by Marisa Mills
Gabriel had a guest, an elegant-looking man, dressed all in black and wearing a sword, who lounged across an old, worn loveseat. Seeing us, he rose to his feet. When he moved, the light rippled across the purple trim on his coat, gleaming in the dim light.
“Here you are, Dorian,” Gabriel said, sinking into a chair.
As Dorian approached, my blood turned to ice. Like my uncle, this man bore no traces of the hard living that had plagued the rest of us in the Scraps. But my uncle didn’t look so…so unnaturally beautiful. There was something uncanny about how healthy Dorian looked and how his skin seemed to hold a faint, golden glow just beneath the surface. And Gabriel’s implications about Sterling’s sister suddenly sank in. I was staring at a mage, and he was here for me. Even if I didn’t know why.
Dorian put a finger beneath my chin and coaxed my attention back to him. I tried to take him in pieces, to make him less terrifying. His hair was a warm autumn-brown, probably only a little darker than Sterling’s was. Very ordinary, even if I’d never seen anyone have hair that looked so sleek and healthy before. And Dorian’s eyes were steel-blue rather than the fierce red Gabriel said the mage-lady had. But even those observations didn’t help much. I’d heard too many stories of mage wars not to be afraid. Sorcerers who could slice through a hundred humans in one blow; who could melt the stones of a fortress or pass straight through its walls; who could whisper to the trees and have them destroy their enemies.
“And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?” he asked.
“Wynter,” I said.
“That’s very…unusual.”
“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to change it,” Gabriel replied.
Change it?
Dorian circled me and then, swept back into his seat. He awkwardly edged his sword around and glared at the loveseat as if it was its fault he couldn’t sit properly. When he moved, I caught the glimpse of something blue along his wrist; it looked like a drawing. It was probably magic of some kind.
Dorian winked before casting a mischievous look towards my uncle. “How did a plain man like you have such a beautiful niece?”
It was clear Dorian was trying to be charming. Maybe if I didn’t act charmed, he’d decide he didn’t like me and abandon whatever this was.
“I ain’t all that pretty,” I said, picking up my uncle’s diction. “There’s lots of prettier—”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Dorian interrupted, “And if you’re as smart as Gabriel says, we should be able to make this work. Of course, it’ll take a little polishing to make anyone believe you’re a lady, but this seems doable. Are you literate?”
Gabriel scoffed. “Do you really think I wouldn’t teach my kids how to read?”
“Potentially,” Dorian said.
“Why would people need to think I’m a lady?” I asked.
Gabriel looked absolutely gleeful, steepling his fingers. His lips curved into a smile, and his teeth shone in the light of the flickering fire.
“We’re considering a business venture. Dorian wanted to see you before we negotiated a price.”
I felt faint. Would Gabriel really go this far? I didn’t want to believe it, but with a cold jolt of fear, I realized that he absolutely would.
“You’re selling me?” I asked, nearly choking on the question.
It hurt more than I expected. My uncle was terrible and quick-tempered. Impossible to please. But he was still my family, the only family I had aside from my brother. And now he was done with me. My stomach twisted painfully.
“It’s more like…” Gabriel trailed off and waved a hand. “…indentured servitude. A contract. I ain’t actually selling you anytime soon. Your brother, however…”
“You wouldn’t,” I said.
I needed to throw up. I rested my palm against the cool stone wall for support.
“Do you really think that?” Gabriel asked.
Not for a second. Gabriel didn’t make empty threats. My mind whirled as I pictured being separated from Briar. I couldn’t let that happen. If I did this job, whatever it was, maybe I’d be allowed to come home. As long as I didn’t get caught. I didn’t know Dorian or what he wanted, but good, honest men didn’t do business with my uncle.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Dorian is a mage,” Gabriel said.
I’d already guessed that, but hearing my fears confirmed was so much worse.
“I want you to enter in the Academy as a student. It’s a school for mages.”
