The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  “Well, what are you doing here?”

  Heath shrugged. “Jonathan’s with Hannah. They’re trying not to make noise but—”

  “Oh.” Theo pursed his lips. At least someone was having a good time tonight.

  “Are the other augurs going to help you?” Heath asked.

  Theo slouched in his chair and sighed. “Doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Why not?”

  For a moment, Theo almost told him. But he knew Prudent was right. People did desperate things when all hope was lost. Dangerous things. Theo was having a hard enough time keeping his own head together.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replied. He propped his chin on his fist and studied Heath sorrowfully. “I think I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “When Integrity attacked us, I . . . said things to you. I pressured you into saving my life like I was more important than other people.”

  Heath furrowed his brow. “But you are more important.”

  “That’s what Peter says.”

  “That’s what you told me. You said the whole world depended on saving you. So I did.”

  Theo smiled weakly. “You most definitely did.”

  “Now when you find the string, I’ll know I helped save the world because I saved you.”

  Theo rubbed his eyes, fighting to keep his despair inside of him. “But what if I’m not the messiah that everyone thinks I am? What if it was all just a stupid misunderstanding?”

  Heath went back to drawing his staves. “You’re not sure you’re the savior?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re not sure you’re not.”

  Theo balked at his query. “Well, no. Not a hundred percent but—”

  “Then you have to keep trying,” Heath said. “You can’t ever stop. If you stumble, you start again. If one way’s blocked, you find another.”

  Theo suppressed a delirious laugh. He wasn’t sure if Heath was quoting lyrics or merely platitudes. In either case, the boy certainly practiced what he preached. He’d lost all his music in the Integrity raid, yet he remained dauntless in his desire to resurrect the songs of his world. He was starting over from scratch, line by line, note by note.

  Nearly a minute passed in silence. Theo listened to the crickets and realized Heath was wrong about one thing. The loud little critters had somehow made their way down here. They were real.

  “Give me some paper,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  Expressionless, Heath split up his paper stack, and then gave Theo rigid instructions on how to make a proper music sheet.

  Theo sat with him under the fake moon and stars, drawing ruler lines on paper until his inner winds settled. Soon a semblance of reason returned to him. The solution to the world’s greatest problem wouldn’t be found in the God’s Eye. Nor would it come from the Pelletiers.

  No. There was another way to stop what was coming. Theo just had to find it.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  On their fifth day in the village, as the pink light of dawn pricked the edges of the undersky, the orphans received some unwelcome visitors. A pair of masked swifters moved back and forth between the cottages, a paint sprayer in each hand. They left forty seconds later in a gust of hot wind.

  Heath was the first to step outside and see the fruits of their labor: a barrage of red graffiti, spread carelessly across all six houses. The messages ranged from the predictable (“Go home, breachers!”) to the despicable (“Pelliteer whores”) to the downright odd (“Freak Street”).

  The defacement was undone by a team of Mother Olga’s turners. The Mayor sent his top ghosters to find and track the vandals. At sunset, Fleeta Byers, acting primarch of the swifters, brought the culprits back to the scene of the crime and forced them to apologize. They were just boys, no older than Mia. It was clear from the smoldering resentment in their eyes that they weren’t even remotely sorry.

  “Why ‘Freak Street’?” Hannah asked them. “Aren’t we all freaks here?”

  The boys shrugged at the ground and mumbled incoherently. Semerjean considered paying them a visit later, maybe disfigure their faces as a warning to others. No, that would only make the Silvers look more entrenched with his family. The Gothams had to get over their mistrust. They needed to embrace these “breachers” as part of the clan.

  At high noon the next day, the Mayor led a small army up the cobblestones of Freak Street. Twenty sprightly young lumics walked behind him in lockstep, the best and brightest of their guild. They set up four tables on the loop of the cul-de-sac, then covered them all in gourmet lunch foods.

  “An apology gift,” the Mayor told the orphans. “Come, come! Feast!”

