by C. L. Polk
“This is supposed to be celebrating you,” I said. “You and all the other witches. You’re free. You’ve come home. No one will ever trap you again—”
Zelind’s expression shuttered closed.
“What?”
Zelind sighed. “Nothing.”
No, something. Something about being trapped again. Did Zelind feel trapped by the clan? Trapped by me?
“Are you worried Jarom will be back?”
“I know Jarom will be back. Look at this.” Khe stretched to grab a letterbox and presented me with envelopes. “He writes one every day. Every day! What could he possibly have to say every single day?”
“You haven’t read them?”
Khe flipped the envelopes over. Every seal was intact.
Khe hadn’t opened them, but khe hadn’t thrown them away, either. “If we see Jarom, we’ll give him the cut. Fiddle with your boots.”
“I don’t even think that would stop him,” Zelind said. “And I don’t want to have a big scene in the middle of everything. Can’t I stay here?”
“We’ll dawdle,” I said. “We’ll be fashionably late. Just in time to hear the speeches. We’ll eat fry dough in sugar and drink apple tipsy until we get drunk.”
“In the middle of the day?”
“So what? We’ll be too busy giggling to notice. Maybe Mama will have her cart out—I’m sure she will. Smoked hog buns?”
Zelind gave a gusty sigh. “Fine. But only because there will be smoked hog buns.”
Jean-Marie was in the middle of a book that had to be too advanced for her to read, but it was the illustrations she gazed on: diagrams and sketches of the architectural details of the Beautiful Age, the heavily carved and ornamented fashions of the last century.
“The tiles making pictures on the floors are called mosaics,” she said. “The black-and-white geometrics of modern architecture design are abstract. Mosaic tile is representative.”
“You read that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Tiles are made from stone, clay, and glass. They’re set in mortar. Mosaic artists would be paid a half-year’s income for laying an eight-foot-by-eight-foot mural—”
“You learned all this because of the hotel?” Zelind asked.
“It’s the most wonderful place,” Jean-Marie said. “And Granny Min was the face of her day. Did you know that?”
Jean-Marie chattered like a whitewing once she got started. She told us all about the architecture and design of the Princess Mary. She repeated Minerva Brown’s stories. She had even talked to the apparitions who drifted through the hotel, haranguing them for their memories of the place. Zelind and I glanced at each other, sharing smiles for Jean-Marie’s enthusiasm, and she didn’t quit talking even when we found somewhere to park our bicycles by Clarence Jones Memorial Park.
But the crowd soon sobered her. The park was teeming with people, all gathered to play in the snow, eat deep-fried food, and dance to the merry-sounding brass band on the amphitheater’s stage.
I joined the line for Mama’s lunch cart and nearly perished from the peppery, savory scent of smoked hog wafting from the smoker. I sent Zelind and Jean-Marie off to look at snow sculptures while I waited in line. If I kept Zelind a moving target, perhaps khe could avoid—
“Mrs. Thorpe.”
Oh, blast it.
“Mr. Bay,” I said. “I am unsurprised to see you here.”
Jarom wore his clan sweater under a stylish pin-striped jacket and a smoke-gray overcoat. His left sleeve was bare of the yellow ribbon that signaled favor for radical change, and his hair clicked with purple beads, subtly declaring loyalty to the Crown and the status quo. “Where is Zelind?”
“At home,” I lied. “I came alone.”
He tilted his head, and his lips stretched out flat and skeptical. “Alone? With an order chit in your hand for three smoked hog buns? You have a healthy appetite, even for a witch.”
Not that long ago, he wouldn’t have called me a witch so easily. Not that long ago, he’d have had nothing to say to one of the talentless children who quietly distressed witch families all over Aeland. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in nearly an hour.”
At that, a line worker took the chit and handed me three buns wrapped in foil and paper, hot and steaming. I stepped out of the line and unwrapped one, biting into it right in front of Jarom.
“Delicious. I should have gotten four.”
Jarom sighed. “Please let me talk to kher. Has khe read my letters?”
