Trix looks to sit, but I refuse to move my boots. Sighing, she says, “Tauris obviously sees you as a potential leader for the mission. It’s quite clear you’re in the running to fill the captain’s chair and they’re seeking a team. I can be a part of your team. We use one another to reach the finish line and we’ll be hired together.”
I understand a bit more. Already sensing Court’s reply, I have fun. “What sort of sapphires are we talking about?” I ask. “Big? Tiny? Cut in the shape of a butterfly?”
Court’s laughter dies in his lungs, but I grin enough for all three of us.
Trix scoffs. “I’m not offering you anything.”
“No,” Court says immediately.
“What?” She gapes.
“I said no. I reject your offer of an alliance.”
Steam blows out of her ears. “Fine. I’ll see that you fail then.” With that feeble threat, she trots off—only to be replaced by a constant line of StarDust candidates looking to bribe Court.
“Thirty thousand bills.”
“The best liqueur in all of Altia.”
“A jar of honey from an indoor greenery in Orricht.”
“Front-row seats to an iceling match.”
“A night in my bed.”
I choke on ale, my body freezing up like I’ve been struck by an ice demon. Franny coughs into her fist, sensing me fully.
“No,” Court rejects easily and as another wave of bribes start, he shouts, “Enough!” Our area of the tavern falls to silence.
“But—” someone says.
“No to all of you. I don’t need to hear your offers. I’m accepting nothing. In fairness to everyone, we let the directors decide.” Maybe he’s afraid if he agrees to them, it’ll be ruining Franny’s chances and mine.
At his declaration, their respect for Court only grows. It’s not like he accepted some and blew off the rest. He denied them all, so nothing has really changed.
Except for one thing. “It’s now fact,” I whisper to him. “You’re the most valuable candidate.”
I wait for the eye roll, but he’s too fixated on the candidates. Watching as they shuffle to other tables and the iceling game. Mumbling to themselves. Farther out of view.
Court barely relaxes, but Franny tries by chugging a good portion of her ale.
“Court Idlecastle…” We all jerk at the sound of his name.
Padgett Soarcastle sneaks up on our table. Dropping the magenta fur hood of her coat, she acknowledges the three of us with a nod. I’m as wary of Padgett as I am every other candidate. Maybe even more so.
Her brain is forever turning.
“I’m not taking bribes,” Court says with bite.
Padgett never eyes the chair occupied by my feet. “Bribing you? I’m not here for bribes. I don’t need help to be hired for the mission. I can do that all on my own.”
“Then why are you here?” Court wonders.
Padgett knots the pink ribbon in her dark hair. “To say thank you. You could’ve unclipped my sister, but for whatever reason, you chose not to.” Sincerity wells in her eyes. She even drops her head to hide the emotion.
Franny frowns. “Why do you care so much? I just don’t know if many would…”
Padgett lifts her intense gaze. “In Maranil back home, Gem and I assembled a G5 electronic computer from old manuals. We built the computer from scratch, but a week later our president confiscated the machine. She enacted a law that forbade Maranilans from creating new tech that had no agricultural purpose. ‘A waste of our resources,’ she said. ‘You should’ve invented high-tech fishing gear.’ We were chastised in Maranil, but I was certain we’d thrive in Altia.”
Padgett shakes her head in remembrance. “Gem didn’t want to leave. She felt as though she had something to prove in Maranil and the gods wanted her there. I stayed right by her side.” She steps forward. “I didn’t leave my sister behind then and I certainly won’t abandon her now. We weren’t right for Maranil, but we belong on that starcraft. Together. That’s why I care.”
“Does this mean you won’t be asking for my indigo card today?” I question.
Her lip hikes. “I won’t hassle you anymore.”
I pick my words carefully. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t want the winds to change now. It might create a storm.”
“Can I have your card?” Padgett asks.
“No.”
“Well then.” Padgett bids us farewell and then exits as discreetly as she arrived.
Franny presses her lips to the rim of her mug. “Gem told me something last week and I didn’t think it mattered much. Now, I don’t know…”
“What?” Court and I say together.