  Soon David found himself surrounded by a dozen teenage lumics, each one trying to impress him. One boy turned himself into the semblance of sand. Another built a scale-model Manhattan out of ambient light. A sixteen-year-old girl combusted into flames, then vanished. She emerged five seconds later from behind an illusive wall, to David’s applause. More impressive than her trick was the patience involved in setting it up. She’d been hiding in the margins, invisible, for nearly twenty minutes. David had been talking with her ghost this whole time.

  Carrie Bloom watched from her porch swing, a sandwich in her hand and a sneer on her lip. “That’s Yvonne Whitten, the Mayor’s daughter. In case you were wondering.”

  Mia chewed her lunch with forced aloofness. “I wasn’t.”

  That was a lie. Mia had noticed Yvonne as soon as she’d arrived: a raven-haired stunner with the height of an Amazon, the face of a teen model, and an elegant spring dress that flattered her figure without flaunting it. Worst of all, she looked smart. She carried herself with the same precocious maturity that David did.

  “The grownups love her,” Carrie said. “The kids can’t stand her. She’s boring and patronizing, and her ego pokes the moon. She struts around like she’s queen of the village, all because of her double-O’s.”

  “Her what?”

  “Her power score. She got a perfect hundred on her last four tests.”

  Mia scoffed. “And that matters why?”

  “It’s just how they are in the upper houses. The Whittens, the Sunders, the Goddens, the Rubineks. They all think they’re the shit de la shit, and they think the numbers prove it.”

  Carrie took another bite of her sandwich. “We’ll see how special they feel four years from now, when the boot comes down on all of us.”

  Mia looked up and saw the lingering eyelock between Yvonne and David. He certainly didn’t seem to find her boring.

  Carrie looked at Mia disappointedly. “Aw, don’t tell me you’re sweet on him.”

  “I was,” she admitted. “Not anymore.”

  “Good. He’s too cold for you. Hell, he’s too cold for me and I’m a subthermic.”

  Carrie rocked the swing, her bright eyes fixed on Yvonne. “But he’s perfect for Wondersnoot over there. They’ll probably hump like old British nobles.”

  Mia choked on her drink, convulsing with laughter. Carrie had been a godsend to her these past six days, an endlessly entertaining companion who provided crucial intel about the Gothams. Better still, she gave Mia space from her fellow Silvers. They’d been fused at the hip for so long that she forgot what it was like to be her own person.

  Only David made an effort to mingle with the lumics. Hannah and Amanda stood off to the side. Jonathan sat on his porch and tuned his new guitar. Theo and Heath played video games with Liam. Peter was away on some cryptic clan business.

  Amanda looked between houses and saw Zack in his backyard, dabbing colorful strokes on a canvas while Mercy guided his arm. She had dared him to put away his pencils and try oil painting for a week. Zack double-dared Mercy to go the other way. They spent hours each day on their clumsy new artforms, teaching and teasing each other at every turn.

&nbs
p; Hannah glared at Mercy. “She was there in White Plains the night Jonathan’s friends died. She took away their powers when they needed them the most. Made them all sitting ducks for Rebel.”

  Amanda shook her head glumly. “It’s in the past now.”

  “Yeah, so’s Zack’s brother. Does he even know what she did?”

  “Of course he knows.”

  “Then how can he be friends with her?”

  Amanda looked down at her shuffling feet. “The Pelletiers did something to him. He won’t talk about it, but I can see it in his eyes. They scarred him.”

  She kicked a small stone. “I guess he’s saving all his anger for them.”

  The party ended an hour after it began. While the lumics gathered their tables and dishes, Yvonne pulled David aside. She daintily adjusted his collar, her dark eyes heavy with concern.

  “Listen, you’re a perceptive guy. You must know by now that my father’s hoping for us to, uh . . .”

  “Get better acquainted,” David said. “I assume that was the real motive behind this lunch.”

  Yvonne rolled her eyes. “He’s stuck in the old ways, but I don’t give a flip about marriage or children. Not at this age. Not with everything going on.”

