Chapter Five
“THERE IS NO DETAIL TOO SMALL IN THE HERALDS’ DIVINE PLAN. YOUR PLACE IN THIS WORLD HAS BEEN HANDPICKED BY THEM, EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR EXISTENCE ACCOUNTED FOR.”
I rip my gaze away from the magnastorm on the horizon and turn back to the boardinghouse, placing my hand flat against the crystalline oval embedded in the rusty, oxidized door.
There’s a swirl of misty light under the crystal’s surface and then the door swings open with a metallic creak.
Not many buildings in duster towns have coded locks like this one, which means the rent here is double, but it’s more than worth it.
Before we could afford to live here, I didn’t just keep Wrath under my pillow—I had to feel the cold weight of it on my fingertips in order to fall asleep.
Inside, it smells like metal polish and old wallpaper and slow-cooked foods heavy with spices.
The stately, curving staircase echoes with the voices of kids farther up, hollering and laughing and giving one another shit as they disappear behind their front doors with enthusiastic slams. There’s a vent in a dusty, shadowed corner back behind that staircase where I stow my Butcher kit, wiggling the metal grate free and shoving it deep into the darkness.
I’ve used this hiding place ever since Kelda almost stumbled across the rucksack in my room and found me out.
Two halves of my life. A constant tightrope walk between them.
That nice, expensive rent also means this place has an ornate cage elevator that works 80 percent of the time—which isn’t half bad.
It’s not necessarily skyliner fancy, but then again, nothing down here in the dust really is.
I clang the cage shut behind me and listen to the clattering rattle as the elevator climbs all the way to the top of the building.
I picked out this place for Halle and Kelda about a year ago.
So much nicer than what we were used to, but also not so expensive that I can’t keep stashing some cash away as a safety net.
I pause just outside the door, wiping my fingers along my face and neck to make sure there aren’t any lingering blood spots. My mind drifts briefly—to the mess I left in that airship, to Orion’s arrest warrant on the dailies, to the sudden storm.
It’s an unmaking season, Val. Papa’s words ring in my head again.
I don’t want to hear them. No one is unmaking anything here. I’m going to go inside and my sisters are going to be fine and safe, and that’ll be the end of it. Everything else I can fix in the morning.
The hinges squeal as I shoulder open the door and step inside, kicking the door closed hard enough to make sure it latches and locking it behind me.
Halle stands at the dish steamer in the kitchen, her back to me.
Unharmed, unhurt. All the tension rushes out of my body, so quickly I almost feel a little lightheaded.
“Hey, I’m home,” I say as I lean against the back of one of the chairs in our little dining room, toeing off my boots. Our lodgings actually feel nice and cool for once, likely because of the extra naphtha I shelled out for last month.
Most everything on Trinity runs on naphtha—a limitless source of power provided to us by the Twelve Heralds.
Some people even call it godblood. But it doesn’t come cheap for dusters, especially as each day gets a little warmer than the one before.
The Heraldic Ministry tells us this is a test of our gratitude, our willingness to make sacrifices just like the Heralds sacrificed for us.
All I know is that it’s meant skyliners hoarding naphtha even more than usual, leaving a lot of dusters scrambling to fill the gaps with whatever we can cobble together.
Halle’s left a little cup of drinking water on the table, next to packets of sandwich rolls from a nearby food stall.
I scoop up the cup and tip it into my mouth, careful to get every last drop.
I know we have more—I made sure to leave most of our remaining rations for Halle and Kelda—but I don’t ask for any. I never do.
“Sorry I’m a bit late,” I say when Halle stays silent. I wave a hand at the sandwich rolls. “Thanks for picking up dinner.”
The only response I get is a loud bark of laughter. No joy in it. Just a really bitter taste. I take a second look at her as she scrubs furiously at something in the sink.
Everything about her is furious, in fact. I can feel it coming off her like spikes.
Shit. Here we go again.
“So…” I draw the word out carefully. “How’s everything going here?”
