by Jade Mere
“Exhibitors, please return to your tables for judging,” a thin woman with a squeaky voice announced. Spectators in fur coats shuffled in with pamphlets and smoking pipes in hand.
He sat up straight. The redhead’s friends found her and wished her luck. Again, their eyes wandered to Tahki.
“I don’t think he speaks Vatolok,” the redhead said to her group.
He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he won.
Judging started after the room settled. The judge was a short old woman, probably in her midseventies. She wore a blue sash over her shoulder and appeared to be of eastern ancestry. Everyone in the room gave her a wide birth, and though the top of her head only came up to Tahki’s chest, something about her intimidated him. He wasn’t the only one, either. Her narrow gaze sent children scurrying back to their parents, and parents back to their seats.
Tahki counted the seconds as she paused at each table. She spent exactly two minutes at every display.
His mouth itched, and his arms felt fluid and light. He tapped his foot rapidly against the marble floor.
The judge moved closer.
Her face remained impartial, no matter the quality of work displayed.
She shuffled nearer.
The hairs on his skin stood at attention. This was it. The moment he’d fantasized about while drawing in his room with the curtains pulled shut. The moment that had gotten him through the unbearable heat of a dozen summers. This could very well turn into the greatest moment of his life.
A shadow moved over his designs. Tahki’s gaze broke away from the judge. A young man stood in front of him, arms crossed. At first, Tahki thought he was a part of the redhead’s group, but something about him felt different. It was the way he looked at Tahki’s designs. His cold gray eyes moved over them with deliberation. He didn’t just look at the drawings. He examined them as though they were real, tangible things. Things to be considered and taken seriously. Tahki couldn’t help but stare. Over three dozen people had visited his table, but none of them really looked at his work.
The stranger stood a few inches taller than Tahki, probably in his early twenties. His lean muscles flexed slightly as he straightened his back. He had hazel-colored hair trimmed short, except for on top, which stuck out a little longer. He wore a sleeveless dark leather shirt that fit tight against his body. He didn’t fidget or sway or crack his fingers. He held himself perfectly still. The kind of unwavering discipline a soldier shows, like rigidity was his natural state.
He was also quite handsome.
Tahki’s stomach did a little flip. The sensation surprised him. He could eat an entire demon pepper without so much as a stomach cramp, so he didn’t know how a stranger could make him feel like he’d swallowed a bag of fluttering moths.
The stranger met his eyes, and Tahki’s stomach lurched again. At first, the young man regarded Tahki with a curious expression. He looked at him as intently as he’d studied the drawings. Tahki should have looked away, avoided the awkward, silent eye contact, but he didn’t. He stared right back.
But then the stranger’s expression changed to one of slight frustration.
“These would never work,” the stranger said.
Tahki blinked. “What?”
The stranger gestured to the temple design. “You need better support beams here and here. It wouldn’t look as pretty, but without them, this design would cave in on itself in a second.”
Tahki’s stomach turned to iron again. “I think I know how to calculate load-bearing structures.”
“Symmetry,” the stranger went on, like he hadn’t heard him. “You rotated the axis of this column to dissect it asymmetrically. You should have divided it in the middle. And tilted the pipes against it. And added at least three more columns to account for the extra weight. Here… and here. Maybe even one here for safety.” His pale fingers brushed over Tahki’s designs.
“I know how to support a roof,” Tahki said. He usually hated when someone touched his work, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask the stranger to stop.
“But you forgot to account for the added water weight of this… what is it, a gutter? The walls might have held it, but you hollowed out the northern facade and didn’t add any additional support. In short, it’s an interesting idea that looks pretty on paper, but it’s not functional, which makes it no good.”
No good.
Tahki glanced at his design and noticed that when he’d modified the temple, he hadn’t recalculated the weight the water would add to the gutter, nor had he subtracted the support he’d lost from the reconstructed wall. That’s why the temple had collapsed. It was such an amateur mistake.
When he looked up, the stranger had vanished. He searched the crowd but couldn’t locate him.
“No prototype?” a voice said.
Tahki startled. The judge stood to his left, her eyes impatient.
“I’m sorry?” Tahki said. He sat up straighter, aware of how his nails dug into his arm.
“Do you have a prototype?” the judge repeated. Her voice was raspy, like she’d inhaled too much smoke. It surprised him when she spoke. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else.
Tahki glanced around. Everyone had some kind of paper or wood model to accompany their drawings. “I didn’t know I needed one.” He hated the petulance of his own voice.
The judge pursed her thin lips. She moved on to the redhead’s designs without looking back. She had spent thirty seconds at his table. One minute and thirty seconds shorter than she’d spent with anyone else. What did that mean? Did not having a prototype automatically disqualify him? Or had she only needed a quick glance to see the creativity of his designs?
Ten anxiety-filled minutes ticked by before the judge completed her rounds and submitted the results. Tahki tried to conjure the same excitement he’d felt before, but a cloud of doubt settled over him.
