by E G Radcliff
He headed back to the rooms he shared with Ninian. They’d made their home in an abandoned building, one that was too far from the docks or the Inner Maze to be of interest to Morcant or any of the lesser gangs. It left them in relative safety. The door swung with a shrill creak as Áed shouldered it closed. “Ready?”
Ninian dropped his head back and closed his eyes again. He’d managed to wrestle off his shirt, which lay in a bloody-black heap on the floor. His skin was peppered with bruises. “One of these days,” he groaned, “We’re going to have to do something about Ronan.”
“Yeah?” Áed said offhandedly, starting to examine Ninian’s chest. There was a monstrous, black-and-purple bruise blooming over his ribs, and his collarbone was crooked. Right below the left side of that collarbone, a seven-year-old brand in the shape of a crescent stood out against Ninian’s skin, courtesy of his gang. “Like what?”
Ninian shrugged, then winced. “I worry, you know? We treat him like… well, like we didn’t find him in a trash pile, and he’s going to grow up soft.” He opened his deep violet eyes and lingered on Áed’s face. “Seriously, Áed, that boy is gonna get torn apart.” He shook his head. “What are we doing?”
Áed sighed. “He’s not getting raised like me.” They both knew that story: Áed’s mother had left him with nothing but a letter, and Áed had been raised by a stranger. Ninian could read, so he had read Áed’s letter out loud for Áed to know. None of it had been good. Ninian scowled and looked away across the empty flat, and Áed gestured to the wide scar that wrapped halfway around Ninian’s midriff. “Not like you, either.” He prodded at a bruise on Ninian’s chest, maybe a little too emphatically, because Ninian yelped. “Sorry.”
“You better be.” The words were right, but Ninian’s voice held no steel.
“That’s the problem in this place,” Áed said quietly. “People do grow up like that. You can’t tell me you regret taking him in.”
Ninian groaned. “You’re such a philosopher.”
Áed rolled his eyes. “Why pass up the chance to do just one good thing?” Ninian grunted, and Áed nodded, accepting that Ninian had seen his point. “Ronan doesn’t deserve this life.”
“None of us do, love,” Ninian mumbled. “Except maybe Morcant.”
Áed chuckled stiffly. “Right. Except him.” He cocked his head, examining Ninian’s collarbone from a different angle. “Now shut up and stay still.”
Ninian howled loudly enough to bring down the roof as Áed used the heel of his hand to set the broken bone with one practiced, even application of pressure, and then Ninian followed up with a horrific stream of curses. Sweat beaded his brow, and his knuckles were bone-white as he gripped the arms of the chair. He squeezed his eyes shut, just not tightly enough to conceal a tear that edged from the corner. “Man,” Ninian gasped. “You’re terrible.”
“You’re welcome.” Áed sat back on his heels and bit his lip as he gently pressed on another blooming bruise. “Love, I think you’ve broken a rib, too, and I can’t do anything about that.” He stood and crossed to a cabinet. “Sure you don’t want something?”
Ninian moaned painfully. “I’d rather not.”
Áed shrugged. “Your choice. But whatever you choose, you’re staying put for a while. No leaving this flat, got it?”
“Got it,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. He shuddered, another tear trailing behind the first, and his expression twisted. “Gods. Áed, I’m sorry, I will have that drink.” He opened his eyes. “Just this once, you hear?”
Áed struggled to open the bottle; it was awkward with his hands as crumpled as they were, and his warped bones and curled-under fingers protested as he twisted the cork. He braced the sticky bottle between his ribs and elbow to pour a small amount of the liquid into an old can.
He offered the can to Ninian, who grimaced but knocked it back in one motion. Ninian made a face. “That is disgusting.”
“So they tell me,” Áed said, clumsily replacing the cork. “That ought to help soon. Just be still.” He put the bottle in the cabinet and turned back to Ninian. “You hungry?”
“Always. We have anything left over from yesterday?”
“A little.”
“Does Ronan have anything?”
Áed frowned sarcastically. “I didn’t realize you cared.”
“Shut up, Áed. You know I care.” Ninian’s voice had already gotten ever so slightly slurred, like he’d just woken up.
