Time slowed. Mazie pulled the trigger. A high-pitched whine garbled all sound. Farisa’s head flew back to see a man, arms out to tackle her, crumple. A sore—no, a hole—had erupted on his forehead. His silver-green cravat lay pinned beneath his fallen body.

Mazie pointed into the red-brown darkness. “Rail police. Run.”

Vikus and Farisa followed her direction. When Farisa’s hearing returned, her heart was smashing itself three times a second. Vision came and went in flashes.

Vikus extended an arm. “Stay back.”

She stopped. Mazie tossed a grenade. The air erupted. Behind a dust cloud, a chain-link fence flung itself outward, tearing a hole in itself. Vikus went through first, careful to avoid sharp edges. Farisa followed, with Mazie behind her. Liquor bottles and used underwear littered the forest floor.

“Run ahead,” Vikus said. “I’ll make sure no one follows.”

Mazie said, “We’re two miles away.”

Farisa asked, “From what?”

Mazie, still running, knocked a lock of hair from her eyes. “Our camp.”

Farisa wanted to ask a question—several of them—but they were running too fast for her to talk.

“I’m sorry for pointing the gun at ya. I never would’ve ’urt ya. Fucker was right behind. Good thing was, ’e must have thought I was G-Comp just long enough.”

Farisa continued the run, saying nothing, until they arrived at a ground furrow where a canvas tarpaulin, held up by iron poles, flapped in the wind.

“I’ll ’ave to tie that down. No one should see it from ’ere,” said Mazie as she ran into the ravine.

“We’re clear,” Vikus said when he caught up. “No one’s following.”

Farisa bit her fingernail. “What about the train?”

Mazie laughed. “No way it’s going out tonight.”

Vikus said, “Do you remember the shaking as we were climbing the fence?”

“I do. I fell off on the way down. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to climb.”

“You haven’t. We had a quake. The rails are vurkt, and there’ll be men repairing the tracks all night.”

“G-Comps everywhere,” Mazie said. “So ye’re stuck with us.”

“Great,” Farisa said as she crossed her arms. “Just great.”

#

The sleeping bag had been in the tent for a long time, so Farisa knew better than to get inside, but her clothes were ugly and would not be worn again, so she smelled it, detected no odors, and deemed it safe to lay on top of it.

“Good call not to get in,” Mazie said. “This is a smuggler’s route. You never know what kind of people ’ave slept ’ere before.”

The night felt, if a word could be put to it, moldy. Rain was tapping the tarpaulin overhead. Farisa struggled to catch rest. She slept for about an hour and, when she got up, heard Mazie and Vikus outside, bickering about something. The jerky movement of Vikus’s lit cigarette suggested no small argument, but a severe disagreement. But Ouragan had curled up next to her, purring. She had that, at least.

When the other two returned, Farisa asked, “Can we get out of here soon?”

Vikus shook his head. “You’d be spotted in a minute. Your glamour’s off.”

Farisa held the amber pendant between two fingers. Why was its magic so unreliable?

“Spotted?” Mazie said. “Who are ya?”

“I’m from everywhere and nowhere,” Farisa said.

“Not where. Who?”

Farisa tilted her head. Did this girl not know?

Vikus said, “She came in from Cait Forest.”

“A Cait Forest girl?”

Farisa sat up in a slow, deliberate manner to make sure her feet were still hidden under herself. “Not exactly.”

Mazie had removed her jacket; she wore a desert-beige camisole, a shade lighter than her skin.

“I left just before the fire,” Farisa said.

Vikus sat up. “She’s F—”

Farisa glared at him. No.

“I saved yer life,” Mazie said. “The least you can do is trust me with your name.”

The mage shook her head.

“Ya don’t trust me because of my color, is that it?”

“Your color?” Farisa laughed. “I’m the dark one.”

“My hair’s black.” Mazie’s eyes crossed and her forehead wrinkled as she looked at a lock of her own hair. “My eyes are black.”

“Your eyes are brown,” Farisa said.

“Almost black.”

“What point are you trying to make, exactly? You’re as white as Vikus. Your problem has nothing to do with skin color. You’re a—”

Mazie’s nostrils flared. “What am I?”