“Burned in the fire,” I lied. “Unopened.”
I saw the exact moment my words slid between his ribs; the second a little of the light died in his eyes. I took another bite of my bun and looked him in the eye. I couldn’t search for Zelind’s bright yellow knit cap. I was alone. I had come by myself. And I was going to burst if I had to eat all three of these buns, but eat them I would, if it would make Jarom go away.
“Robin!”
I held out a bun for Grace, who kept her patient pace next to Miles, who had recovered enough to walk without depending on his cane too much. The astonishing web of magic that took him from the brink of death to nearly hale made witches on the path stop and stare, but what made them back away in openmouthed awe was the crown of thirteen soulstars wreathed around his head, a glittering halo of souls bound to an already vibrant healer’s aura.
“There you are,” I lied again. “Hurry and eat them before they get cold.”
“I’ve heard so much about Mama’s smoked hog—oh!” Grace covered her mouth as she chewed. “I could eat seven of these.”
Miles took the other foil-wrapped bun and eyed Jarom, who was dumbstruck by the sight Miles presented to witchsight.
“I’m Miles Singer,” he said to Jarom. “And this is my sister, Grace Hensley. Have you ever met the Chancellor of Aeland?”
“No,” Jarom said. “It’s a pleasure. But I mustn’t disturb you any further. Please enjoy your food.”
He didn’t quite scurry, but he left. I sighed in relief. I picked out a chit for two buns and got back in line. “You’re eating Zelind and Jean-Marie’s share right now. That was Zelind’s cousin—”
“I remember,” Grace said. “Zelind caused quite a stir when khe rejected him and kher mother at the station.”
“Jarom’s been trying to see Zelind ever since,” I said, exchanging more coin for a pair of buns. “Zelind’s been cooped up in the clan house, trying to avoid him—it’s a mess.”
“He should respect Zelind’s wishes,” Miles said, and at the same time, Grace declared, “It’s impossible to just give up on family, no matter how hurt they’ve been because of it.”
They looked at each other ruefully.
“It worked out for us,” Grace said.
“Only because you accepted how very wrong you were.”
“I was wrong. You were right. But I can’t help feeling sorry for Jarom.”
“I know,” Miles said. “And if Jarom deserves to be taken back, he’ll do something to prove it.”
Miles had the right idea. Jarom had to prove to Zelind that he was worth taking back. Zelind shouldn’t have to forgive kher cousin just because he was family. “I should find Zelind and Jean-Marie; the buns are getting cold.”
I moved toward the collection of snow sculptures artists were carving out of pristine blocks of dense-pack, looking for the brightly colored caps protecting Zelind’s and Jean-Marie’s shorn heads from the cold.
“There.” Miles pointed, and there was Zelind, helping to build a tower of snow blocks by lifting them through force of will, stacking them precisely before amazed onlookers.
One day, it would be commonplace to see an act of magic on the street. One day it wouldn’t be remarkable. But now the people around Zelind fought the urge to either press closer or back away. I moved to kher side and offered kher a bun.
“Jarom’s here,” I said. “He ambushed me at Mama’s cart.”
“How’d you get rid of him?”
“The Solace�
��s own luck,” Miles said. “We showed up just in time to play along with Robin’s story. I’m Miles.”
Zelind stuck out kher hand. “Zelind. You—I’ve never seen anyone with that many soulstars in my life.”
“It’s new to me too,” Miles said. “Do you mind if we tag along? He seemed nervous around me.”
Zelind smirked. “A thirteen-starred witch? I wonder why.”
“I have to go to the stage,” Grace said. “The speechifying part is about to start, and I’m supposed to be there.”
“We’ll come with you,” Zelind said. “I appreciate the backup, Miles.”
“My pleasure,” Miles said, and we wove through the crowds to gather in front of the stage, where Duke was finishing a foot-tapping number that had young people shimmying and lifting each other in stunts straight out of figure skating. When the music ended, the crowd closed in on the stage, ready to cheer as Jacob bounded onto the stage, clapping his hands over his head and smiling his brightest.