“Thank you all so much for your wonderful contributions.” The squeaky-voiced lady again. She gave a short speech about how the entries would be used to advance the world. She said something about ingenuity. About courage. About intelligence. Tahki only half listened. He tasted metal in his mouth and realized he’d bitten his tongue.
“And now… the results!”
One of the panel judges, a stout man with a trimmed mustache, announced the winners.
“Third place goes to Esmin Tosla!”
Tahki held his breath.
“Second place, Og’Kor Vasten.”
The room spun. He hadn’t won third or second. But first? Had he won first? He must have. The judge had been looking at him since the man had started to announce the winners. He’d won. He’d taken the grand prize. It had to be him. Tahki shoved his hand in his pocket and grasped his mother’s pencil for luck.
“First place….”
The man paused and pretended to shuffle his papers. Tourists laughed. The contestants did not.
“First place goes to…. Penki Toth!”
Women, men, and children clapped. The redhead next to him grabbed her cheeks, jumped up, and trotted to the stage to collect her first-place trophy. Tahki stared at the happy winners.
“Penki,” the squeaky woman told them, “is the youngest contestant to ever win first place! And also the only contestant from the lower city to place! What a remarkable accomplishment!”
Not only had the girl won, but she’d been from the slums of Vatolokít. She was younger than Tahki and had grown up in far worse conditions than he had. He’d lost to a slum child.
Tears swelled in his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall. Instead, he hastily gathered his bag. He didn’t even feel like visiting the other exhibits. He wanted to leave. There was no place for him here. He was defeated. A fraud.
No good.
On the way out the door, he shoved all his designs into a trash box.
ONCE OUTSIDE, Tahki walked to the edge of the citadel. The scent of flowers from the rose garden below wafted up as a breeze swept off the sea. He stopped at the si
de of the pathway and put his hands on the stone rail. The ocean crashed on the rocks below. White birds screeched and swooped down to collect bits of dropped food. He took a deep breath.
Maybe losing was for the best. It made life easier. He would return home now, live a quiet life working alongside his father. He had enough inheritance money to live comfortably in the palace. Maybe he’d even take over his father’s work as an ambassador.
The thought sickened him. If he went home, he would look like his brother on the outside and act like his father on the inside. What did that leave for him to call his own?
“You bolted fast enough,” a raspy voice said.
Tahki swiveled. The judge stood behind him, sash removed, staring at him with a piercing gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Tahki said. “I thought the competition was over. Was there something else I needed to do? Did I need to sign out or something?”
“You’re a little high-strung, aren’t you?” she said. “Trust me when I say that level of anxiety only makes you age faster.”
Tahki had no idea how to reply.
The judge shuffled over to him and rolled her shoulders. A loud crack sounded, like one of her bones had broken. She sighed, “That’s better.” She looked at him. “Tell me something, Tahki—it is pronounced Taw-kee, isn’t it? Why do you suppose I didn’t choose your designs?”
It felt like a trick question, like she was digging for reasons to ridicule him. But he answered, “I didn’t have a prototype.”
“I didn’t pick you,” she said, “because your designs had no place in the city.”
Tahki felt his mouth start to form a defensive reply, but he shut it quickly. What was the point in arguing?
“These competitions are all about practicality.” She rested her arms against the rail. “A judge looks for functionality over creativity. Creativity is nice, but how many people really want a waterfall in their kitchen? Or a vertical, movable room that can take a person up or down on a rail system? Or a roof you can open and close with a lever?”
At least he knew she really had looked at his designs. He couldn’t accuse her of not understanding them. He thought his vertical railway system would have impressed her. “I thought these competitions were about ingenuity,” Tahki said.
The judge grunted. “These competitions are about making it seem like we’re doing the public a great favor, when in reality, it’s just a cheap way to steal ideas. We host these events and then offer the winner some flashy prize. It’s more of a public attraction than anything. Like that girl who took first place. Can’t remember her name, but I promise you she’ll be forgotten in a week.”
Tahki didn’t know what to say. She made the great World Fair sound like some cheap roadside attraction. Something for unenthused parents to drag overactive children to. Something not worth risking your life for.
“Does that upset you?” she said.
Tahki shrugged. “Does it matter?”
The judge leaned over to him. When she spoke, her jaw shook, like she needed to open her mouth extra wide to get all the syllables out. “Your designs weren’t right for the competition. But they are right for something better.”
Tahki pinched his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I’d like to employ you, Tahki.”
Tahki stared. “You want to give me a job?”
“That’s what employ means.”
“An architectural job?”
“What other kind of job do you think I’d be offering?”
He swallowed. Even if he had won, he knew the odds of being offered a job were thin. “But I thought you said my designs weren’t practical.” He didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up, either. He’d experienced enough disappointment already.
“They aren’t practical. They aren’t functional, at least not yet. But they’re… different.”
“And different is good?”
“Different is good.”
“Why is different good?”
“Sorry, but I can’t tell you until you accept the position.”
Tahki laughed. He knew it was rude, but he couldn’t help it. This whole encounter felt so surreal. “How could I accept if I don’t even know what I’ll be doing? What if I’m not right for it? I could risk my entire career taking on a job I can’t perform.”
