by E. C. Myers
“What do you want?” Cookie asked. “Don’t tell me you’re friends with her.”
They could see Neo?
Her parents had been catching glimpses of Neopolitan lately when Trivia was upset, which was more and more often these days, but she couldn’t make her as solid as the smaller, inanimate illusions she pranked them with around the house. Creating another person was much more difficult than a vase of dried-up roses, a broken step, or a bloodstain on the sofa. So her friend only lived in her head—until now. It seemed that everyone could see her. Of course seeing was one thing, but touching—
Neopolitan smiled and punched Cookie in the face. Neo’s hand shattered like glass, the impact rippling through her arm and breaking apart the rest of her body until the shards faded, along with the illusory crack in the ground.
But it wasn’t all an illusion. Cookie’s hand was over her nose, blood gushing from between the fingers.
Trivia was almost as shocked as the girls were. She hadn’t created anything with her Semblance as big as that crack before—or two separate illusions at the same time.
“Whoa,” Heather said.
“Freak!” Mags shrieked.
Cookie moaned and blubbered. The front of her pretty blue shirt was ruined, splattered with blood.
Trivia suddenly noticed the small crowd gathered around them. Some people were holding up their Scrolls taking pictures. She backed up slowly, people parting to make way for her.
A siren blared and red and blue lights flashed. A black-and-white police car rolled up to the curb. A cop stepped out. “What’s going on here?”
Trivia spun on her heels and ran.
“Hey,” the cop said. “Hey! Stop!”
Oh no oh no oh no. I’m in big trouble. Trivia ran as fast as she could, the police siren blaring behind her. The flashing lights following her, casting her long shadow ahead of her.
“Stop!” a voice blared on the car’s speaker.
Trivia abruptly changed direction and darted down another street, only to find the end of it blocked by a chain-link fence and construction signs. She heard a sharp whistle and looked up. Neopolitan was balancing on top of the fence, back in her own pink-and-white adventure outfit. She gestured for Trivia to jump up.
Easy for you to say, Trivia thought. I’ll have to do this the hard way.
She started climbing, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV. She had almost reached the top when she felt a hand close around her ankle.
“That’s enough. Come down here, kid.”
Trivia held on tight, the metal wire biting into her fingers. She looked over her shoulder and pulled on her leg, trying to shake his hand free.
“Think about it, where are you going to go?” The cop pointed at the big hole in the ground on the other side of the fence with bare girders rising from it high above the ground. “Please don’t make me follow you. I’m afraid of heights.”
Trivia sighed. She let go. The cop caught her and lowered her gently to her feet.
“Now what’s going on?” the cop asked her. “Why’d you run?”
Trivia pulled out her Scroll to type out a response, but he grabbed it from her. “Hey. Answer me.”
She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a sob. She swiped at her eyes, embarrassed that she was crying. She was so tired. She sat down, right there in the dirt.
The cop crouched. “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. What’s your name?”
Trivia pointed at the Scroll, then opened her mouth and pointed at her open mouth.
“You want to make a call?” he asked.
“She can’t talk.” His partner, a woman with graying hair and kind eyes, took the Scroll and returned it to Trivia.
Trivia smiled gratefully. She typed furiously and then showed them the screen.
I didn’t do anything. Not my fault.
“Those girls have gotten in trouble before, so I believe it. That’s why we were parked nearby. But you were involved in some kind of disturbance,” the male cop said. His badge read “Arad.”
“But it kind of seems like you were the victim here?” The woman’s badge identified her as Officer Cloud. “Let’s just get you home. What’s your name?”
Trivia typed. Trivia Vanille.
“Vanille? As in Jimmy Vanille? I didn’t even know he had a daughter,” Cloud said.
Trivia shrugged and spread her hands. Here I am.
“Hey, maybe there’ll be a reward for bringing her home,” Arad said.
His partner bopped him on the head. “Dum-dum.”
Trivia sat in the back of the patrol car, head down, unable to look out at the city as they drove her home.
“Still no answer.” Cloud put down her Scroll.
“Maybe they’re out looking for her,” Arad said.
Trivia rolled her eyes. Then she noticed Cloud watching her in the rearview mirror. Trivia closed her eyes and folded her arms.
The party was still in full swing when the car pulled up the driveway to her house. All the windows except Trivia’s were lit, and lively music filled the air.
Arad whistled. “No wonder they didn’t answer.”
“That’s still no excuse,” Cloud said sullenly. “I’d like to say a few things to Trivia’s parents.”
So would I, Trivia thought.
The circular driveway was jam-packed with partygoers’ cars, so Arad double-parked.
“Who’s gonna give us a ticket?” he joked.
They escorted Trivia up the pathway to the large double doors of the front entrance. She dragged her feet more as they got closer.
“Anything you want to tell me before we ring that doorbell?” Cloud asked Trivia softly. When she saw Trivia’s exasperated look, she apologized. “Just nod or shake your head. Are they treating you okay?”
Trivia hesitated for just a split second, but she nodded.
“Have they ever hit you?”
Trivia shook her head.
“Do you feel safe here?”
