The Point of No Return

by m9b2

Summary:

https://www.m9b2.com/series/fausts-bargain-bins

Chapter 1: San Pettru and Ga Enterprises

Yesterday, I went down to the Bridge to buy groceries.

Old Bridge is more than two miles west of the sun line, but after the sunlight melts off Crown Street and the shadow of the cave roof falls over the ends of the docks, the Bridge is the brightest place in Halk. You can see it from anywhere on the cave floor, even if everything between you and it is muffled by black. No matter how far away you are, every detail is as clear and flat as it’d be if you were looking at it on a workbench, except nothing on the Bridge casts a shadow. Once you’re on it, you can tell that there aren’t any reflections, either. Everyone’s hair looks wrong and you can’t drink water without dumping it down your shirt. When you close your eyes, you can count every vein on the backs of your eyelids. It scared the shit out of me when I first came to Imsaren.

You can use the Bridge to start a fight in any Connect Four parlor in the outer suburbs. If you say there’s no light on Old Bridge, you’ll piss off the kind of people who get pissed off by strangers saying you can see without light. Most of them are behind on their blue brick payments. Someone else will piss them off for you if you say there is light on the Bridge. It might be a philosopher wannabe who’ll claim that light necessarily casts shadows and reflections, but usually it’s just an abercrombie. Either way, some wise guy will say there is light on the Bridge, when someone on the Bridge turns on a light. By the time the really boiled people in the back figure out what that means, some wiser guy will throw in that, what is light, really, if not the ability to see. That’ll piss off the easy marks again, but they won’t be able to explain why, no matter how many questions any of the wise guys ask, and if it’s late and you’re lucky someone will throw a punch. It works better in the Towers than it does in Old Bridge. Old Bridge people are boring. Most Towers people are boring, too, but they don’t have anything better to do than drink white lightning and fight.

I’d still rather be on the Bridge than in the Towers. A couple months from now, I won’t be able to walk a block on the Bridge without tripping over a five-year-old trying to sell me bottled water, but I can ignore them. I won’t be able to ignore all the people passed out from heat exhaustion that I’ll trip over on the stairs up to my apartment in the Towers. The modi are theoretically there so if I ever pass out from heat exhaustion someone will come get me upright again before the ibises eat me, but in practice, I don’t pass out from heat exhaustion. Instead of getting my afternoons derailed by my own bad decisions, I get them derailed by other people’s. 

But for now, it’s still spring and the stairs are still clear. I’m not hunting for excuses to get out of the Towers, so yesterday made it a full week since I’d last been to San Pettru’s. 

San Pettru and Ga Enterprises is on Central, the only street on the Bridge that you can see when you’re not standing on it and the only street that’s clear of fog and bridge static. There’s just the noise of several thousand people and animals, folding doors grinding open and shut, deliverymen trying to force their way through the crowds, and five separate people trying to sell you stuffed bread at the same time. The bridge static starts when you get into the side streets. A couple blocks from Central, your ears start ringing. A couple blocks past that, there’s a hum that you can feel in your sternum like a bass drum. Out on the edge of the suburb, where you can’t see more than a few steps in front of you before the fog takes over, you can’t hear anything else.

I went out there once. The static sounded like every pitch I could hear, all playing over each other at the same time at the same volume. It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, louder than a storm on the ocean, and it felt like it was coming from inside my skull and out through my ears. I didn’t last long before I had to go back. I made it all the way back to San Pettru’s before I realized my hands were shaking.

San Pettru lives in a skinny blue three-tier rowhouse, with rows of spindly columns holding up the wood first-floor awning and barring the balconies on the second and third floors. He folds the first-floor doors all the way back when the store is open. It was hot yesterday, so somebody had also opened up the doors on the second and third floors. Thick teal curtains, embroidered with tiny diamonds, hung limp behind them.

The temperature climbed by another three degrees when I stepped into the store. I stopped to roll up my sleeves. The cloth under the straps that held my vest and cargo pants down to my body were damp, but if I loosened them I’d look like a curtain rod. My neck itched under my scarf and I could feel my makeup starting to run.

I ducked under the shop curtain and picked up a straw basket from the pile next to the door. Wheat flour was still as expensive as it was a week ago. I took the smallest bag in stock. The bottom-shelf instant coffee was buy one get one half off. I threw two bags in my basket and carried it up to the register.

San Pettru sat on a stool behind the counter. He had a square head and short hair. Crow’s feet were starting to spread out from the corners of his eyes. Maha had woven his scarf for him. His brown leather bomber jacket was probably older than she was.

“Morning, Awas.”

“Morning. How’s business?”

“Worse every day. How are you?”

“Terrible.”

He punched the price of the flour into his adding machine and fished my oil bottle out of the bottom of my bag. “Want me to fill this up?”

“ Absolutely .”

He set the empty bottle on the scale, spun it around so I could watch him zero it, then filled it up with olive oil from the cheapest tap on the counter behind him. “Your subscription for your polearm is almost up. Want me to renew that now?”

I had more money than I’d had in weeks, and God knew what’d happen to it by the next billing date. “Yeah.”

He typed it into the adding machine blind, then capped the olive oil bottle, wiped it off, and carefully nestled it in my bag.

“Anything I can help you out with?” I asked.

“I was wondering when you’d ask.” He pulled two folded-up pieces of paper out from under the counter and lined them up parallel to each other. One was yellow and one was blue. “I’ll give you a discount if you deliver these.”

“How much of a discount?”

He smiled. “What do you think is reasonable?”

“Ninety-five percent.”

“Fifty.”

“Seventy.”

“Done.” 

I paid. “Where are they going?”

He pointed to the blue one. “That’s a work order. The air filter in the warehouse is broken again.”

“Murder. Already?”

“Uh-huh. There’s a list of the parts they’ll need and when they can come by, so they shouldn’t have any questions.”

I slid the paper into the inside pocket of my vest. “Swell.”

“And if they could send somebody to check the air filter, that’d be great.”

“Is something wrong with it?”

“It sounds like a bunch of mice having their tails ripped off.”

“Huh.”

“I hope I won’t have to replace it, but it’s almost thirteen years old. My hopes aren’t high.”

“ Nittama .”

“Thanks. Anyway, try to get that delivered to the usual people by tonight, if you can.” He pointed to the yellow paper. “That’s Rozarya’s prescription. She won’t need it until Wednesday, but God knows the next time any of us will be able to make it to Lenna’s.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Massive BayaCorp brodie. Rozarya’s been at the branch office for three straight days. I’ve been here alone and Maha’s been running stock back and forth to the warehouse.”

“She must be having fun.”

“She’s getting evil.”

“You don’t say.” I dropped the prescription into my bag. “How’s Rozarya doing?”

“Surprisingly well. Usually she has flare-ups this time of year, but Lenna adjusted her medication and she’s been fine so far.”

“Masallah.”

“But I haven’t seen you all week— what’ve you been doing?”

“Tunnel crawl.”

“ Oh, no.”

I shrugged. “Could have been worse, but Indri got his arm sliced open by a tumbleweed and he’s been soaking it in enough alcohol to embalm it.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Physically, no. Psychologically, yes. We didn’t find shit— we tried the rabbit tunnels, but all we found was some kind of glow-in-the-dark lichen. Indri took some anyway, but that’s because he thinks he can grow it and use it to light his lot.”

“You’re sure it’s not worth anything?”

“Why would anyone pay for blue bricks if you could just use lichen?”

“Why does he think it’ll work?”

“Because he hasn’t tried it yet.”

San Pettru laughed.

“He says it’s because it’s from a new tunnel system, and he’s never seen it before. Nobody else seemed to want it, but maybe they just like blue bricks. Who knows?”

“Well, maybe it’ll work.”

“He’ll find out.”