He led a call-and-response patter of clapping hands and stomping feet, punctuated by cries of “Uza!” at intervals between more and more complicated rhythms. When we were one voice, a crowd rather than a collection, he waited for the cheering to die as he raised a bellower.
“Friends—”
A smattering of cheers interrupted him, and he smiled as he tried to shush them with a finger to his lips.
“If you all keep that up we won’t have any time to hear more music. Duke Corbett and his Wandering Brass, everybody!”
Another chorus of cheers while Jacob cleared his throat and began.
“I stand here today a grateful man. Today, all the Aelanders locked away by the Witchcraft Protection Act stand with us, and I want us all to take a moment to reflect on our victory. Our triumph. Our gratitude.”
“Uza!” the crowd shouted, and they were right. We had worked together for the community. We had given; we had fought for those of our people torn from us. It was uza, without a doubt.
“When the last witch set foot in this very city, free to come and go wherever they pleased, the sun shone on a better Aeland. And Aeland is a better place because of you.
“You have shown me what Aeland is capable of. You have shown me that together, we can move the course of justice to the correct direction. You have shown me that together, we can dream of a better Aeland—and then we get out of bed, roll up our shirtsleeves, and make it so.
“All we need is a dream to chase, and the will to make it happen.”
Satisfied murmurs all around. Someone shouted, “Make dreams real, Uncle!”
Zelind’s fingers brushed against mine, but instead of moving away, khe slipped kher hand around mine. I squeezed. Khe squeezed back. I felt my rib cage loosen as we stood hand in hand.
Jacob lifted the bellower to his lips. “I stand here before you to say I have a new dream.”
Someone cheered, but mostly, everyone was quiet, listening to the man who’d led Solidarity to this incredible victory.
My victory, an annoyed little voice whispered. But that wasn’t fair. Jacob had worked hard for this. While I made priority lists and managed action teams, Jacob had put the prorogue of the Witchcraft Act on the table. It was teamwork.
“The dream dazzled my eyes when the morning sun reflected off King Severin’s crown when he stood before the King’s Stone and promised the Royal Knights, the landed, and the princes of capital that he would change Aeland—but not too much.” Jacob lifted a finger and waggled it, quelling an idea.
Ugly grumbles, and the click of women sucking their teeth in disapproval. “Typical,” someone muttered behind me.
“That’s what Prince Severin promised. Change—but not too much. Because we mustn’t upset the landowners. We mustn’t upset the businessmen. We mustn’t upset the Royal Knights. Those people on the street, those people in your factories, those people in your tenements?” Jacob shrugged, playing the gesture to the back of the crowd. “They’ll just have to be patient.”
“Same lies, different day!” someone shouted, and a soft chuckle followed the cry.
“We’re expected to be patient, because the government is not for us. King Severin called an election. But it’s not ours. It won’t elect our government. It doesn’t belong to us.”
Here we go. The crowd around me muttered. They folded their arms and nodded. It was true, what Jacob was saying, even if he said “we” while living in a ten-room flat with a full-time housekeeper and a day maid. Jacob said “we,” and everyone around me nodded along with him. Jacob scanned the crowd, and at the perfect moment, let the bellower send his question over the crowd:
“But friends, what if it did?”
He held my eye. He held Zelind’s. He held the audience in that moment, letting them think, letting them wonder, What if?
“What if you were the one with a ballot in your hand? What if you had the power to vote them out? What if your candidate were one of your neighbors, instead of one of your landlords?”
Dead silence from the crowd. Even the breeze stilled, as if the air were listening. Everyone was quiet, leaning toward Jacob Clarke as he asked them to dream with him.
And in that quiet, in that spellbinding moment, my hands went cold. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something wasn’t right—
“This is my dream. While the King runs his sham of an election, we’ll have one too.”
The crowd whistled. “Yeah!”
“A fair election.”
“Yeah!”
“A free election.”
“Yeah!”
