by J. P. Oakes
“I’m fine.” He shrugs. “You?”
The words seem to bounce off her. “Let me know what you need.” She fishes in a pocket and pulls out a baggie of Dust. “I can fix you up.”
“No.” Knull’s reflex is immediate and absolute. The pain from his ankle is radiating up to his knee, and the rest of his body doesn’t feel much better, but he doesn’t want anything to do with Dust unless it involves a profit margin.
The healer shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
He expects her to leave, but she leans against the wall next to him, pulls out a cigarette. It strikes him as funny—this goblin affectation in a fae rebel’s mouth. He doesn’t laugh, though. He’s a long way from laughter right now.
Some order has been restored to the factory basement where the fae are attempting to salvage what’s left of their rebellion. Most of the wounded—those not in need of urgent care, and those who have already delivered the news of how they sustained their injuries—have been shunted upstairs, to bleed and grumble somewhere where they won’t get under everyone else’s feet. Skart flits between the remaining groups, pointing at maps and gesticulating at charts. Fae nod and point in ways that look meaningful. The runners they send out seem to move with more purpose than before.
And yet it all still feels pointless to Knull—useless writhing beneath the goblins’ fists.
Skart hasn’t come and asked Knull for his Dust since his little speech to rally the troops, either. After all his significant looks, he’s barely spared Knull a second glance since then. And there’s something about that that bugs Knull. They saved each other’s lives. And now… Is he important or not? Is his Dust worth something or not? Not, he reminds himself, that he’d sell it to fae so doomed to failure.
Although, if Skart did succeed, the goblin coffers would be as easy to rifle through as any corpse’s pockets…
Knull shakes his head. It’s all bullshit. It’s all another con. Just because he doesn’t see Skart’s angle doesn’t mean it’s not there. He has to remember that the Iron City won’t ever change. Money is the only thing that will set him free.
He becomes aware that the pixie healer beside him is making an odd sound. He looks up. She’s sobbing.
“Oh. Shit.” He tries to get up, grunts from the pain, wobbles, and then is finally standing beside the healer with no idea of what to do. He hovers a hand over her shoulder, unsure if physical contact is helpful or not. “Look,” he says. And then, “Erm.”
“Shit.” The pixie wipes her eyes with the back of her hand furiously, smears blue mascara over orange skin. “I’m—” She looks away.
“It’s OK,” Knull says. “It’s shit here. I get it.”
The healer still doesn’t look at him. “There’s just… There’s so many of them,” she says. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“It’s always this way,” he tells her. “Every uprising is the same.” And that, Knull thinks as soon as he’s said it, probably wasn’t tactful.
When she turns to him, the ferocity in her face makes him duck back, but her anger, it seems, is aimed elsewhere. “Maybe so,” she says. “But if this is how change is achieved then this is what we have to do. Because everything has to change.”
There’s no point trying to get her to see sense. No one in this room, Knull knows, is going to see sense.
Still, he tries to make her see sense.
“What if this doesn’t change anything, though?” he says. “It’s never made things better before.”
“Because before this,” she says, hammering her words, “we’ve always broken before we go the distance. That isn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Tonight, we stay strong.”
It’s zealotry, pure and simple. And yet, she seems to draw strength from it. The light is coming back into her eyes.
“But you’re going to die,” he tells her, despite knowing better than to do so. “If you don’t stop attacking then the goblins won’t either. Half the fae in the Iron City will be dead by morning.”
“But the other half will get to live free.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be dead. You won’t get to enjoy any of it.” Knull has trouble getting past that bit.
The healer smiles, pushes herself off the wall. “What is death?” she says. “You ask me, my da working fourteen-hour shifts with iron ore, the tumors crawling up his arm, the ones my magic can’t touch—he’s dead. My ma trying to polish enough goblin shoes to afford groceries—she’s dead. Me, watching them, knowing I can’t help, and that I’ll never be able to help—that’s when I’m dead. But not tonight. Tonight, none of us are.”