“Padgett and Gem have the same deathday,” Franny says. “It’s rare, but not uncommon for family, I’ve heard.”
Court’s worry mounts like bricks compacting on his chest. “It matters.”
“Why?” I scratch at my rough jaw.
“Oftentimes, when family has the same deathday, they die together in the same place and the same time,” Court explains, his voice strained and tight. “Which means that if Padgett is on the Saga when she reaches her deathday, then Gem is more likely to be with her sister. It only leaves three open spaces for the mission and no room for error.”
I watch Franny’s face fall. “We’ll be all right,” I say. “Maybe they’ll die apart.”
“Unlikely.” Court snuffs out my optimism.
“Mayday,” Franny curses beneath her breath, but not at Court or me. I catch sight of an angered little lady with silky russet pigtails. With accusations on her round face, she weaves through the congested tavern.
Raina Nearfall charges toward Franny.
THIRTY
Franny
Raina smacks her palms flat on the tabletop. “You thief.”
I startle. “Thief?” Of all the names she could’ve called me, I wasn’t prepared for this one. “I stole nothing of yours.” I even gently returned her indigo card to its original place. The details make me feel less like a wart.
Stretching over the table, she sneers, “You know what you did. I heard you spread my word to other candidates this very morning.”
I grow hot and lean close, our noses nearly touching. “I did what I had to.” In my journal, I even scribbled, Telling candidates Raina’s word—owed to Raina.
“It wasn’t fair or right,” Raina retorts. “I worked hard to be here. It’s all I’ve ever wanted in life and you’re stealing my dream. It’s not fair.” Every hurt syllable punctures my spirit.
Guilt douses my fiery demeanor. “What do you want in return?” I ask.
Court stiffens, but Raina quickly snaps, “Nothing. There is nothing in this world that can replace what you’ve taken.”
“It wasn’t yours,” Court interjects.
“Excuse me?”
Court combats the little girl with only a shadow of remorse. “You haven’t earned anything yet. You say she stole a dream, but you’re forgetting that we all have dreams.”
Our dreams don’t align with anyone else’s, I remember.
“You would rather succeed by cheating then?” Raina asks me. “Is that how you really wish to be hired?”
I force down any regret. Not wanting to turn back the days. Every time I share the word tree, I help Mykal and hurt Raina. I know. Our survival depends on leaving behind disasters and broken hearts. And my morality fissures little by little. Yearning for me to mend the cracked pieces.
I can’t. I know I can’t.
If I want to survive, then I need to destroy her chances and better ours.
“I wish to succeed by any means,” I tell her with a heavy heart. “I’m sorry.”
Raina growls between her teeth, then captures Mykal’s mug and douses my face with ale. Fyke. I pinch my burning eyes shut.
Mykal stands and hollers, shooing Raina away, and Court quickly passes me a stack of thin paper napkins. Burying my face in them, I soak the auburn liquid and groan in defeat. “I deserved
that.”
“No you didn’t,” Court says sternly. “We’re enrolled in StarDust and some of us won’t be hired for the mission. You don’t see other candidates starting food fights when they’re expelled.”
Mykal collapses to his seat and starts squeezing out my drenched hair. “And she hasn’t even been expelled yet.” I hear the underlying question. What if she still beats Mykal?
I ball the sopping napkins. “Raina is worried. Otherwise she wouldn’t be this mad.”
Court nods in agreement.
When I chug the last of my ale, I expect wooziness or giddy feelings, but the effects never touch me. I frown and size up my mug. A drink this large usually bangs at my head and lightens my body, but I feel no different. What a day.
And of course, the night becomes stranger.
Zimmer appears. Instantly, Mykal puts his boots on the only free seat, but Zimmer yanks the chair away and spins it backward. Sitting with his legs spread, he invites himself to our table.
“You’re not wanted here,” I tell him easily, Mykal and Court’s displeasure clear on their faces and in my body. I consider Zimmer as good of a Fast-Tracker friend as any, but there is a level of mistrust that I try not to ignore.
