by Levi Jacobs
The old woman’s eyes were knives, cutting apart the situation, straying close to the fist Ella tried to dangle casually at her side. “What kind of delivery?” she snapped.
“Yura, ma’am,” Tai said, followed by a string of liquid Achuri she couldn’t follow.
Prula nodded, responding in kind, then began to leave. “You,” she snapped at Ella in Yersh. “Back to work. And I don’t want to have any trouble because of this, understand?”
She left, and Ella felt a grin split her face. She’d done it! She was getting out! She held the yura up to her nose and breathed in, almost doubting it was true. And Tai—he had just given it to her, hundreds of marks worth of yura. Though from what she could tell, it was still nothing compared to what he was delivering. Where had he gotten it? What was it for?
No matter. She had her yura. She was getting out.
14
There’s no one way to do it. Can you love a new man same as you loved the old? You got to listen to your ancestors, think about em, care about em. Mostly they just want another chance.
--Achuri elder
Ella ate yura.
Just one ball, to start—she knew she needed a plan, needed to think through how she was getting out, despite the animal drive to attack and escape.
So she ate one ball, savoring its bitter earthy taste, as she listened to Prula’s steps retreat down the hall and thought fast.
She could stay, wait for the perfect time, but Arlo was always at the door, or Teddon, day and night—so she might as well go now.
She could take all the yura, on the chance it might make her more powerful, or trigger the change Kellandrials talked about, some chemical version of the Achuri ancestor pleasing—but who knew what that would look like? Whether she’d still be able to run or move at all?
Better to stick with one. Besides, she would need money once she was out, and literally all she had were the clothes on her back and the balls of yura. Eleven. She had eleven balls left.
Ella felt the gate open inside, like someone swinging back the thick wooden door to a ballroom with an orchestra playing. Her resonance was the music, available, spilling out.
She struck it.
Her body hummed, skin tightening, senses sharpening, and the gentle breeze from the window slackened to nothing against her skin. Time slowed, except for her, as though the world had become her private chambers. She sighed, stomach relaxing. She’d been powerless for so long. No longer.
Ella strode down the hallway, air swirling against her like water. The office was a room caught in cold honey, quills grating at a snail’s pace, Tunla’s mouth open mid-yawn, Prula with foot raised on her way to the door. Ella slipped past her, resisting the wild urge to grab all the ledgers, rip them up, throw the ink everywhere, destroy the place. But there was no time—she needed to get out, to prioritize the brief moments of her resonance.
Arlo was frozen in his usual posture, arms folded, leaning against the wall. “I’ll take these, if you don’t mind,” she said to him, slipping the keys from his pocket. He would hear her words as a high-pitched blurb, like a blast of human bird song.
The smaller key opened the door, and she swung it wide as she could against his frozen form—likely too heavy to move in slip—then wedged through and up the stairs. There was a second door, and she pulled out the big key.
It didn’t work.
“What the scat?” She tried the smaller one—it didn’t work either. There was a slight ache in her spine—sign that her uai was running out. Big key again. No. She could try breaking the door, but the resonance didn’t make her any stronger—she might be able to do it, but it would take too long.
There had to be a key somewhere. Who would have it?
Prula.
Ella leapt down the stairs, spine aching, hair floating behind her. Prula was barely one step closer than she had been, Arlo just starting to look at his pocket. Ella patted down the old woman’s dress for pockets or pouches—nothing. A glint on her neck—a chain. She just had it pulled up to find a key when the office slurred into life around her.
Her uai was gone.
Everything happened at once. Prula shouted, Tunla screamed, and Arlo seized her by the back of the neck, his own resonance rattling her bones.
“What the hell are you doing girl?” Prula spat, snatching the key back from her. “Did he give you yura?” Grimacing, not waiting for an answer, she nodded at Arlo. “Lock her in her room while I deal with this kid.” And with a furious look at Ella the older woman strode up the stairs.
