“Transference,” I repeat, struggling to hide my shock. I know the term; it means moving cagic energy. Yet what Tah Roli Miri just did was much more advanced than any transference I’ve ever done or seen. She was essentially flying. Her airborne feats make my ability to move the Colossi seem childish. “You’re very talented,” I say, as my insides mimic her twists and turns. If I’m going to convince Drae Devorla that I should be her Predrae, I’m going to have to learn how to float around on shimmerlight—and how long will that take?
◆◆◆
As I wait to hear from the Authentication Office, the Dark Month slowly creeps by. I reluctantly donate more cagic, I play many card games with Paislene and Auldora, and I have a formal audience with the King Macreolar and Queen Naradara, who welcome me home but also won’t restore my Predrae status. Worse, the other Shimmerlings take a sudden interest in my Colossi; I suppose inspired by me. No girl can move them on her own, yet working together, a group of Shimmerlings make Sevensy take several clumsy steps across the courtyard.
When I’m alone in the Shimmerfade Cottage, I practice shimmerlight transference, but it doesn’t go well. I start by trying to stand on a cagic cube about the size of a bread loaf. However, the energy either bursts under my weight, sending sparks skittering across the floor, or it shifts and is too wobbly to stand on.
Both Fedorie and Clicks send me letters. They want to know how I’m doing, and they either want to visit me or they want me to visit them. When I respond—which is challenging because I still write like an eight-year-old—I politely turn down their offers and invitations. I tell them it’s because I must be ready to leave as soon as the Authentication Department gives me an assignment, and I tell myself that the Maternals don’t want Shimmerlings leaving the courtyard or hosting guests. But deep down, the truth is that even if I could see Clicks and Fedorie, I don’t want to. They obviously feel sorry for me. It’s all over their letters: “Such a shame you aren’t the Predrae anymore.” “The Great Drae has made a mistake. You are so talented!” I could never endure that much pity in person.
One of Clicks’s letters also brings troubling news: Kary’s gone. He vanished as soon as his land justification papers arrived.
Clicks is clearly worried, and he frets that Kary’s criminal father might have done something nefarious, but I’m sure Kary’s just looking for work. He’s proud, like me. He wouldn’t want to be a burden, the same way I don’t want to be a failure.
More time passes, and I begin to wonder if the Great Drae agreed to my Authentication plan simply to placate me. But when the Dark Month is nearly over, Matron Isme finds me in the dining pavilion and hands me an envelope.
“Congratulations,” she says without any fanfare. “You’ve been assigned to an Authentication team.”
◆◆◆
When I was shipwrecked, Drae Devorla was busy building new subtrains. Kaverlee had a transportation system already, but these new trains would be able to leave the city during the Dark Month on protected tracks. I remember Matron Isme saying they would forever change Kaverlee, for now the periphery towns and villages wouldn’t be so isolated.
I was often with Drae Devorla while she inspected the various construction sites. She wanted to make sure the entire subtrain system was safe with strong gates partitioning the stations, sturdy tunnels, and impenetrable train carriages. I was more interested in what everything looked like, so Drae Devorla let me pick out the fabric that would cover the carriage benches. I remember spending hours sifting through colorful textile samples and ultimately choosing a crimson brocade with gold stripes.
Because I was shipwrecked before the new train system opened, it still feels new to me. As I stand on the Landroot Station Platform, it’s very strange to be surrounded by sedate, disinterested people as a sleek, silver train glides toward us. It seems like everyone should be gasping in delight or applauding, instead of looking mildly bored.
As for me, though, I’m amazed. The train is beautiful and elegant, and just as Drae Devorla promised, it’s very quiet. As it slows to a stop, all I hear is a gust of wind and the faint crackle of cagic sparks. My dark pallacoat dances around my yellow skirt, but my hair stays put, twisted up in a tight coil.
I wanted to travel with a large selection of fine stolas, but the seamstress helping me pack thought I should mostly bring practical traveling clothes. I knew she was right, but because I’d been wanting to wear palace fashions for so long, it was hard to leave my decadent gowns behind.