“Everything’s fine. It’s great.” Halle’s voice slashes across the space. She shuts the dish steamer off and shoves a pan into the cabinet underneath with a harsh clang. “And I wasn’t the one who got us dinner. The Bakshi sisters brought it over. After their day out.”
She hangs it there, knowing it’ll land right where she aimed.
I wrap my fingers around the back of the chair in front of me, wincing.
I’d promised her, days ago, that she could go with them.
Promised I’d be home to take care of Kelda.
It had been the nicest conversation we’d managed to have in weeks.
And then I’d forgotten all about it. As soon as Dani had turned up with a job.
“Halle … I’m sorry…”
Halle sweeps over and snatches my boots off the floor.
We don’t look much alike. She’s all long legs, cascades of wavy black hair kept in place with a thousand copper hairpins, olive-toned skin that keeps a tan even in the low season, just like Mama, whereas I take after Papa—shorter, slighter, with white skin and dark-brown hair that I keep clipped short.
With Halle’s height and her curves, most people think she’s the eldest of us, but she’s only fifteen.
Then again, she had to step into Mama’s shoes when she was eleven years old, helping to raise a small kid while I scraped together cash any way I could.
Neither of us really knows what being young actually feels like.
She throws my boots onto the mat by the door in that way that says You should’ve remembered to do this first. “Where were you?”
My shoulders tighten at her disapproval. Like she’s my parent instead of my younger sister. “A last-minute job came up. Couldn’t wait.”
“Of course it couldn’t.”
I kick at the chair, and it screeches across the metal floor in protest. “For fuck’s sake, it’s not like I was out at a party, Halle. Work is work. I turn down jobs, I don’t get paid, and these lodgings aren’t cheap.”
She stops zigzagging around the place and leans against the sink again, facing me, her arms crossed. “But you said you’d be home. You promised I could have an afternoon to myself.”
“I told you, I don’t need a babysitter!” calls a voice from the second bedroom. Kelda. “I could’ve stayed by myself!”
“NO!” Halle and I shout it back in unison, without even looking away from our fight.
It’s the one thing we can always agree on, no matter what else is happening: Keep Kelda safe. At all costs.
“Evan Oyeno’s mother was telling me about a job opening up, at a fabricator’s shop,” Halle says, her deep-set brown eyes bright and fixed on me. It’s the only feature we share—dark, liquidy pools under strong brows.
I sigh, run a hand back through my short-cropped hair.
There’s this tingling desire at the base of my skull to run, to phase away from the conversation I can see forming on the corners of Halle’s mouth because I already know the shape of it.
“That’s great. We should tell Bibi down on the third floor about it. She’s been looking for work for a bit.”
“You know I’m not talking about this job for Bibi,” she says fiercely, and then, when I don’t say anything, she hurries on in the silence. “This is your chance. Aren’t you tired of being a low-level errand runner for the Gold Town Gang? If I pick up a few more hours to help cover the rent—”
“Stop it, Halle.” I don’t mean for my voice to come out so hard and cold, but my head is aching with thirst and I’m suddenly so, so tired and I can’t stop thinking about Kilpatrick and that preacher and whether I just shot everything right to hell today.
“It’s not happening. It’s never happening, okay?
I’ve made my peace with what I do and how things work in the dust.”
Halle leans back, and I can taste her frustration in the air. She wants a solution, something she can press her fingertips into and make right. She’s always been that way, with her eyes thrown forward into some kind of future I can’t see. Even in our darkest months, just after Mama was gone.
Sometimes I hate her for it a little. I hate how she can burn so bright, and the only thing inside me is a monster with a beautiful song and teeth that grow sharper with every kill.
Kelda appears in the doorway, her bright hazel gaze wide in her pale round face, a faded slicing scar bisecting her right eyebrow, her wavy black hair cut short like mine but wild and sticking up every which way.
Probably because she’s been tugging at the ends like she does when she’s frustrated.