Arlo wrapped an arm around her chest, another around her legs, and lifted her bodily from the floor. “Let me go!” she yelled, knowing it was fruitless, knowing too well the quick and beaten ways the other women looked back to their books. Tunla looked a moment longer, face full of concern, but what could she do? What could any of them do?
Ella screamed in frustration as Arlo hauled her back to the rooms. She’d been so close—she could still feel her resonance, just out of reach. The ballroom was open, the music was playing, but she didn’t have the power to step in.
Arlo kicked open the door to her room and threw her in. Ella skidded against the far wall and lurched for the door, furious. “You can’t do this to me!”
The door slammed shut, lock clicked, and rage blackened her vision for a moment.
Only a moment. Ella shoved it down, shoved down the panic at the closed door. She needed a plan, had to be ready when they came back. Winterfood. She needed mavenstym or wintermelon or something, to power her resonance, to slip out when the door opened.
There was nothing in the room. Nothing but her and her cot and—
And her yura.
She was out of uai but still—what other choice did she have? They would take it, when Prula came back.
“Kellandrials,” she gritted, digging the remaining balls of yura from her waistband, “you better not have made this up.”
Ella no, LeTwi called, his voice distant. You could die!
“Or I could get free,” she gritted, and stuck eleven balls of yura in her mouth.
The taste was cloying, overpoweringly bitter and earthen as she chewed the mouthful of moss. Ella suppressed her gag reflex—she needed all of it, every last bit of whatever yura did. Who knew how much it would take to work? If it would even work with her power gone?
For a second she thought nothing would happen—that Kellandrials had been lying, or it wasn’t enough yura, or she’d missed some piece of what a yura overdose would need to work. Then her bones started shaking, power thrumming through her, the massive dose of yura unearthing hidden stores of uai in her, like it was pulling from her very bones. The resonance struck of its own accord, and Ella felt the breeze still, saw the flapping curtain freeze against the window. The air was thick as mud around her.
Was this it? Was she free of yura? What should she be feeling—should she be trying to please her ancestors? Please LeTwi?
LeTwi said something, but it sounded like a toddler’s garble.
“What?”
Shancetrs. Shot tru.
She shook her head. “What do you want? What do you need from me?” If Tunla was right about ancestors controlling the resonances, LeTwi held the key somehow. But would he tell her what it was?
“No. S’old wive’s tale. Achuri nonsense. You know ish not true.”
Ella felt her skin slack, the resonance start to fade. She was losing it. “No!” Why was it leaving? What had she done? Ella heard voices in the hall. “But what about Tai? His abilities are more than just an old wives’ tale.”
“No! Meaningless. Meaninglesh anshestors.”
The vibration returned, skin tightening against her chest. Why? Because she’d argued with LeTwi? It was worth a try. “Yes, I know the ancestors are meaningless, it’s all meaningless and there’s no truth, I get it that that’s your thing. But you still can’t explain Tai.”
“Tai—taking yura. Why he had so much. All fake—“
The resonance f
aded again, voices in the hall rising as time sped. Prula and Arlo coming for her. She had to be able to slip when they walked in. Or who knew what they—what Odril—would do to her? She had to keep fighting her voice, if that’s what was working. Was pleasing LeTwi defeating him in argument?
“—all meaningless,” he was saying. “Odril believes in power and money, and Tunla believes in ancestors, but they’re both ultimately meaningless. The world is—“
“Unfortunately,” she cut in, “the whole power money thing is very real for Odril, just like ancestors are real for the Achuri.” She heard the lock turn in the door and pressed on, desperate. This was her last chance. “It’s very nice that it’s meaningless to you, but to him it means that he needs to lock women into illegal contracts, or deny them food or—wait.“ Something clicked in her brain, and she felt the hum come back, saw the door slow in its swing open. “Real for him. Just like ancestral spirits are real for Tunla—and LeTwi’s postulate on no ultimate truth is real for me. What makes my belief that there’s no truth any realer than their belief that money or spirits are the ultimate truth?”