Áed leaned out the door and called up the stairs. “Ronan?”
There were a few thumps on the ceiling, then the patter of footsteps. Ronan’s dark-haired head poked around the corner, which was grimy with eons of dirty fingerprints. “Yeah?”
“Do you have anything to eat?” The boy was remarkably resourceful, and he often managed to get his hands on food that neither Áed nor Ninian had brought home. Áed suspected that he stole on occasion, but since it kept Ronan fed, neither Áed nor Ninian questioned him about it.
“Some.”
“Come here and help me cut up an apple, and you can have a bit of that, too.”
Ronan’s face brightened, and he tripped down the stairs and pulled a little blade, fashioned from the sharpened fragment of a tin roof, from his pocket. Áed flopped to a seat in the chair across from Ninian. The old frame creaked underneath the flattened cushions and threadbare upholstery, and Ronan hummed quietly to himself as he put his knife to use. A wrinkled slice of apple crunched as Ronan popped it into his mouth, and then the boy cupped the rest in his hands and brought them to Áed. Áed’s stomach growled at the pitiful meal, urging him to eat faster, but he paced himself in order to savor the sweetness of the fruit.
Ronan was offering apples to Ninian, but Ninian seemed to be having trouble picking them up. His eyes were unfocused, and his fingers missed the slices entirely, grasping only air above Ronan’s hands. The boy frowned, turning to Áed. “What happened to Ninian?”
Áed had to stifle a small, out-of-place laugh. “He has a couple broken bones, so I gave him some skee.”
Ronan’s brow furrowed as he took in Ninian like an interesting insect. “Oh.” He glanced up, all big eyes, to Áed again. “Is he alright?”
“He should be fine.” That could never be a promise, but Ninian had taken worse.
Ninian finally managed to get hold of an apple slice, and he grinned at Áed before popping it into his mouth. Ronan giggled. “What a dope. Can I have some skee?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you want to act like a dope? Take another slice for yourself and go on back upstairs.”
Ninian needed to eat, so Áed offered him the apple slices and watched carefully to make sure he ate them. When he was done, Áed sank back into his chair and sighed as silence settled over the flat. A few minutes later, he heard Ninian snore.
Áed pushed himself up and found his way in the dark to the window, where distant clouds churned lightning over the sea. As usual, part of Áed’s mind hovered on the city beyond the fringes of the Maze, beyond the sparse, salt-soiled little farms, beyond the unscalable cliffs. Ninian, with his ancestral memory, had told stories of the White City; he described people living in tidy houses, not tipping, ramshackle towers, and streets full of food, not garbage. Áed had wanted to travel to the top of the cliffs for as long as he could remember, and once he and Ninian had adopted Ronan, he’d wanted it even more. The first time Áed had mentioned this to Ninian, Ninian had shaken his head. “People try to go, love, but the ones who come back say it’s impossible. And the rest don’t come back at all. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Why would they come back?” Áed had retorted. He would not be discouraged—the White City had become a comfort to him. After all, no amount of hoping could change the Maze, but the White City’s promise reliably loomed just beyond the horizon.
Ninian had said nothing, and the argument had died. They couldn’t leave, and that was just a fact: Ninian was too entrenched in his gang, and Áed would not lea
ve him. The fact was, hardly anybody left the Maze anyway. To chase a pretty story felt like foolishness when scraping by was hard enough, and the towering cliffs jutting up from the lowland presented another deadly discouragement. People told themselves that their lives were as good as they could ever be.
It just wasn’t right.
CHAPTER THREE
Áed had already eaten a little breakfast, woken Ronan, and made a halfhearted attempt to get the blood out of Ninians’s shirt before Ninian even opened his eyes the next day.
Still in his armchair, Ninian moaned. “Gods, Áed, close the curtains.”
“We don’t have curtains, amadán.” Still, Áed ambled over to drape his blanket over the top of the window. “How’s your chest?”
Ninian groaned. “Overshadowed, in fact.”
Áed blinked in alarm. “By what?”
Ninian groaned again, the sound painful and dull. “My head.”
