by J. Elle
“Ja! Ja!” An elderly woman with a head wrap around her head like a crown butts in. “Y’pwe onja. Onja meese.”
My Ghizonian isn’t that great, but I’m pretty sure that lady just dimed me out. She points in my direction. Shit. I duck down lower. Patrol hands the woman a coin and she disappears toward the festival.
I press back into the shade as far as I can, stone scraping my cheek. Seconds pass like days, but Patrol stomps past without a glance my way.
I exhale and check my watch. Bri’s message from a bit ago is still blinking on the screen.
Bri: I knew the key would work! Eeeee!
Me: Like a charm.
The music from the festival a block over plays in the background. Bri’s house is through Market Street, which is off the main square. I should be able to get over there unnoticed if I—
Curious little eyes staring at me from the far end of the alleyway snatch my attention. I can barely make out the features on his tiny face, but his sooty, tattered clothes are a giveaway. His face is thin and where his cheeks should be plump and smooth, they sink in.
Macazi.
The magicless.
They live in sanctioned housing if they’re lucky, but with no magic—no way to contribute to Ghizon—they’re treated like litter society hopes will just blow away.
“Hi,” I say, but he turns to run away.
“No, I’m not gonna hurt—Listen, I have something for you. Can you wait right here? I’ll go get it.” His expression doesn’t change. I really don’t have time for this. Patrol could come back any moment.
“It’s a gift. Uh—pris!”
His face lights up at that word and I promise to be right back. I skip over a few blocks and keep my head down. Last thing I need is for the Patrol I just lost to catch sight of me. But what am I supposed to do? Let him starve in an alleyway?
I jet across an intersection that veers off to the eastern side of the island where tightly knitted rows of units sit, their roof tiles staggered like steps. The east side’s where Bri and most Zrukis live. As the perimeter of the festival comes back in view, scents of qui, something like a turnip with the flavor of garlic, wafts past and my stomach churns. Meatmen hover slabs of dripping carcasses overhead, searing them with flames from their fingertips. The really talented ones can sear it with breaths of fire.
I stick to the shadows close to the buildings and wait. A boy no older than Tasha grins at the crowd, offering skewered samples. The clink of coins changing hands slices through the melodious backdrop.
Meatman sets down his slab to talk to a customer and the little boy is absorbed in serving an eager group of samplers. I slip my hand around the metal skewer and snatch the entire slab of meat, woodsy spices dancing under my nose as I hurry back to the alley with hot juices dripping down my arm. “V’ja, maca,” someone shouts. I don’t look back.
Little Guy is still there and his mouth falls open at the sight of the savory meal.
“Take it to your mom. Quick, hurry.”
His brows meet.
I fold his little arms around the skewer, grease running down his arm. “Take this”—I point—“to your mom.” I cradle my arms, then give him a gentle shove. “Hurry. Fast.”
He just stands there staring. Why didn’t I pay more attention in Language class? I sigh. How do I say, “go” or “mom?” I don’t have a clue. “Listen, kid. You gotta get the hell—I mean, you gotta get moving.” I rip off a piece of meat and hold it to my lips. He watches me chew and something clicks; he understands. He runs off hugging the slab of meat, which is as big as he is.
If that were Tasha, I’d want someone to make sure her belly was full. It’s only one meal, but it’s something. Angry voices grow louder. Meatman’s coming around that corner any second. I take off in the opposite direction, toward Bri’s, when my wrist shakes.
Bri: You close?
Me: Sorry, detour. Yeah, Why?
Bri: It’s your father. He’s on his way here.
* * *
I hate the man who calls himself—my father.
For bringing me here. For leaving Tasha there. For coming to the block to “change my life,” but not coming back to save Moms. For being a stranger my entire life. I hate that I wear his nose and our shoulders hang the same way.
So grateful Tasha didn’t grow up with that BS. Her pops was around, offering to take us places, apologizing for my pops being MIA. Said he knew him for a bit before he got snatched up by the cops. That’s what folks assume happens when you ain’t been seen around the way—either locked up for ten or carried by six.