“That’s never stopped me before, orphan Fast-Tracker,” he says, then swings his mop of brown hair to Court. “Influential, obviously.” To Mykal, he clucks his tongue and snaps his fingers. “Orrish Fast-Tracker. Possibly.”
I kick the leg of his chair. “And you’re a nosy Fast-Tracker.”
Zimmer drags himself even closer to the table. “Wise Fast-Tracker.” He flashes a self-satisfied smile. “I fixed it for you.”
“Wart. I fixed it better—”
“People are around,” Court cuts in, severity blanketing his grave eyes.
Zimmer plucks napkins out of the steel dispenser. “And we’d have to yell for anyone else to hear us. You seriously haven’t noticed how loud it is?” He chucks the napkins at my face. “You’re dripping.”
I shoot him a glare but gather the napkins and pat the ale off my temples. “Someone threw a drink at me.”
“I saw.”
Mykal runs his tongue against his molars. “Is that why you’re bothering us?”
“No. For one, I thought I’d maintain appearances. Seeing as how I’m in an alliance now.” Zimmer reaches to pat Court on the shoulder and Mykal slaps his hand away. “Holy hells, all right—I won’t touch without asking.” Zimmer balances on two legs of his chair. “Everywhere I look, more and more candidates are coupling. It’s turning into a fykking dating show.”
I toss my dirtied napkins at him, but he blocks more than a few with his hand. “Why would you be in an alliance with…?” I trail off because the answer hits me. Court aided Zimmer in the pool. Therefore the other candidates must believe Court is protecting him.
“I didn’t help you because I like you,” Court says bluntly.
“And I’d be a chump to believe you did.” Zimmer raises two fingers. “And two, I’m here to announce that we’re even. You got me fired and now you helped me through an exam.”
My brows crinkle. “Wait, wait. You’re sleeping in my bed to erase that debt. We don’t owe you twice.”
Mykal grins wide as Zimmer gawks, befuddled for a moment. His neck flushes red.
“So you do owe Court for saving you,” I tell him. “Unless you’d rather leave my bed.”
Zimmer rips apart the soggy napkins. “How about I just write an I owe you in a journal? That seems to work so fantastically for you.”
I glare.
“You told him about your journal?” Court scolds.
“Not really.” While writing in my journal one night, Zimmer asked for a blank page. Strangely he likes reading—he said he taught himself in the boring hours at the Catherina—and even more than that, he enjoys drawing his favorite scenes from classic fantasy novels. As I tore a page from my journal, he caught sight of my scribbled words.
Under the covers, he asked me, “You can’t really expect to repay everything you’ve ever taken.”
“I will.” I glowered, about to shut off his little handheld light and ignore him completely.
He jerked the light out of my grasp. “You’re bound to disappoint yourself, and I’d rather not be around when you meet the truth.”
I had to ask. “What truth?”
“That your journal is a placeholder for all your bizarre remorse.” Zimmer then described how half the people on my list would probably die young. And no one would dwell on the dead the way that I did.
Maybe I am avoiding the full impact of all the wrongs I’ve made and all the debts I’ve incurred, but right now I need the journal to be more at peace with my decisions.
“What do you mean by not really?” Court asks the both of us.
“I accidentally saw her journal one night,” Zimmer says with a shrug. “It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be.”
Court begins to boil, disliking Zimmer’s snappy tone, and before a stew starts, I reroute the topic. “Unless you want to leave my bed, you do owe Court,” I tell Zimmer.
Mykal straightens up at this news, pleased that Zimmer will most likely sleep in his own bed now.
Zimmer licks his bottom lip, thinking and thinking. “All right, what do you want?”
“You like her bed that much?” Mykal clutches his empty mug with whitened knuckles.
Zimmer shreds more napkins into piles. “I like the company.”
“The company,” Mykal spits out like it’s a foul word.
I try to keep focused, but their heat swelters my skin. “We want to see your indigo card,” I tell Zimmer. “Then we’re even.”