Trivia tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. Before she could respond, the door flew open and Carmel Vanille stepped outside. She pulled the door almost all the way closed behind her. Trivia saw men in tuxedos and women in sparkling evening dresses milling around behind her.
“Can I help you, off—” Mama caught sight of Trivia and her eyes rounded. “Trivia! What have you done?”
“Don’t worry, she’s all right,” Officer Cloud said. “And she isn’t in any trouble. We picked her up downtown. She got into a little fight—”
“A fight?” Mama shot Trivia a penetrating look. Trivia shrugged.
“You will explain all this later, and hope your father doesn’t find out you’ve been out.” Mama glanced behind her, as though afraid he would come to the door and find them standing out here. Or that a guest would notice her speaking to the police.
“So you didn’t know your daughter was out?” Cloud asked.
“I had no idea. As you can see, we’re rather busy tonight. Trivia was up in her room, or so I thought.”
Just like Neo had promised: They hadn’t missed her at all. If she hadn’t gotten mixed up with those girls and used her Semblance in front of strangers, she could have gotten back home without them being the wiser. The thought was as comforting as it was depressing.
Something bad could have happened to her tonight, and they never would have known that, either. They probably would have blamed her, too, when they found out.
“We’ll let you get back to your party, but we may follow up with you later,” Arad said.
“Thank you,” Mama said. She turned her attention to Trivia. “Get inside. Go around to the servants’ entrance and straight up to your room. We’ll discuss this before bed. To save us some time at the end of a very long night, write down what you did and just what you were thinking.”
Arad and Cloud exchanged a look.
Trivia started to head for the servants’ entrance when she caught sight of Neopolitan inside, her pink
hair pulled up away from her neck, and wearing a shimmery black-and-white gown and long white gloves. She winked at Trivia and beckoned her inside with a finger.
Trivia glanced up at her mom. She took a breath. And she pushed past her, through the door, into the foyer.
“Trivia! Get back here!” Mama called.
Trivia ignored her and followed Neo as she weaved through the crowd. Her parents didn’t want anyone to see Trivia. They didn’t pay enough attention to her to know when she was gone. Well, they couldn’t miss her now.
Trivia strategically bumped into guests to make them spill their drinks, drop their plates. She flexed her Semblance a tiny bit, creating a mouse that scampered from under a table and up a man’s trousers. He yelled and shook his leg frantically while his wife beat at the mouse with her purse.
Earlier, Trivia had been too startled to enjoy the new things she could do with her Semblance. Her parents had always punished her for using the power, warned her to keep it a secret. They’d been holding her back. What else could she do if she continued developing her ability?
As Trivia marched through the middle of the party, she waved her hand and set flies buzzing around the musicians’ heads, sending the song they were playing wildly off-tune. A woman found an eyeball floating in her champagne flute and flung it away from her, drenching another guest and breaking the glass.
Trivia stopped for a second in the midst of the chaos she was creating and smiled. Then she saw Papa staring from across the room, jaw set and face purple with rage. Only he wasn’t staring at Trivia—his eyes were fixed on Neopolitan. He was furious.
Suddenly afraid, Trivia released her illusions. As Neo faded, she curtsied to Jimmy Vanille. And he turned his anger toward his daughter.
Trivia trembled under his seething gaze. She had felt so strong and carefree a moment ago, but she had forgotten there would be consequences for sneaking out, disobeying her mother, disrupting their party. For showing off her Semblance outside of the family. There would be questions and rumors and Papa would have to pay to make them go away.
Trivia cried for the second time that evening. What am I doing? What have I done?
She couldn’t just make a mess and fade away like Neo, without taking responsibility. When Neo had punched Cookie, Trivia was the one the cops took away. She was the one the girls blamed.
It wasn’t me! It was her. Neo had encouraged Trivia to sneak out and to walk into the party. But Neo was part of her, so did that mean it really was Trivia doing all those awful things?
She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion she felt. Deep down, she didn’t regret a moment of what had happened that night and she wanted to do even more—and worse. She was proud of herself.
That had to be Neo’s influence again. Trivia had to stay in control. And to start with, she needed to apologize for everything. She would explain it to Papa, make him understand that she hadn’t meant any of it and it would never happen again. She took a shaky step toward her father.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes stern. He pressed his lips together and pointed up the stairs.
Trivia turned and fled to her room.
“Is that another stupid get-rich-quick scheme? Heist Plan Number Seventeen …” Brat #1, otherwise known as Melanie Malachite, peered over Roman’s shoulder at the notebook he was writing in.
“I’m impressed.” Roman snapped his notebook shut.
“Because …?”
“I didn’t think you knew how to read.”
“You’re mixing me up with Miltia again,” she said in a bored voice. She always sounded bored, but this time she had a reason to be after spending more than a week in lockdown.
“Hey. I can read, I just choose not to.” Her twin sister, Brat #2, a.k.a. Miltiades, went back to watching a Faunus soap opera.
He was glad for the reminder of which was which, because it really was hard to tell them apart, especially when they wore the same outfit: purple halter tops, black cut-off shorts, and mid-calf boots.