  David beamed with bright surprise. At first glance, he’d taken Yvonne to be a vapid thing, a storefront mannequin designed only to impress people. But the more he talked to her, the more she teased her hidden layers. There was a smart, weird, and very interesting girl behind the makeup, and she was almost afraid to show it.

  Yvonne saw his expression and smiled. “Okay, good. So the pressure’s off. We can be friends or guildmates or whatever makes you comfortable. I just hope we have another conversation soon.”

  “We can have one now,” David said. “If you feel like staying.”

  He balked at her stammering reaction. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the etiquette here. If that was too—”

  “No. It’s fine.” Yvonne threw a quick glance at her people. “I’ll tell them to go without me.”

  Ninety minutes later, Peter returned to the cul-de-sac and gathered everyone up for a backyard meeting. Eight orphans and three kinsmen watched him curiously from folding chairs, all clueless to his agenda. Peter wasn’t pleased that Zack and David invited their new ladyfriends into the circle, but at least Mercy would be discreet. The real problem was Yvonne. Anything she heard would get back to the Mayor, which would then get to everyone.

  Peter snatched a pen from his shirt pocket and twirled it in his fingers. “So I just met with the elders.”

  Mercy scoffed at her sketchbook. “Those dried-up milksacks. What do they want now?”

  “The good news is that they finally heard me on the matter of the Coppers. If Melissa Masaad wasn’t lying about those people—”

  “She wasn’t,” Theo insisted.

  “—then it’s in everyone’s best interest that we go to Seattle and find them.”

  “Finally,” Mia said. “When do we leave?”

  Peter shook his head. “The elders are putting together a team, but they don’t want us on it. We’re still fugitives, and the Coppers have that city crawling with federal agents.”

  “Those are our people,” Zack reminded him. “We should be the ones reaching out to them.”

  “I made that very argument. They’ve agreed to let me go on the mission, and I can bring two of you with me. Only two.”

  Mia, Zack, and David all quickly volunteered.

  “We’ll work it out,” Peter said. “We’re not leaving for a couple of days.”

  Theo got a prescient wind of Peter’s next bit of business. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Now hang on . . .”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  Jonathan fanned a puzzled look between Theo and Peter. “What did I just miss?”

  “Our augur’s getting ahead of us,” Peter said. He flashed his palms at Theo. “Just hear me out, all right? It’s not what you think.”

  The others watched him closely as he deliberated over his words. “Our people are big on rituals. You name it, we have a ceremony for it. The whole thing can get a little, uh—”

  “Soul-crushing,” Liam grumbled.

  “—tedious. The thing is, we don’t have a ritual for welcoming full-grown adults into the clan. Until now, we never needed one. So instead of coming up with a whole new deal, the elders want to induct you through a rite we hold when a kinsman turns eighteen. It’s called a Testament.”

  Liam closed his eyes and groaned. Mercy let out a cynical laugh. “Those assholes.”

  Yvonne frowned at her. “What? It’s a beautiful service.”

  “It’s bullshit.” Mercy gestured at the Silvers. “For these people, it’s cruel.”

  Amanda tossed up her hands. “Will someone please explain it already?”

  “It’s a sacrament of initiation,” Peter told her. “You’ll declare your loyalty to the clan and its core tenets of humanity, humility, and temperance. The only sticking point, and I fought them tooth and nail on this, is the humility part. Traditionally, a Testament involves a sacrifice.”

  The Silvers and Golds traded baffled looks. David stared at Peter, deadpan. “What, like a goat?”

  “A personal sacrifice. You have to give up something of value.”

  Now the others caught up with Theo’s outrage. Hannah vehemently shook her head. “Uh-uh. No way. We already lost our world.”

  “We lost everything,” Zack stressed. “What the hell do they expect us to give up?”

  “You two are the easy ones,” Peter said. “One of you draws. The other one sings.”

  Hannah gaped. “Are you high?”

  “No way,” Zack growled. “No goddamn way.”