Áed raised an eyebrow. “Your head? I didn’t think you hit your head.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then—”
“I am never,” Ninian said with a stone face, his voice taking on the tone of a vow, “touching that nasty skee of yours again.”
Áed blinked, and then found himself laughing. “Oh, Gods,” he chuckled. “You are such a lightweight.”
Ninian grunted, but for once didn’t seem to be in the mood to spar. “I haven’t forgotten my orders. I’m staying put with Ronan today.”
Áed rolled his eyes. “Be nice.”
“I’m always nice,” he groused, eyes flicking up to glare at his partner’s face. The partner in question raised an eyebrow.
“There’s bread for breakfast. I think you need it.”
“I need a hell of a lot more than bread.”
Turning from Ninian, Áed shook his head to wake himself up a bit more. His sandy blond hair was disheveled and sticking up every which way, but at least it was too short to get truly tangled, as Ninian’s could. He’d never given much thought to his appearance, because that was for people who didn’t live in the Maze, but he still gave it a habitual brush with his fingers.
As Áed was fetching the brickish loaf from the cupboard, Ronan poked his sleep-ruffled head through the door. “Got any food?”
Áed said, “Yes,” at the same time Ninian muttered, “No, go away.” Áed rolled his eyes to glare at Ninian, who just sunk more deeply into his chair.
“Why is there a blanket over the window?” Ronan asked curiously.
“Because I’m sick of looking at the Gut,” Ninian snapped, crossing his arms and then grimacing and uncrossing them.
“He’s hungover,” Áed explained. “And cranky.”
Ronan raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be upstairs all day.”
“At least you know what’s good for you,” Ninian growled.
“Don’t mind him,” Áed interjected.
“Mind me,” Ninian countered.
“Shut up, Ninian,” Áed and Ronan ordered simultaneously, and Ronan laughed his little-boy laugh and hustled over to cut up the bread.
“Gods, I hate both of you,” Ninian groaned.
✽ ✽ ✽
Áed headed out after grabbing a stale chunk of the bread. He had work to do. Ninian’s fight money—which only came when Ninian won—provided income, but not enough to support three people. What’s more, when Ninian was properly injured, his gang wouldn’t give him another fight until he had healed enough to have a chance at winning. They all still had to eat in the meantime.
Work opportunities, however, had never presented themselves particularly willingly to Áed. With his hands ruined, Áed couldn’t even join a gang; he’d tried when he was younger. Ninian had been horrified at him for even considering the possibility, and, thoroughly discouraged from that route, Áed had given up. Now, he scavenged for Máel Máedóc, bringing the man useful rubbish from the street that the shopkeeper could sell.
Áed did plan on scavenging that day, but before he began combing the alleys for abandoned coats and cracked bottles, he had something else in mind.
He turned down a side street, hands in his pockets, heading for the docks.
The sound of the sea had just barely begun to reach his ears when an arm caught him gruffly around the shoulders, pulling him into an uncomfortable sideways hold. He tensed, hands clenching in his pockets, but his assailant only laughed with delight. “You! Been wondering when you’d come back here, ye bastard!”
Áed squirmed out from under the man’s arm. “Yeah.” He straightened his battered jacket, casting a wary glance at the man and taking a step to the side. “Guess I couldn’t stay away.”
The man, undeterred by Áed’s tone, clapped him on the back heartily. “You’re back for more, eh?” He leaned in closer, conspiratorially. “Won’t get me so easy this time.”
“Surely not,” Áed agreed. “Still, I’d like to try.”
The man, whose name Áed could not recall, bellowed with laughter. Still guffawing, he grabbed Áed’s shoulder’s again and steered him roughly in the direction of the water. Against the railings, buffeted by the wind off the sea, a group of ragged people clustered around little piles of tiles and coins. “Everyone,” the man announced, dropping heavily into an open space marked with a bottle of skee, “this is that fellow I was talkin’ about yesternight. Remember that?”
“You weren’t jokin’ about the eyes,” someone noted, and the man who’d introduced Áed coughed in the speaker’s direction.
“I’m no liar. Red as fire, I said, and I ain’t wrong. ‘Bout his hands, neither. See that?” He took a swig from his bottle. “Anyhow, he’s joining us.” Around the circle sounded halfhearted greetings, and Áed took a seat.
