Catching Stars

by Cayla Keenan

  The streets were emptier than she’d ever seen them, especially for the daytime. Only fools and carrions were out at night, so those who carved out lives in the slums did so in broad daylight. But Jayin only saw a handful of people as she prowled through the familiar streets, searching for a place to hole up while she figured out her next move. Everything was quiet and Jayin’s skin started to prickle when three carrions appeared in front of her. Twice in one day. It was almost like the city was welcoming her home.

  Oh Jayin, how we’ve missed you. Now you must die.

  The carrions looked different. Something in their eyes and auras was jagged, desperate. There were three of them and only one of her; they should have been vibrating with confidence. Instead, they almost looked scared.

  “Let’s not do anything stupid,” Jayin said carefully, holding her hands out in front of her. She didn’t want another bloodbath, not against kids.

  “Give us your coin or we’ll kill you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve got nothing.”

  The carrions swore, prowling closer, but it was obvious that their hearts weren’t in it.

  “Fine,” Jayin said, pulling out her knives and spinning them around her thumbs. The display didn’t stop them—

  But something else did.

  Smoke filled the street, blotting out the muted sunshine, and then there were voices all around them. Something rumbled and flashed, and Jayin shrouded herself in glamor.

  “You know better,” a voice said out of the gloom, mocking and undeniably female. “These streets are protected.”

  Jayin paused, not recognizing the voice or the signature. Was this a new player who’d risen since Jayin had left?

  “We ain’t afraid of you!” one of them shouted at the empty air. The tremor in his voice said differently.

  “Leave now and I’ll let you live,” said the disembodied voice.

  “You don’t control us, witch.” Witch? This wasn’t magic, not by a long shot. But carrions had always been stupidly superstitious, and they had no practical knowledge of magic. Easy marks for a sahir imposter.

  “And you don’t cross the Gulwitch without paying the price,” the voice said. Lightning flashed and steel clanged as the carrions’ weapons hit the streets. The boys were gone by the time the non-magical dust settled.

  Jayin’s head spun. She knew that she was infamous in the slums, but she’d never gone so far as to claim territory. She certainly didn’t go around terrorizing carrion gangs and rescuing civilians.

  “Grab their weapons,” a girl said, appearing on a window ledge. Two identical, impossibly young boys clambered to the street, scooping up the knives the carrions had left behind. “Come on guys, let’s go home.”

  “Where’d that girl go?” one of the twins asked. Their friend slid down from the ledge with impressive agility, her braids swinging around her head.

  “If she’s smart, she’s on her way out of the city by now.” The girl looked barely over twelve years old, but she was clearly the leader of this little trio. “It’s a good thing we were here or she’d be dead.”

  She was very confident, and Jayin admired that. But there was also no way this girl, even as talented as she was, was running things. Jayin reinforced the glamor as she walked behind them, wary of being spotted.

  The kids didn’t go very far, ducking into a building only a few blocks from her old place. Jayin slipped in before the door could close behind them, staying in the shadows. This was proving to be an interesting little detour.

  “R!” the girl shouted. Her voice echoed off the walls and Jayin could sense over a dozen people in there with them, all of them children. Jayin inched forward, craning her neck to see who was coming down the stairs.

  “Well, well,” a voice said before Jayin could take another step.

  The doors of the building flew open behind her, and a tall figure strode inside, flanked by the most carrions Jayin had ever seen in one place. She spotted the marks of at least three different gangs, and yet they seemed to be working together. What had happened while she was away?

  “This must be where the Gulwitch and her charges rest their heads.”

  It took Jayin a moment but she recognized the leader, the man who’d spoken. He was a turncoat Guard who’d betrayed his mandate to run with the gangs. There was more money in murder than in keeping the peace.

  Jayin’s blood boiled. If any Guard should be thrown into the Pit to rot, it was him.

  "You’re not welcome here," the same voice echoed from the shadows, but no smoke or flash accompanied the words. They hadn’t expected to be followed home. "Leave now and we’ll let you live."

