by J. Elle
“What? I don’t understand. What do you mean magical people, Rue?”
“I mean fire-wielding, matter-shifting, magical brown-skinned people. People like me.”
“That means—” She settles onto the bed. “Wait, what does that mean?”
Aasim’s warning haunts me. “It means magic was never the Chancellor’s to give. He stole it. It was… theirs.”
Bri parts her lips to speak, then closes them, looking hella confused. Maybe I’m not explaining it well. If I had an accurate history book, I’d give her that. Maybe that’d make it easier for her to see. Or maybe her confusion is rooted in something else. I gotta keep trying. Surely she’ll see.
“When the Chancellor showed up to unite all the tribes,” I say, “Aasim’s people fled here in secret.”
“You can’t be serious,” she says, an incredulous look on her face. “This is a joke.”
Does my face look like I’m joking? What about any of this sounds like I’d be joking? I woosah for some patience.
“Rue, that was, like, over sixty years ago,” she rolls her eyes. “And I’ve never even read anything like that. How do you even know for sure?”
My pressure rises. “You think I’d make this up?”
“No, I—that’s not what I meant. I just—this is a lot to digest.”
“A whole lot,” I agree.
She pulls her sweater tighter around herself. “I know you wouldn’t lie. I know that, Rue. I-I just don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t done. Maybe if you knew more you’d understand more. Can you just listen?”
“I’m sorry, go ahead.” She pretends to zip her lip with a finger.
I continue. “Aasim’s village was dying out of some Sickness when he was born. In fact, his mother died of the Sickness when she had him. So Aasim only had his dad when he was small.”
“Your grandfather?” She presses her glasses to her nose.
I shift on my feet. “Sure, m-my grandfather.”
“Oops. Sorry, I’ll shut up, I swear.”
“Thanks.” I offer a half smile, hoping she means it this time. I tell her everything, how Aasim’s ancestors got magic from the gods, how a Sickness killed almost everyone in their tribe, how the Chancellor found Aasim amidst the fleeing and raised him like a son, imagining his only memories and allegiance would be to him. And how his people have been living in secret, biding their time.
“Biding their time for what?”
An unsettled feeling clinches my insides. “That’s for them to answer, not me.”
“I-is there any proof of this?” Her words sting. Denial.
“My word. The people here. That’s proof enough… for me.”
She takes a deep breath.
“Plus I saw it… sort of.”
“Saw it how?” She’s pacing. She says she don’t think I’m lying but she ain’t acting like I’m telling the truth.
“In a vision… or something.”
“A vision? Rue, that’s nonsensical talk.”
I am silent. And clearly irritated.
“I know you wouldn’t just lie, Rue. I’m not saying that. But maybe you don’t know what you saw?”
Wow. “Uhm, I was wide awake.” Now I’m pacing. I expected this to shake her, but this? Maybe Aasim was right.
More silence.
She mutters to herself like she’s replaying everything I just said. She’s blinked practically twelve times in the last second. She looks every which way but at me. There’s something in her eyes I can’t place. Curiosity, yes, but something else. She stares at her wrists, thumbing her finger over the onyx.
“Stolen.” Her words come out a mere whisper, like she’s talking to herself.
“Stolen.” My pulse quickens.
Her chin touches her chest and I can’t tell if she’s sad or pissed. I take a step back.
“Every…” She shakes her head no. Her eyes are glued to the floor even though I’m two feet in front of her. She won’t look at me.
Silence.
I could say something, fill the space with words. But is it my job to make her feel better about the stolen magic on her wrists? I didn’t do this. Aasim’s people didn’t do this. The Chancellor did. I told her the truth, that’s all I can do. She’s gotta decide what to do with it.
That’s on her. Not me.
She picks up her chin and her green eyes are glassy. “S-so e-everything I-I’ve ever known is a lie? That’s what you’re saying to me, Rue?!”
