ASAIO

Upon Seht's dramatic faintin, Isaela rushes to wake up her mother. She stirs with a jolt, like she's wakin up from a bad nightmare.

"Isaela?"

"Shh, Mama," Isaela whispers. "It's just Asaio and the orphans. They need help."

Sans sits up from the stone slab immediately, even though I can see the pain and exhaustion clear in her eyes. "Oh no." She swings herself off of the slab and moves to tend to Seht without so much as a greetin. She has Isaela sit him up and rushes into the back for her medical supplies, but I can see through her thin dress that her entire back is covered in black pores and that she's limpin weirdly. When Sans throws the back door compartment open, I catch the glimpse of chains.

"She don't look well," I say.

Isaela smiles sadly. "Yeah, well, that's life, ain't it? I've had a good one, with her."

I nod as Sans directs Flynn, tellin him to wipe some sort of salve on his forehead while she throws a few stones on his wrists.

"You ever wonder about your parents? Who they were?" Isaela asks, pressin her lenses higher up her nose.

"Nah," I say. Not unless someone prompts me to, like her, or Seht. It don't matter much to me, who birthed me if the Garnets were the ones who raised me. I tug on my cloak, on Mono-Man's skin.

See, family in a city like Mecraentos is difficult. They're hard to maintin. Marriage is happenin less and less. Our death to birth ratio is probably completely out of proportion. Even if someone wants to have kids, it seems so cruel to bring em into this world, so why bother? Or that's what I think. Shis-Aspinova thinks it's Pure and good to bring in new life, so I dunno. But I feel like it ain't worth it. You have a kid at twenty cycles old and you only got five or six left with em, max a good nine or ten. A lot of mothers have kids younger, though. Sans was pregnant at thirteen and has lived longer than most, thanks to her own medical care.

I can't imagine that: Isaela or Ellie-Darlin pregnant. They're around the same age as Sans was. It don't sit right. I can't imagine raisin a kid either. Havin to watch Uyala and Kim, the youngest two in our group, grow up hardened is difficult enough.

As Sans works, Isaela whispers, "I'll miss her."

"Me too."

I ain't infected. One day, one of my friends will succumb to the plague. And then another. And then another. I'll have to watch em lose their minds, tired and numb on a stone table like this, and I'll have to say, "I'll miss him. I'll miss her." I can't imagine that day.

I can't imagine how Isaela feels, so I just walk over and take her hand, swingin it idly. It's covered in new calluses.

Seht stirs with a gasp, and Sans coaxes him back into sedation, then she moves on to check on Ellie-Darlin. Sans is a woman of short stature and was once probably a real beauty, but the plague makes her face hard to look at, since the skin looks almost like it's completely meltin off. But, when she's lookin over you, despite her physical state degradin, you can see that real motherly look in her black eyes and you feel like nothin can hurt you. Nothin at all.

I sigh. Isaela says, "Y'all need to stop by more often."

"We will."

She raises her right hand, a smirk formin. I raise mine too. Then I flick my middle and ring finger. She does the same, then with her pointer. It's an elaborate set of hand motions that don't make any sense to anyone but us--I'm not even sure it makes sense to us, but we have it memorized and synchronized perfectly.

We developed the handshake cycles ago cause we ran out of safe games to play and couldn't afford any toys, back when I still lived in an orphanage.

I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. She may not be a Garnet, but she's like a sister to me and, if she ever needs it, I'll always be at her beckon and call.

***

While Sans works on the other Garnets, insistin that even though Flynn and Ellie-Darlin feel 'fine' they are never really 'fine', I step outside of the apothecary. I close my eyes and let myself slip into the brush and wood around me, seein and feelin the world through the whisperin leaves that drape over the buildin, tryin to locate Asher, if he hasn't gone yet.

The leaves make contact with skin and I smile. I find him still atop a rooftop about five legs away.

"Hi, Asher," I call into the empty-lookin sky. "You can come out. We're gonna leave soon--the Suns are comin out. We'd rather you just tag along than follow us."

Silence. Then, he says from above, "It's the leaves that let you see me, isn't it? I feel them moving. And you moved them earlier, with your hands. You wanted me to see that."