“You’re a pessima.”

Mazie crossed her arms. “We call ourselves something different.”

Farisa remembered being mugged in Imtuita. “Whatever. You’re all purse-cutters and brigands.”

“We’d do ’onest work if we could get it, but no one will ’ire us.”

“You drink too much, and—”

“No more than they do in Cait Forest, I bet.”

“And worst of all, you write all that graffiti.”

“What’s yer point?”

Farisa scoffed. “I read the chaff. You threaten to kill the Vehu as often as—”

“I do that? Me personally?” Mazie smiled at Vikus. “Why would I? I’m dating one.”

Farisa continued with the force of a train. “Orc’s blood too. I know the Company runs the breed-and-bleeds, but it's you people who sell it on the streets. Do you know how awful that stuff is? It never leaves the body, and it only takes a moment for a boy to put it in a girl. I’ve heard of sixteen-year-old girls having to drop out of school because that filth got inside them and ruined their brains.”

Mazie exhaled through her nose.

“Calm down, Mazie,” Vikus said. “You’re the first of your people she’s ever had a chance to know.”

Farisa added, “The last, I hope.”

Mazie said, “I’ve never seen orc’s blood— or orcs, until yesterday—and I grew up believing it was Ve’u who bred them.”

“Of course you did.”

Vikus interjected. “Her point is that Vehu blame oggro—orc’s blood—on the pessimou, and pessimou blame Vehu. Who’s actually responsible? The Globbos, but they want us to be divided against each other.”

Mazie added, “Where I grew up, ’alf of us thought Ve’u built the Global Company.”

“That is so goddamn offensive,” Farisa said.

“It is. And untrue. They should teach us better than that in school.”

“I agree. They should.”

“We don’t have schools, Farisa.” Mazie paused. “No, we don’t deal oggro. We can’t afford that shit. Most of us stick to grog and backy, and it’s not like G-Comps aren’t shaft deep in those rackets too. We just charge an ’onest price.”

“Speaking of ‘backy,’” Vikus said, “I could use another cigarette.”

He smoked under the tarp, because the rain and wind had picked up. Daybreak would not arrive for at least four hours. Farisa tried to make herself comfortable, but the ground under the thin, ratty sleeping bag seemed harder and more uneven than before. Anger, she decided, was not helping her sleep, but causing discomfort. She would have to spend the next few hours with Mazie; meanness suited no purpose.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “About a year ago, I was robbed by pessimou. I guess I might have let certain prejudices get the better of me.”

Mazie turned her head, putting her chin on her own bare shoulder. “Apology accepted.”

“So quickly?”

“We don’t ’ave time to squabble,” Mazie said. “We ’ave to get ourselves out of the danger we’re in.”

#

Farisa had tied together a few hours of sleep. The sun had probably risen, but the overcast sky was still in twilight. Ouragan got up and stretched, forelegs ahead of herself as she yawned. Mazie had put her jacket back on, and Vikus was finishing a cigarette.

“Yowch!” Mazie said. “The morning light doesn’t like ya much.”

Farisa rubbed her eyes. “That, I believe.”

“You were kind of a ’ottie three hours ago, but now ya look like—”

Vikus said, “She’s trying to say your glamour is back on.”

“One ’ell of a disguise. I wouldn’t use the word ‘glamour’ for it, though.”

Ouragan butted her gray nose into Farisa’s knee.

Vikus said, “We should leave. It’ll be safe to travel if your glamour holds.”

Farisa stood. “If the train’s out, where can we go?”

“We’ll have to go back to 139.”

Mazie said, “You still ’aven’t told me who ya are.”

Farisa scratched her elbow.

“I did save your life, recall.”

“My name’s Farisa.”

“Farisa?”

“That’s right.”

Mazie chuckled. “But not that Farisa.”

“I probably am.”

Mazie crossed her arms. “Ye’re... really? Ye’re not pissing it?”

“I’m probably ‘that Farisa’.”

“Let’s go,” Vikus said.

