …” murmurs Faery.

“I know. It sounds like such a long time. But we have to be careful, don’t we? I mean, there’s a young Baron out there too, who might be looking for you as much as his brother is. And his brother Baal is a time-walker. What if we run into Baal again? What if we run into a version of him who hasn’t met us yet? There is too much that could happen. Far … Far too much that …” Far too much that has already happened. Link feels a stab of doubt. Am I a fool to believe we haven’t already disrupted time? Is it pointless to try and keep being unseen? “Tiptoe,” he murmurs, thinking of Baal. “Tiptoe …”

Faery lies down beside him, which silences him. She lays an arm over his chest and cuddles his side. Link stares up at the plain white ceiling, hurt from the idea of Ames being all alone and suffering a fate that all of them were trying so carefully to avoid. Why was he so stupid and reckless? Why couldn’t he just cooperate? He was so worried about wasting the next ten years. Now, he’ll be forced to waste them. Link feels so gutted by the fact. He feels so much sympathy for Ames right now, sympathy he didn’t know he had.

“We do foolish things sometimes,” Link ponders out loud, his voice vibrating through Faery’s arm. “We make choices based on … feelings. Feelings change. I wish I’d never joined the Brotherhood. I gave up my life. I gave up … I gave …” He closes his eyes suddenly, thinking of the wooden trinket he used to wear around his neck. Where had he gotten it from? Didn’t his father give it to him? I made it pink. I made everything pink. I wish …

“Why did you give it back?”

Link frowns, confused. He turns his head. “Give what back?”

Suddenly, the plain white room floods with color. Link sits up at once, afraid at first until he realizes what’s happening. All of the wood in the room—the walls, the floors, the ceiling—has turned vivid tones of cyan, violet, emerald, ochre, ruby, peach, deep blue, rich brown, shimmering black, silvery grey, pale green, pearl white … and, of course, pink.

Link is on his feet in the next second, turning himself in circles, swallowing in the vibrant colors. He can’t close his mouth, in a reverent stupor to the visual candy his eyes are drinking in. When he completes his second circle, his eyes fall on the girl, who has sat up with an innocent glint in her eye, as if she’s done nothing at all but blink the colors into existence.

“H-How did you do that?” Link blurts. “I … I thought you could manipulate water. Isn’t that your Legacy? Elementalist? W-Water?”

Faery moves her eyes along the walls, admiring her work. Then her eyes flick back to Link’s. “You gave back your gift. Why?”

Link swallows. “It was taken from me. You know that.”

“But you could have kept it.” She runs her hand along the floor. Where her hand wipes, the color turns gold. She looks up at Link again, speaking in her peculiar, faraway voice. “Couldn’t you?”

Link can’t stop blinking at her. He feels his breath drawing short in his chest. “W-Who are you??”

“Faery,” she answers.

He glances around the room yet again, still unable to believe what his eyes are seeing. Link is dazzled by all the effervescent colors painting every inch of the room. He can’t help but smile, emotionally stirred by the visuals that surround him. He finds a giggle caught in his throat, feeling giddy suddenly. “This … This is amazing, Fae. I … I could never do something like this with my Legacy.”

“Yes, you could.”

He brings his eyes to her. The smile and the giggle die at once. He’s had the thought in his mind ever since he saw her in the dark tunnel with that lantern swinging by her face, humming that tune from his childhood—that tune he heard his mother hum just a few days ago. It’s a thought he has never bothered to give life to. It’s a thought that has slept on his tongue.

Until now. “You’re not … really a Goddess, are you, Fae? Like … because they’re not really real, right?”

Her eyes scrunch up. It is both adorable and confusing because Link doesn’t know what to make of it.

“What’s … What’s your Legacy?” he asks slowly, bewildered.

Fae blinks. “All of them.”

Link shakes his head quickly. This isn’t happening. “G-Goddess,” he repeats. “As in … Three Sister. As in … the three Sisters that all the temples and churches are built to worship …”

She takes a short breath, straightens her back, and says, “I didn’t want to say this before because it scared me. What that bad Baal man said about the end of the world and the Goddess … it all scared me. The truth is, I don’t know where I’m from. But I don’t want to go back. I’m so much happier here. And …” She lifts her chin to Link. “I have sisters.” She swallows. “I have … two sisters.”

Link might have to soon face the very real possibility that he’s still buried beneath that collapsed ceiling in the canals, drowned again, and living in this very imaginative, long-lasting hallucination that he’s built in his head ever since. This conversation may, in fact, be all in his lonesome little brain. There is simply no way that he is truly in the presence of one of the Goddesses. They don’t exist in the flesh, he reminds himself, finding his arms crossed defensively as he stares unblinkingly at the strange, beautiful girl, as if he’s never met her before, as if they haven’t smiled at one another a hundred times … and kissed a hundred times …

They are just idols, he tells himself. They are a set of principles. They are our manmade symbols of hope and Legacy and responsibility.

“Sisters,” echoes Link weakly.

“Two of them,” she confirms delicately. “Just as you have four brothers. I think I recognized them, too.”

Recognized them? Link lets loose the giggle that was caught in his chest earlier. He can’t stop smiling maniacally. I’m losing my mind. He spins once more, observing all the wild colors. After news of Ames and all the time-walking, I’ve gone as crazy as Impis himself.

Suddenly, the girl is right next to him. He stops laughing at once and grows still as the colorful walls by which they’re surrounded. Fae lifts a curious hand to his cheek, touching him. Her skin is cool and soft and refreshing, like a drink of water on a scorching summer day. This close, he feels like he can fall right into her eyes and never climb back out again.

“Why do you laugh?” she asks, genuinely curious.

He stares into her eyes. “I … can’t really believe that … that this is happening. I feel like I’m in a dream. I feel like I could wake up at any second, but of course that’s silly because no one sleeps, except—”

“My sister does too,” the girl interjects. “She’s a dreamer. I dream awake while she dreams asleep … all day and all night long.”

Link enjoys the smooth touch of her palm on his cheek. He is about to speak when she kisses him suddenly, shutting him and all his unspoken words up. He closes his eyes softly, frozen in place with Fae’s silky, supple lips upon his own. For a blissful moment, he sees only stars behind his eyelids.

The kiss ends. He opens his eyes. Fae is naked.

He stares at the naked girl before him. “You are beautiful on the inside and the outside,” he says, speaking to her breasts. “I can never be worthy of you. Even your colors are more brilliant than mine.”

“I have the colors no longer.” She places a hand on his chest. “They’re in you now.”

Her words echo in Link’s ears twenty times before he hears them. In me? He looks down at his bare feet. Then Link reaches out a toe and taps the floor experimentally.

A wave of rich blue color spreads across the floorboards from the touch.

Link gasps. “No way …”

“No one should be without a gift.” She smiles. “But if you want to give it back again, I understand.” Fae clasps her hands behind her back and sashays around the room, her legs dancing. Link watches her naked form—her breasts bouncing lightly with her every hop, skip, and step.

“I won’t give it back this time,” Link promises her. “I’ll cherish it. I’ll … I’ll love it. It’s a beautiful gift. They all are.”

Faery stops near the window, turning to look at Link. She offers him an appreciative smile. “Your family was especially fun. Legacies. I dreamt a lot and my sister dreamt a lot … but when it came to one of your brothers, we simply weren’t sure what to do with him.”

“Anwick?” murmurs Link at once, suspecting it.

Faery shrugs. “So we gave him a mirror instead.”

Link’s face wrinkles, not understanding.

“I’m sorry about making the ceiling fall on you back in the dark canals,” she says almost playfully, coming around the room again and stopping in front of Link. “I … was scared.”

“I understand scared,” Link says at once. “Truly.”

“I know. I can feel your feelings.” She says this to his forehead, looking him over. “I can feel every feeling you’ve ever felt. Why have you enjoyed anger so much, Link? You’ve felt so much of it.”

The question catches him by surprise. This Fae standing before him, she’s a totally different person. Was she holding back all this capability the whole time? Was she silent about his brother Anwick intentionally, even after they saw him, and Kid revealed what she’d seen? Was Faery still figuring out if she could trust him? “I … don’t really know,” he finally says.

“Maybe I can help you feel some more happiness. I also feel a lot of longing inside you. You’ve longed for so much.”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

She smiles. “I like you, Link. Now that I’ve let myself inside you, I see the fear in you. It’s so beautiful.”

Link feels so exposed suddenly, as if Faery can just look at him and know everything. “F-Fear isn’t beautiful.”

“Yes, it is. It’s what separates the good people from the bad. When you have fear in your heart, you have compassion and hope, too. Compassion—your willingness to forgive and to ease the thing you fear. Hope—that the thing you fear won’t bring harm or death to you. Fear also gives us courage, courage to fight and overcome what it is we fear. People who fear know that others fear, so it gives us empathy, understanding, and a sense to connect with others. Fear makes us lonesome, which is the reason we love.” The girl tugs on Link’s shirt. Somehow, it seems to just slip right off of his body. He hardly notices when his pants are gone, too. “Fear also brings us joy when we realize that the thing we fear … isn’t a thing we ought to have feared at all. Doesn’t that make you laugh? … when the scary thing isn’t so scary in the end?”

Faery takes his hand and places it on her breast so quickly, Link thinks he reached up to touch it himself. His mouth parts. I have a heart, he decides, and it’s beating. Has she given it back to me, too?

“Touch me,” she murmurs.

He brings his other hand up to touch her. Faery closes her eyes and reels back her head.

“L-L-Like this?” he asks, feeling like he might make a mess in his pants—if he were still wearing any.

“I’ve never been touched. Not truly,” says his Fae, who grips his hands and guides him as he massages her body, feeling every inch of her, exploring her with wonder and curiosity and something else that stirs below his waist. “Show me, Link.”

“Sh-Show?”

“How it feels.” Her breath is turning short. “I want to feel that.”

“Fae.”

Their naked bodies press together. Everything’s slippery.

Her eyes open suddenly. Link finds his own locked upon hers, hypnotized. She is so beautiful. She knows me deeper than anyone has ever known me. She understands me. She …

“I want you inside me, Link.”

The room bursts into colors again. Link doesn’t know which of them is responsible. “Fae, I … I …”

The two of them drop to the floor, body over body, mouth to mouth. And in the kaleidoscope of wonder that’s become their room, two lonesome youths unite their bodies, becoming one.

0199  Sedge

Sedge stares at his reflection as he pokes his face. Every time he pokes, the world he thinks he knows changes. The world is beautiful. Poke. The world is madness. Poke. The world is a dress of silk and wind. Poke. The world is a sweaty naked boy atop Cloud Tower. Poke. The world is a ringing, shrieking laughter. Poke. The world—

“No use for you anymore?” barks the huge, annoying, red block of muscle called Baigan.

The reflection Sedge stares at is the window of a candy parlor, and it shows Baigan—idiot number one—directing that question at the bald telekinetic with the bright piercing eyes named Yoli, who is sitting silently on a bench, his face callous and unkind.

“Now that I’ve caught the King’s prize—Ruena—what the fuck use are you?” belts out Baigan, his red muscles flexed so taut that Sedge wonders if all his veins might burst. “No more dangling a fool a day over the brim of the Lord’s fallen Garden! Maybe you ought to invest in some balls so that your mind can juggle them in the air, keep you occupied like a second ward entertainer.”

Idiot number two, Splinters, is leaning on a column nearby as he rewraps his bandages from a wound Ruena gave him—a severe burn on the tips of the fingers of one of his hands. He laughs, finding his red friend’s joke amusing.

Yoli seems to pay them literally no mind, as if he isn’t even hearing the words. The stony expression on his face unsettles Sedge; the man never laughs or smiles.

“Need me to fetch you some balls?” suggests Baigan. “Need me to run to the toy store down the road and get ye a toy ter play with?”

While the big red guy continues to taunt the silent, stoic Yoli, Sedge thinks about Ruena in a cell in the Cloud Tower. Is she in the same cell Impis Lockfyre himself once occupied, or is it merely a cell that one of his Posse was kept in? He tries to picture her right now, then discovers how very difficult that simple task is. I can’t believe she came straight to Cloud Keep after all this time. I can’t believe she just appeared out of nowhere, like a storm, and tried to take down Impis’s army singlehandedly.

Well, almost singlehandedly, if the gossip he overheard is true. There was another girl with Ruena, a girl with glasses and long dark hair. Did the pair of them really believe they could overpower the Chaots?

“I can get you some nice pretty balls to juggle!” taunts Baigan, causing Splinters to laugh even harder. Yoli just stares ahead, pensive and wordless.

Of course they didn’t, Sedge decides. Ruena is smarter than that. She came here for a reason. But what was that reason? Was she here to find Sedge? Is she trying to enact her revenge upon him for so brazenly betraying her? Was her intention to come here and cast her electrical wrath upon his shapely or shapeless form?

“I’m talking to you, eyeballs,” barks Baigan, who clearly does not enjoy being ignored. “You’re no longer any worth to Impis, don’t you get it? And we all know what he does with toys he gets bored with.”

Yoli looks up at him. Just the simple shift of his intense eyes is disturbing, even to Sedge who isn’t near them, observing the scene through a reflection in the window one shop away from them.

Baigan experiences a moment of uncertainty. Then he lurches forward by his hips, confused. Sedge is just as confused at what he sees until he hears a roar of anguish from Baigan as he lifts up off the ground by his hips and fall backward, but not hitting the ground. He rises by only his hips, as if dangled on some string. His roar turns into a gurgled shriek of agony as he reaches and grabs his crotch, but nothing seems to release him from the air or give him reprieve.

Sedge doesn’t understand exactly what’s happening until Yoli—who never, ever seems to speak—says, “Why yes. I have found some balls to play with.”

Baigan tries to kick as he slowly rise up, floating horizontally in the air. He pulls his thighs together and does half a sit-up in midair in an attempt to find a position that hurts less, but that does nothing to his position of distress except exasperate it by the sounds of his roaring anguish.

Yoli keeps his full attention on Baigan as he focuses his Legacy unblinkingly. He still doesn't smile, giving Sedge the impression for a moment that Yoli is a robot of some sort, simply doing what he's programmed.

That train of thought makes Sedge wonder exactly how many of the Chaots really are robots, programmed by “writer” sister Axel to serve and obey, just like the sweaty naked boy atop Cloud Tower.

Who’s mind is really their own up here?

“FUCK,” screams Baigan, “YOU!”

Splinters is in the street with his eyes wide and his hands hovering in the air—the one burned one and the unburned one—like he doesn’t know what to do with them. And really, what can he do? Unless he wishes to suffer a similar fate, he can’t dream of interfering with Yoli.

And then he does. Chasing an impulse, Splinters charges at Yoli. The second the bald telekinetic moves his brilliant eyes from Baigan to Splinters, Baigan drops to the ground with a grunt and it is now Splinters who becomes airborne, flying across the street with a nasally shriek and shattering through the window by which Sedge stands. Sedge backs away, startled, then turns around to look at Yoli and Baigan, who appear odd for a second since they are in reverse positions now compared to what they looked like in the reflection. Baigan is curled up with his hands grabbing his inconsolably aching crotch, moaning and half in tears, while Yoli has returned to simply staring straight ahead, as if he’s lost all interest in the two idiots before him, bored and drifting back into whatever thoughts he was having before Baigan decided to taunt him.

Sedge departs the scene quietly, careful to step over the shards of glass from the shattered window as he goes. He doesn’t much care to learn the fate of those two, who are likely just going to crawl back to wherever they spend the most of their time and never utter a word of what happened between them and Yoli to anyone.

He makes it to the Glassen Garden, which is the place at which Ruena and her friend were caught. It is a large plaza entirely domed by glass with an exit to the north, south, and east, its west side being a large wall of polished stone down which water runs all day and night long. The plaza is filled with circle-shaped enclosures of waist-high dividing walls made of polished chrome, and within each circle blooms vibrant flowers of every color and shape. Lord’s Garden was much like this one except it was smaller, not domed, and it hung off the edge of the Lifted City so low that one might wonder if the Garden itself wanted to leap into the slums below; no one realized it’d someday get that very wish fulfilled.

He stops in front of a patch of Ambera Violets, a flower that used to be called something else until someone renamed them so after the previous Marshal of Legacy—likely named for the color of her lavender eyes. He stares down at them and thinks about the fact that Ambera died and Impis became Legacist, and then how Ruena wanted him to be her Legacist. How one King becomes another King becomes the next Queen becomes the next King. How Sanctum shuffles its members and loses its members and alters its members. Changing, changing, changing.

The world is change.

“Why so sullen, boy?”

Sedge knows the voice and so he doesn’t face its source. The large curly-haired woman Umi comes up to his side, observing the flowers herself for a moment. She breathes heavily and slowly, which starts to annoy Sedge, since he was preferring to stew in his own misery alone.

Sedge fights a very appealing urge to just melt away and lurk somewhere in the flowers, hidden away from all these fools he’s stuck with.

“Everyone is thinking it, too,” she says.

Sedge doesn’t follow what she’s saying. His stubbornness gives way to his curiosity as he peers up at her. Her huge half-lidded eyes are already upon him, not looking at the flowers like he thought.

“Thinking what?” Sedge asks.

“You and Ruena were dear friends.”

The words annoy him so much, he snorts with disdain. “Oh? Did one of your little wisps tell you so?” he asks, looking away and folding his arms tight across his belly.

“My will o’ the wisps tell me little,” she admits, speaking of her Legacy to cast little orbs of ghostly pale light that look like tiny winged people. They do little but act as a distraction or light up a dark place. “But one doesn’t need Arcana’s Legacy to know what’s on your mind, little one.”

“I’m only little because I want to be,” Sedge retorts acidly.

“And despite what you did to free us, you have very few trusted friends among Impis’s Twenty-Two.”

“Far less than twenty-anything now,” Sedge continues to sass.

“Our King is releasing the Lifted folk he’s captured. Didn’t you hear? Oh, but of course, you weren’t at the latest meeting at Cloud Keep.” She tsk-tsks him. “Arcana and Axel have gone through all our prisoners from the day Ruena ran. They’re being freed back to their lovely homes. Well, whatever remains of them. Much of the city has been untouched, turns out.”

Sedge had noticed as much himself. Some windows shattered, some buildings fell, a bend of the Sky Rail toppled, and the Crystal Court is a mess of glass and haunting memories. Other than that, the Lifted City remains otherwise pristine and intact—if you ignore the ruin.

“Why did he free them?” asks Sedge.

“Need I spell it out? Arcana … and Axel … have spoken to all the Lifted folk who’ve been kept prisoner in the Keep. Ruena is ours now and so there is no need for them. But to ensure their obedience and loyalty, Axel may have made a bit of work of her own Legacy. Do you follow me now, little one?”

Of course Axel bent their minds to Impis’s will. If Sedge were the King of Atlas, he’d do much the same. It’s just like the Slum Queen Atricia who could make anyone believe anything she wished. Sedge feels a bit sick making the comparison to such a vile human being, but the parallel is so evident that he can’t stop his mind from making the connection.

“Arcana is in the slums now,” Umi goes on, “to collect the last on Impis’s lists. Axel has gone down herself not five hours ago. With the sisters going to the slums, we’re certain to gather more power than any King would ever need to secure his throne.” She smiles down at Sedge. “Mind your heart, little one. Whispers carry, and Impis listens to all.”

“Mind your own heart,” says Sedge, taking a step away from her and scowling.

“I told you I know what’s on that mind of yours. I told you that everyone is thinking it.” Umi tsk-tsks again, annoyingly. “You once betrayed Ruena to set us free. Your loyalty is in question. What’s to stop you from betraying us this time and freeing Ruena? Many of us are thinking you’ll do it. Some were laying bets in the Court just an hour ago. I haven’t the faintest what they were betting with, but they did it just the same.”

“Did you lay a bet?” spits Sedge, not liking anything that he’s hearing. His heart drums more heavily with every beat and his skin prickles with discomfort. Do they all mistrust me? Do they all mislike me so much that they’d cast aside the one person who freed them? “You laid a bet against me, didn’t you!”

“Oh, I never gamble. I only put my gold on what’s certain.”

“I don’t care!”

“And you are not certain, little one. I see you sulking here in the flowers. What curious flowers you’ve chosen, too. Ambera Violets, named after the Royal Legacist who Impis is rumored to have killed.”

“He’d never do that,” Sedge insists at once. “Ambera got sick. Everyone knows she got sick. I was a baby when she died and even I know that!”

“Oh? Your mommy and daddy told you that, did they?” Umi’s cheek dimples in three places as she smirks, lifting her chin. “If I was a smart woman, I’d say you came to these flowers to ponder what your idol Impis Lockfyre is capable of … to ponder what your dear friend Ruena promised her city—and you … and to ponder what you’re going to do about it.”

“I don’t have to listen to you or any of this,” Sedge decides with a lift of his own chin, turning and strutting away.

“Everyone is disposable,” Umi calls out at his back. “Even you.”

Sedge brushes the cold warning off of his shoulders, ignoring it outright. He struts out of the Glassen Garden and marches down the street, his every footfall casting his anger into the chrome road. So many voices swim about in his head—words of Umi, words of Impis, words Ruena told him long ago, words from Arcana—and he finds he’s rather sick of having a head at all. The moment Cloud Keep is within sight, Sedge drops to the ground and assumes his slithering, snakelike form, wriggling out of his clothes and worming down the street with speed.

It isn’t long before he’s shaped back into a boy and standing at the door of the King’s Keeping. He stands there for the longest time, naked as his birthday, with a hand over his chest as he feels his heart beating, beating, beating.

She’s in there.

The next moment, he’s a puddle again, slipping beneath the razor-thin crack at the bottom of the door and ending up on the other side. Only bars and walls of glass separate the aisle from the individual cells, the backs of which have high-up windows that pour in sunlight. The puddle of Sedge that only has eyes and two tiny earholes moves down the aisle, peering from cell to cell. Even in this form, the anxiety thunders through him like a poison.

He stops quite suddenly, balling himself up against the wall. His two eyes slowly twist around the corner of a wall, peering between two glass bars.

And there she is.

Ruena Netheris sits in the corner of the cell, naked, her long white hair flat against her head and cascading down her front. Her knees are pulled into her stomach and she hugs herself, her eyes staring forlornly ahead.

Why does she just sit there? But of course he can answer his own question, knowing that someone among Impis’s Chaots can directly neutralize any attempt Ruena makes at forming a charge. It clearly doesn’t affect all Legacies—like his own—which makes him grateful, since he otherwise couldn’t be here. He doesn’t know who it is or where they are or why this tower blocks only certain Legacies, but he sees no spark in Ruena’s hair, nor any light in her eyes. She is just a pale, silent girl in a cell who, if it weren’t for her breathing, might even look dead.

Then her eyes move. She lifts her head from off the chrome wall upon which it rested. Her eyes search around for a second, curious.

Sedge pulls his eyes back around the wall, hiding from her at once. He waits in the cold, empty silence. He doesn’t hear her move. He doesn’t even hear her breathe.

And then: “Sedge?”

He still doesn’t move, even at the sound of her voice, which he has longed to hear. He misses her soft words. He misses her tinny laughter. He misses the fun they used to have together.

“Sedge? Are … Are you there?”

He makes no effort to respond. As a shapeless blob of flesh and psychology, Sedge could remain here for decades without making a single sound or indication of his existence.

Still, Ruena seems to know him better, as she is very used to his slipping into her palace at any hour of the day, no matter the guards that stood at her door.

“Sedge. I wish … I wish I could see you. I need a friend right now.”

Sedge melts away his eyes. He’s so tempted to take away his ears too, but the sound of her voice is so comforting. You have few trusted friends here, he reminds himself, echoing Umi’s words. They all think you’ll turn on the Mad Regime. They all think you’ll betray them just as you betrayed her. They’re placing bets ...

“I don’t know if you’re proud of what you did,” she goes on, her voice calm and quiet, “or if any part of you regrets it … but I want you to know that I don’t mind either way. I forgive you.”

There is a long silence that passes where the angle of the sun might even have changed, slicing through the cell windows and turning the polished, chrome-and-glass hallway from silver to gold.

“I won’t bring harm to … Impis,” she says, the name seeming to be difficult for her to utter at all. “Truly, I only fought back to defend myself, Sedge. I … I don’t even want the throne anymore, do you understand? I’m not here to take back Cloud Keep. He can have it. All of you can have it. I only came here to retrieve a lost friend I had made. You would like him, Sedge. He is kind and he is … hurting.”

Sedge listens. He listens and he feels himself sinking at her words. Does he think she’s lying? Or is it her telling the truth that frightens him worse? Perhaps on some level, Sedge was hoping that the fire still existed in Ruena’s heart. Maybe he was waiting for his friend to come back and save him from the madness he set free.

Maybe Sedge regrets everything.

“I forgive you,” she repeats. “Please. I just need a way out. I just need out of this cell and … and I’ll be gone.”

Sedge needs the old Ruena. He doesn’t like this new one. This isn’t his friend. This isn’t the girl who played with him and shared her jewelry and rebuilt that music machine and shared with him the musical gift of the Ancients.

“Or you could just … you could just squeeze between the bars and sit in here with me for a while,” she offers, her voice so quiet and meek, it hardly sounds like her. “We could just sit in here and just … keep each other company. Please, please, just come in here. I’m so lonely. Please, Sedge. I … I …” She quickly sucks in air. Was that a sob? “I miss you,” she finishes quietly.

Is this really the To-Be-Queen Ruena? Is it truly her and Sedge is merely seeking an excuse to ignore the burden of responsibility for his actions … and what he must do to rectify them?

“Sedge?” she tries again, her voice echoing along the chrome tiles. “Please. Sedge … Please …?”

Through a tiny hole that might be a mouth in the amorphous thing that is him, he whispers four small words, “I miss you too,” before he slithers out of the King’s Keeping. The echoes of her longing cries haunt and chase him down the halls until he melts away his own ears to spare himself the anguish of hearing them.

0200  Mercy

Every night since they left the temple, the Mother pulls Mercy aside with knowing eyes, and the old woman whispers, “Name the thief,” to which Mercy’s answer is always a simple lift of her bare hand, naming none.

They visit many sites of destruction, of aftermath, of loss and pain and devastation. Like a cloud of Death’s grey-robed angels, the Sisters grace a scene of horror and tend to the wounded and the weak. The Sisters are armed with bandages and healing oils and burn tonics and rations of food. Some of the Sisters are experienced in the bandaging of wounds. Some of them are not, opting to help feed the hungry who have recently lost everything and guide the lost to a shelter or a nearby sanctuary, to the best of their joint knowledge; between the Sisters, they have someone from every ward save the first and second, and so they always know their way about.

Mercy, apart from all the Sisters, is sent to handle those who are on the brink of death. There are many faces that Mercy finds herself looming over, faces that beg for the end. She reluctantly holds a bearded man in her arms who whispers of the last words he heard his daughter say before the Red Light took their home and a splinter of glass skewered his abdomen. “And my wife,” he adds wearily, his eyes fading. “She would be proud of how I’ve raised our little girl to be strong, and now … oh, I’ve failed and I miss them both so terribly. It’s been nearly a decade without them. I’ll … I’ll join them soon on the other side.” And to that waning light in his eyes, Mercy grants him mercy in the form of a sweetly poisoned kiss to his lips. He feels nothing at all as he drifts into his final sleep.

This becomes her routine with every crisis the Sisters stumble upon, and there are countless. Mercy does not move toward the hopefuls; she has nothing with which to relate to them. Mercy does not even acknowledge the ones who simply need a meal; she’d made meals of the ever-poisonous andragora root for weeks after Dran’s execution at the destructive fingertip of Metal Hand. Mercy works alone when she approaches the dying, the pleading, the gasping for life, the short of breath, the bloody-beyond-grasp.

Mercy wonders if they know they’re being approached by an angel of death. “Please,” begs a teenage boy, his eyes searching for something to look at as he bled away blindly. “She was … just a g-g-girl. She was just a g-g-girl. Oh, please, make it end.” And so she makes it end with another soft kiss, and she never learns who was just a girl.

A woman is propped up against the wall clutching her severed belly to keep her insides inside. “When I die,” she hisses at Mercy, unable to speak above a strangled whisper, “I’ll haunt the Mad King and laugh when he dies, and then I will haunt him in the beyond … laughing and laughing for eternity.”

The woman’s final memory was not a laugh, but Mercy’s kiss.

“All I wanted was … was to live a peaceful life,” whimpers a big man in blue work clothes whose face is so pale, he looks bathed in mother’s milk. “Tell the Sisters I lived well. Tell them I did good.”

Mercy tells them neither, giving him the gift of mercy instead.

Every person she kisses is Dran, no matter the gender, or the sound of their voice, or the look in their eyes. Goodnight, she tells each of them in her head, in her heart, in her kiss. I will be with you soon, Dran.

For one of these times that the sky glows red, surely one of these times the Red Light will find her, and she won’t need to suffer another moment in this wretched city.

“I … can’t … breathe,” hisses an old lady, gasping for air.

Kiss. Goodnight.

“Will the journey be sweet? The journey to the other side? The journey to the Sisters? Is … Is it as sweet as they say?” asks a man who is paralyzed, unable to move a finger or a foot, his eyes looking up at Mercy with hope, with longing, with fear.

Kiss. Goodnight.

There is a woman Mercy happens upon who can’t speak at all. She sputters and she spits on herself in her desperate effort to make words. Mercy hushes her gently, cradling her head and running a hand softly over her forehead. The soothing motion of her hand on the woman’s face calms her, and then the two are merely staring into each other’s eyes. For a moment, Mercy might think she even knows this woman, the strange connection they have as they both stand at the very brink of life, the very brink of death.

To the woman’s wordless face, Mercy says, “My fiancé Dran was taken from me by a finger. Not by the Finger of Madness, no, but by a metal one—the finger of Metal Hand, who obliterated his existence with but a simple touch. Dran was my life and my love and my everything. You will see him when you reach the other side. He has black all around his eyes and he has black in his hair and he’s as beautiful as an uninterrupted night sky. He named a star after me.” Mercy stares down at the woman’s head in her lap, the dying woman whose eyes drink in every word of her story, comforted by them, curious by them, drifting to her final sleep by them. “When you see him, tell him I’m coming for him soon. Tell him that one day, after his ring is returned to my finger and my work is done, I will be the last person to receive my own mercy.” She runs her fingers through the woman’s greasy hair. No smile touches Mercy’s face when she says, “Tell me when you’re ready, brave woman, strong woman, silent woman … Tell me and I will send you to the other side, and it will be as peaceful as drifting from one room to the next in a house filled with friends.”

The slightest hint of a smile touches the woman’s lips, and then she closes her eyes. And so Mercy gives her lips the softest kiss yet, knowing it won’t take much to finish the job.

When Mercy pulls her face from the woman’s, her eyes meet those of the soft-eyed Scot with the perfectly-parted yellow hair that shows with his big grey hood hanging off the back of his head. He watches from only a few feet away, crouched next to the corpse of someone he tried—and failed—to save.

The two study one another, neither looking away. Mercy is left to wonder if he heard any of her words.

The Sisters stop at a temple to rest their feet and seek a dream or two from the Goddesses—or so directs Lady Agdanagon. Mercy feels the damp, cheek-warming embrace of bloodlust and justice fade from her soul when they sit in the cobblestone room with a hearth burning before the wooden tables where the Sisters sit. Temples of Three Goddess are like an antidote to my poison, and an antidote is not what I need.

Minutes after the Sisters fall into their silent prayers, Mercy is already outside again, standing on the steps of the temple, which resides right by the elevated tracks of the nine train. She has pulled out a root of andragora she collected from an overturned vendor’s bin at the last site they visited, and it’s from that root that she makes her middle-night snack, chewing on the end of it and letting the familiar bitter taste coat her tongue. Out here in the vicinity of the grimy ninth and tenth wards, Mercy feels at home. Every shadow is a face she half-remembers, every slight stirring of wind is a friend’s footstep in the dark, and every buzzing, spluttering self-sustaining streetlamp is a memory in her heart.

“It’s quieter without the trains.”

Mercy turns her head from the elevated tracks she was staring at and finds meek-eyed Scot by the door to the temple.

She swallows her bite. “Aren’t you supposed to be inside?”

“I’ve done enough begging for a day,” he confesses with a shy smile, finding a spot on the wall near the door to lean back against. He looks up at the elevated rail. “The Sisters have not listened to me this day. They let every man, woman, and child that I touched die.”

“Perhaps they died because the Sisters were listening.” Mercy takes another bite of her root.

Scot frowns as he faces Mercy. “Is it true that you were Dran’s to-be-wife?”

Mercy stops chewing. Her eyes harden.

Scot’s sputters, straightening his posture. “I-I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I only heard you on the street earlier today when you were speaking to that woman about—”

“I know you heard me,” Mercy says, cutting him off.

He takes a few breaths before speaking again, perhaps gaging whether or not to push the matter further at all. “I only … asked … because I saw his trial at the—” He swallows hard, cutting himself off yet again. Is this fool Scot going to make a habit of saying things he wishes he could take back every time we meet? Mercy wonders if it would be a mercy to offer him a kiss that would shut him up forever.

“Well, go on,” Mercy prompts him coldly. “You saw his trial on the broadcast. Want to tell me about it?”

“N-No.” Scot shakes his head so fast, his parted hair dances.

“Want to remind me of the sound of his cries when the Banshee King screamed his brother Fylan to death?” asks Mercy, tilting her head. “Or maybe you’d like to remind me of Dran’s last words that fateful day when he spoke into the camera of the broadcast, telling all of Atlas—”

“Make it fly, Shye,” murmurs Scot. “I’d … I’d always wondered what that meant. I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Make it fly, Shye?” Mercy takes a step towards him. “You never heard of Shye? The Key To All Locks? Shye, the Quick? Shye, the Unseen? Shye, the Question and Answer?”

“N-No. I haven’t.” Her advancing on him makes him sink into the wall. “Is … Is that what they call you? Y-Y-Your friends? Shye? Is that—?”

“If you must ask who Shye is,” says Mercy calmly when she’s standing right in front of him, the bottoms of their grey-and-greyer robes touching, “then you’ll never know who he is.”

“He …?” Scot averts his eyes, clueless.

Mercy gives up on him, moving away and taking another hearty bite of her andragora root, staring up at the elevated track. Then, after a sweep of her robe, she nods. “Yeah. Too quiet without the trains, I’d say.”

The night air softly taps upon their skin for a while. Moments later, Scot heads back inside without another word, and Mercy stows away the other half of her root, saving it for later. Then, she sits upon the ground and stares up into the sky, feeling like a big messy pile of grey fabric, swallowed up in the ugly robe. She pulls back her hood, lifts her gaze, and searches for the black star of mercy and the moony face of Dran.

0201  Tide

Regardless of the understanding they came to, Tide still can’t trust his emotions around the boy. Every piece of food he eats is suspect, but he doesn’t have much of a choice, confined to the house and dependent on the boy for his every bite of food and swallow of water. Why just food? Tide wonders. Is it that emotion must transmit through something living? And if that’s the case, why doesn’t Dog just transmit the feelings directly, person to person?

His questions about the boy’s Legacy go unanswered, but other questions do not. “I think I may have located her,” Dog says when he comes home after a run for fresh produce.

Tide takes the basket of vegetables. “Where?” he grunts, picking out a banana to eat. He’s hardly ever eaten them in his life, but ever since staying here in the first ward where they harvest them from their own self-contained mini-Greens, he has come to develop a taste for the curved yellow fruit.

“Well, it’s simple, really. I was getting our fruit and inquiring about fabrics in the market when I decided to start asking if anyone had seen a Gin. A girl cornered me on my way out of the market and asked me who was looking for Gin, and I told her that I was. She then asked what I wanted with her, and I told her I just needed to speak to her. She gave me a place and a time, then told me that if I showed up armed, I’d be gutted.” Dog smiles proudly.

Tide stares at him hard. “This girl threatened you?”

Dog nods. “It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.” His eyes turn serious. “But, um … what do I do when I meet her? What should I say?”

“You won’t say a damn thing,” Tide spits back, “because you won’t be meeting her. I will.”

Dog gasps. “I can’t let you go alone. It’s dangerous.”

To that, Tide laughs, peeling open his banana and chomping on the first bite. “And what the fuck are you gonna do to protect me? Offer everyone who threatens us a piece of fruit infected with fear?”

“That’s an idea.”

“I’m going to meet this girl. For all you know, that girl was Gin. I don’t know what the fuck she looks like, but when I meet her, I’m going to take her back home to the twelfth.”

Dog’s eyes soften. “Y-You’re leaving? After you find this Gin girl, you’re—?”

“Of course I’m leaving. You thought I was just going to … stay here with you? Hide forever? I don’t have that option, Dog. The very reason I’m here is to bring back a girl who’s doing that very thing: hiding here. You don’t abandon the Abandon. If you do, your life is forfeit. That’s how it works.”

“You’re from the Abandon?”

Tide finishes his banana, then tosses the peel onto the floor. He struts across the room, causing Dog to back away until his heels hit the door, jostling it.

Towering over the boy, he glares down at him and says, “Yeah, I am. And I don’t got a choice about that either. Tell me where this girl told you to meet her, and I’ll get Gin and take her home.”

“The Abandon is no one’s home,” whimpers the boy.

“It’s my home. It’s my only home.”

“But this could be your home. You don’t even have to hide. We could talk to the Slum King. He’d understand. He’s a good man, he really is. He’ll understand about your stealing. He’ll invite you into the Coalition. You’ll get a full meal at the Giving every single day.”

“There’s only room enough for one King here, and that’s me,” says Tide. “Fuck his Giving. I’ll make it a Taking when I rule.”

“King?” The boy can’t seem to bear looking up at Tide’s face towering over him anymore, his eyes stuck on Tide’s chest.

“Yeah. The Storm King, they’ll call me. Tide Wellport, the Storm King.” Tide sees a flicker in the boy’s eyes. “I don’t give a slummer’s fart if there was another Storm King already. I’ll be the second and I’ll wipe out memory of that first one.”

“You’d be the first Storm King, actually,” murmurs the boy. “The first you’re thinking of was a Storm Queen.”

Tide screws up his face, wondering if he’d had it wrong this whole time. It was a Storm Queen in our past? Is that still against the Sanctum rules, to have the same title, but for the other gender?

“So you’re a King?”

Tide snorts, suddenly finding himself amused. He even cracks half a smile. “You’ll believe any damn thing I say, won’t you?” he teases, giving Dog a rough rubbing of his hair, then taking him into a headlock—which inspires half a grunt and half a moan from him—and dragging him across the room playfully. “Alright, Dog. It’s time you spill what you know. Where’s the girl? Tell me.”

“You can still join us!” His voice is muffled by Tide’s arm and muscular side. “Consider it! The Slum King will p-p-protect you. I’ll protect you! P-Please don’t leave. The Abandon isn’t your home.”

Tide squeezes harder, earning a choking sound from the boy. “Where do I meet this girl? Tell me before I pull your head off.”

“Please!”

“TELL ME.”

The boy’s arms grip Tide in half a hug to support himself in the headlock. Finally, Tide feels him slacken with surrender. “At the east end of the market by the pottery. Midnight.”

Tide lets go of the boy. He drops down to the floor at Tide’s feet, his eyes looking sullen and defeated. On all fours, the boy looks like half a dog. My little puppy to do my bidding, Tide thinks, amused.

“You know,” he says down to him, “you could join me.”

Dog looks up, rising to his knees. “You?”

“When I get this Gin girl. Come with me to the Abandon. Be my little sidekick. Be my gofer.”

Dog swallows hard. He looks like he wants to cry. “I … I can’t.”

Tide snorts mockingly. “What is it? You afraid?”

“Yes. Terrified. The Abandon … No one lives in the Abandon. Have you … H-Have you not heard anything I said?”

Tide glances out of the window. The sun is nearly set. It’s such a marvel, to be in a place where both the buildings and the Lifted City aren’t eclipsing the sky. I have about five hours, I reckon, before it is midnight. Five hours.

“Tide is your name?” he asks suddenly, his voice soft.

Tide turns, dropping his eyes to the boy who still kneels on the floor with a despondent look on his face. “Yeah. What of it?”

“Named after nature.” The boy smiles, his eyes drifting to Tide’s legs as he speaks thoughtfully. “I find it curious, how your Legacy is in wind … yet you’re named after water.”

Tide immediately wants to take that comment as an insult. The very next moment, he feels a different sort of mood take him over. “Hey, Dog.” The boy looks up at him. “Thanks for looking out for me over these past few days.”

“I’d do it as long as you wanted,” he responds.

And that’s the last thing that’s uttered between the boys before Tide eventually finds his place on the couch and Dog finds his place in front of his instrument where he weaves and sews and constructs.

It’s several hours later when the boy rises from his chair and presents Tide with a new outfit. “This is it?” Tide grunts in response, taking the shirt and pants from the boy. He inspects it. The sleeves, long and soft, are green. The body of the shirt is a greyish white with a subtle dark pattern sewn throughout it. The pants are made in a deep grey color, the fabric as rough as jeans, but appearing more like cloth. He rubs the clothes with his fingers, observing the texture.

“D-Do you want to … try it on?”

He wants to see you in them. Give your dog a show. Tide gives a shrug, tosses the new clothes at the couch, then pulls off his own shirt. When he gets it over his head, he finds Dog looking the other way, his arms folded over his chest and his face red. He’s not looking. Maybe he thinks he isn’t allowed to. Tide’s glow fills the room even more, painting everything in a subtle pink hue.

Tide ignores him and the glow, then proceeds to drop his pants. Since he just bathed in the afternoon—more out of boredom than of necessity—he feels fresh when he steps his big legs into the grey pants. As he pulls them up, he discovers them to be tight on his thighs. With a bit of struggle, he gets them on and buttons the waist with no issue. Dog is still looking away, his gaze averted as if to respectfully lend Tide some privacy. Tide isn’t sure if he should find it noble or just sad that the boy isn’t enjoying the view. Tide tries on the shirt next, flipping it over his head and pulling it down. He hears a thread or two snap, but he pushes through it carelessly, slipping in his left arm, then his right, and then he starts to wriggle and dance to get the damn thing on.

“A little fucking help,” Tide grunts through a veil of the shirt he’s trying to squeeze himself into.

He feels Dog in front of him, even though he can only see a blurred shape through the fabric that covers his face. Dog’s fingers graze Tide’s abdomen, inspiring Tide to issue a short spasm, tickled for an instant, before the boy’s hands clasp the base of the shirt and pull it all the way down Tide’s broad shoulders and meaty torso. When the shirt falls the way it should, Tide stands before the boy with his off-white chest and long green sleeves. The shirt feels like a second skin, every inch of Tide’s muscular body hugged in firm yet comfortable fabric.

He looks down at Dog, who seems taken in admiring his work. The boy gives a nod, then looks up at Tide, worried. “Is it okay?”

“Sure,” mutters Tide, feigning not being impressed much. Of course he won’t admit that he loves it. No one’s ever taken the time to actually make me anything before. “How’d you get the fit? You didn’t even measure me.”

“I have an eye for clothes.” The boy bites his lip, his eyes grazing over every inch of Tide’s torso. He can’t tell if the boy is admiring him in a longing, sexual way, or if he’s simply appraising his own work, taking notes on where he might improve. “I’ve been a tailorist since I was eight. It was my dad’s business until I moved out on my own.”

Moved out on his own? “How old are you, Dog?”

“I’m nineteen.”

Tide nods. He’d suspected the guy was just a year or two older or a year or two younger. “Eleven years’ experience did you well,” he blurts in response, to which Dog just gives a halfhearted shrug and keeps his eyes averted. “You know it’s almost midnight, right?”

“Yes,” agrees Dog with a hint of sadness.

Tide can’t help but puff up his chest, the tight outfit giving him a sudden confidence. “Once I get that girl, she may fight me. I might have to force her to come with me back to the Abandon and not stop by here,” Tide warns. “This might be the last time you see me.”

“It was a great last time,” the boy decides, his eyes still resting on Tide’s torso, probing every inch of him with his sad brown irises. “I hope you have a safe journey.”

He won’t follow you to the Abandon. You can’t talk him into it. He’s too afraid. Just say goodbye. “Goodbye, Dog.”

The boy doesn’t respond. Tide moves to the side door, pushes through it, then lets himself onto the street for the first time in half a week.

He makes his way toward the market, using what the boy’s told him as a guide. The roads are lit by small lanterns that hang off the cables. No one seems to be out at this late hour, which makes Tide wonder if there’s some sort of curfew enforced in this ward. He pays it no mind, since he sees no one outside patrolling said curfew, as he turns a corner and happens upon the silent market. Maneuvering quietly—yet glowingly—between the closed-up tents and emptied carpets laid out upon the smooth brick plaza, he makes his way to the east end, ready to make a go with this Gin girl and be off.

Before he makes it past the last kiosk in the square, something firm touches his backside, causing him to stop. A gun? A sword? A stale loaf of bread?

“I’m here to meet someone,” says Tide to the person at his back, whoever it is.

It’s a young woman’s voice who answers back. “So am I. And it isn’t you.”

“It very well may be. A little guy, round face, tiny wimpy body. He’s been poking around for a Gin.”

“What do you know of this Gin?”

“I’m the one who’s looking for her.”

There is silence at his back. Out here in the open, he’s already armed with a hundred different currents of air twisting and dancing and lazily meandering through the tents. Trouble is, he’s not sure he can get his wind to thrash upon the woman at his back quick enough to dodge whatever weapon it is that she holds.

When he shifts his back slightly, he discovers that it’s sharp. A knife, if I had to reckon.

“Leave,” she murmurs, her voice low and threatening.

Tide smirks. “Gin. It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Leave, I said.”

“I’m here by order of the Queen. I’ve been sent to collect you and take you back to the—”

The jagged sound of the girl’s breath interrupts him. He frowns and starts to turn his head, but she jabs the weapon at his back. “Stay there! Don’t look.”

“The fuck you hiding from me for?” he growls back. “What’s it matter if I see you or not? We’re both from the Abandon. Chances are, we’ve already met and I just never knew your name. You are coming back with me whether you like it or—”

The next instant, the girl thrusts Tide with impressive strength, and he tumbles into a wide, long tent at their side, which is complete with a merchant’s counter and two tiny display tables inside. The smell is musty and thick and the whole interior glows bright pink at Tide’s presence.

He spins around just as the girl closes them within the tent, sealing its door. She faces him. Despite the sexy sound of her voice, her front is anything but. The woman’s nose is a blunt cliff of flesh that overhangs lips that are wide and ungainly. Her eyes are too big and her hair is an unimaginable mess of dyed green tangles, blonde at the roots.

“I’m here on the Queen’s orders,” she answers back tersely, her voice quiet as a hush. “She is growing impatient, that much I know. But I have needed all this time to infiltrate the Coalition, and I am but two steps away from—at last—completing my mission. I will not go back with you, not when I am so close to succeeding. And if I do succeed, the Queen has promised me my pick of this ward.”

Tide’s eyebrows pull together. “What is your mission?”

The girl, who Tide must assume is Gin, takes a step toward him and brings her voice even lower. “It’s a mission that I’m now going to enlist your help in completing. We’re both of the Abandon. We’re basically family.”

I wouldn’t be related to anything as ugly as you, Tide would dare to say, if he wasn’t sure this Gin woman would hollow him out with whatever weapon she’s hiding.

“I can trust you, can’t I?” she grunts under her breath.

Tide smirks, his posture straightening and his chest puffing up. If he helps her complete the mission, maybe that’s a better feat to run back to the Queen with. Surely that would redeem him for the fuck-up in not getting enough eyes. “So you have a plan, then?”

“I’ve had a plan for weeks. I just haven’t had a way. Now, I do, and your presence here will only make that easier to accomplish. Tomorrow, the Slum King will be making an address. People will be gathered from all three wards. A guard stands at either end of his post. It will be your duty to take out one of them and allow me to be their timely replacement.”

Tide sneers. “Just two guards? Two measly guards protect this infamous white-garbed Slum King? Is that the way of it?”

“Yes. The Slum King is stupid and foolish and light-eyed as ever. I have half a mind to think the idiot is a Lifted, as trusting as an idiot could possibly be. And gullible, too.” She wrinkles her nose. “But we cannot get too comfy. The same cannot be said about the people who worship him. They are as mad as the Posse in the sky. These people revere the Slum King. We must stay wary.”

He’s had his own dose of these people’s devotion to the man in white. “So you take the place of one of the two. And then what?”

“He shakes the hands of each of his guards one at a time when the speech has ended. The crowd cheers. But when he takes mine, my hand will fuse with his flesh. Unless he’s brazen enough to cut off his own hand, he will be bound to me.” She straightens her back. “And that is when I will murder him.”

Tide gives a short, unimpressed nod. “Fine. Kill the fool. And how do you expect to escape the ward and return to the Abandon with your life still in you? You’ll be spilling your last blood before you even have a chance to sneeze.”

“It may be a suicide mission. But I am not here for the Queen’s reward.” Gin’s eyes lower. “She must not have mentioned to you that she holds my sister as collateral. I failed a mission prior to this. She took my sister from me and caged her in a room full of statues of others that have failed.” Gin’s jaw tightens, dimples pushed out that Tide did not know were there. “All I see when I blink is my sister in that room with the statues. She’s my older sister, at that. The one I’ve looked up to my whole life. Now it is her who will be looking up to me after this, after I succeed, after I complete the mission. She will reap the benefit of my valor, and that will be a welcome gift to carry with me as I meet the Sisters on the other side.”

Tide frowns and crosses his arms, which casts a vague shadow over Gin’s face when his big arms block some of the pink glow he emits. “So it’s all for your sister. This game of glory you’re playing.”

“It’s no game. The Slum King will die tomorrow.”

“And so might you.”

“So might I.” Gin purses her lips, which does nothing to make her less ugly to Tide, and then she lifts her pointy chin. “And I am ready,” she adds, flicking her wide, creepy eyes at Tide. “Are you?”

Tide rolls his eyes, undaunted. “And what are the two of us to do until the morrow’s fateful speech? Hide in this tiny tent and cuddle? Share ghost stories?”

“We will get closer to the speech site. There is an outdoor latrine in which we will stay until people gather for the King’s big address. Then we will blend in with the crowd and make our way close to the stage to do our work.”

“Good,” grunts Tide. “You’re too ugly to cuddle.”

She gives him a onceover. “If men made me wet at all, you still wouldn’t do it for me.”

Tide smirks, finding himself liking the woman despite her face, which he can’t quite stomach looking directly at. “Are you sure it was the Queen’s intention to actually off the Slum King?”

“That was the one and only order.”

He realizes, after a moment of sobered thought, that the Queen probably intended Gin’s mission to be one from which she would most likely not return—a suicide mission, the punishment being her own willful death.

And if Tide’s mission is to return Gin to the Queen—alive—then is it also the case that Tide’s very mission is one in which he is guaranteed to fail?

I can’t let her kill the Slum King, he realizes. I must bring her back alive or else my own life is forfeit. Is this just another game of who lives and who dies to the Queen? Another game of pitting her failed workers against one another and seeing who survives? How many more games must he win before the Queen decides he’s worth the breath he can steal out of someone’s lungs?

“You look pale, big boy,” she says to him, crossing her arms and making her big breasts lift. “You too scared to assist in murdering a King? Is the mere thought making you shit your pretty pants?”

Tide finds himself scowling suddenly. He keeps his discovery from her. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Queen wants the Slum King dead and she sent me to aid in the mission. How is Tide to know which way to lean? “A dog made me these pants.”

The pair of them hear the unmistakable scuffle of a shoe. Before Tide can draw his next breath, Gin has darted out of the tent. There is a brief yelp of pain—from someone who is not Gin.

Tide steps out of the tent to find Dog with his neck fused to Gin’s hand. “A spy,” she whispers. “He heard everything. He has to die.”

“Not so quickly,” Tide interjects, coming between them only to discover anew that the woman has fused her hand to the boy’s neck. There is no separation between where the bumps of her fingers end and the veins of the boy’s neck begin. The sight is stomach-turning. “He is the very Dog I just mentioned.”

“This one? This … spy …?” she questions.

“He is trustworthy.”

Dog can’t seem to say anything in his own defense, but Tide can’t tell whether that is a result of his fused neck, or simply because the boy’s trying not to piss his pants in fear.

“If he is of the tri-ward unity, he is not trustworthy.”

“He will do what I say,” Tide insists tiredly. “Remove your hand from his neck and watch him not scream for help.”

Gin gives Tide one long and challenging look, then does as he suggests, releasing her hand from the neck. Dog replaces her hand with his own, nursing it with wide, fearful eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says at once. “I wanted to make sure you’d met the girl safely. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I … I …”

“He heard it all,” says Gin darkly. “Every word.”

“Yes,” Dog agrees. “I did. And I won’t tell a soul. And I … I … I won’t judge you for how you f-f-feel or … or anything. But might I suggest that you give the King a listen tomorrow? Maybe he will sway your heart. He is the King that Atlas needs, truly. Especially now. I b-beg you—”

“I beg you shut your mouth before I fuse my hand there next,” the girl spits back at him. She flicks her ugly eyes at Tide. “What’s your take on this? The dog’s life is in your hands.”

Tide stares at the boy too long, thinking. Dog watches Tide’s chest just like he always does, unable to meet his eyes and looking so annoyingly subservient that just his mere presence dares Tide to misuse him, to mock him, to put him at his feet and demand him to do his every bidding. He’s practically asking for it, standing there like a toy meant for Tide to torture.

Then an idea saunters into his brain. “Is being trusting, dumb, and overly gullible a feeling that your Legacy can handle?”

Dog considers it, then gives a mild nod.

Tide grins.

0202  Athan

Arrow’s leg is considerably better. He doesn’t limp anymore as he walks around. Arrow can’t seem to sit still or relax—not like the others can—so he has taken to creating a sort of control room out of the back room upstairs, which Athan believes belonged to Link, if he remembers what Wick told him correctly. The Charmer is making and planting charms along the streets and even down deeper into the ninth, just before the city grows dense and the neighborhood turns into tall and taller buildings.

Pratganth and the Ivy girl seem to be getting cozy with one another, as she always gravitates toward him and never seems to smile unless he’s nearby, but Athan can recognize the fright in her eyes every time there’s a loud sound or someone enters the room, no matter who it is. It’s a fright that runs deeper than anyone’s, the fright of someone who’s lost loved ones tragically, of someone who has skirted the edge of death, of someone who waits for it to come for her next. Athan knows the feeling too intimately.

Wick is asleep upstairs and Lionis is outside somewhere. The two are not talking to each other. Twice Athan overheard the still-bruised Lionis complain to Arrow about a throbbing in his nose, to which Arrow—both times—suggested that he visit Iranda and Auleen down the street. Lionis only huffed both times and busied himself with something else. To Athan, Lionis seems restless, and at times, he wonders if Lionis is simply feeling guilt for the animosity that has brewed between him and his brother. Or maybe it isn’t guilt, but rather indignance. Athan can relate to that, for all the times Radley would unintentionally patronize him and ruffle Athan’s feathers.

Athan goes to Wick’s room and returns to his position by his side. Wick, in his twice-cleaned red hoodie and nothing else but a white set of briefs, adjusts sleepily to grant Athan some space on the narrow mattress. Athan nuzzles his face in Wick’s neck, then closes his own eyes and enjoys the sound of his boy breathing in, breathing out, breathing in …

Breathing out …

Breathing in …

“I wish I could dream,” whispers Athan.

Breathing out …

Breathing in …

Breathing out …

Breathing in … “What would you dream?” asks Wick sleepily.

Athan smiles. He knew he was awake. “I would probably dream of my family every night. That way, I could still have them with me, forever. I’d dream dinners with my family, and I’d dream resting by the pool, and Radley would never be away at his King’s Research. Nope. He’d be sharing crystals of moonskin with me.”

“Moonskin?”

“It’s like an alcoholic milk,” Athan explains, trying to describe it. “The taste is sweet, almost too sweet, but we’d add a pinch of bitter chocolate. That cuts the sweet just right. Really nice to drink in the winter. I wish you could taste it. In my dreams, I’d taste it every day.”

“I wish dreams were so easy,” Wick mumbles in that deep, gruff voice he has when he’s just woken up—Athan finds it so sexy, “or the ones you want, so accessible."

The fingers of Athan’s hand slowly run up and down Wick’s chest, bumping along the ridges of his abs and chest. “Accessible …?”

