The walls of the stairwell were covered with art, some of it framed, most of it simply tacked to the wood in a random fashion. There were faces and flowers, beach landscapes, and fantastical things that looked like half animal and half inanimate object. “Are all these yours?” She climbed the stairs slowly, cursing her old aching legs.
“Most of them. A couple I bought at the Market—the two sky ones.”
The framed ones—both cloudy Earth skies.
Andy passed the halfway point. “You’re quite talented.”
“Thanks! I enjoy doing it, and they help pay the rent.” Destiny helped her up the last few steps.
“Oooh, something smells wonderful.” Andy looked around the flat. It was a single large room, with open windows front and back and shutters thrown wide, letting in a fresh breeze. A low bed with a cotton-stuffed mattress lay in one corner. Along one side, cabinets and a long counter marked the kitchen space.
Rechargeable heating coils were stacked neatly at the back of the counter. One of them was in use heating a pot of soup on the smooth rock countertop.
“Just something I whipped up. It’s vegetarian.”
Andy nodded. Many folks these days didn’t eat meat. It was expensive and took a lot of resources to raise in the closed ecosystem of Forever. “It’s the first time I’ve seen the inside of one of these homes. They’re quite nice.”
A ping ping ping rang out from below. The cobbler.
Destiny grinned. “Sure, if you don’t mind a little noise.” Se led Andy to a wooden table with a gorgeous sheen.
“Mallowood?”
“Yes. Belynn traded for it. Lovely, isn’t it?” Se placed two ceramic bowls, a couple of cloth napkins, and some spoons on the table.
“How is she?”
“Good. She has things figured out. Finally.”
Andy nodded. “Good.” She watched appreciatively as Destiny ladled out some of the soup. It had big chunks of vegetables—carrots, potatoes, and some of the new green peppers Aine had created. It gave off a hearty aroma. Her mouth watered. “You’ll have to give me the recipe.”
“I’d love to.” Destiny sank down into ser own chair, rubbing the back of ser neck. “So what brings you to see us?”
Andy dipped her spoon into the thick stew. “I’m in town on some business.”
Destiny laughed. “You still get around to do business? I hope I have half your energy—or look half as good—when I reach your age.”
Andy gave ser a half smile. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Andy sipped her soup, trying to tease out the various flavors. Onions and bacca root, too, for sure. The bacca had a nice nutty flavor and fell apart in her mouth. “You’re a good cook too.”
Destiny blushed. “So… your business?”
Andy scoffed. These young ones… always reminding you how old you were when they thought your doddering mind had strayed. “I’m starting a school to preserve knowledge—and to spread it throughout Forever.”
“That’s a great idea.” Destiny sipped ser soup. “What kind of school?”
“A school for music and art. For history.” Andy eyed the various pieces that were hung up around the bright space. “I want you two to come on as teachers.”
Destiny nodded. “I’m flattered, of course. But we just started our lives here.” Se put her hand on Andy’s and patted it. “It was sweet of you to ask, though.”
Andy was about to make a retort when the door downstairs slammed open. “Destiny, are you here? Is Mom here yet?”
“Yes, she is. We’re just having some lunch.”
“We have to pack and get out of here, fast.” Belynn appeared from the stairwell.
“Why?” Destiny was up already, carrying dishes to the sink. “Did something happen?”
“Hi, Mom.” Belynn kissed her cheek. “They’re rounding up Liminals in town. Everyone was talking about it at the Market.” She pulled a couple carry sacks out from under the bed and started stuffing clothing and other personal belongings inside.
“Who is?” Andy watched the two of them, bewildered. Rounding up Liminals?
“Della ordered it. One of her first official acts as mayor. Something about us being a danger to ‘homonormals,’ whatever the hell that is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before you got here?”
Belynn shook her head. “Couldn’t. I was afraid someone might be listening.”
“What can I do?” Andy watched the sudden flurry of activity with trepidation. Rounding up Liminals?
“Nothing, Mom. We’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
“Have you told Aine?” Andy wished her own abilities weren’t so diminished.
“I tried, but you know how she’s withdrawn from the world since—”
“Since the inthworld. I know.” She felt useless. She hated feeling useless. “You should come out to the Estate. You’d be safe there.”
“We can’t go, Mom. We’re needed here.” Belynn said it as if she’d given Andy’s proposal no thought at all.
She sighed. “Where will you go?”
“Ally and Sander said they would take us in.” Belynn closed up her carry sacks. “Mom, you should come with us.”
“I can’t. I have other things to do. Besides, no one knows me around here anymore. I’m just another invisible old woman.”
Belynn stared at her. “Mom, this isn’t a joke.”
“I know. I’ll be careful. I promise. I’ll try to find a way to connect to Aine, to let her know how serious this is.” She had to find Thierry. The boy would be in danger too.
“You sure?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Belynn threw her arms around Andy, squeezing her tight. “We need to get all the other Liminals out of Darlith. Tell her that.”
“I will.” She held Belynn, and for a minute her little girl was ten years old again. Then she let Belynn go. “You take care.”
