I haven’t done either.
Every day, I tally all the debts I owe them. All that they deserve. I may not be able to capture a fox for Mykal, but I’ll find something of equivalent value.
Altia presidential history knowledge—owed to … I spell Court’s name wrong, so I cross it out and—the journal is torn from my hands.
“Mykal,” I hiss, keeping my voice a whisper. Court just now falls asleep. Truthfully, I’m not always attentive of his slumber.
Mykal shows no interest in the contents of my journal and throws the leather-bound notebook on our cleaned supper plates.
“Heya.” I spring to my feet.
He clasps my hand, his palms already gloved, I realize. Dressed warmly in his green wool coat, thick boots—he has yet to peel off his heavier clothes for bed. “Come outside with me?” he asks.
All right.
After bundling in furs, knotting my high-laced boots, I trek outside the building of flats. Snow kisses my cheeks and I block the light flurries with my hood. Mykal pries the torch off the brick siding, leading us only twenty paces away.
Using our link, I try to make sense of why he wants me out here, but there are no smoke signals or answers laid at my feet. All that happens? I warm to his temperature, the weather not nipping at him like it nips at me.
Mykal stakes the torch in ankle-deep snow, illuminating the vast white space surrounding us. I look up. At night, darkness blankets sheets of lilac smoke. No one on this planet has ever seen a star.
Maybe we will. I nearly smile. I’d never thought much about stars before.
“You know how to spar?” Mykal catches my attention.
“Spar? Like start a stew?” I crinkle my nose. “I mean, a fight.” I won’t slip up tomorrow.
“That.” Mykal nods and stands a few lengthy strides away.
“Not really, no.”
“Then I’ll be teaching you.”
My face falls.
He wants to teach me in the middle of the hollow night, the day before enrollment?
I march forward. “You’ve had two months to teach me and you choose right now?”
If he thought it’d be important, he should’ve taught me ages ago. I showed him the inside of a Purple Coach long before today. Mykal enjoyed driving even less than Court—grumbling about how hiking made sense and the “noise machine” made none.
Mykal flattens the long pieces of his blond hair. “Well, I always thought you’d never flinch in a fight, but after the tattooist, I wasn’t so sure. So here I am, trying to prepare you a bit more. Is that all right?”
“All right,” I say, “but if I learn to spar, it’ll help us how?”
“We’ll be fighting our way out of trouble.” He raises his fists to his jawline. “Like this.”
With less reluctance, I mirror Mykal. “Now what?”
He stalks close, build and height outsizing mine, boots crunching the snow. Mykal halts an arm’s length away and then makes a come hither gesture with two fingers.
“Hit me,” he says.
I hesitate. “I can’t hit you just because. Give me a reason. Even a pretend one.”
He lifts his muskox hood over his ruffled hair. “You’re defending yourself.”
I stand straighter, fists rising. “Against what?”
“Me.” One step closer. “I did you wrong.”
My lips tic upward. “And how did you wrong me?”
“I stole from you, little love.” He tries to boost his knotted brows like mine, but they move far less.
My jaw drops in jest. “You stole from me?” I work myself up, trying to simmer. I rock on my feet, shoulders bowed.
He smiles a crooked smile. “I stole every pair of socks you own—”
I fake a right hook to his jaw, distracting him, and then I knee his gut—Mayday. I double over in unison with him. Thanks to our link, I just kneed myself.
Mykal coughs hoarsely. Then I cough. We clutch our stomachs and I shoot a glare in his direction.
Catching my breath, I snap, “And you and Court do this to each other? For practice?”
He swallows another cough. “You’ll be getting used to it in time.”
Gods. My slackened limbs jolt as soon as Mykal swings his fist. I duck and slip between his legs. I kick the backs of his calves and he staggers forward but braces himself from falling. He faces me and we circle each other.
“You’re not as bad at fighting as I thought you’d be,” Mykal pants a little. “But still not as good as I.”
I charge with all my might. Fists bared, I roar in the pit of my throat. He stole my socks! I come at Mykal like someone running headfirst into a brick wall. I slam into him, fist to his chest that throbs my knuckles, not his body.