They say that the reward for doing a good job is it becomes your job permanently. Four years after he had joined the Spiders, Roman was now Lil’ Miss Malachite’s right-hand man, only partially because he was one of the few gang members to survive in one piece. So he was the only one she trusted to protect her daughters during one of the worst wars among the crime organizations that Mistral had ever seen.
Roman’s reward for being the best was holing up in a safe house with two snotty, apathetic, spoiled teenage girls. He should be out there tracking down members of rival organizations, but instead he was forced to be a glorified babysitter.
“I assume plans one through sixteen failed.” Melanie sat down across from him at the table. It had finally happened: She was willing to talk to him because she had nothing better to do.
“They haven’t failed.” Roman flipped through the pages of his notebook. “I’m still … planning them.”
“So. They haven’t failed yet,” Melanie said.
“You are your mother’s daughter,” Roman replied. He didn’t know who their father was, but he envied him for being smart enough to get as far away from this wacky family as he could.
Then again, he was probably dead. So he was only slightly worse off than Roman.
“What’s a ‘heist,’ anyway?” Miltia asked.
Melanie glanced up to the ceiling in exasperation. “It’s a big robbery. Like, a bank or a train.”
Roman turned to the page where he had sketched out Heist Plan Number Nine. “The Mistral Trading Company uses the old Zephyr Line to transport Lien from their banks around the Kingdom to Fort Charon.” He turned the page. “I have a plan to break into that, too.”
“So why haven’t you done it yet?” Melanie asked.
“A plan needs people, and as amazing as I am, there’s but one of me,” Roman said.
“Lil’ Miss has plenty of people working for her!” Miltia said. He had never heard the girls call their mother anything but Lil’ Miss.
Roman closed his book and tucked it into his coat. “I wouldn’t trust any of those goons to pull off one of these jobs.”
“You’re one of those goons,” Melanie said.
“I know why you don’t like working with a partner, Roman,” Miltia said.
“Oh yeah? Enlighten me,” he said.
“You don’t like sharing. You want all the profit for yourself.”
Roman sniffed. “Sharing profit means sharing the risk. Working with a partner doubles the chance of failure, for half the incentive.”
“You just need the right partner,” Melanie and Miltia said. As creepy as it was when they finished each other’s sentences, it was more disturbing when they said the same thing at the same time.
“Maybe. I just don’t believe anyone is going to watch out for me as much as I will,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about my plans. Until they’re ready,” he said.
He didn’t know why he’d told them all that. It was dangerous, underestimating the brats. They might only be thirteen, but they were still Malachites, and Malachites knew how to turn information—even the most innocuous—to their advantage.
Melanie smiled. “Don’t worry. Lil’ Miss wouldn’t be interested in any of your heists, anyway.”
Roman narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”
“Stealing money? That’s what a goon does. If you want to be a boss, you need to think bigger. Where does the money come from?”
“The bank.” Roman rolled his eyes.
“The banks move the money. But what makes the money? What does every Kingdom need?”
“Even I know that one,” Miltia said. “Dust.”
Dust. Maybe the rugrats had a point. Dust powered everything, everywhere, from planes to trains to automobiles. The Cross Continental Transmit System, the central communication network for all of Remnant, relied on the power it generated, and so did the Scrolls that used the CCT. Even weapons used Dust as fuel, its different forms—fire, ice, el
ectricity, gravity, and many variations and combinations thereof—having different destructive effects.
And if you had a Semblance … many people used Dust to enhance their special abilities in some interesting and devastating ways.
The biggest name in Dust was the Atlas-based Schnee Dust Company, but they did business in all four Kingdoms, from mining and storage to commercial distribution and point-of-sales, with many other companies vying for the still extremely lucrative scraps. If Roman could get a piece of that action—
Something yanked Roman’s hair and his head was pulled backward by his ponytail.
“Ow! Don’t do that, kid,” he said.
“Can I braid this?” Miltia asked. “Please?”
“No!”
Miltia grabbed his hat.
“Hey! Do not. Touch. The hat.” Roman spun around and grabbed to get it back. Miltia tossed it past him like a disc to Melanie.
“Girls. That is not a toy. Give it back to me, or—”
“Or what? You’ll ground us? We’ve already been stuck in here with you for a week. Ugh!” Melanie tossed the hat back to Miltia, just out of his reach.
“Yeah. What are you gonna do? Tell Lil’ Miss?” Miltia said.
Roman sighed. On the bright side, the girls clearly needed to burn off a lot of energy, and playing with his hat was literally keeping them out of his hair.
“Right. Fine. What do I care?” He tossed up his hands.
At least they weren’t messing with his new cane anymore. Now that Roman had money and resources, he had replaced his old wooden cane with a metal one that not only was strong enough to deflect the sharpest blades and hold up under tremendous force, but also was deadly on both ends. It was equipped with a grappling hook in the handle and a concealed flare gun in the tip that fired—what else—fire Dust. Since causing pain and destruction were music to his ears, he had named it Melodic Cudgel. The only thing he had forgotten to include in the weapon of his dreams was a safety lock, which he realized when Melanie had almost blown off her sister’s head the other day.
He wasn’t entirely sure that had been an accident.