“I-I know this ain’t easy to hear. But, I mean, it’s the truth.” Around truth, some people act like roaches when the lights come on. They scatter, trying to not hear it. But Bri wouldn’t be like that. Would she?
She mutters something I can’t hear.
“Sorry, what?”
“I-I believe you. I’m just—” A tear rolls down her cheek. “So angry. That everything I was taught wasn’t true. That I’ve been walking around here like… like all this knowledge, my grades… being the top of my class… as if any of this really matters. Everything I’ve learned. All the practice I’ve done. I worked so hard to be the smartest. As Zruki, I’ll be doing mostly mine work. I probably won’t ever get a big fancy job. But I still wanted to be smart. Like, real smart. You know? Even if others look down on me, I’d know that I’m just as capable as they are.”
I’ve never heard Bri talk about being Zruki before. Not like this.
“Being born to Zruki parents and designated it’s like no matter what you do, you’re still Zruki. You can’t get rid of that title. It’s like a stain.”
“Like people only see the box they put you in,” I say. “They don’t see what you’re really capable of, what you could do.” My entire life back home.
“Exactly! So I worked really hard to blow people away, prove them wrong,” she says.
“Me too, I—”
She cuts me off. “Be the smartest Zruki in all of Ghizon.”
I get it. Make a way out of no way.
She turns to me, pain written on her face. “But you’re telling me none of that work matters. Not anymore.” She cleans more tears with the back of her hand. “Like, every single thing I’ve done was pointless because it was all built on a lie. And I’m just so angry he would do this!”
This is messed up on so many levels. But why we still talking about her? I mean, she didn’t really get the shortest end of the stick here. Did she even hear what I said? I stuff my hands in my pocket and stare at my shoes.
“I just… ugh!” She growls in frustration, tossing her red frames on the bed. “I knew I shouldn’t have made that watch,” she whispers under her breath. “Then none of this would have ever happened.”
Did she just…? “What did you just say?”
She sighs. “I just mean—”
“Nah, don’t backtrack. You regret making me this watch? The watch that let me visit my sister without setting off Patrol? The watch that lets me go back and forth between here and there to protect her and figure this magic shit out without getting hemmed up by the Laws?”
“The who? No—I…” She rubs her temples. “I just meant all this trouble started with that. I should have known that chances are this would snowball.” She paces faster. “You’d see your sister. Miss being home. Of course it would be hard to not touch her, she’s your family.”
“I TOUCHED HER TO SAVE HER FROM BEING KILLED IN A CAR WRECK!” Is she serious? “That’s what you do when you care, Bri—you take risks.”
“Rue, I’ve been there for you since day one. Don’t even act like that!”
“I’m not acting like anything. You were my girl, true, when it didn’t cost you nothing. And sure you’re angry now, but what you gon’ do? Anything?”
“Rue, this is not my fault and I came to Ms. Leola’s at my own personal risk.”
“You know damn well this watch makes travel undetectable. You said it yourself. What risk? And no, this isn’t your fault. I’ve said that a thousand times, even though you’re not liste
ning! But what do we do now, Bri? You still sportin’ my people’s stolen magic on your wrist.”
She holds her arm to her chest, aghast. “What, you expect me to get rid of it? I earned this!”
You can’t earn something that’s stolen. But I let her talk. That’s what people do when they can’t hear.
She goes on. “I’ll have you know that hacking is very dangerous and—”
“—it’s encrypted so no one knows it was you. You cover your tracks well.”
“So you’re saying I’m not a real friend.”
“I don’t know what you are anymore. First thing out your mouth is how you the victim. And I mean, sure, believe that. But eventually I hope you realize this is bigger than your straight A’s not meaning anything. At the end of the day you still have all that knowledge you stacked up. You got freedom. What they got, Bri?”
She looks shocked, like I slapped her. Like she gotta choose to mourn the shit she lost or feel for me.
“An entire people’s culture was ripped away, their right to live taken, the gifts that make them special used and perpetrated by someone else. Bri, people are dying. Fuck your straight A’s.”