Tear at his clothes.
Scratch his cheek.
Kick his shins.
Poke his eyes.
My options rattle in my head; some I couldn’t bear doing to Mykal. Not even while pretending he thieved my socks.
He shoves me. I fall on my bottom and quickly pick myself up.
We tussle awhile longer, my scrappy maneuvers very different from Mykal’s natural strength and dirty tricks. He chucks snow at my eyes. I elbow his ribs.
Minutes later, he wrenches my body upright and imprisons my wrists behind my back, his chest against my shoulders. Breathing heavily, we go very still.
I sense what lies beneath his cold, harsh exterior. Mykal is like the South Sea. Crack the ice and just below, there is water. And warmth.
“Have you held Court like this?” I ask.
“Closer,” he whispers against my ear.
Stifling a smile, I squirm out of his hold, rotate, and kick, my hefty boot banging into his abdomen. He sways. I wince, instinctively touching my stomach. He’s acquired the actual beating.
I take longer to recover and he pushes my shoulders until I trip over my feet. Falling, I catch his wrist and bring him down. We wrestle in the snow, our hot breath cocooning us. Sweat prickling our skin.
Biting his biceps, I roll on top of Mykal and straddle his waist, but he seizes my forearms. He lifts his shoulders off the snow, his muskox hood falling down.
My lungs expand and contract harshly. Sensing each other has put us on equal footing. We could spar for a century—if we lived that long—and for every little bit of ground I’d gain, he’d advance just the same.
I taste blood from a blow that split my lip. “There can be no winner between us.”
Mykal releases my arms. “Then it’s a good thing we’re not at war with each other.”
We’re together. A team. The three of us. I slide off his body and thud to the snow beside him. On our backs, we stare up and our pulses start to decelerate.
And then a strange thing happens.
I toss. I turn. Yet, my limbs are stationary. Sheets entangle my legs, my fingers clawing at the thin mattress of a cot. I reach out and pat snow. Court is inside. Sleeping terribly. I sensed his horrible sleep one other time and he woke to my pity. After that, he made sure to never fall asleep before me.
Tonight has been different. I almost imagine the dank ceiling and mold crusted on torn wallpaper and chipped paint.
I’m two places at once. Sort of.
Court lets out a ragged groan. I touch my neck, my lips—the noise is muffled in his pillow. Inside. I scoop a handful of snow. I’m outside.
I prop myself on my elbow toward Mykal. He stares empathetically at the building of flats, the rotting roof caked with ice.
Court’s torment snakes through my body like unearthly vines. I’d like to scissor each one. I’d like to help him somehow.
My face contorts. “Court is never at peace, is he?” Not even when he shuts his eyes.
Again Mykal considers the darkness above. “For as long as I’ve known him, he’s wrestled invisible enemies, and after Graywater, he has more to add to the list.”
The Fast-Tracker tattooist. I didn’t think he’d follow us, but I guess if he enjoys the hunt, he
’d pursue us. For revenge or something simpler.
Our toes.
I drop off my elbows, lying back down. “Are you worried about the Fast-Tracker?”
“No.” His husky voice is as deep and heavy as the night. “I worry about Court, and I worry about you. That’s it.”
My thoughts tumble fast. “You worry about us. Court worries about everything else. There’s nothing left for me to worry over.”
He tilts his head to me, cheek cold to the snow. “Be glad, Franny Bluecastle. One of us needs to be weightless. Maybe then we’ll be running faster.” His pink lips begin to curve upward, his smile contagious.
“You mean Wilafran Elcastle.” My new name. New identification. New life.
He dips his head to whisper, “You’ll be staying Franny to me.”
I nod once and twice, blinking back a surge of emotion. “I’m glad.”
His cheek numbs and he rolls his head up. Court must be awake, no more thrashing, no more agonized moans. I think he sits, forearms on his knees, slightly bent over in exhaustion.
We talk about ways to help Court for a while, but we mostly conclude that linking is not beneficial on that front. Mykal said he’s tried holding Court at night, but he still lashes out, his nightmares enduring and prevailing over Mykal’s senses.
