The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Mia studied her new friend in puzzlement. Her name had a certain ring of its own. Bloom. Bloom. Why does that sound so familiar?

  Carrie saw her wary expression. “Oh no. Did Liam already shitmouth me? Whatever he said—”

  “No. He didn’t say anything.”

  “Oh. Well . . . good, because I’ve got tales on that burny twerper.” Carrie processed Mia before smiling again. “Hey, you want to come by for a blender?”

  Mia paused to remember her local slang. On this world, a blender was a frozen drink, not the machine that made it.

  “Uh, yeah. Okay.”

  She followed Carrie into her cottage, struggling to make heads or tails of the girl. Peter said these houses were for troublemakers, but Carrie looked more like the queen of the pep squad—perky and pretty and effortlessly nice. She fluttered around the kitchen, speaking a mile a minute as she griped about her father.

  “He’s such a tempic. Always stubborn, never listening. Even now, he thinks everything’s business as usual. But I can’t pretend. And I’m not just gonna stand there while Rebel Fucking Rosen walks around the village, all forgiven and shit.”

  “What?”

  Carrie cringed at Mia’s expression. “Sorry. Like my problems even compare to yours. Has anyone even apologized for what Rebel and Ivy did to you people? Because if they don’t, I will. It’s sickening.”

  Mia couldn’t help but grin. After all the Gothams she’d met this morning, it was almost jarring to find a good one.

  Carrie looked her over with heavy blue eyes. “Holy hell, you’re really from another world. There are so many questions I want to ask you, but that’s probably the last thing you need. We’ll go Q-for-Q when you’re more settled. I can tell you things about this place. Boy, can I.”

  She mixed strawberries and cream in an electric whirlet, until it all became a lukewarm goop. Mia watched Carrie confusedly as she poured the liquid into two drinking cups.

  “Uh, shouldn’t you—”

  Carrie waved her hand over the counter. A frigid blast of air filled the kitchen. Mia peeked inside the cups and marveled at their new slushy state.

  “You’re a subthermic.”

  “Yup. One of many reasons why Liam and I hate each other. The burners and coolers are like cats and dogs. We can’t help it. It’s our nature.”

  Carrie raised an eyebrow at Mia’s expression. “Are you okay?”

  She wasn’t. David had recently reminded her of the very first Gotham they fought, a thirty-something blonde in thick winter clothes. She’d frozen the door of Mia’s hideout, then broken the wood like it was peanut brittle. Mia had never forgotten the eyes behind her ski mask: blue and wet and filled with remorse.

  I’m sorry, she’d said to Mia. I don’t want to do this. But I have a daughter your age. She has to live.

  Mia would have never known the woman’s name if her future self hadn’t sent it to her. “Bloom,” she uttered. “Krista Bloom. Is she your . . . ?”

  Carrie’s arms fell to her sides. She plopped down on a stool. “She was my mother. I wasn’t sure you met her. I was kind of hoping you didn’t.”

  She dabbed her eyes with a dish towel. “You must hate me now.”

  “Of course not. It’s not your fault. I don’t even think it was her fault.”

  “She and Ivy were like sisters,” Carrie said. “I begged her not to go, but she said she had to. Ivy needed her. That’s all there was to it.”

  She gritted her teeth. The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. “But they left her there. The moment the Pelletiers showed up, Ivy and Rebel just teleported away. My mom didn’t last a minute against Esis.”

  Mia gripped her arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  Carrie sniffled. “Ivy got what was coming to her, but Rebel’s still walking around. Barely got a slap on the wrist. I saw him in the vivery last week and . . . I don’t know. I guess I tried to freeze him.”

  “Wow,” Mia said. “Is he, uh . . . ?”

  “Oh, he’s fine. Just a little bit of frostbite. But the elders weren’t happy with me. It’ll be at least six months before they let me back on the surface.”