She’s beet red. “Rue, I didn’t know!”
“No, you didn’t know. But now that you do… what? You regret even making my watch in the first place? That’s your takeaway?” This is so fucked up.
This is getting way out of control. I grab my cuffs from the table. “I need some air.”
She glances around nervously.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Ain’t nobody gon’ hurt you here”—without my say—“so you can wipe that look off your face.”
“Rue—”
I walk out. I can’t make somebody see something they ain’t ready to. Maybe with time she’ll come around. It’s not my job to unpack that for her. I’m unpacking my own shit, thank you very much.
And besides, I have bigger things to worry about. Like keeping my people alive when it feels like everyone, everywhere wants to see us dead.
CHAPTER 30
THE DINING AREA IS a chatter of conversations over breakfast, but I’m distracted by the scrape of my fork on my plate. I push the food around, as if that’ll make it smaller, and flex my wrists.
Late last night, word arrived that the General’s men left and came back with twice the numbers. And now they’re inside the mountain tunnel trying to force their way through the wall. I really hope the enchantment holds. Everyone here is oddly calm, trusting that it will, but as a precaution, every person, men and women alike, is covered in plated armor with war-painted faces. With their magic so weak and the cuffs not responding to me… I can’t even think about what’ll happen if the General manages to break through.
The cuffs stuffed in my hoodie taunt me. I was up until damn near sunrise trying to spark some sort of magic. At times, I could feel a tug, like the magic’s there. But the cuffs don’t answer. It’s like they chose me, then changed their mind. How many more people are going to die before I can figure this out?
I shove my plate away. A chunk of glazed dough plops in Bri’s bowl. She works her fingers around the two-prong sticks they gave her. I know they have forks back there because they offered me a fork yesterday.
“You need a hand?” I ask her.
“No, I got it.” We haven’t spoken since the argument. I don’t know what to say to her. She keeps getting side-eyes from everyone, a few whispers here and there. But she keeps her head down, eating. She sighs, exasperated, storming up from the table.
I love her, but she’s going to have to work through this on her own.
Aasim is across from me, neck deep in his fille—which is like rice, but purple. I’d told him earlier this morning that I wanted to leave today.
“Not yet! Let me look into something first, then we can get out of here,” he’d said.
“Today though, right?” I’d pressed.
“Hopefully. But really soon.” He’d said he has a plan to share with me, but the Chancellor fell off his radar, so he wanted to square that up before we get moving.
I want to get back to Tasha and take care of the General from there, meet him off his turf. Basic squabble rules: jump somebody on their home turf, end up outnumbered. I’ma start at Dezignz, taking his boys out one by one. Make them summon him. Draw him out. Assuming I can get these damn cuffs to work.
But how will I even get out of here with the General supposedly in the mountain trying to break through? I make a point to ask Aasim about that later and rub my temples, trying to ignore the nagging feeling things are spinning out of control. I chew my lip a little too hard. Ow.
“Your mother did that.” Aasim tears a bite from a buttered roll. “She would bite her bottom lip whenever she was nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
He laughs. “She would lie about it, too.”
I roll my eyes. My father’s nose is wide and his jaw angular, like mine. His long fingers wrap around his spoon as he slurps another bite. My “piano” fingers are oddly long, too. Moms used to joke about getting us one, knowing damn well we ain’t have room or money for that. I let silence hang there a minute, massaging my wrists, sore from the weight of the cuffs I’d worn for hours last night.
“So, how… uhm… how’d you meet Moms?”
He looks up all too eager, smiling. “You really want to know?”
Gah. Don’t make this more awkward than it already is. “Uhhh, yeah. I asked didn’t I?” I swear I don’t mean for it to come out that way. It just does. “S-sorry. I-I mean, yes, I’d like to know. Please.”
“Your mom had a smart mouth, too. Couldn’t tell her anything. That’s actually how it started.”