“I don’t think dreams work quite the way you think they do,” he explains. “You can’t really choose what you dream about. You go to sleep and … the dreams just sort of find you. Dreams are not always pleasant. Sometimes your mind tricks you, or takes you somewhere you’d rather not go. You don’t have the freedom to do whatever you want, either, as if you’re still restricted by your same dumb fears and inhibitions. You don’t really do anything you wouldn’t normally do otherwise … which sometimes defeats the purpose of dreaming in the first place.” Wick sighs. “Though, one time, I did have a dream that I could fly, and I flew right up into Cloud Tower and pulled out King Greymyn’s tongue. Of course, my dad was likely in the house too, so I wonder if some of my dreams were weird visualizations of math and possibilities.”

“I remember you telling me about that dream,” murmurs Athan. “In retrospect, maybe you used your dad’s math to see some future where you got close to a person with a Legacy that did allow them to fly, and you flew along with them.”

“Wow. That’d be something.” Wick chuckles dryly, then rolls onto his back. Athan adjusts, keeping his hand on Wick’s chest and gazing down into his brown eyes. “I’d like to meet someone who can fly. It’d make ending the madness that much easier.”

Athan can’t resist, his face diving into Wick’s for another kiss. The boys breathe deeply as one, then seem to hold their breath as the kiss turns soft and gentle.

When their faces separate, Wick mumbles, “Well, good morning to me.”

Athan grins. “Good morning to you.”

Wick sits up, then leans against the wall, staring out at the street through the smudgy, makeshift window that touches the floor. “You know, I came to realize something about my Legacy.”

Athan leans against the wall opposite him, hugging his knees to his chest, causing his arms to bulge in the effort. “What’s that?”

“When I’m alone … I’m powerless.”

The words weren’t what Athan was expecting, and he finds his cheery smile flattened a bit. Wick just stares out of the window, his soft brown eyes still sleepy and lost in thoughts.

“No one to draw from,” Athan finally says with understanding.

“With no one nearby, I have no Legacy to pull. I’m … powerless. It never really occurred to me until I woke up yesterday and you were outside with the others across the street and … and I felt this absence of … whatever … inside me.” Wick shrugs. “I mean, I’m not too upset about it. I’m used to feeling like I have no real Legacy. I’ve lived my whole life feeling like I’m broken, having the need to sleep as I do. But we both know that isn’t a Legacy,” he finishes with a smirk at Athan.

“But isn’t it?” counters Athan gently. “I mean, you told me once that some people’s Legacies … radiate more, right?”

“Yeah,” confirms Wick. “I could make noise with Juston halfway across the room, but I’d have to be pretty close to Victra to see through others’ eyes.” His mouth twitches, a dimple popping out of his cheek. “I can’t believe they’re both gone.”

Athan slides across the floor of their tiny room, relocating next to Wick and resting his head on his boy’s shoulder. “Me neither.”

“So … what was your point?” Wick prods him. “About people radiating their powers?”

“Well, it might be really unlikely, but …” Athan shrugs. “I was wondering if maybe you were pulling from someone whose Legacy radiates far. Like, really, really far.”

Wick doesn’t say a word for a long while. Then he turns his head slightly and, in disbelief, murmurs, “Are you suggesting—?”

“That maybe there’s someone out there who can sleep,” finishes Athan.

Wick chuckles at first, finding it funny. Athan knows how very improbable the whole notion would be, but it was on his mind and he figured he ought to share the thought with Wick.

“It’d have to be a very, very powerful someone,” Wick finally says.

“Or someone who just … radiates,” says Athan lazily.

Wick kisses the top of Athan’s head, then says, “You can radiate all over me if you want. I’m so ready for you to radiate everywhere.” Athan snorts at Wick’s crudeness, and then Wick shifts himself to get their lips together.

Athan’s eyes open during their kiss and drift to the big window beside him where he notices a strange figure in the street. He ends the kiss and pulls away. “Wick?”

Wick sees the concern in Athan’s face, then turns toward the window. He sees the person too. “Who’s that?”

“She’s looking right at us.”

Wick slowly moves away from the window, rising off the floor. “Stay here.”

Athan looks up at him, worried. “Wick?”

“She looks …” Wick blinks, all the peace and calm in his face wrecked in a moment. “She looks …”

Like a Lifted City person, Athan finishes in his mind. “Wick, you can’t go out there alone. We don’t know who she is or why she’s here. She could even be—”

“Impis knows where I live,” Wick blurts at once, his eyes flitting everywhere as the thoughts race past them. “I’m one of his recent Nine. And now he’s sent someone here to collect me.”

Athan’s on his feet in the next instant. “How do you know?”

“I heard it,” he murmurs, his eyes scrunching up. “I heard it. Like, like, like thoughts. I heard it … in my mind.” He looks up and meets Athan’s eyes. “I don’t think she’s here to harm me.”

“Wick …”

“Stay here,” Wick says again, then pushes through the door and is gone in the next instant.

Athan glances out the window again, still seeing the woman in the middle of the street. She wears a skintight white suit from her neck to her ankles that even covers the whole of her arms, and her hair is drawn back into a long, perfectly straight ponytail that looks oiled and shiny. With her regal demeanor and the unique shimmer of her outfit, she looks so out of place down here in the dirty slums. It’s no wonder that Wick’s first reaction was to freeze with alarm at the sight of her.

Athan doesn’t trust it in the least. He hurries out of the room to follow Wick, despite being told to stay. My presence protects you, he should have told Wick, and you ought to remember that. He nearly trips rushing down the narrow stair, and the front door slaps against the wall when he opens it to the sight of Wick standing before the woman. Lionis, Prat, Ivy, and Arrow are near the tree, and it seems they were having their own conversation about something a second ago, but are now fully invested in their visitor.

Athan pushes past them and approaches Wick and the woman in the street. Already tall, the woman is made taller by a set of white heels, which are opened at the tip to show her dark toes punctuated by bright white-painted nails. Her eyes turn upon Athan curiously, and it is then that she smiles. “Athan?” she murmurs.

He stops, alarmed. “D-Do I know you?”

“You will now,” she answers. “I’m Arcana. It’s nice to meet you. And you,” she says, turning her face back to Wick. “I know I have caught you both off-guard. Really, I’m a bit surprised to have found you here at your home.”

Wick squints suspiciously at her. “Why?”

She smiles at him. “Well, as I have come to learn from my many sources, you were staying at the Windstone Academy, yet were nowhere to be found after Ruena Netheris’s coronation. Or, rather, her almost-coronation. It might’ve been easy to presume that you did not survive the aftermath.”

The woman’s cool demeanor when she utters the name “Ruena Netheris” sends chills down Athan’s spine. That was the Queen who was going to save us. She was going to unite slum and sky.

“Of course, now,” she goes on, “I know you fled beforehand.”

Wick studies her guardedly, but his voice is calm and curious when he asks, “So what do you want?”

Arcana gives a curt nod at the boys. “I will make it plain. Impis Lockfyre has an incredible affinity toward you, Anwick Lesser. It was your Legacy Exam that impressed him. I have never known anyone with such a … simple Legacy to catch so much of his attention. Of course, when my sister and I came here with Impis to collect you, what I saw in your mother’s mind … took us by surprise. Your ‘simple’ Legacy was actually a lie. Your true Legacy is to sleep and dream, just as the Ancients did. And …” She shuts up, her eyes turning on him with bafflement.

Wick presses his lips together tightly, still studying her without a response.

“Oh.” Arcana tilts her head, the whole length of her ponytail dancing. “That’s not it at all, is it? We … We’ve been deceived twice. My, my.” She reflects true surprise upon her face. “How remarkable. You can read my mind … just as I can read yours?”

Wick folds his arms and continues to stare at her.

Arcana’s eyebrows lift, as if in reaction to something Athan can’t see or hear. Then she tilts her head the other way, as if waiting for an answer.

Wick gives a curt nod, then shrugs and resumes staring at her.

It’s at this point that Athan realizes they’re still having a chat—with their minds. The mounting silence begins to frustrate him as he watches their facial expressions give tiny hints to the thoughts that clearly pass between them.

Athan can’t stand it any longer. “What are you two saying?” he blurts, hating feeling excluded. “What do you want?” he asks her.

Wick faces him, bewildered. “She wants me to come with her to the Lifted City. She wants me to … help manage the Madness. She wants me to join them.”

Athan blinks. “That’s … That’s f-f-fucking crazy,” he gets out.

“It’s incredible,” murmurs Wick, turning his gaze back to the woman. “Communicating back and forth through our minds. It’s so fast. It’s so efficient. It’s so … intuitive.”

Even Arcana’s face seems to have softened, as if she shares the same astonishment. “I have never met someone else to do this with.”

“I have never been inside someone else’s mind,” mumbles Wick, his words slurred as if he’s forgetting he’s even speaking.

Athan sighs. Why is Anwick so quick to trust her? There is no way he’s going back up there. Impis is a madman who will kill him. Impis—

“Yeah,” Wick says, turning to Athan. “I know. I said all those same things to her.”

Athan takes a step back. “Y-You’re looking into my mind too?”

“Yeah. I …” Wick winces. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just jump in. I’m still a bit shaky with Arcana’s power. It just came to me so naturally and now I’m kinda …”

Then he spins around suddenly, his eyes moving between the four others at the tree—Arrow, Prat, Ivy, and then Lionis. He stares at them intently, his face reflecting concern.

When Athan touches Wick’s arm, his eyes snap to him. “Sorry,” Wick says at once. “I’m overwhelmed a bit. I can hear everything.”

“Try to focus,” Athan encourages him.

“I’m trying.”

Athan holds Wick by his shoulders and brings their foreheads together, forgetting everything and everyone around them. If Wick isn’t worried about the woman after swimming around in her mind, Athan won’t worry either. “I’m here, baby. It’s just you and me. No one else. Try to focus on one thing.”

Wick’s breathing evens out as he clings to Athan. After some time, Wick gives a subtle nod, then brings his eyes up to meet Athan’s, his smile returned. “That … was a rush.”

Athan returns a tightened smile of his own. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am. Thank you.”

“Wick, you’re not really considering going with her, are you?”

Wick’s eyebrows pull together. “Hell no. I’d be fucking crazy.”

“If I may?” cuts in Arcana.

The boys let go to face her. But before she talks, Lionis appears at their side, and his tone is nothing friendly. “Whatever you say to them, you can say to me, too. And use your mouth, not your mind. We’re all in this together or we’re not in it at all.”

Wick’s gaze remains on Arcana, regarding his brother not at all. Arrow, Prat, and Ivy keep a bit of distance, their faces wary as they stand on the lawn a few paces behind. Lionis, ever self-assured, folds his arms and waits for the woman to speak.

She only looks at Wick. “It is quite fortunate that I have found you first … and not my sister. If you come back to Cloud Keep with me, I want it to be of your own volition. Not because anyone forced your hand.”

“No one forces our hands,” says Lionis with a lift of his chin.

“And no one will,” Arcana promises, her eyes still on Wick. “I do understand it may seem illogical, my proposal for you to join us, but perhaps I can offer you a different way of seeing it.”

Lionis starts to say something else, but Wick cuts him off by muttering, “Go on,” to the woman.

And she goes on. “You were once members of something called Rain, as I have read from your mind,” she says, then turns her eyes to Lionis, “and yours,” then to Athan, “and yours,” then to Arrow and Prat, “and yours and yours. Your main objective, if I’m not mistaken, was to kill the Banshee King, was it not?” She smiles knowingly, her eyes flicking back to Wick. “Impis Lockfyre did it for you. He fulfilled the very purpose for which your group was banded together. He is the rain, too.”

“I can’t believe you’d have the audacity to say that our motives were at all the same,” Lionis says, his voice seething with indignance. “Our values were in freeing the slums from oppression. We aimed our weapons at the Banshee King in the name of freedom. Impis only stabbed him because he wanted power and glory. While we fought for justice, he fought for vanity.”

Completely unfazed, the woman responds, “And this opinion is coming from the one who, not long ago, believed that King Greymyn and Sanctum were good and necessary powers to govern the Last City of Atlas. Do I have the right of it?”

Lionis swallows, seeming unable to form a response. Wick’s eyes cast downward, and for a moment, Athan wonders if he means to defend his brother, despite the bad blood currently between them.

Then Lionis turns his pompous face to Wick. “If you are going with this woman, then I will go to.”

Wick sneers. “The hell you are.”

“Anwick.” Lionis’s face softens at once, and then he takes a deep breath. “I … I know that—without reading your mind—you cannot stand me sometimes. But I am your older brother. I think of things that you don’t. I want to protect you. Anwick, I’m …” He sighs. “I’m sorry, alright? You’re my brother, and if you go, I’m going too.”

Wick looks at Arcana with surprise. “You actually accept that?”

Arcana nods. “And him,” she says, directing her next words to Athan. “I know from the fire burning in your mind that you won’t let your Anwick go without you, either. That is fine. I need all the help I can get if I plan to form a team who can properly ‘manage the madness’, as I so put it before Anwick here stole the words out of my brain,” she adds teasingly, giving him a wink, then returning her gaze to Athan. “I’m not here to sell you Impis Lockfyre as the answer to your ails, or the means to a better future, or even sell him to you as a good man. He is not. He’s a damaged man. But I’ve worked alongside him for many years now, and I know him better than any of you. And if you have any doubts in your mind, ask your friend-brother-ally-lover Anwick here to peer into mine, and he’ll see the truths just as plainly. I cannot hide them even if I tried.”

Athan and Wick share a look. Wick sucks in his lips, silent.

“And if you give it time,” she concludes, “I think you’ll find you have more in common with the new regime than you realize.” She gives a short, knowing nod at Wick, then says, “I will be at the train station eight blocks over. It only operates with a key that I have and will connect us to Pylon #208, which will lead us to the Lifted City.”

Lionis crosses his arms, not caring to hide his clear contempt for the woman and all that she’s said. Wick wears a dubious expression, and Athan can’t tell if he’s listening to her mind and hearing a whole other story—or her words, which they are sadly limited to.

“If you make up your mind, that is where I will be,” says Arcana. “You have an hour.”

Then the woman turns and saunters away, her heels stabbing the broken pavement as she disappears. People from their lawns and porches say no words and make no movements as they all watch her go, heads slowly turning in silence.

After her departure, the neighbors start heading down the road, wanting to know what all of that was about. The man who lives across the street shouts a question, as does a woman several houses down, a child at her hand dragging behind her and hardly able to keep up. Even their kind neighbors Auleen and Iranda are slowly approaching, the baby cradled on Iranda’s chest. Swarms of people angry, concerned, or simply curious are gathering.

Wick shakes his head and cuts through the noise of chatter with his shout. “Please! We need time to process this. Please, give me a bit of space. I need to—”

“We haven’t had their like down here until you arrived,” spits out a man with a mustache hanging over his lips.

“My children,” puts in a tall man with a quivering voice on the verge of tears, “my children, all my children, I came here to be safe, to make sure they grow up, to make sure they have healthy lives. I can’t—I can’t trust to—”

A woman cuts him off. “I knew it, ever since your father—”

“QUIET!” shouts Wick, his hands at his head at once. The noise of the crowd dampens. With his eyes closed, Athan watches him say, “I have seen into the woman’s head. She took a huge risk coming here. She is defenseless. I saw things Impis has done and said. I saw things that have happened up there. I saw many things I doubt she even knows I saw. I …” Wick’s eyes open. “I need to discuss this with my team. None of you are in danger. Please know that. I will make sure you all remain out of danger. It’s not my wish to invite any of the madness here, where we have plenty of our own to enjoy.”

Wick releases his head, then turns and heads back for the house. Some in the crowd mutter a word or two, and a few of them whisper to one another, but no more fuss is made, and soon Athan follows his boy, Lionis and the others trailing behind.

When the door closes with all the boys and Ivy inside, Lionis is first to speak. “Tell us what you saw in her mind.”

Wick stands by the sliding glass doors, arms folded as he stares blankly ahead. Lionis, Arrow, Prat, and Ivy stand in a cluster by the door while Athan is the man between them all, positioned just behind the couch as he keeps his eyes trained on Wick, awaiting the answer with as much curiosity as the others.

“I saw a version of the Madness I never thought I’d see.” Wick shakes his head, still staring blankly. “She doesn’t trust Impis any more than we do, but she knows him on this deeper level … this oddly personal level … as if she’s his sister, or a childhood friend … of which she’s neither. She thinks there’s a method to his madness.” He smirks, glancing up at Athan. “Forgive me the pun. But I felt, for the first time, that I might have caught a glimpse into Impis’s grander purpose. I think, on some deep, psychological level, Impis Lockfyre is as anti-Sanctum as we are.”

“I’m not anti-Sanctum,” Lionis puts in, always having to assert his opinion, “and I never was. I think order is necessary for a city to survive. But the order in power had become corrupt, that much I can admit … even now.” Lionis’s eyes narrow. “But how does one explain Impis’s nihilistic determination to just … destroy the city piece by piece without enduring a scrap of consequence? He lives his days firing red lightning bolts at the slums and laughing about the deaths he causes. There is no logic to that man.”

Wick lifts his gaze to his brother. “And is there logic when I’m beating your face in because you accuse me of killing our sister?”

Lionis’s face hardens.

“No,” Wick answers himself. “No, there isn’t. I might’ve killed you, Lionis. If Athan hadn’t stopped me, I might have beaten your face in until you didn’t have one anymore. I was insane with anger. My mind had no room for logic, not when all I could see was red.”

“So … that’s your explanation?” Lionis crosses to the counter, propping an elbow upon it as he leans. “Impis is just … angry? All the days and nights long, he’s just an angry man who doesn’t care whose proverbial face he beats in?—who he kills?”

“I’m not saying I excuse Impis’s actions. I don’t. I still think he needs to die. Or at the very least be put away forever. But …” Wick nods with determination. “What really got to me was what Arcana truly felt inside her … the things she didn’t say, but felt. On the surface, she was asking me to join Impis Lockfyre and help manage his madness. But deep down …” He grows silent.

Athan comes up to his boy’s side and puts a hand on his back, giving him an encouraging rub. Wick doesn’t seem comforted by it, but Athan gently rubs his back just the same.

Wick nods. “Deep down, she wants me to … end the madness.”

Lionis, Prat, and Arrow seem to have turned into statues, the three of them staring at Wick with such silent, focused intensity that none of them even seem to breathe. The only sound in the room is that of Athan’s hand rubbing Wick’s back—and even that sound dies when Athan himself freezes, lost in Wick’s words.

“So,” says Arrow, breaking the silence, “you mean to say … that that woman … she’s actually on our side?”

“I felt it,” confirms Wick with a nod. “And I don’t think she’s alone. I couldn’t grasp at all of it—only what she was subconsciously hanging on to—but I felt like there were other people up there, or maybe just one other person, who is desperate for Impis’s reign to end.” Wick turns his head to Athan. “I’m saying that we may have allies in the sky already. I saw it in her mind.”

“It’s a free ticket to the sky.” The quiet, distant comment comes from Prat, whose eyes are so large, the whites glow even in the dim room. When he looks up from his stupor, he realizes all the attention is on him. “Sorry. It’s just …”

“Speak, Prat,” encourages Wick.

Prat peers from face to face, lingering on Ivy’s a moment longer than the others, then says, “W-We could end the madness. When she said she wanted us to manage it … what she meant was to end it. A controlled chaos isn’t chaos at all. A managed madness is … sanity.”

“But is there an actual plan?” interjects Lionis haughtily. “Or are we expected to simply strut into Cloud Keep and chop off Impis Lockfyre’s laughing head?”

“Preferably before he laughs,” mumbles Prat, moving his eyes back to Ivy. “He needs to pay for what he’s done.” To that, Ivy bows her head, her eyes sad. At their side, Arrow watches the interaction between them, then looks away, an annoyed scowl on his face. Athan can’t figure out what’s going on between those three.

“How can you be certain the mind reader isn’t deceiving us?” asks Lionis, his mouth wearing that permanent smirk of his. “Her Legacy and expertise is of the mind. How do you know that after she realized you could read her mind, she didn’t merely feed you false thoughts? She can be a liar who believes her own lies.”

“No,” murmurs Wick. “I am sure of it. I was in her head before she knew the truth of what I was doing.”

“She came here guarded,” Lionis insists. “She might’ve been—”

“Not everyone is as paranoid or defensive as you, Lionis.” Wick tenses his shoulders, which Athan feels beneath the hand still on his boy’s back. “I know what I saw in her mind. I had a firm grip on her Legacy. I was thorough.”

“Just because you think you know better ways to heat up a bowl of water with my Legacy,” argues Lionis, “doesn’t mean that you can use everyone’s Legacies better than them. That’s just plain arrogance. She’s been reading minds her whole life. You just read minds for all of five minutes.”

“Yeah, and I read that she has a twin sister named Axel who can mold minds like wet clay, and she is not fond of that sister because she’s a cocky, insufferable sibling to deal with on the daily.” Wick’s voice is biting. “I suppose I could relate to her.”

Lionis rolls his eyes and brushes off the insult like a fly from his arm. “Don’t let your ego push you into the sky, Anwick. I’m just telling you to be cautious and think this through.”

Wick takes a moment to digest that, for which Athan is very thankful. Lionis has a point, Athan might say, but he knows better than to express that to Wick.

Suddenly, Wick turns to Athan. A soft smile is on his face. “You know I always pick up on your Legacy of self-preservation.”

Athan clears his throat. “We’re not sure that’s even my Legacy.”

“And if this was a dangerous move, I would feel the mind-and-body-crippling anxiety that you feel when you’re in danger, right?” Wick puts a hand to Athan’s cheek, rubbing it with his thumb. “I feel as calm as a winter night by the fireplace.”

Lionis sighs. “We haven’t had a working fireplace since we were kids, Anwick.”

“In fact,” Wick goes on, ignoring his brother, “I feel like your Legacy is encouraging me to go. I feel inspired to go with Arcana.”

“Please don’t,” begs Athan quietly.

“Maybe going is what I need to do to survive.”

Athan feels his heart sinking. “I thought we were going to live here forever. I thought you said that wasn’t our war in the sky.”

Wick levels his face with Athan’s, taking him by his shoulders. “All I’ve dreamt since we’ve been here is a hundred different ways to end the madness. A sword in Imp’s belly, remember? You asked me not long ago who would be the one to do it.” Wick smiles. “I want to be the one, Athan. Then, with the madness gone, we could return here and live that life we want. And maybe it’ll even last longer too. Why spend just one happy week here before the whole city’s obliterated … when we could fight for our freedom to live the rest of our long lives in happiness?”

Athan studies his boy’s face. There is a certainty in his tone that he finds comforting, despite his misgivings about the woman or the craziness in the sky. I’ve seen the Marshal of Legacy on the broadcast most of my life. I even attended Crystal Court gatherings where he was present. The man was always odd—colorful, of course—but I never saw him as a cold-blooded villain. Perhaps there is a method to his madness.

Deep down, Athan wants to trust Wick’s instinct. It has, after all, gotten them out of so many predicaments. If he doesn’t stand by his side, he stands against him. And if I come along, he is guaranteed to be safe—even if I’m not convinced of my own Legacy myself.

“Then I’m coming with you,” decides Athan.

Wick’s eyes flash with surprise.

And then: “I’m coming, too,” announces Lionis. “You need me. I’m levelheaded and I will see through a scheme if I smell it.”

Wick scoffs teasingly at his brother. “I thought I was the one with the Legacy of smelling.”

Lionis, for once, smirks with appreciation at the humor.

Prat, however, does not jump on their Sanctum-bound caravan. “N-No,” he says at once, drawing their attention. “I must stay.”

“No one’s telling you to come,” says Wick.

“I can’t leave Ivy here,” Prat adds, glancing at her. Ivy returns the look with a softened, grateful one of her own.

Arrow steps away from them, visibly annoyed for some reason. “I will come, too.”

To that, Wick shakes his head. “No.”

Arrow frowns, genuinely taken aback by the word. “Why not?”

Wick slips away from Athan and crosses the small den, coming up to Arrow. “I need you to make several charms, and quickly. As many as Lionis, Athan, and I can pocket. We’ll take half to the Lifted City with us, and you’ll keep the sisters here in the ninth.”

Comprehension dawns on Arrow’s face. “You’ll plant ears in the sky,” he says, nodding. “Yes, yes. Okay, I see. But I cannot make my two-way earpieces. I … I need way more time for that. Hours.”

“Then we will have no earpieces,” Wick decides. “Just charms.”

“I still have my ring,” announces Athan with a lift of his hand, nearly having forgotten.

“Good,” says Arrow. “Prat? Wick? Either of you got yours?”

“No, left mine in the sixth,” says Wick, to which Prat gives a shrug of apology. “At least we’ll have one on us with Athan’s. Better to learn from our recent mistakes than to repeat them. You three will stay here,” Wick states, his eyes moving from Arrow to Prat to Ivy, “while me, my brother, and Athan go to the sky with this … Arcana.”

Arrow gives a curt nod, then passes by Prat and Ivy, pointedly not looking in their direction as he climbs up the narrow steps. His footfalls upstairs are heavy, causing the house to creak as he fetches his metals from which to fashion as many charms as he can. Prat and Ivy look at one another, Prat with relief and Ivy with gratitude.

It’s within the last five minutes of their granted hour that Athan, Wick, and Lionis arrive at the train station. Arcana awaits them with a knowing glint in her eye.

0203  Rone

I will find you.

Rone runs down the street, fleeing the shouts of two of Impis’s madmen—a tall and withered man with long white hair who carries two swords, and a blond guy who Rone nearly mistook for Athan. He rounds a corner and, instead of colliding into the tree that meets his face, Rone phases straight through it with one wild jump and a grunt, then solidifies in time to land on the pavement and continue his running uninterrupted.

I won’t stop running until I find you.

Rone slaps himself against the nearest wall between two stores that have their chrome sides so polished, he can see his reflection on the wall across the alleyway from him. In looking at himself, he lifts his chin and straightens his posture with dignity. No need to look like you’re running for your life, Rone jests to himself, even if you are.

He hears shuffling, and then the long white-haired man appears at the corner. Rone pushes away from the wall, prepared to run or fight. The man lifts one of his swords like a javelin, then throws it with perfect aim.

With a mocking gasp, Rone phases away all of his body except for his feet, the sword going straight through him and landing on the pavement behind him with a loud clatter.

Rone turns solid again, then rubs his belly and grins. “That tickled,” he taunts. “And now you’re down a sword.”

The man, unfazed, bends his elbow and produces another: by letting one literally slip out of his arm like a long, slender bone.

Rone gapes, genuinely surprised. “Wow! You grow swords out of your elbows!” He meets the man’s eyes. “If you accidentally lop off your cock, can you grow another one of those, too?”

The man roars and throws another sword at Rone, which Rone allows to pass harmlessly through him as well, then takes off running with only his feet solidified so that he doesn’t drop through the ground. Never phase downward, he chants to himself, feeling a wiggle of fear just at the thought of it. Never, ever downward.

Deciding he’s finally had enough fun with the fools at his back, Rone charges through a wall and solidifies inside a candy parlor. To Rone’s sad discovery, there is no candy in the display cases, nor is there even a speck of sweets in the jars on the shelves, and yet the whole room smells saccharine sweet and inviting.

Two faces emerge at the window—the gaunt man and the pretty blond one. Rone waves cheerily at them, then races right at them, phasing out as he charges straight through the two men. They jump back with alarm and fall upon their backs even though Rone phased harmlessly through their bodies. He charges into the building across the street, then hurries on and on, plummeting through wall after wall after wall until he’s back out on the street somewhere else entirely and, no doubt, far away from the elbow-sword fool and his blond Athan-lookalike.

After another street or two of running and searching fruitlessly for some nameless sanctuary of Guardian detainees that Janlord’s set aside—and having no idea what it even looks like—Rone takes a short break against the wall behind a tree to catch his breath. Really, this place would be twenty times more inviting with maps posted about the streets to direct me.

He should have waited. He should have planned this better and taken Ruena and Erana with him. But they didn’t want to come. They were so keen on staying in that house until we got rescued. Then who would rescue his sister Cintha?

And alone, he is quicker. But alone, I am also more vulnerable.

In the near distance, he sees the sharp, broken summit of the Crystal Court through the glass dome that covers the plaza he’s in. He realizes with a start that he’s so close to Cloud Keep. Twice now, I have stood in the vicinity of a King of Atlas. Rone had truly hoped that Ruena would someday be up there. Maybe in some twisted alternate world, he and Ruena are in that Tower together, side-by-side. Queen Ruena and King Rone. There were some past Kings and Queens in history that did have devoted husbands or wives who sat a secondary throne beside them. The histories never speak of the wives or the husbands, giving full glory to the one sitting the actual throne. I wouldn’t mind that, Rone decides. I could be the invisible King that no one remembers, as long as Ruena sat that throne and made good of this desperate city. Rone nods, sure of it. He would be so proud of Ruena Netheris, watching from the sidelines as her devoted husband King while she kept the city’s citizenry happy.

But Rone wouldn’t be happy unless his sister Cintha stood at his side too. He can see her with a kind, gentle boy who’d never so much as lift his voice when he’s upset. Rone wants that for her so badly, after all they’ve been through, and after all they’ve lost. Dad. Then mom. Then us …

I should never have let her join Rain.

Two figures rush through the flowers ahead of him, then emerge. Yes, it’s his two best buddies yet again, having caught up to him: sword-elbow and totally-not-Athan.

The man lifts a sword up high, then launches it like a spear at Rone, determined that one of his hundreds of throws actually sticks.

Rone phases and listens to the sword bang against the wall at his back with a loud clangor. He swipes it off the ground when it lands at his feet. “Thanks! But my birthday isn’t for another five months,” Rone shouts at them. “How’s your return policy on gifts?”

And then Rone chucks the sword across the plaza at the blond guy, who lifts his forearms suddenly. In an instant, his arms form a human shield, fanning out like the feathers of a great bird, except they’re made of something bone-like and strong, easily deflecting the sword as if it’s nothing but a pencil thrown across the classroom.

The boy retracts his “shield” into his forearms with the ease of a school kid stowing a book into his backpack. “My name is Aegis,” he announces grandly. “If you want to live, come with us to the King before we execute you in his honor.”

“Oh? You’d take me straight to him?” asks Rone. “Like, you’d actually truly take me right up to Impis so I can reach into his chest and pull out his beating heart? I can do that. I mean, I’ve never tried it because, well—gross—but there’s always a first time for everything. And that’s usually only something I say in the bedroom, but still—”

The long white-haired man bends his elbows, drawing out his weapons, and then he bends his knees in a defensive stance, at the ready with his long blades aimed and his eyes narrowed.

“Really nice,” admires Rone, observing him. “Great form.”

“We can chase you all day,” warns Aegis. “There’s no way out of the Lifted City, and only so many places you can hide.”

“I’d reconsider that, now that you know my talent. I mean, I can literally hide within walls.” Rone lazily sticks his right hand through the wall at his side, then sticks his left through the tree at his other. “Like, I’m super multitalented over here.”

The gaunt one throws down his swords suddenly, straightening his posture. He’s much taller than he seemed a second ago. “Listen,” he says, his voice even and deep. “You are clearly very skilled. We could use you. Why be on that side of the road, susceptible to Chaos’s Bolts and the madness of the slums … when you can be on our side? There is safety among us. And you will have power. We are a team. We are changing the face of Atlas as we know it. Join the Chaots and be a part of that change.”

Chaots? Did I hear that right? And what the fuck is Chaos’s Bolt?

“I don’t trust him,” mutters Aegis.

“It is not up to us to trust him,” says the man smartly. “He will be brought before Impis Lockfyre … and the twins. The three of them will decide whether to trust this wall-jumper.” He smirks knowingly. “I suspect they will.”

Wall-jumper isn’t the most accurate term I’ve heard, but I’ll take it. “Captain Elbow Swords, if you don’t own and operate a weapon shop, I count that as a missed opportunity.”

“Do you want to meet with the King or not?” blurts Aegis, tired of all the banter.

“You know,” says Rone, leaning against the tree, “if you get in the habit of inviting everyone you meet to come see the King, some poor fool is bound to kill him. I mean, it’s just bad practice. Aren’t you two supposed to be protecting the King, or …?”

“We have our ways of neutralizing Legacies in Cloud Tower,” boasts Aegis with a lift of his chin, making him look very much not like Athan, but rather like a self-important two-year-old in a young man’s body. “Our King is safe in the presence of the twins and his Chaots, no matter what poor fool we bring before him.”

Chaots. That dumb word again. “Thank you for the invite to dinner, but I’ll pass on account of a sensitive, slumborn belly. I have other more important matters to attend to.”

“That tongue is going to get you killed,” warns Aegis, annoyed at once by Rone’s flippant attitude.

“That’s quite odd. The only thing my tongue’s gotten lately are compliments. Particularly from the ladies.”

“Perhaps you don’t recognize Impis as your new King,” suggests the Elbow King. “That is fine. In time, you’ll learn he’s the only King. I am a fan of his and have been since the beginning. The world needs a bit of unraveling, and he’s the one I trust to do it. You’ll see.”

Rone returns a light smile. “I suspected that you’re more a fan of Ruena Netheris, what with that long white hair of yours,” he quips. “Does Aegis here braid it for you after you bathe?”

Aegis scowls, but the tall man merely shrugs, playing along with Rone. “He doesn’t. Perhaps I ought to have him start doing it?”

To that, Aegis huffs, then crosses his arms, his forearms daring to spread themselves open as they flex. “I’d rather braid Ruena’s hair myself. We caught her, you know. The pretty Queenly thing.”

Rone freezes at those words. The whole world becomes a tunnel between him and this Aegis fool, whose face becomes increasingly horrible to look at by the second.

“You … caught the Queen?” murmurs Rone, disquieted.

“That dumb, reckless woman tried to attack us,” mutters Aegis. “Just a road away, right outside the Glassen Garden, at that. Her and a girl with a long dark braid.”

Erana. Rone has straightened up, but tries not to show any of the quick and crippling fear that has arrested his nervous system. Masking it as best as he can with a tightened smile, Rone says, “What a shame. I had certainly thought the Queen had run free after the coronation a few months ago.” He folds his arms. “So what does our lovely King Madness plan to do with her?”

“None of your business,” answers Aegis.

“Cloud Keep is that way?” asks Rone flippantly, pointing toward the Crystal Court. “Is that where I can have dinner with your King and chop off his mad cock with one of your buddy’s elbow swords?”

“You’d never get inside,” the blond retorts, sneering. “The forces there would block your Legacy. You’d get stuck in the walls.”

“Yeah,” agrees sword-elbows. “Perhaps we ought to encourage you to run over to Cloud Keep, if you’re so desperate to meet your end. By all means, foolish slum boy. Run.”

“Slum boy? You knew?” asks Rone with mock hurt. “What gave it away? My dashing good looks?”

“Your lack of respect. Your lack of honor. Your lack of—”

Rone quite suddenly decides he doesn’t care what else he has a lack of, because the only lack he cares for is that of his sister. Phasing out once again, he charges forward, racing toward the Crystal Court and the Cloud Keep with which it keeps such morbid company. He hears an obscene word or two shouted at his back, but he doesn’t mind a single one of them. Both of those fools will meet their own end sometime soon, and Rone decides he doesn’t care if he’s around to witness it. All of these Mad Fools up here will die when King Impis’s Reign Of Madness comes to an end.

And an end, it will certainly come to.

When Rone circles around the Crystal Court, he finds himself in familiar territory. The tall chrome walls of the outside of Cloud Keep still stand, and he makes the same phasing leap through the wall that he made months ago when he was on a mission to unlock some hidden Janlord knowledge. Now he’s returned with the very same purpose.

But once he’s standing in the wasted courtyard before Cloud Tower, he feels an unfortunate surge of regret. Ruena is in that tower. Erana is in that tower. The two other women I love other than my sister. He wonders, if what they said is true about Legacies being blocked within the tower, how he can possibly manage to get his women out of there. Or is it possible that they are being kept elsewhere in some secret prisoner holding unit that only the King would know about?

He is startled by the sound of footsteps coming around the corner of a building within the Cloud Keep’s walls, and starts to run toward Cloud Tower. “Stop!” cries a voice at his back, and when he hears something whir right past his head, Rone phases away, but a misstep over a bit of rubble trips him, and he plunges headlong through the very ground at his feet.

“FUCK ME!” he screams out, terrified for one quick instant as he tumbles through darkness.

Then he solidifies in a room one second later. It is a tunnel. He discovers when he lifts his head that a dim, dancing light comes from somewhere down the way. Figuring himself never to be truly safe from the pursuing Chaots, Rone pulls himself off the ground and hurries down the stone tunnel, which feels oddly slum-like. He can’t say which way he’s running—toward Cloud Tower or away from it.

To his surprise, the tunnel empties into a wide area he can only describe as a sector beneath the Lifted City, yet still above the slums. Is there a city between the cities?? Rone wonders with sick humor, walking across the shadowed square that is lined with short, plain, unmarked buildings. It reminds him of the deep part of the tenth where eerie streets lined with warehouses reside. He wonders if this is where the gathered supplies from the slums for the Lifted folk are stored. He can’t make any other sense of it. This area is clearly not accessible to the public.

“Who are you?”

Rone jumps at the voice, phasing everything but his feet in an instant and facing where it came from—but he sees nothing. Rone lifts his hands, as if ready to put a fist or two through someone. Or something. In a place as creepy as this, he holds no more humor in his bones. Ruena and Erana are in trouble, and his sister is yet to be found. He doesn’t want to play with any more Chaots.

“Who are you?”

Rone jumps again, the voice coming from yet another direction. He spins around, disoriented. “Who are you??” he calls back out. “And where are you??”

“Tell me your name,” says the voice—a woman’s voice.

He stops spinning, figuring himself safe enough while he’s phased. “Rone,” he answers. “My name is Rone.”

He hears no response for a while. He turns one way, then the other. He glances at the flat face of a building, then turns his eyes onto a neatly-piled stack of cube-shaped steel crates.

“Rone …” murmurs the voice thoughtfully. “Is it truly … Rone?”

“Yes.” Rone can’t stand not being able to see who’s talking to him. “If you wouldn’t mind not playing games with me …”

“No games,” the voice says, sounding almost like she’s agreeing with him. “I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time. I have bad news, Rone. I’m so sorry.”

Rone backs up to the wall without falling through it, pushing away from the voice while trying to see its source. “Bad news?” Nothing can hurt me while I’m phased. No blades, no arrows, no fire—nothing. “What bad news? Show yourself. I don’t speak to ghosts.”

“That’s exactly what I am,” she murmurs, a tinge of sadness in her voice. “I’m a ghost now. I can’t show myself.”

“Why can’t you show yourself?”

“It takes too much effort. It’s exhausting.” The voice is moving across the square. “Please, you need to follow me.”

Rone, after yet another reminder to himself that nothing short of a potent, essence-crushing Legacy can touch him, follows the voice. She hums and he follows, despite the eerie sound of her voice not doing much to bring him comfort in this strange, shadowy place.

“This way,” she murmurs as he approaches a building.

Rone stops at its entrance. Unlike all the rest of the plain, short, unmarked buildings in the square, this one looks like a bomb had gone off within its chest, its insides blackened and still reeking of decay. Rone gags before bringing an arm up to his nose. Even phased, he is susceptible to the aroma.

“Come. Please. I’m so sorry.”

Rone sighs. “Before you say sorry one more time, either tell me what it is you’re taking me to, or else just—”

“Just come. Follow my voice.”

After an uncomely grunt of agitation, Rone continues to follow the voice into the mouth of the building. A set of stairs leads down into a corridor, through which countless doors await him. One of the doors slowly creaks open, which gives Rone the first thought that the person he’s following has a very powerful camouflage Legacy. He moves toward the door, then peers inside.

“This way,” comes a voice from the back of the room where there stands the big metal door to a vault. The side of the room has no wall, completely exposed to the outside, which appears to be a staggering view of the slums below. Rone imagines it to be quite a far drop. A cold, bleak draft pulls across the room, whistling through shards of broken glass and a toppled doctor’s exam table.

The door to the vault opens. A cold mist escapes it, the inside proving to be a freezing locker of sorts. Rone follows toward the door, unafraid if this is some great elaborate ploy to trap him inside, since he can easily slip right back through the wall. His breath comes in tufts of mist before his face as he enters the cold locker, shivering against the air. He can’t figure what it is he’s been brought here to see until he turns his weary head.

In the corner, wrapped in a huge white tarp, is the shape of a frozen girl. Only her frosty hair shows, iced and bluish and rigid, her face hidden.

Rone stares. His eyes gloss over. He doesn’t blink. He watches the frozen girl, as if genuinely expecting her to stir from her position. She will get up. She will turn my way.

She is not dead.

“I’m so sorry,” whispers the voice.

Tell me she’s alive. Unblinking, Rone’s eyes begin to grow wet, stinging from the cold of the room. Tell me she’s alive and that I’m not seeing … and that I didn’t come all this way, fight all this way, just to … just to have her be …

“Tell me,” Rone says out loud, shutting up his thoughts and clenching his teeth. “Tell me that’s not her.”

The voice gives no answer.

Rone can’t pull his eyes from the wrapped-up girl in the corner. “Please.” Tears are in Rone’s eyes. She died alone. You weren’t here. Your sister froze. You let this happen to her. His nose plugs up at once and his throat constricts. “P-Please tell me it’s not her.”

The invisible voice is at his side now. “I was with her until the very last moment. She was brave. She spoke of you. She—”

Rone coughs, a sob trying to break out of his chest. “Who.” The word isn’t a question; it’s a demand. Everything in Rone’s face is tightening. His fingers clench, unclench, clench, unclench.

“She said your name. Rone. The last word she said. She—”

“WHO,” he repeats, needing to know, needing it to be said out loud. “WHO IS SHE?”

“Cintha,” answers the voice.

Rone, solidified in one instant, drops to his knees. He makes no sound when he sobs, his face wrinkling as his lips part, the steam of his breath bellowing out from his mouth. Though his eyes fill with tears, none of them fall. He presses his hands to the ice cold floor and doubles over as his mind races through a million thoughts. The last thing he said to her. The last thing she said to him. A moment at home right after their mother died and he promised his sister he’d protect her. A laugh they both shared at the lunch table one day at school. The look on her face when she tasted her first plate of dumplings at the Noodle Shop. Did she die here while I was fucking Ruena and Erana, safe in a big comfy mansion not ten minutes from this very spot? Was she under my nose this whole time?

“Rone. She had an item in her clutch …”

“How did she die?” Rone chokes out through a strangled throat that nearly refuses him breath, let alone voice.

“She was wounded. And … she froze. She could have run free from this place, but she came back for a friend … as did I … but also something else. She came for an item that will save the world.”

“She died for … for what? An item? W-What fucking item?”

“Put out your hand.”

Rone, on his knees and with his whole world blurred by a wall of shimmering tears, lifts a palm up. Something cold and fragile is set onto it. He lowers his palm and finds a syringe.

“This?” chokes Rone, staring at it incredulously. “This fucking thing? My sister died for this stupid fucking thing?”

“It will save Atlas,” says the voice. “It’s no stupid thing.”

He lifts the syringe and stares at the clear fluid within its body, the fluid that might as well be water for all it fucking matters, the fluid that is somehow not frozen. “How’s this shit gonna save Atlas?”

“She said …” Rone hears the invisible woman sigh. “She said to tell you it’s medicine for … a treasure beneath the floor. A weapon in your arsenal. It made no sense to me, but … she said you’d know.”

Rone shuts his eyes, willing the cold to freeze him too. He holds the syringe against his chest, feeling a world of doubt and disbelief and humor race past his eyes. What a joke my life has been. For my father to die because of a lie and a selfish man, for my mother to take her own life because she couldn’t live without dad, and for my sister to die in the name of saving the city … with a syringe full of water.

“It is a medicine that … is nightmare-inducing. A permanent nightmare. Please, it’s your sister’s last wish, and it will save Atlas. Now come,” says the voice. “I will lead you out.”

Rone doesn’t listen to her. He reaches into his pocket and, from its tight embrace, pulls out a small and unassuming vial of his own clear liquid. The chemical in this vial may not save the world, but it is the only thing that can save him right now.

“Rone … Rone, please. Your sister died protecting that syringe and the serum within it. It is the city’s only hope. Rone, you have to figure out what her words meant. Rone …”

But all the words are now just wind in Rone’s ears. He brings the vial of chemical to his lips—his last swallow—then kicks it back, letting the sour, sweet taste coat his tongue. It isn’t as much of a swallow as he imagined he had left. More like a splash, really, but he downs it just the same. This one’s for you, Cintha.

0204  Tide

Tide watches from the crowd, his eyes on the two guards in the front. Everything is going exactly as planned.

Gin huffs. “How much longer until—?”

“Just wait.” Tide squints through the crowd, his eyes on them. He needs to see it in their eyes, the effect of Dog’s emotion-infected food. He needs to be sure before he acts.

“If we wait too long, Tide, the King’s address will begin and my opportunity is fucking dashed.”

Tide nudges Dog at his side. “You think they’re taken by now?”

“I’d say so,” murmurs Dog. “I saw that one eat. The one on the left.”

“What’s his name?” Tide prods him, figuring Dog to know. “He or she will be better inclined to accept our dumb idea if they think Gin knows them.”

“His guards are different every time,” Gin chimes in, annoyed that Tide doesn’t somehow already know that. “Why else would I be trying to replace one of them? No one will be the wiser, but it must happen now. People are already getting a look at them.”

“It won’t matter much if our plan works. Stay,” he orders Dog, then faces the girl. “Alright, Gin. Come and let’s make quick work of one of these idiots.”

The two cut through the crowd at once. As they go, Tide spots a few others who have been hit by neon in their pasts, though none of them seem to have been shot as many times as Tide. He has neon all over his front and his back. He even has a shot of neon on his ass. What the hell was he doing to earn so many shots on his body? Was he responsible for what happened at the Weapon Show so long ago? Or was he mistaken for the person responsible? So many questions still flood his thoughts whenever he gives himself a minute to think on his unnatural pink luminescence.

“That one,” Tide directs Gin when the guard is within view. “He should be under Dog’s emotional influence. He ate from the table.”

“And if the guard’s a she?”

“Shouldn’t matter. His feelings affect anyone. Work a flirt on her if it doesn’t. I don’t care. Just do it now or do it never.”

Gin visibly steels herself. Tide nearly forgets for a moment that Gin thinks she’s facing the last moment of her life. She still might be, Tide reasons. I haven’t yet decided whether to bring her back to the Queen alive and fulfill my mission, or live the rest of my life as a man who abandoned the Abandon, death always upon my heel.

Tide stands back, disappearing into the crowd as he keeps his eyes on the girl.

He made the decision the moment they happened on this plaza at which the King’s address would be happening. He decided that he would help her kill the Slum King. If anything went wrong, he could easily pull the wind and no one would know it was him, not in a crowd this large. When the King is slain, Tide might even be able to aid Gin in her escape by pushing away anyone who dares to try and harm her. We both can get what we want, Tide had assured himself. She can get the blood on her hands, and I can keep the blood in her, and the Queen of the Abandon will be sated.

Tide asked Gin why she couldn’t just kill the Slum King in a more private setting, but apparently he always travels alone through secret passages that no one else is able to follow him through, and when he’s not traveling, he’s at his headquarters, the whereabouts of which no one knows. It could be anywhere in the first, second, or third wards. “Hell, it could be underground or in the Lifted City or up my great uncle’s ass for all I know,” Gin had blurted. The Slum King only hires guards for his public events like this—different ones each time—and even then the guards are positioned at either end of the stage, too far away to make a stab at the King without a hundred people rushing to protect their savior from harm. The only ones regularly around him are his three appointed Marshals, who the people never see. “There’s just no other option,” Gin insisted, her already off-putting nose made more so as she scrunched it up with dark determination. “I have to do this. I have to end him and I have to do it today.”

He watches from afar as Gin squares her shoulders and slowly approaches the guard. A conversation commences. He watches and he waits, concentrating. Gin seems to speak brusquely to the man, serious of face and rigid of body. The guard appears to be confused, taking a glance or two up at the stage.

“Is it working?” comes a voice at Tide’s back.

Tide scowls. “It better be, Dog. You sure you put enough dumb and enough gullible in the refreshments?”

“Well, I … I put trust in them. And compassion. A-And hope.”

“Sounds like a cocktail for an idiot,” murmurs Tide with mild admiration. “Better do the trick.”

The guard takes off his helmet. It is a man. He gives it to Gin, then heartily pats her on the back and extends a hand for a brutish, well-natured handshake. Gin returns it, then gives a nod at his armor and asks a question, to which the man’s face lightens as he breaks into a belly-wiggling laugh.

“It worked.” Tide can’t believe his eyes. “It fucking worked. What a bunch of idiots.”

“Hope makes an idiot of us all,” Dog notes mildly.

“Good job,” Tide says automatically, his eyes still on Gin.

“I, um … Th-Thanks.” Due to the crowd, the boy is pressed up against Tide’s side, his every breath falling over the hairs on Tide’s arm. “I wish her … I wish her luck.”

“No you don’t,” grunts Tide, knowing better. “You wish her to fail. He’s going to die today, Dog. The world will be better for it.”

“I wish you’d give him a listen at the very least.”

“What is the Slum King’s Legacy?” asks Tide suddenly, feeling foolish that he hadn’t asked before. “I mean, will he be able to sense anything? Or will he have a way to retaliate?”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard many things.”

Tide’s heart gives a jump. “What sorts of things?”

“I heard he is a healer. I heard he can make you feel better about an emotional woe within you. That sounds nice. I, um … I also heard he can, uh …” Dog coughs. “I heard he can give you an orgasm just by looking your way.”

Tide guffaws at that, perhaps a touch too hard. “Dumb Dog. You’ve heard rumors. I want facts, Dog. What can he do …?”

“No one knows. N-Not truly. Some even say he hasn’t a Legacy at all. That he is just a man.”

“No one is just a man,” grumbles Tide, watching as Gin assumes the armor of the guard, and the pair of them continue to talk heartily while the guard helps himself to a strawberry on the platter of a man in a grey robe who walks by. “Yeah, eat it,” mumbles Tide, watching. “Get dumber.”

“I didn’t touch the strawberries,” notes Dog quickly.

“Hmm.” Tide gives his lips a lick, watching.

Then there is stirring in the crowd. Suddenly a wave of cheers explodes over the people as a man ascends the steps to the stage. For a second, Tide wonders why the hell everyone is cheering this kid who’s taking the stage. Is he someone who runs the Giving or who runs a popular tent in the market, come to present the King? He’s young—twenty or so, from the far-off looks of it—with messy red hair and freckles, and he wears a simple white shirt with jeans that are torn at the knees. He gives a wave to the crowd as he crosses the stage, flashing them a charming smile that reveals dimples.

The young man reaches the center of the stage and the crowd grows quiet. “Greetings, my friends, my helpers, my healers,” he says with a buoyant, carefree voice that seems to float. “And thank you!”

Tide stares at the man incredulously. This can’t be him.

“It’s such an honor to, well, come up here and … and just stand before all of your bright faces today,” he goes on with the casual ease of a buddy kicking back and sharing a flagon of dizzy-head with his friends. “Enjoying the fruit?”

Someone in the front shouts, “Tastiest fucking berries I’ve ever put in my mouth!”

“Aye, but don’t let your wife hear that,” the young man japes back at him, and a chorus of laughter radiates outward. “Forgive me my ignorance, but how’s the weather been? If I’m not mistaken, the Light hasn’t touched us in over a week, yes?”

“Fuck the Light,” shouts someone else from the other end of the crowd. Three others shout their similar remarks, and another ripple of cheers erupts.

The man smiles out at the people. “You are the reason I keep doing this, you know that? Your spirit gives me spirit. I keep being reminded of the days when I was just a boy in a little shack at the end of the fifth, staring on at the rich boys and girls across the street. My daddy kept telling me to keep my head low, to keep my voice down, to know my place in the world. He’d give my ass a beating every time I so much as lifted my chin.”

“I’d give that man a beating back!” shouts someone in the front.

“Hey, hey, that’s my daddy you’re talkin’ about!” teases the man on stage, to which a few chuckles respond. “I’m not in the business of retribution … of vengeance. It’s so heavy, isn’t it? Vengeance. Taking blood for blood. If you spend your life making others bleed for all the blood you’ve bled, what the hell will you have left in the end? I’ll tell you what. A pile full of pale, bloodless carcasses.” The man gives a sudden chuckle. “Say all that ten times fast.”

Tide doesn’t know what to make of the man, his eyes wide and his world turned on its ass. Why did he always picture the Slum King as an old bearded man who prays to the Sisters twelve times a day and commands his people with a lightning-covered hammer? This young man before him on the stage, he could be a schoolmate. He could be a boy living down the street from him. He could be another guy in the schoolyard that Tide observed, someone that may have distracted him from the annoying likes of the Lesser boys.

This is not the Slum King he envisioned.

“Hey, listen,” this boy King says, his face sobering from the chuckles and levity he shared with the crowd. “I really, truly … I just want to say, I appreciate you all comin’ out and wrecking your day to hear little ol’ me speak. I know you have things to do with your day. Farming. Trading. Families to feed. Games to play. Chats to have and meals to share. And it’s my life goal to make sure you’re going to have all of those things for the rest of your days. No fear. No men and women of power to answer to. Just a sunrise to smile up at, and a sunset to send you off into another peaceful night. That’s all I wish. That’s all I’ve ever wished for.”

When Tide gives a glance at Dog, prepared to say something snide, he finds the boy staring wide-eyed at the man on the stage. His eyes are flooded with adoration and hope. Tide wonders if Dog ate his own food, but finds that even he can’t say anything about the Slum King. He finds his heart hooked by the dream. Everlasting peace and no power above to answer to. No Queen of the Abandon. No King in the sky. It’s always been my dream too.

“I’m not happy unless the world’s happy,” the Slum King goes on. “And why shouldn’t we be? We have breath in our lungs, yes? We have food in our bellies, and we have years … nah, decades left to live. Long and fulfilling decades.”

“What’s the news with the fourth?” shouts out a man.

“Yeah,” joins in a woman near him. “Scare them out of hiding?”

The Slum King chuckles. “Aye, those fourth peeps are protective and guarded, they are. And who can blame them? Under a sky that once rained screams and now rains red lightning, I don’t think any of us should blame them for their hesitation in joining our cause. Give them time. We have time. No matter who joins us or who doesn’t, we are—all of us—slumborn, and thereby, of slum hearts. We all beat as one. We are stronger together, my friends. Never forget that.”

“Stronger together!” shouts someone else. “Stronger together!” another chimes in, until countless are crying out the slogan and it becomes a chant that lasts a short while. Tide turns his head, taken by the spirit of the crowd. The man with the platter of strawberries passes by, and Tide grabs one and pops it into his mouth, chewing as he listens to the cheers of the crowd. Stronger together! Stronger! Together! This Slum King isn’t anything like he’d imagined. He could even be Tide’s age for all he knows. And the man isn’t wearing all white like the Queen accused him of. In fact, other than his plain white shirt he wears, his jeans are torn and threadbare. This King looks more like a slum rat than a King, and all these people revere him. These people love him.

“It is not my desire to fill your hearts with bloodlust,” the King states. “I trust you to know that. Stronger together, yes, but do not wish ill of the ones who are not with us. The ones who are guarded. The ones who doubt our goodness. Let them doubt it; it is their right. My friends, it is not my wish to win back our beautiful Last City of Atlas through war and weaponry and death. No. Haven’t we warred enough? Hasn’t there been enough death? Haven’t we all lost loved ones?” His eyes go skyward suddenly, his hands dropping to his side. “Sisters, haven’t we had enough?” He brings his gaze back down to observe, one by one, each of the men and women in the crowd. “Be strong, now more than ever. And be kind. And be giving.”

So taken with the speech, Tide forgets that he’s in the midst of a mission. He glances suddenly at the guards on the stage and, with a jerk to his heart, realizes he can’t tell them apart, covered in armor with their faces hidden behind closed-visor helmets. They’re even the same height. Is Gin on the left side of the stage where the guard had been, or could they have possibly switched places when taking positions at either end of the stage?

“Which one?” whispers Tide, his eyes flicking back and forth.

Dog lifts his chin to get a look. “That one, I believe.”

“That one? You sure?”

“Yes. I … I think I’m sure.”

Tide wraps an arm around Dog’s neck, yanking him close and bringing his lips to the boy’s ear. “You better be more than sure,” he says in a voice so low and deadly that Dog’s the only one who could possibly hear it. “You better be fucking certain before I use my wind to help that Slum King die and help that Gin girl live. You better be so fucking sure that you’d wager your dick on it.”

“I-I wager. I mean, I’m sure. Certain. C-C-Certain that’s her.”