They packed up and headed further into the woods. Gleaming wet ferns spread across the forest floor, reflecting the sky’s colorless but brightening light. Fog hung in the air and pale green algae covered a still canal beside a tow path. Slippery leaf litter and jagged rocks curved into the distance.

Farisa touched Mazie’s white canvas satchel, on which gold glitter had been used to write: When Shit Gets Real. “Really, Mazie? When shit gets real, glitter?”

Mazie adjusted the black bandana over her hair. “I made it when I was thirteen.”

“Let me guess. You stole the bag.”

“Of course.” Mazie slung it over her shoulder.

“You’re what now, forty?”

“Seven days off twenty-six, my dahling. And you?”

“Etta uktaber, nyetz-nayzohn sioletz-ter.”

Mazie rolled her eyes. “You talk to me this way, and you’re only twenty.”

“You know Lyrian?”

“Poor doesn't mean I can’t read.”

“It’s not about money.”

“I bet ya were flat as shale when I first—”

Vikus turned around. “Will you two stop it?”

The three of them walked in silence for a few minutes. The rain stopped, although cold drops fell from overhead branches with every gust of wind. Birds began to sing.

Mazie stopped in the middle of the path. “Shit. We ’ave to go back.”

Farisa scoffed. Effort that would not bring her to a pair of shoes—preferably, shoes she owned, like the perfectly good pair at 139 Andor Street—was, to her mind in this mood, a total waste.

Vikus said, “Mazie’s right.”

Farisa said, “Why?”

“Look.” Mazie pointed down. A large boot had left its mark in the mud. “They’re looking for something. We need to destroy that ’ideout—if that works for our princess.”

Farisa sighed. “I suppose I should trust your judgment.. Smuggling isn’t in my blood.”

Mazie rolled her eyes. “I killed a railie. Do ya know ’ow pissed off G-Comps get when you blast someone who costs that much to train?”

“Pun intended?”

“Yer third guess might be the right one.”

Vikus said, “Let’s go.”

They hurried to the tent, which Vikus dismantled, throwing the iron poles into a rivulet cloudy enough for them to sink out of sight. He gathered and buried the cigarette butts. “What else do we need to get rid of?”

“The canvas,” Mazie said.

Farisa laid the tent’s covering on a rock, folded it up, and closed her eyes. The canvas caught fire, blackening with unnatural speed. Within a minute, it was ash. “I figured I ought to earn my keep.”

#

The sun started to show itself around nine. The forest grew noisy with the rattle of spring insects. The woods weren’t hard on the eyes, so long as one avoided the creeks, which had taken on an orange cast due to their being downstream of factories, to which they were likely getting closer because the trees were also less colorful here.

Mazie, the first to hear human voices, put a finger to her lips.

Ouragan ran forward.

Mazie whispered, “Go slow. Follow the cat.”

They crouched and crept, in absolute silence, until they reached a concrete-bodied-bridge over the ravine of a foul-smelling rivulet. They waited underneath, as quietly as they could, as the voices of marching Globbos came closer. Boot shadows pressed the meshed iron grating of the bridge deck. One of the men shouted orders in an affected voice so nasal, it was hard to make out the words. Farisa noticed, for less than a second, a tic of fear on Mazie’s face, the whites of her eyes more visible than before.

The first squad crossed the bridge quickly, but a second one arrived about ten minutes later, and a full platoon ten minutes after that. Not until an hour had passed did Ouragan run ahead, looking back in a way that suggested it would be safe to proceed.

“The cat’s brilliant,” Mazie said. “That’s the way I would go, too.”

They walked through another mile or two of woods, circumspect and slow, until they crossed a stream and came to an open field—most likely, a small farm abandoned decades ago, the land kept clear by beavers. One could see in all directions for a few hundred yards, so the number of places Globbos might be hiding could—at last—be counted and ruled out.

Mazie shook her head. “Farisa, the mage. The Farisa.”

“Did I say I was someone else?”

“That glamour implied you were someone else.”

“I’m sure it did,” Farisa said.

“So ye’re a mage.”

“That’s what I'm told, too.”

“If someone shot ya, would ya be able to—”

“If I didn’t see it coming, I’d die. Like anyone else.”

“No shooting Farisa,” Vikus said. “We’ll make that a rule.”