Were they both out of their minds?
“I can’t,” I said. “There’s no way anyone would mistake me for a mage. I—I don’t have any magic!”
“For your sake, I hope you can fake it,” Gabriel said.
“We aren’t going to have you stay very long,” Dorian said. “I just need you to steal something for me. Our plan is to have you pose as a student, enter the Academy, and help me find what I’m looking for. Then, we’ll pull you out and bring you home. It’s a relatively simple task. Low risks involved, too.”
Thieves in the Scraps lost fingers for stealing, one digit for each offense; I couldn’t even imagine what horrible things might happen to thieves in the Floats. Maybe this had low risks for Gabriel and Dorian, but definitely not for me.
“Sell this well, and you ain’t gotta worry,” Gabriel said. “We’ve got a few weeks to get you ready. Tomorrow, we’ll take you to the Market and buy some things to help you look the part.”
Dorian nodded. “It’ll be great,” he said, sounding genuinely thrilled with the prospect.
I looked at Gabriel, hoping he might relent or reveal that this had been some horrible joke to teach me my place, but my uncle’s smug smile never faltered. Whatever Dorian was paying him, it was worth a lot more than what I dug up in the Dregs. This was really happening. My pulse raced. There had to be some way out. I just had to find it.
Two
MY STEPS WERE HEAVY AS I walked back to the room I shared with my brother. How was I supposed to tell Briar about all this? I have to go away for a while. Where? Oh, to a mage school in the Floats. I promise I’ll come back. Probably.
And then, I’d have to tell Sterling. If my uncle even allowed that. My heart twisted when I thought of just leaving without saying goodbye; him having to hear second-hand that I was gone. I shivered and rubbed my forearms in a half-hearted attempt to warm myself. I wasn’t ready for this conversation.
I paused and leaned against the wall. The cold, rough stone felt reassuring beneath my fingertips. Slowly, I sank to the ground. I felt like I might throw up, and I lowered my head between my knees, taking deep breaths to help with the nausea. I needed to think logically about this.
One. My uncle had sold me for an incredibly dangerous scheme. There was no way anyone would ever think that I was a mage. I’d been average my whole life, and mages were anything but average.
Two. Arguing would be pointless. Once my uncle settled on something, he did it without any hesitation or pause. Dorian likely wouldn’t be sympathetic either, considering this whole scheme had been his idea to begin with.
Which meant, the only way to get out of this suicide mission was to run. Surviving in the Scraps was already hard, but with my uncle, at least we had protection, shelter, and a meager supply of food. That was more than I’d have on my own.
Maybe I could go to the Dregs again, fill my pack, and instead of returning to the subway, I could just leave. Walk away just like that and take Briar with me. Sterling, too, maybe. My heart twisted. No, taking Sterling would be impossible. Sterling would never leave, not with his mother sick. It would have to be just Briar and me.
Would my uncle even let me scavenge after this, though? He was more likely to keep me under careful watch, expecting that I’d try and run. I grimaced. He might not be watching Briar as much, but I couldn’t send Briar to the Dregs alone. Maybe I could ask Sterling to go with him, but then, I’d
have to get a message to Sterling about everything without my uncle’s goons intercepting it.
I leaned my head back against the wall and gazed upward. The stone above my head was cracked, and through the cracks, I saw slivers of the full moon; bright and silver in the dark sky. As a kid, I’d heard that the moon was the mother of the world, and I remembered being comforted by that once. When I was upset, I’d look at the moon and think of her as the mother I never knew. Any mom was better than none. But the moon had ceased to comfort me long ago. Tonight, her presence was cold and distant.
I stood slowly and pushed open the door to our room. Briar sat on his bed, little more than a mattress and a couple of sheets. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I shrugged and sat on my bed. “It’s not your fault our uncle’s a monster,” I said.