The Slum King has finished saying something—maybe even the inspirational end of his speech—and the crowd goes crazy, cheering and howling and applauding. The man lifts his hands, smiling, and he gives the crowd a little bow and a wave. Fuck, he finished already? Tide’s heart slams into his chest as he lets go of Dog and focuses, his eyes like needles as he studies the guards on the stage. You better be Gin, he thinks, staring intently at the guard on the left closest to him. You better be Gin.

And the Queen better reward him when he returns with Gin alive and both their missions complete.

But then he thinks of the last gathering of heads that Scorp and he brought in. There was no reward. “Ten more,” the Queen ordered, sending them off.

He thinks of the stories Scorp shared of the missions he was sent on to fetch supplies and guard the exits to the Abandon. “Fetch more,” the Queen ordered when he’d finished. “Keep guarding.”

Tide thinks on his father, who’d grip him by the neck and toss him out of the house some mornings. “To school with you, fool. Get us a name to be proud of.” Even when Tide was but ten years old and had no concept of his future or what he was supposed to do with his little slumborn life. What kind of accomplishment could the Wellport family ever be proud of? What was Tide supposed to do?

“To school with you, fool!” The voice of Tide’s father rings in his ears. His mother, silent and tired all day long, she never even lifted her eyes to observe the cruelty of her husband.

Dream big … Professor Frey kept urging him, yet Tide worries he’s never dreamed at all. Not truly. What’s the point if every dumb dream Tide dares to have is so miserably out of reach that he thinks serving a cruel Queen is what he deserves?

“Tide,” mutters the boy at his side. “Tide, Tide, Tide.”

Tide looks up at the stage, his eyes focusing. The Slum King is already shaking hands with the first guard. Everyone around him is cheering and screaming their delight.

Tide rushes forth, his eyes on the King as he pushes people aside. No one seems to notice, too busy applauding and acting like the dumb, gullible, idiotic fools that they are. Wind already begins to stir over the plaza as Tide pushes, pushes, pushes, getting as close as he can. He doesn’t need to get close to the stage, but he wants to, desperately. What has come over Tide?

The Slum King turns to face the other guard, Gin. She’s already removed her gauntlet, her bare hand at the ready.

Tide stops at the foot of the stage and presses all his wind at the pair of them. Gin doesn’t even have a chance to touch the King’s hand. She gasps as the wind, strong and unrelenting, blows off her helmet. Figuring the plan ruined, she whips out a knife, but the wind takes it too, flinging it through the air and stabbing it to the wall of a nearby house. Gin shouts a curse of frustration, then seems to make a mad dash for the King, but he’s backed away from her in alarm, and the wind is too strong, pushing her so fiercely that she herself lifts off of the ground, her feet kicking wildly as she flies through the air. Gin lands somewhere in the crowd at the side of the stage.

And the people are not kind to her, despite the King’s speech of bloodlust and compassion. Gin screams as they grab her, subduing the woman with force as she cries out for the murder of the King.

Tide watches in horror. “Stop!” he shouts out, pulling his wind toward the people fighting and yelling and scratching at Gin, who has gone mad with rage. “Stop it! Hands off!”

The wind pushes and whistles and squeals, but with so many bodies in the way, the wind cannot build, and its force does nothing but stir the loose hairs on the heads of the angry men and women who fight without end.

“Do not harm her!” calls out the Slum King, standing at the end of the stage. “Please, my friends! Please! Do not harm her!”

Tide raises his hand to draw more wind, determined to break apart the crowd and rescue the girl. She must be alive. She must be alive or I fail my mission. She has to survive.

But then someone clasps Tide firmly by the shoulder and spins him, thwarting all his wind. An angry man’s bearded face is before his. “You’re in on it with her!” he shouts, flecks of his spit slapping Tide in the face. “This boy is an accomplice!”

“Who you callin’ boy??” barks Tide, shoving against the man as he pulls his wind, but too soon there is a cluster of men and women dragging upon him now, and the wind does not come to his aid. A fist flies into his back, which he regards as much as a fly landing on his neck, but then a leg sweeps under him, and Tide is sent tumbling to the ground like a fallen tree. He shouts angrily and kicks against the lazy, ineffective blow of wind, but the feet in his face and the slams to his gut are endless. Bringing his arms up to shield his face is all he can do to weather the onslaught.

0205  Kid

The days pass more quickly without Ames. Kid can’t decide whether that is a good or a bad thing. Where once his desire to leap out into the world and change the course of history was dangerous and reckless … Kid suddenly finds that she now misses it.

“We can’t just slip into the Lifted City and save him?” Kid had suggested once. “Do ya think we could just—?”

“No,” Link said at once, his voice pained. “He made his choice. We can’t do a damn thing about his measly existence, not without risking our own.”

‘He made his choice.’ The words sit heavy on Kid’s chest, and it weighs more and more with every passing hour, with every sunrise and moonrise. I am the liar now.

One Friday turns into another Friday. Kid spends so much time at the window of her room staring down at the street, she loses track of where Link and Faery are. She’s grown so comfortable around them, it starts to feel like home to her.

The two of them have stopped hiding their kisses. Sometimes when they are gathered on the floor of the den eating whatever food the three of them scavenged, the two keep shooting glances at each other and giggling. Kid eats in silence while she watches them. Their mouths are busied with giggles and quick kisses. Kid’s is busy with chewing.

“Does it bother you when you see us kissing?” asks Link one night when the house is dark. Faery is upstairs while Kid and Link are gathered by the back window in the kitchen, peering out at the lawn and the moonlight spilling over it. “Is it gross?”

Kid shakes her head no, picking at her nails as she leans against the kitchen sink.

Link’s eyes are full of the moonlight when he speaks. “You’re all moody today,” he teases, to which Kid doesn’t respond. “Hey. Don’t feel alone. We’re all in this together, Kid. For the next ten years. I doubt you’ve even been alive that long. It’s a very long time.”

“I know.”

He inclines his head toward her, trying to catch her gaze. She finally looks at him, her lips pouted. “You okay, Kid? Like, honestly okay?”

Honestly. Honesty. Truth. Lying. Kid doesn’t know a damn thing about anything anymore.

“Are you thinking about the cold boy again?” he asks.

Kid wasn’t, but now she is. “He’d be ten years younger today.”

Link nods. “Does that worry you?”

“He said he did things. He saided that … said that he was bad.” Kid bites her lip, trying to picture the boy’s pale face and his dark, messy hair and his eyes, which looked like bottomless black holes.

Link nods knowingly. Kid told him a lot over the weeks they’ve been cooped up in the house with nothing to do. She told him all she could remember about the cold boy Kendil and his raw relationship with Sanctum and his desperate desire to kill the Rain Frog.

“So you thought he might hurt you,” Link mutters.

“Maybe Ames was right.” Kid can’t stop picking at her nails. “I wonder if there’s some way I could meet him now. If I might be able to … help. Or save him.”

“We’re already too late,” Link points out. “His mother’s already frozen. His father’s already dead. The Rain Frog has taken him away and given him to Sanctum. We’re …” He sighs suddenly. “… too late.”

Kid looks at him, for the first time having her attention pulled from her annoying fingers. It’s now her turn to point something out to him. “We’re not too late for other things.”

“I can’t disturb my family,” he says. “I can’t break the rules.”

“We already did. We breaked the rules by coming here. Broke. We broke them. Why not break some more? Why not find out what happened to your little sister? Why not follow the masked men who killed my family and find out where they comed from?—came from?”

“Kid …”

“I know.” She sighs, exasperated by the dumb logic and dumber excuses he keeps giving, still determined to follow Baal’s rule about not messing with history. “I just can’t stop … thinking.”

“Good.” Link puts a hand on Kid’s shoulder and gives her an encouraging squeeze. “Keep thinking. Build that brain of yours. You hear yourself? You’re speaking so much … smarterer.”

Kid’s face wrinkles. “Smarterer isn’t a word.” When she glances at Link and finds him grinning stupidly, she punches him in the arm and giggles. “You maked fun of me!”

“I’m glad we’re together, Kid. You, me, Fae. I feel like this is how it was supposed to be, the three of us.”

Kid feels herself warmed by that. “Me too.” Her heart swells in an instant. “And … a-and when my mommy and daddy show up to this house …”

“I know. You’ll get to see them at last.” Link smiles, then looks back at the window, catching the moonlight in his eye. “And sadly, we’ll also need to find a new place to dwell.”

“I’ll get us to that new place,” Kid insists. “With my invisibility.”

“We have each other’s backs. We’re the perfect team.” Kid nods, encouraged. Then Link shuffles his feet. “Tell me about the first time you saw me.”

Kid sighs. “I already apologized for stealing the gold—”

“Not that. The Brae.”

Kid stares at him, her eyebrows lifting. “Oh. That.” She smirks. “I knew, ever since the day I saw ya with those other boys at The Brae, I knew there was something different about … about you.”

Link squints at her. “I’m trying to imagine you there. Invisible.”

“I saw ya on your first mission with the black banded boys.”

Link looks off, thinking about it. “You were really there? Well, I guess you had to have been, otherwise you wouldn’t know about it.”

“I sawed the whole thing.” She nods. “But even when you did all of that … I knew ya didn’t want to. You wanted them to like you. I could understand that. I had also saw where you came from. I saw your brothers, so I knew you lied to them about having any.” She’s back to picking at her fingers. “Your brother Wick snuck out all the time. He went to a Noodle Shop—the one we ate at recently, the one I took us to after you saw your sister. He’d go there and meet with friends, but I don’t know why.”

Link’s mouth is half open, his eyes unblinking as he hangs on her every word. “A Noodle Shop to meet friends. I guess he sort of had a secret life, too.” Link chuckles. “I’m not surprised.”

“Your older brother Half-Sand saved my life.”

“I know! You said he stopped a train!” Link leans forward, his eyes wide and eager. “Tell me about that.”

Kid bites the inside of her cheek. “It isn’t a nice story. It was the masked men who found me when I hid at an orphanage. They were looking for me … but they took my friend away instead. Aryl was her name. The masked men taked me and tied me to a train track in the Abandon. That’s where Half-Sand found me. And then a train came. And with a hand, he … he stopped the train.”

Then, quite unexpectedly, Link pulls Kid in for a hug. Kid’s eyes go big as the side of her face presses into his flat chest. She doesn’t hear his heartbeat. It’s strange; until now, she’d actually doubted that he was serious about not having one. Legacies are weird.

“Is Faery gonna stay with us?” asks Kid suddenly.

Link pulls away to look down at Kid. “Of course she is.”

“She’s from this time,” says Kid. “Won’t her mommy and daddy miss her?”

Link bites his lip, looking away, though his hands remain on Kid’s shoulders. After a thought, he says, “Do you believe in Three Goddess? Like, truly believe in them?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. Why?”

Link smiles. “Never mind. Fae will stay with us for as long as she wants.”

“Are ya mad at me about not telling you that I met two of your other brothers? Like, before? That I didn’t tell you sooner?”

Link shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I’m glad you did.”

“Why did you hug me just now?”

Link chuckles lightly. “Because … after that visit to my house where it all came out about Anwick’s Legacy … I feel so relieved to finally know. It’s something that’s perplexed me for a while. Now it all makes sense. The closed doors. My mother singing lullabies to him. I can’t believe how … dense I’ve been.” Link sighs, slapping his forehead suddenly, taken over by a sudden desire to laugh. After he settles from it, he gives Kid a rub on the top of her head, fussing up her messy half-undone braids of hair, to which she shrugs away from him like an annoyed cat. “I have more to thank you for. I’m happy you’re with us, Kid. I’m …” He glances up at the ceiling. “I’m going to check on Fae.”

Then he gives Kid another brief smile before heading out of the kitchen. Kid hears his footsteps creaking as he ascends the stairs. She feels a hundred times lighter after revealing all of that to Link, and yet the stone that sits in her chest is still there—a stone named Ames, a stone named betrayal, a stone named liar.

She glances down, as if she might see the stone in her belly.

She sees blood instead.

Kid pulls at her dress, her eyes wide with terror. Blood. She sees the horror of the scene at the orphanage all over again—the children being beheaded, being gutted, being turned into nothing but skin and blood, blood, blood. Kid backs into the counter, her breaths fast and jagged with fright. Blood. A huge spot of blood has pooled at the front of her dress right at her thighs. Blood …

Kid pulls up her dress. There is blood painting the inside of her thighs. It’s everywhere. I’m dying. I’m peeing my life’s blood out of me. This is the price a liar pays. Blood, blood, blood.

“HELP!” she screams. “LINK! FAE! HELP!”

The two of them are down the stairs in seconds. Link stops cold at the kitchen door, his eyes wide with alarm. Fae rushes past him and crouches next to Kid, her eyes on the blood. “What happened??”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Kid can barely see anything, her whole world blurred by the tears that have filled her eyes. It’s too soon to die. We haven’t even made it a year. I haven’t gotten to see my parents. “FAE! HELP ME!”

The tension in Fae’s face releases as she looks into Kid’s eyes. “Sweetie,” she coos, then rises to pull Kid against her for a soothing hug, rubbing her back. “Calm, calm, calm. It’s okay.”

“W-W-What’s happening to m-m-me??” blubbers Kid.

Fae turns her head toward Link. “The supplies we gathered two nights ago. Can you fetch them?” Link nods and hurries away, his footsteps slamming up every step of the staircase.

“F-F-Fae??”

She crouches down again, bringing her face close to Kid’s. “This has never happened to you before? When you bleed from … between your legs?”

Kid shakes her head quickly.

“Mmm, of course. You lost your mom and dad too young. They wouldn’t have told you about this yet.” Fae gives her a reassuring smile. “Kid, it’s perfectly, totally normal. I bleed too. All women do.” She gives her a soothing, gentle rub of her shoulders. “You’re at the age now where it’s going to start happening.”

Kid’s eyes widen. “This … Th-This is going to happen again??”

Fae nods gently. “Yes, sweetie. Once a month.”

“W-Why?”

“It’s simply nature. Boys go through something at this age too. They grow hair between their legs and under their arms. And, well, so do we, but … we also bleed.” Fae’s lips pinch together. “It means you’re a woman now.”

Link returns with a bag containing the supplies, handing them to Fae. “Is she alright?” he asks quickly.

Fae looks up at him. “Girl stuff,” she answers.

Comprehension dawns on Link’s face as he nods slowly.

“I’m a woman now?” Kid blinks, the fear draining from her. She lifts her brows. “I’m … I’m a woman like you now?”

“You’re a woman now. See, I bleed too, and …”

Suddenly Fae’s eyes grow blank and faraway, as if she’s staring straight through Kid’s head.

A tiny bit of alarm arrests her again. “W-What is it, Fae?”

Fae turns her face away slightly, her mouth agape. “Bleed …” She glances back at Link. “I …”

Now Link looks concerned. “Fae, what’s wrong?”

“Bleed,” she answers, staring at him. “I haven’t bled this month.”

The two of them stare at one another, wordless. Kid peers back and forth between the two of them. “What does that mean …?” she asks, clueless. “Fae? … Link? … W-What does that mean?”

Neither Link nor Fae answer, their eyes locked on one another in the cold silence of the room.

0206  Wick

The train, which has been dead since the Fall, comes to life with the insertion of a Sanctum tech keycard. Arcana gives a knowing quirk of her eyebrow as the creaky vessel carries them along the rail, scraping the metal that has, for months, slept.

They ride in the front car with the engine, where Wick has never been before. Even Lionis has a life in his eyes that is somewhat uncharacteristic as he stares at the controls in wonder. Athan stands by Wick’s side at the window, watching as the slums pass by. The train slowly edges up an inclining track that cuts through buildings, bypassing train stations that stop at the fourth and fifth floors of major buildings throughout the ninth and the closer edge of tenth.

The track skirts the edge of a Pylon, and that’s when Arcana removes the card from the engine, and the train ungently squeals to an abrupt halt, throwing Lionis away from the controls in the front and causing him to slam clumsily against the wall, wide-eyed.

Arcana leads them down the throat of the train to the center car, which opens against the Pylon to a door that runs flush with the wall, completely hidden in plain sight. The door slides open with another swipe of a keycard and her bending gracefully toward an interface to allow it to scan her eye. They pass through the door and into a small room, which Wick belatedly realizes is a lift when the doors slam shut and the room begins to gently rise.

Wick and Athan and Lionis share bewildered looks at one another, as if each of them is asking the other the same question: Are we really doing this? Did we really agree to this?

Halfway up the lift, Wick turns to Lionis. “It’s your birthday,” he says suddenly, realizing it.

That fact seems to have slipped completely from Lionis’s mind, as his eyes reflect surprise when he says, “Why yes, yes it is.”

“Twenty,” mutters Wick.

“An unremarkable year,” Lionis grunts, then turns away.

The lift comes to a slow stop, and then its doors slide open with a soft, slippery sound. They disembark the lift and cross into what appears to be the lobby of a large, dark, empty building. The time it took to pass through the ninth and board and ride the train has brought the sun down and the moon up, and it is only the pale moonlight that paints the Lifted City a cool, milky blue as they leave the building and enter the streets.

Wick, Athan, and Lionis are walking in a tight trio, keeping so close to one another that Wick worries a slight change of his pace might cause either of the other two to trip. Remember your purpose, Wick tells himself, pulling out one of Arrow’s tiny charms from his pocket and planting it by a streetlamp they pass.

We’re okay, thinks Athan.

Wick flinches at the sound of Athan’s voice, belatedly realizing that he’s still drawing upon Arcana’s ability, even with her walking several paces ahead of them. Wick stares at the side of Athan’s face as he hears his worried private reassurance to himself. We’re okay. We made the right choice. I’m panicking inside because of my normal nerves, not because of my Legacy—whatever my Legacy is. Lionis is smart and will smell a scheme. Wick is brave and can use any powers he grabs ahold of. We’re safe. We’re all safe. Impis isn’t evil. He’s just twisted. Maybe he’s twisted in our favor.

Wick hears Lionis too. We can manage the madness. Any person can be guided, even the crazy ones. Impis killed the last King, that much is true. He has a distaste for the order of Sanctum, and maybe that gives us an unprecedented advantage … despite his constant desire to burn the slums one red lightning bolt at a time. I shouldn’t have worn these shoes. My feet are cramping. I hope Wick has a plan if everything goes to shit or if this woman is a double-thinker like I had suspected. Fuck, she probably can hear all of this.

Wick could clobber his damned brother a hundred times in that still-bruised nose right now.

But he can also hear Arcana’s thoughts, and that might intrigue him more than his boyfriend and his brother at his side. Let them see who you are, Arcana is thinking worried yet warmly. Let all of Impis’s fools see that it is not just a permanent party up here in the beautiful Lifted City, which we have ruined. Let them realize that there are consequences to the Madness. If Impis cannot get onboard with the future I envision, then may he quickly learn how very outnumbered he is. And yes, dear sister, that means you too.

Is it possible that Arcana really can be thinking one thing, but believing another? A liar who believes their own lies … The words still unsettle Wick. Can a person really be that clever, to guard their own mind with such double-think? If Arcana was truly doing that, isn’t it likely that she’d, even just for a second, slip out the wrong thought, much like a liar losing track of their own lie?

A band of three Chaots coming down a side street stop at the sight of them walking by. Wick hears the suspicions and the ugly words in their minds. Two of them assume that they are Lifted folk who have been hiding in their house and, after being caught, are being taken to the King. The third one suspects they’re slummers that have been gathered from Impis’s list.

Wick, Athan, Lionis, and Arcana come around a wide bend in the road where Lionis tosses another of Arrow’s tiny charms into the flower bushes that grow from a chrome pot in front of a house. Just when Wick is wondering where the hell they are, he picks up on a cold train of thought of Athan’s, identifying their location. They are coming down the Sunstone Channel, which is an arm of the Lifted City that overhangs the ninth ward and leads to the center of Atlas. Tangents of the arm run off into the Eastly where Broadmore Manor stands and the Lord’s Garden used to stand.

Athan turns some of those thoughts into words, catching Wick by surprise. “My house,” he murmurs quietly. “It’s just down the road to the left, a ways through the gardens and past my gym and beyond the salons.”

Wick feels his own heart race as he suddenly sees Athan’s brother lying on the ground, dead. I’m in his mind. Then he catches a flash of Athan’s sister with her face pressed into her plate of food. Wick tries to blink away the images, but they enter him as quickly as a foul scent in the air, and tears start to sting his eyes. What if that was Halves’ face in a plate of food? Aleks across from him, dead? Lionis on the floor? Link in a pool of his own poisoned vomit? Mom? Dad?

For the first time, with both the aid of Arcana’s power and the unfortunate location they’re in, Wick feels Athan’s true grief and the trepidation that builds with his every step in this wretched place. He came just because I did. I could’ve refused and spared him this torture. The thought fills him with sudden, ill-timed remorse.

Forty more minutes of walking takes them into the parts of the Lifted City that Wick himself is even somewhat familiar with. The plazas are darker than usual, perhaps because a number of the usual streetlights have no power, only the occasional self-sustaining ones shining pale and weakly. Crossing two short streets and a plaza brings them to the mouth of the Crystal Court, which they skirt around. Wick feels Athan’s stab of fear at the sight of it, since the tall glass pillars are shattered and some of its tall, impressive walls are cracked, likely in the aftermath of the crashed coronation of Ruena Netheris that never saw its end or its rightful purpose.

A charm finds a home at the foot of the glass steps leading in.

Soon they are upon tall, daunting chrome walls which Wick learns, through a worried thought of Athan’s, are the outer walls of Cloud Keep. I never thought I’d truly stand before it. Wick feels like he’s in a dream, drifting through pretend cityscapes and make-up landscapes, none of it real. There is a huge gate that seems to have been bent inward by some great explosive force, its enormous doors hanging off whatever equally enormous hinges hold them. Through the damaged gate, they cross two brief courts until they enter a wide expanse of nothing. Rubble and broken stone litter the path towards one lone tower that juts out from all of the mess. The tower—Cloud Tower, if Wick can allow himself to believe that—is impossibly tall and leans ever slightly to the side, like a great enough wind could topple it. With the unusualness of the architecture in the Lifted City, Wick isn’t sure whether the slight lean is a violent result of the Fall of Sanctum, or a design choice. It seems to be about half the width of the arena in which the Weapon Show was held, and only an occasional, narrow slit of window interrupts its otherwise smooth, unblemished exterior. Only at the top does he see the blunt presence of a balcony, upon which there stands a figure he cannot identify from this far of a distance.

At the thick, colossal chrome doors to Cloud Tower, which are daunting to say the very least, Arcana turns and faces the three of them. “I must warn you, Impis Lockfyre is unpredictable at best.”

“So we must take caution,” says Wick.

“And you must listen to my thoughts at all times,” she instructs him. “I will advise you privately through our minds, since you will be able to hear me. Are we understood?” To punctuate her point, she repeats the question within her mind: Are we understood, Anwick?

After giving a quick look at Lionis and Athan, Wick nods. Yes.

She nods back, “hearing” his response. “I’ll go in first to ensure that my sister is still away,” states Arcana. “If she’s returned already and is up there, our situation may become … complicated.”

“How so?” blurts Lionis, his brow furrowed.

“She is a powerful Psychist. The most powerful in all of Atlas—and we have met hundreds. She can easily suppress Legacies and manipulate minds. I can communicate to her through my own Psychomentalist ability, so I will tell her not to rob you of your powers. I will tell her that I trust you. All of you.”

“That trust has come quickly,” mutters Lionis dubiously.

To that, Arcana simply lifts an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten my Legacy already? I’ve danced through each of your minds. I know what thoughts and secrets and resentments you hold in them. And I know your intentions are just right for our purposes, each of you.” Her face hardens. “And if we are strong enough, we can make the madness mean something. Together.”

“You’re risking a lot to do this,” Wick states suddenly, pulling the concern directly from Arcana’s mind and laying it out plainly for the benefit of Athan and Lionis. “Impis is unpredictable, but so is your sister Axel … in her own way.”

Arcana agrees with a tightened nod. Then she tilts her head. “We may not have much time, so I will hurry inside first. When I am back, I will retrieve you and take you to him. Oh, and about those charms you’ve been planting everywhere,” she adds, “I wouldn’t waste the thought. The Lifted City is guarded by a sort of protective magnetic barrier. Your friend Arrow will hear next to nothing with those tiny things you brought, unless you happen to have a charm in your pocket that’s the size of a person.”

“Would have been nice to know before,” mumbles Lionis.

“The laying out of your charms was a welcome distraction from the tension in your minds,” she explains. “It put you at ease. I could tell. It would have been unkind of me to rob you of that comfort.” Then, she gives a short bow. “Now please do excuse me. I will return shortly to receive you.”

Then, after taking a short breath, Arcana lays her palm against a small electrical pad, which causes the enormous doors to slowly yawn open. She enters the tower alone, and then the doors shut behind her with a loud, resounding boom.

Slowly, Wick feels her Legacy slip away. He didn’t realize until now the strange, fuzzy noise of opened brains everywhere speaking and hissing secrets at him until Arcana has left his field of influence.

“Waste of charms,” spits Lionis, all the so-called comfort turned into annoyance right away. “We are truly alone now.”

“We already were before,” mutters Wick. “What exactly would Arrow do if he heard anything anyway?”

“He should’ve made stronger two-way charms. His earpieces.”

“He didn’t have time and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Wick says less than patiently, “unless you think a charm the size of a person can fit in your ears.”

Lionis rolls his eyes and looks away, arms folded.

Athan bristles suddenly. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.” He gives Wick an apologetic wince. “I’m sorry, I know, I know. We all talked about it and … and we had the choice to stay, but now that we’re here, I just—”

“We didn’t have the choice to stay,” says Wick plainly.

Athan blinks. “W-We did.”

“No, we didn’t. If we stayed, her sister Axel would have found us. They were both looking for us because Impis is gathering every missing person from his list of Nine, remember? We were not safe at my house. Now that we’re here, no one will go looking for us there. Well, more accurately … now that … I’m here.” Wick’s jaw tightens. “Really, it’s just me he wanted. Which means that you had the choice to stay. Lionis had the choice to stay. I … did not.”

Athan’s face becomes hurt by that fact. “Anwick …”

“I should have left less of an impression at my Legacy Exam. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Being on Impis’s list saved you when you were arrested by your brother Halves,” Athan reminds him. “So you were taken to the Windstone Academy instead of the Keep. And because of that, we reunited. You can’t blame any one thing for where we are now, for how far we’ve come or not come. Everything that happens is a … a delicate series of unpredictable events. This is just another event. You and I can make it through this.” Athan takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for my doubts a second ago. I’ve found my confidence again. I don’t feel the panic in my blood. We are meant to be up here.”

Wick nods, desperate to believe in Athan’s reassurance.

“And no matter what happens,” Athan goes on, “I love you.”

Wick gives Athan a quick, impulsive kiss on the lips, his body too nervous and his mind too fretful for much else. “Thank you, babe.”

The tower doors yawn open so suddenly, the three boys nearly jump with surprise. Arcana struts out of them, her needle eyes going from boy to boy as she observes them waiting. Then, with a little lift of the corner of her lips, she says, “Are you ready to meet the King of Madness?”

Wick nods. “Let’s see him.”

Arcana winks, then turns, her long straight ponytail swishing like a whip as she leads them inside. There isn’t much to the first floor of the tower, its inside expansive and empty. The chrome floors are so polished, they’re reflective, casting bits of moonlight up at them from whatever pale light comes in through the slits of windows around the perimeter of the enormous space. A spiraling staircase in the center of the room is where they go, and for countless metallic steps, the boys ascend behind Arcana for three full eternities. The stairs never seem to end, and countless times they pass by a landing with doors, then only continue up, not stopping at a single one of them.

“My legs hurt …” hisses Lionis from behind.

“Keep going,” Wick grunts, suppressing the tightness and aches that plague his own thighs.

One more flight turns into two turns into seven turns into ten before they arrive, at long last, upon a landing that opens into a long, long hallway. Arcana continues to lead them. The hall bends around the perimeter of the tower, lined with benches on one side, above which is an occasional slit of window in the wall, letting in the pale moonlight. A tall, narrow opened door comes within view, the light from within spilling out in one bright stripe that paints itself over the tile, up the wall, and across the ceiling.

Arcana stops at the door and points in with a flat hand. “This way, my friends,” she murmurs gently.

Wick excuses the odd pageantry, figuring it to be how Arcana acts before the King. He listens for any secret thoughts she may be trying to send him, but hears nothing.

“Let’s go,” urges Lionis with a tightness in his throat, coming up to Wick’s side.

When Wick turns his head, he is staring down the long, long, long throne room. He can’t believe it’s even physically possible for the throne room to be so long, knowing how the outside of Cloud Tower looks. It is also shockingly bright, every surface of the room appearing to be made of mirror or glass or crystal.

Before Wick realizes it, he’s already started to move his feet, walking down the aisle of the empty throne room toward the end where a sole figure sits on the throne. Even from this far away, Wick recognizes the colorful attire of the former Marshal of Madness, Impis Lockfyre. Standing at his side by the throne are two people, one of them familiar and one of them not. The familiar one casts a wave of fear through Wick’s body, as it is Metal Hand, the man who is encased in armor from head to toe—complete with gauntlets on either of his hands. One single touch from his bare finger destroys a person instantly, wiping them from existence. Wick has watched it happen several times on the broadcast, the latest of which was Dran, the one who was blamed for Rain’s blue ink at the Weapon Show. That feels like ages ago. The other is a fit and naked man whose body is wet, from his sopping hair to his shins. He looks miserable.

When the doors to the throne room shut far behind them, the sound is a deep drum that rushes to meet them with such a daunting force that Wick stops to face it. Arcana is many, many paces behind them, slowly catching up with her unhurried saunter. Lionis and Athan stop too.

“Come!” calls a playful, happy voice from the throne.

Wick turns around again, resuming his walk. Lionis and Athan do the same, joining him for the long walk to the throne where the colorful Impis Lockfyre awaits them. He wears baggy silken pants with one leg violet and the other teal. He wears a white doublet from which a nest of vibrant multicolored feathers burst out from his left shoulder. His arms are covered by a skintight golden fabric that glints in the light like twenty thousand tiny diamonds. His face is powdered white with crimson color tracing his eyes, tiny red wings fanning out on either side toward his temples. His white, red-tipped hair is decorated in a chaotic nest of braids and ponytails and knobs and twists and spikes that stack twice the height of his head, appearing as if he’s wearing a large headpiece.

Twice in Anwick Lesser’s life, he has been overwhelmed to the point of staggering by Impis’s mere presence.

Impis leans forward, giving Wick an unwelcomed closer look at his eyes—one of which has a black iris, the other of which has no iris, whited out to make the pupil look like a black pinhead. That must be Impis Lockfyre’s eye of mania, the one that starts and ends the madness he is so infamous for.

“Nothing,” he whispers at Wick, smiling to show a brief spread of teeth. His lips are pale white but for a dab of crimson in the center, nearly giving him the look of being permanently puckered.

Wick lifts an eyebrow. “Nothing?”

Impis giggles, not explaining his word of greeting. “I have been looking for you for quite some time. Oh, but sweet Arcana brought you to me. She said she had spoken to you, yes? About my plan?”

Arcana has now taken a position on the other side of the throne away from Metal Hand and the wet, naked young man. She studies Wick with a tightly closed mouth and unblinking, curious eyes. Plan? asks Wick in his mind as he looks intently at her, curious if she is sending him thoughts. She isn’t.

“Yes,” Wick finally says, turning his eyes back to Impis. “She said you are gathering your nine.”

Impis nods eagerly. “Yes, yes, yes. My favorite word: yes. You should know that if we’re going to be friends. Also, I enjoy not having a plan. That is my plan. Oh, and I hear you can sleep? Is that true? You know the answer. Say it, say it, say it.”

Wick tries on a smile, despite his mounting anxiety. “Y—”

“YES!!” screams Impis, nearly leaping off of his throne. “You can sleep! Oh, but why, Anny-Anwick?? Why did you say you could smell things? Like … what’s in my pocket? Or a lemon blossom root beneath my chair? Why, why, why?”

It was a cherry blossom root. “It was not my intention to lie. Well, I mean, it was really my family trying to protect me. They thought—”

“Show me!” shouts Impis, his eyes wide. “I want to see it!”

Wick blinks. “Uh … show you?”

“Sleeping! Sleep for me! Do it! Oh, the last time I saw a baby, oh, was it my dear sweet brother?? I had a brother twelve years younger than I. He was so cute when he slept—all gurgle and guuurgle and—oh, oh, I miss the sound! Sleep for me! Sleep for your Marshal!”

Arcana speaks. “You are King, now.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I forget. Yes.” Impis giggles. “Forgive me, Anwick. Anny-Anwick. I—”

“He has more ability than that,” says Arcana, her eyes on Wick. “He is a mimic.”

Impis gasps. “A MIMIC?!” He jumps to his feet, then lifts the flat of a hand up and, with crazed eyes on Wick, draws a circle in the air. When Wick does nothing, Impis pouts. “Not a very good mimic.”

“He is not a mimic of body,” explains Arcana gently. “He is a mimic of Legacy.”

Impis scurries down the three steps from his throne so quickly, Wick nearly trips himself backing away. “You can really take others’ Legacies??”

“I … can share them. I don’t take them.”

“Can you make me feel …? Anwick? C-Can you …” Impis takes another step closer. Wick takes another step back. “C-Can you make me f-f-feel …” Giggles dance in Impis’s throat as he tries to get out the question. He circles the three boys, coming around them, his eyes unblinking. He comes to a stop beside them. “Can you make me … feel the mania??”

Wick is not comforted by the idea of touching Impis’s Legacy. He has heard his whole life that Impis’s very possession of his power is why he is the way he is. If I touch the madness, will I go mad too?

“Careful,” murmurs Athan.

Wick turns to him, the fear evident in both their eyes. Then, he turns his gaze toward Arcana, figuring he’d appeal to her for help. What should I do? he asks her, his eyebrows lifted.

Arcana makes no reaction on her face, staring at him.

Wicks eyebrows pull together. Something is wrong. He glances back at Impis, then attempts to listen to the madman’s thoughts.

Nothing.

He turns his face back to the twin. “You’re not Arcana,” he says suddenly.

She smirks and tilts her head in the exact way that Arcana does, her ponytail swishing to the side. She’s even dressed like her from head to painted toenail. “A smart one, this Anny-Anny-Anwick.”

Wick takes a step away from Impis, bumping shoulders with Athan. “Where is Arcana?” he asks them, trying to mask the worry in his voice—and failing.

The woman, who must be the twin Axel, answers, “Occupied.”

“Is he afraid?” asks Impis to his friends, yet keeping his crazed eyes on Wick. “Don’t be afraid. I like you. You’re my new toy. And I don’t damage what’s mine. I’m a good boy. Good, good, good boy.”

I don’t damage what’s mine. Wick stands tall. “I mean to be more than just a toy,” says Wick, trying to keep his tone playful. If Impis wants to play, then I must play with him. He is of a child’s mind, and a child must be constantly distracted, and thusly, managed. “What do you do for fun up here in Cloud Tower?”

Impis giggles, then points at the fit, wet young man. “CHAOS!” he screams delightedly for an answer. “Don’t we have so much fun?? Chaos, show them your power!!”

Up close, Wick realizes that the miserable young man is not just wet from a pool or a shower; he is drenched in sweat. He seems to experience a moment of desperately needed relief. Chaos—his name, Wick must assume—throws his hands into the air, every muscle in his slick, sweaty body flexed and tensed up in the effort.

The next instant, the world flashes bright red, all the windows glowing for one fraction of a second, and a crackle of noise explodes. Wick, Lionis, and Athan all slap hands to their ears, flinching away.

Just as quickly, the light and the noise are gone, and the sweaty man is on his knees, breathing heavily. Wick lowers his hands and watches him, concerned. Was that the Finger of Madness we just saw? Did our demonstration just destroy a house, or a building, or a ward?

“Such power, so beautiful, Goddess-given, yes,” Impis purrs, his hands against his face as he stares up the three glass steps at Chaos, who breathes so heavily, he sounds like he’s dying of thirst. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Suddenly, another person appears near the window with a snap of sound, seemingly out of thin air. His skin—from his neck to his wrists and ankles—is made of metallic scales, giving him a glossy snake-like appearance. “King Impis,” the man calls.

Impis lifts his chin, happily responding, “Dregor! You’ve news?”

“Not of the good variety,” the man—Dregor—responds. “The girl is missing.”

Impis tilts his head, all his little bits of hair wiggling from the tiny movement. “The girl?”

“Ruena Neth—”

Before he even finishes the name, Impis sucks in the greatest, sharpest gasp of scandal, a hand slapping to his chest. “THE GIRL?!” he screams out, furious in an instant. “SHE IS MISSING?! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!! WHO WAS WATCHING HER??”

Dregor seems very uncomfortable, his eyes wet with a mix of fear and annoyance. “There are not enough of us. You sent eight of your Chaots off to comb the streets for survivors. Four are in the slums recovering missing members of your Nine. We had two on duty in the King’s Keeping, but one was found dead and the other is, well …” He gives a smirking nod at Axel across the room.

“Dead?” Impis brings his fingers to his lips. “Dead-dead?”

“Yes. With your permission, I’d like to—”

“SHE MUST BE FOUND!” Impis screams out. “She has valuable information! She has Sanctum secrets! She has powers! She has … oooh, this makes me so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so—”

“Impis, King …”

“—so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, SO MAD!!” Impis stomps on the tile and scrunches up his shoulders, fists tightened at his hips. “All of them. Send all of them to the streets and FIND THE GIRL!”

Dregor gives Impis a curt nod, appearing somewhat vexed, then vanishes before their eyes.

Impis marches back up to his big throne and unceremoniously plops himself down, scowling, his left eye twitching. Wick feels its effects right away, his chest turning light and a dizziness chasing its way through his brain. “King Impis,” Wick says quickly.

It works, cutting off the moment of growing madness at once when Impis sits forward and lifts his chin. “Oh. I’d forgotten you.”

“You do not need the Netheris girl,” Wick states. “If there are any Sanctum secrets here, you have all the powers of your … Chaots … and the people you’ve found here in the city. Between us, we—”

“It was you,” Impis murmurs suddenly, his eyes wide.

Wick freezes, unsure what he means by that. “Me?”

“You freed her. You planned a scheme. You made this happen.”

Wick shakes his head at once. “N-No. I didn’t. Until we got here, I didn’t even know you had the Queen as a prisoner.”

“SHE IS NOT THE QUEEN!!” screams Impis, on his feet at once. “SHE WAS NEVER THE QUEEN! SHE HATES ME! SHE LAUGHED AT ME! SHE WILL HAVE EVERY THOUGHT STOLEN FROM HER BRAIN AND THEN I WILL KILL HER DEAD! I WILL KILL HER DEAD IN FRONT OF ALL OF ATLAS, I WILL, I WILL, I WILL!”

Wick’s knees grow weak and his stomach plummets at the sight of Impis Lockfyre screaming at him, the madness burning in his eyes and flecks of spit rocketing out of his flapping, furious lips. Athan is instinctively putting a shoulder in front of Wick, as if protectively. Lionis doesn’t seem to be breathing, standing on Wick’s other side. None of them know what to do.

Without looking at her, Wick reaches for Axel’s Legacy. If I can convince Impis to trust us using her ability of mind manipulation …

“You’re armed,” Axel says suddenly.

Wick turns his head toward her. “What?”

Then Wick’s whole body relaxes. Axel’s beautiful eyes dive into Wick so deeply, the world becomes a tunnel between him and her. Nothing else exists. He feels completely at ease. Axel’s inviting face observes him as he decides to trust her every word and suggestion. It’s stunning, how he was wrong about Axel. Everything’s alright. Axel is just as likeable, just as thoughtful, just as smart and clever as her twin Arcana. How could Wick have ever thought otherwise?

“Show me your weapon,” Axel suggests.

Wick takes out his hidden dagger. “This one?” he slurs lazily.

“It looks pretty sharp,” she observes. “Give it to your boyfriend.”

Wick puts his dagger into Athan’s hand.

“Great job. You’re a good person.” Her attention turns to Athan. “What’s your name, handsome?”

“Athan Broadmore,” he recites.

“Lovely name. Put that dagger to your throat.”

Athan calmly lifts the dagger to his own neck. Wick watches him in wonder, not sure what the purpose of this is, but knowing for certain that it is all for the best.

“Athan Broadmore, if your boyfriend Anny-Anwick here tries to harm me or King Impis,” she goes on, “I think it’d be a great idea for you to pull that sharp, deadly dagger right across your neck and let all your blood spill out onto the floor.”

“Great idea,” agrees Athan lazily.

Her eyes return to Wick, snapping upon him with the force of a whip. “And if you dare to sneak your little mimic hands onto my Legacy again, Anwick, I’ll be sure the last thing you feel is the cold touch of Metal Hand’s finger.”

The moment her influence lets go of Wick, the world seems to surge back towards him, much like waking up from a dream. His heart begins to gallop as the reality sets in of what just happened to him. His eyes flick over to Athan, who also seems to have sobered from the trance, except he still holds the dagger to his neck, apparently unable to pull it away. Athan’s widened eyes reflect the sheer terror that thrums within Wick’s chest.

“Wait,” interjects Lionis at once. “Listen. We’re not trying to do anything devious here. We’re with you,” he assures them. “Whether we’re in the presence of Axel or Arcana, it makes no difference. We didn’t lie to her and we won’t lie to you. We are here to join your regime. We don’t care for Ruena or the old, broken ways of Sanctum. The day you killed the Banshee was a day we celebrated.”

“Yes?” prompts Impis, folding his arms. “Do go on.”

Lionis nods with confidence. “You wanted my brother Anwick because of his power. He’s yours now. And he brought me because, well, because I read a lot. I know a lot. I can be valuable to you, too. And Athan here, he is skyborn. He knows the city intimately and had a brother who worked alongside the … the insufferably irritating likes of Janlord.”

“Very irritating,” purrs Impis in agreement. “Very insufferable.”

Wick stares at the side of his brother’s face, marveling at his brilliance. Lionis adores Janlord. Lionis looked up to him and watched his every speech on the broadcast. He’s playing Impis.

“Though Athan’s brother was killed, Athan himself has intimate knowledge of the workings of Sanctum, too. Janlord was very close to the corrupt, Sanctum-loving likes of Ruena, and so it was only a matter of time before Athan here learned the same dark secrets his brother learned. Secrets of Janlord. Secrets of Ruena.”

“Secrets,” hisses Impis, his eyes greedy and full of glee. He flits them onto Athan, his head flinching as it turns. “Tell me a secret.”

Athan, wide-eyed and still firmly holding a dagger to his own neck, says, “The … The Peacemaker was … was researching the effects of … of auto-borne—”

“BORING!” screams Impis. Then, instantly calm again, he says, “You know, I really don’t think I’m going to be pleased until I know that the girl is found and returned to me.”

“Y-You don’t need her,” Wick tries again feebly.

Impis crosses his legs primly, revealing his long red boots that curl at the toes. “You two,” he announces, drawing a figure-eight in the air toward Lionis and Wick. “Go and fetch me Ru-Ru. Did you know Janny-Janlord used to call her that? WHAT AN IDIOT! If you want to be part of my regime, you need to pay your dues, yes? I’ll name you both my personal Chaots if you bring her to me!”

“K-King …” stammers Wick, hardly able to utter the word.

“BRING HER TO ME!”

“She could be anywhere,” reasons Lionis in an even voice. Then he clears his throat and lifts his chin importantly. “Perhaps a bit of guidance might aid us in fulfilling your wishes, King Impis. Such information such as her last known location, the location of her palace, perhaps all known exits to the slums, the—”

When Impis leans forward in his chair so suddenly that his hair dances and all his feathers jerk, the rest of Lionis’s words swallow away. Impis’s left eye gives a subtle twitch.

“Guidance?” Impis purrs, amused. He does not blink as he stares at the brothers. “Axel. Help me give these boys some … guidance.”

A feeling of deep peace invades Wick again. He realizes at once that they truly are on Impis Lockfyre’s side. He knows how to turn Atlas into a city full of dreams, with citizens who face every day with a positive outlook on life, with happiness in their hearts and love in their eyes. Wick finds himself giggling suddenly, tickled by the light, friendly presence of Impis, his only true friend.

“If you set your mind to it,” Impis begins to sing, his voice rising and falling without melody, light and playful, “you can do anything!”

“Anything?” asks Wick dreamily.

“You can find the girl named Ruena … under a rock!” exclaims Impis. “Or hiding in a tree! Or floating in the air right above you!”

Wick and Lionis both look above them suddenly, then turn to each other and start to laugh hysterically at the joke.

“Boys!”

The brothers snap their eyes back to Impis, silenced, listening intently.

“You’re going to look everywhere for that girl. She is trying to hide from you. It’s like a game of Seek The Hiding One! Is that what the slummers call it? Don’t we all love games? I LOVE GAMES!!”

“I do too,” slurs Wick. “Me too!” Lionis exclaims in realization.

Athan calls out to Wick, but he’s much too invested in Impis’s important words. Good King Impis is trying to help them, after all.

“I bet if you put your mind to it, you could find her in just five minutes!” exclaims Impis with glee. Wick wishes he had Impis with him his whole life. He’s so motivating. He’s so imaginative and kind and smart. “I bet you could dig holes in the streets with your mind and find her! I bet you could even look through walls!”

“We can look through walls??” blurts Lionis, astonished.

“YES!!” screams Impis excitedly. “You can do ANYTHING! You can dance! You can sing! You can fly!”

Lionis gasps. “I can fly??”

“YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!!” Impis applauds loudly, drowning out all the annoying, bothersome noise of Athan desperately crying out their names. “Go, go, go, my soon-to-be Chaots! Find her!”

“Thank you!!” shouts Wick, bursting with excitement. “Come on, bro!!” he cries merrily, grabbing hold of Lionis’s hand.

The brothers burst from the throne room. Wick can’t believe how boring and powerless he’s felt his whole life. How can he have known that one simple pep talk with Impis Lockfyre could unlock so much power within him?

“I’m gonna find her first!” shouts Wick through laughter as he races down the stairs.

“Not before I do!!” Lionis yells back, grinning ear to ear.

The boys barge out of Cloud Tower and tumble over the debris that fills the courtyard. “Is she here??” Wick pushes over a heavy stone. “What about here??” He flips over another. The boys stare at the space under the rock, look at each other, then burst into laughter.

“Bro!” shouts Lionis when they’re in the streets, trying to climb up a lamppost. “I think she’s in the light!”

Wick grabs his head and stares up at his brother. “WHAT??”

“I think she’s in the light!!” he shouts, twice as loud.

“No way!!”

When Lionis loses his footing and tumbles onto his back on the pavement, they laugh until there’s tears in their eyes.

The brothers hardly notice the peculiar looks they get from the occasional person they pass on the road. A big red man with an ugly face and veiny muscles even backs away from them as they charge down the street, streaming with hilarious laughter.

“Bro, I’ve never had this much fun with you before,” Wick says, recovering from a bout of giggles. “Why didn’t we do this sooner??”

“I was thinking the same thing!!” The boys stop in front of a lavish storefront, a dark sky of glittering stars singing above them. “Anwick, I’m such an asshole to you …”

“Lionis, you’re smart. I wish I was as smart as you.”

“I wish I was as good-looking as you! Fuck, you’re handsome! I’d get so many girls if I looked like you!”

“Would you know what to do with them if you had them??”

“YEAH! I KNOW EVERYTHING!”

The boys cackle with laughter, then grab each other as they fall to their knees, buckled over in hysterics.

“I love you, bro,” murmurs Lionis.

“Same. Right back to you and your ugly face,” says Wick.

A sudden look of surprise flashes over Lionis’s face. “Anwick! What if the girl escaped to the slums??”

The brothers rush over to the side of the road and peer over the stone railing. The slums, dark and smoky, loom far below.

“How are we gonna look for her down there?” asks Wick with wonder, his eyes wide.

Lionis grabs Wick by the ears and faces his brother toward him. “Bro. Have you already forgotten?”

“Forgotten what?”

Lionis pulls him in closer, his eyes wide. “I can fly.”

Wick screams with laughter into his brother’s face. Tiny fingers tickle him all over as the tears spill from his eyes. “No you can’t!”

“I TOTALLY CAN! AND SO CAN YOU!!”

Wick gasps dramatically. “Lionis, I had a dream!” he announces, grabbing his brother’s face. “I had a dream that I could fly!”

“Because you can!”

“BECAUSE WE CAN!!”

Lionis lets go of his brother and climbs onto the stone ledge, staring down at the slums. “Bro. Come up here with me. The view. It’s so fucking beautiful. BEAUTIFUL!”

Wick keeps away from the ledge, eyes large. “I’m too scared,” he realizes. “You’re the smart one, Lionis. You go first!”

Lionis peers down at his brother smugly. “It’s simple, Anwick. Here, I’ll show you. You just open up your arms, like this …”

Wick straightens his posture. He opens his arms to either side, following his brother’s lead.

“You decide where you want to fly …”

“Done!” affirms Wick happily, deciding where he wants to fly.

“Then … JUMP!”

Lionis flies away. Wick gasps, rushing to the ledge and pressing his chest against it to watch his older brother fly. He stares after him in total wonder. I wish I could fly! He watches as Lionis soars into the depths of the slums to find Ruena, farther and farther away.

“YOU’RE FLYING!!” Wick shouts at him encouragingly.

In awe, he watches his brother as he vanishes into the darkness. He continues to watch him even as the soft, unassuming fingers of madness and mind control gently begin to let go. As Anwick Lesser is slowly allowed to have his mind back, the tears of awe turn into something else. His lips part. No. His misty eyes fill with horror as they scan the darkness of the slums before him in disbelief. No, no, no. He looks for Lionis.

He questions what just happened. He denies that it happened at all. He stares and he stares and he stares and he stares and he stares.

And he screams.

0207  Wick

Wick looks at no one and nothing as he marches through the streets.

A bald man rises to confront him. Wick feels a Legacy the way one feels a pen in their hand. He lifts the man off the ground with his mind and casts him to the side like a sheet of paper.

A set of gates move out of his way.

Someone laughs at him in the middle of the street. Someone else calls out tauntingly from behind.

The doors to Cloud Tower are still open from his departure.

The stairs that are countless kiss the heavy bottoms of his feet as he ascends them.

Wick shoves through the doors of the throne room, assaulted by the brightness of mirror and glass tiles, a world of whiteness and light in all directions.

“YOU KILLED HIM!” Wick screams, his voice ricocheting off every surface, flitting above him and cascading back down to his ears in fractured echoes.

Impis is still seated on his throne with his legs crossed. “Killed?” He looks perplexed. “Who?”

“MY BROTHER!!”

“Now, now, now,” warns the Mad King. “You heard Axel. If you try to do a thing to harm me …”

Wick stops at the foot of the steps leading to the throne. Tears dress his whole reddened face and his teeth clench so hard, he feels a piercing ache in his temples. When he turns his head, he finds Athan still there pressing the dagger to his own neck, terror in his eyes.

“Yes, yes, yes, my little Anny-Anwick,” purrs Impis soothingly. “Think, yes, yes, yes. Think. How did I kill your brother? I was here.”

Wick feels his head spinning. Is the madness still in me? “You infected us with your … your m-m-madness.” The anger is quickly shattering into sobs of anguish. Oh, Lionis. I fucking failed you. I let you die. “Y-Y-You and Axel did this to us!!” I fucking let you die.

He’s on his knees, face buried in his hands as the throne room fills to the very top with his wailing. His ears clog up with the noise of his own quivering sobs and his howls of despair. “LIONIS!” he screams into his hands. “MY FUCKING BROTHER! I’M SUCH AN IDIOT! I DID THIS! I FUCKING DID THIS!”

He can’t hear anything. He can’t stop screaming. The emotion erupts from him in endless waves, its source seeming to be infinite. There is no end to the pain inside him. No end at all. No means of comfort. Nothing can touch him.

“You have a choice here, my little Anwick.”

His sobs turn into chokes of air, his face wrinkled tightly. He shuts out the world and can’t see a thing.

“Join me. Axel here can give you as much guidance as you need to be convinced. Yes, yes, yes.” Impis giggles after that. “Or …”

The last sob leaves Wick’s chest, and then he falls silent, deflated and sunken and destroyed. Wick lifts his mess of a face to Athan’s, watching as his boy remains affixed to the spot with Wick’s dagger pressed to his own neck. ‘You hold your life in your own hands now,’ he hears Rone’s voice. ‘There, doesn’t that feel nice? No one can take it unless you hand it to them.’

“Or you meet your end,” finishes Impis.

Wick has no feeling left in him. He’s numb. He’s a shell. He’s too broken for breath. I just wanted peace. I just wanted a world where I could sleep in peace.

“Anwick …”

The appeal comes from Athan. Wick turns his face again.

Athan’s face is full of fear, but through it all, he speaks evenly and calmly. “Anwick. Just tell him you’ll join him. It’s what we came here to do. We came here to join his regime. We … Anwick, look at me. Please, Anwick. Just join him. Just tell him you’ll join him.”

If I try to kill Impis, my lover is dead. If I try to use Axel’s power again, my lover is dead. If I don’t join Impis, I’m dead.

He studies Athan with a sudden focus, curiosity replacing the despair in his eyes. “Are you truly a survivor?” he asks him.

Athan lifts an eyebrow, the dagger held so steady at his neck, it could be glued there. “What do you mean, baby?”

“Legacy.” Wick sniffs loudly, opening his eyes wider to combat the wall of tears that still swim in them. “Are you truly a survivor? Are we going to survive this, A-Athan, if I cling to your Legacy?”

Athan’s eyes gloss over. He’s losing his composure. “Anwick …”

Wick reaches for Athan’s Legacy, whatever it is. He prays to the three glorious Sisters that his Legacy truly is survival. Please, Sisters, help us survive this Madness. Protect him, forever. Protect me, for now. Wick reaches blindly into his boyfriend with his Legacy.

“You have a choice to make,” announces Impis.

Wick turns his face back to the Mad King, resolve in his eyes. “I will join the Madness,” he declares, his voice shaking. “I will join the Madness. I will be your Chaot. I will do anything you ask of me.”

“Anything?” Impis purrs, his eyes glowing hungrily.

Wick is swallowing his sobs. “Anything at all. Anything. I will do any—” Wick chokes on that last word, blinks away another bout of crying that he doesn’t want to let out, then resumes. “—thing.”

Impis stares at Wick so fiercely, it nearly looks like he’s staring through him. Impis crosses his legs the other way, then pinches his fingers, his left hand lazily flicking at some imaginary bug as his eyes remain glued to Wick’s, unblinking.

“No,” Impis finally states.

The one word slams Wick in the chest. “No?” he breathes.

“No. You are wrong, Anwick Lesser. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing is important to me … except one thing.” Impis turns his head toward the armored man at his side. “Entertain me, my loyal, loving one! I’m bored!”

Now it is Wick’s turn to whisper the word. “N-No.”

Metal Hand takes a single step forward. The world seems to quake from that one heavy footfall. Wick feels the tile shake beneath his knees.

“No, no, no!” begs Athan, desperately struggling to move, but he is trapped in place with the dagger at his throat no matter what he says or does. “NO!”

Wick feels the unwelcome tranquility fill his mind again. Axel. The fear is still vibrantly alive in his eyes and his heart, but his body has been put at ease. He feels no need to rise from the floor. He feels no need to move his arms. He feels no need to look away.

But his mind is a prison full of screams and protests and terror.

Metal Hand plants himself heavily before Anwick Lesser, a tall mountain of dark armor, doom in physical form.

There is so much I wanted to do with my life. There is so much I still haven’t done. This can’t be it.

The large, shadowy beast slips off his gauntlet slowly, revealing the infamous hand Wick never dreamed to see in the flesh.

So much yet that I wanted to do …

Athan screams. Athan begs. Athan shouts his lover’s name over and over. Wick can only stare at Metal Hand standing before him.

I was going to wake the world … I was going to dream bigger …

Metal Hand lifts the fateful finger.

There is so much still … so much I wanted to do …

“Nothing …” whispers Anwick.

And the finger touches his forehead.

ACT 4

0208  Athan

Anwick Lesser’s sleeveless red hoodie floats to the ground in a pile of jeans and shoes.

There is a moment of denial. Athan stares at the clothing on the floor, the clothing that once held his boyfriend. He can’t allow his mind past the wall of denial he’s just built. Wick is using one of the Legacies right now, Athan tells himself. Wick is invisible. Wick phased away. Wick is hiding in that pile of clothes. Wick …

Wick …

And then the scream of anguish rips from Athan so deeply, he forgets the dagger at his throat.