But the same seamstress showed me that subdued clothes can be stylish and interesting too. She arranged a more appropriate wardrobe for me, and I do really like it, especially the dark mauve pallacoat I’m wearing now. It has pleats in strategic, flattering places, and the hem is covered in tiny silver grommets, which looks a lot like a starry sky.
I step into the subtrain, and there it is: the crimson and gold upholstery fabric I chose seven years ago. It’s a bit threadbare now, but it still looks elegant covering the seats. I wonder if Drae Devorla would ask for my opinion on important projects these days. Probably not, which makes me sad, and I feel even glummer when a loudspeaker reminds me where I’m going; this train follows the Periphery’s northeastern coast to Outer’s Cove.
Because my Authentication mentors are currently in a remote settlement with no subtrain station, I’ll have to wait for them in that lonesome village.
Yet it’s not really Outer’s Cove that bothers me, it’s who lives there.
“Your family will surely be pleased to see you,” Matron Isme said when she gave me my subtrain tickets. “You used to visit them each year, didn’t you?”
I nodded, trying to keep my expression serene and blank, for the truth is, I hated those visits. Because I was authenticated at a very young age and never knew my family, it was like being forced to visit strangers. And in the end, I was right to resent those trips; I was shipwrecked while returning from Outer’s Cove.
Now, I sit across from the train’s sliding doors and think about my parents’ confounding decision. When Periphery children are authenticated, their family is offered an allowance and land justification in Kaverlee City. But my parents gave up a life of privilege and safety in exchange for annual visits with me. I still don’t understand why. Shimmerling parents who move to Kaverlee can visit their children on Connection Day, so it’s not like they wouldn’t have ever seen me.
The subtrain leaves the brightly lit station with a confident whoosh and speeds into the dark tunnels. The windows reflect the train’s bright interior, yet every so often, pillars flicker by or I glimpse a wire cage that protects the above ground tracks. I occasionally even see a gleam of moonlight on the Silkord Sea.
Someone left a newsreader on the opposite bench, and I pick it up. Newsreaders weren’t allowed in the Courtyard of Youth, and so I find it slightly thrilling to hold something forbidden. On the first page is a drawing of me walking down the Duskrider’s gangway with a headline that reads: Former Predrae Survives Harrowing Ordeal. What follows is a fairly accurate account of my time on the Grimshore. Whoever wrote it must have spoken to Fedorie or Clicks. I wish they had drawn me the way I look now, though. The girl in the newsreader seems defeated and broken, and although things aren’t exactly going my way, I certainly haven’t given up.
The subtrain first stops in Avelit Beach, pulling into a dimly lit station and waiting as passengers disembark. It passes through Cullivar next and then Shraydon, and by the time we reach Marin Harbor, my train carriage is almost empty. I suppose I’m not surprised. Not many people want to leave Kaverlee City during the Dark Month.
I buy a small meal in the dining carriage—sliced fruit, bland dumplings, and spiced tea. After I eat, I spend the next few hours planning a training regimen for myself so I can master Tah Roli Miri’s fancy transference, and I also doze a bit, resting my head on a padded seat back.
I try not to think about my family, but I do anyway. Will my mother still constantly ask to braid my hair? Will my father still tell dull storie
s about the Hidden Gods? Will Fifsa still pester me to play dolls? Will Osren still put dead mice in my bed?
Now when I look through the subtrain’s windows, all I see is a blur of gray, blue, and black, and even if I put my face against the glass and curl my hands around my eyes, I still see nothing. Although there is one moment, when we cross a deep gorge in a protected bridge, that I notice the shaggy shapes of nocturnes climbing over snowy rocks below—wolievs probably.
At last, the subtrain eases into Outer’s Cove station with a soft hiss that almost seems like a polite, put-upon sigh. The doors slide open, and I step out onto a tiled platform, where I pull an envelope from my handbag. Matron Isme wrote down important information for me, such as my Authenticator trainee number, the subtrain schedule, and directions to my family’s Dark Month shelter: Follow the central tunnel, climb the third flight of stairs, and enter the first enclosure on the left. The door is an empty grain bag.