"Yep. It's okay to be amazed. I'm awesome."

If Seht were awake, he'd punch me in the ribs real hard. Isaela would laugh before doin the same.

"How... you're gift is... moving trees?"

"Nah," I say. "I don't got the plague, far as I know."

"That's impossible."

"Maybe I'm a late bloomer or somethin," I say. "I ain't even got black veins yet, though. Do you wanna come down or nah? You don't gotta be so wary of us."

"I don't know," Asher says. "I think I like it up here."

"So are you stalkin just to stalk or do you want somethin?"

"I'm just curious, that's all."

"Curious bout us?" I shrug. "If you wanted to come live with us, you coulda just said so. Didn't Michie say somethin about sendin you to us?"

"I don't want to live with you guys. Or... no, I want to take care of Michie and Madge. They need it."

"But...?"

"But you guys seem like interesting enough company. And I saw your scouts, the two girls, watching over our neighbors. They made sure that old Hengar didn't fall of his balcony again. I appreciate that, looking over the neighborhood."

"Oh, we love Hengar," I say.

"Is he your father?"

"Hengar? My father?" I laugh. "Nah, nah not at all."

"So why do you all look over him like that?"

"Kindness of our hearts? I dunno. A lot of the people on Punnet Street have been good to us."

"Oh."

"Why not just ask to come with if you were curious and wanted to talk? It's a lot less efficient to just watch us from afar and hope you got the answers you want."

He hesitates. "I wasn't sure how many other Garnets I'd be seeing right now. Michie said there's twenty of you?"

Ah. He didn't wanna be ambushed. "Little less than that," I say. "But most of the time, there's only a few of us at home. Some are lookin after Punnet, some got personal business, and some just don't stay in one place ever."

"The girl in there--is she a Garnet?"

"Isaela? Nah." I smile, knowin he probably saw our little handshake. "She's mostly my friend. Don't really know the others too well and she doesn't try to."

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That's what makes Isaela not a Garnet. See, with Lahla, who was on Punnet patrol tonight, she goes from street to street. But even if she don't live with us, if we get word to her, she'll be at our call real quick. I'm not too close to Lahla, a lot less close to her than I am with Isaela, but I know I can count on her to cover for me whenever I need it. Isaela? She lives to serve herself and her mother. If I really need somethin from her, she'll do it, but mostly cause it's me that asked. If it were Lahla who asked, who she's only met once, she'd probably decline and tell her to shove it.

"You gonna keep shadowin us until we reach our home?"

"Will the other Garnets notice?"

"Oh, definitely. You don't gotta come down from there, but I highly recommend it. Lahla tried to sneak her way into our home--she followed us too, thinkin that we had good stashes of food or something--and got her arm broken by Vernon upon first meetin cause she got caught. Now they're lovers."

Suddenly, a clatterin of bells from a couple blocks down comes on. A mornin-breakfast line for the Soup Shop, stews of fresh meat and flavored water and tree sap. You got to line up early for your rations. We don't bother goin anymore, unless we're really desperate and haven't been able to nab nothin from a tourist or a healthy-enough body to leech off cause those lines take literal Cycles to get through. There's no guarantee that you will obtain your rations for the day.

The rustlin of leaves indicates that Asher's flinchin at the sound. He mutters, "Damn it."

"You don't trust us, that's alright," I say. "But if you're gonna spy, just walk in and save yourself some trouble. We can impress Vernon, presentin you like a hero that saved Michie for us."

"I'm no hero."

"I'd be concerned if you thought you were in a City like this. Come with us or go back to Michie."

"You're giving me choices," he says. "Stop that."

I blink. "What?"

He rustles but does not answer.

"My name's Asaio, not Garnet, by the way," I say. "To clear up from earlier."

"That was a joke," he says, but he sounds uncertain.

"Yeah." I grin. "You can laugh."

I like knowin what my friends' laughs are like the back of my hand--and I have a good feelin Asher's gonna stick around, even if he's wary now. Seht hardly laughs but when he does it's loud, obnoxious. Makes itself known. Ellie-Darlin's got a giggle she can't contain. Flynn more smiles than laughs. Isaela, when she really finds somethin funny, she snorts a lot and when she tries to hide the fact that she's laughin, she ends up sneezin instead. Asher? Asher's laughin like he's got to keep it secret.