His arm is released from its obligation.

The dagger drops at long last. He doesn’t hear it.

And still he screams.

Athan staggers to the floor, his knees kissing the tile, and then he grabs Wick’s hoodie and muffles his screams of agony, thrusting the red hoodie into his face. Every breath is Anwick Lesser. He cries, then breathes deeply—Wick, Wick, Wick—then cries again, breathes again, cries again.

He brings the hoodie to his chest and lifts his eyes to Metal Hand, who is slowly putting the gauntlet back onto his hand. “No,” Athan whimpers. “Take me too. Touch me too. Please. Please.”

Metal Hand, as if hearing nothing through that big dark helmet, turns away and marches back to his place by the throne, each footfall thundering into the tile as he goes.

“T-T-Take me too!” Athan clutches the hoodie to his chest, like Wick is still holding him, like Wick is still here. “P-P-Please.”

Impis rises from his throne, a flick of annoyance in his stride as he descends the three steps. His curled toe kicks into Wick’s jeans, flinging them aside the way one would kick away a scrap of trash on the streets. “To the Keeping, I say,” Impis announces to no one in particular, his voice light yet irritated. “I’m quite done for the day. CHAOS! COME! I WANT TO PLAY! Hurray, hurray, hurray. That is what I say. Away, away, away …”

The voice and shape of Impis Lockfyre disappears down the hall of the throne room as he goes away humming a tune, soon followed by the sweaty young man who is Chaos, whose miserable expression is only matched by his equally miserable, broken posture as he sags exhaustedly, stumbling down the long hall.

Axel is in front of Athan suddenly. She crouches down, takes the dagger from the floor, and smiles invitingly. “This dagger,” she says, her voice gentle and sweet, making Athan doubt that she had anything to do at all with the horrors he just witnessed. How could she when she’s so kind and always knows what to do in times of uncertainty? “You ought to keep it. It should remind you of the price and the reward of loyalty.”

“P-Price and re … reward,” murmurs Athan drowsily.

“For some reason, though, I don’t think you’re capable at all of stabbing anyone with it. Whenever this sharp, sharp, sharp dagger comes near anyone’s flesh, you just can’t give it the extra push to draw blood. Don’t you think that sounds right?”

“I can’t stab anyone with it,” Athan agrees through a thick veil of tears.

She slaps the dagger into Athan’s opened palm, since his other hand still clutches the hoodie to his chest. “Let’s find you a nice, cozy room in the King’s Keeping. Don’t worry, we’ll put you far from where Ruena was. She has a way of haunting places.”

“I liked her,” says Athan to the dagger. “My brother was going to marry her and become the Marshal of Peace.”

“Come, Athan. Up, up, up.”

“They loved each other.” Athan rises to his feet, hugging both dagger and hoodie to his chest. “I loved Wick. He was my life. He—”

“Okay. Come. Enough chatter.”

“Enough chatter,” Athan agrees, feeling so at peace when Axel is walking alongside him. She’s so nice to care for him after his gut-ripping loss.

I’ll never be the same again. I’ve lost everyone.

When he steps into the small space behind the glass bars, he stares up at the tiny bit of window at the top of his cell, which spills in a modest spray of pale moonlight. Three walls of his very tall cell are made of the chrome brick of Cloud Tower. The front of his cell is a spread of tall glass bars, the middle of which is interrupted by a set of crisscrossed rods that swing open, serving as the door, and Athan hears that door shut behind him with a soft whirring sound, locking him inside, and it’s only then that he feels the influence of Axel let go of his mind.

Athan drops to the floor with Wick’s dagger and Wick’s hoodie in his grasp. He holds the items to his chest, numb, and thinks about Wick’s face back in the ninth ward where he woke up so many mornings next to him. He thinks about Wick’s sweet brown eyes and the touch of his lips against his.

Athan turns his head slightly, glancing through the glass bars. He sees someone in the cell across the wide aisle from him. It’s a girl with long tangles of dark hair, and on her face is a set of crooked glasses. She has one hand bare and the other wrapped in bandages.

“Athan Broadmore,” she recites.

He flinches at the sound of his own name. The odd girl looks familiar, but he can’t begin to imagine where he knows her from.

“I’m Erana Sparrow,” she says softly. “We met at the Windstone Academy. I am friends with Rone and I knew Wick briefly when he stayed there, even though he kept slipping out every middle-day and middle-night to see you. He never admitted it to me, but I knew. Well, I came to know, rather. I didn’t realize you were lovers until Rone told me. I miss Rone. He and I were lovers. Recently. But not anymore. Ruena too. All three of us, but we’re separated now. Were you all members of Rain? I’ve wondered it ever since, but never could bring myself to ask Rone. Why are you here? Did the Chaots catch you on the street? Where were you hiding?”

Athan stares at her blankly and lets all her questions and words swim around in the air, unanswered. He wants to cry a hundred thousand more tears. He wants to scream until his belly aches thrice as bad as it does now. There is anger and there is despair within him, and the forces are at war in his chest. They’re both winning.

“Oh.” Erana doesn’t move a muscle when she speaks. “Some … Something happened. Something … bad.”

Athan closes his eyes and tilts his body, collapsing to the floor. He holds his boy’s red jacket against his face and, for a brief moment, convinces himself that he’s lying next to him and holding him close. Erana says another word or two, but Athan doesn’t hear them. He’s lost in a dream world where he hasn’t lost his family, he hasn’t lost Anwick Lesser, he hasn’t lost his happiness, and everything is as golden as a Lifted City sunrise.

Somewhere in his dream, Athan Broadmore changes.

He has no more tears left to cry. There is no pain in his chest. Instead, a cold resolve has filled him. A determination. A strength. It will be me, he realizes at once, the dagger still in his hand, the dagger which he cannot let puncture anyone’s flesh. It will be me who puts a sword in the Imp’s belly. It can only be me. It will be Athan Broadmore who ends the madness. Me. Only me.

0209  Sedge

Sedge is standing in the foyer of the Mirand-Thrin Palace when Arcana bursts through the large, pearl doors.

Sedge is alert at once. “W-What’s wrong?”

“Pack. Get important things. Food. Clothing. Quickly, Sedge!”

The woman disappears into the house, a bewildered Sedge staring after her. He glances back at the front doors, which she left wide open. Feeling a chill, he rushes forward to close them.

“It’s all wrong!” Arcana shouts from the other room. “It’s all gone wrong! Everything!”

Sedge hurries to the doorway of the kitchen where Arcana is filling a big satchel of food. “Wrong?” echoes Sedge, scared.

“My sister fucking ruined everything. My sister traded places with me in Cloud Tower. She put me away and made me tell her everything.” Arcana doesn’t face him while the words fly out of her mouth. “They will come for you next. They killed him, Sedge.”

Sedge clutches the jeweled talisman at his neck. “W-Who?”

“Our only hope, that’s who.” Arcana slings the bag over her shoulder. “I’m going to kill my sister. I’m going to end her life, but not today. I’m through with the Madness. Sedge, you have to come with me. We need to escape before it’s too late. I still have the key.”

“B-But we can’t! They’ll find us! Impis’s Chaots, they … they …”

“We have no chance up here, Sedge,” she states, her voice terse and her words sharp as razors. “I don’t have my sister’s power. I only hear thoughts. My sister, she controls them. If she gets to me, she will own me. She’ll own you. She’d make us kill each other. She’s twisted like the King. Between them, this city’s a playground. We must go.”

We’ll be hiding our whole lives. We’ll be … “But R-Ruena …”

“IS GONE,” Arcana finishes in half a holler, her eyes wide with insanity. “She has escaped, Sedge. And the King is mad. The King is mad … as in angry and insane—both. We have to go.”

A surge of wild hope fires through Sedge’s body. She’s free. She got free. There is hope after all. Ruena is free.

With bags full, they slip out of the palace and race down the road toward the Trust, a Sanctum bank at the cusp of the Eastly and Westly where a certain lift will take them halfway down Pylon #208.

It’s at the door to the lift that Baigan stands, the big red idiot with the ugly face. “The hell you think you two are going?”

Arcana crosses her arms. “To the slums to hunt for Ruena,” she lies. “King Impis’s direct orders.”

Baigan’s eyes drift down to Sedge. “With the traitor?”

Arcana tilts her head. “Traitor?”

“Once a traitor, always a traitor.” The red idiot crosses his arms, his ugly, veiny muscles flexing and bulging grotesquely. “In fact, I got direct orders myself, I do. I’m not to let anyone down the lift.” He sneers with distaste. “Especially the likes of either of you.”

She purses her lips smartly. “Traitor. That’s a curious term of endearment you’ve chosen, considering the thoughts you’ve had about Impis Lockfyre and his Chaos boy lately.”

Baigan’s eyes go wide and his face, impossibly, flushes redder. “Get out of my head!”

“Get out of my way or I can’t get out of your head. By the way, is it that you’re jealous?” asks Arcana innocently. “You think Impis and the Chaos boy are a thing? I never took Impis to be a man of either men or women. His life’s love is power. Always has been.”

Baigan slams a fist into the wall, furious. “I’M POWERFUL!”

“You’re ugly.” She gives a flick of her chin. “Move aside.”

Baigan charges at Arcana, who quickly learns she is defenseless. She puts a bag before her in defense, then shrieks as he topples her.

Without thinking, Sedge becomes shapeless and slithers out of his clothes. He slips onto Baigan’s feet, then slides up the man’s pants, tracing up his swollen calves, his massive thighs, further still up his grossly inflated abdominal muscles and puffy chest.

“The fuck??” shrieks Baigan from above, confused.

Sedge feels his world shift, imagining that Baigan has gotten off of Arcana. That works to Sedge’s benefit as he continues to slide up the red idiot’s squirming body. And when Baigan shouts another word of protest, it’s into his mouth that Sedge slithers next.

Then Baigan can’t utter a word at all. He only gags.

Sedge can’t see anything. He feels himself restricted and pressed on all sides by flesh, but it causes him no discomfort. Nope. All the discomfort, I’m saving for poor, regrettable Baigan.

Sedge steels himself for one blissful second, then pushes a shape.

A gurgled scream becomes his world.

Bones snap. Flesh pops and crackles and splits.

When Sedge has eyes again, he’s emerged from a hole that’s burst somewhere in Baigan’s massive chest. Sedge kicks away as his body slowly forms back into a boy. He wriggles his soiled form in and out of shape, wringing himself of blood and fluid and mess. He gets to his feet when he’s at last a person again, still kicking away, and slams his back into the doors of the lift, naked and feeling his skin covered with things he’d rather not identify.

There is silence. Then, Arcana rises off the ground and stares at the grotesque shape of Baigan, who now wears the latest Lifted City fashion trend: an enormous boy-sized hole in his chest.

Arcana turns her stare of disbelief toward the round shape of unassuming, dainty Sedge, who pulls something slimy and gross off of his shoulder, flings it aside, then asks, “Do they have baths in the slums? I will be needing one.”

Just as Sedge fixes the silk back to his body and moves toward the lift, Arcana blurts, “Wait.”

He stops, alarmed. “What?” he whispers. “Is there a bit of lung or ribcage in my hair?”

Arcana glances back at the entrance to the Trust, a mixed look of doubt and pain crossing her eyes. The look worries Sedge, who prefers the cocky, quick-thinking Arcana to this second-guessing one who hesitates when they’re at the edge of the city, a second away from safety.

Sedge huffs impatiently. “What is it, Arcana?? Speak before I run down this lift without you.”

“We need to go back,” she murmurs grimly.

“What in the world for??”

Arcana gives a resolute nod, her confidence returning. “We are leaving them a Sanctum treasure if we go now. We must take the treasure with us. It’s equally our ticket to freedom as much as it is our leverage.”

Despite the danger they’re in, she’s utterly piqued his curiosity. “Treasure?” he sings. “What … treasure?”

Arcana reaches out a hand to him. “Come, Sedge. You will be needed, most of all.”

A feeling of importance surges through him. He nearly puffs up his chest—literally—in response. “Is the treasure gold?”

Arcana quirks an eyebrow. “If you count his hair.”

0210  Kid

Suddenly they have four mouths to feed again, except the fourth lives within Fae’s belly.

Kid and Link get into a rhythm of things. Fae remains at the house while Kid and Link, invisible, scavenge for food. Maybe we are the reason all shops in the ninth and tenth are known for being thieved and robbed so frequently; it was just an invisible girl and boy all along, desperate to survive unseen.

Fae eats a lot and Link watches, taking care of her and holding her in the nights when Fae cries. Kid’s noticed that Fae cries so much lately. Now that she has seemed to let down all her guards, she says she doesn’t truly know where she’s from, but that she misses her sisters so much, it hurts.

Kid knows that feeling, but she says nothing, opting to just stare at Fae wonderingly. She isn’t really a Goddess, Kid keeps telling herself, despite wanting to believe it anyway. It would be a rather remarkable thing, to learn that the Goddesses are nothing more than three actual girls, powerful beyond all means of measure, kept locked away in some secret place by Sanctum. Aryl will be locked away in some secret place too, many years from now.

She wonders how many things Sanctum has kept locked away.

Nearly a hundred sunrises go by before Kid decides she’s never seeing her parents again. She doesn’t tell this discovery to Link or Fae, who are too caught up in Fae’s growing belly, which is now a notable bump, as Link describes it. Also, she’s started to grow hair on her head, strangely. She has soft, light brown hair, a couple inches in length evenly across her whole scalp.

“What should we name our son or daughter?” asks Fae.

“Bad luck to name them before they’re born,” Link insists.

Fae finds that funny, giggling as she holds what little belly she has. “I never thought I would become a mother. I never thought I would have any sort of life outside of my sisters or …” But then her mind returns to the dark place from which she desperately keeps trying to escape, and so the rest of the sentence is left unsaid.

And Kid leaves her own discovery just as unsaid, holding on to whatever little memory still remains of her father’s voice—“Hide!”—or her mother’s—“I’ll be right back!”—and the masked men who keep breaking into her house over and over in her memory, over and over killing her father in front of her, over and over coming after her.

It is a nightmare that, strangely, becomes less scary each time. It’s so much less of a nightmare and more just a stray thought she has, except now it’s coupled with: I will never see them again.

A hundred more sunrises and sunsets of scavenging and hiding pushes Kid to finally say something. “What if they don’t show up?” she asks Link in the colorful room while Fae is downstairs.

“We’ve only been here for a few short months,” Link points out. “They—”

“Five months.”

Link frowns and glances out the window at their backs. “Really? Wow.” He lifts an eyebrow at her. “Five? Are you sure?”

“And fourteen days,” Kid finishes. “I can count.”

Link smiles. “Have I told you today that I’m glad to know you?”

“No.”

“I’m glad to know you.” He gives her head a rub, then squints when his hand catches on something. He draws the stem of a leaf out of her hair. “You need a bath.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Even Fae’s taken to washing her hair, now that she has some. Your neighbors have a circle of springtime water in their backyard.”

“I don’t want a bath.”

“You won’t feel the same way after one.”

Back and forth they go until Link gives up with a laugh, then goes to check on Fae. In his absence, Kid ambles lazily around the room, tracing the different sprays of color that decorate the floor and wondering what it would be like to be able to pour colors from her fingertips like Link can do. She gave him his Legacy back, Kid tells herself. Maybe she is a Goddess.

And if she’s a Goddess, why can’t she do anything she wants? Why can’t Fae make her parents appear? Why can’t Fae stop the tragedies of what will befall the slums at the hands of the Banshee King, and then later the Marshal of Madness? Can’t Fae simply blink and make miracles happen?

Weeks later, Kid is standing in the center of the colorful room upstairs again while the voices of Link and Fae chatting downstairs drift up to meet her ears. “I don’t think we should leave you here,” Link is reasoning to Fae. “I mean, us getting food is one thing …”

“But you wanted to see your family,” she says back, her voice sounding hurt. “I hate that I’m keeping you from seeing them. You and Kid should go. I will be safe.”

“We must stay together, always. That’s our rule, remember?”

“Link …”

“If you stayed here and then Kid’s parents show up, you’ll have nowhere to hide.”

“And if they showed up while you’re on a food run? What’s the difference?”

“And you certainly can’t come with us,” Link goes on, ignoring her concern. “That’s too far for a … for a pregnant woman to walk. You are too far along. It is too dangerous. Your health is the most important thing right now.”

Kid walks the same familiar pattern she always mindlessly walks when she’s in this room, tracing a line of royal blue color that runs in spirals out from the center of the room, ending at the right side of the window. Together, we’re safe. That’s what Link tells them over and over again. No matter what happens, we must stick together.

Stay together. Stay unseen. That’s their only two rules.

Together. Unseen.

And of course it would be Kid who, of all people, breaks both of those rules in one fateful night. It’s two dozen sunsets later that Kid waits for the sun to set and for all the lights in the neighbor’s house to go dark before she invisibly slips over the fence dividing their yards. She slips into the neighbor’s springtime pool with her clothes on. The cool, inviting water laps at her skin and feels remarkably cleansing. When she’s finally submerged up to her chest, she begins the arduous process of undoing each and every one of her braids. After her hair becomes an enormous nest of wiry curls and tangles and loosened knots, Kid sinks her whole head, then opens her eyes underwater and watches as her world grows dark with months and months and months of dirt and grime floating all around her.

She hears a noise.

Kid lifts her head out of the water to find a woman standing over her at the pool. The woman is not Fae, but rather the neighbor. Kid realizes, finally seeing the woman upclose, that this is the same neighbor she grew up with. Landy’s mother. Landy, the boy she used to play with as a child. Is he even born yet?

Kid is out of the pool in the next instant, but the words of the woman stop her. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

She turns to face the woman. Landy’s mother looks just the same as she remembers her. Full of cheeks, full of bosom, full of belly and thick of arm. Her hair is a loose, messy brown bun on her head and her eyes are round and soft.

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Kid, hugging her wet body.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Are … Are you lost? Do you live here? I haven’t seen you before.”

“N-No,” she says at once, slowly backing away to the fence.

Perhaps the direction of Kid’s retreat was her least thought-out action of all. Landy’s mother gives a lift of her chin toward the house. “Are you staying there? In that house?”

Kid stops in her tracks. I’m such an idiot. I’m so, so, so stupid. “No,” she blurts. “I was … I’m …”

“It’s okay.” The woman smiles warmly. “My husband and I own that house. We own both of these houses, see? This one, and that one. It’s simply empty until we find a buyer for it.”

Kid doesn’t respond, holding herself tightly.

“Times are tough,” the woman goes on. “King Greymyn holds a strict rule of ownership and, well, not much can be said of his brand of compassion that wouldn’t be sour-tongued of me.” She sighs and lowers her head to Kid. “Sweetheart, if you need a place to stay for a few days, it is quite alright. Though, I might recommend using the bath in there, as my pool, well …” She glances back at its now-murky waters. “My husband will have to clean it now, and—”

“I’m sorry.”

“I get the odd feeling you’re used to apologizing a lot,” teases the woman. “Really, no apology necessary. But dear, if you are running away from home and … and if your parents are looking for you, I think you really ought to tell me. Are you homeless, sweetheart?”

“No.”

The woman smiles. “Are you in danger?”

How can Kid really answer any of these questions without lying to the woman with every one of them?

“I take that for a yes, and a yes, you’re homeless, and a yes, you are hungry, and a yes, you need somewhere to stay. I have a spare room if you would like to be in the company of my husband and I. See, we have no children. Not for lack of trying, of course, just simply … ah, well, you’re too young for all that talk.” The woman laughs softly, looking away for a moment. “I suppose I’m just saying that if you—”

When she turns her face back, Kid is gone. Of course, Kid is standing in the very same spot as before, only now she’s invisible.

The woman glances to her left, then to her right. After a second of doubt, she murmurs, “Stay in the house if you wish, or simply knock upon my door if you’re hungry. Our door’s open to you.” And then the woman clasps her hands and walks back to her house after giving one last doleful glance at the dirtied pool. The back door shuts softly, and then the lights within the house go dark.

Kid pads across the lawn and quickly slips back over the fence, clothes dripping and her hair raining along the grass. Suddenly feeling too guilty to enter the house and warn Link and Fae about what just happened, Kid spends a few hours drying off by sitting in the grass and staring up at the sky. Her wet hair drips lazily down her back and her face. After a while, Kid’s mind is at ease again, wondering if the exchange was, in fact, a good thing. Did my parents buy the house from her? Will they show up any day now to buy the house from the neighbors next-door, the neighbors who don’t even have a boy named Landy yet?

The stars are like tiny gems in the sky tonight, and for a second, she imagines sitting next to the cold boy Kendil and musing about how pretty the stars look. He’d agree in his soft, strange voice, and then she wouldn’t worry at all anymore about the neighbor woman or affecting the flow of time or any of that stupid stuff. Why do I miss him?

She lets the stars carry her into a safer place where she need not worry about a thing, whether it’s being seen or not being seen, or worrying over food, or friends, or family … or just simply worrying over the lazy, unfeeling passage of time.

0211  Halvesand

Two Answers.

Halvesand stares at his shirtless form in the mirror. He’s lost so much weight that he nearly looks as thin as his brother Aleksand. He studies his dark tattoos—a network of marks that cut down his left shoulder blade in artful branches, then rush up his right one. He calls them his Two Answers, but lately they look like a million answers. His thinning body makes his shoulder blades poke out, ruining the effect of the design. It makes him sad, looking at them. Not to mention the brand new mark on the wound that’s drawn across his throat—the mark from which the doctor extracted a sample of the poison.

‘We tried to make an antidote, but we failed,’ the doctor told him just this morning. ‘The poison is not one that Atlas has ever seen. Truly unique … and deadly. I can still make you that neck armor to protect yourself from—well, from yourself,’ the doctor finished. ‘Your choice.’

All Halves sees in the mirror is a broken piece of shit that will never talk again, never run again, never fight again …

I’m a Guardian who can’t guard shit.

Halves bares his teeth, furious suddenly, but even that tiny act creates tension in his neck, hurting him. I carry a bomb in my throat, he muses. Not many people in Atlas can say that.

“Mr. Lesser? Do you need any help?”

Halves ignores the voice on the other side of the door. He lets the cane hold up all of his weight as it stabs into the tile by the toilet. He keeps staring at his face in the mirror, at the gash across his neck, at the visible ribs painted down his emaciated torso.

“Knock once on the door if you’re okay, Mr. Lesser.”

He would chuckle at that if he had a voice. ‘Okay’ is so relative.

“Mr. Lesser …?”

Halves picks up the knife from off the sink, the knife he swiped from Ennebal’s belt the last time she stayed in his room. It’s only fitting that if he leaves the world, it’s by a blade from a woman he thought he might someday love—instead of by the poisoned blade of a woman who just wanted to shut him up forever.

“Mr. Lesser?”

Halves lifts the knife to his own throat, watching himself in the mirror. Two Answers. He stares at the knife as it pokes at the left end of his wound. Just a little pressure and I might spill the poison both down my neck as well as my throat. His face hardens as he stares at the wound with mounting ire. Tears sting the corners of his eyes, as if two drops of skin-burning acid were dabbed upon them. Oh, but that is precisely the tears I’ll cry for the rest of my life: skin-burning acid. Halves wants to laugh so hard at his own jokes.

He is such a joke.

Somewhere deep in his mind, he can still hear the mocking laughs from Grute, his very first partner when he joined Guardian. Grute, the man he snitched on to Obert Ranfog. Grute, the man who had a knife thrown into his back by Obert Ranfog. Grute, the partner Halves killed with a word. Words are powerful.

Halves opens his mouth, the blade pressing firmly to his neck. Does he dare speak a final word? Words are powerful. Your blood is thin as water. Two Answers.

The doorknob rattles, the person on the other side discovering it locked. “Mr. Lesser. Can you let me in?”

Halves is breathing deeper now. His hand begins to tremble. He sees Ennebal giving birth to his son or daughter—or his nephew or niece—and he sees Aleks and her happily raising that mystery kid. I hope they name him or her something nice.

“Mr. Lesser.”

Halves grits his teeth.

Acid fills his eyes. He shuts them.

And then he pulls the blade across his throat.

The knife drops to the floor. His hands tremble. His body is as stiff as Sanctum steel.

Halvesand Lesser opens his eyes.

The blade did nothing. Halves’ Legacy stopped the blade from doing a damned thing to his neck.

Halves lets out a sigh—a sigh that aches and sends a sharp jab down his throat. Even my Legacy won’t let me take my own life. Even my fucking Legacy.

“Mr. Lesser.”

I don’t want to live anymore.

A key wiggles into the lock. The door at his back opens. Halves sees the face of his nurse in the reflection of the mirror, who regards Halves with a wrinkled brow and sympathy in his eyes.

“Come,” says the nurse, gently putting a hand at Halves’ back. “I will help you back to your bed.”

Halves shrugs off the nurse, using his cane to direct himself to the door. The nurse, for once, does not stop him, letting him leave to walk the halls of the hospital. Halves doesn’t care if the nurse finds the abandoned blade on the bathroom floor. Halves doesn’t care about anything. Whether he will be a father or an uncle in six and a half months’ time, he couldn’t care less. Let Aleks have the baby, he thinks to himself as he slowly moves down the hall one cane-stabbing step at a time. Let Ennebal have however many fucks she wants from as many men as she lets between her legs.

He stops, then slams his cane three times into the tile, angry. The cane-stabbing carries less force than he intended, for all the strength that doesn’t live in his arms anymore. All that training … All that work … All that focus … None of it mattered in the end.

“Halves.”

It’s his brother who calls his name. If anything motivates Halves to move faster, it’s the presence of his brother. He resumes his walk down the hall, piercing the floor with every step.

Aleks is at his side in the next instant, meeting his stride. “Hey, bro. I heard the news. I’m so fucking sorry.”

What does my brother have to be sorry for? Halves wonders. The fact that this crippled condition of mine is permanent? Or the fact that he fucked Ennebal and maybe put a baby in her?

“Remember, though, that the city is broken right now. We don’t have access to all our resources. Just imagine what a Sanctum doctor could do for you. After Impis is taken down, we can get you the real medical attention you deserve. You’ll be healed, bro, I just know it. This isn’t—This isn’t the end for you.”

Two old ladies in grey robes pass by. They give a small nod to the brothers as they go, their robes brushing along the tile.

“New volunteers and assistants, every day,” mutters Aleks. “See? There were so many people who fled the Lifted City, and I’m certain that a doctor will turn up someday. A smart, talented doctor. Not this nut from the fourth who’s washed up here and can’t even identify a simple fuckin’ poison. What a moron. Hey, let me help—”

Halves shrugs his brother’s hands off of him, annoyed. He leans against the wall to catch his breath, holding the chrome cane with its button pressed, the one that keeps it upright and infallible.

Aleks bites his lip stupidly, staring at his brother. “Alright,” he mumbles. “No help, then. I get it. You probably get nurses and … and idiots all over you all day long. Don’t need one more idiot on you.”

Halves closes his eyes, frustrated with his older brother’s tireless self-deprecation on his behalf. I don’t need you to constantly insult yourself just to make yourself feel better about how fucked up and broken-down I am. I just need you to leave me the fuck alone.

Quite suddenly, Aleks fulfills that wish, giving his brother a brief pat on the shoulder and saying, “I’ll see you later at dinner, bro. I’ll save you a seat,” then walking off, his hands plunged into the pockets of his jeans.

Halves watches him until he disappears around the corner. A pang of hunger hits his stomach, which he resents because every damn thing he eats tastes the same: bitter and foul and acidic. Poison, Halves thinks, his mood as bitter as everything tastes. Everything I am is poison. Poison in my throat, in my tears, in my mouth …

He pushes off the wall and continues to walk. He doesn’t let go of the button, however, and the cane remains stubbornly in place, not moving with him. Misjudging his next step, Halves twists his body to release his cane, then loses his footing and collapses onto the floor with a grunt that hurts his throat worse than the fall hurts his body.

Halves clenches shut his eyes, in pain. He stays there on the floor, the cane annoyingly upright and perfectly in place, ignoring his voiceless pleas and his anguish. From the floor, he stares up at the cane and the button on top of it—a button he’s supposed to use to call for help. The irony of the situation tickles him with dark humor.

He closes his eyes, the pain dancing about in his belly and his neck and his twisted legs.

“Come,” murmurs a voice above. “Let me help you up.”

Halves opens his eyes to a woman in a hooded grey robe. Before he can protest, she grips him by the shoulders and pulls him to his feet. He sucks in air through his clenched teeth—his only way to express the pain of being pulled off the floor—and then the woman guides him down the hall, his upright cane forgotten.

“Come, come,” she urges. “Which room’s yours? This one?”

It’s only seconds later that he’s shuffling back into his room, guided by the woman in grey, who brings him to the bed. She gives him a lift with her hand until he’s settled onto the mattress. Then, she gives the sheets a careless tug, pulling them over Halvesand.

The grey hood drops down to her shoulders, revealing a head of black, spiky hair, as she adjusts the sheets caringly around his body.

Halves looks upon her face for the first time.

She meets his eyes. The smile on her face dies.

Recognition dawns on them both.

In the next instant, Halves leaps from his bed and tackles her to the floor with all the feeble strength of half a man, his legs tangled in the sheets and ripping from his bed as they go plummeting to the floor—Halves atop her. She protests with a chorus of, “Wait, wait, wait!” but soon her words are muffled by the sleeve of her own grey robe as Halves pulls the length of it over her neck and mouth, pressing it with all the strength he can manage. Murder is in his eyes as he bares his teeth. Drool and spittle lazily dangle from his snarled lips as the woman beneath his clutch hisses and splutters for breath, unable to get out from under his unmovable body.

Her desperate eyes lock onto his pleadingly.

He bares down on her, keeping his weight in place, keeping the length of fabric firmly over her mouth and throat, slowly strangling the life out of her.

And then her hand draws up from somewhere near his waist. Something sharp tickles his abdomen, but his Legacy won’t let the weapon in her clutch pierce him. The sharp thing comes up to his stomach, then his chest, and finally the point of her knife is at his neck, threats in the woman’s eyes.

If only I knew that I could choose to end my life today at the sharp point of Mercy’s knife—or Ennebal. Two Deadly Answers.

Halvesand Lesser pushes his neck against her blade, daring her. He opens his mouth, and through a hiss that escapes his burning, anguished throat, he hisses the words, “Do … It …”

Mercy’s eyes flicker with uncertainty, the knife still held firmly at his throat, ready despite Halves’ stubbornly loyal Legacy.

The two tiny words are agony, but he repeats them. “Do … It …”

Mercy’s eyes no longer reflect the threat of death. They now fill with something else entirely. Something sad. Something faraway.

Halves doesn’t even realize it when he loosens his grip. Mercy breathes deeply as her airway is revived, but her eyes searchingly remain on his. The emotion in them seems to twist into something more curious as she continues to study him.

The acid of tears finds his eyes for the second time today as he stares down at Mercy, the woman responsible for what’s happened to him. She’s right here. She’s beneath his body, trapped, unable to go anywhere. Against all odds, the woman has unknowingly come straight to him and landed in a trap at the foot of his hospital bed.

And they only stare at one another. Why can’t I kill her? He is now staring upon her in much the same way that she stares back.

“I thought I killed you,” Mercy whispers. “H-How …?”

Of course, Halvesand can’t answer. Not truly. He feels his lips growing wet from their hanging open in shock. When the first drop of blood lands on Mercy’s cheek, he realizes the wetness on his lips is blood, his price for uttering those two tiny words twice.

Mercy doesn’t flinch when the drop hits her cheek, nor does she flinch when the second one does. She just stares up at him with her beautiful, searching eyes.

Beautiful …?

“You want to die?” she questions quietly, gently. “Is that it? You survive my poison … impossibly … and you … you still want to die?”

Halves feels sick suddenly. He feels his bottom lip quivering, the tears desperate to fall out of his eyes. He’s staring down at his worst nightmare and he can’t even bring himself to quash it out.

“If it is your wish to die,” she goes on, her words slow, “all you need to do is kiss me.”

An acid tear drips from his eye and lands on her cheek right by the gifts of his blood. She squints, her only indication of pain, but she still doesn’t look away.

“Kiss me,” she repeats, “or live.”

Two Answers.

Halves thinks of his son or daughter. He thinks of his nephew or niece. He thinks of all the races he won against Aleksand, and the ones he lost.

He brings his lips to hers.

His eyes shut and he feels the tender flesh of her lips as they join. He tastes nothing, yet feels a surge of desire. He remembers the armor she wore—the armor she’d taken from his dead partner Pace’s lifeless body. He remembers how she looked when she stripped that armor off in that room in the Lifted City, just before binding him to the wall. He remembers the look in her eye then, a look he will never forget as he passes to the other side, his life having come to an end.

He pulls away from the kiss, then falls onto his side next to her, waiting for the poison on Mercy’s lips to make quick work of him.

Mercy rises from the floor. When Halves opens his eyes, he finds her staring down at him wearing that same curious expression, the grey hood drawn up again to cover her hair and cast a shadow down half her face.

“I can’t kill you,” she says softly to him. “I won’t.”

Halves licks his lips, searching for the poison. A sting of deceit cuts him deeply. Twice, she’s deceived me with her poisons and her tricks. He stares up at her, incredulous.

He makes a grab at her ankle, but she parries, taking one step away. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I learned the hard way that there is no antidote to my poison. My brother’s life was the cost of learning that lesson.”

Halves doesn’t care if his throat bursts. He doesn’t care if he must live with the agony for days just to utter these words, but he does it anyway: “K … K-Kill … me …”

“No,” she says simply.

“K-Kill …”

“There’s a reason you’re alive,” she states, her voice losing the touch of sympathy it had a second ago. “There’s a reason you’re the only fucking person who survived my poison. The Sisters—who can all kiss my ass for as much as I care for or believe in them—gave you that pretty little Legacy of yours. A Legacy that saved you. And you want to lie there and beg for me to still take your life? After all that?” Mercy snorts at that contemptuously. “Fuck you. If Dran could still be alive, even with just a scrap of life left in him, even without legs, even without a fucking voice, he’d fucking appreciate it and make everything out of it. He’d fight to live. He wouldn’t grovel at the feet of a woman like me—a woman who’s so despicable that even Sisters abandon her. Fuck you for trying to waste your life. You already had a chance at my mercy, and your Legacy saved you from it.”

Halves’ eyes blur even worse as the acid tears fill them again. A drop spills from the side of his face, burning a path as it races away.

Mercy brings the blade to her lips, giving it a kiss. “If it’s been your dream to kill me ever since you woke up and realized you’re still alive … then rest assured, I’m already fucking dead. I died the day my Dran did.” She pockets the knife with a huff. “You’re not some weak, sickly thing. You’re the only asshole in all of Atlas who survived my poison. Now go do something with that. Win a throne. Save a life. Write a poem. I don’t fucking care. Just live.”

With that, the woman in the grey robe sweeps out of the room, the breeze from her robe wafting over the hairs on Halvesand’s arm, inspiring a chill deep within him. Lying on his back on the cold tile floor, Halves stares blankly at the ceiling with wonder in his eyes. Did all of that just happen? Did all of that truly happen … or is the poison in his mind as deceptive and cruel as the poison in his neck?

0212  Rone

Rone strolls down the streets of Atlas, alone.

He doesn’t see a damn thing. He isn’t being wary or cautious or aware of his surroundings. He might as well be strolling down the hallway of a friend’s house, for all the care he gives the dangerous part of the seventh he’s in. Is it the seventh that he’s in?

He decides it is, and he feels warm. Hey, I’ve been here before, he reasons loosely. There’s a reason they call it the Skinny. Rone pulls his shirt off in one careless go and pitches it to the side, forgotten. He won’t need it anymore. Who cares?

Rone doesn’t give two slummers’ shits about the state of the world, about the Madness, about the anarchy in the streets. He’ll be happy to kick the ass of the next person he sees, or else grab them by the ears and pull them in for a wet, stupid-faced kiss. “It’s the Reign Of Madness,” he calls out to no one in particular. “Who gives a shit? My name’s Rone. Nice to meet you.”

There is no one on the street. Rone wonders if that last swig of chemical is working his system nine times as hard as it usually does. He hadn’t had any chemical at all for months, he realizes. Perhaps he became sensitized to its effects.

That’s about as little or as much thought as he gives it. From now until his last day alive, he’ll be a chemical mess.

The invisible voice had followed him for quite some time, guiding him from one end of the Lifted City to the other, it seemed. There was a tunnel, a lift, a backstreet or two, then another lift, and … well, he stopped paying attention to where he was going at that point. He remembers little of what happened before he was suddenly ambling down the streets of the slums, ignoring the voice that kept offering to help him, that kept urging him to protect the item, that even resorted to threatening him.

Even now, he’s not completely convinced that the woman who bore the voice has gone away. “Are you there?” he calls out, deciding to test it. “Is this your Legacy? To cast your voice halfway across the city? Or is it invisibility? Are you a voice or a person? Never mind, I don’t really care.”

Rone sits cross-legged in an alleyway with the syringe in his palm. He tosses it to his other hand, then tosses it back. The clear fluid wiggles within its glass confines.

“You,” he says accusingly to the liquid, though his voice is light and his tone, playful. “You are what my sister died for. You. Well, you and a friend of hers. I suppose that’s noble, at least,” Rone decides with a hiccup and a sigh. Really, is he still truly influenced by the chemical, or hasn’t it worn off ages ago?

Rone aims the syringe at his own chest, curious. Should I try to taste you through my heart? Will you be nine times stronger than that splash of chemical I had to honor my dead sister? He holds the point of the needle there, its tip nearly tickling him. He lets it graze over his nipple, which slowly hardens. What are you? he asks the syringe.

It’s medicine for a treasure beneath the floor. Was that really his sister’s words, or has he warped them in his mind? A weapon in your arsenal. What the hell does that even mean?

And why didn’t she just say directly what she wanted him to do with it? Why the riddles?

“Please don’t stab yourself with that.”

Rone’s eyes flick up. He stares ahead where the voice came from, but sees nothing. It’s the woman’s voice, the same one who led him to his sister.

“Why can’t I see you?” he asks the air.

“It doesn’t matter. Please don’t waste the serum.”

“Serum?” He pulls the syringe from his chest and gives it a light wiggle, the clear liquid dancing inside. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell this is and what I’m supposed to do with it?”

“I already told you what your sister said to do with it.”

“But I don’t know what it means.”

The voice seems to move toward his right. “A treasure beneath the floor?” she questions. “Was it a floor at your house? Or is she talking about the Waterways? The sewers?”

“I’ve never been. We have nothing beneath our floors at home.”

“The Noodle Shop?”

Rone grows still at those words. How does she know …? “Who are you?” he asks, his tone turning hard.

“It doesn’t matter. Think, Rone. The fate of Atlas depends on it. Think on what it means. A treasure beneath—”

He reaches out suddenly and his hand grabs hold of an ankle. In an instant, he looks up to find the shape of a naked woman his age. She wears nothing but a silk piece over her breasts and another at her hips. Her hair is cut at the neck, a mess of light brown tangles that dance in the night breeze. He is stunned by her beauty.

“Are you … Are you a Goddess?” he asks.

The woman looks alarmed at first. Then, her face lightens and she offers him a small smile. “Not really,” she answers.

Not really? Rone won’t let go of her ankle. He slowly brings himself to standing as his hand slowly runs up her body, careful not to let go of a single part of her. For some reason, the woman lets him, though her eyes grow more wary by the second. When he is finally on his clumsy feet, the two stand eye-to-eye, and his hand is gripping her arm. He feels like if he lets go, she’ll vanish again.

“I much rather like talking to you when I can see you,” he says.

“I can’t stay for long,” she warns him. “I must go soon.”

“Tell me what this serum is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess. Tell me what you do know. What was my sister doing there? What was that place?”

The woman has soft eyes that search his for the longest while. He can’t tell if she’s admiring his pretty eyes or sifting through a memory. At this point, he welcomes either possibility. A lifetime of endless sex and chemical-guzzling would please him greatly and take him far enough away from the grief of his sister that he might never feel a thing again.

Then she says, “Cintha was part of a great experiment involving a lot of … patients. They were trying to remove her Legacy.”

The words gut Rone. He knows them to be true in an instant. If there was ever a thing Cintha would wish for, it would be to be rid of her sexual Legacy.

“When Sanctum broke apart,” the woman goes on, “they were destroying all evidence that the place existed. That involved killing all of the patients, too, and every last drop of that serum that’s in your hand.”

Rone glances down at the syringe in his free hand. His eyes go in and out of focus, but he blinks away the effects of the chemical that must still be swimming in his body, even from that little splash of it he had.

“I don’t know what it does. But if I had to guess, it has a deadly effect … or else a neutralizing one. When I found Cintha, she was already bleeding her last, and she was looking for a friend … a friend who I was also looking for.”

“Bleeding her last …” whispers Rone, trying to picture it, trying to be there with his sister, even if he wasn’t.

“I stayed with her until the end. She wasn’t alone.”

Rone feels his insides hollow out. No, it’s too soon. Don’t cry. Don’t let it out or else you’ll never stop. Rone lets go of the woman, and in an instant, she’s gone, just as quickly as she’d come. He steps away from her, the syringe clutched tightly in his fist.

“Rone,” calls the woman’s voice. “She wasn’t alone.”

And now I am, Rone decides, still backing away. His heel kicks into the side of a dumpster. He circumvents it, then turns and starts to walk away.

“Rone … Please …”

He starts running. He can’t hear another word of it. Ruena is gone. Erana is gone. Cintha is gone. Wick and the others, they are lost to me. Rain has no more place for me. My family is dead. Everything …

Everything …

When he still hears the voice cry out, Rone plunges through a wall, reckless. He pushes through a house, his solidified feet kicking into glasses on a coffee table, knocking over a lamp, and kicking up a rug from the floor. Two men at a table shout out at his arrival.

But Rone is out of the back wall as quickly as he came in through the front. He’s in the den of another house, three kids on the couch in front of a blank broadcast. The three kids look up, fear in their eyes.

Rone charges through them, phasing through wall after wall after wall, bursting into home after home after home, until he’s back on the street and still running, running, running.

Running.

Running.

He isn’t sure when it happens, but something catches his foot and—thankfully—he manages to turn solid just before crashing face-first into the ground. He doesn’t bother getting up, letting himself enjoy the sting of whatever scraped-up mess now lives on his face. He peeks open an eye just to observe the syringe still in his grip, and has a second or two to marvel at the fact that it’s not broken.

“Let the Madness stay mad,” he mumbles to the syringe, his lips half-kissing the pavement. “Let the world get what it deserves. Let the Lifted City fall. I just want to bleed in peace for a while.”

And bleed in peace he does, staring at the syringe and basking in a pool of his own stinging pain, his filth of not having bathed in weeks, and his longing regret of things that could have been and never will be.

A shadow pours over him coupled by soft footsteps that come to a stop.

“I thought it was you I heard,” comes the familiar voice, a young man, someone of the streets, judging by the tone.

Rone doesn’t care who it is. Hopefully they have a really long sword and can sheathe it right through my back, he thinks. I would let them do it. It might even be comfortable.

“How’s that pavement taste?”

Rone pushes air out of his lips, staring at the tip of the syringe, the needle, the thing that’s supposed to save Atlas. Rone starts to laugh. All these big swords … All these pointed daggers … All these fired arrows and long blades and Weapons Of Sanctum … and his sister says this tiny syringe is the answer. Rone laughs and laughs, his aching body jostled by the laughter.

“You’re fucking crazy, aren’t you?” asks the man standing over him. “Lost your damned mind, huh?”

Rone laughs until tears spill from his one eye that isn’t buried in pavement. The tears run down the bridge of his nose. He can’t stop laughing. His belly aches and his lungs are sucking in air for each and every little laugh.

“Get up, fool. Come with me. Oh, you’re such a mess. Got you all drunk on chemical and sky-dreams, huh? Is that it?”

The shadow shifts, pushing Rone onto his back. Rone is still laughing hysterically. He hardly even sees or recognizes the young man standing over him through his blurry, tear-filled eyes.

“Up, up,” says the man, pulling Rone off the ground.

The syringe slips from Rone’s fingers and lands with a soft tap on the pavement as he’s carried away.

0213  Arrow

The red fire glows in the distant sky, a bolt surging there, a bolt surging somewhere else, a bolt surging yet somewhere else, and then the red fire goes to sleep. The bolts come more frequently now.

Arrow sits in his makeshift control room surrounded by his charms, which have been silent since Wick and the others left the train and boarded some sort of lift, judging from the mutterings under Lionis’s breath. Communications became fuzzy as they went up, and then they ceased at once. Arrow has spent the last day and a half trying not to panic. It doesn’t mean the worst, he tells himself. My charms have never tried to speak at such a vertical height. Even in the sixth ward tower, my reach would sometimes fail me.

But then he finds his eyes locked onto a certain other charm that he made back at the Noodle Shop, a cup-shaped bit of metal whose sister fell down into the sewers. Is there an organization of power that they must stay wary of other than the one in the sky? Is there truly some sort of world beneath their feet, too?

Against his better judgment, Arrow heads out of the room and goes down the narrow stair to find Prat. The kitchen feels so empty and unused without Lionis here. He sighs as he passes it, wishing either of them paid more attention to Lionis’s work in the Warden’s tower so that they might better prepare their own meals instead of constantly going over to the neighbor’s Iranda and Auleen, who seem to eat eight times a day even with a little baby to take care of.

He finds Prat in the front yard sitting under the big tree, a spread of papers on the grass around him. “Hey.”

Prat looks up and gives Arrow a mild nod. “Any word?”

“Nothing,” mumbles Arrow. “I overestimated my charms.”

Prat smirks, a worried look in his eyes. “Do you think someone has a Legacy that can … neutralize charms? Like, turn them back into just bits of dead metal?”

“Maybe. I have no idea. All I know is, the Marshal of Madness has a hand-picked selection of Legacies up there. Fully curated, a lot of useful, unique, capable Legacies. He’s bound to have neutralizers of some kind. It’s just a matter of math, really. And besides …”

When he glances back at Prat, he realizes Prat’s returned his attention to his papers. Even after he’s stopped talking, Prat doesn’t seem to be listening, writing something on one sheet of paper, then drawing lines on the other.

Arrow sighs lightly, watching him, then decides to engage him elsewise. “You made an office out here in the yard?”

“There’s a desk inside, but it’s in Wick’s parents’ room, and … well, y’know. That’s weird. I can’t be in there.”

“Okay.”

Prat drums the pencil against his thigh as he speaks. “I’m trying to recall as much as I can from everything we had in your system in the sixth. I’ve drawn and redrawn the maps so many times, there’s a lot I know from memory. Some of the stuff from Athan is gone, since I’ve only really drawn out parts of the Lifted City once or twice.”

“Hmm.” Arrow leans against the back of the tree, staring down the street and wondering if Wick and the others will just appear with word from the King that everything is alright, that some agreement has been made, that some semblance of peace can be known. I’m a fool to wish for any of that. A bigger fool to expect it.

“She’s with Auleen and the baby,” says Prat suddenly.

Arrow furrows his brow. He knows Prat’s talking about Ivy, but he puts on a nonchalant air anyway. “Who?”

“You know who. She’s become obsessed with the baby. I think it focuses her, you know? Like, after the loss of her family and all the bad stuff she’s been through. She really needs the distraction. It’s hard to even hold a conversation with her, what with her jumps.”

“Her jumps?”

“She jumps sometimes.” Prat nods languidly, then gasps with the memory of something hitting them and scribbles down a note on the paper. “Eastly and Sunrise, that was it. Not Sunshine.”

“I’m gonna go back and listen some more,” mumbles Arrow.

“Damn, wish I’d asked Athan these questions before he left,” says Prat, as if not hearing a word. He scribbles something else down, then draws a circle on one of his papers and writes a name in the middle of it, wrinkling the acne-pocked skin of his forehead as he concentrates.

Arrow pushes away from the tree and makes his way back to the house. Just when he reaches the door, Prat says, “You should see her, Arrow. I think she’d appreciate it.”

He stops in the opened doorway, turns his head slightly. “Huh?”

“Ivy. She’d appreciate it. She’s kind of confused about you.”

Arrow feels an icy chill run through him. He’s suddenly very aware of the weight of a gun that still lives wedged in the back of his jeans, a gun with six bullets still in its chambers. “Confused?”

“She wants to know why you saved her.” He hears Prat shifting, perhaps looking up from his work or dropping his pencil down. “For that matter, why did you save her?”

Arrow doesn’t owe that answer to Pratganth. He owes it to Ivy Caldron, and even then, does he really? Her life is saved. His dad’s life is not. Why does it matter the reason for his saving her? The last thing he feels like is a hero. I went there to kill every last member of a family, not to save one of them. I’m not a hero.

“Hey, that’s fine, don’t answer, I don’t exist, no big deal.” Prat snorts and returns to his work.

Arrow ignores the slight and heads back into the house. He also ignores a growl in his stomach, figuring he’ll just skip a middle-day meal and go for a dinner from the finger foods and bins of slum stew that seem to emerge every night when the parties in the streets begin. It truly is a party every night out here.

An hour later, he’s still sitting in the room that used to belong to one of Wick’s brothers surrounded by his charms. He picks up the cup-shaped one, which hasn’t uttered a word since that moment it caught voices in the sewers. “Probably just a crazy band of mentally-warped sewer dwellers who feed on rats and worms and smell of things worse,” Arrow decides. “Just the musings of idiots who are as sick and deluded as the Mad Fool in the sky.”

He had left the front door of the house open, so when he hears the footsteps come up the stairs, they startle him. A few more soft footfalls and he feels the presence of a person standing at the opened doorway of his little control room.

He knows it’s her before she even speaks. “Arrow?”

Arrow picks up another charm, suddenly deciding to appear very busy with it. He is very, very busy doing busy things, busily. He regards her with a grunt of greeting, but doesn’t turn his head.

Ivy doesn’t take a step into the room, as if some magic power keeps her from entering. “I … I was wondering if … um …”

Arrow drops the charm he was holding, having fumbled with it, then grabs another one, turning it over and over in his hand.

“Never mind,” she says, leaving the room.

He stops turning the charm, then sighs. When the girl’s made it halfway down the short narrow stairs, Arrow says, “What is it?”

She stops. From the staircase, she speaks softly, but her voice still carries in the silent, cramped house. “What were you doing that day in the sixth?”

Arrow feels the cold wet fingers of the five murders he did not commit that day taking hold of his neck, slippery as noodles. “What are you talking about?” he mumbles lazily.

“You weren’t supposed to be there.”

Arrow squints, not following. “Huh?”

“Everyone in—Rain, is it?—Everyone in Rain was angry with you. You had no missions in my part of the ward. The woman with the frizzy hair and … and the bald man, that’s what they said. And Prat, too. No one knew why you were in my neighborhood.” A few footsteps brings her back up the stairs and to his doorway again. “So now I’m asking you. Why?”

Arrow can’t tell her the truth. He’ll never tell her the truth. The only way the words would slip past his lips is if Ivy lay dead beside the rest of her family. You cannot burn, he’d say if he had the nerve, but you can still bleed.

“Why?” she repeats. “You show up in my part of the sixth ward unannounced, no purpose in the world at all. Then the Laughing Finger strikes. And you’re there to … to rescue me? It cannot just be all a coincidence, Arrow. I don’t style myself a suspicious girl, but … it just doesn’t make sense. Please. Help me make sense of it.”

Your father hired Guardian to rape and ruin my family forever. All of you stood by and laughed when my father was ridiculed for his good work—whatever that work was. You are as guilty as the men who broke my sister and spilled my father’s blood and soiled my mother’s bed. I wish the Finger took you, too.

“Or don’t,” she says softly, and it doesn’t sound cruel, the two words. “Maybe I just have to put my grief somewhere. I suppose I’m just greedy. It isn’t enough that you saved me. Now I need you to save my mind from going insane with doubt and suspicion. I’m just asking too much.”

Greedy, yes. Quite greedy, you are and have always been. He does not need to have known her over the years to know the type of girl that stands close to him. She is the kind who has been served her whole life by lesser people, even being of the slums and not the sky. People in the sixth ward, they are warped, thinking themselves to be entitled to special treatments and respect.

And that expectation has made her hungry for all the comfort and consolation she can possibly find. Clearly she’s found it in Prat for the last few weeks—or however long it’s been. Arrow has had to suffer the witnessing of Prat growing close to her, floating away with her from the Warden’s tower like the real hero, holding her close, standing by her, speaking up boldly for her. Arrow knows damn well that if the Finger Of Madness struck this far out here in the ninth, Prat would be the first to piss his pants and run for his life, abandoning Ivy and all his friends.

But Arrow won’t say any of that. Listen first. Swallow all the words you most wish to say. He swallows hard, all his resentments moving so slowly down his throat, he’d swear he’s swallowing the whole planet.

“Arrow?”

“I lost my family,” says Arrow vaguely.

Ivy doesn’t respond, but he feels her body grow still, listening.

Listening.

“And Athan?” Arrow goes on. “He lost his family too, every last one of them. Poisoned by a mystery poisoner. Wick’s family broke apart, his mother missing, his father imprisoned for life. Victra …” A flash of her face hits him so hard, he shuts his eyes as if that could block him from the sight, but it only emphasizes it worse. “Did you know Victra’s a distant descendant from the Kingsword bloodline?” he murmurs, eyes still shut as the image of a blindly fumbling Victra is before him. He keeps talking despite his throat’s constricting. “Her great-something-or-something was a p-past King or Queen. She’s … She’s got cousin’s blood, though, so it kept her slumborn her whole life. I wonder …” The image of Victra changes. She seems calm. They are at the Noodle Shop loft together, sitting across from a table. She lifts her heavy, blue-lidded eyes to him. ‘What’re you lookin’ at?’ she asks, smirking. “I wonder how differently she’d have lived if she was born on the other side of the family. If she’d be alive today or not.”

The silence from Ivy feels chilly, as if her self-important sixth ward self can’t bother to acknowledge any pain that they are all going through, too obsessed with her own. She’s probably even trying to remember which one Victra was, since we didn’t even have a body to bury because of me.

Arrow grabs two of the charms, angry suddenly, and pitches them out the back opened window. He hears the soft catch of grass or tree limb as the useless charms find new homes in the backyard.

“Fuck it all,” he grumbles, burying his face into his hands.

He wishes Ivy would just go away. He doesn’t even care anymore that she survived. Let her survive. Let her suffer with the rest of them. Maybe it’s a more fitting punishment than the bullet he had planned for her.

“I do understand everyone has suffered,” the girl in the doorway goes on. “I’m no different. I had sisters. I had a mother and a father and a plan for my life. Now I have … nothing. I don’t even have a home. I’ve been wearing these same clothes for weeks. The showers are insufferably cold. The food is boring. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t really know any of you. I’m out here in the middle of … of the ninth … and I have nothing and no one.”

“Nothing and no one,” Arrow repeats back to her coldly.

“I mean …” Ivy sighs. “I have you and Prat and the brothers and Anthean, whenever they return, but I don’t—”

“It’s Athan,” recites Arrow, his voice turning colder. “His name’s Athan. The brothers are Wick and Lionis. They have names, too.”

“I know, I knew them. I just—”

“And nothing, you say?” Arrow has risen from his chair. Ivy’s eyes flash by his change of demeanor. “Nothing? You don’t have this roof over your head? You don’t have the comfort of walls and doors and shelter? A street full of friendly, laughing people who embraced you the moment you arrived? Women a door down who have a baby that they let you hold and feed and play with? Nothing?”

“I didn’t mean nothing, Arrow. I just meant—”

“You live in the slums, and you can’t stand the life of a slummer. No, you had it so much better in your Hightower in the sixth.”

Ivy’s jaw drops. “I resent that word!”

Still, Arrow doesn’t listen to his own advice, for once opting to spill all the thoughts in his head, including the words he most wants to say. “You don’t know what nothing is. You want to try a taste of nothing? Walk the streets and find your own damn meals for a week. Dodge arrows aimed at your face instead of appealing for sympathy and explanations from the Arrow standing in front of you. My point is sharper than any of the ones you’ve ever had to dodge your whole life, if any at all, you privileged, spoiled rotten, Sanctum-licking—”

Ivy has turned to run away, her face reflecting more indignance than hurt. Even in her anger, her footsteps down the stairs are so dainty and light, it annoys Arrow all the more.

“I’m not finished with you!” he shouts out, his little, tired voice booming somehow. He tries to ignore the dark, double meaning in his words, the weight of a gun at his back and a mission he’d set out into her neighborhood in the sixth to accomplish. Impis did four fifths of the work for him. The final fifth just took off out of the house, unable to face her own demons. Just like a typical Hightower, Arrow decides heatedly. First to demand, last to supply.