Belynn rolled her eyes. “We always do.”
In five more minutes, they’d hustled her out the door.
“IS THIS it?” Roland picked through the contents of the purse that he’d spilled across the table. His other hand rested on his enormous belly.
“There were sheriffs in the square. It was all I could get without being noticed.”
“I suppose it will have to do.”
Thierry blinked. Roland was never satisfied with what he brought, especially when it was one measly coin purse. Sure, it had a couple gold suns, but other than that it was almost all coppers. “Um… thanks?”
“You should lay low for a day or two. I hear things are going to get crazy with the new mayor.” He reached forward and tousled Thierry’s hair, a gesture as awkward as it was foreign. “I have someone coming who wants to meet you.”
“Me?” It came out as a squeak.
“Yes, you. You’re one of my most accomplished thieves. Look at you, being so modest.” Roland was being nice.
It was weird.
There was a knock at his door.
“Go grab that, would you?”
“Yes, sir!” Thierry got up and bounded downstairs, taking them two at a time.
Roland’s place was one of the nicer shacks in the Warren—two stories, built with scrap wood salvaged from who-knew-where. It was dry and mostly clean, and he let the boys sleep on hay mattresses on the ground floor.
Thierry opened the door to find a man dressed in work clothes, looking around at the crooked street nervously. He was really clean and smelled nice. He obviously didn’t belong here in the Warren. Thierry was surprised he hadn’t been picked clean.
“Can I help you?” He put on his best proper English.
“Is this… Roland’s place?” The man’s nose wrinkled like he’d just smelled something really bad.
“It certainly is. Come on in.” Thierry held the door open and gestured grandly.
“Thank you.” The man entered the room and looked around, his nose twisting with distaste. “Would you tell him Mr. Leak is here?”
Mr. Leak stared at the stairs. “Of course you are.” With a sigh, he mounted them, one at a time, testing each next step as if it might be his last.
Thierry followed him up.
“Welcome to Roland’s Place, Mister Leak.” Roland said “mister” like “mee-stur,” a weird exaggeration that puzzled Thierry, and then he bowed.
Roland was a lot of things, some good, some bad. But he never bowed to anyone.
“Is this the boy?” Mr. Leak squinted and looked him up and down as if he were livestock.
Thierry took an immediate dislike to the man.
“I was just getting ready to tell him. Please, have a seat.” Roland pulled out a chair, one of a badly mismatched set of six, one for him and each of the other boys.
Thierry noticed belatedly that none of the others were around. Which was weird. There was almost always at least one of the other boys in the house to help Roland get up and down the stairs to the bathroom. “Roland, what does he mean?”
His patron waved at him. “Show him what you can do.”
“What?” Roland never wanted him to show anyone else his abilities. Even the other boys.
“It’s okay. Show him.”
Mr. Leak watched him avidly with his tiny button eyes.
Thierry closed his eyes.
“Astonishing!”
He opened them to find Mr. Leak looking around the room.
Thierry could always see himself. As Roland had explained it to him, he never actually disappeared. He just changed the perceptions of those around him.
“Okay, boy, come back.”
He closed his eyes again and imagined himself visible.
Mr. Leak slapped his bony knee. “Yes, truly astonishing.” He pulled out a coin purse and slapped it onto the table. “You have a deal.”
Thierry’s eyes almost bulged out of his head. He’d never seen a bag so fat.
Roland opened it and pulled out a gold sun. He bit down on it and nodded, looking satisfied.
“What’s happening?” But it was clear. He was being sold. Like a cow led to slaughter or a rabbit with its foot in a trap.
Roland grinned. “Great news, Thierry. You have a new employer.” He reached forward, his bulk rocking the table, and shook Mr. Leak’s hand. “Now go with this nice man. He’s promised to take better care of you than I have.”
Roland must have put out word to the other bosses in the Warren to let the man through unaccosted. Likely he’d share the purse with them too.
Thierry shook his head, standing his ground. “I don’t want to go.” There was something off about the man. Alarm bells were going off in Thierry’s head. “I want to stay here.”
“Nonsense.” He stood and took Thierry’s hand, guiding it to Mr. Leak’s.
The man’s hand was clammy and cold. “Okay, boy, let’s go. I want to get back to civilization and get you settled.” He dragged Thierry after him to the stairs.
Panicked, Thierry looked back at Roland. “Don’t make me go! I want to stay here!”
“This will help.” Mr. Leak pulled out a damp cloth from one of his pockets and reached toward Thierry’s face.
“No!” Thierry kicked him in the nuts and slipped past him as the man screamed and doubled over in pain. He plunged both men into darkness and ran down the stairs.
“Thierry, get back here!” Roland called down the stairs. “Don’t do this! Mr. Leak will be nice to you!”
The whole house rumbled as Roland tried to run after him in his own personal darkness.
Dust fell from between the loose floorboards upstairs.
Thierry reached the bottom of the staircase and looked back up.
Roland crashed into Mr. Leak, and they both went tumbling down the stairs.