I hear him climbin down the rooftops. He lands silently. He still wears his black cloak and carries the quiver on his back. When we make eye contact, the first thing I notice is how large his eyes are. Big and black, almost unproportional to his skinny freckled face.

"You got good eyes," I tell him.

"Good eyes?"

"Yeah. Like a deep void, or the sky when there's a storm sort of black."

"I used to be called Pearl because of them."

"I used to be called Piebald cause of mine." Seran gave me the name, actually. Vernon's older brother. He's dead now.

Asher leans froward. Not too close, not close enough for me to hug or punch or anythin, but just enough for me to see my two-colored eyes, one blue and one brown, and the scar that hugs the entire right side of my face. I don't see my reflection too often, but I know the scar distorts my right eye, keeps the lid halfway closed most of the time. That cheek's swollen and that side of my lip's bigger than the other, and my teeth are all crooked, and one ear is half-gone. Unlike Ellie-Darlin, I'll never be revered for my beauty.

"You chose the name Asaio?" Asher says.

"Yep," I say, and I feel like the fact that I did is important to him somehow, even if the name was one I'd taken off a man who'd been tryin to sell Isaela to a brothel when we were real, real young.

***

The newly awakened Seht sits upright against the wall, drinkin from a skin of water. The color in his face has returned. Sans, meanwhile, lays back down on the stone slab with Flynn and Ellie-Darlin tendin to her. They are tyin the chains around her arms. A sick feelin rolls through my stomach. I notice that Isaela is pointedly lookin anywhere else.

Seht and Isaela ain't surprised when I come in with Asher, meanin Seht must've heard our entire conversation. I notice Asher makes sure not to stand behind me but right besides and nods to Isaela as she admires his bow. Seht just eyes him and says, "Are you ready to be sacrificed for Vernon?"

"I was waiting for this day," Asher answers. Seht nods approvingly.

I walk over to Seht and clambor behind so that I can wrap my arms around him. He sighs audibly but doesn’t pull away. “You feelin better?”

“Yes, Asaio,” he says.

I squeeze his chest tighter. “You have to tell us when you ain’t feelin well.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “You can get off now.”

“Nah,” I say.

“Nah?”

“Nah.”

He sighs louder but lets me cling to him, grumblin when I nestle my chin against the crook of his neck. Isaela wakes up Flynn and Ellie, double-checks Ellie’s wound and Flynn’s snakes, then says, “Y’all ought to be goin now.”

I move away from Seht and take out one of the vegetables from the basket. "For you and Sans. Tell her we love her."

Isaela kisses me on the forehead. "Thank you. Visit, okay?"

We split up our group, dividin the share of vegetables in order to lessen the loss in case one of us gets mugged. Asher, Flynn and I will be travelin on rooftop. Ellie-Darlin and Seht will be on the ground, movin effortlessly between crowds and coaches on the streets.

We part ways. Flynn and I show Asher our main route on the roofs. Since most of the buildins are slanted and fallin apart, it can be hard to find safe vantage points. I still prefer the questionably stable paths to the streets--which are so hot and crowded it feels like you're drownin. We show him the different grips we use, how we have Nep and Pen move ahead of us and test whether or not a board is stable before we take our step.

We pass through Market Street, a central hub for places like the Soup Shop; the bathrooms, the meat sellers, the water rations, the clothes rations--all of which you got to wear in long, long lines for. Different industry-run companies got their sellers there too, with new gadgets and such from the factories, but only certain people of certain Purity can look at those things. There's a load of recreational stands too, like necklaces of stone and bone, but those are real expensive and aimed at tourists. Most people go to Market Street for instruments, though, or to listen to live performances. From all the way out here, the bangin off clashin drums, different rhythms, and wood pipes and lyres become as chaotic as the yellin of the crowds.