Once I tried to make another swap: his indigo card in exchange for my Juggernaut. He immediately rejected me. “I hate drugs,” he said, and before sleep, he whispered about how he took Hibiscus, fell unconscious, and woke days later. I heard how addictive Hibiscus could be, and I didn’t have the bills for that kind of constant pleasure. So I never tried it, but the loss of time scared Zimmer enough to stay away from all drugs.
Zimmer digs into his pocket. “Only because I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Court, but know, if you spread my word around, I’ll come after all three of you.”
Court swiftly plucks the indigo card from his fingers, digests the word, and then slides it back. “It’s an icicle.”
“And three.” Zimmer raises three fingers. There’s a third reason for why he’s at our table? “I should look past this—hells, I’ve looked past a ton already—but it’s eating at me. So I’m asking you.” He zeroes in on Court. “That day at the Catherina, I let you through the back door with a passed-out and bruised Fast-Tracker. I asked no questions, but I’m asking now: What’s your relation to Wilafran?”
Frost nips my veins. I hadn’t even thought about Zimmer’s perspective. How he saw me being carried in Mykal’s arms: battered by the Fast-Trackers in rags who fought to steal my clothes.
Mykal grips the table. “I was with him, you realize?”
“You’re not the Influential.” Zimmer holds Court’s narrowed gaze. “I’ve seen enough of them take advantage of strung-out, unconscious FTs. They’re going to die in a few years anyway, right?”
Court ices over. “It’s not like you stopped me.”
His throat bobs. “Just tell me. What is she to you?” Zimmer did ask me this before and all I said was, “We’re not married.” I should’ve been more specific, but what is Court to me? If there’s a precise word, I don’t know it.
Court’s eyes soften on me. “She’s my dear friend.”
I smile weakly. I like how he tenderly cradles the words. To Zimmer, I add, “Some Fast-Trackers tried to steal my clothes off my back. He just wanted me to be warm.”
After Zimmer settles with the truth, he asks if I can speak alone with him. I don’t mind. So I rise and stumble. Woozy. I grip the back of Mykal’s chair. Gods.
My lips part in realization. The ale I chugged,
I must’ve been more homed in on their senses. Not my own. My vision blurs, but I blink and blink.
Zimmer stands right in front of me.
“When did you get there?” At least I’m not slurring my words.
Court asks if I need help, half rising out of his chair—and I bet he’s seconds from suggesting I sit. I assure him that I can walk on my own and I do just that. Albeit, not very gracefully, but my gait has never been very sweet natured.
We wander into the back of the tavern. Where the lighting dims and vibrantly clothed Fast-Trackers play dice, swig ale, and laugh raucously. I spot orange braids, pink and lavender chopped hair, intricate tattoos, and silver piercings.
I wobble into the wall and lean for support.
Zimmer props his shoulder next to me. “How do you go from being coherent to sloshed in seconds?”
The link. “Maybe I’m a Wonder,” I joke.
“Wonders have more sense than you. And me.” Zimmer never presses for a real answer. More thoughts nag at him and he lets them out quickly. “Remember what you asked me yesterday night?”
I do. “I asked when you’re going to die.” For a silly moment, I believed he dodged his deathday too. But without citing myself, I mentioned the theory, and he laughed so loudly that he almost woke up Gem.
Zimmer has a deathday and while every candidate in StarDust will live beyond a hundred years, Zimmer will die much sooner than that. He bought a fake identification to enter StarDust as an Influential.
All I know for certain is that he won’t see past twenty-nine.
No one’s deathday has ever saddened me before, but I often find myself wishing Zimmer had as much time as every other candidate.
“I said that I’d think about whether or not I’d tell you my deathday.”
“I remember that too.”
“I decided.” Zimmer nods to himself. “I’m not ever telling you, and I don’t want to hear yours either. When you look at me, the last thing I want you to see is an approaching deathday. I want to be more than a dying Fast-Tracker in everyone’s eyes.”
I can live with not knowing his deathday much easier than I can live with not knowing my own.
The noise escalates, half the FTs cheering, the other half groaning and booing. “Is that why you’re pretending to be an Influential?” I ask quietly enough.
The Raging Ones Page 28