San Pettru leaned against the counter and squinted into the middle distance. “How’d he get cut up by a tumbleweed in the rabbit tunnels? Are they getting smaller?”

“No, thank God. The tunnel we were in led out onto a ledge on the side of a canyon. The tumbleweed was on the wall above us. Masallah it was too dumb to stay up there— it crawled down on the ledge after it noticed us— so it was pretty easy to just push it over the edge.”

“Masallah.”

“I think it popped when it hit the ground.”

San Pettru winced. 

“Maybe it didn’t.”

“Thanks.”

“It might not have. You couldn’t hear shit in there, the echo was so bad. That’s how it got the drop on us in the first place.”

San Pettru’s eyes snapped into focus over my shoulder. He frowned. 

I turned around. South of us, Central’s flat roar had set into a steady rhythm, like waves hitting the shore. 

It was only eleven in the morning. San Pettru and I listened hard.

“Thief. Thief. Thief.”

“Huh,” San Pettru said.

I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had raised a posse on Old Bridge. Only a special kind of genius would cross the modi here. 

The chant was coming closer. People were starting to look around. A few of them started mumbling along, but everybody was hoping someone else would catch the thief before they got here except for some kids piling up on the third-floor balcony across the street.

I strapped my bag across my back. “Thanks, San Pettru.”

“No worries. Thank you for doing business.”

“Abyssinia.”

He nodded and raised a hand. I stepped out into the street.

I saw the thief right away. He was youngish, maybe sixteen. The Bridge wasn’t busy enough for him to disappear into the crowd, so he was headed for North Bank. He dodged around the knots and trickles of people with practiced grace, and he looked determined, not panicked. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten caught stealing. 

But he was unmasked, he wasn’t wearing any army symbols, and he thought he could steal on the Bridge. He was fresh off the boat, broke, and either he had nobody to tell him how things worked here or he’d been set up.

I ran after him.

Chapter 2: The Black Gate

The thief had decided, correctly, that Old Bridge was too small for him to lose the posse. He probably didn’t want to get too close to the bridge static, either. His plan was to shake off the posse in North Bank. He wouldn’t know the suburb well enough to plan a route, but all he had to do was make sure that no one who had heard the chant saw him running. Then he could slow down, dissolve back into the crowds, and filter back to whatever roof he was sleeping on.

He was a few seconds away from the Black Gate. The North Bank side of Central shone between its pillars. The lightless streets of Old Bridge disappeared into the fog on either side. I couldn’t focus my eyes on the line between the gray void over Old Bridge and the blue-star skyline above North Bank, so I didn’t try.

Once the thief was through the Gate, he could keep going on Central or he could turn onto Water Street. Central would give the posse he’d already attracted a clear line of sight. He could go east on Water, towards the brightly-lit, wide, straight streets of the inner subs, or west, into the shadowy anthills of the outer subs. Most of the Old Bridge posse would be too chickenshit to follow him out there, even if he didn’t know that.

He hit the Black Gate and flinched. I braced for the pressure drop, and while he skidded halfway into the intersection before he got his bearings and swung around to the west, I cut the corner.

I ran right into a broad-shouldered guy in a grass-green puffer jacket. He was already carrying the posse chant as loudly as he could. Bored, or just naturally a narc. I used some of my momentum to shove him and the rest to push off the concrete next to him and keep running. The narc swore, stumbled, and then took off after us.

The thief bolted for the first side street he saw, before most of the people in the intersection could register that the posse was for him. I’d shaved at least two seconds off his lead, but the narc was only a few seconds behind me. I spend an unholy amount of time running from tumbleweeds with ten times as many legs as the thief and the narc combined. I was confident I had better stamina than either of them, but I was also shorter than both of them by at least six inches, which dented my speed. The thief had been running the longest out of the three of us. The narc was the freshest, and he was right behind me. I’d catch up to the thief eventually, but so would he. More importantly, we were in Porfidu territory now. I didn’t have much time.

Chapter 3: Chaser Chaser

The thief looked back and saw the narc, then me. He shook his head, swore, and flung himself around the corner onto Arkata tar Rand.

This was the way I usually went to get back to the Towers. Ropes of people twisted between the walls of shelves and bins under the awnings and past the solid stripe of pushcarts down the middle of the street. The space between them was ribbed with tunnels of tents, permanent stores closer to the awnings, day stores closer to the pushcarts. The thief bounced between the islands of pavement around the tentpoles, where there were a few less pedestrians and when he did hit someone he lost less momentum. I charged after him, holding my polearm straight up and down my spine so it wouldn’t get caught.

The narc was hitting on all sixes and closing in. Everyone else got out of his way, where I had to dodge around them, and he was still carrying the chant. 

I couldn’t join in without even more people joining our parade, but the more people I sprinted past in silence, the more people would think I was the thief. Someone stuck out their boot in front of me. I jumped over it. The next person would try harder.

The longer we ran, the farther ahead of us the chant would travel. And I couldn’t cause any serious collateral damage in Porfidu territory.

Tentpoles didn’t stick in the concrete-splattered basalt of the cave floor. The permanent stores screwed them into pallets. The day stores wedged them between sandbags, so that they’d stay upright if they got sideswiped by a pushcart or a dolly but they were easy to pull up when the tent got disassembled at the end of the day.

On my right, salt-stained red canvas sagged to eye level. The PVC pipe holding it up was already leaning toward me.

I yanked it out from between the sandbags and threw it across the road behind me. Several people all swore at the same time. The narc’s chant cut off, and the roar building behind him diffused like a whitecap breaking. The people in front of me stopped and shifted, trying to figure out why. 

I sped up, slalomed between them, and cut another two seconds off the thief’s lead. I could hear him breathing hard through the noise of the crowd. He slid around the corner and looked back. Dread froze his face.

The doorway to the alley behind Arkata tar Rand opened next to him. I glanced at it, panicked, and then tried to look like I hadn’t noticed it. 

Instantly, he darted in. I followed him. 

When the shop owners in North Bank dug out their basements, they saved the rubble and used it to block the alleys behind their stores. Nobody in, nobody out, except through one, narrow door to the main road. The wall at the other end of this alley was almost nine feet tall and garnished with barbed wire. 

I let go of my polearm. The shaft swung out so the grip rested comfortably over my shoulder.

The thief spun around, wild-eyed and gasping. He was younger than I’d thought, fourteen or maybe fifteen, and built like a dried eel. The red cloth tied around his neck was half of a torn-up t-shirt. A Holy Aspen medallion swung back and forth across the words on his crewneck like a ouija board. 

Ouija Board’s eyes ricocheted from my polearm, to the barbed wire, to the slot canyon of chipped cinder block, to the ladder that ran down the wall next to him and ended chained to a platform six feet above his head. It took him less than a second to realize he was trapped. He shook his head, forced himself to swallow, and let himself double over, staring at the ground like he could burn through it with his mind.

I kept moving. Every few yards, pairs of stamped sheet metal doors were set into the cave floor. Store names were painted or chalked on the walls above them. I recognized the logo for a clothes store I’d been to a few times and stopped. 

Ouija Board shrank back against the wall. 

I ignored him. This store’s owners followed Santa Wenza. Today was Wednesday. They’d be closed. 

I dropped to one knee over the doors to the store’s basement and pulled out the ring of skeleton keys Lenna had given me. 

Ouija Board’s eyes widened. 

The first key I tried worked. Ouija Board lunged down the stairs. I followed him and locked the doors behind me.

The basement was pitch-black. Something thudded. Ouija Board swore.

I drew my polearm and flicked the switch on the shaft to its highest setting. Blue light exploded like a firework from both ends, turning the rows of cardboard box-lined shelves that packed the stockroom into crisp shards of radiant blue and pure black. Ouija Board’s medallion shot my polearm’s light straight back into my eyes. I blinked hard. The blaze-orange afterimage fizzed across the backs of my eyelids. 