She takes a final puff from her cigarette, tosses it, grinds it beneath her heel. “But of course, you know better.” She sweeps a hand at the whole floor. “You’re so much smarter than the rest of us. Only you’ve got it figured out.”
She nods her head—a sardonic smile on her face, although not a wholly unkind one—and she heads back into the scrum.
She’s intercepted on her way by a group of fae bundling down the stairs, shouting and yelling as they come. There’s three of them, and they’re carrying a fourth, blood pouring from his body. The others all have deep cuts of their own—in their arms, and legs, and chests. One of them has a face that—unless the pixie has a lot more skill remolding flesh than Knull credits her with—will always scare kids from now on. If he makes it. If any of them make it.
And yet, once they’ve laid their friend down, some of them have to be called back to be stitched and tended to. They’re so eager to get back to the fight, they chafe at the wait.
Because they’re idiots.
Because they’ve been conned.
Except Knull still can’t see the angle. He can’t see how just one fae benefits. He can see only how they all benefit.
Or none of us. Because we’re all dead.
It’s just history repeating.
Unless it isn’t.
He thinks about the block of Dust. He thinks about a penthouse. He thinks about dryad dancers, and wine.
And he thinks about all these fae lying dead. He thinks about what his block of Dust could achieve. About what it would take to buy victory.
What would he be in that world? Happy? Or dead?
He doesn’t know, and the more he watches, the more he doesn’t know what to think anymore.
Sil
“Want anything?”
It’s the bryad who bound her leg. He’s young, with tousled hair, and the sort of body that comes from long hours of labor. He also has the sort of face that comes from being punched a lot.
The other fae who found her in the alley—among the scattered remains of the Red Caps who tried to kill her—have brought her inside the apartment building’s lobby. An artificial fruity scent is in the air, a fae’s desperate attempt to recapture the scent of a home they never knew. Most of the building’s inhabitants are doing the smart thing, hunkering in their rooms, hiding until this storm blows past them. But these fae—who should know better—they now just sit or stand about, laughing, lounging, and relaxing.
She says nothing because, in the end, that’s the rule. Give nothing. Take everything. And she will obey the rules.
Want anything? What could she want that this fae possibly has to offer? What do her wants have to do with anything?
A half-kobold with a bandaged shoulder comes over, stands beside the bryad. “Fraternizing with the enemy, Bee?”
He holds his injured arm gingerly, and she senses weakness. She could punch this new fae in the groin, tear out his throat with her teeth as he collapses, snare the feet of Bee as he backs away, get her legs around his throat and choke him out…
And then what? Then there would be all the rest to go through. And while she can stand on this leg, it would slow her down. She would take more punishment taking them down. It would be unavoidable. And none of it would bring her closer to Jag.
“We don’t know she’s an enemy, Tharn,” Bee says.
“Just exploring new depths
of unfriendliness then, is she?”
“Look,” Bee says, “I just want to know what it is she wants.”
Bee looks down at her again. She glowers.
Except…
“Have you seen a goblin tonight?” she asks abruptly.
“Yeah,” Bee says with a huffing laugh, “I’ve seen a few. The ones you left alive weren’t very friendly.”
She shakes her head. It’s as if he is willfully stupid. “No. Not a commando. A civilian. She’s young. Your age. She’s wearing a suit. Probably looking very scared.”
Bee and Tharn exchange a look. “Dude,” Tharn says, “I’ve been with you all night, where would I have seen her?”
Bee shakes his head. “Sorry.”
Sil closes her eyes again. She was right. They have nothing that can help her. After a minute, they go back to their blather. They laugh. The fae are laughing. Despite everything around them…
So clueless. So close to death.
Except…
Happy?
Sil has never come across anyone like these fae before. Even when Jag is interacting with her peers, she can sense that she’s always on alert, always trying to manage her defenses. With these fae, everything is open. Everything is there to be read and used against them.