“S’courage. You’re courage.” He sounded smash drunk.
Ella sat down hard on the bed, Prula forgotten for a moment, air thick around her. “My truth is just as real as their truth. I mean, if there’s no ultimate truth, then even that ultimate truth isn’t ultimately true, right?”
“No—no, ish true—“
“No,” she said, standing up again, hearing LeTwi as though for the first time. “It’s not true, or it’s only true because I decided it is. And I don’t think I’ve actually believed it for a long time—you believe it. Like some kind of ancestral spirit that’s only pleased by confusing me.” Her eyes widened. “And you never give me power—but I have it right now, because I don’t believe you anymore.”
“No—ish all true—Ella—“ His voice was losing its educated accent, sloughing into something simpler, more basic.
She shook her head. “All true now, huh? Come on LeTwi. It’s only true if we decide it is, and your whole thing about other people being confused, about there being no ultimate truth, it’s just another confusion. That was my ultimate truth because you convinced me it was, but that’s scatwater. That’s you taking advantage of me. And I’m done with it.”
“Wait—”
But there was no stopping the change, now that she’d realized the truth. LeTwi had been using her. Using her uai? Ella’s skin stretched tight, resonance beating like a drum in her heart. She felt a peeling away, the lightening of a load she hadn’t known she was carrying, like pulling off heavy bracelets. And with a last call LeTwi, or whatever he was, was gone.
She was left with a clear mind, a beating resonance, and a brawler frozen halfway into her room.
She turned to the door, marveling at how slow it moved—almost not at all. She’d never slipped this deep. Gone was the worry, gone was the rage of a few moments ago. She’d done it. The resonance was hers now—she’d pleased her ancestor or argued him down or whatever she’d done, and no one could take it from her. She was a timeslip.
So she dampened her resonance, let the door swing wide.
Prula strode in, eyes like knives. “What in the hell were you thinking, trying to run out of here like that?”
Ella struck resonance again and Prula’s mouth slowed to near motionlessness. “I was thinking,” she said, strolling through air like honey and pulling the key from Prula’s neck, “that perhaps I’d take a break from Odril’s employment.”
Prula’s face registered no response, and Ella shuddered for a moment—had she actually stopped time? But no—there was movement in the woman’s face, her legs, just glacially slow.
Same for Arlo.
“You,” Ella said, stripping the cot with quick motions, “are likely to be more trouble, and I have a mind to see if anyone wants to come with me. So I apologize for this.” She took his keys, then tied the sheet around his legs with quick motions. It would hold him for a few moments—moments long as hours for her.
Ella ran out the door, locking it behind her, pushed through the frozen office room, and unlocked the bottom door. Taking a deep breath, she climbed the stairs and tried Prula’s key.
It fit. Ella swung the heavy door out to reveal a sunlit stretch of cobbled road, men and women frozen in their daily tasks, a wind-caught skirt frozen in flight.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen: freedom. The world, once again hers to conquer, and a new power to do it with. But one more thing to do, before she ran. Ella turned back into the office, bounded to the bottom of the stairs, and stilled her bones.
Once again her sudden appearance, the sudden shock of sunlight in the room, brought a chorus of gasps from the calculors working there. In the backroom, Arlo shouted, followed by a thud. “I have to keep this quick,” Ella said. “I know many of you have been here a long time, and maybe you don’t see a better way, but what Odril’s doing to us isn’t right. I’ve got the keys, I’ve got a plan, I’m leaving, and any of you that want to get out are free to come with me. Or go wherever you want to.” She looked especially at Tunla, who was staring at her, poleaxed.
Another thump sounded in the back, and Prula’s voice, muffled by the bedroom door. No one moved.
“Anyone?”