“If ya knew it was coming?”

Farisa stopped. “Vikus, do you think there are Globbos out here?”

“We’re already three miles from the railroad,” Mazie said.

Vikus said, “It’s unlikely.”

Farisa used a stick to pick up an old tin can and set it on a rock. “Mazie, shoot that.”

Mazie fired. Deflected by an unseen force, the bullet split left.

“Vikus said you were a great shot, but I’m underwhelmed.”

Mazie fired again. The bullet swerved to the right and down.

“Do it again.”

Mazie fired a third time. The bullet curved, decelerated, and returned to Farisa at a speed slow enough to catch, though it was hot in her palm.

“Ye’re a cheat,” Mazie said.

“Sometimes cheating is the sport.” She put the bullet in Mazie’s hand.

“I’m duly impressed,” Mazie said.

“It took you this long?”

#

The forest trail met a street where they found a deserted neighborhood. Plant life, natural or gardened, was absent. Stagnant rain puddles had filmed over, and unclothed children sat in blighted fields, staring at nothing. The buildings were decades out of repair.

Vikus said, “This is neither a fast nor scenic route, but even Globbos don’t come through this section of town. It used to be a bird-watching trail, though I wouldn’t come out here with binoculars today.”

Graffiti covered every surface, but here it seemed ominous, with less petty whimsy and more of a prophet’s certainty. Stay inside 5-16-94, said one scrawling, the fourth reference Farisa had seen to the date.

She asked, “What happens today?”

“Probably nothing,” Mazie said. “Most of the time, chaff leads only to counter-chaff.”

Someone had announced on the concrete building’s boarded-up window: All Orcx Dead 4:0-Clock AM. In blue writing, someone had responded: No 1 Left.

She asked, “Does that mean, ‘no, one is left’ or ‘no one left’?”

Mazie said, “If ya put stock in something ya read on a wall, then I’ve got a suit of invisible armor to sell you.”

They crossed another orange announcement that Barixa Will Arrive, 28 Akril.

“Ye’re old news now,” Mazie said.

Farisa scoffed. “I’m not news at all.”

“That’s not a decision ya get to make, I’m afraid. One of mine’s a ways down here. I’d be impressed if ya spot it.”

They continued walking. Farisa pointed at an obscene rhyme about a preference for “Vyhu girlx.” She said, “That one seems beneath even you.”

“Correct. That one’s not mine.”

A couple blocks later, someone had written in green about “Bolin’s xixter.” Before Farisa could raise her hand to point, Mazie said:

“I’m not the kind to insult someone through their sister. When I hit, I hit direct. Keep looking.”

Farisa grabbed Mazie’s bag. “Is the handwriting on this thing the style you usually use?”

“Ha. Like I’d tell you.”

They passed an abandoned fire station. In red, someone had written:

In Hampus Bell’s rectum was Mayor Munt caught,

Arm up to the shoulder to finger five grot.

Said Patriarch, “Sandhill, that’s not where I itch;”

“You pay well,” said Munt, “but I ought to smell rich.”

“That’s the one,” Farisa said.

Mazie nodded.

“It ain’t bad,” Farisa said. “You might be the only vandal to use punctuation.”

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a pessima with a semicolon.”

“Don’t look left,” Vikus said.

Farisa, of course, did.

Tarsha Barixa dyex tonight.

“Don’t worry. You’re in great ’ands,” Mazie said as she put a hand on Farisa’s shoulder. She knocked it away.

“Why do you people…?”

“Why do we what?”

Farisa jabbed the air with two fingers. “That! Why would you write about killing me?”

“Are you kidding, Fay?”

“Don’t fucking call me Fay.”

“That’s G-Comp work. You think we ‘pessimou’ have a problem with you? On the contrary. We know what you did to ’Ampus Bell’s son.”

“What I did to—? I have no idea what you’re—”

“It’s the G-Comps that want your ’ead. To us, ye’re a symbol. A symbol of ‘ope.”

“What the fuck are you talking ab—?”

“Quiet,” Vikus said. He blocked the two women with his arm and lowered his voice to a whisper. “This is a dangerous block. Mazie, draw.”