  “I hear you,” the Guard said, his head swiveling from left to right, “but I don’t see you. You know, we’re starting to think that there’s not a drop of magical blood in this stinking place.” His eyes glittered. “Let’s spill it all, just to be sure.”

  “You want magic?” Jayin shouted, glamoring her voice so that it rang through the building like rumbling thunder. She prayed that whoever these kids were, they’d get the hint. “I’ll show you magic.”

  She ran into the center of the floor, her glamor filling the room, all glowing eyes and terrible tattoos. The disguise came naturally, settling over her skin like battle-worn armor. Jayin stretched the illusion as far as it would go, blotting out the dim light that filtered in through the high windows. Emerald flames erupted all around her.

  Finally smoke filled the room and Jayin scaled back her magic. Before she could try another trick, flash-bombs erupted at the doorway. In the darkness, she could feel the intruders’ panic and fear. Hoping the kids could keep up the charade for a bit longer, Jayin bent the glamor of herself over until she loomed over the Guard. His eyes bulged and all the blood drained from his face.

  “I know you, Mal Thane,” she said. “I know where you live, where you drink, where you hide your money from your own people. I know where your wife and child sleep at night, and if you cross me, I will make you watch as I take it all from you. And when you have nothing left to lose, I will peel the skin from your bones.”

  The Guard made a tiny, terrified noise, and then he was gone without so much as a word, leaving the carrions behind. Jayin opened her mouth, spitting acid-green flame. By the time the smoke cleared, the rest of them had fled as well.

  Jayin made sure that they were all gone before dispelling the glamor. She thumbed the triggers of her arm sheaths, ready to defend herself at a moment’s notice. She didn’t know how these kids, whoever they were, would react to her little magic show.

  “Jayin?” a voice came out of the gloom. Jayin’s heart jumped as she saw a familiar face coming towards her.

  Ravi. He ran at her, launching himself into her arms and wrapping his own around her midsection.

  “Hey there kiddo,” she said softly when they finally broke apart, “You’ve been busy.”

  “You came back,” he said. His voice was small and tears gathered on his lower lashes. Stars, he looked so young.

  “I told you I would,” Jayin said. The words tasted like acid, like guilt. She never meant to come back.

  “Burning stars,” the girl with the braids whispered. “You’re her.”

  “But you’ve been doing a very good job pretending to be me,” Jayin observed. The girl blushed. “So are you going to introduce me or what?”

  “Guys come on out!” Ravi called. Slowly, fourteen dirty, suspicious faces revealed themselves. Most of them had that shifty, waifish look that had taken hold of the Gull and at least four sported carrion tattoos.

  “I told you she was real,” Ravi said proudly. Jayin had to fight to keep from squirming under their scrutiny. There were a few moments of tense, awkward silence before Ravi spoke again. “I guess you want some answers,” he said almost sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “How about we take a walk?” Jayin suggested, a little twitchy from being inspected by fourteen pairs of eyes. “See how the old shop is holding up.
”

  Ravi nodded, obviously sensing her discomfort.

  "Alright, the show’s over!" Ravi said to the crowd. "We got work to do." There was a sigh from the kids, but none of them argued, slipping out of the building in pairs. Smart policy. The streets had never been safe for kids, and now things seemed worse than ever.

  “They’re going to want to talk to you,” he warned once they’d all gone. The girl with the braids lingered a little longer than the others, her dark eyes narrowed.

  “You cut your hair,” Ravi said as they made their way through the streets. Jayin brushed her fingers through her bangs. She understood his hesitation. She’d been gone a long time, and there was no telling how much she had changed since Ravi last saw her.

  “And you started a gang,” Jayin replied, trying to set him at ease. She scrubbed at her eyes, trying to familiarize herself with the auras in the building. Being outside was a relief. “I thought I told you to stay away from carrions, not start recruiting.”