There was a door behind Ouija Board. I watched him decide I was too close for him to make it. It was probably locked anyway. 

“If you give me everything you stole, I’ll get you out of this.”

He glared at me.

“If you don’t, I’ll turn you in.”

Ouija Board coughed hard and shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “You will let me pass through the door. Then, I will—” 

He talked at half speed and enunciated with excruciating precision. Fresh off the boat. 

“Talk normally. I’ll understand you just fine.”

He dropped into twangy, sanded-down Haddasa dialect. “You can have it after you let me through.”

“Hard pass.”

“Okay. You open it. I’ll start walking. Then, while I’m walking past you—”

“No. Give it to me now. Then I’ll help you.”

Ouija Board almost growled.

“I’m not fucking around.”

He looked like he was going to run.

I reached for my polearm.

Ouija Board sighed viciously and slammed something into my hand. It was a small, square box, tied up in a silky blue cloth.

“Thank—”

“Now what?”

“What is it?”

“Necklace.”

“Could you touch it at the store?”

“What?”

I slowed down and over-enunciated, the way he had when he thought I’d never heard a Haddas talk before. “How tough was the container, and was it wrapped up so you couldn’t touch it?”

“Uh.” Ouija Board looked at my polearm, making sure I knew he wouldn’t have answered the question if I wasn’t threatening him. “Heavy box. Cling wrap. Couldn’t touch it.”

“Swell. Get yourself a change of clothes.” I crouched and set the package in front of me, then put on my gloves. The wrapper was tied in an elegant, complicated knot.

While I fought to untie it with my gloves on, Ouija Board pulled a cardboard box off the shelf next to him and dug through it, slinging rejected items in a pile on the chipped basalt floor. Finally, he draped himself in a jean jacket big enough to wrap around him twice. He peeled a lemon-yellow scarf off the pile and threw it over his shoulders.

“That’s what you’re going with?”

He shrugged mulishly.

The knot was out. I spread the cloth out on the floor in front of me. It was smooth, soft satin that scraped on the floor. 

The box inside was black velvet. I opened it.

The necklace’s pendant was the half-cross of the Bird of Sorrows. The chain was a single unbroken loop that would fall at least halfway down most people’s chests. It was silver, but it shone as brightly as it had the day it was made.

Probably an artifact of the Third City. I carefully retied the cloth and buttoned the package into the inside pocket of my vest. Ouija Board made jagged, restless circuits of the room. Wrath rolled off him like a heat haze. 

I stood. Ouija Board muttered something in Haddasa. 

I’d heard Lenna use the same word plenty of times, although it wasn’t her go-to. “Fuck off,” I said in Ser.

“Asshole.”

“Okay.”

He fiddled with the top button of his jean jacket. He’d unbuttoned and rebuttoned it at least twice. “How long are we going to stay here?”

“I’m going now. You can stay as long as you want.”

He followed me across the room to the door he’d been eyeing before. “Why are you helping me?”

It was locked. I tried my first skeleton key. “I’m really not.”

He shook his head. “You have the necklace now. Why are you helping me get away?”

“Maybe I’ll change my mind.”

“You won’t.”

“Why?”

“If you were going to turn me in, you would have already done it.”

“I might do it now, if you’re rude.”

“You won’t. They would have liked you if you did, but you didn’t.”

I unlocked the door. “You’re confident.”

Ouija Board shrugged and shouldered past me.

The staircase was around the corner, half-covered by a triangular curtain. Ouija Board followed me up to the sixth floor.

While he caught his breath, I pointed to the ladder above us. “The roofs are connected. You can get pretty much anywhere in North Bank from here, but you need to get down to street level the first chance you get. The Porfidu Army doesn’t like civilians on the roofs. Don’t fuck with them. Do you dig?”

Ouija Board shrugged.

I climbed the ladder. He shot past me as soon as I unlocked the trapdoor. By the time I turned off the light on my polearm, he was gone.

I was alone on the roof. The Porfidu logo was painted in the center, in what I was pretty sure was Zamerald’s calligraphy, but a couple of the younger soldiers had started copying him.

I sat cross-legged on the tar and laid my polearm across my knees. The posse’s chant had fractured from a single oceanic voice into a hundred or so staggered shouts. The mass of people was splintering across alleys, rebounding from dead ends, and slowly atomizing into a few dozen people who were all late for work and all praying that, if the artifact melted Ouija Board into hot-pink tar, it didn’t do it anywhere where they’d have to clean it up.

My legs ached from running, I was forty minutes away from my apartment, and the full bottle of oil in my bag was already cutting into my shoulder. I sighed.

Chapter 4: The Bird of Sorrows

I live on the fifteenth level of the Orchid Tower. The name is aspirational. The staircase connecting the catwalks that ring each layer of shipping containers like a ribcage wobbles every time anybody steps on it. Most of the glow tape is peeled off the steps, so people either carry their own lights or fall to their deaths. The railings are about as tough as balsa wood, and the columns that run up and down each level like baleen are too far apart to keep the ibises out. Still, it’s pretty well-lit once you’re off the stairs, and maintenance adds a few bolts to the joists every time a catwalk collapses somewhere in the Towers. 

When I got back to my level, the walkway was a tunnel of damp cloth. The Tayars had their extra clotheslines tied to the bases of the columns on the sixteenth level, in rows parallel to the railing and across to the barnacle crust of bolts on the inside joist. One of the younger kids— Juza, I think— was walking slow laps around the catwalk, swinging a blue plastic whistle. She nodded to me sleepily and then vanished behind a curtain of BayaCorp polos.

I stopped in front of my container. Blue light showed through the crack under the door. I had left the light off and the door locked. 

Quietly, I drew my polearm, closed my eyes, and counted to thirty. There was no sound inside the container.

I opened the door just enough to slap the light switch. The room went black. I slid inside and slammed the door behind me. I landed in a crouch outside the trapezoid of light shining across the floor.

Chensina sat cross-legged on the crate in the middle of the floor, squinting into the dark.

I turned the light back on. “Hey, Chensina. How’re you going?”

“Fucking hectic. You?”

“Awful.” 

Chensina has dark skin and a long, straight nose, and she’s the kind of beautiful that you’re surprised to see in real life. Most of the time, she speaks dark, chalky Nassa tal Hut dialect, with a rasp somewhere low in her voice. Her Porfidu mask was upside-down next to her, on top of her jacket and scarf. Her thick black leather pants were streaked with long scratches, and the heavy protective steel bracelets and rings stacked up to her elbows clicked when she moved.

I leaned my polearm against the wall next to hers, then knelt to take off my boots. “Sorry about that.”

“No, I’m sorry I broke in.”

“No worries. How’d you do it?”

Chensina spun a ring of skeleton keys around her finger and caught it with a crisp jingle.

“Fuck.”

“I had to use the newest one.”

“That helps.” I crouched by the shelf and unbuttoned my bag. “I’ll tell San Pettru.”

“He sold you the lock?”

“I’m renting it.” I slid the half-empty bag of flour to the front of the shelf and set the new bag behind it. “He’ll exchange it if I can find a skeleton key that opens it.”

“Mm. I got mine from Gen, but if he has it, so does Lenna.”

“Yeah, I’m headed her way anyway.” I stood. “You want coffee?”

“God, yes.”

I dropped a spoonful of instant coffee into the mug and flicked on the red brick under the kettle. The smell of smoke rippled through the air.

“Sorry about the smell.”

“What smell?”

“Smoke.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is something burning?”

“No. I dropped some dough on the brick when I was making bread last week. It still smells like it”

“I didn’t notice.”

“It’s driving me bing. I swear to God if I can’t get it out I’m going to soak it in Inner Sea water.”

Chensina’s eyes widened. “You haven’t done that, right?”