But that wasn’t true in my father’s case. He wasn’t behind bars or in the ground. He chose to leave before I was even out the womb. Moms would make excuses, but I stopped caring around Tasha’s age. By then, I figured if that nigga ain’t want nothing to do with me, I didn’t want nothing to do with his coward ass either.
“Rue?” Bri asks, holding her front door wide open. “You listening? Where’d you go?”
“Me first. Why’s Aasim coming here? Like, how’d he know I would be here?” And what’s he even gonna do?
Bri gestures for me to come inside. I’ve only been to Bri’s once before. She doesn’t like being here, so I don’t get an invite often. The whole house is just like everyone else’s: a concrete box with two small square windows. Near the front door are two other doors, one for the bedroom they all sleep in, and the other for the bathroom. I sit on wide, pillowed cushions on the floor next to a table covered in metal pieces and wires. Bri’s stuff, no doubt.
In the corner, Bri’s mom is folded over a pile of colorful strings that look like yarn but not nearly as fuzzy. Her fingers move a mile a minute like she’s conducting a yarn orchestra and a beautiful tapestry of colors interlace and knot, weaving itself across her lap. She doesn’t say a word to me, but cuts me a look and mutters something to Bri in Ghizonian.
“Ya, Memi.” Bri rolls her eyes but doesn’t explain.
“So, Aasim…” I tap my foot. “I’m listening. How’d he know I’d be here?”
She shrugs. “He just sent a message that said he’d be here. He assumed you were with me, which isn’t that far-fetched.”
He’s literally the last person I want to see. “Ugh.”
Bri’s mother glances at me, shifting in her seat. I don’t think she likes the sound of Third in Command coming to her house, and she probably isn’t all that happy about harboring a fugitive, either.
“Na’yoo zechka.” She stares a moment then gets back to her work, looping a purple strand around a line of rainbow-colored ones.
“How did you even get her to agree to let me be here?”
“I sort of told her Aasim asked that I bring you here.”
I’ve never heard her mother speak anything but Ghizonian. Bri says she knows English but doesn’t approve of using a western language just because it’s widely popular. The western world is near idolized here. Without contact, it’s like forbidden fruit, making it all the more alluring. Fashion magazines are about all the insight anyone has, and even those are contraband. No idea how they get them, but never fails that at a party, someone’s passing around a very worn, out-of-date copy of Teen Vogue or something.
“She’s just really old-fashioned,” Bri had explained. “She doesn’t think we need English since we have no contact with any other countries. It feels like treachery a bit to use anything but the native tongue.”
I didn’t say anything else about it, but that didn’t sound like the whole story.
“What took so long to get here?” Bri asks.
“Just got caught up with some Macazi.”
She laughs. I don’t.
“Oh man, you’re serious?”
“Quintomae,” her mother mutters under her breath.
“What she say?”
Bri rolls her eyes. “Quintomae. It’s nothing.” She looks from her mom to my blank stare and back to her mom. “You’ve never heard The Myth of Quintomae? Like, really?”
“Nope,” I say. “Didn’t grow up here, remember?”
Her mother mutters something under her breath again, this time too faint to hear. Maybe hiding here wasn’t the best idea.
Bri pulls a pillow into her lap. “So, legends tell of a man who was half man, half lizard. He thought he was invincible because of his impenetrable scaled skin. So when J’hymus, the Sea Monster, appeared off the northern coast and the king himself couldn’t fend off the beast from terrorizing his people, Quintomae saw a chance to make a name for himself. He—”
“He pleaded with the king to let him fight the beast,” a baritone voice cuts in. Bri’s father is home from the mines. “And the king said no. But he ignored the king’s edict and marched into the sea with only a bewitched javelin to take on the sea creature. Quintomae was never seen again.” Bri’s father loosens the ties on his shoes. “Ya’weshna e verzee. Disobedience is death.”
“Lo viz. Ajebria v’ja, Quol Aasim… e maca,” her mother says, helping him peel off the soiled clothes stuck to his arms. Whatever she said, he doesn’t like, because he gives Bri a look of disapproval. White bandages dotted with red spots wrap around three of his fingers. And what looks like burn marks mar his forearms. The clothes tug at his skin, but he doesn’t wince.