Someone dealt him in, and Áed took the chance to glance around at the few assembled men and women. The woman to his right had a calculating sort of glint in her eye, but the rest of the faces were as blank as stones.
Tiles clacked on the rough pavers, but Áed didn’t watch the movement of the pieces so much as he watched the faces of the players. When everyone had set their chips, peeking down at the tiles hidden in their palms, a thickset man across the circle grunted with satisfaction. “Bet time.”
Licking his lips, Áed took another look around the circle. The glint had gone from the woman’s eye, but her face was set to look confident; she definitely didn’t have anything. The men beside her maintained perfect blankness in their faces, but Áed could feel their uncertainty rolling off of them. The man who had accosted Áed in the alley appeared relatively pleased with his lot, but Áed felt nervousness oozing from the man like sweat; Áed could practically smell it. Taking a deep breath, Áed reached into his pocket and drew out a little pouch: the last earnings from Ninian’s previous fight. He set it in the center as everyone else placed their bets.
The man who’d dealt Áed his tiles spread his hands wide with an air of drama, and everyone revealed their hand. “Egh,” the dealer grunted thickly. “Got a winner.”
Áed let his tiles fall and collected everyone’s bets. “Another round?”
He played until the good-natured atmosphere began to wane. When he caught the first frustrated, sideways glance in his direction, he stood, thanked the players respectfully, and left before anything came to blows.
The noises of the docks fell away as Áed jogged through the streets, moving briskly to bring some feeling into his legs, which had fallen asleep while he’d sat on the ground. He’d done well at the game, as usual, and, after a bit of scavenging, he hoped he’d be able to afford a decent meal. Ronan, especially, could use it. To feed Ronan, Áed would have willingly made the trip to the docks more often, but that came with certain danger. Unless he threw the games, which he couldn’t much afford to do, he won, and he did not want to earn the kind of enemy that gambled at the docks.
Weaving expertly through the familiar streets, Áed kept his focus on the ground, in the shadows of tenements, in the gutters. The chill of the spring air felt clammy as Á
ed kept an eye out for any refuse with a scrap of value, and he moved with purpose, hurrying to get home.
✽ ✽ ✽
He returned to his tenement when the sun began to set, having found a trampled glove that, with his newly-earned money, he traded with Máel Máedóc for some food. Máel Máedóc was a tall, broad man with shimmering blue eyes set deeply behind sharp, pitch-dark cheekbones, but despite his dramatic appearance, he was a gentle enough sort. His soft spot for Áed dated back years, and though Áed couldn’t remember exactly how it had come to be, there remained between them a mutual respect. Though still a few coins short, Áed left with enough food to bring back home.
Áed found Ronan sitting on the tenement steps as he turned onto the dusty path toward the building. The boy looked up, his green eyes caught Áed’s face, and relief washed over his expression. He jumped up and nearly knocked Áed’s freshly-bought bread onto the road as he half-tackled Áed into a hug.
“Whoa!” Áed exclaimed as Ronan drew back, sniffling. “What’s the matter?”
The boy opened his mouth and then closed it again, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Why are you outside?” Áed said more gently, and his knees touched the pavers as he knelt to be level with Ronan’s tear-streaked face. “It’s almost nighttime.”
“I know.” Ronan’s voice trembled, and Áed blinked at it for a moment. He hadn’t heard Ronan sound so vulnerable since he was very small.
“Hey,” he said, brushing the boy’s hair off of his brow. “What happened?”
A pair of crystalline tears dripped from Ronan’s bright green eyes and ran around the curves of his cheeks. “I don’t know what to do about Ninian.”
Áed took the boy’s shoulder in his own crumpled excuse for a left hand. “Why?” he said. “Did he snap at you?”
The boy shook his head and choked back a sob. Blinking, Áed drew him closer as worry clouded his mind. Áed could feel Ronan’s fear in his chest, the boy’s emotions whirling and sparking alongside Áed’s own.
“Shh, shh…” Áed murmured in an attempt to comfort him. He tried to silence the anxiety creeping into his voice for fear that it would upset the boy further.