“No. I’m not that desperate. Yet.”

“Good, because if you did I’m not drinking shit you make with it.”

“What if I try it first? Just to make sure it’s safe?”

“Then it’s your own fault.”

“And how.” 

She laughed, but if she was here just to talk shit, she would have waited outside or come back later. I leaned against the wall across from her.

She recrossed her legs. “You have something that belongs to Gen,” she said apologetically.

“I do. I have a message for the Army from San Pettru.”

“Really?”

I passed her the note. “His air filter’s broken.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Again?”

“Yeah, flat. He’d also like someone to come over and fix it this time.”

“Mm. It’s only fair.” She scanned the note and folded it into one of her pockets. “But that’s not why I’m here. Nice try, though.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I held up the artifact. “Are you looking for this?”

“Probably.” She dug her gloves out of the pile next to her. “Can I see it?”

I handed her the package. She smoothly untangled the wrapper and flipped open the box. Blue light glinted on the Bird of Sorrows.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Sorry.”

I shrugged. “Well, thanks for checking.”

“Absolutely.”

The kettle whistled. I poured the water into the mug and handed it to her.

“Thanks.”

“No worries.”

She dropped the package in one of the inside pockets of her jacket. “I do need to talk to you. Unfortunately, I’m not the only person looking for this. I’m going to drop it off at Gen’s— can I meet you after that?”

“Swell.”

“Aces. Meet me at the main North Bank teahouse in two hours. Bring Indri, too.”

“Are you sure?”

Chensina laughed. “It’ll be faster to tell you both at the same time.”

“If you insist.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She shrugged her jacket over her shoulders. “We should hang out, though— I need to make an appearance at the egg harbor tomorrow night, but I was planning to dip out early anyway. I can meet you then.”

“And let the Army down?”

“Fuck off, I stayed until four last time.”

“Murder.”

“I know.”

“You want to go to the canyon again?”

“Yeah, fuck it, I don’t want to go out. And I probably shouldn’t during the egg harbor.” She chugged the rest of her coffee and handed me the mug. “One thousand thanks. I wouldn’t make it through the next two hours without it. Teahouse is on me.”

“It’d better be.”

Chensina stood, towering over me, and slung her scarf around her neck. She put on her mask, blocky and gleaming purple, and tightened the strap. “See you then?”

“Yeah. Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

“Never.” 

Chensina shut the door behind her without sheathing her polearm.

I paged Indri.

Chapter 5: Chensina Sak Ka

Summary:

https://www.m9b2.com/series/fausts-bargain-bins/the-point-of-no-return-part-5

The main twenty-four-hour teahouse in North Bank is six mainland-style Nassa tal Hut teahouses stacked on top of each other. It’s built around one central column wrapped in a wide, creaky wood staircase. Rows of thinner columns staple the levels together. The railings around each deck are painted a blue so bright it almost glows, and a candle burns on every table. The roof is a huge piece of waterproofed canvas tied across the top at an angle. I’m pretty sure it’s a couple of old sails sewn together and recoated in tar.

Inside, everything smells like barbecue, coriander, and assam. Smoke seeps up through the floors and stains the ceilings. The decks are jammed with as many small square tables and folding stools as the Dehebs can fit. The stools are light, but the tables are heavy, solid wood. The floor is scarred from thirty years of customers dragging them around into sprawling, serpentine nets. The Dehebs and their people dive into the chaos and resurface on the staircase like fish leaping in and out of rough water. Snarls of people build up around the railings. Lone accountants and logistics people lurk in the corners, inhaling entire pots of the house special tea. It’s the strongest black tea in the Banks. Nobody knows what the Dehebs do to it.

Water droplets rolled off the roof and landed with heavy plunks in the dumpsters around the corner as Indri and I climbed the stairs. Someone laughed loudly above us. The double doors were carved with eight-pointed starbursts radiating from minute, glowing blue symbols. One of them was propped open. One of the Deheb kids was fighting with the doorstop under the other one and cursing under his breath. 

Indri almost hit his head on the stone model fish trap hanging from the lintel. He swore.

We climbed up to the sixth level. I found a table on the edge of the deck and pulled over a third chair to face out over the railing. I leaned my polearm next to me and sat so I could see the stairs.

Indri sat across from me. His rapiers were cargo-strapped across his back with one handle over each shoulder. His shirt ballooned between the straps, and his cargo pants were tied to his legs with orange plastic twine. He’s a couple inches taller than me, with a harsh-edged, hollow face. His eyes are a startling gray. He makes as much eye contact as Ser people, but he’s Sitt Hayneyn, so it’s even more irritating.

A kid, seven or eight years old, hurtled over to the table with a rag and a bucket of bleach. They whipped the rag out of the bucket and ran it in a meticulous, light-speed switchback across the tabletop, standing on their toes to reach the other side. The edge of the table left a damp line across their purple apron.

“Hey,” I said. “We’re waiting for Chensina. Can you tell her we’re here?”

The kid nodded without looking up and ducked away under one of the older waiter’s trays.

I was still impressed that people always knew which Chensina I meant. Half of all Nassa tal Hut women are named either Chensina or Chensa. There were probably ten Chensinas on this floor alone.

Indri swore.

“What?”

“Mosquito bite.” He folded his arms hard. “Fucking neighbors. I swear to God, I treat every fucking puddle on my lot, every fucking day. Takes me like an hour. Meanwhile they can’t even be assed to keep their cistern covered. We’re all gonna get fucking malaria.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again, because nobody ever does shit about their standing water until after there’s an outbreak, and then they stop like a week after it’s over.”

“I thought you didn’t get malaria.”

“Wrong. I told you, it won’t kill me, but it will make me feel like complete shit. Which I know because I’ve had it so many goddamn times.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“So if I no-show one of these days you’ll know who to blame.”

“Thanks.”

Indri almost scratched his arm again, but he forced himself to stop. He slumped back in his seat.

The bleach had almost fizzed out of the pickerel weed flowers carved into the wood around the edge of the table. The purple-blue lacquer on their long, flared petals had faded. The center of the table was the telltale rich, pristine brown of laminate, but it was glued down so neatly it was hard to tell.

“Why do they need one of those?” Indri was pointing to the fish trap hanging above the door to the fire escape on the other side of the deck.

I sighed. “You know, you could have asked that question anywhere else.”

“This place doesn’t even have walls.”

“We’re in a Nassa tal Hut teahouse.”

“I know why it doesn’t have walls.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But why would a soul leave through the door?”

“If you leave here alive, you’re going to go out through the door, right?”

“Maybe I won’t.”

“You came in through the door.”

“Because you came in through the door.”

“Do you usually climb in over the railings?”

“How would you know?”

“All these other people are going to go out through the door, if they leave here alive.”

“Well— yeah. They will.”

“So if they die, why wouldn’t their souls go out through a door?”

“That door is closed.”

“The trap is there in case somebody opens it.”

“You still didn’t answer my question. Why would souls go through a door?”

“Why do living people go through the door when they could just climb over the railings?”

“Because they don’t want to climb. But—”

“Well, fish can’t climb. Maybe once you die your soulfish has to flop all the way to the ocean.”

“Then why is the fish trap hanging from the top of the door?”

He had me there. 

“If a soul can get caught in the fish trap at the top of the door, it can get out through the windows.” Indri folded his arms.

“Maybe it’s trying to get into the fish trap.”

“Then why do they need a separate one for the fire escape? Wouldn’t the souls go into the one downstairs?”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“How would a soul catch fire?”

“Fish can catch fire.”

“Listen— okay. Fish can’t be souls.”

I sighed. “Keep your voice down.”

“Souls aren’t real.”

“Fish are real.”

“But they aren’t souls.”

“How do you know?”

“You don’t believe in souls, either.”

“I believe in fish.”