They hid behind the wall of a ruined building. Twenty yards up the road, a three-story concrete structure stood, its front windows blown out and its wooden door painted black. All but two of the brass letters had fallen off, leaving sunfade shadows on the awning that spelled out: Angela’s Hostel.

Vikus inched forward, gun close to his chest. “Are you ready?”

Mazie said, “Yes.”

“Farisa?”

“Aye,” she said.

As soon as they stepped out, the black door swung open.

Vikus looked at Mazie, who looked at Farisa.

By the sudden drop in the tension in Vikus’s arms, Farisa could tell he knew the man who’d opened the hostel door. Vikus ran toward him and the other two followed.

“Quickly,” said Wegen, who removed his face mask.

Vikus said, “Don’t ever do that again. I thought I was going to be shot.”

“The door is back-springed. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t build it.”

Wegen shut the door once everyone was inside. Gnats flew in the sun over the courtyard. The concrete walls were bare, excluding red-painted numbers by the doorways of each of the six rooms. Upholstered benches sat under coatings of outdoor dust, and there was a card table, wobbly because its legs had rotted to unequal length.

Vikus and Mazie explained to Wegen what had happened over the past fifteen hours.

“Then we’ve got to use Route C to get back to the District.”

Mazie pointed to a wall clock that hung in a lopsided manner. “Is that time accurate?”

“Fifteen minutes slow,” Wegen said.

“Do any of you need me?”

“I’m glad you were there, but it’s actually better if it’s fewer of us, the next stretch.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Mazie gave Vikus a peck on the cheek.

Vikus explained, “She doesn’t like to go uptown.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Farisa said.

“I enjoyed meeting you,” Mazie said.

Farisa forced a smile.

Mazie left. Vikus and Wegen began to clean their guns and sorted through ammunition.

“Shouldn’t she have one?” Wegen asked.

“I don’t know how to aim it.”

“You should have one to hold and point.”

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“That, I think I can do,” Farisa said as she accepted a firearm.

She looked around for Ouragan. She was worried that Mazie had stolen the cat—it seemed like a thing a pessima would do—but found the animal curled up in a sunny flower bed, the only part of this place that had not fallen into disrepair.

“If we’re using C, we should leave soon,” said Vikus.

“Not till one thirty,” Wegen said.

“Why?”

“It’s a big lottery day. The streets are packed already, and it’ll get worse until they sell out the tickets.” Wegen’s face contorted in shock. “What the fuck just…?”

Vikus drew a deep breath. He explained the pendant and the glamour.

Farisa said, “It helps to be ugly sometimes.”

“It fooled me,” Wegen said. “You looked like an entirely different person. I was still waiting for Farisa, and here you were the whole time. It’s good that you’re disguised, as the reward on your head is up to fifty thousand.”

“We’ll need the glamour to work again if we want to move safely,” said Vikus.

Farisa asked, “How are we going to know if the lottery’s sold out?”

“That’s easy. We’ll be able to hear it.”

Wegen opened a tin of tobacco. “Would you like some?”

“I’ll pass,” Farisa said.

“I should quit,” Wegen said.

Vikus put a red bandanna on his head. “If I take this off when we’re out there, that means your glamour’s off and you need to hide.”

As they waited, Farisa sat on a dusty couch with her feet tucked behind her. Vikus and Wegen used an old road sign as a table and played a card game she didn’t recognize. Ouragan sat on her haunches, looking around from time to time. Wegen was three cards away from winning when a chorus of angry shouts rose from the next street over.

“Lottery’s sold out,” he said.

Vikus said, “Farisa’s glamour is on. We’ll leave in five minutes.”

“We’ll only be in the open for a couple blocks. It’s mostly shaded alleys. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get back to 139. It’s quiet enough out there to go. You ready? I’ll take the front.”

“I’ll take the rear,” Vikus said.

The sky had fully cleared. Farisa wiped sweat from her brow. “I guess that makes me the middle.”