He collapses into his chair and stares at the silent, dumb charms. With a sweep of his hand, he knocks them all off of the table and pounds a fist into the wood, infuriated. “I’m tired of listening, dad,” he hisses at the desk, resentful, unnerved. Every time he speaks, he regrets his words. Listen … Listen … Yet all he hears is silence and his own pulse in his inflamed ears.

0214  Kid

It took undoing all the braids to realize that her hair is so long, it touches the backs of her thighs. On a morning when Fae complains of being so exhausted and having back aches, she asks Kid if she can distract herself by playing with her hair. Kid shrugs, not caring, and sits on the floor in front of Fae with her back turned while the young pregnant woman slowly and gently braids the whole length.

The next morning, Kid finally breaks her silence. “The neighbor woman knows we’re here. Her and her husband, probably.”

Link and Fae stare at her, as if not hearing the words.

“But I think we’re okay,” Kid goes on. “She … only knows I’m here. And she saided that I could stay as long as I want. They own this house and are looking for a … buyer? She even saided I could—said I could eat at her house sometime. She was nice.”

Link sits on the floor with such weight, he issues a short sigh. His eyes stare ahead in a blank stupor.

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Kid to a wide-eyed Link who can’t seem to respond. Tears start to fill Kid’s eyes. “I messed up. I should have gone invisible when I went to the neighbor’s pool. I should’ve—”

“It’s okay.” Link presses his lips together as he glances back and forth between a teary-eyed Kid and a worried Fae. “Maybe … Maybe it’s actually better. Maybe …” Link puts a hand to his cheek, thinking it through. “Maybe it’ll even help hide us better. If the neighbor knows that someone is staying here, she might be less inclined to … hunt for a buyer. Maybe she thinks she’s doing you a favor, letting you stay here.”

Kid wipes the tears from her eyes. “R-Really?”

“We’ll see.” Link gives her a reassuring wink. “Only time will tell. Really, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ll just group up, all three of us, turn invisible, and find another place to stay.”

“I like this place,” mumbles Kid.

“Of course you do. And we will return again. We won’t give up on you. We’ll see your parents again, Kid. I’m kinda curious to meet them myself, after all this buildup. They better be really cool people,” he teases.

The humor lightens Kid’s mood at once, and suddenly she runs across the room and hugs Link, grateful that he isn’t angry with her. Link rubs her back, and soon Fae joins him at his other side, and the three of them stay there, cuddled in the corner of the room as the light shifts through the windows, indicating the passing of the day.

More weeks turn into more months, and soon Fae is so large in her belly that she looks too big to even move. “Are you gonna give birth to twins?” asks Kid one afternoon when the two of them are sharing food while Link’s upstairs. “Or triplets? Or—”

“I certainly hope not,” teases Fae with a light giggle.

“You will need to think of three names,” Kid decides smartly.

“What’s yours?” Fae says, wrinkling her face with curiosity. Kid hugs her knees to her chest, as if withdrawing from the question. “I know what you like us to call you, of course, but you’ve never told us your name. Your … true name.”

When Kid still remains silent, Fae nods and tells her it’s okay, that she doesn’t need to say anything. Kid hears her parents’ voices again, echoing from some distant, long-forgotten memory she’ll never have back. The longer they stay in this house, the less she feels she’ll ever see them again.

There is noise at the front door. Fae and Kid exchange a look. Is today the day? wonders Kid, her eyes bright and filled with as much glee as there is fear. Kid helps Fae off of the floor. She grabs the bag of supplies too, pulling it into the invisible world. Then, they listen.

Link, Kid suddenly realizes with terror. He’s upstairs. Fae seems to come to the same discovery, gripping Kid tighter with worry.

In that same instant, the front door opens and voices pour in. “Right there, yes, inside,” commands a woman. Soon, a brawny man and a brawnier woman carry either end of a couch through the door. I know that couch. It is set in the middle of the den right in front of an invisible Fae and Kid, who watch with wide eyes. More men and women come in carrying more and more furniture—each piece of which strikes wonder in Kid’s eyes. My furniture. All of it. This is the furniture of my childhood. A fateful table is brought into the dining room, followed by six very familiar chairs, three set at either side of it. A tiny table is brought in and set next to the couch. Then a tall dresser, slowly brought up the stairs, which alarms Kid the worst. There is nowhere to hide up there, she thinks to herself, horrified. Her body trembles while Fae holds her tightly.

At the sight of a man carrying a large broadcast screen toward them, Fae and Kid quickly sidestep into the kitchen, giving him room as he installs the device into the wall. More people enter through the back sliding glass door with kitchen appliances and more items.

“Yes, good,” says the woman from before, coming into the den.

It’s the neighbor. Kid watches her with wonder as she inspects the place, looking to her left, to her right, and then coming to a stop in the kitchen with her hands clasped, a perplexed look on her face.

“Something wrong, Ms. Reeda?” asks one of the deliverymen.

She gives a curt shake of her head. “No, no. I’m just …” She looks up at the ceiling, then back at the man. “You didn’t happen to see a little girl upstairs, did you? About this high?” she adds, putting a hand in the air around Kid’s height. “Really long hair?”

“No one’s here. Why? Got a squatter situation on your hands?”

“Oh, no, nothing of that sort. Just a sweet girl who, um … lives down the street,” the neighbor—Ms. Reeda—sweetly lies. “Sometimes she plays in this house. Nothing to worry on.”

“Got it. Hey, interesting paint job in that upstairs room, by the way,” the man adds. “A bit … exotic for my taste, but interesting.”

The man leaves through the back door while Ms. Reeda stands there for a minute with another perplexed look on her face, unsure of his meaning. She dismisses it with a wave of her hand and heads back to the living room to discuss the placement of a few decorative items on the side tables near the couch. “Yes,” she instructs them. “Good. I don’t want to scare a potential buyer with this décor, of course, but it is neutral enough for a tenth warder, subtle enough for a ninth. Maybe even an eleventh would find it in good taste.”

It’s an hour later when the men and women have vacated the house—which is now fully furnished from top to bottom—and the front door at last closes behind Ms. Reeda. Fae stays put while Kid rushes up the stairs. “Link??” she calls out, worried. She bursts into the colorful room, which now holds a bed, a desk, and a tiny chair by the window. Oddly, the furniture looks so much smaller than she remembers. “Link??”

“Here,” he mumbles.

Kid crouches down, finding him hiding under the bed.

“Close call,” Link says tiredly. “I had to slip into the bathroom until they brought in this bed. Are they gone now?” Kid nods, and so he slips out from under it. He gives an approving look at the new furniture. “Feels like an actual home, now.”

“Come downstairs,” Kid says, fussing and still not quite at ease. “We c-can’t be apart. They might come back. Maybe there’s more … things they want to bring in.”

“Good point.”

Link comes down the stairs with Kid, and the three of them gather in front of the broadcast screen, ready to turn invisible should they have any more unexpected visitors or deliveries. But the rest of the evening finds them free of company, and they are able to enjoy a meal from the bag of supplies that Kid was thankful she’d pulled into her realm of invisibility. Had the delivery people discovered it, they would have lost all of their things.

Instead, they now have countless other things. A couch. Tables. Chairs. A broadcast. A bed. Decorations. Lamps. Kid can’t believe her eyes as she walks about the house, recognizing once again how all of the furniture in the house is—

“—mine,” she finishes when she explains her discovery to Link.

Link chuckles. “Is that so? All of it, you say? Maybe your mom and dad will buy this house as is, and all this furniture will become theirs.” At the mixed look of wonder and worry in Kid’s eyes, Link gives her shoulder a reassuring rub. “Don’t worry, Kid. I’ll be here and Fae will be here when your parents arrive. Hey, you liking Fae’s hair? Soon, it’ll be as long as yours, maybe.” He chuckles. “Together always, remember?”

Kid glances at the dining room table, visible from the front door, and her heart sinks with fear. Later, as Link and Fae cuddle on the couch and murmur words of comfort to each other, Kid stares and stares at that table, picturing a little six-year-old version of herself hiding underneath it, just as her dad told her to do, then watching him die before her eyes at the hands of the masked men.

I won’t be afraid, she tries to tell herself, despite all the fear that rushes into her. I am a ghost and ghosts cannot die.

0215  Mercy

The streets are as silent as death at this time of night.

Mercy catches a hint of smoke in the air. Maybe something beautiful burned down. Maybe a family was torn apart, their screams unheard through the ripping, toiling flames. Maybe the Laughing Finger just spent some time laughing in this neighborhood.

When she comes around the corner, she sees a group of people in rags and tattered clothing around a fire pit. A man rubs his hands over it while a woman holds a stick with bits of food at the end of it over the dancing flames.

Mercy stops and watches the scene. It isn’t quite the picture of doom she was imagining. She hates to admit that the scene warms her heart, but it does.

“I thought I killed you,” she says to herself, hugging her body and leaning against the grimy brick of a building. The smoke from their fire pit intoxicates her. It’s a far better taste in her mouth than the constant bitterness of venom. “I don’t know anymore which is the greater mercy. Letting him live? Or letting him die?”

“Letting who die?”

Mercy turns to find the soft-eyed Sister man named Scot in his grey robe. Clutched in his hand is Mercy’s robe, which she had torn off her body and discarded on her way out of the Eleven Wings.

She narrows her eyes challengingly. “Why did you follow me?”

“I care about you. I was … w-w-worried.” He swallows hard and hugs her robe to his body protectively. “You dropped your robe.”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“I’m done with the Sisters.”

“Which Sisters? Us? Or the Three?”

Mercy hisses at him like a cat. “Both,” she spits at him, then turns back around to watch the people at the fire pit across the street.

“I wish you wouldn’t abandon us. The Sisters can be a home for you.”

“They don’t want me any more than I want them.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh?” Mercy turns her head again, eyeing the stupid, weak-looking man with the annoyingly perfect hair and the soft eyes and the softer body through which she could skewer him on her knife like a marshmallow. “Then allow me to enlighten you. One or more of our fellow Sisters is a thief. They have stolen a precious item from me. Lady Agdanagon is a wimp who can’t even approach her own blood sister with the accusation. Promises. Promises. Lies. Lies. I’m finished with the whole dirty, scheming lot of—”

Her words are cut off when he lifts his hand. Upon the middle finger, there lies the dull shimmer of a ring.

Mercy pierces his eyes with her own, but finds herself far less angry than she is astonished. “You …?”

“I …” He swallows hard and starts to pull the ring off his finger. “I was just … My feelings were … When I first …” He grunts, trying to pull the ring off. It appears to be stuck. “Really, I didn’t mean to … um … Listen, I …”

Mercy takes his hand. At first Scot flinches away, like he fears that she’s meaning to hurt him. Instead, she only takes his hand and brings the finger to her mouth, her eyes resting on his.

Scot parts his lips, watching with a racing heart and quickened breath.

Mercy, ever slowly, sucks his finger into her mouth. With her tongue, she teases and works on him, which causes Scot’s breath to push and pull even harder, his eyes wide and unblinking.

Then his private ecstasy quickly becomes a wince of pain as she pulls her mouth off with the ring upon her tongue. A soft, hissing steam issues from his finger, which he clutches against his body, a moan of pain wriggling out of him as he stares at it, alarmed.

Mercy pulls the ring from her mouth and slips it upon her own hand. She observes it, slick from her poisonous saliva.

“What’d you d-d-do to my finger?” Scot moans in a strangled voice, holding the hand firmly against his chest as he fights an urge to shout in pain. “It’s burning. It’s b-b-burning.”

“The other option to reclaim my ring was cutting that finger straight off,” she says, then quirks an eyebrow. “I call that mercy.”

Scot studies her eyes carefully as he tries his best to swallow his pain and not show any of it. He fails, but at least he tries. “Mercy,” he murmurs. “Who are you? Who are you really?”

“Take off that miserable grey robe of yours and I’ll tell you.”

He falters, the searing pain of his finger forgotten momentarily. Then, as if a match was struck instantly in his head, he drops her robe to the ground and fumbles for the binding of his own, loosening the tie and drawing the huge ugly thing over his head. He wears only a pair of tan linen shorts underneath, the rest of his torso, bare. He runs a hand sideways through his bright blond hair, as if to ensure that his perfect part is still in place. Then he crosses his arms self-consciously and waits for her approval.

Mercy’s eyes scan down his body. He was hiding quite a form beneath that big ugly robe. The man clearly has seen a gym several days a week throughout his lifetime, though he keeps a lean and simple form. He has no ink on his pale, peachy body, and his nipples are small.

“Now tell me straight,” demands Mercy. “Why my ring?”

Scot swallows. “B-Because … you intrigue me. A-And …”

“And?”

“And I like you.”

Mercy tilts her head. “You like me?”

“I think about you. Every day. Ever since I joined the Sisters. I like your eyes. I like the color of your lips. I find them ex-ex-exotic.”

Mercy purses her green lips automatically, not meaning to. The compliment must have sprung them to life. She turns the accidental flinch into an effort of biting the inside of her cheek as she squints and observes the soft man.

Then she says, “So you want to fuck me?”

Scot shakes his head. “N-No. I … I didn’t mean to objectify you like some pleasure girl from the slums. I simply like you.”

Some pleasure girl from the slums. Now the truth is made plain. “How about you tell me who you really are, Scot,” she says, her voice deep and deadly.

“Me? B-But …”

“You aren’t really from the Maiden’s Mercy. That was a lie. You aren’t from the fourth ward at all, are you?”

He sputters several times before he presses his lips together, his eyes cast downward. Then he gives a quick shake of his head, no.

“You’re from the Lifted City,” Mercy goes on.

After a moment of reluctance, Scot nods.

“You ran off after the King was felled,” she states, assuming his story without his uttering a single damn word. To that, Scot meekly nods again. “You abandoned the Lifted City and ran for safety. After some time of fending for yourself in the slums, you happened upon the Sisters, who took you in after your little lie of being a healer from the fourth ward hospital.”

“It … It wasn’t a lie.”

Mercy tilts her head the other way, waiting.

Scot clears his throat. “I was a healer in the Lifted City. I worked for the Westly Wish, a Sanctum clinic. I was a healer.”

Mercy nods. “But the rest I have right?”

“Mostly.”

“Feel free to fill me in, Scot,” she says flippantly. “And if I sense another lie come from those pretty little lips of yours, I’ll take off that finger of yours and cast it in the fire pit at my back.”

“I m-might just ask that, with as b-bad as this burns,” the man says to his chest, still clutching the hand to it. Mercy isn’t sure if he meant for her to hear that, or if it was his odd way of trying to lighten the tension between them. “Is this your Legacy? Pain?”

“Poison,” she corrects him. “Now speak. Everything. Out.”

“My girlfriend Amma, she was with me in the Crystal Court the day Impis broke blood on the glass stage. We ran together, hand in hand, but … I ran f-faster. She f-fell behind. I was pushed on by the crowd of others escaping that I … I c-c-could not go back. After I made it out, I thought that I could sneak in, that I could find her, but I was too afraid. And then lightning struck and everything exploded. Glass. It was raining glass. I ran until I was dizzy.”

And then Scot’s face wrinkles, his eyes flooding with tears in one quick instant. He brings his hands to his face to cover the emotion that spills from it—his good hand and his hissing one, the one finger of which is red and welting in three spots from the poison Mercy dowsed it with. For a moment, Mercy feels an untimely sting of sympathy and wishes she hadn’t done that to his finger.

“Your girlfriend Amma is dead,” says Mercy.

Scot drops his hands suddenly, his face a mess of tears and his eyes red. “W-What?”

“She’s dead. Say it.”

Scot stares at her as if she’s gone mad. “B-But I don’t know that. She could b-b-be hiding. She could be up there or down here and—”

“Amma is dead.”

His shoulders collapse as he gazes at the ground, his lips parted and the tears sitting on his cheeks, half-spilled.

The next instant, Mercy takes his hand. “Dran is dead.”

Scot snaps his eyes up to meet hers, confused.

“Dran,” she repeats. “He was my fiancé. You heard me right on the road that day. And he is dead. I must say it every day. I must know it as certain as I know that I have hands, that I have poison on my tongue. Dran is dead. Dran is never coming back. Dran is gone. In one quick instant, he turned to dust at the bare finger of Metal Hand. Dran is dead.”

After quite some time of staring into Mercy’s eyes, something seems to awaken in Scot’s soft ones. “A-Amma …”

“Go on.”

“Amma is dead.” He says the words too quickly at first, as if not really hearing them. Then, he repeats them, slower. “Amma … is … dead.” He swallows. “Amma is dead.”

“Dran is dead,” she recites.

“Amma is dead.”

“Dran is dead.”

“Mercy is alive.”

Her lips are parted with different words on her tongue, words that now go unspoken at Scot’s sudden change. Mercy is alive.

“Mercy,” the soft man states, “is … alive.”

She stares into his eyes, affected beyond what she would care to admit out loud. “Scot is alive,” she whispers back, her words clipped.

“Mercy is alive.”

“Scot is alive.”

In the smoke-filled street, Mercy chooses to leave the last two words of those sentences unsaid. Maybe part of her wants to cling to hope for once. Maybe she’s ready to do something meaningful with her life. Maybe she’s been made to see something by this soft, weak man that she refused to see before. Scot is alive. Mercy is alive …

For now.

0216  Ellena

Their destination is but two blocks away. Ellena’s new home. The Guardian holding in which she’ll be kept for the rest of eternity. Or at least until the Reign of Madness has ended … which might also be an eternity.

“You may have known my first cousin once removed. His name was Wendor,” Gabel goes on.

Ellena squints, curious. “That name rings a bell, yes.”

“He was your Warden of the ninth before he was murdered. Janlord broadcasted the news that Wendor Wayward fell ill and needed to be replaced, but I was told the truth. He had been poisoned overnight, though no one can say how. His lips were black, as if burnt, but his tongue was grey. His eyes, dry and purple like prunes. Nastiest poison anyone ever saw. Not many mourned him. Even my great-grandfather, once King of Atlas, referred to little Wendor as his other grandson.” Gabel chuckles. “No one respected him much.”

“What an awful way to die,” mutters Ellena, then becomes lost in a whole other train of thought, thinking on poisons and afflictions and pain. She can only imagine what Halvesand experienced when he was attacked, cut at the neck by a poisoned blade.

“They discovered Wendor was auto-borne the day they found his corpse.” Gabel chuckles again, each time he laughs sounding twice as hollow as before. “Late discovery, I suppose.”

“That leads one to wonder a thing or two,” says Ellena, grasping at the slight shift in thought, despite it being a morbid one. “How does one come to discover that they are auto-borne … if one must die in order to discover it?”

“A simple test,” Gabel answers. “One trip to the doctor can tell you. They inject a serum into you that induces a false state of sleep. Then they run a little test, and when you’re brought out of the state, they have for you an answer.”

Ellena lifts her eyebrows, surprised. “Didn’t know such a thing existed.”

“It is more common in the Lifted City, I imagine. I don’t know of a doctor here who might perform the procedure. It’s quite advanced.”

“Sounds expensive too,” mutters Ellena.

Gabel doesn’t say anything to that, which rubs Ellena a bit the wrong way. She can’t help but feel a great dividing wall between them. She becomes more aware of exactly how lowborn she is in his presence—and how very lowborn Gabel Wayward is not.

Before entering the building, Bee places cuffs back upon Ellena’s wrists. “It is just protocol,” she explains flatly.

The inside of the building is bright, and its front is protected by three separate locked doors, each of them guarded and each of them seeming to be secured by heavy Sanctum tech, the likes of which Ellena has never seen. She is so astonished by the simple procedure of entering the building that she hardly notices when she finally makes it inside. Too soon they are aboard a lift, and she feels herself ascend into the heavens. The building is so tall, she imagines being taken to the Lifted City to await her trial before the Banshee King, until she remembers that there is no Banshee and there is no King—at least, not a true one.

They enter a quiet floor. “This way,” says Bee, directing her to a door quite close to the lift. Ellena glances left and right, the hallway stretching onward forever, but she gets to enjoy and see none of it, pulled into the dimness of a plain, unremarkable room.

It is the boy Guardian Cope who undoes her cuffs, only to redo them to a post in the center of the room. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“What am I?” teases Ellena dryly. “A dog on a leash?”

Gabel gives the others a nod. Bee and Cope leave the room with Cope giving her one last lingering look, as if regretting having to leave her. At least Ellena would like to believe that’s the reason for the reluctance.

Then the door shuts and it is just Gabel and Ellena. “The others will report to our Lead Officer,” he explains to her.

“And … I am to sit in this room and rot away?” asks Ellena.

Gabel’s eyes drift down her body, ending up somewhere at her delicate waist. Somehow, the look in his eye is not sexual, but rather hard and pensive. “No,” he finally says, sounding a bit like a decision.

She takes a step toward him, her ankle cuff rattling. “No?”

He closes the distance between them, bringing his face in front of hers. They share breath for a moment before he says, “I am going to do you a favor. But you must do something for me in return.”

“Oh, lovely,” she murmurs. “Is this when we fuck again?”

“That cannot happen anymore,” he states simply. “The favor has nothing to do with our bodies. But what you must do in return does.”

“I … don’t follow.”

“You must swear to me not to use your Legacy.”

Ellena’s face wrinkles. Now she is quite confused. “I really don’t follow.”

“Swear it. If you don’t cooperate, I will return you to this room and I will put you back in the gloves. They have metal ones here, ones that won’t even let you mind an itch upon your face. They will make you suffer, those metal gloves. Do you understand me?”

“Why would I use my Legacy?” she questions, taken aback.

“Are you ready for the favor I’m going to do for you, Lesser?” After a brief moment of staring questioningly into his eyes, she finally concedes, nodding. “And do you swear not to use your Legacy under any circumstance whatsoever?” After another short pause, Ellena shuts her eyes and gives another nod, then opens them upon his handsome face and sharp green eyes. “Good. Come.”

After being detached from the post, a cuffed Ellena is guided out of the room by Gabel, who keeps a hand at her back as he brings her down the hall. Ellena drinks in the light of the building, revived at once. She sees friendly faces pass by, but they only regard her with suspicion—or not at all. I am a prisoner, she is reminded coldly.

“This is humiliating,” she complains. “You know I will behave. Please, Gabel, the cuffs—”

“I do not mean to humiliate you, Lesser, and you know it,” he states firmly, “but this is the new Guardian headquarters now, and I must follow protocol every step of the way. My bosses are watching. We must both behave,” he adds after lowering his voice.

Ellena catches his drift, then contains the rest of her complaints to herself.

They arrive at a doorway. Gabel peeks inside first, as if to check for something within. Then he faces Ellena importantly. “Remember your part of our deal, Lesser.”

“No Legacy,” she recites blandly. “Got it.”

“Good. Come inside.”

Ellena moves past him and glances into the room. There is a hospital bed by the window in which a young man rests. The man is covered to his chest in a mess of bed sheets and blankets, and a large dark grey mechanism is covering his entire neck, braced with a long metal strap that goes over the top of his head.

The young man’s eyes turn, seeing her. A spark of recognition sets his eyes on fire as they widen.

Ellena’s face breaks apart. She slaps a hand to her mouth, then tears across the room, at his side in an instant. In tears, Ellena makes to hug her bedridden son, then thinks twice on it, not knowing how much pain he’s in, or whether it would be harmful to jostle him with that big contraption affixed to his head.

“My Halves,” she breathes, the tears spilling down her face as she keeps a hand over her mouth, muffling her words. “Oh, my son!”

He doesn’t respond except through his eyes, which stare at her with such widened intensity that the whites of them shine. He opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak. Of course, Ellena realizes. He can’t. The poison. His throat.

“My baby.” Ellena is afraid to touch him. Which parts of him hurt? Which parts of him don’t? Even his arms are under the sheets. Not a speck of his skin is visible except for his neck and face. “Oh, my poor, poor baby.”

Halves blinks, a tear escaping his own eye, which causes him to wince. Ellena notices a red path drawn by the tear, which alarms her, as she worries for a minute that he just shed a tear of blood.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” she says, her body pressed into the side of the bed as she looks upon her son. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Lionis is okay too, sweetheart. He’s with your Aunt Cilla in the ninth. She’s looking after him. Oh, sweetheart, I can’t stand that I wasn’t here for you. I want to take your wounds from you so badly. Sweetheart, I would do it in a heartbeat, you must believe me. I can’t stand seeing you like this. It is so cruel.”

“Lesser.” The single word of warning comes from Gabel at the door.

Ellena sighs, clenching shut her eyes for a moment, then wiping away her tears. “That mean man at the door, he won’t let me use my Legacy. That was …” She sighs, realizing now why she was made to promise the very thing she promised. “That was what I agreed to. I’m here now. I’m here at this hospital with you. You’re not alone. Your mother’s here.” She reaches to touch his face, a natural impulse.

Gabel is at her side the next instant, pulling her away from the bed, but not before her fingers grace Halvesand’s cheek for half of a second. That one little touch is all Ellena gets of her son before she’s pulled halfway across the room. She fights Gabel for a brief moment, then thinks the better of it, calming herself as she stares at her son.

“Let me back over to him,” she hisses at Gabel.

“I warned you, Lesser.”

“I made no use of my Legacy,” she breathes, doing everything within her power to contain herself from throwing rabid fists and fingernails into Gabel’s face. “I am still honoring our deal. Let me see my son. Please.”

Gabel leans into her ear. “I will let you closer, but I will stand between you two. If you take even a scratch of his wounds …”

“I know. I get it. Enough. Let me near him.”

Without letting go his grip on her, Gabel brings Ellena back to Halvesand’s bedside. Halves lifts his hand underneath the sheet, and without waiting for any form of permission, Ellena grabs hold of it. Gabel lets her. “My son,” she murmurs softly, rubbing his hand with the bed sheets between their skins. “I’ve missed you. I love you so much. You know I love you, don’t you? Oh, sweetheart.”

The words turn to moans, and then to a choked silence as she stares at her broken Halvesand, who can’t even turn his head with that ugly machine trapping it in place. The two pour all their words out through their eyes, everything that can’t be spoken, but felt.

One generous hour later, Ellena is brought back to her room. “Thank you for that favor,” she chokes out to Gabel when he chains her to the post again, the salt of her dried tears seasoning her cheeks.

Gabel inclines his head, as if he means to plant a kiss upon her forehead, then turns away abruptly, giving her a curt nod before he sees himself out of the room.

Ellena collapses onto the bench nearest her and closes her eyes. I will appreciate what I’m given, she decides, considering I could still be a pile of broken bones at Taylon’s feet.
I will appreciate a moment by my son’s bed. I will appreciate a fleeting kiss in the streets of Atlas. I will appreciate the cold kiss of cuffs on my wrists … the same final kiss my dear husband Forge must have known before he met his end.

0217  Athan

When he hears the door down the hall open, he doesn’t even lift his head. He stares at the sleeveless hoodie in his lap. You gave me your dreams, Wick, he tells the red material through his mind. Now, all I think of are countless ways to end the Imp’s life. Vengeance is a kind of madness, isn’t it? Maybe I’ve gone mad, too.

Two shadows fall over him.

“Athan,” murmurs one of them, softly.

It’s her. The mind woman. She’s come to rob you of the last scrap of your self-control. Kiss your thoughts goodbye.

“You have the wrong sister,” she says.

Athan looks up. He sees one of the twins. He can’t tell them apart; one is exactly like the other, from her hair to her body to her face to her eye color. They even dress the same.

“It’s to my advantage,” says the woman, as if replying to all of the doubts in his head. “See, the fools at the foot of Cloud Tower mistook me for my sister. I’m afraid that I’m—”

“I’m afraid that I don’t give a slummer’s shit,” interrupts Athan, staring back down at the hoodie. He clutches it tighter, his fists closing around the shoulders.

There is an odd-looking boy at her side—a round, short boy who seems to recognize Athan, for the way he’s staring at him.

“They let you keep your clothes,” observes the woman. “That is unusual.”

“I don’t care.” Athan tries to ignore them, wanting to continue steeling himself for the golden opportunity that will fall into his lap one of these days, the opportunity to kill the Imp.

“That opportunity will come,” says the woman, once again annoyingly drawing thoughts out of Athan’s head, “but if you are reckless with your life, you’ll suffer the same as Anwick did.”

“I want to suffer the same as Anwick,” blurts Athan. “I want to join him on the other side. I want to be with him and my family. At least my sister liked him,” he says suddenly, his thoughts shifting. “He won’t be alone. And he’ll have Lionis with him too.”

He speaks with no emotion, none left to spill from his eyes. He is simply stating facts, knowing what he knows, making plans for himself, even for when he at last makes it to the other side.

The woman folds her arms. “If you’re so eager to kill yourself, then by all means, press that dagger to your wrists or your neck and make an end of it all.”

Athan sneers, glancing at the fell thing that rests next to him on the smooth tile. “I can’t. Your sister’s taken hold of my mind.”

She grips the glass bars. “I am risking my own life to come here and save you. I want to take you away with us.”

“I want to die.”

“NO, YOU DON’T.”

The explosion of words comes from neither Arcana nor the boy at her side. The two turn and Athan looks up. Erana is on her feet in her own cell, her eyes magnified by her glasses, her fists balled up.

“Anwick Lesser loved you,” the girl states. “He wouldn’t want you to be stupid and roll over and let Impis and Axel have their way with you. I know Anwick maybe better than anyone in the world, just from the things he said and did and wished for and wanted. He wrecked his life to come up here and see you, Athan. My time with him in the Academy was short, but it was meaningful, and maybe I fell in love with him a little bit, too, but that is not the reason for my outrage. I let a perfectly fine man, Rone, out of my grasp. He and I were safe. And the Queen—the true Queen—she was safe, too. And I let it all go. I let my perfect future shatter.”

Athan stares at her for ten turns of his heartbeat. He knows she is right, and of course he would hate to dishonor Wick in such a way as to throw away his life … and thereby throw away Wick’s death.

“Come with us,” says the woman after turning back to Athan. “The girl is right. You know it, too.”

But maybe it is the greater dishonor to abandon his position and leave behind his best opportunity to enact revenge. What does that say about me, if Wick spent his whole life fighting the beast in the sky, only to die by it and have me run away?

“It is not running,” the woman responds, hearing his doubts. “And this is not your best opportunity to exact revenge. Come with us and we will regroup, plan, and plot. You will have your revenge, Athan, but not today. Not now. Not in this way.”

In the red hoodie, he sees Anwick. He feels the warmth of his slum boy’s tight embrace. He hears his soft laughter. He smells his hair and hears his voice: ‘Athan.’ ‘I love you.’

And the body-crippling anxiety begins to crawl up his spine yet again. No, he begs of it, not wanting the sickening sensation again. Please, just stop. For once, he wishes he could just ignore the panic as it hijacks every cell in his body, but as he always does, he listens to it. Athan swipes the dagger from the floor and pushes to his feet, then moves to the bars of his cage. Just that simple act alone eliminates all traces of the feeling in his gut. His sullen, empty eyes meet Arcana’s.

Her eyes are alarmed for a moment, as if she just picked up on all of the panic that suddenly surged through Athan’s body. Then, just as quickly, her eyes relax. “Good,” she mutters, taking the action to be his answer. “Sedge, open the—”

“We’re taking her, too,” says Athan, cutting her off.

Erana lifts her eyebrows as Arcana and her little friend Sedge turn to observe her in the way two stuffy Lifted folk might appraise the quality of a bundle of meat at the market.

“Very well,” agrees Arcana after a short pause. “Sedge?”

Without wasting time, the boy claws his fingers between the glass bars of Athan’s cage, and then the fingers melt before Athan’s eyes and begin to extend their shape, pushing outward. The glass bars snap and crack almost instantly. Sedge grunts as the effort becomes taxing, but sooner than expected, a number of the bars shatter, leaving Athan enough room to slip through. Sedge moves to Erana’s cell to perform the same technique.

As Athan steps out, the hoodie catches on one of the sharp, half-broken bars. He reaches to free the jacket from the glass and ends up tearing a small hole in the red material—as well as an unkind gash down the length of his forearm. Even with the sting of the wound, Athan doesn’t react to the pain at all. He simply brings his arm up and observes it curiously as a thin line of red draws down its length, then drips onto the floor.

Erana is freed from her cell without any trouble, and then the four of them make their hurried way down the endless stairs as quietly as they can manage.

At the doors to Cloud Tower, a large woman stands guard. She lifts a suspicious eye to the four of them. When her eyes land on the Sedge boy, she quirks an eyebrow. “What are you doing, Sedge?”

“Transferring the prisoners,” he answers miserably. “Axel here has them warped. They think they’re being freed to the slums and can’t hear a word of what we’re saying. Impis wants to … play with them.”

The woman makes one short glance at the others, then looks back at Sedge, her eyes heavy. “My poor … poor boy,” she murmurs.

“Come,” commands Arcana, moving past the woman as she leads the group through the enormous, rubble-filled courtyard, through the gates of Cloud Keep, and down the streets of the Lifted City. “No,” she says to Sedge, perhaps answering a question she heard in his mind. “Your friend Umi does not trust us, nor does she believe your little story. She knows I’m Arcana. She will go to my sister, but she’ll tell her that this was my plan. Umi thinks you are being coerced into doing this by me. We have no time.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Sedge blurts. “I just thought—”

“You did fine. We have to hurry.”

A brisk ten minutes of hurried walking leads them to the doors of the Trust bank, where Arcana leads them across the wide expanse of nothing that is inside the building to the lift in the very back.

When they reach the doors, Athan hears a shout from far behind. A glance over his shoulder reveals three pursuing Chaots.

“Into the lift!” hisses Arcana after interacting with the device by the door and granting them access. “Inside, quick, quick!”

Athan and Sedge hurry inside as they’re told, but Erana lingers just outside the doors, a thoughtful expression on her face. “They’ll only follow us,” she murmurs in her sad monotone.

“Inside!” Arcana presses. “Hurry!”

Erana faces Athan importantly. “Your dagger. Now.”

Athan blanches. “Wick’s dagger? W-Why?”

“I’ll dismantle the interface in five seconds so they can’t follow us,” she says. “Quick. The dagger.”

Athan slaps it into her good hand, his eyes wide, unthinking. When Erana’s heavy stare meet Athan’s, he realizes too late what she means to do.

“Survive,” she tells him, then slams her bandaged palm onto the interface.

Just as Athan jerks forward to stop her, the door shuts in an instant on his face. He stares at his reflection in the smooth metal as the lift quickly begins to descend with only him, Sedge, and Arcana. He hears the stabbing of the dagger into the metal and glass interface like a distant, muffled knock. Slowly, the sound drifts away from him until all he hears is his own breathing and the gentle hum of the lift carrying them to safety.

0218  Kid

It’s on a cloudy day with the threat of rain in the sky that Faery collapses onto the couch with a cry of pain.

“What’s wrong??” Link asks, clenching her hand and kneeling by her, worry in his eyes.

“The baby,” Fae moans, her breath quick and irregular. “Some … Something’s wrong …”

“Where does it hurt?”

Kid stands in the entryway to the den, her eyes wide with fear. Link and Fae go back and forth between grunts of pain and hisses of agony. Kid can’t make out the words between them anymore, drawn into a world of lonesomeness. It always ends in suffering and loss. Everyone leaves me. Everyone dies. It was only a matter of time …

And then: “Ms. Reeda.”

Link looks up from the couch. “What?”

Kid makes up her mind. “I’ll be right back!”

Before Link can stop her, Kid pulls open the front door and tears across the lawn, hurrying over to her neighbor’s house. The world is grey and the sky rumbles, threatening to release itself upon the city below. Kid slaps her hand several times against the front door.

A man answers the door. He looks down at Kid. “Hey there.”

“Ms. Reeda,” Kid says at once, her voice choked. “I need to see Ms. Reeda, please. Quickly.”

The woman is at his side in the next instant. “Sweetheart. I had thought you’d gone! What’s the matter??”

“My friend is in pain,” Kid says quickly. “She’s pregnant. She is in pain. Something’s wrong. Please help her!”

Ms. Reeda reacts swiftly and calmly. “Timm, get the caravan.” She swipes a set of keys and a purse of coin off a table by the door. “Sweetheart, take me to them. Now.”

“Caravan?” protests Timm softly. “Honey, a rain is on the way.”

“So let it rain. The hospital is just a twenty minute ride and her friend may not be able to walk the distance to the ten station.”

“N-No,” blurts Kid at once. “We can’t go to the hospital. We—”

“We may not have a choice, I’m afraid. Now take me to them,” she repeats, stepping out of her house and clasping Kid’s hand.

Kid leads Ms. Reeda across the lawn and into her house. Link looks up from his kneeling position, alarm surging into his eyes at the sight of the unfamiliar woman.

Ms. Reeda doesn’t pay him one mind as he moves aside to make room for her, still holding Fae’s hand. Ms. Reeda bends down. “Hey there, sweetheart. My name is Willa. What’s yours?”

“Faery,” she answers, her voice quivering.

“What a lovely name. How long have you been pregnant?”

Fae glances up at Link, unsure, then she turns her face to Kid, who hovers at the back of the couch. “Six months? Seven?”

“Eight,” answers Kid, “if you count the month before ya knew you didn’t bleed.”

“Eight,” echoes Fae in a drawn-out breath.

Ms. Reeda nods importantly. “Faery, sweetheart, I don’t think anything’s wrong. I think you’re in labor. Oh, and all over my new couch, too,” she says, peering down where the cushion is drenched.

“What do we do??” blurts Link.

“My husband’s pulling our caravan from the garage.” She moves her face close to Fae’s. “We’re taking you to the hospital, sweetheart. They will deliver your baby properly.”

“B-But we can’t—” protests Link.

“You must,” Ms. Reeda says, “and that’s the end of it. I don’t care to know your history or why you’re here. My concern is the baby and the health of your friend Faery. Are you the father?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow at Link, who nods nervously. “Very well. Come with. All of you. To the hospital we go.”

The ride in the caravan is unexpectedly smooth. Kid wonders why she never realized how well-off her neighbors were. Perhaps she was too young to notice. Maybe she never truly knew Landy all that well except for the silly games they’d play in the yard. How was she to know that the Reeda family had a caravan hidden away in their garage? The only families with personal caravans were either incredibly rich, sixth warders, or Lifted folk.

None of her curiosities go answered, and before Kid can take another breath, she’s in a waiting room chair sandwiched between Willa and Timm Reeda. For over two and a half hours, Ms. Reeda talks on and on about the miracle of life and how babies seem to pop out of thin air left and right, but yet she never has one of her own. “Being around other mothers and babies makes women more fertile,” she murmurs. “Perhaps your friends will give me the luck my body needs. Do your friends have a place to live? Oh, never mind it. I’m being foolish. Later, of course. We’ll discuss it all later, yes, yes …”

And Kid would alleviate the woman of her childbearing doubts by spilling out a truth that only she knows—a truth called Landy—but the turmoil in her own belly of not knowing what’s happening in that room where Link and Fae are is making her too insane to think of much else. “I need to use the bathroom,” she says at once, cutting off something Ms. Reeda was saying and departing her chair.

The moment she slips around the corner, she’s invisible. With a hurried, careless gait, Kid moves from room to room, determined to find the one in which her friends are. Stay together. That is Link’s only remaining rule that they haven’t completely torn apart. We all have to stay together.

The moment Kid sees the familiar faces through the window, she stops. Soundlessly, she opens the door and slips inside. All of the nurses and doctors must have left already, because the only ones in the room are Link and Fae. She lies in a bed cradling a bundle in her arms—a bundle that must be her newborn son or daughter. Link is by her side, leaning against the bed with a finger playfully dangled by the baby’s face, which Kid still cannot see. The soft sounds of Fae and Link murmuring to one another gently fill the room, punctuated now and then by a tiny squeak, gurgle, or sigh from the little one.

“She’s beautiful,” whispers Fae, holding the baby, sweat pasting tangles of her short hair against her forehead and cheek.

Link says nothing, staring at the baby with a look of starry-eyed wonder on his face. He can’t even seem to bring himself to smile, so dazzled by the child.

“We have to protect her,” says Fae quietly, her voice heavy with importance. “She must stay protected. If anyone finds out …”

“Fae …”

“It doesn’t matter what I think I am. I could be another girl from the slums. But your Sanctum, your King, your Baal or Baron … they think I am something else. They think I’m—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. And they will come after this girl if they think she’s half-Goddess and half-human. They will covet her. They will try to take her away from us, this precious girl.” Fae holds her tighter, her eyes pouring with adoration for the little human being in her arms. “I know what I will dream for her.”

Link lifts an eyebrow. “Dream?”

“Her Legacy. My sister dreams all her days and nights long, and she will dream of a Legacy for this daughter of ours. And I know what I will wish for our little girl.”

“What will you wish?”

Fae smiles thoughtfully. “I shall wish … for a Legacy … that will protect her from greedy eyes. A Legacy that will hide her from the world so that our little girl is always … always … safe.”

Kid stares at the two of them. Her hands begin to tremble. Her mouth won’t close.

“A Legacy that will keep her from being seen,” whispers Fae. “A Legacy that will never let her be found.”

Protected from greedy eyes. Hide her from the world.

Keep her from being …

Seen.

“I hope your Sister hears your wishes,” murmurs Link, cuddling against Fae as he looks into his daughter’s face. “A name, Faery … Our little girl needs a name.”

Fae gives the baby a gentle kiss on the forehead, and after a moment of thought, she comes to a decision. “Akidra.”

Akidra.

Kid sucks in air, tears spilling from her eyes as she slaps a hand over her mouth, overcome.

Faery and Link look up from the bed, startled by the noise. Only after a moment does Link realize what the noise might have been. “Kid? … Kid, are you there?”

Kid steps back from the bed. Dad. Her hands won’t stop shaking as she clutches her mouth. Tears spill over her fingers as she turns her invisible face to Faery. Mom.

And then Link sees her. “Kid. What’s wrong?” His expression of joy dissolves as he stares at Kid’s running tears. Comprehension is slow to flare into his eyes as his body turns rigid. “A … kid … ra …” he whispers.

Fae reaches out a hand, oblivious to what’s going on. “Come here, sweetie. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Legacy,” says Link. “To keep her from being … seen.” He shakes his head, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “No. It’s just … a coincidence. You …” He shakes his head again, more fervently. “N-No. Kid, come here. That’s not even—” He blinks, having lost sight of her. “Kid …?”

She’s invisible. The door slaps open when she races out of the room.

0219  Link

“It’s just not possible.”

Faery slowly paces the den with little Akidra in her arms, gently rocking her.

“It’s not,” repeats Link. “Kid’s been instrumental in our even being here in the past. How can Kid have helped us survive here, and then … indirectly or not … be responsible for her own birth? There’s no way. If Baal … wait a minute, let me think this through …”

“Link.”

“Baal brought us here to find you. We found you. But if … wait, I’m getting confused. If she wasn’t born …”

Faery speaks gently and patiently. They’ve been talking about this for hours now. “She’s the right age, Link.”

“No.” Link shakes his head adamantly, refusing to believe it. “If I had not come into the past, then Kid would never have been born. Is that what I’m to understand? But how does one explain the fact that Kid has been a part of my life since—well, since ever? She took a bag of gold from me, which led to my having to prove myself to the Wrath by … by … by being ditched at some rich dude’s estate, chased by hungry hounds into a shed—a shed where Kid turned me invisible and saved my life! That’s not possible! That’s like … That’s like taking time itself and twisting it into a knot or something. That’s—”

“If there was ever a timeline that existed without Kid being born,” reasons Fae, still gently rocking the baby, “then that bag of gold would’ve never been stolen in the Waterways that day, and you also would’ve never been in the shed with Kid turning you invisible. The events cancel one another out, don’t they?”

“And if she didn’t exist, then … I would’ve come here alone.”

“Not alone. You would’ve come here to the past with Ames,” Fae corrects him. “And isn’t that precisely what Baal expected? Just you and Ames? Wasn’t Kid’s presence a complete surprise to him?”

Link falls into a chair. “I suppose. But … it was on a run with Kid here in the past that Ames pulled away and got arrested. And it was Kid who threw a knife at Baal, killing him. If Baal taking me here to the past is the reason for Kid’s existence … how can Kid also be the one who kills Baal? It’s a … a … what’s that fucking word??”

“Paradox.”

“Paradox! And Kid led us to this very house! How would she have known that this is her house if it took us being here to even bring her into existence??” Link slaps hands to his head, exasperated.

“Please, Link, calm down. The baby’s sleeping.”

The baby. Baby Kid. Akidra. Link takes a deep breath, putting his head between his knees. “I’m so lost, Fae. I don’t understand this.”

“Maybe in some alternate timeline, it’s Ames who throws a dagger at Baal,” Fae suggests nonchalantly. “Or maybe Baal doesn’t die at all, but meets his end in some other way …?”

“How are you not freaking out right now?” asks Link, swinging his head back up to meet her eyes.

“Well, one of us has to keep our head,” teases Fae.

Link is in no mood for teasing or jokes. “When did you become such an expert in the intricacies of time-walking?”

Fae chuckles. “It’s just logic, my love. Think of your own colors. You paint a stroke of pink across the wall. Then you paint another pink stroke over that one. If someone were to observe the wall, they would see just one pink stroke, wouldn’t they?”

Link wrinkles his face. “Um, yes. But—”

“Think of your journey through time as a stroke of color. The very first time you laid a stroke, Kid wasn’t born yet and didn’t come with you into the past. Events may have unfolded differently that first time. Baal may have lived or not. Ames might be free or not. We may have come to this house on our own volition, or something else entirely might have led us here. We don’t know.” She comes to a stop in front of Link’s chair. “This is your second stroke of color. This time, your paintbrush still has pink on its bristles. This time, you had Kid at your side. Things are different, yet the result balances out. And if anyone were to question history’s events, all they’d see is—”

“Pink.”

“Right. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. What matters is what we do now. We are Akidra’s parents. We must protect her.”

“How can we protect her when she’s run away from us?” Link stares at the front door, which he has been staring at for hours and hours and hours, expecting Kid to just slip in. “I mean, there’s still a possibility that it’s … not the same Kid, right?” He sighs. “Who am I kidding? We can’t even protect ourselves. Anyone who finds us will see us now.”

“Ms. and Mr. Reeda from next-door know of us,” Fae goes on.

“They … will help hide us,” Link says, carrying her logic, “or … well, or they’ll start making us pay to live here. I don’t know how deeply their ‘well of compassion’ runs.”

Fae squeezes into the armchair next to Link, cradling the baby against her chest, and they peer down at their daughter, watching as she sleeps. The tiny whirring of breath from her little lips sends Link on a train of thought that begins and ends with his own brother Anwick. Will he always sleep? Or will he someday outgrow it? Link hopes to survive long enough to learn the answer to that. He has so many questions for his brother, he can’t keep track of them all.

Twice in the night, there is a soft knock at the door, and both times Link races to it expecting to see Kid on the other side, but it is Ms. Reeda instead, checking up on them and giving them things they’ll need for the baby. Diapers, baby clothes, and little toys fill the bags that she brings them. “I hope the other one comes home soon,” she says. “I swear, she only said she was going to the bathroom, then she never came back. Oh, poor girl. I will keep an eye open for her.” Of course, sweet and well-meaning Ms. Reeda doesn’t realize how very ineffective having either eye open will be in locating Kid.

For a solid week, rain pours outside, droplets slapping upon the windows in sheets as the wind thrashes against the house, causing the walls to groan. Despite the ongoing storm, Little Akidra sleeps so peacefully in her crib—another generous donation from Ms. Reeda. With Fae tending to the baby, Link is downstairs staring through the sliding glass door into the empty backyard, watching as the grass is blown and pulled in every direction by the wind. He feels his insides crushed at the thought that Kid is out there somewhere in the storm. “Daughter,” he thinks, staring at the glass. “There’s no way,” he breathes, shaking his head. “No way.”

Days later when the storm has passed, Link stands on the wet lawn of the backyard, staring up into the sky which is bruised orange with the threat of sunset, as he breathes in the scent of earth and thick moisture in the air. Just as the stars begin to peek through the dimming sky, he feels a presence at his back. He turns around.

Kid stands there. “I’m sorry for running,” she says at once.

Link races up to her and embraces her tightly, hugging her to his chest. “Don’t do that again. We can’t separate again, Kid. We just can’t. Not ever.”

“I was scared.”

“We’re going to be okay as long as we’re together. You cannot run ever again.”

“Stay together. Always.”

“Always,” agrees Link with force in his voice, kissing Kid on the top of the head and not willing to let her go from the hug.

The two of them hold each other for a long time in the yard as the evening breeze tickles across their arms and tosses their hair. Link glances up at the window of the back bedroom—the colorful room—and finds Fae standing there with little Akidra in her arms. She smiles as she observes the pair of them reunited in the yard, as if she was somehow expecting Kid to return and the scene doesn’t surprise her.

With Kid’s head still pressed against Link’s chest in the tight embrace, he asks, “So why do you go by just ‘Kid’ …?”

Kid hesitates a moment before answering. “I couldn’t talk well when I was little. I had trouble learning words. ‘Kid’ was all I could say of my own name.”

Link smirks. “Maybe we should’ve just named you Kid after all.”

“I like Akidra,” she admits. “It’s my full name. I don’t even know if I ever truly remembered it, all this time. Hearing you say it in the hospital, though …”

“Triggered the memory?”

“It triggered everything.” She pulls away from his chest. “Please be kind to little me when I start to talk. It might take a strict, angry cold boy in the slums later in my life to set my speaking straight.”

“Noted,” says Link.

0220  Rone

Edrick brings him another cup of sour-tasting leaf water. Rone slurps on it, then spits half of the helping back into the cup. “Really,” Rone complains drowsily. “This tastes like piss.”

“It totally is,” Edrick returns flatly. “It’s my piss. I’m serving you my piss.”

Rone snorts, a part of him deep down appreciating the pleasure boy’s dry humor. He decides to try the leaf water again, wrinkling his nose as he drinks it. It’s supposed to be healing, but it seems to make him dizzier the more he swallows.

“Lifted folk call it tea.”

“It’s leaf water,” Rone says back to him. “Or it’s piss. One of the two. It’s making my head spin.”

“I put chemical in it.”

Rone’s eyes flash open, face lifted from the cup as he gapes at the pleasure boy. “You’re lying.”

“Nope. You know how easy it is for a boy like me to happen on the stuff?” Edrick sprawls out on the bed upon which Rone is lazily seated, taking up the opposite end. He’s wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of red bikini briefs. His body is lean, long, and fit like a cat. “I practically piss it every noon and night.”

“So I am drinking your piss,” Rone japes, though his voice is far tighter than it is loose and humorous.

Edrick studies Rone’s expression. “You really want it, huh?”

Rone drinks the leaf water with a bit more fervor than before, swallowing it in three big gulps and pushing past the sour, sickening taste. “It’s the only thing that keeps me from feeling. It’s the only thing in Atlas that numbs everything. The pain. The memory. The anguish.”

“Have you tried dying? That works too.”

“I’m too dumb to die.” Rone extends the empty cup, his vision blurring from the chemical chasing through his system. “Give me more.”

Edrick pretends to be taken aback, a hand going to his chest. “My, my. When I picked you up off that street, I wasn’t expecting to be adopting a baby I had to take care of.”

“It’s not milk I want from your teat,” says Rone. “It’s chemical.”

“Chemical’s not good for babies,” teases Edrick.

Rone drops the cup onto the bed and leans back, closing his eyes as his head hits the pillow. A fountain of colors and stars swirl about in his mind like a hurricane of beauty. He feels a smile invade his face as he swims in the wonder. This is what I needed, he realizes.

He feels a hand on his thigh. He ignores it, swimming in the world behind his eyelids that has been generated by a river of chemical in his veins. He hasn’t felt this good since his days in the loft with Victra riding his cock. I miss Victra, he realizes. Maybe she would take me back. Maybe Rain is still an option.

But nothing happens to his heart when he thinks on her. He is trying not to think of Ruena, the Queen who has run from him. She got herself caught, then broke her way free. Of course she’d break free, Rone thinks with happy amusement. No one can contain that beautiful, powerful storm of a woman.

The hand climbs his thigh, reaching the inner side. It feels good a little and it tickles a little, considering how thin the material of Rone’s pants are. Is he still wearing the silken pair he found in that mansion in the sky, or did he since change back into his jeans? He doesn’t remember and can’t feel anything, the chemical swimming through him.

When the hand slips over his cock, Rone flinches, sucking in air.

“It’s alright,” comes Edrick’s voice. “Small price, I’d say.”

Rone’s eyes flap open. He realizes what’s happening quite suddenly, the chemical letting go of him for this one moment when he lifts his head. “W-What’re you doing?”

Edrick is bent over Rone’s body, a hand on Rone’s crotch. Ah … My old, weathered jeans, he answers his own question from before.

“You expect me to just pump you with chemical for free?” The pleasure boy’s voice is light and silky. Rone wonders if Wick would have found Edrick attractive, if they hadn’t come to this place only seeking information months ago, or if Wick’s heart wasn’t wrapped up exclusively with the Broadmore boy.

“What are you gonna do with my cock?” asks Rone in a voice that’s a touch more dry.

Edrick hasn’t let go of it through the loose, soft material of Rone’s threadbare jeans. “Whatever I want,” he answers. “Just like the customers I serve who get whatever they want.”

“Am I your pleasure boy now?” asks Rone drowsily, the sweet and sour influence of the chemical starting to reclaim him.

“You’re my pleasure boy now,” affirms Edrick.

Rone’s head drops back to the pillow. He can’t even muster enough energy to make a joke about it all. It’s all very funny, in some way or another. Good luck getting it hard. As his jeans turn loose and slip down his thighs, and while Edrick’s skillful lips play on Rone’s soft cock, Rone feels a swarm of beautiful numbness flow through his body, and then he is adrift in a colorful array of stars and laughter. In that laughter, Rone feels tears release from his eyes.

“This is a lot more fun for me if you’re not crying,” says Edrick tersely.

Rone doesn’t listen, swimming away in a starry wonderland of color and feeling and nothingness as the tears season his cheeks.

0221  Arrow

When he is in the front yard, sitting in the grass and leaned up against the reading tree, he hears a voice to his side. “You share part of a name with the Mad King.”

Arrow lifts an eyebrow. Auleen stands two paces from him, the baby in her arms sound asleep.

“Come again?”

Auleen smiles. “Fyrefellow, isn’t it? Your last name?”

Prat and his big mouth. “Yes.”

“Aye, and Impis Lock … fyre. The Fyre part, see? It isn’t just a coincidence, my friend. Perhaps there is a branch of your family tree, far in the past, that’s connected.”

Arrow can’t help but chuckle. “Perhaps I ought to point out the chalky white powder of Impis’s face and the dark chocolate of mine,” he mutters with half a roll of his eyes. “There is no relation. Just as a hundred names have the word Lock or Fellow in them, it doesn’t remotely imply that we share blood.”

“Well, we all share blood, of course. Oh.” She fusses with her baby for a moment, who stirs in her arms. After a second, she smiles lightly, relieved. “Ah, yes. Back to sleep. You ever wonder what they dream? The little ones?”

Arrow thinks on what Wick dreams. Maybe Wick dreams of sexy boys raining down from the sky. Maybe he dreams of fire and destruction. Maybe he dreams of rainbows and ten-foot-tall flowers. “I don’t wonder,” he lies.

“Of course you do,” she fires back. “You are the wonderer of the group. You are most necessary. A wonderer has the ideas. When the whole of your family and friends are stumped, you think up the answer. I envy your like.” She kisses her baby’s head, gently rocking the little one in her arms. “Don’t lie to me, Arrow Fyrefellow. I will sniff you out for the wonder-filled genius you are.”

Arrow smirks, picks a blade of grass out of the soil and flicks it into the breeze. “Leave the genius term for the likes of Lionis.”

“Aye. But he’s dependent on his books, a slave to what he’s told. He does not think. He does not wonder. The worst kind of genius, the one who only knows what he learns.” She gives Arrow a knowing wink. “You could be a King someday, y’know.” She nods at the sky carelessly. “After all this is over with.” Then the woman gently walks her baby back to the house, Arrow watching after her curiously.

The sun begins to set earlier than expected, leading Arrow to assume the winter days are upon them soon. In the waning light of the evening, Arrow tries to make himself a decent dinner of chopped vegetables, but finds half the stalks wilted. He eats them anyway, his eyes squinting against the bitter taste.