“You’re a little on the dramatic side, aren’t you? I say you’re right for it, and my word is king. You want to be famous, don’t you? You want your work known? That’s why you came to the fair, isn’t it?”
He looked down at his hands. “Doesn’t everyone want that?”
“No, everyone does not. But those who do fight for it.” The judge spat to the side. “If you accept this job, the entire world will know your name.”
World famous. It seemed too good to be true. He bit his lip. “You can’t tell me anything about this… project?”
“I can tell you who your employer will be. You’ll be working for Queen Genevi. It’s her project. I’m just a recruiter.”
He gaped. This couldn’t be a serious offer. Could she really want him to work for the ruler of the most powerful country in the world? His first impulse was to say yes, but then he felt goose bumps on his arm. The sun shone bright, but the air felt cool. He was used to a desert climate. To Dhaulen’aii’s climate. The country whose people the queen went to great lengths to keep out of Vatolokít. He might have fooled the man at the checkpoint and even the ignorant guard, but there was no way he’d be able to fool Queen Genevi. If anyone found him out, he would be executed for sure.
“I can’t,” Tahki whispered.
“Come again?”
“I… can’t accept your offer.”
She clicked her tongue. “Is there a reason?”
“I don’t think I’m the right person.”
The judge stood a moment longer and studied him and then pushed away from the rail. “I leave in an hour. If you change your mind, you can find my carriage at the west harbor. Ask for Gale Utmutóta, or Judge Utmutóta. And if you don’t change your mind, good luck with your future, Tahki.” She strode down the path without a second glance back.
His head drooped. He leaned against the stone and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t believe his luck. Or that he’d let his dream job—every architect in the world’s dream job—shuffle away. He had half a mind to throw himself into the ocean but shivered at the thought.
With a sigh, he stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned to find a carriage home. His fingers brushed something smooth and hard. He pulled out his mother’s pencil and stared at the sleek black coral. After his mother had died, he liked to hold the pencil against his chest at night, the way some children hold safety blankets. He wondered if things would have turned out differently for his mother had she been offered the same job. Would she have accepted the job?
Of course she would have.
His father was always going on about his mother’s impulsive—borderline dangerous—adventures. She said yes to whatever life threw her way. That’s what his father always told him, and she regretted nothing. Opportunities like this came once in a lifetime. If he didn’t act on it, he might live to regret it for the rest of his life. One thing he knew for sure—his mother would have wanted him to go.
With his new resolve bursting like fireworks in his mind, he sprinted down the path, his bag bobbing against his back. He shoved through the throngs of people. Several curse words hit his ears as he pushed by. He took a wrong turn, bit down his pride, and asked a girl leading two gingoats where the east harbor was. She pointed right and he ran again.
Tahki arrived just as the judge—Gale, she’d said her name was—threw her bags in the back of a black and blue carriage.
He jogged up to her, panting. “I’ll go.”
Gale drew her lips thin. “You’ll go where?”
“With you. The job you offered, I want it.”
Gale smiled, or maybe it was a grimace. He couldn’t tell with all the wr
inkles. “Good.” She looked him up and down. “This all you got?”
Tahki nodded.
“Then we can leave early,” she said.
“Don’t you have to judge the other contestants? I mean, isn’t the fair another two days?” Tahki said.
“My job here is done,” she said.
She walked to the side of the carriage and tugged the door open. Tahki went to get in but stopped dead. Sprawled across the back seat, with his head resting against the far door, was the stranger who’d stopped by his booth. The guy who’d said his designs were no good.
He glanced Tahki’s way, his expression cold.
“This is Rye, my work associate,” Gale said. “You two will be teamed together. He’s your superior on the project.”
Chapter 4
OVER THE next three hours, Tahki tried to make himself as small as possible inside the carriage. It only sat four, and Gale had stuffed one seat full of small crates she said were too delicate to travel in the back, which put Tahki beside Rye. On every bump, his arm would brush against Rye’s arm. Or their knees would tap together. Or Tahki would fidget and hit his side. It was like when Tahki fell ill and his skin became overly sensitive. All these small contacts sent a spark through his body.
Rye didn’t seem to notice. Though the carriage jostled at every turn, Rye held as still and straight as a baluster. He didn’t stretch his arms or crack his neck, even after hours had passed. Maybe he hated sitting next to Tahki and loathed the idea of contact. Maybe Rye was afraid of catching a foreign illness. Maybe Tahki smelled bad. Or maybe Rye felt guilty about saying Tahki’s designs were no good, or embarrassed because Gale chose to hire Tahki for this job. But Rye didn’t strike him as the type who’d be embarrassed. Or feel guilty. Or have emotions.
Gale spoke a little at the start of the ride. Mostly, she talked about the secrecy of the project, how they wouldn’t be allowed to speak with anyone about it. Not family or friends. Tahki’s father always went on about privacy when he signed documents with allied countries. Sometimes Tahki would sneak in and read the documents, but they only contained contracts about housing restrictions or where livestock owners were allowed to drive cattle. Things no one needed to keep secret. Was this project like that? A secret not worth keeping?