After kicking my shoes off, I fell backward onto my bed and kneaded the blanket beneath my fingers. I let my eyes shift from the cracked ceiling to the bare stone walls. We’d put a patch of torn fabric over the small window to keep mosquitos out, so there was fresh air at least. During the winter we left is open, despite the cold. When we were small, we collected baubles to craft into dolls and toys which we hid under the bed, but that was years ago. Neither of us felt like playing make-believe anymore.
I had to tell Briar. I was working up to it.
“Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t mess up so much.”
I shook my head. “Some men are just bad. Our uncle’s one of them.”
“Yeah?” Briar asked.
“Yeah. Even if you did everything perfectly, he’d still be awful. Nothing is gonna change that,” I said. “That’s the way Gabriel is and probably how he’s always been.”
Briar sighed. “I think I maybe know that deep down,” he said. “I just hate that I always make him angry, and then, sometimes, he takes it out on you.”
“I’m your big sister. It’s my job to take care of you. I can handle our uncle.”
“Better than I can,” he said. “That’s for sure.”
I hesitated, mulling over my words. How did I want to break this to him? It didn’t seem like the kind of situation that I could really soften. “Briar,” I said slowly, “I might be going away for a while.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Gabriel has hired me to do some things,” I said. “That’s all. He has a friend who is hoping to have me steal a few pieces of mage tech. Nothing that dangerous.”
“Stealing?” Briar asked. “But thieves are—”
“I know,” I replied. “But this is what he wants me to do.”
“Why can’t Gabriel just steal them?” Briar asked. “Or have one of his men bully their way into getting whatever he wants? He’s done that before.”
“I guess he’s just trying to…get me to branch out or something. You know Gabriel is weird sometimes. Besides, we steal all the time.”
“Not from people,” Briar said. “Nobody cares if we scavenge. Thieves get punished. For real. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s not like I have a choice,” I said. “Also, there’s something else.”
“More?” he asked.
“It’s not just anyone that Gabriel wants me to steal from. He wants me to steal from mages.”
“Actual mages? In person?” Briar asked. “But there aren’t any mages in the Scraps.”
“No,” I said carefully. “There aren’t.”
I let the words sink between us. Briar inhaled sharply, then I knew he’d gotten it.
“You can’t be serious. You’d have to go to the Floats.”
“That’s exactly where he wants me to go,” I replied, sitting upright.
My brother’s face was horrified. With a twinge of guilt, I wondered if I should’ve lied to him and downplayed the potential danger. But he needed to know what was at stake.
“Say something,” I said.
“I don’t know what to say!” Briar exclaimed, running his hands through his hair. “I—Wynter, you can’t! How does he even expect this to work?”
“He wants me to pose as a mage.”
“A mage that comes from the Scraps?” Briar asked.
“I dunno,” I replied. “It’s something that Gabriel and his contact are planning together. I’m sure they’ve thought about that already.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Briar said. “You’ll never pass as a mage. Can’t you just…?”
“Just what?” I asked. “Threaten to sabotage them? Turn them over to the mages? I can imagine how well that would go over.”
Briar crossed the room and plopped onto my bed with me.
“Let’s be realistic,” I said. “Our uncle would be furious. There’s no telling what he’d do to us if I tried to sabotage this plan of his.”
“But you can’t go through with it. If you go up there… you won’t come back.”
I reached over and ruffled his hair. “I know,” I said. “I’m trying to figure it out.”
“What if you run away?” Briar asked quietly, his eyes darting to the door.
“If we run away,” I replied. “I’m not leaving you here with him.”
Briar slowly curled his hands into fists. “I’ll only slow you down,” he said. “I’d just be an extra thing to worry about.”
“You don’t think I’d worry about you either way?” I asked. “With me or not, it doesn’t matter. Besides, if you’re with me, I don’t have to worry about what Gabriel might do to you.”
“I don’t guess he’d let me go instead of you?”
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to ask. “No,” I said.