I can hear the shouts from legs away, smell the fresh urine and feces tucked in the alleys beside it. The Market would have once been colorful, but the bug lickers have gradually taken away all of our dyed rugs and mats and baskets lately cause they weren't "Purely made." Another long line to a glass bulidin indicates that it's home to the Soul Checkers. They do some fancy schmancy science to see if you've still got fractures in our Soul or somethin.

But the commotion in the Market is louder than usual, and limbs are thrown around--I see a decapitated arm slam someone's eyeless face. Bug lickers spill out of coaches, with their pleated snakeskin uniforms and expensive hats. They're tryin to push against the crowd, raisin torches and unslingin muskets from their backs to forge a path for themselves.

"What's happening?" Flynn whisper, comin up beside me on an empty balcony.

"Rumble or protest or both." I grin at Flynn. "Let's take the shortcut."

"I don't like the shortcut," he says as his snakes hiss in excitement.

I look over to Asher. "You up for a challenge? Or are you a wuss?"

"A wuss," Asher repeats. His dark eyes glimmer. "I'm anything but a wuss."

"Good."

"I might be a wuss," Flynn says, adjustin the bag that he has holdin the vegetables to be more secure.

"Nah. You're braver than any of us, really. See? Nep and Pen agree."

"What's the shortcut?" Asher asks.

"The warehouse is at the far end of that street," I say. "All the way over there. Yeah. That one. Tucked away. You can't really see it. We can climb all the way around, jumpin from rooftop to rooftop, but that takes a while. You see them wires in the air? They're connectin all them fancy energy sources for the factories. They're sturdy and we're small. Flynn's a little less small now but that don't matter. That one, right there? That one's connected with that street lamp over there, and right there? That's the warehouse."

Asher's eyes widen as he realizes what I'm sayin. "Easy way to get hurt."

"But effective when you're bein chased by men triple your weight. They can't even cut em or else the factories will lose power."

I approach the pole which the wire hangs. I pull of my cloak and drape it over the wire, winkin at Asher. Then, with a deep breath, I take a few steps back and launch myself forward. The cloak screams against the wire and I scream with it, narrowly dodgin hangin branches and clothes. That's our assurance--if this thing were to snap, I could whisper us a safety net.

Flynn and Asher follow suit. We're whoopin and hollerin against the risin Suns, utterly weightless.

***

We land on the roof of the warehouse. We've sealed off the doors; makes it harder for the Lime Men and the Child-Nappers and the Bug Lickers and the Rubies to get us. We wait a while for Seht and Ellie-Darlin, lettin the slowly warmin air coat us.

Asher's face is pinkish and he's breathin heavily. He presses his hand against his chest. "My heart is beating so fast."

The top of the warehouse is made of a solid concrete skeleton and a wooden exterior with only trapdoors and grates for openings. The doors are wired so that someone inside has to pull at the same time as the door’s bein opened—the work of Shimmy, our smartest Garnet, much too smart to be livin with us.

When Seht and Ellie-Darlin arrive, she says, "You took the shortcut without us?"

"Sorry," I say with an impish grin. I grab Asher by the elbow and position him against the rim of the trapdoor as Ellie-Darlin grabs the latch.

She pulls it open.

It's a complete contrast to Market Street. Vibrant and beautiful and full of laughter and life. The walls are decorated with dyed shroom lamps. Crates are stacked to create makeshift rooms and it smells of grace and sweat and smoke, but there's a sweetness to it I can't describe. Or maybe that's my own biased love. Strapped to the walls are ladders and pipes and slides and toys and chests for playin. Scattered are broken metal sheets and other scraps we've collected over the cycles, like tattered blankets and broken instruments and art. Useless things thrown out on front porches.

This abandoned trash dump is our haven.

The remainin Garnets are laughin or talkin, curled up in cots or on the ground. Some are cookin in the corner. Some hang upside down on the ladders. I see Vernon playin his mornin fiddle tune--our wake-up alarm. Crimson's yellin at him to shut his pipe, elicitin even more laughter and a few worn-down shoes thrown in Vernon's direction.

I wrap my arms around Asher’s shoulders with a grin, testin to see if he flinches or not like Seht and Ellie-Darlin and Flynn did before they finally decided affection is nice sometimes. He doesn't.

“Them right there,” I say, “are the Garnets.”