  She looked down at her feet. A dark laugh escaped her. “I’ll be long gone by then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got some savings,” Carrie told her. “I’m just waiting for the right chance to hop. There’s a whole wide world out there. I’d like to see it before it goes.”

  “Don’t leave,” Mia urged her. “Please.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re the first person I met here that I like.”

  Carrie scrutinized her a moment before laughing again. “You know the sad thing? I could probably say the same about you.”

  The girls picked up their blenders, then took a deep sip through the straws. The drink was just as cold and delicious as Mia hoped it would be. It was absolutely perfect.

  —

  The dining room was large enough to hold a cottage of its own. Roman columns stood thirty feet high, each one carved from the finest Italian marble. There seemed to be no limit to the Lees’ decorating budget. Zack and Theo’s first sight upon stepping off the elevator was The Blue Boy, the iconic 1770 painting by Thomas Gainsborough. Their host informed them, in her slow and wobbly cadence, that it wasn’t a reproduction.

  Theo and Zack sat stiffly at the table while Prudent and Jun Lee watched them from the far ends. The primarch of the augurs was a verbal dynamo compared to her husband, a short and balding prophet who merely sat and smiled dazedly. Theo couldn’t even guess the number of tranquilizers that were coursing through Jun’s system, fogging his view of apocalypse.

  Zack studied the ham steak on his plate, a meat only slightly less glazed than the people who’d served it. “Looks delicious.”

  “Thank you,” Prudent said. “My daughter will be here shortly.”

  Theo studied her features. “Forgive me for asking, but—”

  “We’re Chinese and Korean,” she told him. “As well as Japanese and Thai. Our family is the last pure Asian bloodline in the clan.”

  “Yay us,” said a voice from the hallway.

  Prudent scowled at Mercy as she entered the dining room. “You’re late.”

  Unlike the others, who had all dressed nicely, Mercy came to dinner in tattered jeans and a paint-flecked T-shirt. Though her eyes were dark with mascara and gloom, she didn’t strike Zack as the emotional train wreck her mother had made her out to be.

  She returned his curious stare. “I know why Theo’s here. What brings you?”

  “Free ham,” he joked. “It’s my kryptonite.”

  “What the hell is kryptonite?”

  “You’re kryptonite.”

  Mercy frowned at him. “You don’t give a fuck if anyone understands you.”

  “Mind your language,” Prudent told her. “And sit.”

  Mercy pressed a hand to Jun’s forehead and doused him in solis. Theo watched with fascination as the man sighed with relief. It seemed Mercy really was kryptonite to chronokinetics. She could even stop augurs from seeing the future.

  The meal began on a dark note, as Prudent invoked a prayer for her missing son. Peter had already briefed Zack and Theo on the matter of Sage Lee, the sixteen-year-old augur who’d been abducted by portal nine months ago, along with thirty other Gothams. The Pelletiers had all but signed their work as the kidnappers, though they had yet to explain their reasoning or offer any demands for their release.

  Prudent finished the prayer and gave her guests a gentle smile. “There’s no need for grief. My son will return to us, healthy and whole. I’ve seen it. We merely pray that he is comfortable.”

  Zack cut his ham with nervous distraction. If Sage was locked in a mirror room, then the poor kid was better off dead.

  Theo threw
a quizzical look at Prudent. “Do you have any idea why they took your son in particular? Does he have anything in common with those other missing people?”

  “Yeah,” said Mercy. “They’re all—”

  “We do not speculate,” Prudent snapped, with enough emphasis to kill the discussion.

  After an awkward silence, Prudent told Zack about his fellow turners. There were eighty-one other people in the clan who could reverse and advance the flow of time. Most of them worked as healers. Some were content to use their powers for gardening. Without natural sunlight, all the plants in the underland were doomed to die. Only frequent reversals kept them healthy and lush.

  “And what about solics?” Zack asked Mercy. “How many of them are there?”

  “Just me and Suki.”

  “Who?”