“Yeah, but—”

“If fish are souls, souls are real.”

“But you don’t think fish are souls.”

“No.”

“Well—” Indri shrugged victoriously.

A loud, tinkling crunch rebounded up the alley below us. 

I looked over the railing. Between the dumpsters, a girl in a bright purple apron jumped back from the wreckage of a garbage bag. A puddle of something crawled across the pavement towards her white canvas shoes.

“They don’t think souls are actual fish,” I said. “They think they’re spiritual fish.”

“But—”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“ But ,” Indri said again, “you don’t think spiritual fish exist.”

I nodded. “And you don’t think metaphors exist.”

“Exac—”

I laughed.

“Fuck off.”

The waiter kid popped their head out from the top of the stairwell and looked at me questioningly. I shook my head. They disappeared.

Indri swallowed. “Once Sak Ka gets here—”

“You can call her Chensina. Everybody calls her Chensina.”

“Well— Okay. Once she gets here—”

Chensina climbed the stairs and scanned the deck. 

I waved. She saw me and smiled. It wasn’t her full thousand-watt smile, but she didn’t use that one on me. That smile could convince almost anybody that you were her favorite person in the world. I knew for sure I wasn’t.

“She’s here.”

Indri tensed, then forced himself to relax.

“Do me a favor. Don’t say anything in front of her.”

“Does she not know you’re an atheist?” he asked indignantly.

“Of course she knows. I just don’t get into arguments about it in front of her. Now—”

“If you don’t want me to talk, why did you ask me to come?”

“She said it’d be more efficient this way.”

Indri squinted. “Really?”

“Yes. Now tell me you’re not going to talk while she’s here, or you can leave right now and I’ll repeat the whole conversation to you later. Efficiency be damned.”

He sighed. “I won’t say anything.”

Chensina drew her polearm and leaned it against the railing, then threw her scarf and jacket over the back of her chair and sat down. The scarf was deep eminence-purple and at least six feet long, edged with triangles of white dots and tiled down the middle with a stripe of octagon-framed birds. The jacket was thick, heavy black leather. The purple Porfidu logo was painted on the back and her Fourth Lieutenant stripes were patched across the shoulders, but she’d turned it inside out to hide them. She was wearing a black tank top underneath. Indri very carefully avoided looking at her.

Chensina folded her hands on the table. Her rings clicked. “What’s the score?”

“Zero-zero.”

“Same.” She looked at Indri. “You?”

He flashed a thumbs-up.

The kid was back. “You ready to order?”

Chensina nodded. “It’s on me,” she told Indri.

“Black or green tea?” the kid asked.

“Black, strong,” Chensina said.

“Can I do a pulled-pork crepe?” I said.

“You want that pan-fried or deep-fried?”

“Deep-fried.”

Indri looked at me. I gestured impatiently.

“Same thing,” he said.

“Coriander slabfish crepe, pan-fried,” Chensina said.

The kid disappeared.

Chensina sighed. “I’m never going to live that down.”

“Sorry.”

“ Pulled pork? ”

“It’s on the menu.”

“Because people like you keep ordering it.”

The effort of staying silent was killing Indri. I smiled.

“Thank you both for coming,” Chensina said. “There’s a few things I’d like you to do, if you’re interested.”

“Absolutely.”

“But let’s talk about something else first. Have you heard about the Nemel soldiers crossing into Porfidu territory?”

Indri’s eyes widened. I nodded anyway.

“Obviously, the Porfidu are tracking them down,” she said. “They’re also stepping up security on the boundary between North Bank and Flishkun.”

“I’m so happy to hear that.”

Indri looked at me, baffled and suspicious.

“But don’t you think the Nemel Army left their territory vulnerable, when they sent soldiers all the way up here?” Chensina asked.

I nodded. “Yes. It was irresponsible.”

“I mean and how.”

“Reckless, even.”

“I think the Nemel Army has overextended themselves.”

“Uh-huh. Just to piggyback off that,” I said.

Chensina grinned. “Awgwan.”

Indri braced his temples with his fingers.

“They’ve been expanding their territory very fast. Do you think it’s realistic for them to secure all of it?”

Chensina shook her head. “Absolutely not. I don’t think they’re just vulnerable to the little things— vandalism, petty theft, civilians getting jumped. Some of that’s unavoidable, isn’t it?”

“Especially in Nemel territory.”

She smiled. “I hope you’re not implying anything about the Nemel Army.”

“Of course not. Their territory— even Flishkun— has always been less safe than North Bank.”

“Of course. That has nothing to do with the Nemel Army.”

“Frankly, I’m impressed that they keep it as secure as they do.”

“You shred it, wheat. It’s very impressive.”

I smiled and leaned back on my stool. “But the faster they expand, the less secure their new territory will be. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely. I think they’re at a very real risk of losing control of their territory, especially if they keep sending their soldiers outside of it. Someone could poke holes in even their most secure sites.”

I winced. “Maybe not the most secure sites.”

“Maybe not the most secure,” Chensina agreed. “But I’m sure there are places— important places— in their new territory that they haven’t secured as well as they think they have.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if something got stolen.”

“You and me both.”

“Or do you think they should worry about sabotage, not theft?”

“Honestly, I think they should expect both. Theft and sabotage.”

Indri suddenly sighed.

“Yes?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

A stool crashed on the floor. 

Someone at the center of the deck was standing, staring down into the stairwell.

Three people in white surfaced. All three of them wore alabaster masks that covered the top halves of their faces and curved along their jaws like ants’ mandibles. The pointman had a broadsword strapped across her back. A taller woman followed her. Knife sheathes coated the bandoliers slung over both her shoulders and the belt around her waist. The man behind them looked unarmed, but he smiled like a dingo watching a little kid wander away from their parents.

The pointman nodded at Chensina. She led the other two across the deck. Chairs and tables stuttered as a path melted open from them to us.

Indri didn’t hesitate. “Sak Ka—”

“I know.”

Chapter 6

Summary:

https://www.m9b2.com/series/fausts-bargain-bins/the-point-of-no-return-part-6

“You can just call me Chensina,” Chensina said. “Everyone does.”

Indri nodded stiffly.

The Nemel pointwoman stopped behind Chensina. Knives and Dingo fanned out behind her. 

Their masks were plain white, so all three of them were footsoldiers. Annibale still wasn’t sending officers into North Bank. That probably made Chensina feel a little better.

She didn’t turn around. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” the pointman said. Her voice was familiar. “You have something that belongs to us.”

“Mm. I don’t think I do,” Chensina said.

“We’re looking for a necklace. Someone stole it from Ichelebra’s on Old Bridge this morning.”

Fuck. Ouija Board was ambitious.

“I don’t have it. Do you?” Chensina asked.

“I don’t,” I said.

“No.” Indri was trying to catch my eye.

“My friends and I wouldn’t have stolen goods,” Chensina said. “And if we did, we wouldn’t bring them here. We wouldn’t want to make trouble for Jilyu.”

“I don’t believe you,” the pointman said.

It didn’t matter if she believed us or not. Nemel wouldn’t confront us in public, especially here, if they were going to walk away without a fight.

“Believe it or not,” Chensina said, “it’s not here. But I might be able to help you find it. Why don’t we go outside and talk about it there?”

“No. You’ll give it to us now, then you can leave.”

Chensina couldn’t start anything. Since Indri and I were with her, neither could we. Indri’s eyes flicked in circuits around Chensina, me, and the three Nemel, but he seemed to understand.

“Well, we’re done with our food.” Chensina pushed back her stool. “We’re heading out now.” She stood.

Slowly, the pointman reached up and pulled on one of her hoodie strings. Knives and Dingo advanced and formed a semicircle around our table, with Dingo closest to me and Knives closest to Indri. 

