Twenty-Three
There’s no way we can make it down the stairs.
Ky scrapes out a few bits for one of the barrel-men, and we tumble into a contraption hanging from one of the upper girders.
We descend slow and steady, a rattling cage full of scrap from below serving as counterweight.
The boy at the bottom bows and scrapes, hoping for a tip.
The Heap market is as bustling as ever. I guide Ky into an alley and she leans against the wall, blinking furiously and waving her hands in front of her face.
“I think it’s getting better,” she says.
“That’s good,” I say fervently. I’d been terrified that I’d blinded her permanently with the strange thing I’d cooked up.
“Still going to need your arm,” she says. “And I hope we don’t have far to walk, or I might pass out before we get there.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’re asking me?” She rubs her watering eyes with the heel of her hand. “This was your plan.”
Of course there’s only one place to go, and that’s home.
I’d been avoiding the idea because it seems…
wrong, somehow, transgressive; I’ve worked so hard to keep the two parts of my life from meeting.
But we both need rest and a physicker’s attention, and I don’t have anywhere else to get it.
I give a weary nod, remember she can’t see it, and take her hand.
“This way. It’s not far.”
We walk away from the market, down the curving streets and jagged alleys I know practically by instinct. The bakery comes into view, smoke gently rising from the chimney. Nothing has changed, but it feels different already. I circle around to the back door and thump my fist against it.
After a few moments I hear footsteps. Somi opens the door a crack, a heavy iron poker clutched in one pudgy hand. At the sight of me he hastily steps back and opens it all the way.
“Moon and stars, Taj, why didn’t you say something?” Somi says. “I thought it was the Clawmarks… again…”
He trails off as he takes in my expression, my wounds, and my company. His eyes have gone very wide.
“Somi?” Spike says from the stairs. “What’s happening? Is it—”
“Go and get Ameliana,” Somi says.
Spike descends far enough to get a glimpse of us and freezes. “Who’s—”
“Now, Spike!”
“She’s hurt worse than I am,” I tell Somi as Spike dashes off. “Get her into a bed.”
“But who—” Somi bites back his question. “Right. Come on.”
“She can’t see.” I guide Ky’s hand to his arm. “It’s okay. This is my family, nobody’s going to hurt us. Spike’s getting a physicker.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Ky says, staring at a point above Somi’s shoulder. “I’ve probably had more awkward introductions, but I can’t remember them right at the moment. Head’s a little fuzzy.”
“That’s all right,” Somi says, automatically assuming the same calm, caring air as when Ema falls down and hits her head. “Just up these stairs; we’ll get you somewhere to lie down.”
With a backward glance at me, he takes her up.
I stagger to a chair and collapse, and the pain takes this opportunity to make itself truly felt.
My arm is the worst, numb and tingling under the tight bandage but still shot through with spikes of agony.
How can it be numb and painful? Seems like you should have one or the other—
I open my eyes. Ameliana leans over me, her hair tied back, thin shift glued to her skin with sweat. A very agreeable sight, ordinarily, except that she’s also bloody to the elbows and wielding a small but extremely sharp blade.
“Mmm?” I say, finding the familiar leather-wrapped stick wedged in my mouth.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” she says. “Tell me, does this hurt?”
She does something that causes iron spikes to be driven into my eyes with a sledgehammer. My back arches and I give a muffled shriek.
“That’s excellent,” she says, relenting. “The good news is you’ll probably keep the arm.”
For a while I can only lie there, breathing raggedly. Eventually I work up the strength to spit out the rod and gurgle, “What’s the bad news?”
“I had to go pretty deep into your muscle with the acid,” she says matter-of-factly. “It was filthy, that would have festered for certain. You won’t have much strength there for a while.”
“Fingers still work?”
She gives a tight nod. “You’re lucky. Again.”
“Feel… very lucky,” I mumble. She gives me a sharp look, and I swallow. “Sorry. Just in a lot of pain at the moment. How’s Ky?”
“Badly concussed, and I don’t know what’s wrong with her eyes,” Ameliana says. “She says they’re improving, so I’m hoping it’s temporary. Her cuts bled a lot, but they aren’t anything serious. She’ll need a lot of rest, but I think she’ll be all right.”
“Okay.” I let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“Taj…” she says quietly.
“Don’t you start with ‘You should be more careful,’” I mutter. “I get plenty of that from Somi.”
“Somi’s right, though.”
“You think I’m trying to get stabbed?”
“I just don’t want to come over here one day and find something I can’t help with.” She shakes her head. “The doctors on Hod can practically bring back the dead, they say, but I can’t. I’m not even as good as my father was.”
“You’re amazing,” I tell her, trying for charm. “Where would we be without you?”
“Dead,” she says succinctly. “Try to get back to sleep. You need all the rest you can get.”
Once she’s gone, I reach out to Star. We’re safe.
[Relief: I am glad.]
I’ve still got your thief body. Most of it, anyway, minus the parts I used for the strange device that saved us. I’ll fix you up in it tomorrow morning.
[Approval: please do. Being carried around in your pocket lacks—]
Dignity, I know. I smile slightly.
I wake up to the sound of laughter.
My left arm is a mass of knots and pain. I roll out of bed, feeling a thousand years old, and fumble my way one-handed into some halfway-clean clothes. I hear Ky’s voice from downstairs, and more laughter.
“—and the Arbiter looks at her and says, ‘It didn’t do that the last time!’”
Spike’s cackle is particularly penetrating. It’s been a while since I’ve heard her laugh. She and Ky are sitting at the table in the kitchen while Somi busies himself at the stove.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Spike says when she spots me. “Glad to see you’re not dead. That was a lot of screaming last night.”
“Just Ameliana having her little fun,” I mutter. “I’ll be okay. Ky?”
Somehow, completely unfairly, she looks good.