  “Suki Godden, Jinn’s little sister. She’s not as strong with the solis, but she can do other things, like shoot lightning from her hands.”

  “Wow,” said Theo. “I hope she’s well-adjusted.”

  Mercy shook her head. “She’s a disparate.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means her powers are unique and untestable, which makes her the freak of her family.” Mercy glared at her mother. “That doesn’t do wonders for a girl’s self-esteem.”

  After a few more minutes of small talk, Theo tossed a stone into deeper waters. “What’s the deal with Merlin McGee?”

  By now, nearly everyone in the world knew of the amazing American augur who’d gained wealth and acclaim through his natural disaster predictions. Peter had already told the Silvers that McGee was an ex-Gotham named Michael. It wasn’t until Mia pressed him that he confessed that his full name was Michael Pendergen, and that he’d been a brother of sorts to Peter.

  “He was my best student,” Prudent admitted. “But he was never happy here. Our ways conflicted with his . . . lifestyle choice.”

  Mercy rolled her eyes. “It’s not a choice, Mom.”

  “All behavior is a choice.”

  “His only choice was to be true to himself. He didn’t want to play in the clan’s stupid breeding games and they hated him for it. We forgive murderers and thieves, but not that. Oh no.”

  Zack swirled his water glass. “Peter may not be the most progressive guy, but he’s certainly not a homophobe.”

  “No,” Mercy said. “I’ll give him credit for that. He stuck by Michael, thick and thin.”

  “So how come Peter never talks about him?”

  “Because Michael didn’t stick by him,” Theo mused.

  He took a final bite of his ham steak, then pushed the plate away. “When the big trouble started, Peter must have gone to him for help. I mean, the guy’s a powerful augur. He could have shed some light on the string that Peter saw. Hell, he could’ve been the world’s savior.”

  He cast a bitter stare at the tablecloth. “Instead he becomes Merlin McGee, a glorified weatherman and celebrity prophet. That’s why Peter doesn’t talk about him. I wouldn’t either.”

  Prudent poked the remains of her dinner. “Michael has always been selfish.”

  “Michael has always been right,” Mercy said. “If he’s living it up like there’s no tomorrow, then you damn well better believe there’s no tomorrow.”

  Prudent closed her eyes. “Mercy . . .”

  “No! I fell for Rebel’s bullshit. I’m not falling for Peter’s. This whole world’s fucked. Get used to it.”

  Jun’s soft smile faded. He shuddered miserably in his chair. Mercy looked at him with a hangdog expression. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Why don’t you show Zack your paintings?” Prudent suggested. “I’m sure he’d appreciate—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” Mercy rose from her seat. “Come on, Trillinger. Let’s let the augurs talk their business.”

  Zack looked to Theo worriedly. “If you’d rather I stay—”

  “I’ll be fine,” Theo said, though that was a lie. His insight and foresight had come together in a swirl of grim tidings. He just figured out why Prudent had really arranged this dinner. It had nothing to do with the string.

  Prudent watched Theo closely as Zack and Mercy left the room together. “You see it now.”

  He lowered his head. “I saw it a week ago.”

  “They’re like-minded artists, spirited and defiant. They’ll be happy together. Why are you troubled?”

  “Because he’s in love with someone else.”

  “He can’t have her.”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I know these are dire times, Theo. We must all make . . . concessions.”

  Theo narrowed his eyes. “You know more about the Pelletiers than you’re letting on.”

  Prudent set up a chair next to her husband and wiped flecks of food from his mouth. Theo could see the nervousness in her eyes.

  “They destroyed a whole world to bring us here,” he said. “Everything that’s happened to us, everything that’s been happening with you and your people, revolves around them. I can’t read them for shit. They put something in my head that keeps me from seeing all the stuff they don’t want me to see. But you have a clear view. If there’s something you know, then tell me.”

  Prudent looked away, her voice a trembling mutter. “I will not risk their wrath. Not while they have my son.”