Want anything? She turns the absurd question over in her mind. Why would anyone ask her that? What does she want?
She wants Jag.
But no. As she thinks about it, she finds that that is not quite a want. It is a need, and there is a difference. She has to find Jag, but she has no idea whether she wants to or not.
More fae are laughing. But what use is happiness? Happiness does not keep you alive. It does not put food on the table. It does not keep the wolves from the door. It is a useless emotion.
What does she want?
Sitting there, divorced from Jag, from purpose, Sil realizes that the idea of wanting something has not occurred to her for a very long time. And then it strikes her very suddenly, as she watches these fae, and their useless, happy laughter, that perhaps the idea of wanting something was taken from her. It’s something that the Red Caps took. And then she thinks about the fact that they just tried to kill her. And about the fact that she just killed some of them. And she doesn’t know if she wanted to kill the commandos or not. But she thinks that maybe even though she doesn’t know what she wants, she does also know, definitely and clearly, that she does not want to be dead.
Edwyll
Edwyll shakes the paint can. Inside the metal ball clacks and rolls. A blue bed sheet is stretched across the wall before him. He aims the can, breathes, hesitates.
He holds the can out toward Jallow. “You do it.”
The gnome laughs. “Oh no. This is your idea. You have to say it with your own voice.”
Jag leans forward. “Do it.” A slight twitch of her lips. “This is what I’m paying you for.”
He takes a breath, manages a single white streak across the blue cotton fabric, then stops, hands shaking. “No. No, I can’t.” He turns to Jallow, to Threm, to Lila and Talluck. “You’re all…” You’re all so much better than me, he wants to say.
“No.” Talluck strides forward from the back of the group, the floorboards shaking beneath his feet. “Art is not this way.” He plucks the can from Edwyll’s hand. He leans in close. Edwyll can smell his breath, sweet and loamy. “Art is not tentative,” he says. “Art does not hesitate. Art is. It must be. It tears out of the heart. It brings blood and muscle. It hurts.”
He shoves the paint can back into Edwyll’s hand. “Paint it like you mean it.”
Jag claps. Lila nods.
Come on, Edwyll tells himself. You’ve got this. You’re an artist. You have a patron. And she’s watching you.
Then, he paints in earnest.
“Yes!” Talluck says next to him, and Jag is his echo.
“I’m going to get more drinks,” Lila tells the room, but no one is focused on anything but the painting now. Edwyll sinks into the pattern of it, losing everything to the movement of the paint, to wrestling with shade, and pulling the form out of the blank canvas.
He’s not sure how much time has passed when he steps back. He’s breathing a little bit faster, but he feels like maybe he’s starting to get closer to the place he’s aiming for.
“Yes!” Talluck claps him on the back so hard he stumbles.
Jallow is nodding. “There is something to it, yes. Something raw…”
“Perfect,” Jag breathes, barely audible.
He’s starting to glow, starting to think that maybe it is as good as it felt when he was making it. Then he catches Threm’s expression. The gnome with the camera looks sour as day-old milk.
“What?” he asks the photographer.
“Threm…” There’s a warning edge to Jallow’s voice. Lila pokes her head out of the kitchen to see what’s going on.
“Oh, the art’s fine.” Threm waves a hand. “A bit neo-primitive for my tastes but he’s a brixie who knows his way around a paint can, no doubt.” He shakes his head. “But the message. The message is…”
“You don’t want to unite the fae?” Jag speaks before Edwyll can find the words, shows no hesitation in the face of these greater artists.
“A message is more than its intent,” Threm snaps. “It’s tone. It’s nuance. Here, you’re somehow managing to be both insipid and unrealistic at once.”
“Oh, come on, Threm,” Lila says.
“You think there will be critics as kind as me?”