  Peter rubbed his face. They were all getting worked up over nothing, but he couldn’t tell them why as long as Yvonne was here.

  Mercy smiled at Zack. “You can give up painting. You suck at it anyway.”

  His eyes bulged. “Holy shit. That’s brilliant. Can I do that?”

  “Of course not,” said Yvonne. “The sacrifice has to be genuine.”

  Zack turned to her, mystified. He’d just met her ten minutes ago, this teenage clone of Esis. He hoped for David’s sake that the resemblance was only skin-deep.

  “So what did you give up?” he asked her.

  “I’m sixteen. I haven’t had my Testament yet.”

  “It’s just for the adults,” Peter told him. “You and Amanda and Theo and Hannah. The rest of you don’t have to worry.”

  Jonathan eyed him strangely. “You do know I’m a grownup, right?”

  “Yes, but you’re also a dropper. As far as the elders are concerned, your sacrifice has already been made.”

  Nobody in the circle appreciated the sentiment, least of all Hannah and Heath.

  “It’s no big deal,” Mercy told them. “I broke my oath years ago. So did Peter. There’s no consequence. You’ll just get some dirty looks from the zealots.”

  “That’s not true,” said Yvonne.

  “Well, no, not for bootlickers like you. But for the rest of us—”

  “Mind your mouth,” David snapped. “It’s taking a lot of effort for some of us to be polite to you.”

  Mercy recoiled at his vitriol. “I never asked for politeness.”

  “You never asked for forgiveness either.”

  “Yes she did,” said Zack.

  “Yes I did.” Mercy jerked her head at Zack. “I asked him. But whatever.”

  She closed her sketchbook, rose from her chair, and then clutched Zack’s shoulder. Everyone could see her fighting back tears.

  “Don’t give up a goddamn thing.”

  The group sat in grim silence as Mercy left the yard. Peter leaned forward and pressed his folded hands to his lips.

  �
��She’s a good woman at heart. If Zack can forgive her, so can the rest of you. That said, she’s wrong about the Testament. The day I broke my oath is the day I lost my credibility. If I’d had it when I first challenged Rebel, who knows? I could have stopped this war before it started. That’s no small consequence.”

  Mia swallowed a scream when she saw Yvonne nodding in agreement. The girl had done nothing to stop Rebel’s violence. She’d probably been an early supporter.

  “The ceremony’s a crucial step in healing the damage between us,” Peter said. “I’d very much like to get it right.”

  Amanda shrugged helplessly. “I don’t want to make light of it. I just don’t know what to sacrifice.”

  Peter narrowed his eyes at Yvonne before looking away. In truth, he shared all of Mercy’s contempt for the elders and their rituals. But while Mercy confronted them with screams of rebellion, Peter had learned a more artful game. He knew how to face the council with a smile and a pair of crossed fingers behind his back. And soon so would the Silvers.

  —

  The amphitheater graced the northern edge of the underland: fifty rows of gray velvet seats, all sloping and funneling toward a giant clamshell stage. The place was used twice a month for town hall meetings. On special occasions, there were creative performances. The lumics staged a patriotic light show every Fourth of July. The White Hand Groove, the all-tempic jazz band, held their annual concert in March.

  On this Tuesday night, the tenth of May, the clan once again filed into the amphitheater. Mia looked around from the thirtieth row. It was downright surreal to see so many Gothams in one place. The tribe had grown so large that the seating pool wasn’t even big enough to hold them anymore. Mia glanced over her shoulder and saw a hundred young Gothams standing at the gate of the upper mezzanine, looking thoroughly miserable in their formal suits and dresses. She could certainly relate. She was decked to the nines in a navy-blue wrap gown, liberated from the closet of the late Krista Bloom. For Mia, the only thing worse than wearing a dress was wearing the dress of a dead enemy.

  Carrie sat to her left, her hand clasped firmly around Mia’s. “Don’t worry. I’ve been to a hundred of these things. Your biggest threat is boredom.”