Right now, though, her arms are crossed—just like Halle—and her lips are pressed tightly together.
“Why can’t I stay by myself?” she demands. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”
I clench my jaw hard, angling so I’ve got Halle glaring on one side of me and Kelda glaring on the other. “You’re little enough. Too young to be running around Covenant on your own.”
“At my age, Halle was staying by herself and watching me.”
Halle shakes her head. “That’s only because Mama and Papa were gone and Val kept disappearing for work—”
“I could work! I could help out with the bills!” The way the words tumble out of Kelda’s mouth—like they can’t hardly wait their turn—makes me think she’s been waiting for an opening for this idea for a while. “The lady who runs one of the food stalls on the corner, she says—”
“No!” It’s in unison again. We should take this show on the road.
I brace my hands on the tabletop, flipping that switch in my head that lets me push Val into the background so the Butcher can do their work. My frustrated expression goes cold and blank, imperious as I return both their glares.
“Nothing is changing, all right?” I look over at Halle. “I’m not taking the fabricator job or any other job, so quit asking.” I swing my head around to Kelda. “And you’re not leaving school just so you can work at some food stall and play at being a grown-up. That’s it. Conversation over.”
Kelda’s face flushes bright red, tears welling in her hazel eyes as she spins on her heel and stomps back into the bedroom she shares with Halle. “You are the worst sibling in the whole universe!”
She slams the door behind her, hard enough to rattle the frame, and then it’s just me and Halle on opposite sides of the dining table.
“Nice,” Halle says, fitting a lifetime’s worth of exhaustion into that one word. “That was great.”
She crosses the dining room, calling after Kelda, and soon the only one left standing there is me.
I turn and storm off into my own bedroom, closing the door tightly behind me.
Crawling on top of my bed, I stand on tiptoe to reach the ceiling, moving aside a panel in the middle and pulling out a bottle of moonshine from the dark crawl space.
I take a long pull straight from the bottle, relishing in the warm bite of the alcohol as it slides down my throat and hits my empty belly.
Mama and Papa never drank moonshine or any other kind of booze that the Heraldic Ministry regularly distributes to dusters. Sure, the Ministry can’t be bothered to always get us our water or naphtha on time, but damned if they aren’t going to make sure we have access to government-approved alcohol.
Placating measures, Mama always said, with acid in her voice.
I should be more like them. I shouldn’t let this shit into the house.
It’s going to make everything worse in the long run—my headache, my thirst, my relationship with Halle when she inevitably smells it on my breath—but right now …
it helps. Makes it easier to put the Butcher back in their box and soothe the rough edges that Val is left to deal with.
It helps me forget about the blood I put on the decks. Because that’s the job. That’s what I’m paid to do. And deep down in a place I don’t like to look very often, I’m a little bit in love with how good at it I am.
I sink down onto my bed, taking another drink of the moonshine. It’s so high proof that it burns my insides, but I don’t mind the burn.
I deserve it.
The thought drifts up unbidden as I remember Kelda’s flushed expression, the outrage and embarrassment inside her tears.
And Halle’s old-soul face, lined with disappointment.
In me. They don’t know what I am or what I’ve become, and I never want them to.
I’ve worked too hard to get us where we are, even as Halle and Kelda fight and chafe at my protection and my secrets.
The figure of the Butcher looms between me and them, and the gap becomes more like a chasm every day.
It has to happen. I love them enough to let them hate me if that’s what it takes. It’s a perfect, pointed pain. The kind of bittersweet hurt that either softens you or sharpens you. Melts you down or hones your edges.
I’m the latter one, and that’s fine by me. Let me be the knife in the dark. I’ll gladly use my sharp edges to carve out a space where my sisters are free to be soft, to melt as much as they wish.
The moonshine swims in my belly, making the room around me float and blur at the edges. I close my eyes, letting it carry me away someplace where there are walls high enough to keep the night at bay.
But only just.
The night prowls just outside the door, calling me. Waiting to eat me up.