The fire escape was on the other end of the deck. The alley next to us was too wide to jump. If I were here alone, I might have been able to climb over the railing and get down to the level below us. If all three of us tried that now, the girl by the dumpsters would have worse things to clean up than a broken garbage bag. Even if we got away, Chensina was a Porfidu officer. The Nemel might hurt or kill some civilians to make a point.

The waiter kid climbed up the stairs. They saw the Nemel and froze.

“Oranjyo,” Chensina called.

The kid— Oranjyo— stopped herself from running back down the stairs. It looked agonizing.

“Could you tell everyone to stay downstairs?”

She nodded and bolted.

A few other people stood.

“Stop,” the pointman called.

Everybody who had started to leave hung suspended in the air, like puppets abandoned halfway through a show.

“All of you, sit back down.”

Chensina still didn’t turn around. “I think you should let them go. What do you think?” she asked me.

“I agree.”

Indri nodded quickly.

“No,” the pointman said. She raised her voice again. “Stay here.”

The deck was silent except for a slow scraping in the alley below us. The girl in the apron was sweeping up broken glass.

Chensina looked at Indri and me. “Let’s go.”

Instantly, Indri was on his feet. I stood and leaned on my polearm.

The pointman drew her sword.

Chensina sighed. She pointed from me to the pointman, then from Indri to Knives. He nodded.

“Last chance,” the pointman said. I was surprised.

“Let us leave,” Chensina said.

The pointman shrugged. “Attack.”

I braced my polearm and lunged.

Chapter 7

Summary:

https://www.m9b2.com/series/fausts-bargain-bins/the-point-of-no-return-part-7

The pointman easily blocked my strike, but it pushed her back past the other two Nemel. Chensina had a clear shot at Dingo, from a distance where she could reach him but he couldn’t reach her. I heard one of Indri’s rapiers knock a throwing knife out of the air. Hopefully he’d get the next one, too.

The pointwoman swung her broadsword down at my shoulder. I blocked it with the shaft of my polearm. 

That left my lower body open. She flipped her sword and went for my stomach. I knocked it away, but that left me awkwardly holding my polearm out on one side of my body. 

She struck again from the other side. I had to jump back to get out of range. The back of my knee collided with a stool.

I didn’t fall, and I had breathing space. I pulled my polearm back to a guard position. The pointman dropped back and reset her own stance. The deck around us was already mostly empty. The Nemel wouldn’t tell anybody to stay if they couldn’t make them do it.

The guard on the pointman’s sword was gold and covered in curved fins. Her wrists were wrapped in leather bands. Her short hair stuck up around her mask strap.

“You got a haircut.”

“You noticed.”

“It looks cute.”

“Thanks.”

I picked up the stool behind me and threw it at her head. While she ducked, I kicked a table across the floor at her. The corner clipped her in the shoulder. She swore.

Behind me, Indri’s rapier hit another throwing knife. I needed to keep him between me and Knives. Or I could put the pointman between me and her.

Chapter 8

Indri was stopping Knives from hitting me or Chensina. The pointman would try to give her a clear shot. I couldn’t keep her between us and Knives for the rest of the fight, so I wasn’t going to try. I picked up another stool. 

Knives was crouched behind a flipped table. Her wrists twitched. Indri swatted two throwing knives out of the air. The next pair was already in her hands. 

I lobbed the stool at her.

Knives didn’t notice it until it was over her head. She swore and dropped flat to the deck. The stool missed her head, but I heard it hit her shoulder. She swore again. 

Indri was already vaulting a table, blowtorch-focused on Knives. She dropped the throwing knives and scrambled for her melee daggers.

The pointman was right behind me. I ducked and ran. Her boots pounded the deck.

I grabbed the edge of the table next to me and pulled it over. Tin plates crashed and something heavy splatted on the floor. I was hoping the pointman would slip. Instead, her steps went silent.

Then her broadsword thudded through the air next to my ear. The deck creaked. She’d landed and she was already back to top speed. I could hear her breathing. She wasn’t winded.

She was too close. I didn’t have time for more tricks. If I turned around, I could be dead before I could even get into a fighting stance.

All I had to do was keep running until Indri beat Knives. Make sure the pointman didn’t corner me. Wait for him to back me up.

The pointman and I were on our second lap of a stupid little circle around the stairwell when Indri yelled my name.

“What?”

“I won!” he shouted. “I won’t kill her!”

“Good! You can’t!”

“Great! Fuck do I do now!”

The pointman’s sword curled the air behind my neck.

“Tie her up!”

“With— oh.”

“Then help—”

The pointman wasn’t running. Something scraped the deck. 

I knew that sound. I crouched, and the leg of a stool barely missed the top of my head. The pointman was already kicking a table at me. 

It wasn’t very tall. My legs were coiled under me. 

I jumped and pulled my knees up to my chest. When the table was under my feet, I pushed off, landed in front of the pointman, and swung my polearm down hard on her broadsword. At the same time, I kicked her arms up. 

Something snapped. She screamed. Her sword hit the ground with a dull thunk.

The pointman’s right wrist hung limp. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped to one knee, breathing shallowly.

“Hey, Awas,” someone said casually.

I turned around. “Hey, Zamerald.”

Zamerald, wearing his Porfidu mask, stood with his hands in his pockets. An electric-blue silk scarf covered his hair. He’d done the calligraphy on his purple t-shirt and the Porfidu logo on the back of his ankle-length black leather duster. I have no idea where he bought it. He’s one of the tallest people I’ve ever seen. He has a long face and he smiles easily.

The other four members of Chensina’s squad were fanning out across the deck. They’d hooked a ladder to the railing from the rooftop on the other side of the alley. Three of them helped Chensina surround Dingo. His smile hadn’t slipped, but his hands were up. The fourth one— Saveryu, the one who never talks— crouched on the deck, examining one of Knives’s throwing knives.

“Want any help with her?” Zamerald was already crossing the deck to the pointman.

“Absolutely.” I tossed him her sword. 

“Thanks.” He threaded it through the web of straps stretched across his back.

“No worries. Is your arm broken, or your wrist?” I asked the pointman.

“Fuck you.”

I jerked my head at Zamerald. “He’s going to make you a sling or something so you can walk back to Flishkun. Arm or wrist?”

She ground the last air out of her lungs. “Wrist.”

Zamerald unclipped his med kit.

Dingo’s hands were zip-tied behind his back, and Ryali was tying his shoelaces together. Knives’s wrists were tied to her ankles with orange plastic twine. It looked like Indri had never restrained anyone before, but he’d made a strong effort. He stood. His pants looked like a pair of skirts.

“Awas.” Chensina hid a limp almost perfectly. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Indri?”

He turned around. Blood was seeping through the bandages around his arm. “Nah.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“I got a cut last week.” He shrugged, then winced. “Stitches tore.”

Very fast, quiet Nassa tal Hut buzzed in the stairwell. It fell silent when Chensina leaned over the railing.

“Rina, would you mind getting the first aid kit?” she asked in Ser.

“I’m fine,” Indri said.

No one was listening. Jilyu Deheb was here.

She’s pushing seventy, and the only black left in her hair is at the very end of her braid. The chain of gold beads draped around her shoulders hung past her knees. Her stole was fastened over her shoulder with an eight-pointed gold brooch. Her sleeves were pushed up past the most impressive Nassa tal Hut tattoos I’d ever seen. 

A phalanx of purple aprons followed her up the stairs and spread out across the deck, picking up plates, collecting throwing knives, and moving the tables so the mops could get through.

“Sinyura Deheb,” Chensina said. “I’m so sorry about this.”

Jilyu shook her head. She scanned Chensina, then me and Indri, who was tilting his arm back and forth so his blood would run up and down his arm instead of dripping onto the floor. “Someone’s getting the first aid kit?” she called without looking up.

Indri shook his head. “I said I’m—”

“Shut up,” I said quietly.