  Ravi blushed, ducking his head like he used to when she scolded him. Some things stayed the same. “S’not a gang.”

  “Sure looks like a gang,” she replied, tapping the top of his head. Privately, Jayin was happy he hadn’t grown. Another lasting bit of normalcy.

  From the outside, the shop looked miraculously intact, but Jayin couldn’t help but hold her breath as she pushed the door open. Everything looked how she’d left it. Herbs, poultices, satchels full of mundane and magical ingredients alike, they were all still there. In fact, it looked like someone had restocked at least once. A thin layer of dust had settled over everything.

  “I kept everything running as long as I could,” Ravi explained. “I, uh, I lived in your apartment too. Me and a few others until there were too many of us. We kept the doors open for as long as we could, but then things got bad.”

  “What happened?” Jayin asked. “I mean, the gangs coming together, you amassing kids and rescuing people off of the street….” It was something out of fairytale. Heroics had never gone far in the Gull.

  “Things changed when you went away,” Ravi said. “People started getting sick. Real sick, and none of the healers could do anything to stop it. Carrions, merchants, dockmen, old, young, it didn’t matter. The whole place went mad.”

  “So how did you get the idea to bring me into it?”

  “Only thing that scares people more than a plague is a witch.” Ravi shrugged. He ran his finger along the dusty counter, writing his name with a bitten nailbed. It’s how he learned to write, drawing the letters with his fingers before graduating to ink. “The gangs were pulling in anyone they could and killing everyone else. When they finally made it here I borrowed some of your flash and scared them off.” He smiled a little, but it was a small, barely-there thing. “I couldn’t keep it up on my own so I started recruiting. Zia, Palla, Dej, those were the first three, and then it kind of spiraled.”

  “Kane,” Jayin said after a long moment. The Bloodwing leader was the first thing that came to mind. Stars, Jayin hadn’t thought about him since Maerta showed up in the Gull. “Did Kane get sick too?”

  “Yeah, he was one of the first.”

  Jayin’s blood cooled in her veins. Whatever had made Pavaal sick wasn’t mundane. She’d felt the strange magical reverberation in Kane, and when she’d turned her power on Hale so long ago in the sahirla’s cage, then again in the sahir who’d led the Kaddahn into the tunnels.

  “It burned through here like a fire and then stopped like nothing had even happened. But by then it was just one gang and us, trying to survive.” Ravi continued, his voice weighed down. He seemed to have aged years since the last time she saw him.

  “Stars, I missed you,” she said, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. She set her chin on top of his curly hair and didn’t say a word as his thin shoulders shook with silent sobs. She waited until the trembling subsided, rubbing her gloved hand on his arm.

  “I thought you died,” he whispered finally. “Before things fell apart, there were people looking for you everywhere. They said you were a deserter, and when they stopped looking I thought they’d killed you.”

  “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon,” Jayin promised.

  “I’m tired, Jay,” Ravi said after a short, heavy silence. She could tell. His energy was heavy with a burden she couldn’t imagine. “They need me to keep them safe and I don’t know how much longer flash will work.”

  “It’s okay,” Jayin said, turning to him and tilting his head up so he was looking her in the eye. “You don’t need tricks anymore. You’ve got me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five:

  Maddix

  There was something wrong with Maia.

  Maddix had woken up before the sun to scout the area, careful not to wake her, but when he returned it was clear that they weren’t going anywhere. The young sahir was on the floor a few feet away from her mattress, curled into a tiny ball. It looked like she’d tried to move before falling over. Her face was bloodless, and when Maddix put his hands on her skin, her forehead burned. He managed to get her back into bed, but the fever was burning through her.

  “Maddix?” Maia said weakly, rousing from the haze.

  “Hey,” he said, pressing a cool towel to her forehead.

  “I’m sick,” she said.

  “It’s probably just a cold,” he assured her. All Guards had basic medical training—sicknesses spread through their barracks like lice in the Gull—but he hadn’t seen anything like this. Yesterday Maia had been fine. Today she could hardly move.