She’s re-braided her hair and washed the grime from her face, and even dressed in one of Somi’s old shirts she looks poised and confident.
Spike looks at her with something like admiration, an expression I’ve never seen on my sister before. It’s kind of creepy.
“Feeling much better,” Ky says. “I can see, for starters, and my head’s clearer. Your Ameliana works wonders.”
“She’s not my Ameliana,” I say, taking a seat at the table. “But she does. We’re lucky she likes us.”
“She likes Somi,” Spike clarifies. “Like likes him.”
I can see a flush creep up the back of Somi’s neck, and he bends diligently over the pan of mashcakes.
“I’m sure she has impeccable taste,” Ky says.
“Taj, did you know Ky comes from Hod?” Spike says excitedly. “They have trees up there. And runics do all the chores. And her library has so many books she hasn’t read them all.”
“Not even a quarter, I’m afraid,” Ky said. “My tutors always despaired of me.”
“She’d mentioned,” I say, with a questioning glance at Ky. She gives a little shrug.
“Mashcakes are ready,” Somi says, turning to us with four steaming plates.
Everyone is hungry, very much including myself. I see that Somi has broken out the butter and syrup we hoard for special occasions, which makes the gritty texture of mash almost palatable. Ky eats with every evidence of enjoyment, fielding the occasional question from Spike about Hod.
When the plates are clean, Somi gathers them up and catches my eye in the process. The semi-telepathy of long acquaintance passes between us, and he clears his throat and says, “Spike, I need a few things from the market before we open today. Why don’t you come with me?”
“But I wanted to ask Ky—” She stops as he gives her a significant look, then eyes me suspiciously. “Fine. But you two aren’t going to disappear again, are you?”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while,” I assure her, cradling my punctured arm with a wince.
Mollified, Spike allows herself to be guided out. The front door bangs shut, leaving Ky and me alone.
For a long moment, nobody says anything. She breaks the silence first. “So. We’re alive.”
“Yeah. Glad to hear your eyes are better.”
“Quite a relief,” she says, and brushes a hand against her arm. “And now I’ve got, you know, big holes in me held together with bits of string. Kind of a new experience.”
“I’d say you get used to it,” I mutter, “but you really don’t.”
“You saved my life. Again. With that… whatever it was.”
“I wouldn’t have had time to build it if you hadn’t been keeping Gestian busy.”
“True.” She cocks her head. “Let’s call that one a tie, then.”
“Why, are you keeping score?”
“Thought about it, but it’s too depressing.”
Another pause.
“Thanks for making nice with the siblings,” I venture. “You’ve charmed Spike, that’s not easy.”
“They’re lovely,” she says. “Makes me wish I’d had brothers and sisters growing up.”
“It has its drawbacks, too.”
“The woman you mentioned, Fara? She took you all in?”
I nod. “We were orphans, or kids who got abandoned.”
“Are there a lot of families like that in the undercity?”
“No. Fara was… different.” I shake my head. “Mostly, kids without people to care for them just die. Somi tries to feed the ones who come to our door.”
She nods slowly, and silence returns. It feels like there’s only one thing to say, but I don’t want to be the one to come out with it.
“I went outside a little bit this morning,” Ky says. She cranes her head back and blinks. “It really is all just… up there, isn’t it?”
For a moment I don’t know what she means, but of course she’s never seen the tiered city from this perspective before.
Malkuth, closest and widest, with Yesod and Hod nested within it, one atop the other.
Above that, the gaping maw of the Asshole and the rocky roof of the cavern, lost in the darkness behind the lights.
“On Hod we never really think about any of this,” she says. “You can’t see the terminus—the, ah, Asshole—behind the inner wall, and you can’t even see much of Yesod unless you go right to the edge. It’s just us, the sunlamps, and the stone walls.”
“I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t want to look at all this if I didn’t have to.”
Silence again. The central question sucks me in with the inevitability of a sinkhole, and finally I just want to get it over with.
“So we’re fucked, aren’t we?”
“Hmm?” Ky is still staring up at the roof, thinking about the city overhead.
“We’re fucked. You and me. The plan. It’s over.”
“No.” Her voice is adamant. “The entry fee is still safe in the bank. You still have a runic. We’re fighting in the Ascent.”
“I have Star’s thief body. That’s all. It wouldn’t stand a chance against anybody we fought at Venci’s, much less a monster like that fucker Vripiai.” The thought of the giant snake and its smirking master makes my fists clench. “We lost everything—Star’s body, the money, everything.”
“We’re not dead.”
“Weslai is.”
She flinches, real pain on her face. “But we’re not. So we keep trying.” Then she swallows. “I will keep trying. Are you telling me you’re out?”
“No! Not… not exactly. I still want to help”—though maybe it would be smarter not to—“I just don’t see what we can do. If we go into the Ascent and lose in the first round, or however it works, they’ll kill you, won’t they?”
“Probably.” She sets her jaw. “How did you manage to build Star in the first place?”
“Slowly. I scavenged pieces from the Heap, bought a few with spare bits. Eventually I went after a few bounties.”
“Bounties?”
“For dangerous Twisted.”
“Ah.” Ky looks thoughtful. “So we do that again.”
“Without a combat body for Star, we’ll have to start at the very bottom. It’ll take forever. We only have a month until the Ascent.”
Ky puts a hand in her pocket and pulls out a little pouch. She spills the contents onto the table: steel coins, mostly single bits and a couple of centys. “This is everything I have left. Can you use it to build something basic and speed things up a little?”
I stare at her: bruised, battered, cut, and concussed, offering the last scraps of her worldly wealth to get one more throw of the dice. I feel a slight grin tugging at my lips.
“You really never give up, do you?”
“Not so far,” she says. “But I could say the same for you, couldn’t I?”