It’s absurd to see “empty grain bag” written in Matron Isme’s prim, curly handwriting on expensive palace stationary, and I almost laugh out loud. Instead, though, I tuck the note back into my handbag and wait for my traveling chest.
After a few moments, a voice crackles through the loudspeaker on the wall. “Outer’s Cove! End of the line!”
Although this place is smaller and humbler than the stations in Kaverlee, it’s still clean and functional like all Drae Devorla’s projects. The pearly tiles covering the walls have an appealing simplicity, and aside from a prudent use of iron to keep nocturnes from manifesting, there’s no unnecessary decorations or showy architecture.
“Ah! Here you are!”
I turn to see a young woman walking toward me. She must be my older sister Fifsa.
As soon as she’s within arm’s reach, she hugs me so tightly I yelp. She then inspects my face, running her hands along my jaw.
I’d forgotten this about my family—how they handle me like I’m a prized trinket.
“Just look at you!” Fifsa squeezes my pallacoat sleeves. In comparison, her cloak is frayed and has a large, old-fashioned collar. “We might as well be twins, wouldn’t you say?”
With her pointy chin, dark brown hair, and scattered moles, I suppose Fifsa does resemble the young woman I saw in Kary’s handheld mirror. But now that I’ve dyed my hair a gleaming blue-green and I cover my moles with opaque cream, I don’t see a similarity. I also don’t wear spectacles like Fifsa does.
The station porter finally trundles over with my traveling chest, but then he heaves it off his dolly and walks away.
“Excuse me sir,” I call after him. “I’d like assistance with my bags. This isn’t my final destination.”
“Didn’t think you lived in a subtrain station,” he says, smirking. “You’ll have to take it from here, miss. I’ve got other duties.”
I’m stunned by his rudeness. The Kaverlee porters picked up my luggage from Triumvirate Hall. I can’t carry this chest on my own.
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Fifsa says, grabbing one of the trunk’s hinged handles. “I’ll help.”
“Well, I’m going to file a complaint,” I say, gripping the other handle with both hands. I suppose if I survived on the Grimshore, I can haul my belongings a short distance. But what poor service. I bet Tah Roli Miri could move this trunk on floating shimmerlight. I wish I could too.
“Osren would have come to meet you as well,” Fifsa tells me as we stagger through the station like two dockworkers, “but he’s on nocturne patrol. And of course, Mother’s making far too much food. You know how she gets.”
I don’t know how she gets, but I keep that thought to myself.
We haul my traveling chest out of the clean, spacious subtrain station and into the much older Outer’s Cove shelter, a dank space full of tents and crude shacks and far too many people. I immediately feel claustrophobic, and I have the odd sense that I’ve traveled from modern, bright Kaverlee to the farthest corner of the periphery lands in a single stride.
It will all be worth it, I remind myself. I no longer have to donate cagic, and I’ll have plenty of time to practice transference.
“Will I see Father today?” I ask, and if I wasn’t carrying my trunk, I’d cover my nose. The shelter reeks of sweat, mildew, and animals. I understand that farmers don’t want to risk their livestock because nocturnes will devour anything, but I wish they’d build a separate shelter for them or at least have better ventilation.
Fifsa hasn’t answered my question so I ask it again. “What about Father? Will I see him today?”
“Ah…” She adjusts her grip on the heavy chest and then looks up sadly. “I guess no one told you, but… Father’s dead.”
“Oh.” I feel a pang of loss, which I suppose is natural, but it still surprises me because I hardly knew him.
“It happened two years ago,” Fifsa explains. “A molzer tunneled into the shelter.”
“How terrible,” I say. Molzers are a very rare species of nocturne.
She nods and lifts her spectacles to brush aside tears. “Three other people died too. I’m so sorry you had to hear about it from me. That’s a pitiful welcome home, isn’t it?”
All I can remember about my father is that he was a wiry man who smelled like incense, often talked about the Hidden Gods, and called me Xye-Xye whether I liked it or not.
“How are you doing? Do you need to rest?” Fifsa asks before we descend a crooked flight of stairs.
“I’m fine,” I lie, wishing I hadn’t brought so many outfits. My trunk probably weighs as much as I do, and the handle’s pulling painfully on my palms.