“And at the end of it, we will have six million ballots to speak for us. We’ll have to work hard to make it happen, but every one of you past your sixteenth birthday on Election Day will hold a ballot in your hand, and you will have a voice—”
I heard it first—a pop, like the afterthought of a nightflower blooming in the sky. Beside me, Miles ducked, pulling me down with him.
On the stage, Jacob stumbled backward, one hand flying to his chest. He kept his feet, pulling his hand away. Red, red blood smeared his palm and seeped into the twisted cords of his knitted clan sweater.
He looked at us with wide, startled eyes. And then he fell, crumpling to the stage.
* * *
“Jacob!”
Everyone around me scattered. Screams rang across the cold afternoon air. I dodged a pair of schoolgirls clinging to each other, crouched on the ground and crying.
“Run!” someone shouted at me. They grabbed my arm, trying to drag me along with them. I yanked my arm loose and sprinted over the dirty snow, not running away from the stage, but headed straight for it.
I had jumped fences one-handed as a girl. Today I sprang, my hands on the lip of the stage, and barely made it, scuttling half on hands and knees. I tore a tin case off the shelf and skidded to a stop in front of Jacob.
It wasn’t good. He panted, as if it was too difficult to get air. Collapsed lung? I popped the clasps on the first aid kit and nearly screamed. Rubber gloves. Bandages and tape. Iodine. A cute little pair of scissors. Silk thread and suture needles, as if anyone would be doing stitches in the field. Tweezers, in case anyone complained of a splinter.
But there they were, wrapped in paper—drinking straws, to go with the tiny bottle of replenishing apple juice in case someone fainted.
Scissors turned Jacob’s clan sweater into scrap yarn. I felt under his back, but the bullet hadn’t exited his body.
“Miles!” I shouted. I didn’t even know if he was there, but if anyone could help a man with a bullet in his lung, it would be the miracle man of the Laneeri War.
I needed something to seal the hole. I plucked up a thick ochre-brown rubber glove. First, cut off the fingers. Then pierce it with a suture needle, wiggle a straw through, and then I stuck the straw directly into the bullet wound.
This wasn’t the right way to do it. I should have a long needle, a sterile field—I shouldn’t be crouched out here. Behind me, people still screame
d trying to find cover. And here I was, out in the open trying to save the man an assassin had wanted dead.
I ignored the crawling sensation between my shoulder blades and pressed on the rubber bandage. I didn’t have anything but the contents of a tin box and prayer. But air seeped through the straw, and Jacob’s distress eased.
Tape. I needed tape. Who in the blasted void packed a first aid kit with a syncope kit and no tape?
“Robin.” Jacob’s voice was full of air. He lifted one hand, its palm red, and gripped my wrist.
“Don’t do that. I’m keeping you breathing, but I need both hands.”
“Robin.”
“Shut up.” I looked into his eyes. You did that with patients who were scared. You looked into their eyes and told them they were going to be all right. That you had it under control.
“Lie still and just breathe,” I said, and then I shouted, “I need some help over here!”
There was an emergency station three streets away. Someone could run and get the medics. I could hold pressure all the way to the hospital, if I had to. It was going to be all right.
“Take my hand.” Jacob tugged on my wrist, and the dressing came loose.
“I need both my hands,” I said. “My hands are keeping you breathing. How bad does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he said. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
Could be adrenaline. Could be the shock—no, it was definitely shock. “Put your hand on my cheek.”
Cold. So cold. That could be the air, but I looked into Jacob’s eyes and I knew.
He knew, too. “Promise me.”
“What?”
“Take care of the movement. Take care of—” He lost the words to a cough, and red painted his lips.
“Don’t talk!” I cried, but I knew, and so did he.
“Robin.”
I looked into his eyes.
His fingers touched my face. Warmth radiated from them—warmth that spread across my scalp and down my neck. It wrapped around my shoulders. It glowed, the stormy violet-white afterlight of a lightning strike, wrapping me up like a shroud.
“No.” I pressed harder on the dressing. “Don’t you dare, Jacob Alexander Clarke. Not today. You hear me? You don’t get to die today. You have work to do.”