“Oh yeah?” I settle back against my chair, trying to stop grinning like a little kid. I can’t remember the last time I smiled like this. And with everything going on, I could use a smile.
“I was there, scouting the place. Thinking about storing the cuff somewhere in the human land, so I’d slip over time to time and just observe. Anyway, this one time I visited a spot I liked. They had a guy there who played jazz like velvet. I’d never heard anything like it. So I snuck in and there she was. It was speakeasy night and she took the mic. When she opened her mouth, it was over. I knew, Ghizoni or not, I never wanted to leave her sight.”
“So…?”
“So, I didn’t leave.” He laughs. “I stayed there and tried talking to her. She was all attitude at first. But I really liked that jazz style so I’d been reading up on it and she was impressed I knew a thing or two.”
Imagining Moms doing anything but working is sort of weird. “Moms sees straight through BS. Can’t get one past her.”
“Yes, she does.” His shoulders slump. “Did.”
He really misses her.
I miss her too.
“After that I asked her out. It didn’t take long for me to decide I wasn’t coming back anytime soon, if ever. She had the most beautiful smile. She…” His eyes glaze over. “… I’d just never met anyone like her. So I stayed. I told her I’d figure out how to make it work. I told her…” His words trail off and he stares at nothing.
“It’s fine. I get it. I don’t usually talk about her either.” Hurts too much.
He says nothing for several moments. Then takes another bite and blots his mouth with his napkin. “Alaya nah, ick e’bah.”
“Alaya, what?”
“Alaya nah, ick e’bah—grow stronger in the pain. You need to study up on your Ancestors’ language.”
Alaya nah, ick e’bah.
Grow stronger in the pain.
Sounds like something Moms would say.
“Where would I even find a book like that?”
“I can get you one, if you’re really interested.”
“I might be; I’ll let you know.”
His lips curl the way mine do. I wonder how much he told Moms about this place. “So, uhm… did you and Moms…” I draw circles on the table with my finger.
He lean
s on his elbows on the table, smiling. “I’m listening.”
I draw more circles. “Nothing. Never mind. Tell me about the General.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Another time.”
“Fair enough.” He winks, pushing his bowl aside. “So, the General. I’m thinking the safest place for you is here. He’s not getting through that wall.”
This dude, I swear. Three steps forward, two back. And if everyone here really believed that, why they walking around suited up in armor? That’s just Aasim trying to keep me close. Which is… kind. But nope. That’s not how it’s going down.
“I’m not staying here. No disrespect, but this isn’t my home. I’m not Ghizoni.”
He glances at the cuff I’m turning in my hand. “You are.”
Even if I was… how am I worthy of all this? All they think I’m supposed to be able to do? “No. I’m not. Look, no use in us arguing. I have my sister, Ms. Leola…”
“Bring them here.”
He really doesn’t get it. “It’s not just one or two people. When you from where I’m from, the whole place is family. I told you that when you made me leave. I’m not leaving East Row. Who’s going to protect folks back home if I come here?”
“Who’s going to avenge the Ghizoni if you don’t?”
Sigh.
“I’m going home. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this. I need to be there with my sis. And besides, if I can draw him out to my neighborhood, that takes the heat off here.”
“Alright, well.” Aasim throws his hands up in surrender. “I’ll let it go for now, but your people here need you too.”
My people are in East Row.
“So what’s your plan?” I ask. “What you been working on?”
“I’m trying to find hard evidence that the General is taking his orders from the Chancellor. That this whole street gang thing has to ultimately be his doing. And why. No way the General’s doing all this under the Chancellor’s nose.” He strokes his chin. “I put a few feelers out, waiting to hear back.”
“I still want the General’s head.”
“And you’ll have it. He’s going to tire of trying to break through that enchanted wall. And when he does, he’s going to look to other means. We can do this one of two ways: Try to pit the General and the Chancellor against each other or take them both head on.” He picks a shred of meat from his teeth. “Still sorting that out.”