He considers going outside to watch the sun go down, but stops at the front window of the house when he notices Prat and Ivy in the yard. The two are standing side by side in the burning orange of the sunset, their shoulders touching. Prat turns just his head and says a few words to her, probably something to the effect of, “Isn’t it such a beautiful sunset tonight?” And Ivy turns her face to him too, offering him a timid smile and a flash of her pretty, Hightower eyes. “It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she probably says back to him. The two look as if they could kiss and declare their love for one another, the way they’re melting into each other’s eyes. The sight is enough to make Arrow lose his recent meal all over the glass.

Then his attention is caught by an approaching figure down the street. He pushes out of the house, ignoring a startled Prat and Ivy, and stands at the front of the lawn. Coming down the broken road is the unmistakable figure of the woman who took Wick, Lionis, and Athan to the Lifted City to meet with the King. She has next to her a short, round fellow dressed in flowing silk—some spoiled Lifted boy whose face shines in shades of rouge and gold with the hint of old makeup. They walk alone.

Prat mutters at his back. “Is that—?”

Arrow ignores him and takes a step forward. “Where is Wick?” he calls out at the pair of them, still partway down the street. “Where is Lionis and Athan?”

The woman named Arcana does not respond from a distance. She finishes her long, unhurried walk down the street. When she finally comes to a stop, it is several paces away from the yard, poised upon the broken road. She is beautiful and regal, her shape fitting perfectly in the skintight shiny outfit she wears that covers her from neck to ankle in an off-white. Two green bangles rest at her wrists, and her smooth chestnut face is adorned with a stud piercing at her upper lip that sparkles—a definite indication of a Son or Daughter of Sanctum. The pudgy silk-wearing boy is at her side with a crooked, uncomfortable scowl on his annoyingly rosy face.

Soon after their approach, Arrow notices the third figure, who ambles carelessly and miserably, slouched and soundless as he trails behind.

When he comes within reach, Arrow’s voice softens. “Athan?” But Athan doesn’t acknowledge him, simply moving past him and going straight into the house. Arrow stares after him, confused by the cold silence.

“Well?” says Prat, trying to appear more brave than he sounds, the voice-cracking fool that he is. “Speak, mind reader!”

Arrow turns back to face Arcana, who turns her head slightly in either direction, taking note of all the others who recognize her from her last visit and are emerging from their homes to witness her unsettling return, mixed looks of curiosity and worry on their faces.

“Where are our friends?” repeats Arrow evenly.

When Arcana’s eyes meet Arrow’s, a flicker of emotion finally breaks her otherwise cool, untelling demeanor. “We need to speak in private,” she says with a tilt of her head.

A man from across the street speaks up. “Whatever you have to say, Lifted woman, you can say to all our like.” “Yeah!” chimes in a woman from down the street. “Out with it!” “Where’s our Lesser boys?” comes another. “Speak!”

Arcana faces Arrow, a hint of her hardness returning. “I have brought you back Athan. I am here because we need to plan. I am here because—”

“Because you’re running,” intuits Arrow, studying her face. He feels his mouth going dry as he puts together the pieces of what he’s seen: Athan’s vague nothingness, the lack of Wick and Lionis, the strange Lifted boy, Arcana’s evasiveness. “Did … D-Did something happen up there?”

The look in her eyes ought to say it all, but Arrow is no mind reader, and his “wonderer’s” imagination is far too wild to settle on any one explanation. He imagines Wick and Lionis stripped of their powers, awaiting a rescue. He imagines the brothers being dragged off to the Keep—or some semblance of one, a trail of blood drawn on the ground as they go. He sees the brothers boldly taking a stand against the King, and then he sees Lionis not holding his tongue as he spouts off a hundred smart things, then gets his tongue lopped off for a consequence. He sees Wick reaching for a hundred Legacies.

“They’re gone,” she answers.

Arcana ceases all his thoughts with those two words. The sound of shuffling feet and whispers in the crowd dies out. Even the wind seems to stop blowing. Arrow eyes detach as he stares at nothing, uncomprehending, too slow to process what she just said. Gone? his mind seems to challenge. Gone? How so? What does she mean?

There’s no way they could have lost both Lionis and Wick. “But they were …” Arrow starts to say, then gets lost in his own head.

No one in the crowd seems able to issue even a word of anger. They are stunned to silence, men and women exchanging stares of disbelief and sadness between them. Arrow notices the couple from the house with the big porch down the road hugging each other, the woman sobbing silently and trying to hide her face. The news does not hit anyone lightly. They all grew up with Lionis and Wick. They knew them since they were babies.

With a calm and even voice, she tells the story. She keeps her composure and tells it moment to moment, perhaps for the benefit of the others, to whom she likely feels she owes Wick’s and Lionis’s final moments of life. Her sister and Impis set the madness into the brothers, which turned into Lionis’s end. Then Impis’s heart seemed set, perhaps seeing Wick as a threat, since he had the potential to mimic Impis’s madness, or Axel’s mind control, and so decided he was no longer interested in him. Athan witnessed it all firsthand. A girl who both Wick and Athan knew sacrificed her freedom to ensure that Athan, Arcana, and Sedge made it out of the Lifted City, destroying the only path on their way down.

“He was strong until his last moment,” Arcana states. “If you don’t believe it from me, you may believe it from Athan, the boy whom Anwick Lesser loved and trusted with his life. I know you will need your time for grieving,” she goes on, “but I assure you, I will do whatever it takes in my power to grant you the retribution you so deserve. I have aided the Madness. I even helped in its kindling. But I cannot stand for what it’s become. Impis turned Sanctum inside-out. Impis cast away everything that was corrupt and horrible with the people of the sky … but he’s lost his way, lost his mind, and replaced it with something far worse. We can stand up against him.”

“The ninth don’t sit around,” grunts a man, one of Wick’s older neighbors with a huge mustache that wiggles as he speaks. “Nothin’ good came to the Lessers. From one end to the other, that family’s been wrecked. I’ve known them since Forge and dear Ellena moved into that house with just a pair of crying babies in their arms, little Halvy and Al.”

“I’ve been lucky to avoid the worst of it,” says a woman who holds the head of her terrified little boy against her hip, “and I’ll be first to admit that I’m no fighter. But I can’t sit around either anymore. Two of our own are gone. Who knows if the whole lot of them’s dead. We can’t … We can’t sit here and … and just …”

“We must organize,” says Auleen, back in her yard with her baby squeezed against her chest. “We must gather more from the neighboring wards. We need to build an army, that’s what we ought to do. Halves and Aleks and Innie down the street, they’ve all gone in the way of Guardian. We will be the new Guardian.”

“Soldiers of the slums,” shouts another man, inspired.

And while a number of them are quick to grab hold of the fire sparking in their eyes, there is still a large number of people in the crowd who can’t seem to be pulled from their stupor. It seems that the death of Wick and Lionis has hit too close to home for them.

In the noise of shouting voices, Arrow turns and makes way for the house, suddenly unable to handle any more of it. When the noise falls at his back and the door softly shuts, he finds Athan seated on the steps halfway up the narrow staircase. Athan looks up and meets Arrow’s eyes. Arrow has never seen Athan look so expressionless before. It’s alarming.

“I couldn’t be in his room anymore,” Athan explains, answering some question Arrow didn’t ask. He lifts his forearm from a red jacket in his lap—which Arrow belatedly realizes is Wick’s—and he shows a nasty cut that runs nearly the whole length of it. “I think I bled all over his hoodie, but I can’t tell because it’s all red already.”

“Athan … I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.” Athan shakes his head. “I’m not sure if it could have been prevented. Maybe it was all supposed to happen. I thought for a second, maybe my Legacy really is survival. When Wick looked at me … right there at the end, in the last moment … I thought he’d grabbed hold of my Legacy, like throwing someone a rope who’s hanging from a cliff. I thought he’d grabbed on. I thought, surely, he would survive. My power would save him.” Athan’s voice is weak and broken, no life to his words, no enthusiasm. “I was wrong. I …”

Arrow takes a seat on the step below Athan, leaning against the wall to look up at him.

Athan slaps a hand to his cheek. “I don’t know what my Legacy is, Arrow. I don’t. I really, truly don’t. I can’t do anything. I’m not lucky. If I’m lucky, Wick would’ve been lucky in that last moment and survived. If I’m a survivor, Wick should have survived. What the fuck am I, Arrow?” His eyes turn to Arrow pleadingly, the first hint of life returning to his voice as it grows frantic with need. “What the fuck am I??”

Arrow parts his lips, but nothing comes out. He’s never been very good at comforting others. “I’m …” Arrow shakes his head, still in shock from the news. “I’m so sorry, Athan.”

If it’s not a machine or a scrap of metal, Arrow cannot seem to communicate well with it. There is no consoling Athan; this much, Arrow knows for certain. But he’s never really had any close friends, his whole life. He didn’t even know what to say to his own mother when his father was brutally beaten in their living room. He didn’t know how to console his mother after her own abuse that she endured at the hands of those vile Guardian. Oddly, his sister was the easiest to speak with, mostly because the brain damage from the Guardian’s assault had reverted her to something of a child. Why did they spare me completely? Arrow still wonders to this day. Why break everything around me and leave me whole?

But he’s not whole. That day broke him, too.

Just then, as if acting as the physicalized punch line to a joke Arrow did not utter, Ivy steps into the house. Her eyes scan over the room listlessly and then come to find the two of them at the stairs. She looks at Arrow for all of two brief, heavy seconds, then lifts her pretty gaze to Athan. “I’m so sorry, Athan. Wick seemed like a really nice boy. He was kind to me.”

Athan’s voice is dry when he responds. “Thank you, Ivy.”

“And his brother, too,” she adds, then clasps her hands in front of her, leaning some of her weight against a barstool at her side as she stares at Athan, unsure of what else to say. Athan just leans his head against the wall and closes his weary, reddened eyes as he hugs Wick’s hoodie tighter.

Prat steps into the room next. “They’re going on about plans and resources and stuff,” he tells the three of them. “Arcana knows a few people, or something. She’s talking about looking for Queen Ruena, since she escaped from the King’s Keeping, apparently. I hope she can be found. With her, we’d have some serious leverage.”

No one in the room responds to Prat’s words. Even Ivy doesn’t regard him at all, staring down at her hands with sorrow in her eyes. For the first time, her pained expression doesn’t annoy Arrow as bad as it ought to. Once, he felt she didn’t deserve to act sad and garner sympathy. Now he doesn’t know anymore.

“We’re going to need a leader,” says Prat, “and I think it ought to be you.”

Arrow wasn’t looking at him when he spoke, and when he feels the silence of the room, Arrow lifts his eyes to find the others staring at him.

Arrow blinks. “Me? No. I’m not a leader. I’m a listener. I listen.”

“Which is why you ought to lead,” Prat goes on. “You are first to know of things. You are first to hear through your charms. You have the care that Gandra lacked, and the deep wisdom that Yellow never shared with us.”

“I have no ears,” states Arrow. “They are all dead. Everything they planted in the Lifted City, it’s dead. I have nothing.”

“Just think about it,” Prat urges him. “Don’t answer now.”

“I’ve already answered. My answer is no. Arcana is the one with the fire in her. She knows the Lifted City. She knows the King. She ought to come up with the ideas. I’ll just be in my room listening.”

“Just think on it,” Prat still insists stubbornly. He gives a nod to Athan. “You should get that arm looked at.”

Athan ignores him, eyes shut as he holds the jacket to his chest, breathing deeply.

Soon, Prat heads back outside, joining Arcana and the others in the street where their words are nothing but distant muffles of noise that Arrow can’t understand. Ivy moves from the barstool to the couch where she sinks into its cushions and curls up. Arrow puts a hand on Athan’s thigh, giving him a squeeze, then deciding to stay there on the staircase and listen to the different sounds of their deep, patient breathing.

Hours later, Arrow is in the backyard collecting the charms he had thrown out of the window upstairs. Twice he scrapes himself on a sharp branch that’s fallen, cursing under his breath as he pokes around for the charms. He tries not to think about Wick or Lionis or the times he shared with them. He already has too much grief within him, and even still, every time he blinks, he sees Victra’s terrified face. I’ll never stop seeing her face, not for the rest of my life.

In his quest throughout the backyard, he comes to a stop in front of the giant metal disc that Wick once mentioned. “We call it our giant scrap metal disc thing,” Wick was telling Prat one night a week or so ago. “Some trash thrown down from the Lifted City. I even saw it when it landed in our backyard. Nearly took off Lionis’s head!” To that, Lionis argued with him from the kitchen, accusing Wick of exaggerating and claiming that none of them saw it fall.

Arrow has no idea what in the world it could be. He walks around it, then gives the side of it a kick. It looks like an enormous dinner platter that might have been used at some lavish Lifted party in the sky with hundreds of guests in some enormous mansion. Its surface is riddled with strange carvings, curly designs embossed in asymmetrical shapes all around the rim. The center is a smooth, reflective, convex circle of metal.

As he stares at it, he thinks of Victra and finds some deep, dark part of him begging for her forgiveness. I was not an adequate guide. I failed you as a partner in escaping that sixth ward tower. I should have been quicker in assisting you. I should have heard the arrow coming. I should have … I should have …

Just as a tear forms in his eye, the back sliding glass door opens and Ivy peeks her head out. “Arrow?”

He quickly wipes the tear away before looking up. “Y-Yes?”

Her eyes avert; the tear he wiped away did not go unnoticed. She takes a short breath, then says, “Auleen and Iranda are making a meal for us next door. They’ve invited us over. Well, they’ve invited a lot of people over. It’s sort of a … a dinner in Wick and Lionis’s honor, I think.”

Fools. “Is Athan coming?” he asks without looking at her.

Ivy shakes her head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Arrow gives a short nod. “Alright. I might come. I just need a moment longer to myself.”

“I’m sorry,” she says suddenly. “About before.”

Arrow feels a pang of frustration. He doubts he can ever hear those words come from her mouth and not feel indignant at once. Still, he allows himself to hear the words and lifts his face to her. “No. I was the one who lost my temper.”

“You may see me as spoiled, but that’s okay. Most of the sixth ward is. I understand. But my sisters and I were not. We had a good family. My mom and my dad—”

Now she’s said too much. “Please. Stop.”

“My mom and my dad raised us well. We were good people. We did our best to live a humble, nice life. We gave spare money to the orphanages and we—”

“Ivy, stop.”

“Please, just let me say this,” she pleads.

Arrow turns away, overcome with a very untimely and horrible urge to cry. The sobbing breaks him, pouring forth all the emotions he was so desperately trying to keep walled up inside. Victra’s face is before his, terrified and lost. Wick’s face, laughing. Lionis lifting his chin haughtily. Juston snorting, all dumb-faced at some joke he just made. Arrow blinks rapidly until he doesn’t see the faces anymore.

But those faces are only replaced with others. His mother and her broken expression, the look of pain and aimlessness on her face. His father and his hardened eyes every time he came home from working for the Caldrons—for Ivy’s family. His sister’s face before the attack when she was alive with joy and spouting off the latest thing she learned at school—and then her face after the attack, how it always seemed to be searching for something she was missing.

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Ivy, closer to him now. “I won’t say any more. Nothing at all. I’m sorry. You’ve lost so much too.”

It’s the last thing she says before she retreats back into the house, leaving Arrow to empty all the tears from his eyes.

It doesn’t take long. Soon, he’s drawn right back into a numbed silence, staring down at the scrap metal disc thing. We’re going to need a leader, and I think it ought to be you. That’s what Prat said. Because I hear, Arrow adds with a smirk, yet I hear nothing. I hear …

Then his eyes flash with a thought, staring at the metal disc.

He leans forward and, with a small amount of reluctance, puts his palm to its smooth surface. Listen … He listens, feeling with his Legacy. Swallow your words and listen, listen … He waits for the scrap metal disc thing to speak to him.

Arrow’s mouth drops open. “It’s a Lifted charm,” he breathes.

0222  Kid

Time means nothing in the face of happiness.

Link and Fae celebrate every month of little Akidra’s life with the joy of two happy parents who can’t believe how much fortune has fallen into their laps. Ms. Reeda’s “well of compassion”, it turns out, is bottomless.

Yes, Kid heard the term uttered from Link’s mouth that day long ago before the storm. She was, in fact, in and out of that house many times before deciding to show herself in the backyard after the storm died down. She had to be absolutely sure that she wanted to be a part of her own upbringing before letting herself into their sight again.

It’s a choice she does not regret.

The laughter shared between Link, Fae, and Kid is endless. The three of them—and little Akidra—spend their days sharing laughter, chatter, and merry midday meals in the house, living like a normal family. Days turn into weeks turn into months, and time is nothing.

Kid even thinks she remembers having a family friend that was around the house often. Am I that family friend? Kid wonders as she watches Fae playing with little Akidra in the kitchen one morning. She considers how much she remembers at all of her childhood. So much of it was a blur. My parents didn’t have many friends, she realizes, except the neighbor, and … She feels some faint memory of a young woman who came and went, a young woman who may or may not be Kid remembering herself.

Was I in my own life the whole time …?

They watch somber news on the broadcast in the den together while little Akidra plays with toys on the floor. Ambera, the Royal Legacist, is found dead in her home, and Good King Greymyn names Impis Lockfyre the new Marshal of Legacy. Impis greets the city on the broadcast in a suit nearly devoid of the colorful flair for which he eventually will become known. Even his hair is tame and drab.

Akidra’s first birthday is celebrated with the Reedas, who come over with a cake and cute party hats. It’s immediately following that first birthday that Willa Reeda herself learns that she is pregnant with her first child. To that news, Kid smiles knowingly and gives a tiny, foreboding wave to Willa’s belly. Hello, Landy, she’d say. We’re gonna be friends for a while, then you’re gonna learn my whole family was murdered, I’m going to scare you by trying to play with you in the yard, and then your parents will convince you that ghosts aren’t real.

Months go by, and the city grows cold with winter once again. Months go by, and the city grows warm with summer heat. And on an unassuming morning at the end of that summer when the leaves on the tree in their front lawn turn yellow, little Akidra wakes up for the final time in her life. They don’t realize this until that afternoon when Akidra doesn’t quiet down for a nap, then finally confirming it that night when the little two-and-a-half-year-old ambles about the house with no sign of sleepiness pulling upon her eyelids.

“Why the age of two?” asks Link one day when they are sitting on the back step of the sliding glass door, watching little Akidra run around in the yard.

“I don’t know,” confesses Fae. “Maybe my sister thought a child ought to develop their imagination first … before their final wake? Maybe my sister can’t take on the dreaming for them until they’ve developed enough? Maybe it is all just a coincidence … I cannot say.”

“Do you speak a different language with your sisters?” Link asks with a sudden quirk to his voice. “I don’t know if you remember the day we first met, but you were speaking some strange tongues I had never heard before. I thought you were from the second ward.”

“Perhaps there is some sort of tongue I speak,” she admits.

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t needed to use the other tongue for years, now.” Fae gives him a blank sort of look. “Hopefully I never will again.”

It’s one quiet night when they’re watching Peacemaker Janlord delivering a speech in the Crystal Court on the broadcast that Akidra goes missing. Link calls out for her in a panic, racing out into the backyard. Fae searches every cabinet in the kitchen and underneath every table and chair, calmly singing out her name.

Kid, instead, turns herself invisible and finds little Akidra at once standing at the top of the stairs. “Mommy?” the little girl calls out, alarmed at all the commotion downstairs.

Kid becomes visible again when Fae arrives in the entryway by the front door, hunting for the voice she just heard. “Here,” says Kid, extending her hand. When Fae takes it, Kid draws her into the invisible world where Fae looks up and sees her daughter at the top of the staircase. “Ah,” says Fae with a short sigh of relief. “Of course.”

Mother and daughter reunite, and a girl learns her Legacy.

“I’d always wondered,” says Link some time later, “why we can see one another when we’re all invisible together. I suppose it must be some sort of … frequency thing. Like, when we’re both invisible, we are of a similar … frequency, or something. And so others cannot see us, but we can see each other.”

“Frequency?” echoes Kid, not knowing the word.

“I heard my brother Lionis say it dozens of times,” explains Link. “He kinda knows everything. It’s annoying.”

“I wish I knew everything,” mumbles Kid.

“Me too. I miss him.”

“You’ll see him again,” Kid promises him. “And all your other brothers, too. And your mom and your dad.”

Link puts an arm around her and hugs her close. “Hey, I just realized something.”

“What?”

“You know your birthday now.”

Kid blinks with the realization. In the last couple of years while they’ve been so busy raising the baby, it never even occurred to her that she had a birthday to celebrate at all.

“Why don’t you ever celebrate yours?” Kid asks distractedly.

Link shrugs. “I’m kinda not alive, remember? I don’t really age.”

“But you are. And you do.”

Link smirks doubtfully, then moves over to the broadcast, which casts a reflection when it’s turned off. He puts a few fingers to his face, studying himself dubiously. “Have I …? Am I aging, really …?”

“Yeah.” Kid giggles. “I guess you’re cursed with a baby face.”

Link scowls playfully at her. “I don’t have a baby face. In fact, I have a hint of hair on my chin and upper lip.” He smirks. “I’d wished for more than that by now. At least one of us should take after dad, the bearded brute he is. But alas, all of my brothers are similarly cursed with not being able to grow much on the face. Unless Lionis shaves his off in private. I don’t know. He’s too cursed with acne.”

“I like your baby face.”

He sneers at her teasingly. Then, it is his turn to experience an unsettling realization. His jaw drops. “I’m … I’m eighteen years old.”

“I’m twelve.” Kid smirks, then adds, “And a half.”

“I’m older than Anwick,” he breathes, astonished by the fact.

“By the time we catch up to the day we left, you’ll be twenty-six years old,” Kid points out. “I can count,” she adds in a whisper.

Link gapes disbelievingly at her. “Twenty-six? I’ll be older than Aleksand!” That statement makes him laugh out loud, his face alight and twisted with hysteria. “From youngest brother to oldest!” And another wave of hysterical laughter consumes him. Kid gets tickled by it too, breaking into fits of laughter along with him. The cackling goes on and on until they’re both collapsed onto the couch, spent.

When Akidra turns four, Kid turns fourteen. The Reeda family, as they do each year, attends the mild festivities with a little Landy, who’s made friends with Akidra. Timm and Link chat often. Link had concealed the true identity of his parents when he was asked years ago, claiming he’s an orphan. He offered to clean Timm’s yard and do whatever he can to repay them for the years they’ve let them live in the house for free. Timm took him up on the offer, especially when he considered that Link can use his Legacy to paint all the rooms in his house in an instant. “You could be a painter!” Timm told him. “Make a business out of it!” Then Timm put an arm around Link’s shoulder and, after giving him a hearty pat on the chest, told him, “If I’m honest, the amount of joy you’ve given my wife just by you and your family being here, that’s payment enough.”

Wife. The word seemed to swim in Link’s eyes. When the party ends and the Reeda family leaves, Kid watches Link hold Fae tighter on the couch, and the two of them share a kiss more intimate than usual, causing Kid to blush and dismiss herself upstairs.

It’s a month later that the strange things start to happen.

During an unassuming middle-night meal at the dining room table, Kid brings a bite of food to her mouth and disappears. She does not, however, realize that she disappeared at all until Faery looks up from her own plate and says, “Kid? Where are you?”

Kid blinks a few times, then turns visible again at once. “Sorry,” she says, confused, and nothing further is thought of it.

Until the following week when it happens again. Link and Kid are sitting in the backyard looking up at the stars when suddenly Link can’t see her anymore. Kid clenches her fists to bring herself back, apologizing once again. Slipping into the invisible realm seems to become an accidental habit of sorts, like mindlessly scratching a certain spot on the arm, or picking at one’s nails.

Then it becomes as casual as blinking. “You did it again,” says Fae, a touch of concern in her voice. “Are you meaning to—?”

“No,” snaps Kid tersely, annoyed with both Fae and herself for some reason, before shutting herself up in the back room upstairs and staring out the window with a frustrated glower on her face.

The condition only gets worse. “I’m not even meaning to,” Kid tries to explain to a patiently-listening Link a week later. “I just relax and … and suddenly I go invisible. All I’m doing is relaxing.”

“It’s alright,” Link assures her. “At your age, I could accidentally turn pencils pink just by gripping them whenever I was mad.”

But Kid isn’t so easily pacified. A month goes by of spontaneous vanishing. In a matter of two months, Kid starts panicking. She cries to Fae in the dark of one Sunday night that she feels like she’s slowly disappearing from the world. “Is this a consequence of the time-walking??” she asks Fae through broken waves of sobbing. “Did we make a big mistake? Are we slowly wiping me out of existence??”

“No,” Fae says to her, talking in that same vague voice that’s not as reassuring as it’s meant to be. “You’re fine. It’s just a result of—”

“Growing up. Maturing. Yeah, I heard it already. Link says it over and over. But why can’t you do anything about it??” Kid blurts, maddened and hysterical.

Fae lifts her eyebrows. “Me?”

“You’re a Goddess!” Kid feels her voice rising. She knows she’s being unreasonable, but she pushes the point anyway. “You have all the powers! You have every Legacy! Why can’t you fix everything? Why couldn’t you save Ames??”

“Ames??” Fae blinks, as if she’s forgotten who that even is.

“Why can’t you just time-walk us back to the present? Why can’t you save Link from dying whenever Baron dies? Why can’t you stop me from fading away??”

“Akidra, please …”

“MY NAME’S KID!” she screams suddenly. “NOT AKIDRA! IT’S NEVER BEEN AKIDRA TO ME! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN KID!!”

Without hearing any more of her words, Kid races out of the back sliding door and cuddles herself in a corner of the backyard by the fence, crying out all of her tears under a careless moon half-eclipsed by a faraway arm of the Lifted City. She stares at that moon until the sobbing dwindles away and all she’s left with is a ringing in her ears and an ache in her chest.

But no amount of crying frees her from her circumstance. The bouts of vanishing become so frequent that after little Akidra has had her fifth birthday, Kid’s natural state of being is invisible all the time, and it is now turning visible that takes the conscious effort.

With Akidra being five now, the clock of doom in Kid’s mind ticks louder than it’s ever ticked before. She has to have the talk with Link—and soon.

“Do you think you’ll ever call her ‘mother’?” Link asks one day when they’re chatting quietly in the kitchen. Faery is busy playing with Akidra in the den, the broadcast emitting a simple tune.

“Probably not,” Kid admits. “Not any more than I’d call you dad. That seems weird.”

“It does,” Link agrees with a light chuckle, leaning against the counter as he watches the sun slowly set beyond the Wall.

Kid is straining so much to remain visible right now that she’s getting a headache, but she hides that fact from Link and tiredly says, “I want to share something with you.”

“What’s that?”

“You remember … the last memory I have … of my parents?”

Link thinks about it. “The masked men …?”

“Yeah. When I was six. The masked men coming in, and my dad being killed … and my mom …”

Link doesn’t need any more prompting, his eyes going wide as the very same thought occurs to him. “Akidra’s five …”

“I was young when it happened,” says Kid. “Maybe I was only five. Maybe I wasn’t six yet. I don’t know. The face of my father and my mother is so foggy in my memory, but it has to be you and her. And the masked men … they will come.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” reasons Link.

“They have to,” Kid stubbornly pushes on. “The problem with my memory is, they come inside the house and … and they kill you. Except—”

“Except I can’t die,” finishes Link, his eyes narrowing as he thinks it over. “But Kid, how do we know these masked men will even come at all? No one knows we’re here except the Reedas and they wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

“We need to have a plan anyway,” Kid insists, gritting her teeth as she keeps visible for as long as she can stand. “They might come. And we have to be prepared.”

Link huffs and folds his arms, at a loss. “What am I supposed to do, Kid? Are we supposed to hide from them? Move away? Stop them? Like I said, they don’t even know we exist.”

“I … have a theory.”

Link lifts an eyebrow, listening. Kid sighs, trying to gather her thoughts as she wrings her hands. She feels herself slipping in and out of visibility. Link doesn’t seem to react, despite it happening.

Kid begins. “Baal knew that the Goddess went missing. Right?”

Link’s eyes flash, likely surprised with the mention of that foul name he hasn’t heard in years. “U-Um, right,” he stammers.

“We may be able to assume, then, that there is a slim possibility that someone else might know she’s missing. Like, maybe Sanctum. Or the King himself.”

Link keeps following. “Okay.”

“What if the masked men … are the King’s men?”

Link shrugs. “So?”

“What if these masked men … are coming here for Fae? What if someone recognized her at the hospital five years ago? What if the wrong person asks the Reedas the wrong question and that’s what leads them to us? What if the masked men are just trying to reclaim their missing Goddess—regardless of whether or not she’s actually a Goddess or whatever?”

His lips purse as he stares irritably at the wall ahead of him, mulling over this picture Kid is painting before his eyes. He clearly doesn’t like the picture.

“They might just be killing you because you’re in the way,” Kid goes on. “They’ll come here looking for Fae. They want her back.”

“You’re saying she’s the reason the masked men come and kill me and … and take away everything you hold dear? That nightmare you’ve carried with you your whole life? It’s because of her?”

“Yes. Sort of. Doesn’t it make sense?”

Link sighs, shaking his head and staring down at the ground. “I don’t know what the solution is. Should Fae be taken somewhere safe? Are we being fools, staying in this house?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Link stews on it awhile longer, leaning against the counter and drumming his fingers along his chin. Soon after, Kid relieves herself of the agony of staying visible, allowing her body to slip into its far more comfortable state of being unseen, vanished, gone.

In the den a few nights later, Fae seems somewhat withdrawn as she rests listlessly on the couch staring at the broadcast, which is turned off and displaying nothing. “Are you okay, Faery?” asks Kid invisibly, to which she only gives a mild nod and a tightened smile, turning onto her side and hugging herself. “Are you sure?” Kid asks again, to which Fae just nods again, staring now at the floor.

On a morning after Akidra is fed her breakfast and plays in the backyard with Link, chasing him around in circles and laughing, Fae speaks up. “I think you and Link should live a long and happy life.”

Kid is unrested by the words at once. “And you, too,” she adds.

“Of course. I meant us, yes,” says Fae, her voice collapsed.

Kid takes Fae’s hand and draws her into the invisible world with her, if anything so that her mother can see her face. “We’re all going to live a long, happy life together. Your old life, no matter what it was, no matter if you were a prisoner, or lived in some other realm with your … Sisters, or … or whatever. You don’t have to live like that ever again. You’re with us, now.”

Fae nods, her eyes drifting along Kid’s face with longing. “It’s a privilege to be able to raise you as a child … and also see the brilliant results of you as a growing teenager … both at the same time.” Fae smiles and presses a hand to her daughter’s fifteen-year-old cheek. “I really miss my sisters. I feel, in some ways, I may have abandoned them. I wish I could share this freedom with them, too.”

Kid struggles with a word on her tongue, but instead of uttering it, she says the name instead. “F-Faery … Maybe we can find a way to free them, too.”

“I don’t know how. I wouldn’t know where to begin looking.”

Still, even in this moment, Kid can’t bring herself to call her ‘mother’. She just sighs and feels her eyes fill with tears. “You didn’t abandon them. We’ll free them. We will free them and they can live with us. I never knew I had two all-powerful aunts.”

Fae smiles ruefully. “I am not all-powerful, sweetheart.”

“You’re a Goddess.”

“I don’t know what I am, Kid. The longer I’m here, the more … human I feel. I gave Link’s Legacy back when we first met, but now I can’t …” Fae shakes her head, looking away, her hand slipping from Kid’s face and landing in her lap. “I can’t think how I did it. Did I give up my own power to be here? I don’t know. I feel so powerless.”

Kid feels a stupid tear escape down her cheek. Why am I crying? “You’re not powerless.” Just call her ‘mom’. Call her your ‘mother’. Do her just this one kindness, Kid …

Faery’s mouth tightens with resolve. “No. Not totally powerless. There is … yet … a thing I can do.”

Kid nods, encouraged. “Yes. You’re not powerless.” Mom. Mom. Mother. Kid puts her arms around Fae and hugs her tightly. Mom. Just say it. Mom. Mom. Mom. But the two only hug one another in the quiet room, which is soon assaulted by the laughter and glee of Link and Akidra, who spill inside from the back, and then dinner is made and the words shared between Kid and Fae are forgotten.

The next morning, the front door shuts softly, but Kid hears it from the upstairs room.

Kid heads down the stairs and steps out of the front door, invisible, and peers both ways down the street. She sees no one and nothing. Who opened and closed the front door?

She’s in the den the next instant. “Fae? … Fae?” She steps into the kitchen and finds it empty, too. With a glance into the backyard through the sliding glass door, she sees Link sitting on the step watching little Akidra in the yard.

When she pulls open the door, Link lifts his face. “Hey there, Kid,” he says, despite not being able to see her at all. “Look. You’re playing in the yard,” he teases.

“Have you seen Fae?” she asks, her voice tensed.

Link’s eyebrows pull together. “She’s in the den.”

“No, she’s not.”

Link joins her as they check every room in the house. They look in the front yard again, seeing no one. Link gives a quick knock on the neighbor’s door, thinking Fae might have stopped by to ask for a pinch of salt or some spice, but even Ms. Reeda says she hasn’t seen Fae. The panic is evident on both Link and Kid’s faces when they regroup in the kitchen, overcome with fear and arguing frantically about when’s the last time they each saw Fae.

Akidra comes in from the backyard, staring up at them. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Link and Kid look down at her, silenced at once. Akidra only stares at her father, as Kid is invisible. Link crouches down. “Sweetie. When’s the last time you saw your mommy?”

“After we eated.”

Link nods. “Yes, after breakfast. She was in the den watching the broadcast. Then you came into the backyard where I was. Did she say anything to you before you left her?”

“She saided she’d be right back,” answers little Akidra.

Kid puts a hand over her mouth and turns away, all the fears she’d held back in a dam of her own creation are bursting forth, flooding her heart and her brain and her eyes with memories she had long thought were dead.

Link’s own face must reflect a similar fear because Akidra asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetheart.” Link pulls the little girl to him, hugging her tightly as he turns his head to look in Kid’s direction, despite her being invisible. “She’ll be back,” he promises his daughter—perhaps both of them. “She’ll be back.”

A few moments later when Akidra is occupied with toys in the den, Kid and Link sit across from one another at the dining room table. “I have a plan,” says Kid at once.

“It’s happening,” whispers Link in fear, “just as you said.”

“Listen.” Kid is holding his hand so that he is invisible with her and can see her. “I think Fae was trying to protect us. I should have listened and stopped her. I think she’s either trying to turn herself in to the ones coming after her, or else she’s looking for her sisters. She feels like she abandoned them. She wants to free them, too.”

“You didn’t tell me any of this,” says Link, almost an accusation.

“Whatever she’s gone to do,” Kid goes on, ignoring his protest, “the masked men are going to come back for you tonight.”

“I know,” hisses Link tersely, trying to keep his voice down so that Akidra hears none of this.

“We both know you won’t actually die,” says Kid, “but I need you to pretend like you do.”

Link lifts his eyebrows incredulously. “Pretend to die?”

“Let the masked men think they’ve killed you. Then, when they take your body away, I’m going to follow them. If we find out where the masked men take you …”

“Then we could find Fae, assuming they took her.”

“Fae. Maybe her sisters too. And maybe …” Maybe Aryl. But she keeps that name to herself. “Maybe I’ll get answers that I’ve, all my life, been waiting for.”

“No.”

Kid stares at him. “No?”

“I can’t do that to little Akidra. I can’t—I can’t do that to my little girl,” he finishes.

“I’m your little girl. I’m the same person,” Kid states, feeling silly in needing to say that. “You need to do this.”

“I can’t let her think I’m dead. I can’t let her see me get killed in front of her.”

“Link, you need to,” Kid insists. “If you don’t, think about how that might affect … things to come! You’ll wreck the entire path my life takes! All the lessons I’ve learned! You’ll destroy the very thing that makes me … me.”

“But …” Link gives a rueful, pained glance over his shoulder at the little girl in the den, playing with her toys and oblivious to the words they exchange.

Kid watches the little girl too. She’s been so used to her, the little girl literally feels like a completely different person. Is it that Akidra truly is a different person, or have I simply become a different person myself, grown up so fast into a young woman that I don’t identify with the little girl who can turn invisible anymore?

“She … will be fine,” Kid assures him with an ironic half smile. “I’ve been running from the masked men since I was a child … since I was her. She will be just fine. This is my journey, Link. This is my journey … and I won’t run anymore.”

Link sighs. Then he faces her importantly. “This ends tonight.”

“This ends tonight,” she agrees.

After the sun falls and all that can be heard in the house is the dancing of leaves and the swaying of trees outside, Kid stands invisibly by the foot of the stairs, her stomach iron hard and her eyes ready for who—or what—comes through that door. Link is visibly tensed, sitting in a chair at the dining room table, staring at the door with intention. Neither of them move, waiting for the thing to happen … the thing that might or might not even happen.

Kid looks up suddenly. A shadow just crossed past the window, she could’ve sworn. “Did you see that?” she whispers.

Link’s eyes are on the window too, his ears perked, listening.

Another shadow passes by a window near the den.

Link is on his feet. “Akidra,” he hisses. She looks up from her pile of toys in the den, her eyes bright and curious. “Come over here, sweetheart,” he whispers.

The girl abandons her toys at once, her eyes filled with worry in an instant, and comes up to Link. She is alert and she is quick, Kid notes, watching herself as a child. I’d always thought those were skills I developed on the street when I was on my own … but maybe I always had them.

Link crouches down to her level. “Akidra, I need you to hide,” he tells her quietly. “Do what you do. Use your Legacy.”

“My Legnasy,” little Akidra repeats. “Is something wrong?”

“Hide,” he repeats to her. “Go. Hide.”

Without asking another question, the little girl hurries to the dining room table and crouches under it.

There is a knock at the door.

Link glances back at Kid one last time, as if to question whether this is truly what they want to do. His eyes don’t meet hers exactly, since she is invisible, but the remarkable accuracy with which he seems to guess her location makes Kid feel like he’s the only one in the whole world who will ever truly see her, invisible or not.

Then he turns the doorknob and pulls open the door.

One loud explosion from a gun throws Link backward from the door, slamming onto the ground. He turns his face, staring now at the spot under the table at which little Akidra is hiding invisibly. In the mess of masked figures who pour through the door—twelve of them, to be exact—Link’s eyes search for his little girl under the table.

Kid flattens against the wall as a pair of masked men scurry up the stairs to check the rooms up there. She hears their heavy footfalls as they rush through the bedrooms as well as the den and kitchen at her back. “Nothing,” calls someone from upstairs, a woman by the sounds of it. “No one down here,” shouts someone from the den.

The two rush past her again on the stairs, then step over Link’s body on their way out of the door. The others from downstairs start to vacate the house. One of them stops by Link and checks for a pulse, then leans their masked face in to listen for breathing—neither of which they find. When they scurry out of the door, leaving it wide open in their departure, the house falls silent.

Kid doesn’t move a muscle. She sees Akidra under the table as she stares at her father, wide-eyed and unmoving. She neither cries nor moves a muscle. She is smart enough not to speak or to get up from under the table or to return to the world of the visible.

All the while, Kid’s heart slams in her chest, but she refuses to be unrested by the nightmares bubbling up from within her at the reliving of this scene. This time, I end it. This time, I will get to the very bottom of these masked men and their vile practice.

Then a pair of masks are at the door, each grabbing a leg of Link as they drag him away.

And Kid hurries after them through the door. She doesn’t even stop to glance at herself under the table—the little girl who is likely still staring, stupefied, paralyzed, at the spot at which her father was just lying. Good luck, little one, Kid thinks to herself as she races after the masked men.

0223  Rone

He was flying somewhere, afloat in a dream of his own making when he feels the undeniable brink of orgasm rush toward him. He chases after it with the excitement he used to feel as a child, first learning the limits of his Legacy as he’d barge toward a brick wall, ready to phase through it at the last second, unsure if he’d smash face-first into the brick or drift through it like a cloud.

That wall looks like Ruena Netheris. She opens her arms, ready to embrace him. Then she’s on a bed, spreading her long, beautiful, smooth legs. She’s naked and her breasts call to him. “Rone …” she whispers in the swirling nothingness.

Rone spills, wave after wave of unimaginable pleasure as he empties. It doesn’t matter that it’s inside Edrick’s ass as the pleasure boy rides his hard cock, despite Rone lying there like a child’s rag doll. It doesn’t matter that his real love, Ruena, is somewhere else in Atlas, far away, maybe in danger, maybe perfectly safe, maybe dead by now … none of it matters.

“More,” hisses Rone as he tries to move his arms, but feels the delightfully heavy grip of chemical in his blood.

The pleasure boy is there somewhere stuffing Rone’s cock away into a pair of underwear. Through a haze that’s become of Rone’s vision, he sees his outline. Edrick looks down at him.

“M-More …” repeats Rone with only an ounce more of urgency.

“More what?” returns Edrick. “More of my ass? Or more of my chemical down your throat?”

“More …” Rone breathes deep, sucking sweet, delicious air into his shallow lungs. “More. Please. More.”

Edrick stares down at him, slowly coming into focus as Rone lazily blinks and blinks and blinks. Edrick’s expression is flat. There is no fun in his eyes. He just took another ride on Rone and keeps getting what he wants over and over, and still there’s no joy in his eyes. There’s still no joy.

“You’ve had enough,” mutters Edrick sourly. “And so have I.”

“More …” moans Rone, frustrated.

Edrick lifts himself off the bed, puts on a pair of tiny golden shorts that cover just to the bottom of his ass, then sashays out of the room and into the main bar where the customers are. Rone slumps back onto the bed, giving in to the fairies and sparkles and blankness that wait for him behind his eyelids.

Over the past several days—however long it’s been since Edrick took him in—Rone has spent the majority of his time lounged over one of the three lavish beds that sit in this back room where Edrick takes his highest paying clients. Some have asked what purpose Rone serves, and Edrick tells each of them to ignore him and makes up some story about Rone being a past client that got so drunken and happy with Edrick’s top-quality service that he passed out just like a two-year-old. It always seems to do the trick, and Edrick gets to work making some more coin. Sometimes other pleasure boys will join him, including two who have come seeking refuge from the Lifted City after the Fall. “Slummers will pay some pretty paper for Privileged ass,” he’d told both them and Rone.

Once, Rone slumped out of the room and staggered over to the bar where he sat on a stool and stared, dead-eyed, at the broadcast, which displayed nothing. The chemical in his brain began to show a hallucination of some execution before his eyes, and he watched each and every person he ever knew being killed by Impis Lockfyre. He felt nothing as he watched each of them die.

Suddenly Rone is sitting up in the bed. He feels like a long period of time has passed, but can’t tell how much. A day? A week? He feels unsettlingly alert and aware of his surroundings. He glances down and finds his pants missing, only a pair of small baby blue briefs hugging his cock and balls tightly.

He’s on his feet, then regrets rising so quickly, sitting right back down as his head spins. He blinks several times, takes a deep breath, then rises off the bed more slowly. Still dizzy, he staggers toward the door and pushes it open.

The bar is somewhat populated—at least twenty or so men, if Rone had to guess. Half of them turn in his direction, and he is met with a slew of hungry eyes and quirking eyebrows. Rone ignores them all and totters drowsily across the room. The eyes follow. He makes it to the bar and slumps onto a barstool, pressing his face into his hands to drown out everything he sees.

“What’s your rate, pretty thing?” grunts a man at his side.

“Half a pint of chemical,” answers Rone, muffled through his palms. I’m a chemical slave now. “Just drown me out and I’m happy. Help me feel nothing.”

“I could put it in you and fuck you raw as you like,” the man says. “You won’t feel a thing. That still cost me a pint?”

“Fuck off,” mutters Rone.

The man bristles. “The hell you just say to me, whore boy?”

“You want something to fuck?” asks Rone, lifting his face from his hands to look at him. Goodness, you’re ugly. “How about you take a finger or five and go fuck yourself? It’s the economical option.”

The man makes a furious grab at Rone, but he goes straight through him. Rone, solidifying just his hand, grabs the man by the back of his neck and thrusts him into his barstool face-first, but phases him halfway into it. Then Rone releases his hand and slumps away carelessly, leaving the screaming man trapped with his upper torso lodged somehow between the legs of the barstool, his ass up in the air. A few patrons seem to find it more amusing than horrifying, taking turns slapping the man’s ass and calling him names.

The noise in the bar cuts in half at once. Rone hears a familiar buzzing, and then a funny voice cuts through the room, louder than all the rest. It confuses Rone until he turns around to face the bar again and finds all of the broadcasts showing the bright and equally-as-confused face of Impis Lockfyre. His skin is powdered white and his eyes are lined with a deep red color that fans out at the temples. His lips are a kiss of pale, smeared red. One pupil is a pinhead of black and the other, a spiral of red. His face fills the whole screen.

“Is it working?” asks Impis, staring at the screen.

“I did all I could,” comes a soft voice.

Rone blinks and wipes his eyes. I know that voice.

Impis taps the screen. “HELLO??” he calls into it, the whites of his eyes flashing bright, too bright. His left eye twitches once. “Are you there, my lovely Atleans? I made that word up just now. It’s cute. I claim it. Atleans. Atlas-eans. Atlaseans.” He starts mumbling to himself, confused suddenly.

“I … I tried what I know,” the soft voice comes again. “I read a book about the electrical infrastructure of—”

“Ugh, your words.” Impis pulls away from the camera ever slightly to address her. “Thank you for your service. Oh! Come, yes! Introduce yourself! ATLAS,” cries Impis, facing the camera again. “Meet my newest Chaot! Hey, Atlas, isn’t that what you like to call my friends? Chaots? I heard the word from a person we dropped from the edge of the city. You do know we were doing that, right? A soul a day for every day Ruena was not brought to me?”

The camera shifts only slightly, but it’s just enough to catch sight of Erana, who stands there awkwardly with her glasses at the tip of her nose. Her eyes are dead and her lips are slightly parted. The long braid that had become of her black hair is disheveled and somewhat unraveled, giving her a tousled, manic sort of look.

Rone’s heart breaks. He can’t breathe suddenly, listening and watching. If there’s a trace of chemical in his system, he can’t feel it.

“But Ruena was brought to me. Quite lucky for you. And yet …”

Impis grabs hold of the camera, each of his thumbs visible on the sides of the screen. His teeth clenches as the words come out.

“She … was … then … STOLEN FROM ME! You took her back but I will find her again. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. One more person will fall from the Lifted City a day. It worked the first time, yes it did, and it will work now. One person falls a day. One person dies a day until Ruena Sunsong-Al-whatever Netheris is returned to me! ALIVE!”

Murmurs are rising among the men at the bar and around the room, their eyes wide with alarm.

“My Chaos Bolts will continue to fire. Oh, I have such a delight with each and every emission. I orgasm on the likes of all of you, and my orgasm is red, hot light. Have you ever seen true power?” asks Impis, suddenly sounding as light and flippant as a friend chatting over cuddled pillows. “Power like this? Oh, if only I had these damn broadcasts working since the start. I would have shown you each and every life that falls from the sky. Yes, yes, I think I’ll do that. Oh, what a show! What a show it’ll be!”

Then the Mad King cackles, flecks of his spit dressing the lens of the camera. He backs away from the camera, laughing maniacally as if invisible fingers are assaulting him, tickling every inch of his body. He thrusts forward—a tickle at his back. He doubles over—a tickle on his abs, on his sides, around his neck. He splutters and howls.

Other laughter joins him on the broadcast. Anyone near him are now laughing. Even Erana. The madness spreads before Rone’s eyes, contained to the unfortunate ones within his vicinity up in the sky somewhere. The sound is deafening, the broadcast in the bar blasting with sickening laughter. Someone gets too close to the camera and knocks it over, and the whole world shifts, staring up at the shattered pillars of the Crystal Court, revealing where they are.

And then the laughter ends at once, as if Impis deliberately chooses to end it. Flat-lipped, Impis stands over the camera, staring down into it, and for a moment, it’s like he’s standing on top of the whole world. “The one who brings me Ruena Netheris will be showered with riches and power. I will assign you the position of …” Impis’s eyes detach as he looks up, thinking of a word. Then he grins and peers back down at the camera. “Marshal of Treasures. Yes, yes, yes. Treasures lost and treasures found. Find my treasure, my precious Atleans,” he hisses, and then the broadcast goes dead.

Rone can’t move his face, as if still staring at the Mad King on the broadcast. Erana … He turns away and pushes back into Edrick’s room, stunned. He can’t even blink. Erana … If he blinks, he’ll lose sight of one of the two women he loves. One is trapped up there with the Madness upstairs. One is lost down here in the Madness below. Or has Ruena escaped back to our spot in the sky? Are they both up there?

“Why did I ever leave …?” Rone mumbles to the empty bed in which he’s spent so much time drowning in a pool of numbness. “Why …?”

“Rone,” comes Edrick’s voice at his back. “You alright?”

Rone doesn’t answer, mumbling something unintelligible into his palms, which now cover half his face.

“I’d ask if you need any clothes,” murmurs Edrick, “but then I’d disappoint literally everyone in the bar, myself included.”

Rone spins suddenly, facing the pleasure boy. “Did you not just see that?” he nearly shouts, exasperated at once.

Edrick smirks. “Yeah, so? The Mad King’s got a new toy. That’s all he needs. Another toy. He’s got red lightning and he still needs more toys. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t change anything.”

He has Erana. It changes everything. And the syringe … “Oh, no.”

Edrick lifts his eyebrows. “What?”

“I need my clothes,” demands Rone, dizzily glancing around him at the floor and seeing nothing. He stumbles into a nearby dresser and rips open the drawer, but all he finds inside are a hundred pairs of skimpy underwear in every single texture and shape and color of the rainbow.

“You arrived in only jeans, and that sad pair of jeans were in tatters. You had no shirt or shoes or … well, anything else. Not even underwear.”

Rone trips over his foot and falls into the bed, then stumbles back to his feet, the room spinning. “Give me pants. Anything. A shirt. I need to go.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Edrick is standing in front of him at once. “You can’t just leave like this.”

“I have to stop him. I’m the one. The syringe … her weapon …”

“What syringe? What weapon?”

“A treasure beneath the floor …” Rone mumbles the words. He thinks of the “treasure” of the slums beneath the “floor” of the Lifted City. Is that it? Is the serum a medicine for the slums—the treasure beneath the floor? A medicine to cure the city of the Madness? “The weapon in my arsenal …” What’s the weapon? His Legacy? Passing through walls? Walking straight into the throne room and injecting the Mad King with the deadly, neutralizing serum … which he left in an alley someplace?

“Stop.”

Rone stops, gripped by the arms by Edrick. A mixed look of fear and sadness floats in Edrick’s eyes. Rone never thought it possible, for emotion like that to appear in the eyes of a boy like this.

“I’m still owed,” murmurs Edrick in a voice that’s hardly there.

Rone swallows. He can phase through the pleasure boy’s hands and just run, but he chooses not to. He lets Edrick touch him and he considers the pained look in the boy’s eyes. Did I use Edrick, or did Edrick use me?

“You wanted me to make you feel love,” Rone says, “long ago. It was your bargain that we could never fulfill. Twice now I’ve been here, accepting your help.”

“And twice, I’ve scared you off into the Lifted City. Twice. The love of my life, always running away.”

“I’m not the love of your life.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.” Rone brings a hand to the back of Edrick’s neck, then pulls the boy toward him, planting a kiss on his forehead. “You’ll find that thing that makes you love, Eddy. It’s not me. Or my cock. Or my pretty blue eyes.”

“They aren’t that pretty,” Edrick lies, pulling away. “Besides, you think you’re the first one? Maybe I have a weakness for helping fools like you who’ve lost their way, broken down and desperate, at their very worst. Maybe I … I just want someone to feel sorry for … and then to hold.” He lets go of Rone, appraising him for a moment. “My brother calls me Eddy. It’s weird that you just did.”

“You’ve a brother? Is he as similarly big-hearted and wanton of pity?” Rone sits down suddenly, his head reeling sideways. “Fuck.”

Edrick crouches down in front of him, folds his arms over Rone’s lap and rests his chin in it, looking up at Rone. “If we’d spent a little less time guzzling cock and chemical, respectively, maybe we would have talked a bit more and gotten to know one another. You might have found that we have more in common than you know.”

“Maybe,” agrees Rone, then glances down at Edrick’s face in his lap. “Eddy, I need you to take me to the street you found me on.”

“No, nope. It’s weird, you calling me that. I feel like I’m in my brother’s lap. Weird, weird, weird.”

“Please. I need you to take me.”

“Why the rush?” Edrick lazily runs a finger up and down Rone’s thigh. “Can’t you stay here another night or so, you sweet, blue-eyed creature? The Madness can wait.”

“The Madness has waited.”

“I won’t even touch your cock,” he insists. “I just want to cuddle. Just a little bit of cuddling. Maybe a kiss or two, if you’re open to it.”

“Your forehead just got one.”

“I want one on the lips. Please, Rone.”

“My sister died for that syringe that I carelessly left in an alley somewhere. With any luck, it won’t have gotten stepped on or stolen or ingested by a cat. Please, Edrick. Take me there.”

Edrick sighs, his breath blasting over Rone’s exposed thighs. He relents at last, rising from the floor and crossing to a large armoire across the room. He open it and pulls out a simple grey shirt and a pair of jeans. He flings them onto the bed nearest to him, then fishes out a pair of shoes and socks, setting them on the floor. Without another word, Edrick walks out of the room, shutting the door at his back and leaving Rone alone to dress.

The shirt fits too snug and the jeans grip his ass like a pair of lover’s hands, but he accepts them anyway, the baby blue briefs on underneath. The brown shoes are loose and worn, so even though they are smaller than Rone would prefer, they are still wearable. He emerges from the room and finds Edrick by the door to the bar, waiting for him with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. No, he’s not happy about the favor he’s doing Rone, but he’s doing it anyway, and for that, Rone is infinitely appreciative.

They walk the streets for twenty minutes, Edrick wrapped up in a red, shimmery jacket that cinches at the waist with a cord and covers only halfway to his knees. When they happen upon the street, Rone isn’t even aware of it until Edrick grunts, “Here.”

Rone plunges forth, searching for the item. He squints and goes to his hands and knees. He experiences four and a half minutes of excruciating, heart-crushing disappointment as his eyes find nothing.

Then a glint catches his eye by the dumpster. He rushes to it and picks the delicate syringe off the ground, issuing a sigh of delight and feeling like he could cry. His head still spins and the gleeful tinge of citrusy joy that is chemical dances around in his chest, but he has reunited with Cintha’s only gift to him, and for that he is grateful.

“Good luck,” calls out the pleasure boy before turning to go.

“Wait.”

Rone closes the distance between them. Edrick’s eyes are dead as he stares resentfully at Rone. When the two boys are together, Rone puts a finger under Edrick’s chin, lifting his face upward.

A little spark of curiosity enters the pleasure boy’s eyes.

Rone thinks about the woman—the women—he loves. He thinks about Ruena Netheris, his Queen. He thinks about Erana Sparrow, his Muse. He feels the fingerless touch of their passions and what it’s like to spend endless lazy days entangled in blankets and pillows on the lavish floor of a half-fallen Lifted City mansion. I want to return there with them someday. We will make our peace less temporary. The overwhelming stuff of love surges into him, filling and overflowing.

He drops his lips onto Edrick’s. They are so plush and cared for, it’s just like kissing a girl when Rone closes his eyes. Even the taste is pleasant. He is kissing Ruena. He is kissing Erana.

And he is kissing Edrick, the pleasure boy who cared for him, who revived him, who gave him such … pleasure … that he wonders if he really could love him in that way.

Then Rone pulls away, the sensation of the kiss still lingering on his lips. When Edrick at last opens his eyes, they are bright, alive, and vibrant with emotion. “W-Was that … how it … feels like?” the pleasure boy asks, his voice breaking. “Is that what it’s like?”

Rone puts a hand to the boy’s soft cheek, gives it a gentle pat, then says, “When you meet him, you’ll know.” Rone gives the boy a wink of his sapphire eyes, then turns to depart the alley with but one destination in mind, and a secret gripped in his tightened palm.

0224  Ellena

Ellena only experiences one day of peace before she is sat down in a stark room and interrogated by a man named Obert Ranfog who looks damaged inside and out, his posture broken and his whiskered face gaunt. He wears a clean white button shirt and pants the color of the Guardian, and a badge is affixed to his chest. His eyes are cold and vicious, likely causing any he’s standing before to wither.

But Ellena does not wither. She sits in her chair with her legs crossed tightly and her eyes half-lidded, annoyed with all the pomp of this meeting. Gabel, Bee, and Cope stand on one side of the stark room. Three other Guardian she has never met stand on the other. The room is brightly lit from one end to the other, seeming to reveal every secret, truth, and lie in its dusty corners and pitted walls. The door is far away and bolted thrice.