“StarDust is the only way he’ll be finding peace,” Mykal says.
A chill slips down and I shiver.
“What is it?” Mykal asks, stretching as he sits up.
I follow suit, confusion eating at me. Easily, I can discern whose knees ache, Court, whose ribs throb, Mykal, whose throat dries out, me—but what if one day it’s not as easy? This fear has crashed into me before, but I mentioned it to Court, not to Mykal.
“Have you had trouble knowing which emotions were yours and which were Court’s?” I lick my bloodied lip.
Mykal nods and scratches his tough jaw, stubble grown. “Court and I—we kissed once and it heightened the link. Made it more confusing than it already is. If touch strengthens the link, then bedding would most likely do the same.”
“Bedding,” I repeat. “When Court said he would bed anything with two legs over me…”
“He was referring to our linked senses,” Mykal explains. “He didn’t mean it to be cruel. For Court, it’s just fact. None of us can cross that boundary, not unless we’re ready to accept the consequences.”
In the past two months, my priorities have been so focused on readying myself for StarDust that I haven’t thought much about kissing or bedding anyone. Let alone Court or Mykal. So as this news falls on me, I feel nothing less or more than strange.
“Sparring?” The accusation echoes from the darkened porch steps.
The tall, exceedingly stiff figure emerges into the torchlight. Court stuffs his fists in his long black-buttoned coat, the hem sweeping the snow as he nears. Pieces of his dark brown hair fall over his lashes, more disheveled than usual, and purple circles shadow his grave eyes.
I rise and dust wet sludge off my slacks. “Mykal stole my socks, so I kneed him.”
Mykal stands slowly. “And she bit my arm like a damned tiger.” He hoped to cheer up his friend, but Court’s stoic features never change.
Mykal scratches the back of his head.
I end up itching my scalp, the tickle too aggravating to leave alone. A yawn also grinds at Court’s jaw, but he bites down, refusing what his body demands. Yawn.
Fyke.
I yawn. Right out in the open. My yawn then triggers Mykal, who mumbles a curse while he does so.
“Your lip is bleeding.” Court studies me, his tone less scolding than most days. He licks his bottom lip, blinking a few times, checking over his shoulder. Hanging his head. Lifting his head.
Restless.
“If you’re worried, I can easily lie and tell people I slipped on ice tomorrow,” I say quickly. “I’ve seen plenty of Influentials fall as they step out of Purple Coaches. Everyone will believe it.” Stop talking, Franny.
I shut my lips, not intending to worsen his anxiety.
Court takes a long moment to respond, but he nods more than once. “It’s fine.” Then he trains his gaze onto us, more precision, less flighty. “Tomorrow or the next day, whoever we meet will be Influentials and they cannot die in any situation, but we may, so if we need to fight, we fight smart.”
My face scrunches. “What is fighting smart? Do you mean running away?”
Mykal grunts, not a fan.
Court shakes his head. “The body is as fragile as it is resilient.” His deep, smooth voice is like satin in the night. Court unbuttons his coat, careful and tentative, as though he’s shedding a protective layer of his soul. “You just have to know which places respond negatively to pressure.”
He folds his coat and sets the garment aside, and then raises a single knuckle from his fist. “Strike the sternum.”
“Sternum?” I mumble.
Court motions to the middle of his chest. “Don’t try this on each other, but if you break someone’s sternum, you could puncture their lung.”
Mykal soaks up the instructions with me.
“Same single knuckle to the temple,” Court says, pushing his knuckle to the tender side of his head. “The outcome will be a concussion or hemorrhaging. If done to us, it might be fatal.”
My eyes widen. Hemor-what-ing? How in three hells has Court learned about bodies and limbs and organs?
Court displays other maneuvers: jabbing fingers behind the collarbone to force someone to the ground; striking a forehead with the heel of a palm, which jostles the brain in the skull; applying pressure to the highest point of the jawline to cause pain and loss of speech; and chopping someone’s neck with a flat palm to choke them.