“Did the monster keep terrorizing the people?” I ask, and he studies me a moment.
“No,” he says, untying the robes cinched at his neck.
Sounds more like victory in sacrifice. He wanted to kill the monster and make a name for himself.… I mean, we still talking about him, ain’t we? I’d say he succeeded on both fronts. But I keep my mouth shut.
“Quinto.” Bri winks. “Your new nickname.” She laughs. “Daring.” She makes a dramatic gesture with her hands. “Fearless Rue.”
I laugh at her teasing, but squirm when I find Bri’s father’s gaze fixed on me. Her mother takes his outer robes, leaving him in a soot-covered shirt and stained pants. She moves around the kitchen and in minutes there are drinks in our hands.
Water. I gulp it down and the wooziness I’d been feeling since the car wreck is finally almost unnoticeable.
“Thanks,” I say, but instead of, “You’re welcome,” she whispers to her husband.
“Let’s go in the room,” Bri pulls me by the arm.
“Bri.” Her father gestures at the table, his tone laced with irritation. “Kwi lithia a’si swera.” He brandishes his hands and Bri’s mom looks like she’s sweating bricks. “Swera. Swera.”
Swera? Trash?
“Sorry, Dad.” Bri grabs an armful of metal contraptions from the center table and takes them with us into the bedroom.
“I wish she spent more time refining her magic than making those useless—” The door creaks closed, drowning out her father’s words.
“Hey.” I set my hand on hers. “Your contraptions are not trash. You’re brilliant, Bri.”
She covers my hand with hers. “It’s fine. And I’m sorry about them.”
“Hey, I didn’t understand half of what she was saying, so I’m good. Are you good?”
“I’m fine. That stuff doesn’t make any money, so it’s useless as far as they’re concerned. I get it. And Dad’s always extra stressed when he gets home from the mines anyway. It takes a lot out of him, and seeing my junk everywhere doesn’t help. I should have known better.” She dumps her gadgets in a pile in the corner.
I want to tell her to tell her dad where to stick it, but that’s not Bri. She walks the line. Her bits of defiance, like making my watch, are always undercover. I want to tell her to be as bold as her inventions around her parents and in the world—to be who she is, who I see in her. But that’s easier said than done. I shove all the very imperfect things I want to say back down in case they come out wrong or aren’t sensitive enough, and I just throw an arm around her instead.
“My mom hasn’t been back to the mines since she hurt her foot. But she earned a good bit of coin with her last tapestry, so that’ll cheer him,” she says perking up. “But enough about me. Tell me all about Tasha! What happened?”
“Oh man, where do I start?”
A pound at the door startles us as it flies open.
“In here, Bri. Come.” Her dad’s face has changed, his features softer, more… submissive.
Bri’s brothers apparently got home from lessons at the same time that Aasim arrived. Great. Just effing great. Bri’s father pulls his family in tight beside him, dusting off his boys’ hair and making them stand up straight.
“Ruler Aasim,” Bri’s father says, “I just want to assure you we had nothing to do with any trouble that may have been—”
“It’s fine.” Aasim waves a hand. “I’m not here to get anyone in trouble. I just came to get Rue. I figured she’d be with Bri. When are these two not together?” He says it like he knows me, knows my friends. Bri’s father’s shoulders relax.
“Rue?” Aasim adjusts the lapel of his charcoal tailored suit, his peppered pencil-thin dreads tucked neatly behind his back.
I look away from him for a couple of beats. Intentionally. “Aasim.”
“I have to take you in. Chancellor’s waiting. It’ll be easier that way. Trust me.”
Trust him? I cut Bri a look and she mouths, “I’m sorry.” I saved my sister’s life today. Nobody needs to apologize for that. I smile back and wink to try to assure her everything’s going to be okay, even though I have no idea how. I have to make them see I had no choice.
Aasim thanks Bri’s family and turns toward the door.
“I did what I had to do,” I say, pushing past him. “And I’d do it again.”