Thierry grabbed his carry sack with his few important possessions—the one he always kept packed and stashed under his mattress—and ran out the door into the afternoon light.
Chapter Three: Trapped
AINE LAY on the dock, trailing her hands in the water below. It was clear, blue, beautiful like it had never been in real life.
The sun was warm on her back, the sound of fish jumping in the pond and the whistles of a wood thrush the only sounds.
She turned lazily onto her back, the water from her swim dripping slowly off her naked skin. She stared into the blue sky, at peace for the moment in this idealized Earth, this place where all her worries and troubles ceased to exist.
It was her version of dreaming, an escape from the world when she needed a few moments all to herself.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
The phrase came unbidden to her as she stared at the lazy clouds. A book from Old Earth, still stored somewhere in her memory.
She laughed. No, we dream of whatever the hell we want.
Not that she was actually an android. Far from it.
Her two halves, Shandra and Andy, had long since fused into one, and now she spent much of her free time—the milliseconds between her necessary tasks—in places like this one. Devoid of others and their needs and demands.
She would no longer create worlds peopled with imagined beings. Not after the inthworld.
She stretched, slipped back into her day-to-day life. She shifted, becoming a million little pieces that addressed a million little tasks, like butterflies flying up into the midafternoon sky.
Always so many things to do.
Satisfied her tasks were once again complete for a fifth of a second, she came back together and soared among the stars.
THIERRY WAS out of breath by the time he crossed the bridge that connected the Warren to the center of town. He’d run most of the way, afraid Roland would figure out some way to track him. Some way to bring him back and sell him to that horrible man.
He’d felt safe for the last couple years with Roland. Like he had a home. Sure, the man was a bit rough at times and didn’t really care for anything but money, and yet he’d made a home for Thierry. That counted for something.
The Warren was full of all kinds of folks. Criminals, sure, but also people who had nowhere else to go.
Mrs. Milligan would make fresh baked cookies when she could for her kids, as she called Roland’s charges. Mr. Longfinch came by once a week and taught them how to read and write.
And then there were his brothers.
How would they feel about his sudden change of status?
Tommy, Skate, and Jack would probably side with him. But Vinnie… he’d sell Thierry out for a bottle of beer.
The bridge was guarded today, which was strange. The bridges were never guarded in Darlith. Things were changing in Darlith, and not for the better.
Still, it was easy enough for him to slip past the woman in guard’s livery.
He had to find Andy, the woman who had helped him. Maybe she was still in the square. He made his way through the crowds and into the wide-open space and looked around.
People were milling about, as if they were waiting for something. A wooden platform was being constructed in the middle of the square, next to the big sculpture.
He slipped into the shadows behind the café and dropped his disguise. It was hard to keep it up for a long time anyhow. After a while, it began to drain him.
Coming back into the light, he jostled a woman who was watching the stage construction. “What’s going on?”
“They say she’s disbanding the council. Big announcement.”
Politics. He didn’t really care. One town council was pretty much like another, as far as he was concerned. “Thanks!”
He crisscrossed the square, looking for any sign of his benefactress.
The guards were keeping people in the square for some reason. They were stationed at each of the exits, turning people back.
Thierry was crossing behind the new stage when he saw Mr. Leak.
With a strangled gasp, he drew back behind one of the large arms of the sculpture. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, he vanished.
He had to get out of here. It was too risky, being so close to that man.
What was he doing on the stage? Was he someone important? He must be, with all that money he’d been throwing around.
Thierry went the other direction, intent on crossing the second bridge that led out of the square. He made it halfway across the square, and then he saw Andy.
She would help him. Maybe take him out of town, like she had promised.
He followed her, waiting for the right moment to get her attention.
ANDY HOBBLED back to the hotel where she was staying, a two-story building on Pepper Lane, a block or so from the main square. Her left leg was hurting again, so this time the limp was no ruse—an old riding injury come back to haunt her.
City guards in their red-and-blue livery rode across the bridge ahead of her at a gallop—a man and a woman, both with hair cropped close under their official caps. “Clear the way!”
Andy pressed back against the rock wall of the nearest building, doing her best to look old and feeble and not worth bothering with.
It wasn’t hard.
They passed her by.
The street was filled with grim determination as people made their way from one place to another, heads down, muttering to themselves. More than once, Andy heard the phrase “damned Liminals.”
She shuddered and hurried along her way.
Della was behind all this. Sweet, beautiful Delancy, who’d been one of Andy’s own. One of her own Liminal kids who’d fallen in with the wrong guy, a man named Vellin. The man who had beaten the beautiful soul out of her.
Andy had wanted to kill Vellin when she’d found out, but Marissa had convinced her not to. No good comes from meeting violence with violence.
Still, Della had never been the same after that, and after the inthworld possession it had gotten worse.
Now she seemed to have turned on her own heritage altogether.
Andy crossed Earth Square, keeping to the riverside to try to avoid notice. The square was swarming with city guards, mostly on foot, questioning people as they hurried by. She just needed to get to the other side to reach her hotel a few blocks away.
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