  Theo’s mouth went slack in revelation. “That’s what they have in common, those missing people. They’re all the loved ones of augurs. That’s how they’re keeping your guild under control.”

  Jun let out a tortured moan. Prudent brushed a tear from his eye. “If you had children, you would understand.”

  “If I had children, they’d be dead. My world ended. This one’s next. Four years from now, it won’t matter that you kept your son alive. He’ll be just as dead as the—”

  “Stop.”

  Prudent threw a furtive look around the room before sitting next to Theo. She leaned in and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “The fate of this world . . . does not concern them. It’s irrelevant to their plans.”

  “So?”

  “If we work with the Pelletiers, give them everything they want—”

  “You think they’ll save the world for us? Are you kidding me?”

  “If not them, then who else?”

  “Me,” Theo insisted. “Help me find the string—”

  “There is no string.”

  Theo turned in his chair, his wide eyes locked on Prudent’s. She shrank from his gaze and twisted the diamond ring on her finger.

  “I’m afraid that Peter’s done you a great disservice,” she said.

  “He’s not lying.”

  “Lying?” Prudent chuckled. “Perhaps not. Perhaps he did glimpse something in the God’s Eye. But what he fails to accept, what Michael tried to tell him, is that our perceptions there are influenced by our desires. If Peter saw a string of hope, it’s because—”

  “—he wanted to see it,” Theo finished.

  He stood up and paced the length of the table, a chain of screams welling up in his throat. It was so obvious now. He could wear any clothes he wanted in the God’s Eye, play any song from the annals of memory. A man with Peter’s stubborn will could have turned the place into his own personal wish factory. And yet Theo had repeatedly failed to see the signs. He’d wasted months chasing rainbows, all because he wanted to play messiah.

  “You can’t tell the others,” Prudent warned him. “Not even your closest friends. They don’t see the strings like we do. They would cause untold—”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Yeah? Well, you don’t know shit if you think the Pelletiers are our best hope.”

  “I know they’re a hair’s-breadth away from killing Zack and Mercy,” Prudent said. “The p
romise of their coupling is all that saves them.”

  “Why?”

  “They . . . do not want you to know yet. It jeopardizes their plans. And should my daughter and Zack get wind of their desire—”

  “I know,” Theo muttered. He knew damn well how Zack would react if he learned the Pelletiers were meddling in his love life again. He would fight and rage against them. And then he would die.

  Theo threw down his napkin and made a hasty path for the door. “They’ll be talking awhile. Tell Zack I went home.”

  “Theo . . .”

  He turned around in the doorway, his eyes cold and severe. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to jeopardize your son or daughter.”

  Prudent exhaled with relief. “Oh, thank you. Thank you.”

  “But you and I are done, you hear me? I’m not even going to pretend I like you. And the next time you see the Pelletiers—”

  “Just one.”

  “What?”

  “There’s only one of them who speaks with me,” Prudent informed him.

  “Yeah? Well, tell him I said ‘fuck you.’”

  He stormed out of the room, toward the family’s secret elevator. Prudent pushed her chair back and stared down at her trembling hands.

  “You’ll see him before I do,” she muttered.

  —

  By the time he returned to the depths of the underland, the town had gone eerily quiet. The dome was a nightscape of twinkling lights, a perfect map of the constellations. Only a handful of embellishments ruined the naturalism: a streaking comet, an aurora borealis, a moon twice as large as it should have been. Theo had barely been here a day and already he could see a pattern emerging. The Gothams liked to embrace illusion over reality. They happily pulled the wool over their own eyes.

  He returned to the cul-de-sac and found Heath sitting alone on the porch of the empty cottage. The boy was hunched over a card table, drawing ruler lines onto a sheet of paper in tight groups of five—new music sheets.

  Heath barely gave him a glance as Theo sat down in the other seat. “You’re back early.”

  “Short dinner,” Theo said. “What are you doing outside?”

  “We’re not outside. It’s all fake. Even the crickets.”