One by one they turned back to their papers, while Prula called and Arlo beat on the locked door. A deep sadness rose in Ella, that these women couldn’t take freedom even when they were offered it. That the world should be so twisted, the Councilate so powerful, that they had no better options. Tunla lowered her gaze last of all, just as a loud crack announced the bedroom door breaking behind them.
With a nod Ella clenched again, scene freezing, and ran to scratch Tunla a brief note before bounding back up the stairs. There was no way to tell how long her new uai would last—best to get far away from Arlo. But where?
Emerging into the daylight, she spotted Tai crouched across the street, talking to a stocky girl leaning on crutches. Ella wove through the frozen traffic, still in awe at her own power, then squatted down next to them.
She unclenched.
The street roared to life, and the girl Tai was talking to nearly fell over, cursing. Tai noticed her a moment later, and kept his cool a little better, though his eyes did go wide. “Ellumia,” he said. “You’re—out already?”
She laughed. “I’m a timeslip. Feels like a long time to me.”
Tai goggled. “Did you take all of it?”
She grinned. “I did.”
“And it worked?”
She clenched and reappeared on the far side of them, the stocky girl giving another start. “Prophets,” he breathed, then seeming to remember himself, indicated the girl. “This is Aelya.”
“Who’s this biawelo?” Aelya asked, having regained her balance.
Tai grimaced. “Just—somebody I know.”
“Someone he helped,” Ella said. She glanced at the brick building across the street—with time moving at normal speed, Arlo would be here any second. “Walk with me?”
“We were just about to, anyway,” he said, nodding to the girl.
Ella took a breath. “I—hate to ask for more help, but is there someplace safe I can go? Until I can earn some money to pay you back?”
“You lent her money?” Aelya’s scowl deepened.
Tai grimaced. “I can’t…really think of a place. Not for…”
Not for lighthairs. Right.
“Just go to Newgen.” Aelya waved a hand in the direction of the enclave, its towers visible even here. “They’re not gonna let another lighthair go homeless.” Her tone implied everything she didn’t say about what lighthairs let darkhairs do.
Behind them, an angry shout told her Arlo was out. “Right,” she said. “Well. I’ll see you in three days’ time.”
Ella froze the street tough halfway across the street and ran for it, air so thick it felt like swimming, ran until she was five or six streets away and her sp
ine was starting to ache. Not wanting to make a scene by suddenly appearing on the street, she ducked into an alleyway and unclenched. Then sat there a moment, panting, remembering how much work it was to do anything in timeslip. And how using uai always made her spine ache. But at least it wasn’t the bends wafters got, or the intense pain brawlers would get hit with, afterwards.
Ella stood, smoothing her skirts—fortunately freshly washed yesterday—and stepped out into the street. A light breeze blew, the sun was high overhead, and light- and darkhaired men went about their day like everything was right with the world. Maybe it was. She had no money, no place to go, and no real friends in the city, but she was free.
She would figure the rest out.
15
It were a near thing, for awhile there. Mecking Seinjial had all the iron in the world to make swords and spears and mail, and shattering castles besides. But they didn’t have the bloody cough, and cleanup was easy after we gave it to ‘em.
--Councilate army veteran
Tai goggled as the lighthaired woman vanished in a clap of air.
“Prophet’s piece,” Aelya breathed. “Is she slipping?”
“I guess so.” Timeslips were rare—there were just two in all Ayugen’s gangs—but Tai had never seen them clap air when they slipped. “Meckstains.”
A brawler ran after her a moment later, heavy resonance shaking their bones in passing. “Looks like the biawelo’s in trouble,” Aelya said. “And you lent her money?”
“She paid me for,” Tai said. “Kind of.”
“And she’s pretty lighthair,” Aelya scowled. “Tai we got kids to save, remember?”
Tai cocked his head. “Are you… jealous?”
“Hell no. Scatstains no.” She looked straight ahead, cheeks reddening.
“You are jealous! Aelya you’ve got a girlfriend! What do you care if I notice a lady every now and then?”
“I care if she’s a mecking lighthair, is what.”