To make matters worse, I stumble at the bottom of the stairs, and I drop my side of the trunk onto my foot. I wail, and it’s more a cry of frustration than pain.
“I’m so sorry,” Fifsa says. “I’m moving too fast, aren’t I?”
“No, no, it’s not that.” I hoist the trunk back up. “It’s just so dark; I didn’t see the last step.” I glance up at a flickering cagic light bolted to the concrete ceiling. It’s covered in rust and must be several decades old. “This shelter need better lighting.”
“True, but it’s not just the lights,” Fifsa says. “We only get a small amount of cagic from Kaverlee, so we have to ration it.”
“The Great Drae does her best,” I say, feeling defensive.
“I’m sure she does,” Fifsa says, and I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not.
We follow a narrow path between shacks, lean-tos, and jagged cave walls. Now and then, we squeeze past villagers and some of them stare at me. I suppose even in my subdued traveling clothes, it’s obvious I don’t belong here. A few people seem to recognize me too, and I don’t understand why, but I hear them muttering angrily about Shimmerlings and the Great Drae. An old woman then steps into our path, blocking us, and I think she’s upset with me.
Yet she turns to Fifsa. “Tury’s still missing.”
“Oh, I know. I heard.” Fifsa puts her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “At least it’s almost dawn. I’m sure he’ll show up then.”
“I hope so.” The woman presses a hand to her mouth.
“I know so,” Fifsa assures her. “He’s probably in the animal pens again. You know how he hates crowds.”
The woman nods. “I hope you’re right,” she says, and once she shuffles off, Fifsa and I keep moving.
“I’ve been friends with Tury since we were small,” Fifsa tells me. “This is the third time he’s vanished during the Dark Month. Usually, though, we’ve found him by now.”
“You don’t think…” I shiver, horrified, imagining someone trapped outside of the shelter.
Fifsa shakes her head. “No… I’m sure he’s down here somewhere. This is a big place.”
We then climb a daunting flight of stairs, and once we’re gasping and slouching at the top, Fifsa says, “Well, here we are! Or I suppose I should say, here you are. I live somewhere else.” Her cheeks turn pink as if she’s made a special announcement and she looks at m
e expectantly.
I’m not sure how to respond.
“I live with my husband’s family,” she adds. “I’m married!”
I nearly say, “Already?” but I swallow the comment. It’s just that people rarely marry when they’re seventeen in Kaverlee. Fedorie married Markos when she was twenty-six, and Clicks married his wife when he was thirty.
“My husband Gefro can’t wait to meet you,” Fifsa gushes, her cheeks still rosy. “But he’s working in the deep cellars today.” She turns to the nearest shack. “Mother! Xylia’s here!”
I feel a chilly rush of something, trepidation maybe, as my mother appears. Unlike Fifsa, who transformed from a doll-loving child into a too-perky young woman, Mother has barely changed. Her hair is slightly grayer, and her face has a few more lines, but otherwise she’s the same frail-looking woman who gave me an unwanted kiss goodbye seven years ago.
“Xylia!” she says in her thin, fragile voice, and then even though she looks weak, she pulls me into a surprisingly tight embrace. “I never thought I’d hold you again, my dear, darling daughter!”
“Whose fault is that?” I want to say, but I don’t.
Mother lets go of me, but then she strokes my hair like I’m an expensive Landroot dog. “I’m so glad you’ve come to visit us. I really am—even if it’s just for a short while. You’re welcome to stay longer, though… If you like.”
I glance at Mother’s patched stola and the mismatched walls of her shelter. “I don’t believe this is where I’m meant to be,” I say gently.
Mother bobs her head. “Of course, of course. Just know that you’re always welcome.” She brings her hands together. “Well, come on in. I have soup simmering, and as soon as Osren returns, we’ll eat.”
Mother’s hut has only one room and no proper beds. She lends me a hammock, though, and shows me how to draw the privacy curtain. “We can’t use mattresses in the caves,” she explains. “It’s hard enough to keep mold out of our clothes. I am sorry, though. I’m sure a hammock isn’t what you’re used to.”
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