“This is kind?” It’s not quite anger in Jag’s voice, but it’s heading in that direction. An imperial goblin tone that sits poorly in the room. Edwyll shifts uncomfortably, trying to put himself between the pair. He has been deferent to the full members of the collective for so long he cannot feel fully comfortable with this new, antagonistic direction Jag is heading in, regardless of whether she is his patron or not.
“I could be less so,” Threm spits.
“Threm!” Jallow snaps.
Threm looks at him. Jallow looks at Jag.
“Oh!” Threm throws up his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry. Should I be bowing and scraping before my goblin better? Is that the problem? Might she go back and talk to your Spriggan masters, Jallow? Might she cut you off from the teat? Can art only exist if it’s compromised?”
Jallow takes a step toward Threm, and Threm sneers. Suddenly, the massive bulk of Talluck is between them.
“She,” Jallow hisses, “is our guest.”
The pair stare at each other. Jag is shaking her head. Edwyll is trying to wring his paint can like it’s Threm’s neck. Then Threm throws his hands up.
“Yes, yes,” he says. “I’m the asshole.” He rubs his hair with one hand, leaves it in spikes. “I’m the one oppressing the voice of a fae.” He grabs one of the half-empty drinks, takes a swig, seems to see that he hasn’t carried the room.
Lila fetches a smile from somewhere, flashes it at Threm from the kitchen doorway. “Come in here and help me,” she says to him.
Threm nods, a little bob that is caught somewhere between being curt and contrite. He disappears after her into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind him,” Jallow says into the tight little absence the gnome leaves in the room. “Someone like him, struggling to find hope—he’s exactly the sort of fae we’re trying to help.”
Talluck nods, but Jag’s fists are still clenched. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just need—”
She turns abruptly, stalks toward the hall.
Edwyll looks at the others. And he doesn’t know what to think. He wants Threm to be full of shit, to be a bitter old gnome whose art has achieved little, and whose heart has shriveled up. But he heard the edge in Jag’s voice. He saw the goblin trying to silence the fae. And they’ve all seen too many House security guards take that attitude to its extremes for the moment to seem innocent.
Jallow just shrugs at Edwyll. “She’s your patron.”
Talluck won’t give him anything else
. Lila, who might try to help him more, isn’t even in the room. He curses under his breath, turns, pursues.
He finds her in the hallway, pacing. She looks up, sees him coming.
“That—” She takes a breath. “Asshole.”
And she’s right and she’s wrong. And he doesn’t know how to tell her that. Doesn’t know how to keep her happy and keep true to the artist he wants to be. The one who pushes back on goblin oppression just as much as he pushes back on fae despair.
“Look,” he says. “It’s always easy for fae to see the worst in a goblin—”
“Oh.” Jag shakes her head. “He was right about all that. I was an asshole too. I should have known better.” She turns back and forth, trying to find more room to pace in the narrow space. “It’s the art. That he would criticize the fucking art, Edwyll. The message. I can’t stand that.”
And for a second time he is left staring at her.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Me?” She doesn’t understand. “I’m Jag.”
“But who are you?”
She stares at him for a moment, seems on the cusp of saying something. She shrugs. “I’m just a goblin. Just someone sick of the bullshit, and looking in the mirror and seeing an oppressor. I’m just someone who wants to make a difference for once in their life.” Another sort of helpless shrug. “And I think in what you paint… maybe I’ve found a way I can do that? Or at least help. Maybe I can find other artists like you. Help them be heard.”
He thinks back to the bar. The slaughter. The dead fae everywhere. And he thinks to now. And maybe it’s her guilt. Or maybe she really never did intend it. And maybe, just maybe in the Iron City, magic is still real, and they found each other, and they’re going to make a difference.
Granny Spregg
“It’s working. It’s actually fucking working.”
Granny Spregg knows it shows weakness to say it out loud, that it betrays how fingernail-thin her grip on her plans has been, but she has to do it. In the confines of the limousine, with only Thacker to hear (and really, when does Thacker count?), surely she can say it. Surely then she can release the pressure that has been building within her for months in one final ecstatic shout.