CHAPTER 6
THE JOURNEY BACK TO the Central District takes forever. Thankfully, Aasim doesn’t try talking to me. I can tell he wants to. He keeps opening his mouth, then shutting it. Hoping the trend continues.
I don’t know what the Chancellor’s going to make of what I did. But I’ll make him understand. And if he doesn’t, I’ll bear the consequence. I saved Tasha’s life.
Patrol meets us at the building entrance. Stone pillars tower on either side of the guards, making them somehow seem taller.
“Ruler Aasim, you’ve found her. I can take her from here, sir.”
“I’m handling it,” Aasim says, pushing past him and gesturing for me to follow.
“But sir, I have strict orders to—”
“And I’ve changed them.” Aasim’s nostrils flare, the same way I imagine mine do. “Dismissed.”
The Patrolman walks off muttering something under his breath. Inside the lobby, guards line the corridor. Ten? Twelve? I can’t keep count.
“I’ll get her booked.” Aasim waves off the two uniforms at my back. Booked? Like a criminal? It was just one “offense.”
He swirls one hand around the other and a frosted cup appears. “Drink more water. It’ll help.” He walks off and I follow. Annoyed, I take a sip and the dregs of my wooziness abate. Glass elevators float at the end of the hall, bobbing up and down.
“After you.” He steps aside and I roll my eyes. The moment the doors shut us inside, he turns to me. “Tell me who you touched.”
What about my face says talk to me? “I did what I had to do. Your people have to be able to understand that. They have loved ones too.”
“I couldn’t risk anyone overhearing me on the way here. But in here it’s just us. Listen to me, Rue.” He rests a palm on my shoulder. “Ghizon is not like your world. They don’t value human life the same.”
And you’re one of them. That why Moms died back home and you ain’t do shit? I pull away and put my earbuds in. I’m not trusting him to help me. I’ll figure this out myself. My flattened cheeks are heavy as the glass box whisks upward through the levels. He pulls my music out of my ear. He’s lost his mind, clearly.
“Don’t touch my—”
“Rue, please, there isn’t much time. If you tell me I can try to figure out a way to help them.”
No matter how high I roll the volume, his tenor
voice breaks through the melody flowing into my ears. This is the slowest elevator I’ve ever been in, I swear.
“Rue, you can’t just come here and disregard the way things are done. That has consequences.”
Disregard?! “I didn’t ask to come here, remember? And since I’ve been here I haven’t done anything but play by these people’s dumb-ass rules.” Moms would be on my ass if she heard me talking to an adult like this.
“But you’re here now,” he says. “Look at your wrists. Rue, you’re Bound. That means you have to play by the rules or…” He sighs. “Just please let me help you.” His words are like tiny needles pricking every part of my body. “This pains me too, very deeply.”
This pains him? Really? I pull the lone earbud out of my ear. “You? You’re hurt? I don’t see you in cuffs. I don’t see you forced to live away from everything and everyone you’ve ever known. I don’t see your little sister crying herself to sleep at night because the only person in the world that understands her pain after Moms died disappeared with no explanation. No. That’s me and Tasha.”
Shit, I just told him her name.
A chime says we’ve reached floor 429. I step toward the elevator doors. Come the hell on. Open.
He sighs. “So that’s who it is, your half sister?”
“My sister.”
“I—I should’ve… too late for that. They will find out, Rue. They won’t stop until they hunt her down and—” He chews his lip deep in thought. The doors slide open and I can’t get out of the glass box fast enough. Hunt her down? I—they can’t touch her. It’s not right. They wouldn’t. She’s no harm to anyone.
Overhead, the ceiling towers with a glittery night sky. I don’t know how they do it, but the effect soothes. Across the fake starlit room is a single glass door. I start toward it, Aasim on my heels.
The handle chills my palm as I pull open the door.
“Wait.” Aasim’s eyes soften, but even deeper lines course his face. “I can try to explain to the Chancellor that you don’t have a single blemish on your record and that you’ll take ownership for what you’ve done and apologize for breaking the rules. But…”