“Katarina’s getting it,” Chensina said.

“Indri, how about you sit down.” I grabbed his shoulder and steered him to the corner of the deck.

“Fuck’s sake, Awas, I said—”

“Sit down.”

He needed both hands to lower himself into a seat. His skin was gray. “I’m fine.”

“Indri, shut up and let them help.”

“But—”

“I know you fucking mummified that arm, and—”

“I can—”

“You— helped— them. Now let them help you.”

He hesitated.

“Wait here.”

He did. He probably couldn’t have stood up if he’d tried.

Chapter 9

I found a place where I couldn’t hear Indri and sat on the railing so the staff could mop the floor. Customers were starting to filter back up the stairs. They were tense, but most of the people I’d seen before the fight were still here. The clicks and scrapes of forks on plates trickled across the tables on the other side of the deck. The people who’d been sitting on this side stood on the steps or leaned on the railings, waiting for the Porfidu to get the Nemel out of the way. A woman in a bright blue tracksuit looked out over the river. Streaks of candlelight swam in her low ponytail and spotlit the fringe of straight hair around her face.

Oranjyo slowly climbed the stairs, carrying a tray. She set it on a free table and waved to me.

“Is that ours?”

She nodded.

Jilyu looked at her.

“Sorry,” Oranjyo muttered. She raised her voice, with effort. “Yes, Sinyura.”

“Jyojyo,” Jilyu called.

Oranjyo stopped at the top of the stairs.

“Make sure it’s on the house.”

She nodded again and clattered down the steps.

“Thank you, Sinyura,” Chensina said, “but we can’t—”

Jilyu looked her in the eye. Her expression looked like ice on the ocean. “Oranjyo is my oldest great-granddaughter.” She let the silence hang for a long, heavy second. “Your order is on the house. So is whatever treatment your friend needs for his injury.”

Chensina nodded. “Thank you, Sinyura.”

A girl with a loose brown braid over one shoulder pushed her way through the crowd on the stairs. She was carrying a whitewashed basket with a red cross painted on the side. I followed her over to Indri.

He’d untied the bandage so she wouldn’t cut it off, and he was holding it against his arm in a wad. Blood was still spreading through the fabric.

Katarina flipped open the first aid kit and dropped her braid down the back of her dress. “Move your hand.”

The cut was wider than when I’d last seen it, but it was shallower. Indri had let it heal up a little before he’d torn out all the stitches, and it didn’t look like they’d gone through any important blood vessels.

“Okay. Not as bad as it looks,” Katarina said, mostly to herself.

“That’s what I said,” Indri said.

I sat down at the table where our food was and poured myself a cup of tea. I could smell it before I picked up the cup. It was almost as strong as the house special.

“Can I have my strings back?” Indri called.

Chensina sighed. “Hey, Ryali?”

She was kneeling next to Knives. “Yeah?” 

Chensina nodded at Indri.

“What’s up?” Ryali asked him.

“My strings.” He pointed shakily. “I used them to tie her up.”

“Uh…” She looked down and frowned. “I already cut one of them. Do you still want it?”

“Yeah. Can you not cut the other one?”

“I can try? It’s tied pretty tight.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Chensina sat down across from me. She landed too hard and almost winced.

I pointed to the teapot. “Want some?”

Her smile was back in place. “Absolutely.”

I filled a cup and pushed it over to her. She took a sip and slowly started stretching out her injured leg. Her expression was smooth and distant, even when her breath caught from the pain.

Indri plotzed next to me. He grabbed one of the two deep-fried crepes and sawed off one of the corners with the side of his fork. Steam curled.

I passed him a cup of tea. “Did she tell you to go to the Healers?”

He shook his head. He was looking at me like I was trying to trick him. 

I sighed. The meeting was over, and if I couldn’t think of anything he could say to make it worse, he probably couldn’t, either. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Of course not. It wasn’t that bad when I got it. Why would I need to go now?”

I shrugged. Katarina would know, if she usually treated kitchen injuries.

Ryali walked Knives over to the other two Nemel. The pointman’s face was still grayish, but her sling was done and she was standing up straight. Once Ryali finished tying Knives’s wrists to the pointman’s good arm, she came over to us. All three of Knives’s bandoliers were slung over her shoulder. Indri’s orange twine was wound around her left hand.

“Here.” She rolled the loop of twine off over her fingers and tossed it to Indri.

He caught it. “Thanks.”

“No.” She gave him her most shit-eating grin. “Thank you, citizen.”

Indri nodded, confused.

Ryali widened her smile at Chensina and me. “Citizens.”

“It’s an honor to assist the Porfidu Army,” I said gravely.

“No, it’s an honor to serve you,” Ryali said.

Chensina laughed. “Thank you, Sinyura.”

Ryali joined the rest of the Porfidu squad. Zamerald whistled a pair of notes, and they fell into formation. He raised his eyebrows at Chensina. “Ready,” he signed in Offhand. “Coming?”

She could have gone without her mask. There were a lot of reasons why a civilian would be out in public with a Nemel squad. She shook her head anyway and tapped one nail on the edge of her plate.

Zamerald smiled. “Roger.”

One corner of Chensina’s mouth twitched. “Later,” she signed, then made a complicated gesture that I’m almost sure represents the Stone General.

“Roger,” Zamerald signed again. 

He whistled another pair of notes and led the Porfidu squad down the stairs. The crowd parted for them. 

When they were gone, Chensina’s face slackened. For a second, she stared at nothing over my shoulder. Indri glanced at her long enough for concern to flick through his eyes, then looked back down and sawed at his crepe.

Chensina snapped back into focus. She smiled warmly. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” we repeated.

Chapter 10

The food was still warm. The bubbles in the crepe crackled under my fork, the pork was crispy on the ends and butter-soft in the middle, and the sauce was sweet, bright, and tangy. It was the best food I’d eaten in weeks. No one talked.

Three panels were painted around my teacup in sparse cobalt-blue brushstrokes. An anhinga swam across the first one with its neck growing out of the water like a weird flower. In the next panel, its neck disappeared underwater at the center of a ring of ripples. I turned the cup counterclockwise. The anhinga’s head surfaced again. Its eyes rolled wildly as it choked down a fish. Its neck feathers stuck out in spikes.

Indri froze. 

Chensina slowly set down her fork. The deck went silent.

A thick white cloud swirled across the cave ceiling like a flock of swallows. It scrolled out of a tunnel near Dock Street, spread out to cover CBD, and rolled west towards the outer subs. Tendrils split off and spiraled toward the ground in delicate, ultrathin tornadoes. Some of them had already touched down.

“That’s an El tunnel, right?” Chensina asked.

The tunnel was in the northern wall of the cave. The arched bridge connecting it to the train station disappeared into the tower about halfway up.

“Yeah. It goes to…” I shrugged. “One of the older settlements.”

Part of the cloud stopped over the Black Gate. A tornado swirled against the ceiling. Most people pulled their scarves up over their faces, and the adults down on the street were herding the neighborhood kids inside, but if this was a cave storm that had broken through the barrier over CBD, we were all fucked anyway.

The tornado touched down outside the gate. It splintered, flinging white shards across the square. A few people screamed, but they sounded startled, not poisoned.

The cloud flowed down to refill the tornado. It traveled down Central, moving faster than a horse could gallop. More pieces split off. They hovered at eye level with the people flattening themselves against the walls or crouching behind shelves. 

A flock flew in a wedge towards the teahouse. Three splinters circled the updraft from our table’s candle like vultures. The air pressed down on the deck.

The splinters were paper airplanes. They floated down and bobbed gently in the air, one in front of each of us.

Confused chatter broke out. People who’d stood up slowly sat back down.

The paper airplane in front of me gently tapped against my knuckles. I opened my hand. It nestled into my palm, unfolded itself, and relaxed, lifeless.