  “I’m sick,” she said again. “I’m a healer. We don’t get sick.”

  “We’ll get you another healer,” he said bracingly, rewetting the cloth and mopping at her brow.

  Maia shook her head, tears shining in her bloodshot eyes. “I won’t make it back to the others in Kaddah.”

  “Then we won’t go to Kaddah,” Maddix said. They were only a day or two from Pavaal, and the best healers in the kingdom lived in the capitol. If Maia could hang on for a little while longer, he could get her there.

  Fear bloomed in his chest as Maddix thought of finally returning to Pavaal. He had been trying to get back for so long—it was the reason he joined the sahirla, how he found Jayin—but now that he would be there in only a few days time, all the revenge-born bravado disappeared, leaving nothing but fear behind. Skies, he was scared.

  “No,” Maia said, guessing his idea. “They’ll kill you.”

  “Only if they catch me,” Maddix said, forcing a smile. He wished he were a better liar.

  “But—”

  “If I let anything happen to you, Evin and Rahael will hunt me down and kill me anyway. Besides, I’ve gotten used to having you around.”

  Maia tried to smile, but it was weak. She was fading quickly.

  “You just get some sleep, okay?” he said, but she was already snoring. Maddix made sure the house was secure as he slipped out and walked to the nearest town. It wasn’t much, just a few small shopfronts and a tiny inn.

  After doing a quick sweep to make sure no one would spot him, Maddix broke into the barn outside of a ramshackle inn that hadn’t seen business in months. There was no way that Maia would be able to walk all the way to Pavaal, and even if she could, Maddix didn’t think she would last the time it took to get there on foot. So, in broad daylight, he walked out of the barn with a horse and a cart in tow.

  Everyone knew things were getting bad, but Maddix didn’t realize exactly how bad. It looked like something had come down from the sky and struck down the land and people alike. He wondered how long it would take to reach the cities, if it hadn’t already.

  He would find out soon enough. In a few days he would be back, with only the barest shred of a plan and a dying witch to worry about. He never should’ve left the sahir in Kaddah. He never should’ve gone on this harebrained mission in the first place.

  For so long, Maddix thought that if he found the witch w
ho was responsible for killing all those people and somehow force them to confess, he could have a life again. A real life. He could live free, not constantly on the run and looking over his shoulder. Even after everything, he still believed the courts would set things right. But looking at the deserted road and the ruined farms all around him, doubt surged anew.

  Jayin would’ve been unbearable, knowing he finally agreed with her bleak opinion of the Crown. She never would’ve let him hear the end of it.

  I miss you, he thought. I hope you’re safe.

  Maia was still asleep when Maddix returned. He tied the stolen horse to the back fence, well out of view of the street, though somehow he doubted that anyone was going to come looking. He pressed a fresh towel to her forehead and drew the sheets up to her chin.

  There wasn’t much else he could do, so Maddix busied himself with readying the cart for travel. As he worked, he couldn’t help but think back to the last time he’d traveled with an injured witch.

  Jayin had been half-dead and bloody. She scared him more than he was willing to admit. And she was still the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, he just didn’t know it quite yet. He should’ve seen the strength and the pride in those green eyes and realized that everything he had ever believed about witches was wrong. He should have known better.

  Maddix wondered if she would miss him. If this went badly, the news of his capture would reach every corner of the kingdom. Maybe it would find her too. Would she mourn, even after everything?

  I don’t regret you. Maddix could hear the words as clearly as if she was standing right beside him. That had probably changed now that he left her behind. Still, Maddix hoped. It was selfish—he was selfish—but somehow the idea of marching into the jaws of the capitol was more bearable if he imagined that she forgave him.

  Just the knowledge that Jayin was still out there—ferocious, magical, beautiful Jayin—made it easier. He’d done one thing right. He hadn’t gotten her killed along with him. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. It had to be enough, or Maddix wasn’t going to make it within a mile of Pavaal.