I listen and digest all that I can, but it’d be disingenuous to not mention how much I wonder about Court. My mind fogs with each passed second.
When he finishes, I unconsciously slip my hand in my coat and finger the pocketed Juggernaut. Court stiffens. Mykal swings his head between us.
I freeze.
Maybe I should release the pills, smash them beneath my boot, but carrying them, keeping them, has reminded me a little bit of the me before I dodged my deathday.
“What?” I ask Court, a pill hidden in my pocket between my fingers. They can feel every crevice of the chalky blue Juggernaut. “I heard what you said about brains and sternums and knocking the wind out of our enemies. It’s all up here.” With my free hand, I tap my temple.
His gaze drills into mine.
Mine punctures his right back.
“Franny,” he breathes, wind whipping strands of his hair.
“Court.”
“I was a physician,” he suddenly says. “A very, very young physician … or what you may call a doctor.”
My lips part but only surprise escapes. And I remove my hand from my pocket, no longer touching the Juggernaut.
“I worked at a hospital in Yamafort with advanced equipment like surgical tables”—Court blinks rapidly, pushing through memories fast—“fluorescent lights, anesthetic machines, heart monitors … the list goes on, and since I’ve been gone, I’m sure it’s grown.”
A doctor.
I swallow, choked up. Not because a doctor has been in my presence—a profession more than one Influential bragged about in the back of my Purple Coach—but because he finally gave me something more about himself than just It’s unimportant.
I wipe hastily at my watery eyes. “You’re a doctor.”
His gaze glasses. “Was.” He nods to Mykal. “I told him about a year ago.”
Mykal rests his hands leisurely on his head. “Then I asked how you came to fill that sort of role.”
“And you were met with silence.” Court acknowledges a fact that I never knew existed. Mykal has been in the dark about Court’s source of wisdom, histories, and apparently, his profession—a profession meant for Influentials.
People who’ll die much older than just fifteen years.
C
ourt licks his lips, maybe since mine are dry and split. “I…” He’s shaking, his fingers quaking to his mouth, and I ache all over for him.
“It’s all right,” I say quietly. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Court.” Mykal steps near—he ceases. Court has raised his hand toward him.
“I’m a Wonder.” In one breath, he frees the stunning answer.
Court is a Wonder.
Mykal’s eyes grow to my inflated size. Wind crashes against my lungs and I crouch to gather more air while Mykal staggers. Then he pauses.
And he drops to his knees in front of a glassy-eyed Court. Before he bows forward in adoration, Court clasps Mykal’s arms, prying him to his feet.
“Get up, get up.” Court supports most of Mykal’s weight. “You’re being foolish.”
His hands hover beside Court’s jaw, afraid to touch someone so holy. “You’re a Wonder.”
I scour Court’s frame, his body—his mind. I should’ve known he was a Wonder based on his intellect, but he denounced the gods so much that it seemed wrong for him to be one.
Court takes Mykal’s face in his hands. “I’m the exact same as I always was, Mykal.”
“You’re blessed by the God of Wonders,” he rebuts, hypnotized by Court.
I rise, in a lesser trance. Only because Court has not changed, has he?
My mother told the tale, but she’d shorten it to the good parts. “Once upon an era, the God of Wonders was stuffed full of awe. It hurt his belly. He knew something must be done, so he watched all the newborn children and took interest in the ones who were meant to die young. Readily, he unbound the extra wonder inside and each piece descended. Some rare children swallow the awe until it fills their souls. They are not just kissed by the god. They are Wonder.”
Only Fast-Trackers and Babes can be chosen as Wonders. And very few are.
“I’m not blessed,” Court forces again, gripping Mykal tighter. Their hands are my hands: his fingers threading through Mykal’s wheat-blond hair, his neck stringent, and Mykal’s pulse, thudding fast and hard.
“You just said—”
“It’s a title, Mykal,” Court says with such raw conviction. “It’s a title they give children who show quickness to learn and high aptitude. It does not mean that I’m blessed by the God of Wonders. It means that I took a test, and they knew I’d be more use flying through academics than…” He slowly looks to me.
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