“I’m Lead Officer Obert Ranfog,” states the man, despite being previously introduced, “and you’re Ellena Lesser. You killed Taylon Redbrade, former Marshal of Order, by somehow breaking his bones while unbreaking yours, thus ending his short, miserable little life. Is that all of the truth, Ellena?”

Finally, a man who will call her by her first name. Ellena tries to straighten her spine, despite the awkward cuffing of her hands to either side of her chair. “That is the truth you have been told,” she answers caustically.

Obert’s stare is icy. “Tell it your way, then. What’s the truth?”

Ellena answers in clipped words, her voice as hard as his. “I was arrested under a false pretense. Before my situation with the Marshal of Order, I was threatened by arrow-point by an ex-coworker named Ernice and her armed son, neither of which, I believe, suffered any consequence for their criminal actions. I, myself, have committed no crime. If anything, the true criminal is Taylon Redbrade himself, who falsely made a fatal example of me before his Guardian based solely on his own juvenile misconception of what my husband, Forgemon, had done, and what that bitch Ernice said of me.”

A cold silence falls over the room. Ellena pays it no mind, her lips smirking, her hands hanging on either side of her chair, cuffed to the cold metal legs.

Obert regards her carefully. Unlike the other six Guardian who look scandalized and shocked by Ellena’s boldness—Gabel included—Obert merely stands there with a curiously open expression on his face. Ellena might daresay that Obert’s eyes have softened.

“Your husband,” says Obert. “Forgemon Lesser. His crime was the abduction and harboring of a Son of Sanctum, whose name I give zero shits about. Tell—”

“Athan Broadmore,” recites Ellena coolly, not waiting for Obert to finish. She is ready for this to be over with and for this fool to render his skewed, cold judgment upon her. Give me the next King’s execution. Give me life in a collapsed Keep that can’t hold me anyway. I don’t care anymore. I have hugged my broken Halvesand. I might see Aleksand if I’m lucky before I go. My husband is dead. I don’t care.

Obert’s eyes narrow, and then he finishes his question. “Tell me the series of … circumstances … that led to a Son of Sanctum ending up under your sad ninth ward roof.”

“Certainly,” spits out Ellena, her eyes half-lidded and her mouth tight. “The boy was rescued by my second-youngest, Anwick Lesser, from the explosion of Lordia Garden, or whatever it was called. The Athan Broadmore boy and my son fell in love. Sure, they’re young. I don’t care if it was lust or silly teenage puppy love, it’s all love just the same to me. Athan, of his own free will, came into my house and wished to live there with my son, as they had grown close. He was free to leave whenever he damned well pleased, but he chose to stay. When the Guardian came to my house, my husband boldly, bravely, sacrificially claimed to have abducted Athan himself so that his son Anwick would remain free and not be arrested. Despite Athan’s protests and attempts at explaining the truth to the Guardian, they took them both. My husband saw the King and then the Keep for the rest of his days—which I hear are now over, thanks to the collapse of the Keep crushing all its occupants dead. Athan was returned to his place in the sky. My son suffered a broken heart. The end.”

A cold silence twice as icy and bitter as the last captures the room. Gabel’s eyes are wide open, the greens of them glistening. Even the stoic Bee looks rattled by Ellena’s words. The boy Guardian Cope stares at the floor, as if wishing he was anywhere but in this room. Ellena feels a pang of worry for the trio of them; they’re likely next to be interrogated, since they were responsible for her transfer from the temporary sixth ward holding unit.

Obert, yet again, seems to be processing her words with opened ears and a calm yet steady demeanor. He lifts his chin as his eyes keep locked upon hers, studying her.

Ellena huffs impatiently. “Is that it?” she asks into the silence, unable to contain herself. “Or is there something else?”

Obert’s lip twitches. For a second, Ellena thinks he almost meant to smile. There’s a sparkle in his eye that Ellena can mistake for mild amusement, were she not so riled up herself.

Obert clasps his hands behind his back, then tilts his head. His voice is light and curious. “Explain to me how your Legacy works.”

“Ah, a lesson in Legacies. Lovely. Just how I wanted to spend my last day alive.” Ellena lifts her hands as far as they’ll go, which isn’t very far at all before the cuffs stop them near her hips. “I put my bare hands on a wounded person. I take their wounds from them and put them onto myself. I’m an Empath. I also happen to heal quicker, so I was known a bit in my neighborhood to be a healer. I took a damaged leg from a neighbor’s daughter. I took hundreds of schoolyard scrapes from my kids. I took a bruise from Denetta across the street so she could work, and a cramp from her husband’s neck too, and so on, and so on. Until that fateful moment with the Marshal of Order—a moment orchestrated by Ernice and her son—I did not realize that my Legacy works both ways. That day, I discovered that I can also move my wounds onto others. It was an unfortunate discovery, but a discovery just the same.”

“I would rather call that discovery fortunate,” posits Obert, “as it saved your life. Did it not?”

Ellena’s eyebrows pull together. Is that statement a trick to get her to spill a secret hatred for Sanctum, revealing her as the criminal that’d make this farce of a trial so much simpler to conduct?

“You say it was a discovery you made that day,” says Obert. He takes a few steps forward, his feet shuffling slightly along the tile, which leads Ellena to wonder how wounded he is under that outfit of his. “You also say you heal faster than most. You can’t have two damned Legacies. You can’t heal quick and also transfer wounds.”

“What are you getting at?” mutters Ellena petulantly.

“I think you’ve been spilling wounds from yourself for longer than you realize, that’s what.” Obert lifts his eyebrows, coming to a stop right in front of her chair, towering over her. “Allow me to suggest to you how dumb you’ve been your whole life.”

“So allowed,” she returns with a smirk. “Enlighten me.”

“You take a wounded leg from your friend’s dancer daughter. Then afterwards, you unknowingly give every person you hug, kiss, or give a handshake to … a tiny fraction of that leg wound.” Obert snorts, amused at the stunned look that slowly creeps onto Ellena’s face. “How’s that for some perspective? You’ve been sharing your aches and pains with every dumb fool who touches you.”

Ellena closes her mouth, clearing her face of any expression, despite the war of protests happening in her brain. That can’t be the truth, Ellena wants to say right away, denying Obert’s claim. But yet, it makes so much sense that Ellena cannot in any easy way refute it. Have I really been doing that this whole time? There is some sort of beautiful irony in a community sharing in the slow healing of its own wounds, but it’s lost on Ellena, her mind caught in a sudden fog.

“I think I’ve gathered all I need from you, Ellena Lesser.”

Her face tightens at once. “Is that so? Got all the evidence you need to conclude your phony little interrogation and send me to—”

“Uncuff her,” he announces.

The rest of Ellena’s words die on her parted lips. After a second of hesitation, the closest Guardian—one of the ones Ellena does not know from the other side of the room—steps forward with a key and unlocks the cuffs from her wrists. The chains drop heavily to the floor. Ellena slowly draws her hands to her chest, rubbing the wrists soothingly as she stares at Obert with questions in her eyes.

“You are free to go,” states Obert. “I hereby clear you of any and all charges. And as the intervening Marshal of Order, I hereby clear Forgemon Lesser of his crimes. When order is established both in the sky as well as in the Keep, he will be released.”

Astonished, Ellena gapes at him. Obert gives a curt signal of his hand, and the Guardian start to file out of the room. Gabel’s face clouds over as he turns and makes his way to the door.

“The Keep?” says Ellena in a small, faraway voice. “When order is established … in the Keep?”

“Did I stutter?” grunts Obert.

“I thought the Keep—Wait. But I was told—” Ellena tries to say, but Lead Officer Obert has left the room with the Guardian in tow. She stands by the chair holding her wrists, the act of massaging them frozen as she stares at the door in a cloud of confusion. “Gabel??”

After a minute, a face reemerges at the doorway, a face that is clouded over the same as hers, but with a different sort of emotion—a darker sort. He doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Gabel,” she says, her voice shaking. “Tell me. Gabel. Tell me right now. Tell it to me straight.” He says nothing at all. He stares at the wall, his mouth tight and his green eyes darkened. “Gabel. You will look at me when I talk to you.” His eyes begin to shimmer, a hint of tears forming in them. He still will not look at her. “Say it. Have the decency to just say it.”

He opens his mouth. He pauses. Then he says, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Ellena demands, tears coming to her own eyes. “Say it, Gabel. Fucking put me out of my misery and say the words, so Sisters help me, say the fucking words.”

“I lied.” His throat is constricted, the words coming out tight and strangled. “About the Keep. I lied.”

Ellena takes a short breath, determined not to shed another tear in front of this young man. “My husband is alive. Say those words.”

“I cannot, because I do not know.”

“My husband may be alive. Say those words.”

“Your husband …” He clenches shut his eyes, his jaw tightening, and then he opens them again. “… may be alive.”

Ellena sucks in air, her lungs filling more than they have since the day the love of her life was ripped from her home. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been a lovesick, eye-blind, desperate, selfish fool. “Get out,” she hisses through bared teeth.

“Ellena …”

“GET OUT!” Gabel flinches at her scream. “OUT! OUT! OUT!” And then he is gone from the doorway so fast, she doesn’t hear his footsteps. She angrily pounds the chair with her fists over and over. I let him fuck me! She drops to the seat and grabs her head, emptying her lungs of scream after angry scream. FOOL! And then in the cold silence of the room, Ellena thinks of Forge, his strong eyes, his big arms, his kisses. She stares ahead numbly. She is back on the chair, but this time free of cuffs, this time free of interrogation, this time … “Free,” she finishes in wonder. “I’m … free.”

0225  Forgemon

Forgemon and Aphne do what they do best: sit across from each other at a table in the great commons and worry.

“Use the math, Forge.”

“I did. I counted to one. What a great accomplishment of math. And now I’m counting to zero.”

“You can’t count to zero. Zero means there’s no numbers.”

“I used my great Legacy of math and I counted. One exit. Now zero. Why do I try? I don’t know how to use my Legacy anymore.”

“Yes, you do. Our lives depend on it. Everyone’s lives.” Aphne leans back and slaps the table. “Come on, you sorry sack of shit.”

Forge takes her words for crass terms of endearment. She only says such words to the people she cares for, that much Forge knows. I mean so much to her, I’m a sorry sack of shit. If Aphne didn’t believe in me, she would’ve left this table a week ago when our only exit caved in and looked for stronger, smarter, more capable people to align with. But she stuck with me. She believes in this sorry sack of shit.

“You are only disturbed,” says Forge, “because of what we saw on the broadcasts.” When he brings his eyes up to Aphne’s, he finds her smirking. “You can play nonchalant all you wish, but I know it’s true. We got a glimpse of Impis and know there’s a Queen on the loose and that murdering slumborn innocents is Impis’s answer.”

“Math, math, and math,” grumbles Aphne. “That’s what I hear. It’s plenty of information to go on. So figure us a way to get above all of that. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“Impis’s big powdered face tells me nothing.”

“Because you aren’t using your fucking Legacy.”

Forge stares at the ceiling with frustration. It seems so high up that he swears he could fit Cloud Tower itself in these commons. He thinks on Cloud Tower and the Mad King Impis who rules atop it. He thinks of rulers and Kings and Almost Queens. He considers the massive amounts of people in the slums, and the tiny handful in the sky. He thinks of the number of fools trapped down here in the earth and the stone. Legacies. Likelihoods. A tilting of loyalty. A fear.

Fear. That must be the thing he saw in Impis’s eyes, the thing that gave him several numbers he needed to further his calculations since the day Ames fled the Keep. Their eyes are all filled with fear.

“No one has stepped up to take charge,” Forge points out, seeing the fear in all their eyes. “The Keep is getting on—”

“The Undercity,” corrects Aphne.

“The Undercity,” grunts Forge, “is getting on quite well enough without a leader. People are doing just what they did before with no King of Bones answering their petty, pesky questions. Resources are being gathered from the mines and organized automatically, as if a crew of guards still whip their backs. Weapons are being—”

“Yes, and they’ll be made and made, electricity generated, food stores counted and recounted … but to what end? For what purpose? Forge, all the Boner King did was prepare us. We need—”

“King of Bones,” mumbles Forge. “Not Boner King. He was not King of Erections.”

“The Boner King Ames was a coward who ran,” states Aphne. “It will not take long before the people come to accept that fact, and then I am certain that others will catch on. The wrong others. The angry others. Someone will take advantage of the peace, Forge, and we can’t have that. Someone will start making demands. Forge, you need to be the first one to do it. You need to make demands.”

“Aphne …” he growls for a warning.

She’s on her feet. “Organize us. Look into the future. Decide the direction our souls are headed. You have an army down here.”

“An army to fight what, exactly?” spouts Forge. “We are not at war with anyone. We are trapped like the child in his room while the parents fight. Let them fight. We are safe in our little room.”

“Aye, until the parents are done fighting and one of them is all eaten up by the other. Then what’ll you do when that parent comes knocking at your door?”

“There is no door,” says Forge. “The parent can’t get in.”

“Your analogy is terrible.”

“You’re the one talking of parents eating one another.”

“And what will you do when that parent shows up at your son’s door?” she murmurs, her tone darkening.

Forge glares at her for that remark. “That isn’t fair.”

“Or your wife’s door? Is she in a cute little room, too? Or is she one of these parents you have fighting each other out there? Your wife and your sons, are they the parents?”

“Aphne. I’m fucking warning you …”

“And are you the child?” she presses on, her voice cold. “Hiding? Waiting? Listening to your sons and your wife die?”

Forge is to his feet in an instant, and he comes around the table to face Aphne. He’s come so close, he could kiss her or bite off her nose. Aphne doesn’t even so much as flinch. Does this insufferable woman fear anything?

“If you speak of my sons or wife again …”

“Tell me, Forge. Where are they? Look for them. You think I’m just blowing fire in your ear for a little rise? How insulting. You are not so stupid, Forge.”

“My children are up there. My wife is up there.”

“Where? Look for them, Forge. Look for them.”

With Aphne in his face, their breaths falling hot and angrily upon one another, Forge clenches shut his eyes and he searches. The only figures and variables he can put together are from the day he was taken from his home. Ellena. Anwick. The Broadmore boy. Forge digs deeply into the words that were said, the actions that were taken, and the actions that followed. Halvesand. Aleksand. Lionis. He listens for his wife’s soft voice. He listens for Anwick’s slow draw of breath as he sleeps. Each of these items becomes a number, a figure. He calculates …

“Did you find them?” comes Aphne’s voice.

Forge sees a bird fall from the sky. Forge watches that bird, his heart falling apart as it plummets. I have seen that bird before. I saw it when I was confined to the Catacombs.

His eyes flap open and he turns his head. A great hallucination opens up before his eyes as he watches an ocean break apart in front of him, its torrents pouring into the halls and rushing down the rows of tables. It is not Fire that is our undoing, nor is it Earth; it will be Water … and a grim lack of Air. Forge stares at the imaginary flood. Why do the figures shift so fast? Why can’t he keep up with them?

“I’m too slow,” he whispers, a realization.

Aphne looks off in the same direction, confused. “Too slow?”

“I’m just one calculator. I need more, if I’m to lead us into any future where we survive. I need four. I need sixteen. I need two hundred and fifty-six. I need—”

“You have them,” she says, slapping a hand onto his shoulder with more force than necessary. “Here. Everywhere. The people of the Keep, they’re yours. What will you do, Forge?”

“Delegate,” he answers at once, then turns a squinted eye at her. “And it’s called the Undercity, you sorry sack of shit.”

Aphne smirks appreciatively, a glint of amusement finding her eyes. “Your people of the Undercity.”

“I will speak the words of the King of Bones,” says Forge. “I will tell them what he told me. Everything. I will keep no walls between us and our people. They won’t fear me, but instead, fear what I fear.”

“No walls. We are not Sanctum. We are the city beneath the city beneath the city.”

“And I will assign positions of power to them. Respect. Courage. Usefulness. The people will feel valued. They must feel valued, because they have been put here due to a Sanctum that did not value their lives. These people have been thrown away.”

“Thrown away like scrap meat,” Aphne agrees, incensed.

“I will give them a purpose. I will value them because we are all valuable, every last human life down here, every single one.”

“We will value them. Yes, yes. Go on, Forge. Keep on.”

“I will delegate a person to man the mines. A person to man the electricity. A person to man the food stores, and the halls, and the armory, and the forges …”

“Man those forges, Forge. Yes! And what’s in our future? What are we preparing for?”

At her question, Forge blinks, and in that single blink, a world flashes before the darkness of his mind. It is a world with three Kings in the slums, a King in the sky, and a King underground. It is a world of five that battle on and on, but he doesn’t know yet what they fight for. Is it peace? Is it domination? Is it fear?

Whatever it is, it makes him certain of one thing. That singular fact straightens his posture and makes him calm at once. King of the Undercity. King of Keeping. The Underground King. The people will not put up a fight. They are looking for me to step up. Even the ones who fear me need my guidance. They trust in my sight, even if I don’t trust in it myself. In this moment—and perhaps only in this moment—the math is suddenly quite clear to Forgemon Lesser.

“Forge?” Aphne’s eyes flicker. “What’s in our future?”

“Me,” he answers. “I am our future.”

0226  Ruena

It happened when a short, spunky girl appeared in front of her cell. The girl almost looked like a boy with choppy green hair that’s so short, it nearly seemed buzzed at the sides. A red tattoo crawled up the left side of her face, contrasting with her pale complexion. Ruena was entirely confused by her arrival, her hands withdrawn to her chest to give herself a bit of modesty before this girl.

“Hello,” said the girl with a cocky smirk on her petite face. “I’m Quin. The pleasure’s yours to meet me. Are you ready to be brought before the ruler of Atlas?”

Ruena stared at her dubiously. “You are one of his Chaots?”

There was a click, and then the Quin girl pushed the barred door of her cage open. “This way.”

“I am naked,” Ruena stated indignantly. “At least give me the decency of—”

“You are mistaken,” returned Quin.

Ruena frowned, then peered down at her body. A long silken gown now covered her. It was a green color, like the Quin girl’s hair. Ruena looked up, confounded.

“This way,” repeated the girl, walking off.

Ruena rose, mystified by her sudden clothing, but she gave it no more mind as she fled the confines of her cell. Following the Quin girl, she descended the steps of Cloud Tower when she had expected to ascend them. When they were crossing the ruined courtyard of Cloud Keep, which used to be beautiful and rich with squares of flowers and wide expanses of polished tile, Ruena assumed Impis was at the Crystal Court.

But then the Crystal Court came and went, and there was no Impis. They passed a few figures on the street, but none of them even bothered to turn their head. Ruena was dumbfounded. What was going on?

“Where are we going?” asked Ruena as they reached the road lined with obsidian. The two of them were coming up onto the edge of it that was broken off in the blast that took out Lord’s Garden.

Quin took a sharp turn and led them to a parked caravan, its door wide open. “Inside,” the little one commanded.

Ruena slipped inside the chrome vehicle. When the door shut and no Impis was inside, she became thoroughly confused. There was only a driver. “Where is Impis? Where are you taking me?”

“To the ruler of Atlas,” answered Quin, “like I said.”

And then the vehicle launched forward and thrust itself over the edge of the obsidian road—and the Lifted City.

Ruena felt weightless. She screamed, clutching at the harness that secured her to the seat. A million regrets and countless dreams flew past her face as her hair danced and the first sparks of electricity since her confinement to Cloud Tower fired in her fingers.

Through the nose of the caravan, Ruena watched the slums race toward them. And then she saw a figure toward which they were plummeting—a boy on the ground with his hands outstretched, as if prepared to catch a ball that his father had thrown.

The boy caught the vehicle in his hands with ease, the whole thing balanced in the air for one brief, delicate moment, and then he set the vehicle down softly upon the ground.

“Incredible,” hissed Ruena, still gasping for breath.

Quin pushed open the door and led the Almost Queen out of the caravan, abandoning it in that plaza, which still carried the destroyed remains of Lord’s Garden. Quin, Ruena, the boy who caught the vehicle midair, and the driver walked in a unit. Piles of soil and mounds of dirt lay everywhere they stepped, sprouts of flowers and tiny weeds growing from them in careless coils and tendrils and tiny confused fronds.

But also littered over the square were bodies. Countless bodies. Some were intact. Some had blasted apart. Boys. Girls. Women. Men. Elderly. And others entirely indistinguishable. What sort of horror had they happened upon?

“One for each day you weren’t found,” answered Quin as they walked through the plaza of corpses. “One for each day that no one turned you in … since that fateful day that the Mad Marshal took your rightful throne.”

Ruena was shielding her face from the foul fumes of decay, but now her eyes stung with the threat of tears. She was responsible for all of this carnage? Her heart fell through the world. Each day, a life was taken … while I was fucking Rone and kissing Erana and ignoring the world I was supposed to protect.

Quin needed no shield for her nose. Smirking, she said, “If you prefer not to see them at all, I can help with that.” When Ruena’s eyebrows pulled together, not understanding, Quin demonstrated by giving a nod at their environment. In an instant, all Ruena could see was a plaza filled with grass from end to end—no corpses, only big pretty flowers. She even felt the warm kiss of sunlight, despite it being in the dead of night. “Illusion is my Legacy,” answered the girl to Ruena’s bewildered eyes. “The silk you think you’re wearing, another sweet illusion. I’m full of them. But where I am taking you is no illusion. What you are about to see is very, very real.”

When they made a wide turn down a dark alley where the road dipped down to a lightless tunnel that yawned open like a great, terrible mouth, Ruena felt deep misgivings. She was away from the Mad King and far from that cell in the King’s Keeping, but where was she headed? And was it a worse fate?

Halfway down the tunnel, they reached a small door. Quin put a key to its lock and opened the way. There was another long passage, a staircase, another staircase, and yet another long passage that the four of them traveled. Ruena asked no questions, feeling the spark of power in her ready fingertips. She knew that if danger dared to come her way, she would be quick and able to defend herself. This was not Cloud Tower, and her electricity was at full charge.

When a final set of heavy doors parted to reveal a long, long chamber, Quin and the two others stepped aside. “The ruler of Atlas awaits you,” said the green-haired girl.

Ruena made her way into the chamber as the doors shut at her back. She was alone now, except for a single person standing at the far end of the hall, awaiting her. It seemed no light touched anything in here except for the figure at the end, this so-called ruler of Atlas. Ruena continued down the path, prepared to release her electricity at the first sign of anything amiss. The pale light from the brazier at the end of the path danced, and she walked toward that light with power in her every step, swallowing the fear that kept creeping up.

She reached the end, and three stone steps separated her from the tall figure, who was turned away and cloaked in a great white hooded shroud.

“I have waited so long to see you again, Ruena,” said the figure.

Ruena sucked in air. That voice. This can’t be …

The woman turned and drew back her hood, revealing herself. Her familiar pale hair and her sharp, pearl eyes met Ruena’s.

In the next instant, Ruena charged up the steps and wrapped her arms around the tall, frail body of her Aunt Kael Mirand-Thrin, whom she had thought she’d lost forever. Kael returned the embrace, her bony arms hugging her niece tightly.

“How?” breathed Ruena, desperate to know where Kael had been all this time. “Why?” Ruena worried this was still some cruel illusion from the Quin girl. Could she really trust that her long-lost Aunt Kael Mirand-Thrin, former heir to the throne of Atlas, was actually alive? She survived the fall from Lord’s Garden? She’s here?

“We are doing a great work here in the Abandon. It is a great work with which I will need your help.” The women pulled apart to look into each other’s faces, the shadows bouncing around in the pale light from the burning brazier at their side. “We are awakening a power, Ruena, a deep and stirring power that will give us the upper hand. The greatest of upper hands. We will be invincible.”

The words inspired her as much as they frightened her. “What is it, Aunt Kael?” she asked.

“He needs his body reunited, of which we’re only missing one piece,” her Aunt Kael explained. “He needs eyes. Lots of them. And he needs our undying support and loyalty. And together, all of us, the three of us, we will rule Atlas. We will be all-powerful. Me and my pearl statues. You and your storms. And him …”

“Him …?”

Kael put a hand to Ruena’s back, guiding her to a door behind the brazier. It yawned open, as if its hinges had not been replaced or oiled for six centuries. Beyond it, there was a large dome-shaped chamber. It was like a great tomb, torches hanging on the walls that brought carvings in the round, smooth ceiling to life. In its center, there was a platform upon which rested a large stone coffin with a tall crown sitting upon it.

When Ruena was brought to its side, she found herself staring down at the gaunt, eyeless face of a man. A blanket of gold covered the rest of his body, and a crown perched on his stomach.

Ruena had read her histories. She knew the line of Kings that preceded her grandfather, all the way down to the first. Is this that first King? Are the ancient rumors true? “Aunt Kael, is this …”

“The Twice King,” answered Aunt Kael with a grin of pride. “Soon to be the Thrice King.” She leaned into her niece’s ear and whispered, “Atlas will be ours. Oh, we have such great work to do, my Ruena. Such great, important work yet to do.”

0227  Tide

Tide stands in a tiny closet, five square feet, which would be dark if it weren’t for the pink emanating from his bare torso. He glares at the wall with his arms folded, sulking. Everything is ruined. He’ll never return to the Queen with his prize, Gin, whom he can’t even be certain survived the angry mob.

And even if she did survive, what will she think of Tide? He had betrayed her. He’s still not even completely sure why he did. Was he really trying to spare the King’s life? Or was he just trying to spare hers?

There’s movement outside his door. Tide stares at it, waiting and wary. “I’ll speak to him alone,” comes a voice on the other side.

The door opens, spilling in light from a single lantern that hangs on a nearby wall outside his room. The Slum King stands there with an armored man, who might be the other one from the address at the plaza. Tide stares at the two of them, his arms still folded and his eyes narrowed threateningly.

“Hey,” greets the King cautiously. “I’m, uh … sorry about the … unfortunate circumstance. This was really for your own protection, since that crowd was pretty riled up by the assassination attempt. Is that what I should call it?” he asks, turning to his guard. “I still don’t know if that’s what it was. I was confused.” He turns back to Tide with a shrug. “You might be surprised, but it’s the first one I’ve ever had to handle. I was pretty sure by now that the Mad King himself would’ve sent down an envoy or two to end my little life.” He gives a tentative smile. “Do you, uh … wanna come out and join me upstairs for some juice and berries?”

Tide doesn’t move, still staring at the young man, unsure what to make of him. Is the whole casual-acting thing a pretense? Or is it true to his nature? Tide can’t tell and that unsettles him.

The King shuffles his feet, then turns to his guard. “Really. I said I’ll be fine. Thank you for your caution and your care. This man here won’t hurt me,” he assures the guard. Tide realizes with a start that he is the man the King refers to. “Really, you can go. Thank you.”

The guard gives one curt nod, his helmet squeaking in the act, and then he heads for the stairs and is gone. The King backs away from Tide’s room, perhaps to give him more room to exit his little cell on his own accord.

“It’s okay,” says the King lightly.

Tide finally finds his voice. “Are you gonna execute me?”

The King’s eyes go wide. “Uh … no. Definitely not. Why would I execute the life of the man who saved mine?”

Tide’s breath catches. He thinks I saved his life. He doesn’t know I was working with the woman who tried to take his. Tide swallows, then gives a short nod and relents, stepping out into the larger room, which is lined with other closets and pantries. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s in some sort of windowless kitchen, counters of fruits and utensils strewn about. He wonders if he was being kept in a chamber that used to be a meat locker or something.

“This way,” encourages the King, moving to a set of stairs on the other end of the room, ascending the steps two at a time.

Tide follows cautiously, his eyes darting around. He sees a tall barrel of berries at the end of the counter. He pops one into his mouth as he walks by, tasting the crunch of juice upon his tongue as he follows the King up the stairs.

Upstairs, the world grows twenty times brighter. An oak table stretches the length of the long room, which has many archways and doors that lead off to other areas of whatever building they’re in. A large window is built into the ceiling that stretches down the room, pouring the afternoon light over their heads. Light taps of water touch the glass, despite the sunny brightness coming through it.

“Sunlight showers,” mutters the King lightly. “Well, that, or one of Impis’s Posse is pissing on our heads right now. Can’t be too sure. Come, come. Let’s chat.”

The King sits himself on a random seat in the middle of the long table, not at the head of it. A bowl of berries sits next to a plate of sliced green-skinned apples that appear to have a spice sprinkled over them. After giving them a dubious look, Tide comes around to the opposite side of the table, sitting across from the King. He grabs a slice of apple and bites it with the corner of his mouth. It tastes sour as it crunches, feeling like little needles of pleasure in the corners of his jaw. The King tosses a few berries into his mouth, his elbows propped up on the table and making him look like a kid waiting for his mom or dad to serve him dinner.

Tide can’t get over how young and … unkingly this King looks. He’s sure it shows on his face, slightly wrinkled with confusion.

“So,” the King begins lightly. “The Gin girl. She traded places with my assigned guard today, and then she made a plan to fuse to my hand so that I wouldn’t be able to get away. Then, she was going to stab me in my heart. That would’ve been a shitty way to start my day, since I only have the one heart, and I do need it.”

“I stopped her,” blurts Tide through his mouthful, feeling like at any moment, the King is going to turn on him and cast him back into some dungeon somewhere. He’s waiting for soldiers to flood into the room with swords and axes at the ready. His heart hammers and he can’t relax. “I stopped her. I saved your life.”

The King nods. “Yeah, you did.” He appears thoughtful for a second. “There was also, as you might have gathered, a speculation among the people that you might have been … with her. Like, maybe you two were working together to end my life.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Tide lies at once.

“I want you to know that I’m not like those Kings and Queens that like to flatten their asses on a throne in the sky. I’m not waiting for you to say the wrong thing that’ll convict you of some crime. I’m not trying to squeeze any confession out of you or manipulate your emotions or … whatever it is you might fear. I swear it. My one and only interest is to learn who you are.”

“I’m Tide. I didn’t try to kill you.”

Tide can’t help himself. He still doesn’t trust the man and he’s pretty sure he never will. He’s ready to escape and race back to the Queen the first moment he gets.

The King nods. “Tide. Nice to meet you. My name’s Chole.” He gives a short chuckle, popping another berry into his mouth before continuing. “I won’t bother with my mom’s reasoning for the name, as they weren’t fanatics of King Chole or the last rebellion. I’m not even sure I know the exact reasoning. But when I started to build the Coalition after the Fall of Sanctum—and yeah, some teasingly spell it C-H-O-L-E-alition—people seemed tickled by my name, since it was the same as the Slum Queen’s lover of long ago. Aye, I guess it tickled me a bit too. So people took to calling me the Slum King. I never liked the name, truthfully. I never styled myself a King. I don’t really like to call myself a King either. I’m just Chole, a boy from the fifth with a dream.”

Tide pulls another slice from the plate, reminded suddenly of Dog. He wonders where he is. He wasn’t involved directly. He’s safe. The thought leads him to ask a lateral question. “Where is Gin?”

The Slum King—Chole, if he prefers to be called—sighs lightly. “I put her in a room for her protection, too. I’ve tried to speak with her, really, I have. A number of times, in fact, but she won’t have any of it. She yells at me. She hisses like an alley cat. She’s much too angry. I have no idea what I’ve done to offend her.”

“It’s her mission,” Tide blurts, then stops chewing, astonished at himself for revealing that so carelessly.

Chole tilts his head. “Mission? She was sent here to kill me?”

Tide swallows the rest of his words along with the apple slice he hadn’t completely finished chewing, coughing and sputtering as he forces the half-eaten bite down. He stares at Chole without daring to say another stupid word.

“You don’t trust me. I get it. I can see it in your eyes, Tide. Yet I feel like you want to trust me … maybe?” Chole tilts his head. “Or is that just my dumb wishful thinking?”

“I didn’t say you’re dumb,” blurts Tide, his hands in his lap at once as he stares dead-eyed across the table.

Chole shakes his head calmly, studying Tide. “What’s been done to you, man? Someone has a tight grip on your balls. Is it the Mad one upstairs? Did he send you and Gin down to put an end to me? To be honest, I’m kinda flattered if that’s the case. I sometimes wonder if he even knows of my existence.”

Tide thinks of the one who does hold his balls in a grip. He sees a flash of Scorp’s panicked eyes as he suffocated before him. He sees Wick reaching out before the warehouse toppled. He sees that blond boy’s face in the Abandon who was looking for Wick. He sees his dad staring at him from across the space of their apartment, and the way it made Tide feel so small … so incompetent … so worthless.

Suddenly, Tide chokes. A tear pinches his left eye. He chokes again, half a gag, half a cough, and then the tears begin to fall. Tide Wellport, big and puffy and full of bark, bites down his own teeth, thinking of the Queen, thinking of Scorp’s face, thinking of the piss that ran down his leg that day, and the tears won’t stop flowing. He sputters and he chokes and the wetness rains down his cheeks.

Chole comes around the length of the table so quickly, Tide doesn’t even notice until the Slum King is seated right next to him and putting an arm around his back. “It’s okay. Buddy. Tide. Really, it’s okay. You’re safe. We can protect you. Please, Tide. Let me help you. Whatever it is. Just tell me.”

“I can’t.” Tide can’t tell him a damned thing and he can’t stop crying these stupid tears and he can’t stop seeing the look of horror and desperation on Scorp’s face during the last seconds of his life. “I can’t. I c-c-c-can’t.”

“You can. Tell me. Please. I want to help you, but I can’t unless I know what’s going on. I won’t even tell my Marshals. This is just you and me. No one’s in this room. No guards. No spies. Just Chole and Tide. Tide and Chole. Just us. Two idiots in a room with a plate of bad apples and a bowl of tasteless berries. Shit, I’m a terrible host.”

Tide sniffles loudly, then evens out his breathing, struggling to end his humiliating sobs. He presses his lips together, glaring at an unlit candle in the center of the table like it’s his mortal enemy. Stop crying, he orders himself, just like his father would say twenty times a week. Stop crying. Stop it. Shut up. Shut your stupid mouth.

“There, there,” Chole encourages him, giving Tide a backrub. “Yeah. Good. Calmer. Good, good.” He keeps rubbing in big circles to cover all of Tide’s broad backside.

“I lost my m-m-memory,” says Tide suddenly.

Chole keeps rubbing his back. “You mean you … forgot? Or you hit your head and, like … can’t remember something?”

He recalls a thing Wick was trying to tell him at that warehouse in the eleventh. “S-Someone took it.”

“Took your memory? Like … with a Legacy of theirs?”

“I was running away from a Weapon Show. And then I just … woke up at home. There was a man leaving my apartment, a man I didn’t know. Then I was alone.” Tide blinks away some of his tears, annoyed that they still hang on his eyelashes. “I wandered out into the streets and didn’t know I had glow all over me. A guy named Scorp found me and took me to the … to the …”

He realizes he can’t say the name. Abandon. He feels like saying the name is revealing too much. It’s the final card in his deck, and if he keeps it close to his chest, he’ll be safe. The Queen watches. The Queen knows. The Queen will sense my betrayal and she will send an assassin to kill me. No one abandons the Abandon.

“To here?” Chole asks, trying to help him finish the sentence. “To the first ward?”

Tide shoves a palm into his eyes, angrily wiping away all the gathered tears and wetness. He takes a deep breath, then lets it all out on the table. “It doesn’t matter.”

Chole nods, his hand stopping in its circular motions and just remaining in place at Tide’s shoulder. The two share a moment of silent, pensive thought. Then Chole says, “I wonder … This Scorp guy who found you. He was part of a group, I suspect?”

Tide doesn’t answer. But then he finds his head nodding ever so subtly, betraying his silence.

“A group that you joined,” confirms Chole. “I wonder … Has it ever occurred to you that it may have been Scorp—or the group he works for—that took your memory? Do you think they intended to take your memory … in order to make you trust and join them?”

Tide had never considered that possibility. How else could it be explained that Scorp just happened to be in the streets near Tide’s residence, there to shield him from Guardian eyes and slip him into the shadows to protect him from the pink glows? What if Scorp gave me these pink glows? What if it was his fault all along?

Or maybe Tide is just trying to find a way to justify what he did to Scorp, suffocating him in front of the Queen. Maybe Tide is just desperate for a reason to relieve himself of the guilt he carries. He is so much more comfortable thinking of Scorp as a villain with a plan that he vanquished to save himself.

“Do you think that’s it?” prompts Chole, leaning in to get a look at Tide’s face.

But none of that explains how Wick knew that his memory was taken. Wick knew a lot more than he was telling, and it frustrated Tide more than anything else. Was all of this really Wick’s fault, or in the end, was Wick actually trying to help him? The only reason Wick sees Tide as an antagonist is because of … because of me.

“The Abandon,” whispers Tide, his voice just short of a whisper.

Chole hears him perfectly. His posture straightens and his hand slips off of Tide’s back, falling into his own lap. “Oh, shit. The Queen is trying to kill me?”

Tide lifts his stony gaze up to Chole’s. “You know of her?”

“Not directly. I’ve heard things about a Queen trying to build an army of ghosts in the Abandon. See, I’m told a lot of crazy things by a lot of overexcited people, but most of what I hear are rumors and whispers and folly. But if the look in your eyes is any indication, there is obviously no damned folly in thinking that there is, in fact, a Queen who’s trying to awaken that Abandon … and its ghosts.”

“What else are you told?” asks Tide.

“Oh, you know. Stuff. Forces down in the Keep. Guardian in the eleventh. Guardian in the Core. Bunch of greedy vegetable hoarders in the Greens. Nothing all that surprising.” Chole inclines his head towards Tide. “Except you. You’re quite surprising.”

Tide’s brow wrinkles. He doesn’t respond, but he keeps his eyes on the Slum King.

“You are,” Chole insists, his voice light. “There’s a lot more in you than I think you’re admitting. Maybe more in you than you even know. That Legacy of yours? That’s fucking powerful. I saw what you did. A wind elemental, you are. Never seen anything like that.” Chole chuckles suddenly, then gives Tide’s shoulder a squeeze. “Stay with me, Tide. At least consider it. I have a hundred ways to protect you, and that Queen has ghosts and wishes and empty threats. Trust me. You’re safer here than you’ll ever be there, and I’ll value your worth because you have worth. And damn it, you’re worth fighting for. I’ll fight that damned Queen myself if I have to.” Then Chole seems to reconsider. “Uh, well, unless she’s got big tits and big pouty lips. Can I make work of her in a bedroom, you think?”

Tide is almost offended, unable to disrespect the Queen even from a distance, even with his own loyalty to her in question. “Don’t speak of h-h-her like that,” Tide manages to say.

Chole’s face lightens. “So what you’re saying is, she’s got a tight pussy-with-teeth and I ought to sweeten her before asking her out to dinner? My, she sounds like a tough one. Maybe I should get her a bouquet of flowers from the sixth-side Greens before I entertain the idea. Foolish me. You know the flowers on the sixth-side, don’t you?” he asks suddenly. “What they can do to a woman? Their beauty? I happen to have a … certain finesse with plants.”

Tide wipes his nose, then almost glares at Chole when he answers, “I don’t know nothing. I’m not that bright.”

“Aye, but you are,” says Chole. “Like, literally. Literally, you are bright. Seen yourself in the dark? You light up a whole room pink.”

The next instant, Chole has risen from his chair, rounding about the table once more. Tide watches him, his eyes wide with surprise at the brazen way in which this so-called Slum King speaks. He can’t decide whether to be amused, terrified, or perfectly at ease in front of this guy who can’t be more than a handful of years older than him.

Chole pops a few berries into his mouth, then nods at Tide. “I’ll be walking about the grounds, my friend. Help yourself around. Make some friends. I’m going to see if Gin will chat with me yet without trying to claw off my nuts.” With a wiggle of his eyebrows, the boy King giggles and heads off down the hall, disappearing through an archway.

Tide feels a strange sense of relief, sitting in the silent dining hall with nothing around him but his own thoughts. He looks down at the plate of apples, then helps himself to one. The sound of crunching fills his ears as he ponders his circumstances, staring at the unlit candle … and its wick.

0228  Link

Playing dead is a lot easier than Link thought it would be. He even gets to leave his eyes open so that he can see everything, as long as he makes sure to keep them languid and unfocused on anything. The worst part is the pain he must endure when they drag him halfway down a street to load him into the back of a vehicle. He mourns the hole that must exist now in his chest. It does not feel comfortable in the least.

“No sign of her at all,” grunts a man near him.

“Greymyn won’t be pleased,” returns a woman, deep and raspy.

“Fuck Greymyn. Do we even know she had a baby girl?”

“That’s what the tests showed.”

“The tests have been wrong before. I don’t trust those doctors. They’re all lazy and look at me funny.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause of your stupid mask.”

Someone else guffaws at the jape, but the man only growls and says, “I’ll carve yours from your face if you give me lip again.”

“Yeah? Then I’ll have Mr. Wires wrap you up in his razor-sharp wires and watch you bleed to death trying to break free.” Now it’s her turn to bellow out with a throaty laugh.

“You know he hates it when you call him that.”

“Only to his face,” she grunts in return.

The vehicle starts moving, which gives Link a stroke of worry. Is Kid with me? Did she make it out of the house in time? But he has no way to confirm it, so he is left acting the part of a corpse as he is ungently driven away in the company of countless men and women in creepy masks, which show no expression.

Quite some time later, the vehicle comes to a stop, and Link experiences a lifting sensation, as if the very vehicle itself is rising. Even with Link’s eyes unfocused and staring blankly at the ceiling, he can still get a sense of the space within this vehicle, and he feels a very strong surge of vulnerability and doubt. There is no way Kid could be in this vehicle. She’s been left behind. I’m all on my own.

To Link’s great annoyance, one of the masked men closest to him runs a hand down Link’s face, shutting his eyes for him. When a woman near him asks, “The fuck you do that for?” The man replies, “It was creeping me out. Felt like he was staring at me.”

And so it is in the darkness behind his eyelids that he is soon pulled from the vehicle and unceremoniously thrown over the shoulder of one of the men. Link experiences an unfortunate journey of hanging partly upside-down with the man’s shoulder digging into his crotch and his own face bobbing against the man’s ass with every step as he moves. Playing dead was a lot easier in the vehicle.

Just when he wonders if he should dare to open his eyes, the man comes to a stop, Link’s face bouncing against his ass as he hears a grunt of annoyance from somewhere nearby. “Stupid routines. Send us in. I have my authorization here.”

“Two, two, five, two, two, five, two, five, six, six. Authorized.”

“No shit.” The man guffaws, jostling Link’s weight a bit, and then the pair of them are moving again.

After two annoyingly bouncy staircases downward and a trip down a long hall, a door is opened and a cold room’s air breathes on Link’s limp body. Then, he’s pulled from off the man’s shoulder and slapped on his back against the cold unkind surface of an exam table.

He lets the landing jostle his eyes a crack open, but it does not help him much. Now, all he sees is the plain white tiled ceiling of the room, dimly lit by small buzzing lights. A majority of the men and women seem to leave the room, a pair of them arguing loudly to one another about what to eat for lunch. When the door softly shuts, however, he still feels the presence of someone in the room. It is agonizing, to not be able to lift his head off the table to check. He can’t give himself away until he’s absolutely sure that he’s alone.

The presence grows closer, and the face of a red-eyed woman appears—a doctor. She presses two fingers gently to Link’s neck, likely to check for a pulse. Then she pulls on the skin under his eyes and flashes a light into them, to which Link struggles not to flinch or blink. The woman wrinkles her face in response. “That’s odd,” she mumbles to herself, then moves out of view. He hears some gentle rummaging of metal tools and things, and then a soft sigh. “Must I always be the one to restock?” the woman mumbles tiredly, and then he hears the door open and close again.

Now there is only true silence.

Link lifts his head from the table. He is in an exam room of some sort. It looks like a hospital room, but there are no windows, nor is there a sense of comfort whatsoever. This is where they cut up dead bodies to examine them, Link decides, not knowing for sure. Why would they need to examine me? Why didn’t they just dump my body off at a receptacle in the tenth?

“Link …” comes a whisper.

He turns his head, searching for the voice. No one is there. Link feels a rush of relief. “Kid?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Oh, thank the Sisters. Why are you whispering?”

“So they don’t hear me. You should whisper too.”

Link only lowers his voice slightly. “Where are we?”

“Some warehouse in the Lifted City. Or right beneath the Lifted City, more like. We need a plan.”

“Don’t let them cut me open.”

“Lie back down. I see them coming back.”

Link glances around. “See them? Where are—??”

But his question goes unanswered as he hears the doorknob turn. He slams himself back down on the table and returns his face to the precise position it was in when the woman had left. He hears the door shut and footsteps approach. The red-eyed doctor has returned, but she is not alone; a long-nosed man with squinty, wet eyes who wears a long tan cloak is beside her.

“He’s dead. He hasn’t a pulse, nor draws breath,” the woman explains. “Yet observe.”

She pulls out her light again and flashes it in Link’s eyes. The man bends over Link, watching. “Hmm,” the man grunts. “What a curious thing. What’s the man’s Legacy?”

“We don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He was just—”

“It does matter. If his Legacy is of the eyes, then he is an auto-borne and that is why his pupils are still reactive to the light, even in his death. Perhaps he could see through things, or see thoughts, or turn water into piss by looking at it. We’ll never know.” The man snorts and pulls back, walking out of view. “Is that all you’ve called me in here for, Emery? I’m late for my middle-night meal.”

She smirks. “Got a date? In a hurry?”

“I wish. Haven’t fucked a thing since my right hand last night.”

The woman rolls her eyes, unamused. “Did not need to know that. I will be done in an hour. Please let me be.”

“If you find that the boy is related in blood to Subject Dreamer, let me know first. Greymyn should hear it from me, not from some gossiping nitwit in a mask.” There are shuffled footsteps and then a door opens and closes.

The woman smirks. “Asshole,” she mutters to herself. “You just want to take the credit for my findings. If there are any findings.” She glances down at Link’s eyes, tilting her head. “What is your Legacy?”

Link senses an opportunity. He feels Kid’s presence at his side, and the motivation strikes him. Without moving a thing, he snaps only his eyes to the woman, meeting hers.

Her eyes grow wide with alarm.

“My Legacy,” Link answers, “is a shadow within a shadow.”

The woman backs away from the table just as Link rises from it. She holds a sharp tool before her in the very next instant, a knife with a blade that’s curved into half a question mark, like a hook that’s fatter in the middle.

“Y-You’re dead,” the woman breathes in disbelief.

“Yes,” answers Link softly. “And unless you cooperate, there’ll be two dead in this room.”

She swipes another tool off the counter behind her, her red eyes flaring as she brandishes two curved blades, ready to defend herself.

“You won’t be needing either of those, as I won’t be attacking you,” Link goes on to say. “I only have but one interest, and then I will spare your life.”

“I believe it is you who is at a disadvantage,” she informs him, her voice nearly a hiss as she narrows her beady red eyes. “You are surrounded on all sides by armed men and women with powerful Legacies who serve the King of Atlas.”

“You don’t know who I am?” asks Link, swinging his legs off the table and getting to his feet with his eyes trained on hers.

The woman stares at him, her hooked tools unmoving. “No. I didn’t quite get the chance to get acquainted with you,” she answers with mock politeness. “Who are you?”

Link reaches in his mind for something to grab hold of. For some reason, the very first thing he channels is Dran—his confidence and his dark, slithery swagger. Make it fly, Shye. “I’m the one … who escapes death.” He takes a step toward her. The red-eyed woman, brave and unafraid, stands her ground. “I’m the one who lives in shadows.” He takes another step. “I am the answer and the question. I am the phantom of hands. The unseen. The lark. The jester of dusk. The one who hears all. The avenger.”

“One misstep,” the woman warns him, “and you’ll be in a locked room for the rest of your existence, no matter who you are.”

“Ah, but it does matter precisely who I am,” replies Link, taking yet another step towards her, inches from her blades, “for I am the key to all locks, and not even a King can contain me.”

The woman’s eyes shift, seeing something behind him, and then there is alarm in her face. Link glances over his shoulder and is equally surprised and amused to find two syringes floating near the exam table. Kid must be holding them in the air.

Link faces the woman, his face straight. “I am the whisper and the wind. I … am Link.”

The woman takes one step back, her heel kicking into the wall. “The link to what?” she stammers, misunderstanding.

And this is when the dark fire ignites in Link’s chest. “The … link … between the living … and the dead,” he finishes, raising his hands as if to command a great power.

A syringe whizzes past his face from behind. The doctor swiftly deflects it with a swipe of the curved blade in her hand. Another object goes airborne and again the woman shields herself with the blades, but now her confidence is rattled as her hands begin to tremble and her eyes remain affixed to whatever new things Kid has lifted into the air, floating behind Link threateningly.

The woman pitches the blade in her left hand at him. It embeds itself between his shoulder and his neck. Link winces, feeling the depth of the wound, yet the pain of it is numbed. Ames once said that immortality is not pretty. I’ll wear this wound the rest of my life. Let’s try not to get my head chopped off.

When the woman prepares to cut with her other one, the thing fumbles from her hand and suddenly starts to float away from her. Link, picking up on Kid’s action, lifts his own hand, as if it’s his power that has pulled it from the woman’s grasp.

With the curved blade floating in the air by his hand, he turns his eyes onto the defenseless woman and says, “I will drop the blade if you answer my questions.”

The woman appears more indignant and annoyed than she does scared. Her red eyes hover on the blade, ready to dodge it should it come for her. “So ask your damn questions,” she mutters to it.

“Subject Dreamer,” he recites. “Who is that?”

Her jaw tightens. “I don’t know.”

The blade wiggles in the air. Nice touch, Kid. “I heard the easiest way to loosen a mouth is by cutting it wide open,” says Link with dark humor in his eyes, channeling the very spirit of Dran. He might even trick himself into thinking he has black about his eyes. “Tell me who she is.”

The doctor’s eyes move to his now. “I never said she was a she.” Now it’s her turn to be humored. “I suspect you know exactly who she is. My question to you now is how you’re related to her.”

Link shrugs, playing it off. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

The doctor lifts an eyebrow. “Did you procreate with her?” After a moment of silence from Link, the woman’s face softens. Her eyes grow serious. “It’s true, then? She gave … She gave birth? There’s a child out there?”

A child. Link feels his mouth go dry as he observes the wonder in the woman’s eyes. This whole thing is about Kid. They want the girl who is a product of Goddess and human. But why?

“Listen to me,” the woman states. “I simply work here. I have a duty. I perform it and I go home. I have no idea why the King so urgently wanted Subject Dreamer, nor do I know why he has such a deep, personal interest in the child she apparently had. Maybe the Subject Dreamer is his daughter. Maybe she’s a lost girlfriend. Maybe she’s a pleasure girl he misses, or a woman who spit in his stew, or an Outlier … I don’t fucking care. My duty was to examine your dead body, take fluids, and determine who you are.”

“I told you who I am. Tell me where Subject Dreamer is.”

“She is out of our hands.”

Link’s voice grows more stern. “Where is she?”

“Sanctum has her now.”

The words hit him raw and they hit him hard. Sanctum is full of powers that he doesn’t feel he or Kid could brave—powers that could detect either of them, powers that could restrain him, powers that could put Kid in danger. We are too late. Fae is taken from us. We may never see her again.

“Please,” the woman says, her voice lowering. “If you are truly a shadow of shadows … a link between life and death … the question and the answer … then do me the courtesy of sparing my life and letting me get home to see my husband and child. It’s been a very long and exhausting day, and I did not plan to die at the end of it.”

Link slowly lowers his hand. Though he didn’t mean to let down his guard, Kid follows his lead, dropping the tool to the floor with a loud clang. Now the woman and Link merely stare at one another, each seeming less certain of the other’s true intentions.

“If you take off your clothes, lie on the table, and pretend to be dead,” says the woman, “then I will cover you with a tarp and roll you to the depository. You can wait for a clearing and make your escape. I care not. But at the very least, let me take a sample of your blood and a scrape of your skin. It’s all I truly need.”

“That might prove difficult, since I haven’t a heart that pumps,” replies Link.

“I noticed,” she returns dryly, “but you’ve still blood in your veins, judging from the bone carver that’s still in you.”

Link had nearly forgotten about it. He pulls the thing from the meat between his neck and shoulder and tosses it to the nearest counter. “There’s your blood and skin scrape in one go,” he declares.

“Noted. Now take off your clothes and lie on the table.”

Her eyes falter, which gives Link pause. She doesn’t mean to help you escape, Link realizes. She will confine you. She will turn you in to the King. You will join Ames in the Keep, if that’s where he is at all.

“All of my clothes?” he asks with mock bashfulness, stalling.

“What’s the problem?” she returns. “Are you shy?”

The word stings him. His face slowly sobers as the single word pours over him like liquid armor. “Yes,” he states, emboldened by it. “I am Shye.”

“Well, I disagree. I rather see you as an overconfident buffoon.”

“My name,” he presses. “My name … is Shye.”

The woman considers it for half a second. “Then you’ve a very unfortunate name.”

“A name you’ll hear whispered on the streets. A name that will chase you into your nightmares. A name that will haunt you as ghosts haunt you. Living and dead. Here and there. Whispers and bold Banshee screams. I am Shye,” he announces, his hand reaching out, “the Unseen.”

Kid is there to grab his hand just in time, and then he is gone.

The red-eyed woman blinks, startled by his disappearance. After a moment of uncertainty, she swipes the curved blade from off the floor, then presses her back to the wall, wielding it before her. Her red eyes dart all around the room, searching for him. “Shye,” she whispers, taking in the name with fear. Then she discards the clean blade and grabs the other one off the counter, caked in Link’s blood and a bit of skin—and quite possibly a speck or two of bone. After yet another glance around the room, the woman opens the door and hurries away as fast as her feet can take her.

Link, as part of the invisible world, turns his face to Kid, who he now sees. “Does it look bad?” he asks quietly.

She winces, her eyes drifting to the wound near his neck. “It is not pleasant.”

“Shye is not a pleasant man,” Link points out.

Kid smirks. “And what’ll you do if you ever meet the real Shye?”

Link tries to chuckle, but finds himself drawn into a world of worry. “She’s gone,” he hears himself say. “Sanctum has her.”

“We are here now,” says Kid. “We know where they are.”

“The masked men,” agrees Link. “And women.”

“I think we are beyond trying not to ruin the past. I think we have a new duty now. A duty to Atlas. And to Sanctum.”

“What Baal said would happen … has happened.” He shakes his head. He doesn’t know anymore if Baal was truly trying to prevent this from happening all along, or if his attempted abduction of Faery was for some selfish, greedy need. “Does this really trigger some … chain of events that ends Atlas as we know it?”

“I won’t stop until we find her.” Kid gives his hand a squeeze. “We are a team, remember? Together, always.”

“Together, always.”

“We are Shye. Unseen. Shadow of shadows. Shye, thief renown.” Kid leans into Link importantly, her eyes looking so much like her mother’s in this moment. “We will steal back the one who’s been stolen from us.”

“Twice-stolen gold,” murmurs Link, inspired.

When the two make their way unseen through the shadows of the halls of masked men, women, and doctors, Link feels his chest exploding with the pride of a purpose. Though, he worries that for years to come, he’ll never quite know the answer to his own riddle: Did he just create Shye, or did Shye just create him?

0229  Rone

The way is always easy for Rone Tinpassage.

And this time, it’s easier. With no one manning the Pylons or the towers, the only obstacles that block the way for the common slummer is rubble and fallen ceilings—neither of which prove to be a problem whatsoever for Rone. He slips through a tile. He waltzes through a tumble of chairs and overturned furniture. He peeks his head through a wall, then tiptoes through it. He exercises his upper body strength, solidifying a hand above him and pulling the rest of his body up through a cement ceiling. Up and up and up he goes until the mouth of a ripped-open building reveals to him a street of the Lifted City.

Always easier to come. Always more difficult to go.

Just as easily as he scaled the Pylon, he hurries through building and house and square. Despite his head flying and whirring from the chemical that still rides his nerves, he feels an incredible sense of focus as he passes through the city like a hired assassin. And that is precisely what he is, armed with the greatest weapon in the city … a weapon in the form of a serum-filled needle.

At the Crystal Court, he realizes he can’t hide in any of the walls, since they’re all made of glass and can be seen through, so he finds a spot beneath one of the seats, unphased, and stares between two of them at the girl seated on the stage. She is with two others who are guffawing and talking amongst themselves. Rone can’t hear what they’re saying, only the echoes of their laughs reaching Rone’s ears. Rone carefully phases through four more rows of seats to get a bit closer, but he makes sure to keep his distance.

The girl looks up into the sky, then pushes a finger to the bridge of her glasses.

Erana.