Briar scowled.
“His contact is a mage, too,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I nodded.
“Did he look like the mages from the stories?”
“Some,” I said slowly. “He didn’t have the red eyes. He was…impressive.”
“Did he use any magic? Are you sure he’s even a real mage?”
“No magic,” I replied, “But I definitely think he’s the real thing. At least, he’s clearly a man from money.”
“What was he doing in the Scraps? Mages never come here.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Looking for a street urchin to pose as a mage lady, I guess. He didn’t seem to like it down here.” Maybe I could convince Dorian that I wasn’t the deal he thought I was. Then he’d have to find someone else. That wouldn’t be without repercussions, though, unless I could also convince Gabriel that I’d done nothing wrong. At least not on purpose.
“Nobody chooses to be in the Scraps,” Briar murmured. “I wonder how they met.”
“No idea. Maybe they have some sort of secret society for frauds,” I joked, trying to make my brother feel better.
“I’ll bet Gabriel is their founder,” Briar said.
“Definitely.”
“It’s strange, though,” Briar said. “Why would a mage want you to steal anything? He’s a mage. Can’t he just do it himself? Or hire another mage to do it?”
“I dunno,” I said, “But I agree it’s a little weird.”
Briar slowly nodded. “So you’re gonna run, then,” he said.
“If I can,” I replied. “There’s a lot that I have to figure out first. I don’t really like the idea of starving in the Scraps either, and it’s not like we can hide out with anyone here. Gabriel would tear the place apart to find us, and he’d probably start with Sterling’s place.”
And could I really deal with the guilt of having brought Gabriel to Sterling? Sterling with his sick mother. With a sigh, I buried my face between my hands. Briar leaned his head against my shoulder. “I’ll do what I can to help,” Briar said. “Maybe when I go scavenging tomorrow, I can manage to slip some things past Gabriel.”
I doubted it. Even if Briar did manage to slip a few things past our uncle, they wouldn’t amount to much. We might be able to buy a couple days worth of food, but even that would b
e a risky venture. People who bought mage tech usually had dealings with our uncle, and even selling something could put Briar and me in danger. But I didn’t want to dash my brother’s hopes. Not when we were dealing with something so serious.
“Maybe,” I said, mustering up as much optimism as I could. “I might try doing the same. I could even snatch a couple of things at the Market.”
“You’re going to the Market?”
“Yeah. Gabriel’s contact is going to fancy me up, so I look like some a lady or something. I’ll look so ridiculous. They’ll probably have me dressed up in lace,” I said, pausing while I tried to remember what mage-women were supposed to wear, “And corsets.”
“Those huge skirts,” Briar said.
I groaned and swatted his shoulder. We’d uncovered a mage’s skirt once in the trash, and it had been made of yards and yards of once shining fabric that was softer to the touch than anything I’d ever felt. It weighed a ton, and my arms had literally ached by the time we’d dragged the thing back to the subway. Once there, we’d hacked it apart and found enough fabric to cover half of the Scraps. I wrinkled my nose at the thought of trying to sneak around in something so heavy. “Don’t even talk to me about the skirts,” I said.
The comment brought a smile to Briar’s face. “If you fall from the Floats, you’d be able to use it to cushion your fall.”
I groaned and fell backward onto my bed. “Maybe Gabriel will let me wear pants instead. Or Dorian. I dunno who’s actually going to decide that.”
Briar squeezed my hand. “It doesn’t matter. We’re going to figure this out, right? And then, it’ll be on our uncle to pick up the pieces when we’re gone. Maybe he should dress up in skirts and try to steal from the mages himself.” I laughed out loud at the image, until I realized they’d just find someone else. Another disposable patsy; someone nobody would miss. My stomach lurched when I thought of another innocent girl being thrown into this because I’d refused. But that wasn’t my problem. I closed my eyes and breathed in the stale, still air. Running was the only option. Anyone would run from this.