The paper was covered in writing. I looked at the beginning and the end of all the lines.

“What does yours say?” I asked Chensina.

“Uh…” She frowned. I’d never seen her look this baffled. “I think— okay. I’m just going to read it. ‘Internship opportunity: Independent magician seeks personal assistant for secretarial and administrative tasks. Assistant will be compensated with full room and board, a competitive wage, and the secret of magic. Inquire at one twenty-three Fourth Street, Blue Canyon, Imsaren.’ ” 

I laid mine flat on the table. “Mine’s the same.”

“Indri, what about yours?”

He shrugged and spun it around.

“Yeah. Identical— look at that.” She pointed to a smudge at the end of the fourth line on all three sheets.

“Probably safe to assume they’re all the same,” Indri said. He looked at me accusingly. I ignored him.

The three of us sat back. Chensina took a drink of tea and stared into her cup. Indri untangled his strings and laced the long one up over his right calf, looking down at the table with the same blowtorch focus he’d had during the fight. 

I smoothed out the folds in the paper. The smudge on the fourth line was before the first word on the right, so whoever wrote the letter was probably right-handed. That was all I knew.

“The fuck?” Indri said.

Chensina shrugged eloquently.

“I mean, it has to be— what, a joke?”

“Pretty sure ‘will be compensated with the secret of magic’ is supposed to be funny,” I said.

“You know what I mean. Are we supposed to think it’s for real? ‘Cause if it’s like a sting operation—”

“You’d have to be a real genius to fall for it,” Chensina said.

“Right.”

“One twenty-three Fourth Street?” I asked.

Chensina took another drink and frowned up at the ceiling. “Is it supposed to sound so stupid that people think it has to be real?”

Indri tied off the long string. He pulled his other ankle up onto his seat and laced up the cut string as far as it would go. It ran out halfway up his calf.

“I mean, if it’s a sting, it’s flat batshit, but this whole situation is already so whacky that…” Chensina trailed off.

“The tunnels are all outside the barrier,” I said. “So either whoever sent …these… could break through the barrier, or the Port Authority let them in.”

Indri snorted. “So, it was someone who can do magic, or someone who can do magic.”

“Yes.”

More paper planes were streaming across the cave ceiling.

“Why did it say ‘Imsaren’?” Indri asked. “Where the fuck else?”

Chensina sighed and pushed back her chair. She slid her paper into one of her pockets. “I should go see Gen.”

Indri frowned, confused.

“Before I forget.” Chensina tapped a nail on the table. “When I invited you, I said the food was going to be on me. Since the house covered this one, I owe both of you.”

“You’d better,” I said. “Abyssinia.”

“Abyssinia.”

Indri watched her leave.

I snorted.

He spun around. “I know damn well you can’t read.”

“Fuck off. You can’t, either.”

“Well, at least I don’t lie about it.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you can’t get a damn job.”

“You hire me. What does that say about you?”

“It says I can get a job, and I can’t get anybody better than you to help.”

“Well— wait.” He squinted.

“Yes, that was a compliment.”

“Huh.”

“I can’t get anybody better than you as long as I can only afford to hire one other person—”

“Fuck off. ” 

“—and rent one pager.”

He’d lost too much blood to stay angry. “What do we do with these?” he asked, pointing to his paper.

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t carry it around.”

“No shit. What do we do with them?”

One of the dumpsters in the alley was right below us. I dropped my paper over the railing. It drifted past the edge of the dumpster and landed on the ground.

Indri dropped his. It landed dead center of the dumpster. He smiled.

I tried to refill my teacup. The pot was empty.

“Look,” Indri said.

“Hm?”

“People who aren’t in the Families have to be able to do magic. Nobody ever believes me about this, but I swear the Korsiyets tried to get— her name’s not important. Nobody outside my clan knows who the fuck she is. She’s the crown princess’s half-sister from the king consort’s previous marriage. One of them. Anyway, the Korsiyets scouted her to come over here and marry one of them.”

“Deadass?”

“I mean, he was some third cousin who no one else wanted to marry because he was too much of an asshole, but still.”

“Did she turn him down? Or did he get a better offer?”

“She rejected him. Hard.”

“Damn.”

“Like I said, he’s a huge asshole. I mean, so is she— I know her— but she’s not stupid. But my point is, she’s like my third cousin or something like that. If—”

I squinted. “You’re related to the royal family?”

“There’re four thousand people in the whole clan. Like half of us are related to the royal family somehow.”

“Oh.”

“And it’s on my dad’s side, anyway. But my point is—” He held up one finger. “We’re blood relatives.” He held up another finger. “She’s never been to Imsaren. She’s never even left Marsa Kabira.” He held up a third finger. “The Korsiyets never sent anyone to actually check to see if she could learn magic, if that’s even possible.” He folded his arms. “If she could have learned, so could I.”

I looked down at the paper in the dumpster, balanced on top of a garbage bag. “So do you think it’s genuine?”

“I don’t fucking know. I mean, if it’s a sting you’d have to be dumber than shit to fall for it, but the Port Authority thinks we’re all dumber than shit.”

“Even if it was their idea, why would they want anybody to believe there are ‘independent magicians’?”

“But everyone knows the Families aren’t the only ones who can use magic. Even if you don’t believe me about my cousin.”

I shrugged. “I do.”

“Oh. Well, even if you didn’t know about her, how did the Families get their magic in the first place? What about the Old Cities?”

I shrugged again. “It doesn’t really matter if other people could do it, or they used to. The Families are still supposed to be the only ones who can actually do it now.”

“I guess.”

“So if the ‘independent magician’ is real, the Port Authority is going to be hitting on all sixes to make it look like a sting.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess.” Indri reached for the teapot.

“It’s empty.”

“Fuck.” He picked up his fork and used it to chase the last scrap of cilantro around his plate. “You think they’ll arrest people?”

“Absolutely.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Yeah.” Indri caught the cilantro. He ate it and pushed his plate back. He’d sliced a slalom pattern through the grease with the side of his fork. “I’m going to the gym now. You should go, too. That fight was fucking pitiful.”

I shrugged. “I won.”

“Yeah, with table no jutsu.”

“I used my polearm.”

“I saw that. A lacrosse stick would have worked better. I’m not going on another tunnel crawl with you until— you know what? I’m going to test you, and I won’t tell you what the test is going to be.”

“I’ll train later today.”

“If you don’t get good, I’ll catch swallows before I go back out there with you. On God.”

“Get another job.”

“Fuck off.” He sighed. “Do I meet you at the normal place tomorrow?”

He probably wouldn’t eat between then and now. “No. Meet me at the Octagon.”

“Swell. See you there.”

“See you there. I’ll page you,” I called after him.

“Roger,” he signed without turning around. 

I set my fork down so it hung across my plate by the tines and the tip of the handle.

Indri says the same thing every time I use my polearm in front of him. I never get better. He just runs out of money, I run out of jobs in Halk, and we’re back in the tunnels. We’re not dead yet. We’ve only had to carry a few of our body parts back to the Healers.

We’ll be working for the Porfidu until the Nemel Army gives up on North Bank and moves on to a different suburb, or until neither of us can step into Nemel territory without getting shot. It’ll be a long time before we have to do another tunnel crawl.

The Nemel are a lot more lethal than tumbleweeds.

I’d train. I just needed to make sure I got back to my container before I was too hungry to sleep.

Only a few lines of paper airplanes were left on the ceiling, like the last trickle of summer snowmelt after a spring waterfall dries up. One plane was crawling through a window lattice on the other side of the street. I looked over my shoulder, but I was too far away to tell if they were trying to get into the mansions on Crown Street or the Silent House.

Inquire at one twenty-three Fourth Street, Blue Canyon, Imsaren.

I wondered if one of the planes had found Lenna.