“It’s time,” says a blond boy sitting across from her—the same one who can spread his forearms into shields, if Rone is recognizing him correctly. Aegis, that was his name. He takes a deep breath and slaps the shoulder of the one next to him, someone Rone has not seen before. “Nearly nightfall, aye?”

The one whose shoulder was just slapped scowls. “Fuck the dropping of the body. That Yoli can suck a slummer’s teat for all the shits I give. He likes the spectacle. I’ve grown weary of it.”

“What will the King think if you’re not there?”

“Fuck him. Even he’s not there. He stays atop his Cloud Tower all the days and nights long now, partying with his Chaos Bolts and his boy-toy up there.”

“Come on, Splinters. You’re just bent because of Baigan, aren’t you? I’m sorry. We all suffer losses. We have to move on.”

“He was like a brother to me, that big dumb oaf.” Splinters jabs a finger into his eye, likely to mask a tear he’s trying not to let the others see. “Fuck Impis. Fuck him. Fuck him.”

“Mind your words. This one here’s gonna remember each and every single one of them,” teases Aegis, but when he looks on the likes of Erana, a flicker of fear shines in his eye. “But she’ll keep her mouth shut, won’t she? Shut as a Sanctum Trust vault?”

“The Sanctum Trust vaults were broken open eighty-one years ago,” Erana recites, her voice deadpan, “and again twenty-six years ago, and again twenty-one years ago, and again eighteen years ago. Though made of the strongest steel alloy known to humankind, they are still pregnable. So I find your wording problematic.”

The two men stare at her, each with a more annoyed look than the other. Rone feels a private stab of joy.

“I find your face problematic,” retorts Aegis, to which Splinters chortles. Aegis rises to his feet and pulls Splinters up. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. We might’ve already missed the dropping.”

The two men depart the stage, leaving Erana all on her own. Rone can’t believe his luck, staring at her as she doesn’t move at all. She simply sits there, cross-legged and staring ahead at nothing.

The moment there’s no one in sight, Rone makes his move. He hops over the chairs and slips onto the stage.

He’s in front of Erana in an instant. “I’m here. I’m back.”

The girl lifts her dead eyes to him. She says nothing and makes no move to stand up.

Rone is alarmed at once by her odd behavior. “E-Erana?”

She pulls out a dagger from her pocket, then makes a swift jab with it at Rone’s belly.

Rone barely feels the dagger before he phases away his torso, letting the dagger and her hand drift harmlessly through him. His eyes flash open. He was not expecting that.

“Erana!”

She pulls the dagger out of the permeable mass that is Rone’s abdominal region, then stabs again, and again, the dagger pushes fruitlessly through his body.

Rone takes hold of Erana’s hand, stopping her when she goes for a third jab. There is no anger in her eyes or intent of killing on her face. She acts like a machine, her eyes dead and far away.

He barely needs to fight her to wrest the dagger from her grip. “Erana. What the fuck are you doing??”

“Hi, Rone,” she finally says, her voice dull.

“Why are you trying to gut me?”

“I have orders,” she explains simply.

Rone blinks. There’s a woman who can control minds. Ruena and Erana both had said as much back at the half-mansion hideout. The mind controller must have gotten to her. It’s the only explanation.

“Erana …” he says, heartbroken. “Don’t you still love me?”

“Of course,” she mutters dimly.

“And yet …?”

“I have to kill you, Rone. You have to die. Anyone who helped Ruena must die, and then Ruena must be brought to the King.”

“Erana … You love her too. You wouldn’t betray her. Wake up. You remember everything, don’t you? You … You should remember our time in the mansion, and what we promised to—”

“Yes. I remember everything. But I also feel things. And those feelings of mine must be considered. It’s the human thing to do. And I feel that I must kill you. And I feel that I must kill anyone who gets in the way of Ruena’s safe return to Sanctum. Impis has a special place for her. I trust Impis Lockfyre. I trust the Mad Regime.”

She is completely taken. There’s no hope. I can’t get to her until some stronger Psychist can break the influence somehow. Now he holds a weapon in either hand. A syringe, and a—Rone stares at the dagger. He knows this dagger. “Where’d you get this?”

“Athan Broadmore,” she recites.

Rone lifts his eyes to her. “Athan? H-How’d he get it to you?”

“He was captured by Impis Lockfyre,” she goes on, dead-eyed, “and then I was broken out of Cloud Tower at the same time Athan was. I sabotaged the ensuing pursuit of the Chaots by taking that dagger from Athan and damaging beyond repair the control panel of the only operating lift connecting us to the slums, thereby trapping us all up here. Impis Lockfyre was not happy, but then I fixed the broadcasts, so I think he likes me now. Ruena did this to me,” she volunteers suddenly, lifting her other hand, which is bandaged.

Rone stares at the hand, confused. “How?”

“Accident.”

He probably won’t get much more of an explanation from her. He lifts the dagger. “And … how did Athan get this …?”

“He was given it after Anwick Lesser’s execution at the touch of Metal Hand.”

Rone falls back, all the air taken out of him at those words. Wick. “No, no, no,” he breathes, pushing away from her as if to kick away the words, to kick away the truth. But it is Erana who said it, and she only recites what she knows. Wick, my Wick, my friend, my buddy, my brother. “No, please …”

“Please hand me the dagger back,” Erana politely requests. “If I do not kill you, I may suffer a punishment.”

Too many deaths. Too many lives. His whole family. Everything he has ever come to love. I know now more than ever what I must do. Cintha, Anwick … neither of you will go to the other side unavenged. Wick, I am so sorry for the words I said. I desperately wish I could see you again so that I may take them back. I’ll put an end to the madness.

“You remember things,” says Rone, swallowing all of the pain of what she just said to meet her dull eyes. “So remember this face. And remember these words. I will take care of Impis. I will make sure that everyone is made happy. And you must stay here—safe—because I will be back to this very spot to collect you.”

“I will stay here,” Erana agrees, “and then when you return, I can finish killing you.”

Rone chokes with another sob trying to come out of his chest, and then he gives her a curt nod. “You can kill me then,” he agrees.

He brings his lips to Erana’s to seal the promise he just made her. When they kiss, for one fleeting moment it feels like they are in the half-collapsed mansion once again, and their only worries in the world are what to pick out of the kitchen to eat, and which of them is going to have a turn on Rone’s rock in the bathing pool.

He pulls away from her mouth, and reality is returned to him in the cold image of the Crystal Court around them. “Remember me,” he whispers to Erana, then phases through the glass walls and makes his way to his final destination, the leaning tower in the center of Cloud Keep, the place where it will all, at long last, come to an end.

Cintha’s Promise

Cintha Two’s life has not been a perfect one. She’s made many mistakes. She’s hurt people she loves. She’s abandoned friends in her past. She’s been brave when she should have been careful.

But she must be brave now—and careful. And she refuses to abandon another of her friends.

This isn’t foolishness; this is necessary. If I walk out of here like the red-eyed doctor told me to, I would know that Aryl and Kirin died because I didn’t care enough to save their lives. I would return to the slums as a coward. I would live with the weight of their deaths upon my shoulders forever. Aryl and Kirin deserve to live. They deserve to walk to the slums at my side.

Cintha needs to do this.

Brandishing a needle filled with nightmare serum to her chest, Cintha moves down busy hallways of murderers in masks, doctors who don’t know they’re going to die too, and bewildered patients who are being led to rooms where they will meet their end with a sip from a vial of clear, unassuming liquid.

One tiny window after another passes Cintha’s masked face. She has to stop twice to double-check a room, as it is somewhat a challenge to peer through the oddly-placed eyeholes. Every breath reeks of the blood that’s smeared within the mask.

One breath at a time. She inhales. She exhales. One at a time.

Cintha is strangely calm when she sees Aryl through the tiny window of an exam room. A doctor and another masked man stands near her friend, the doctor with a clipboard, the masked man with a gun. Aryl is studying them dubiously with the clear vial in her hand. She has already changed into the gown.

Cintha can’t believe her luck. I’m not too late.

She enters the room like she has every business to be there, shutting the door quickly at her back. The masked man and the doctor look at her, the doctor frowning in annoyance. Aryl stares at her too with a mistrustful glint in her eye.

From behind the mask, muffled, Cintha talks at the masked man or woman. “You,” she grunts. “You’re dismissed. Head for the lift at the end of the hall. No questions.” She pushes her voice to its deepest register, channeling a play she performed two years ago in school when she portrayed the role of a past King of Atlas. I am an actor. I am a killer. I am a King. There are small people in this world who will amount to nothing—and there are some who will save it.

“We haven’t completed the procedure,” says the doctor tersely, a woman with a tight bun for hair.

The other masked man is silent, so Cintha turns to him. “To the lift with you,” she grunts. When the man doesn’t move at all, Cintha deepens her voice even more. “Did you not hear me the first time? I will watch over this procedure and see it through. Out.”

The masked man tilts his head. And though his whole face is covered, there is a hard, challenging gleam in his eye. “Tell me your unit number,” he mutters.

Cintha stands her ground. “Why?” she spits back. “Did I not just give you the order?”

“If I don’t know what it is, I’ll have nothing to tell Greymyn,” he explains, and though his tone is patient, it stinks of suspicion.

Cintha is quiet. She has to make a quick reckoning in her head. Can this masked man be silenced? Can all their lives be saved?

When the man suddenly lifts his hands and casts sharp, razor-thin wires from them, Cintha has her answer.

She grabs her gun, ready to fire at him, but his wires wrap tightly around her left thigh, digging deep into it, and then she’s toppled to the ground and being dragged toward him.

Cintha lifts her hands with a shout as the wire-handed man pulls, yanking her across the room. The wires cut deep, and for a moment, Cintha feels like her whole leg has come off. She tries to grab the wires to stop them, but they cut into her fingers, drawing blood right away. The man casts another wire toward her hand, which she deflects by twisting her elbow at it.

She lifts the gun again and aims it at his face, but he gives the wires protruding from his palms another deft yank, sliding Cintha directly under his foot. The dark blood from her thigh has smeared along the tile, creating a path from where she stood a second ago. He presses his boot into her chest as she wrestles with her gun to try and get a bullet into him. When she manages to get it aimed once again, the masked man is quicker, looping wires around the gun and pulling in an attempt to disarm her.

The loops of his wire leap forth, floating.

Cintha seizes an opportunity.

Against her instinct, she lifts her bloodied thigh, around which his wires are still wrapped, and causes the man to lurch forward. In one swift maneuver, Cintha tosses the loop he’d made right around his neck and pulls tight. A horrible gurgling sound issues from his mask, which hovers above her now as she clings to the sharp, deadly wires, pulling them tight and strangling the man in a razor-sharp trap of his own making. Cintha’s hands bleed and sting and hurt, but she holds her grip, pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling.

The gurgling from the mask and the bloodied throat stops.

When Cintha loosens her grip, the man tumbles lifelessly to the floor beside her.

On the cold tile, all of the pain finally registers in one wave of sharp, body-crippling agony. Her thigh. Her hands. Somewhere near her neck. Gashes along her arm. Cintha screams out from behind her mask, then rips it off and slaps both hands to her thigh.

“Cintha!” shouts Aryl in recognition at last, rushing up to her.

The doctor doesn’t seem to know at all what to make of the gruesome scene before her. Perhaps she is reacting not only to the blood, but also to Cintha’s face, which was already painted in blood from the inside of that grotesque mask.

Cintha silences herself by clenching shut her lips and breathing deeply through flared nostrils. Behind her closed eyes, she whispers, “Aryl, don’t drink the vial. It’s deadly.”

“I didn’t,” returns Aryl. “Cintha. Let go of your leg. I need to get these—oh, they’re so deep—these wires …”

But Cintha needs to secure their escape. The doctor here can help them. Ignoring the searing pain in her leg, Cintha lifts her face to the doctor. “Listen to me. You have been deceived,” she tells her through a pained voice. “You and the masked men are not on the same side. They are using you to get rid of all evidence, including the patients and all the serums and the research. Once you’ve served your purpose, they will get rid of you too. I’ve seen it.”

The doctor doesn’t move at all, staring blankly. Cintha isn’t sure she heard her.

“We need your help,” Cintha begs, pressing on. “We need to disguise our escape and get out of here. There’s two masks here and three of us, so we need to figure it out. I have an idea. Where were you instructed to take the bodies once they’ve swallowed the vial and … died?”

The doctor seems to stammer and splutter stupidly twenty-eight times before finally producing a word. “They are covered with white tarp and rolled down the hall to the Incinerator Unit.”

Cintha glances at the other table in the room and for the first time sees the old man upon its cold surface. Kirin, she realizes with a start. I’m too late for him. A pang chases through her body at the sight, and she thinks on his words to her, long ago. ‘We grow up feeling like our lives are going to amount to a great and wonderful thing … that we will accomplish the impossible and … save the world.’

Aryl holds hands to Cintha’s thigh in an attempt to suppress the bleeding. “The wires are too deep, Cintha.”

“I came back for you and Kirin,” says Cintha. “I may be too late for Kirin, but not for you.”

“We’ll leave together. You and I.”

“Yes,” she agrees. The pain in her leg is ringing and throbbing with her every heartbeat, yet she bares her teeth and tries to look brave in front of the girl. “We will leave together.”

The next instant, the doctor kicks over the dead body of the man, wires still wrapped about his throat. She pulls the mask off his face and fixes it over her own, then makes for the door.

“Wait!” calls out Aryl. “You need to help my friend! Please!”

The doctor grunts at them from behind the mask, then says in muffled words, “You’re surrounded by medicine and doctor’s tools. Help her yourself.”

The door shuts at her back. The doctor’s gone.

Aryl panics at once. “What do we do??”

“Calm,” Cintha tries to reassure her. “Look for bandages. Some sort of dressing. Something to apply pressure. And something to cut these wires with. Clippers. Anything. Quick.”

Aryl dashes to the cabinets, tearing them open and rummaging through the items. She returns with a tool and three rolls of soft white linen, then goes to work clipping the wires and wrapping Cintha’s thigh. The white linens quickly darken with Cintha’s blood.

“It’s not good bandaging,” complains Aryl.

“It’ll have to do.” Cintha is thinking fast. They only have one mask between them now, since the selfish doctor took off with the other. “Aryl, get on the rolling table. I’m going to cover you with a tarp and roll you out of here, as if you’re a body I’m disposing of. I’ll wear the mask.”

“But you can’t walk! Cintha, you get on the table and be the body. I’ll wear the mask.”

Cintha winces at a sudden cramp. Her thigh is tingling and cold suddenly. “No, Aryl,” she wheezes. It’s too dangerous.

And Aryl is too stubborn. “Yes,” she spits back. The girl supports Cintha by her shoulder, lifting her off the ground. It is a struggle, but Cintha pushes her weight on her good leg. She groans with agony at the fiery pain in her thigh. “Get on the table. They can come in at any moment. We have to hurry.”

After barely trying any weight on her wounded leg, Cintha is quick to accept Aryl’s plan, slipping onto the rolling table herself with a grunt and a long moan of pain. Aryl fetches one of the tarps and throws it over Cintha’s body.

“Be silent,” whispers Aryl before pulling the mask over her own small face. Then she casts the rest of the tarp over Cintha’s, turning her whole world white.

Cintha feels the table move easily as Aryl directs it to the door. A door opens. Cintha moves again. Then there is the noise of people in the hall. Beneath the tarp, Cintha winces and bares her teeth, yet keeps her body perfectly still. It is the worst agony, to have such pain in one’s body, and yet not being allowed to move a muscle to grant a speck of comfort to one’s pain.

She takes a sharp turn. Cintha grunts, her weight jostled by the sudden shift in direction. The world keeps rolling beneath her.

Her head is reeling. Everything is dizzy. Keep awake, Cintha.

There is a door that opens. Then when it shuts, the noise of the hallway vanishes. The table comes to a stop.

Cintha blinks, waiting for her friend’s voice. When it doesn’t come, she whispers, “Aryl?”

“Quiet,” her friend returns in a hushed whisper. “We have to make a different plan.”

“There is no other way out. The lift at the end of the hall, Aryl. We have to get to the—”

“They’re scanning eyes,” Aryl explains in a hush. “I saw it. They must know that other men in the masks have died. Or maybe the doctor betrayed us. If they scan my eyes, we’ll both be found out.”

Cintha clenches shut her eyes, cursing to herself. We must hide until the masked men are gone. We must hide and survive.

“Find us somewhere to hide, Aryl. We need to hide in a secure place until there’s a clearing that we can use to—”

“I know,” she breathes back. “That’s why I stopped here. There’s a vault or something. And this room looks like it’s been cleared out, so they’re not likely to be back.”

“Can you open it?”

Cintha listens to the noise of Aryl messing with something. She hears metal tapping. She hears a few digital beeps. Then there is a sigh. “I don’t know. I need a key or something.”

Of course. Keys and unit numbers. Then the idea hits Cintha. “The mask. Look at the mask. Take it off and look at it.”

She listens to a shuffle from her friend. She shifts her weight. There is a soft beeping sound, and then a click. “It opened! The inside of the mask made the thingy light up! It opened the vault! Oh. But it’s cold inside there. It’s very cold.”

“Can we hide in it?”

Cintha’s question is answered as Aryl pulls the rolling table. The wave of cold air rushes over Cintha and reminds her instantly of the feeling she used to get when she went to the basement of the Noodle Shop to feed Kendil, the Weapon of Sanctum, when he was prisoner of Rain. That feels like ages ago …

The heavy sound of a door shutting causes Cintha to flinch. Her teeth are already clattering. “Where … W-W-Where are we?”

Aryl pulls the tarp from Cintha’s face. “Blue,” she murmurs with wide eyes.

Cintha clings to the tarp, holding it like a blanket as she looks up at Aryl. “It’s fucking cold in here.”

“Big Blue,” the girl says. “I found it. I found Big Blue.”

When Aryl’s eyes move to something across the room, Cintha turns her head. The room they are in is large and stark, all its walls made of a bluish metal lit by four sputtering lights, and the air is frigid. Cintha wonders if it is a cold store room to preserve food and medicine, like an enormous freezer or refrigerator. There are large crates all around its perimeter and one table in its center. It’s toward that center table that Aryl is completely transfixed.

“What is it?” whispers Cintha, her breath coming out in a misty cloud before her face.

“Big Blue,” Aryl answers. “The very cold thing I have seen.” She leaves Cintha’s side and, with her arms folded tightly over her body, approaches the table in the center of the room. She comes to a stop at its foot, staring at whatever is atop it. “Well. Maybe not.”

Cintha can’t stop shivering. She feels like she could pass out at any second, her consciousness drifting in and out, as if taunting her. Keep awake. Keep alive. Keep aware.

“Subject Meta,” mutters Aryl.

Cintha lifts her eyes. The red-eyed doctor told her about that. Meta. Cintha manages to sit up and gently slip off the table and onto her good leg. Carefully, she limps across the floor, coming up to Aryl, who issues a word of protest at her having gotten up, but the protest is ignored as Cintha looks down upon the table.

There’s a frozen woman lying there. A grey label pressed into the table next to her head reads: Subject Meta.

Cintha leans against the table, the ache in her thigh so dull and numbed by the cold, she hardly feels it. “This is the Meta …”

Aryl lifts an eyebrow. “The what?”

Cintha’s eyes draw down the length of the woman’s body. She notices that there’s a piece missing: her hand. Why does she not have one of her hands? Was it removed to study from it?

Aryl takes another step closer, then gasps. “Cintha!”

“What?”

“She’s red suddenly!”

Cintha frowns. “What do you mean?”

Aryl reaches out to touch the frozen woman, confused. “She’s ice cold … and yet she looks red to me. If she’s cold, she should be blue. She was blue a moment ago … but now she’s red. And still cold. And …” Aryl looks at her own hands, alarmed. “Now I’m blue.”

Meta. The doctor told me. “The Meta can affect others’ Legacies,” recalls Cintha.

“Everything warm is blue. Everything cold is red,” complains Aryl. “It’s … It’s all backwards …”

Cintha staggers away from the table, the room spinning quite suddenly as she presses herself into the nearest wall, then slides down to the floor, wheezing. Aryl is at her side in the next instant uttering words of worry and trying to comfort her, but Cintha can barely hear her.

“I’m gonna get you help,” Aryl insists.

“No, no. It’s too d-d-dangerous,” Cintha says, fighting a shiver.

“You’re dying, Cintha.”

“No. I’ll survive this. I have to survive this.”

When Cintha looks up, Aryl is already wearing the mask again. The sight is almost frightening.

“I will be back for you,” Aryl promises, her words muffled. “I’m going to find medicine and blankets and I will make sure to …”

Cintha can’t hear her words anymore. The girl is going in and out of focus and the room won’t stop spinning. Despite the frigid air, Cintha feels like she’s sweating. She hugs the tarp closer to her, not trusting the heat that flushes over her forehead.

In the next instant, she’s alone. The vault door opens at her back with a great swoosh of air, and then it shuts. The only light comes from a buzzing bulb at each of the four corners of the room. Cintha stares at the one nearest to her and she wonders.

She wonders and she imagines and she questions.

Some of us are destined to be small …

Cintha closes her eyes and grips the syringe tighter. Or is it even in her hand anymore? Cintha squeezes her fingers. Is it gone …? She can’t open her eyes, but she squeezes her fingers and feels nothing. I dropped it when the man with the wires in his palms attacked me. I lost the serum … the last gift of the red-eyed doctor. The news sits heavily on her shoulders like a great shower of ice upon them.

Minutes roll by, minutes that stretch the length of lifetimes.

The world’s full of big people and little people … Kirin’s words drift around in her mind, like dead leaves carried by harsh winter winds. You are one of the big, my dear …

Cintha laughs. “I’m quite short,” she murmurs out loud to the memory of the sweet old man Kirin. “There’s nothing b-b-big about me unless I’ve j-j-just put a big bowl of spicy in my b-belly at the N-Noodle Shop.”

The Noodle Shop. Cintha hugs herself, thinking of the boy in the basement, the boy with the coldness inside him.

The coldness.

You will accomplish great things …

Cintha’s eyes flash open. “His mother,” she murmurs, realizing. “The boy with the coldness. His mother. He took his mother’s hand and …” Didn’t he tell her that story once when she was feeding him soup? After he finally came to trust her and no longer resisted her attempts to feed him, he told her his name. Kendil, the cold boy. Kendil, the one with the black eyes and the black hair and the ice in his fingers. Didn’t he tell Cintha a story about the hand he took from his mother the day he froze her solid?

“Didn’t you break off your mother’s hand?” Cintha murmurs to the Kendil in her memories out loud, her breath turning into a storm of mist before her face. “Your m-m-mother’s own hand?”

Is it at all possible that the Meta … is his mother?

Kendil’s life became a series of bad events since that day, and he only sees destruction and fury because Sanctum made a monster of him. But Cintha saw the real him. He is kind. He is full of wishes and wants, just like anyone. Kendil deserves the chance at a normal life.

And if the Meta is his mother, then he is immune to the bad effects of the failed serum. He could be free from his Legacy, from his power …

From the horror that has consumed his life.

Weapon of Sanctum … diffused, at long last.

Minutes and minutes and minutes have gone by. Cintha, twice, feels herself slip. Is this what it’s like to sleep and dream at last? Is this what Anwick knew every time he rested his head and closed his eyes? The idea of sleeping to an adult is terrifying, because the only time one goes to sleep is when they sleep their last—to meet the angels of death who carry them to the other side.

You’re not meeting the angels of death today, Cintha tells herself. You’re not meeting …

She shivers, then shudders, then feels completely numb. Did she ever even have her leg caught in a coil of razor-sharp wires? Did she suffer any injuries at all, or was that some gruesome dream she had of some past life? Was the doctor with the red eyes really shot in the head? Maybe this is all some elaborate hallucination brought on by the Legacy elimination procedure, which is happening right now. All the others have gone, and they finally called for number seven. That must be it. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe she’s in the comfort of a bed someplace.

Yes, that’s what it is. This is the comfort of a bed. She only needs to keep her eyes closed and drift away.

Drift away.

Drift away.

“Cintha?”

Just keep drifting away. Cintha can smile, feeling the warmth of a person approach from behind. She doesn’t recognize the voice, but that’s okay. Maybe it’s Kendil’s mother on that table over there who is speaking to her from beyond the land of ice. Cintha tries to open her eyes, but all she seems to see is misty foggy nothingness. There is no person there, no source of the voice.

Yet it continues to speak. “I am a friend of Aryl’s. I just brought her to safety. She is safe now.” Cintha’s eyes keep searching. “You will not be able to see me. Cintha, let me try to carry you out. You’re bleeding everywhere and you’re cold.”

Cintha can’t quite make her mouth work, so she starts to open her fingers and close them, open them and close them.

Open.

Close.

Then the woman touches her hand. Cintha turns. The woman appears before her through an ethereal fog.

Cintha blinks. “Three Goddess …” she whispers, astonished.

The woman before her gives a gentle shake of her head. “I’m afraid I’m no Goddess. My name is Kid. You are a friend of Aryl’s,” she says, “and so you are a friend of mine. Please, you must get up.”

Cintha can’t pull her eyes away. This is the end. This is when I die. Three Goddess has come for me and I don’t even believe in them. “Is this how it all ends? Is this how the world ends? … In coldness?”

There is a silence. Then the woman inclines her head. “It ends in fire,” she replies. “I was told that by a man who could walk through time … a man who saw the Last City of Atlas ended by fire.”

The world ends in fire … straight from the mouth of the Sisters. “I have a friend named Kendil,” says Cintha. “I … I just met his m-m-mother. I feel sorry for him. He’s a good, sweet person …”

“Cintha. You have to come with me. You’re freezing to death.”

“He could have frozen me to death,” replies Cintha faintly, “but he didn’t. He wouldn’t.” She can’t even shiver anymore. “Please have mercy on him when you take him to the other side, Three Sister. Please. He needs a normal life. He deserves a normal life.”

“I’m helping you up,” says the Goddess named Kid. Cintha feels warm arms around her, but she can’t move. The arms pull again, and her world falls on its side. Everything spins and seems far away.

“Kendil broke off his mother’s hand,” Cintha moans. “H-Have you met his m-m-mother? She’s missing a … a h-h-hand …”

The Goddess Kid is silent for a moment, then brings her face close. “I knew Kendil, too. He was a friend of mine … long, long ago. And then he tried to kill me. Kendil has killed many innocent souls. He is beyond saving. He is deadly. Cintha, some with great power do not deserve their power. Some even grow … mad by it.”

“Y-You knew him? You knew Kendil?”

“And his mother’s hand, yes. The hand he keeps permanently affixed to his chest,” says the Goddess. “He showed me.”

He showed her. Kendil’s mother’s hand … affixed to his chest.

His mother. The Meta.

Cintha thinks of Aryl and the red and the blue …

Red and blue, then blue and red.

Cold and fire …

The world ends in fire …

“His Legacy …” whispers Cintha, staring through a fog of her own expiring breath before her. “Kendil’s Legacy … It’s not …”

The Goddess draws her face closer. “What?”

“It’s not coldness. It’s …”

Fire.

Kendil’s true Legacy … is fire.

“We could save his life, Sister. We could save all our lives. We all deserve to live.” His mother’s hand upon his chest … The Meta … “I need the syringe. It c-contains a nightmare-inducing serum.” Kendil will be immune to it. He’ll have no nightmares to fear. “A permanent nightmare with no escape. Y-Y-You need to get it. I left it in the room with the masked man who can throw wires from his p-p-palms. But he has no mask anymore. I killed him. I killed him with his own wires, strangled about his neck. There is a syringe I dropped in that room. G-Get it.”

The warm woman grows still at those words. “A masked man with wires …? From his palms …?” There is a heavy silence, and then she says, “He once bound me to an abandoned train track where a ghost train nearly took my life.”

“You need to get that syringe,” Cintha presses on. “We can save a life. We can—”

But the words of the Goddess from earlier stop her short—the words about Kendil. He has killed many innocent souls. He is beyond saving. He is deadly …

The Goddess wishes Kendil to die. Cintha wishes him to live.

“We can save the world from the fire,” whispers Cintha.

“We’ll save it together once I get you off this floor,” says the Goddess. “Please, get up.”

There is only one person in the world she can trust. “My brother Rone. My brother Rone will be looking for me. I know him. Rone. He will look for me and he will find me … and you must give him that syringe. It contains … a medicine.”

“How is a nightmare a medicine?”

“The nightmare is the medicine. Please, you must do this. Rone, my brother, my brother …”

“You’re talking like you’re going to die, Cintha. You are not.”

I must tell him in a way that only he will know. “Give him that syringe and tell him it’s a medicine. Tell him that the medicine must be given … to the treasure beneath the floor.” Beneath the floor of the Noodle Shop, in the basement below. “Tell him it must be given … to the weapon in our arsenal.” The Weapon of Sanctum …

“Cintha …”

“This is a matter of saving the world. Not saving me. Get the syringe before someone destroys it. The world … everything … the fire, the fire …” Cintha shuts her eyes.

“This isn’t how you end,” the Goddess tells her.

“Tell him …”

“The world does not end in coldness.”

Cintha wonders if that’s yet the greatest lie she never let herself believe. Her world was always meant to end in coldness, and she knew it the day she met Kendil and saw herself in him. A power that got a child arrested. A power that stole away a normal upbringing. A power that gave way to a lifetime of misunderstanding and pain. I am so like you, Kendil …

The Goddess may wish him dead, but Cintha will save his life, and thereby save the world. “Tell him …” she whispers.

“Cintha …”

“A treasure under the floor … A weapon in his arsenal …”

Weapon.

“What will you dream?”

Did the Goddess ask her that question, or is she already slipping to the other side? She thinks she sees her brother there. Or is it her father, grinning with his big bright eyes and rushing to hug her?

“I’m getting the syringe and I’m returning with help.”

Was that the Goddess again?

“What will you dream?”

I am going to dream of a world that doesn’t fight the madness, but dances with it. I want the cold boy to feel warmth again. I want my brother to fall in love … maybe many times. I want … I want …

“Are you ready for your final sleep?”

I want …

I want …

0230  Rone

Cloud Tower is tall, but its walls are thin.

And that is much to Rone’s advantage.

He slips up the stairs with two weapons in his grasp. A dagger. A needle full of chemical.

The stairs go on and on. If only I could phase upward without the annoying inconvenience of gravity …

The top of the stairs leads to a long bend of hallway, of which Rone does not need to walk at all. Just a waltz through the wall brings him to the right end of the throne room, just behind the very throne itself.

But no one sits in it.

He flicks his eyes up to find figures standing atop the glass roof, high, high, high above him. How odd.

Rone races to hide behind the tall, ugly throne at the sound of shuffling feet. When he peeks around its edge, he finds a woman coming down the long hall toward the throne, except she takes a sharp turn before the steps. Her skin is a rich, dark color and her hair is long and silky, pulled into one tight ponytail in the back. Her body is sucked into a full-length skintight suit which fits her every contour perfectly. The woman moves with confidence as she saunters toward the glass wall and seems to vanish into thin air.

Rone glances up at the ceiling again and sees that another set of feet now reside up there. A portal, he realizes. What curious Legacies a Mad King keeps in his arsenal.

It doesn’t matter their Legacies, however. Rone will phase out and be unaffected by all of them. Even Ruena’s lightning couldn’t touch him when he had phased away before. You make it so easy for me, Impis. I hope you’ve enjoyed your reign.

Rone keeps all but the flats of his shoes phased as he scurries from the throne and plunges into the portal.

The very next instant, he’s standing at the highest point in the whole world: the summit of Cloud Tower. There is no railing or walls up here, and the ground is somewhat slanted in all directions. One wrong step or slip of the foot on the glass surface, and one will fall hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet to their death.

Standing at the edge of these unsettling grounds is a thinly muscled naked boy who is glossy with sweat. Near him, the woman he saw approaching with the long ponytail. And across from them at the other end of the roof, with all his colors and flair blowing in the wind, Impis Lockfyre, the Mad King, former Marshal of Madness, stands in all of his beautiful mania.

Rone wastes no time. With a smirk and three quick hops of his feet, Rone rushes up to the backside of Impis and plunges the syringe deep into the Mad King’s neck.

Impis howls out as Rone empties all the contents of the syringe into the King. His shriek draws the attention of the other two, who whip around to pay witness to their King’s certain end.

“This is for my sister Cintha,” breathes Rone, feeling the fire of retribution in his chest.

Then he brings forth the dagger, whips it around Impis’s body, and plunges it deeply into his bowels.

“And this is for my brother Anwick.”

The syringe, having served its purpose, is flung aside. Then he pulls Wick’s dagger clean from the Mad King’s belly, letting the man drop to his knees as he clutches his wound, his eyes reeling. Even now after his fatal wounds, half a smile is painted over Impis’s face as giggles work their way up his throat.

When the two others charge forward, Rone raises the dagger.

“No, no,” calls Impis to them, stopping their advance. “I’m quite fine. Ticklish, in fact. Oh, what an …” Impis coughs. “What an … an exciting way to end the day!”

Impis rises slowly from the ground, staggers to the left, then to the right, and then turns to face his assailant. Rone brandishes only the dagger, every part of him phased but his shoes and his weapon. Impis holds his belly where the dagger entered him.

“N-Nothing …” murmurs Impis, the blood spilling through his fingers as he holds his wound. “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing …”

As he continues to repeat the word, Rone takes a step back, ready to slip through the portal and make his grand escape—only to discover no more portal behind him.

“… nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing …”

The woman is at Impis’s right side. The sweaty boy is at his left.

“… nothing, nothing, nothing …”

Rone is trapped. He can’t phase through the floor or else he’ll fall a long way to the glass tile of the throne room below. He doesn’t have the portal at his back, which he didn’t—until now—realize was unreliable. I suppose I could just stand here and mock them until they open the portal back up. After all, they have to get down too at some point, don’t they?

“Nothing?” interrupts Rone, feeling smart. “Looks more like something. And it’s your blood. And it’s spilling out of you. A lot.”

Impis keeps reciting the word over and over, uninterrupted. He doesn’t even sound like he’s drawing breath between each one.

Rone tries to find his wit, but instead finds himself unsettled by Impis’s behavior. His stomach begins to turn as he clings to the dagger, which suddenly starts to feel extremely inadequate in his circumstances.

The woman speaks over Impis’s continuous words. “Which one was Anwick?” she asks, narrowing her eyes. “The one who … cried?”

Impis draws silent at once, then says, “Nothing … is important to Anwick. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?” asks the woman with mock curiosity.

“No. Not since Metal—” Impis coughs, blood spilling onto his chin. He runs an arm across his mouth, smearing the blood over his pale, powdered cheek and forearm. Then he finishes: “Not since Metal Hand touched his sweet, dreamy face.”

Rone lifts up his dagger and prepares a word to say to Impis—until his eyes move to his hand brandishing the dagger and finds it completely solid.

He looks down at the rest of his body. He’s turned solid.

“Having trouble with your Legacy?” asks the woman. “Are you feeling like the alley cat who’s climbed too high and doesn’t know how to get down?”

“I want to hear him purr,” sings Impis through his bloodied lips, his eyes unblinking and his mouth curling at the ends.

The woman lifts an eyebrow at Rone. “Feel like purring for us?”

Rone sneers and makes to say something taunting to them, but finds himself purring instead. He shuts himself up, baffled, then tries to speak again—and again, he just purrs.

Impis coughs again. More blood speckles his chin and his eyes start to reel back. He staggers, falls to one knee, then says, “The fuck is happening to me?”

An overwhelming feeling of comfort rushes over Rone, and he realizes at once that Impis and this woman and this sweaty guy are his only friends in this forsaken, cruel world. “You’ve been injected with a potentially deadly serum,” explains Rone helpfully. “It will put you in a deep nightmare state from which you’ll never return.”

“Nightmare?” murmurs Impis, more curious than afraid.

“I wonder if this fellow likes nightmares. He looks so scared, Impy,” sings the woman. “Does he like nightmares?”

“He does,” says Impis. “What’re you scared of, kitty-cat?”

“Phasing downward,” Rone confesses to them at once. “I don’t ever want to phase downward. I would fall forever.”

“Phase?” questions Impis through his blood-dripping mouth, his hand still squeezed against his belly.

“Explain to us what that means,” murmurs the woman.

“I can move through walls,” Rone says at once. “I was a member of the rebel group Rain, and I was known for my ability to pass through solid objects. Nothing could contain me.”

The woman smirks, crosses her arms, then simply stares at Rone with a ghoulish sort of satisfaction.

Mad King Impis slowly rises back to his feet. “Come here,” he orders, his voice having lost the playfulness it had a second ago.

Rone, still holding the dagger, closes the distance between them. In the next instant, Impis grabs Rone by the throat and lifts him in the air, fury in his tightened face. Impis’s left eye starts to twitch as he pours all his Madness into Rone who, in this one fateful moment, is closest to the sky than any other person in all of the Last City of Atlas.

To Rone’s face, the Mad King says, “Allow me to share my little permanent nightmare with you.” He lets out a titter, which sounds uncharacteristically dull for Impis. Then, he recites: “LET. IT. RAIN.”

A giggle is born in Rone Tinpassage’s throat, and then his whole body begins to tickle with the unprecedented joy of letting go every trace of his composure. A new sort of chemical swims around inside his body, and he feels freer than he’s ever felt before.

Rone phases through Impis’s hand, then plummets through the glass ceiling of the throne room.

He falls.

Then Rone plummets through the floor of the throne room, too, and he laughs and he laughs.

Every floor of Cloud Tower rushes past him.

One floor.

Another floor.

Yet another and another and another.

The innards of the Lifted City fly by, and then it’s the underbelly of the Lifted City that he’s staring up at, still falling, falling, falling.

Falling.

Falling.

LET. IT. RAIN.

When he feels the slums racing toward his back, that’s when the Madness lets go of him, and he suddenly becomes aware of his rapid, air-ripping descent. His joy converts to panic in an instant. He spins in the air, flipping over.

Now he’s facing his demise as the city rushes toward him. He is phased. He brings up his hands to shield his face, screaming.

The roof of a building comes at him, and then he’s through it too. Fifteenth floor. Fourteenth.

Thirteenth.

Tenth.

Sixth.

First.

Then a basement.

And then it’s dark.

Through endless dark he plunges. He can’t even scream, the whole world surrounding him. He sees nothing as he falls.

He reaches out to grab hold of something, anything, but Rone Tinpassage is made of nothing at the moment, and he phases through what might as well be miles upon miles of dirt and stone and darkness.

He falls. And he falls.

And then he falls some more.

Somewhere in the endless falling, Rone finally comes to peace with his nightmare. It’s not so scary, he decides. I’ve drank heavier amounts of chemical and felt more scared than this.

He will never see anyone ever again.

He will be forgotten, forever.

His body will never be found, a million miles beneath the earth, somewhere in the depths of some hell he only knows about in children’s fairytales.

His falling seems to slow. Is he floating now? Has his falling become such an overwhelming sensation that now his body thinks it’s merely floating in nothingness?

I have reached the center of the planet, Rone decides. I am King of the Planet! Rone, the Planet King!

And then, for the first time in an eternity of falling, Rone feels something grip his hand. He turns his body toward it, perplexed. Is it the dagger I’m feeling? he wonders for one blissful, fleeting second.

And then he lands.

0231  Halvesand

His mother, now officially cleared of all charges, stands next to his bed, a smile on her face. Halves was certain he’d never see her look so happy ever again. Aleks stands next to her, giving her shoulders a rubbing, while Ennebal is at the other side of the bed.

“I’m a free woman,” says Ellena with a lighthearted sigh. “And so is your father. Once order is restored in the Keep, your father is coming home. That Obert Ranfog, he’s quite a character. There must be something else he knows that he isn’t telling us. I can’t for the life of me figure out how he chose to take my words—at face value—and release me right there based on them. How? It makes no sense.”

Because his Legacy felt nothing but truth in your words, Halves would dare to say had he a voice. But he lets the elusiveness of Obert and his decision remain so; it’s far more entertaining to observe his mother’s bewildered face and the lightness that has returned to it.

Aleks gives a knowing look at Halves, then nods at Ennebal, as if signaling something. Halves doesn’t get it, so Aleks starts to talk. “Well, bro? Should we tell mom?”

Ellena’s eyes flash. “Tell me what?” Her gaze flicks to Ennebal, then down to Halves on the bed, then back at Aleks. “Tell me what?”

Aleks hides behind her with a teasing, coy expression. Ennebal rolls her eyes, then puts a hand to her own belly and says, “Well, whatever it is, I hope you’re ready for big news, grandma.”

“Grandma? I’m not a grandma. I’m—OH.” Her eyes are wide. Her hands shoot up to her mouth. “OH! Are you—?? Is she—??” She screams with joy and hops in place three times, all her hair bouncing. “You have a baby in you?? Oh, Sisters, I can’t believe it! Oh …!!”

“A little boy or girl, right in here,” mutters Ennebal with a smirk and a circle-shaped rub on her belly.

“This is the best news.” Ellena slaps Aleksand on the shoulder. “I always knew it’d be you who makes me little Lessers first. It was always in my mind that I’d—”

“No, no,” says Ennebal at once, then gives Halves a gentle pat on his chest. “This one.”

Ellena gapes and turns back towards the bed. “Oh! Halvesand?” She laughs, finding the mix-up hilarious. Halves can’t quite move anything without hurting, so he just grimaces for a smile. “Maybe I should have gotten a proper introduction to everyone. My head’s been in clouds for days. For weeks. For all these months. Oh, Halves, my baby.” She gives his forehead a kiss, careful to avoid the hooks and knobs of the ugly metal contraption affixed to his neck.

“I’m Ennebal Flower,” she states with mock courtesy, “and I had illegal Guardian-forbidden sex with your son.”

Ellena giggles at her crudeness. Halves knew she’d like her; the woman has the sharp tongue of his father and likely the strength of him, too. Halves tries not to find the comparison he just made in his head to be weird.

“I wonder what they’ll make of that,” says Ellena with a smirk, elbowing Halves’ bed instead of his body. “No fraternization? That’s a big deal here, is it? Even with Sanctum broken apart?”

“I don’t know anymore,” admits Ennebal with a short sigh. “If I’m blunt, I really don’t care. My world has been broken for too long a time. This baby’s mending it all.”

The women smile at each other, and it is the most genuine smile that Halves has ever seen on Ennebal’s stoic, hardened face. Has he ever really seen her smile at all?

Another voice joins theirs as the doctor enters the room for his routine checkup, lightly introducing himself to Ellena and offering a sweet word or two of encouragement about her bedridden, broken son and how strong and persistent he has been in pursuing his own recovery over the past few months, despite only having become his doctor in the past few weeks.

“And I’ve heard of your Legacy,” the doctor goes on to Halves’ mother, “and must warn you not to use it on your son, as it may not heal him the way you wish. See, it is an unusual circumstance, but his wound is actually containing the poison in his system, which we cannot safely remove. It is too risky, and the poison, too unknown. If you were to take his neck wounds from him, you may inadvertently release a flood of poison into his system, and that would … well, it would not be good.”

Ellena nods somberly. “I was informed of the … circumstance by my boys. Thank you for clarifying. But …” She gives a doleful glance at Halves. “He has other wounds on his body, apart from the poison in his neck. Surely I could relieve him of those, yes?”

“Well, I suppose I could leave that to your own discretion. Just stay away from his neck. That’s official doctor’s orders!” he says with a sneer and a silly laugh, then brusquely slaps the end of the bed. “I wish you all the best. Halvesand, I am doing my research and brainstorming with new colleagues that arrive to Eleven Wings on the daily. We will have new techniques to try, new treatments, new options. We’re not giving up on you, my boy. And when Ruena is found and order is restored to Sanctum, we will have their resources to count upon, and you will be healed. I guarantee you that. You’ve a long tunnel ahead of you, but it is a good one. He’s a survivor,” he adds to Ellena with a dimply smile. “Strong sons you’ve made.” And then the doctor sees himself out.

Ellena descends on Halves at once, hugging him at the waist in silence. Aleks grins happily and meets Ennebal’s eyes. She returns his look with a light one of her own, then turns to Halves. After a significant moment of observing him, she gives him a wink and then offers another of her rare, uncharacteristic smiles.

And as Halves lies there in bed with his brother at one side, his maybe-lover at the other, and his mother hugging him tight, he finds he doesn’t care whose blood is in that baby. It’s our blood just the same, he decides, and I will love him or her with the whole of my heart that still beats, just inches below the poison that threatens to kill me with every passing day.

With his mother embracing him with her long, slender arms, he feels a lightness invade his system. Is she working her Legacy on all of his wounds but the one? Maybe she wouldn’t have to take a single ache of his away in order for him to still explode with the emotions that course through his body right now. He deserves to feel precisely the way he feels in this moment—positive, enriched, and surrounded by loved ones. He is ready for better days to come. For once, I have hope. It’s a different kind of poison that floods every inch of his body now, a happy poison that no trace of his Legacy will dare to stop.

Epilogue

The magnificently tall, otherworldly trees sway, a million leaf-and-branch handshakes in the air above, a dance of madness.

Everything is a dance of madness here.

The blades of grass, tall and wild and out of control, kiss his feet as he moves through the fields of the dead.
The wind plays across his naked body. It’s cold as a winter breeze here, yet he is still warm, kissed by the resplendent, golden sun that pours over his skin.

It’s like the legends of the Ancients, fairytales of wilderness and woods, of oceans and sands, of hills … He becomes playful as he strolls through the ethereal forest, it’s trees so tall that they’re staggering. The beauty strikes him, bringing tears to his eyes. Just like a fairytale. He kicks up a spray of leaves, sending them dancing in the wind.

Yellows and browns and reds swirl in the air, a waltz of wonder.

I could get used to this.

He takes off into a sprint suddenly, laughing. His laughs echo back at him after flitting through the trees. It’s endless, this magical forest. It extends in all directions forever and ever and ever and ever.

The Greens never knew a forest this thriving and gorgeous.

He listens for a song of people to touch him. A song of chatter. A song of welcome. There must be others, he knows. They are out here and they are awaiting my arrival.

He hopes he won’t find Link. You better still be alive, you rebel you! I don’t want to see you here for decades more!

He sits in the grass. Why not? His bare ass cheeks feel the soft embrace of nature’s palms. Then he lies back and folds his hands behind his head, staring up at the sunshine and the nearly cloudless sky as the trees dance and whisper far above him.

The whispers sweep one way, sweep the other way. It is so beautiful that he could cry.

And then he hears the song of people he so craved. Sitting up at once, he listens to the crunching of footsteps in the distant grass.

“Hello!” he calls out to whoever comes, elated to meet his first companion ghost, or dead person, or spirit … whatever they call themselves here. He will learn the rules. He will cooperate and join in their peaceful, merry ways.

From the bush comes a boy dressed in leathers from the waist down. His torso, lean and muscled as a panther, is bare but for a beaded choker with teeth on his neck and a work of ink across his left pec. His head is buzzed to the scalp, and each eye has a black, inky-looking substance painted around it. His face looks a lot like …

“Dran?” he calls out.

The young man with the black about his eyes gives a smirk. “So you know of me?” he asks dryly.

He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Of all people to meet first, it would be him. He’s on his feet and approaching Dran. “We haven’t truly met,” he says to Dran, “but my name is Anwick Lesser—you can call me Wick—and I saw your execution on the broadcast. I’m so sorry it went down like that. You were at the Weapon Show and got blamed for a bunch of blue ink that wasn’t yours.”

Dran appraises him with suspicious eyes. “Mmm.” He tilts his head, giving a glance down at Wick’s crotch, then says, “You’re gonna need some clothes. Did Metal Hand just touch you?”

For some reason, no matter Wick’s elation, the uttering of Metal Hand’s name deflates him. “Yes,” he says, sobered somewhat.

“My apologies,” offers Dran. “Sorry that I don’t know you, though I must say, you look quite familiar, and I—” Dran blinks, which is made more dramatic by the black around his eyes. “Wait a second,” he says. “Lesser? Is that what you just said your name is? Lesser? Do I have that right?”

“Anwick Lesser, yes, that’s me.” Wick gives a cheesy smile, his lightness returned at once.

Dran snorts, amused by something. Then he says, “I think we may have some more to talk about later. Some … common ground … so to speak.” He beckons Wick to come. “I’ll show you around.”

Wick is too eager to comply. He feels no shame walking around naked in the woods, with so much bright sunshine pouring through the trees and setting all the branches and highest leaves on fire—green fire. He’s never been so overwhelmed with stimulus as he is at this moment.

“This is more beautiful than I imagined,” Wick confesses, his heart light. “I can’t wait to see my brother.”

Dran lifts an eyebrow. “Oh? You have more than the one?”

“One??” Wick snorts. “I have four brothers!”

“Four! Wow. Anyone tell your dad to quit putting it in your mom, or are they so incapable of behaving?”

Wick finds the jape hysterically funny. Death has made me mad, he decides, then gives Dran a hearty slap on the back. “We’re gonna be great friends, you and I.”

The boys come upon a clearing in the woods, beyond which Wick sees a gathering of huts and cabins and little dirt streets. There are people—men, women, and children—who populate the streets, going about their day. Wick can’t seem to move his legs as well as he just was, stunned by the scenery.

And then a pang of remorse fills him. I wish Athan was here to share this experience with me. He has got to be so devastated. I hope he can make a go of his life without me. Wick doesn’t want to imagine Athan with anyone else, but he hates to think of Athan forcing himself to be alone, determined to be loyal to Anwick even in death. You deserve happiness, Athan. You’ve lost everyone.

“This place is called Gaea,” says Dran with a careless wave of his hand. “I don’t know who named it, but it’s where we live.”

“It’s beautiful. I love it,” blurts Wick at once.

“Which ward were you? Ninth, like Link?”

Wick gapes. “You knew my younger brother when you were alive??”

Dran snorts at Wick’s enthusiasm. “You even sound a bit like him. I told you, we have common ground. We’ll chat on it later. Come, let me introduce you to some other ninth folk you might know.”

“My brother Lionis should be here,” insists Wick. “He died just before I did. Fuck, I have so much I need to say to him.”

“Alright, alright. Calm down. You’re giving me a headache.”

Wick can’t help nor contain his enthusiasm. He doesn’t even bother to hide his cock and balls as they swing with his strut into the tiny city. Everyone is clothed in an assortment of leathers and linens. No one seems to mind his nakedness, which is somehow exactly what Wick would have expected from a city “on the other side”.

Wick is brought to the porch of a cabin where three men are seated over a table that has scratching all over it. Wick takes it to be some sort of game they’re playing. The men look up when Dran gives them a whistle, drawing their attention.

“We have a new one from the ninth,” announces Dran. “How about you each give yourselves a little intro, yeah?”

The first gives a nod. “Barley. Never seen you before, but I had a run-in with a … well, it’s not important. Metal Hand poked my nose and here I am.”

The second man speaks up. “Kraag Tourney. Stole food from a sixth ward orphanage. I deserve to be here. Your turn, Rych.”

The third man, bearded and solemn and gaunt, hardly looks up from the table when he speaks. “I am Rychis Bard. I have a wife and one baby boy. I lost my temper and broke a machine at my job.”

Barley snorts. “Really, Rych. Are those the only words you ever say? Over and over?”

Wick nods at each of them. “I’m Anwick,” he tells him. “Have any of you seen my brother Lionis? Looks like me, except … not.”

Rychis scowls and returns his full attention to the table. Kraag snorts, appreciating Wick’s lightness, and says, “Nope. Not seen any Lionis around here.”

Barley asks, “When did Metal Hand touch him?”

“Oh, no, Metal Hand didn’t,” Wick explains. “My brother Lionis was killed. Impis touched him with the Madness and Lionis threw himself off the …” Wick feels a wave of emotion hit him suddenly. Perhaps he ought to slow down a bit with the excitement; it’s almost like he’s forgotten that he’s dead. “And he … he threw himself off of the edge of the Lifted City,” Wick finishes in a far flatter tone.

The men stare at him hard. Then they lift their gazes to Dran expectantly, who regards Wick with two lazy, half-lidded eyes.

Wick looks between the men and Dran. “What? What is it?”

Dran gives a short sigh. “I think you got the wrong idea, Wick.”

“What do you mean?”

He puts his hands on Wick’s shoulders. “You’re not dead.”

Wick blinks. He stares at Dran for the solid space of a minute. “I was … I was touched by Metal Hand. I was obliterated. I was—”

“No. You were teleported.”

Wick scrunches up his eyes. Now he’s thoroughly confused. “I was what?”

“What I’m saying is, Metal Hand doesn’t know what the fuck his own Legacy is,” explains Dran with a crooked smirk. “The idiot thinks he destroys everything he touches. Nothing has ever proven to him otherwise. He touches something, it goes away. Simple as that. But the truth is … he teleports what he touches.”

Wick can’t close his mouth, nor blink his eyes. Even now, he isn’t sure he’s hearing Dran correctly.

“What I mean is,” Dran presses on, his tone a touch darker, “my brother Fylan was killed by the Banshee. Not Metal Hand.” Dran’s eyes darken with anger. “Greymyn killed the wrong fucking brother. Fylan was a sweet, untouched soul. He was only there because of me. I should have died that day. Not my sweet brother Fylan.”

“Show him,” grunts Barley.

“Yeah, show him,” agrees Kraag.

Dran regards them with a roll of his eyes, then puts an arm over Wick’s shoulder. “Come, Anwick. You’ll want to see this. But I must prepare you: it’s going to fuckin’ rip your world wide open.”

The boys leave the village and pass into the woods, the magic of which has worn off on Wick, now that his perception of everything has shifted dramatically. He feels more naked now than he ever has his whole life. Dran continues to walk him up a hill, the trees falling behind them. The hill turns rocky, and soon Wick is wincing as his sensitive feet press into the stones as they ascend.

When they reach the top, Wick sees a span of desert before him. Far, far away at the other side of the flowing sands, a dark line draws across the horizon, extending as far as the eye can see both ways.

“What is it you think you’re looking at?” asks Dran casually.

“The Wall,” Wick says at once in perfect monotone.

“Aye,” agrees Dran, “but have you realized yet which side of it you’re standing on?”

Wick stares, awed. He feels the trees far behind him, and the wind of the wild on his skin, and sees the uninterrupted sky above, and the beaming sun, and the rolling sands … and the Wall …

And the Wall … “We’re outside the city of Atlas,” answers Wick, staggered.

Dran throws an arm over his back. “Welcome to the Oblivion, Anwick Lesser of the ninth.”

- - -

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The

OUTLIER

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R E B E L L I O N

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F I V E     K I N G S

Thank you for reading!

The epic story continues in the fourth and fifth installments:

Outlier: Beyond Oblivion & Outlier: Five Kings

2017 - 2018

Table of Contents

THE OUTLIER SERIES Chapter Compendium

The Citizenry of Atlas

ACT 1

Prologue

0138 Sedge

0139 Wick

0140 Kid

0141 Halvesand

0142 Wick

0143 Link

0144 Ellena

0145 Athan

0146 Mercy

0147 Wick

0148 Arrow

0149 Ellena

0150 Tide

0151 Wick

0152 Halvesand

0153 Ellena

0154 Arrow

0155 Kid

0156 Athan

0157 Ellena

0158 Link

0159 Tide

0160 Arrow

0161 Link

Cintha’s Patience

ACT 2

0162 Rone

0163 Rone

0164 Link

0165 Athan

0166 Tide

0167 Athan

0168 Link

0169 Ruena

0170 Arrow

0171 Forgemon

0172 Link

0173 Wick

0174 Sedge

0175 Rone

0176 Link

0177 Wick

0178 Athan

0179 Ellena

0180 Forgemon

0181 Ruena

0182 Arrow

0183 Wick

0184 Kid

Cintha’s Weapon

ACT 3

0185 Tide

0186 Kid

0187 Arrow

0188 Wick

0189 Ruena

0190 Tide

0191 Link

0192 Mercy

0193 Halvesand

0194 Kid

0195 Ruena

0196 Wick

0197 Kid

0198 Link

0199 Sedge

0200 Mercy

0201 Tide

0202 Athan

0203 Rone

0204 Tide

0205 Kid

0206 Wick

0207 Wick

ACT 4

0208 Athan

0209 Sedge

0210 Kid

0211 Halvesand

0212 Rone

0213 Arrow

0214 Kid

0215 Mercy

0216 Ellena

0217 Athan

0218 Kid

0219 Link

0220 Rone

0221 Arrow

0222 Kid

0223 Rone

0224 Ellena

0225 Forgemon

0226 Ruena

0227 Tide

0228 Link

0229 Rone

Cintha’s Promise

0230 Rone

0231 Halvesand

Epilogue