They inched out of the hostel. Ouragan would sometimes run ahead and look back; other times, she’d amble at Farisa’s side. They mostly followed a side street parallel to Sixth called Bluth Lane, which narrowed to a dirt alley and reached a dead end in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse. At eye level, under a busted window, someone had written, Kill all Vyhux—zzey run the Globbal Kompanye.

Wegen spat out his tobacco. “If that were true, it’d be so much easier to get laid.”

Vikus said, “Stop it. We’re in the presence of a lady.”

“It’s fine,” Farisa said. “I’ve heard a lot worse. I’ve said a lot worse.”

“Oh, you have? Say ‘fuck,’” Wegen said as he put fresh snuff in his mouth.

“Fuck shit cunt asshole titbarf knuckleturd.” She didn’t see what the big deal was.

Vikus cleared his throat. “That’s enough.”

“I can keep going,” Farisa said.

Wegen pointed. “We’ll enter the warehouse through that door and come out near Andor Street. We’re not in the District yet, so be as quiet and inconspicuous as you can.”

Inside the building, the walls of which were stained at high levels, was a maze of broken crates and wasted food so rotten, it was hard to tell what some of it had been. Cauliflower had curdled and lemons had liquefied. Meat had turned into mounds of maggot shit. A few mushrooms were growing, but none were appetizing.

They emerged on Andor Street to find it still too crowded to safely proceed. Legitimate sales of lottery tickets had ended, but scalpers were still holding chaotic auctions for numbers considered lucky.

Ouragan ran across the street. Farisa, knowing she had promised to take care of the cat, ran after her, but Wegen blocked her with his arm.

“Stay here,” he said. “The cat knows how to handle herself.”

A low rumble came from the south as a carriage drawn by two horses sped, forcing people to make way, causing some to trip. Vikus took Farisa’s arm and pulled her back into the warehouse. Wegen put something wet and soggy in Farisa’s ear, then the other.

Disgusted, she turned around and was prepared to smack the man until she heard the boom—a hard thump that knocked a couple heartbeats out of place. Even with the explosion’s volume reduced by tobacco sog, her ears hurt like hell. All the glass of this building had shattered.

“This might be the only time someone thanks you for doing that,” Farisa said to Wegen.

“It isn’t.”

“People are hurt,” Farisa said. “Shouldn’t someone—?”

“We do nothing,” Vikus said.

“Company’ll be here in sixty seconds,” Wegen added. “They knew this was coming. They probably ordered it themselves.”

Farisa crept to a busted window and looked across Andor Street, to ensure that Ouragan had crossed safely. The cat had. She also glanced uptown, which she immediately regretted. The vehicle, which had traveled about fifty feet beyond them, looked like a crushed tin can. The horse, detached in the explosion, had also not survived.

She then joined the others to sit by the door. She could tell by their body language that they expected to be here for a long time.

Vikus removed his red bandana.

“My glamour’s off?”

“Aye,” Wegen said. “You are again effable.”

Some time passed in silence before Vikus asked, “What does effable mean?”

Farisa rolled her eyes. “He’s not using the word right.”

Wegen seemed affronted.

“As for you, Wegen, you’re handsome, but you’re not my type.”

He laughed. “What is your type, Farisa?”

“Next question.”

“We shouldn’t go until the glamour comes back on,” said Vikus.

“What about Ouragan?”

Wegen said, “She knows these streets better than any of us.”

They sat in silence on wooden crates for at least half an hour, waiting for street traffic to die down.

Vikus whispered, “Don’t move or look, but match my gaze.”

Two armed men in gray had come in by the Bluth Street entrance.

Farisa said, “Is my glamour on?”

“It isn’t,” said Wegen. “We need to cover your face.” He removed his jacket. “Use this, and limp a little bit.” He made a clicking noise with his mouth. “Is that loud enough for you to hear direction?”

“It is.”

“Follow me by that sound.”

They slinked out of the warehouse before the Globbos noticed. Farisa could not see the street as she crossed it, but Wegen’s sounds, as well as air movement on her stretched out arms, helped her avoid collisions until she bumped into a man’s back.

“We’ve reached the other side,” Wegen said.

#

Farisa guessed it was after two in the afternoon. She couldn’t be sure, as the watch Merrick had given her was up at 139. Waiting and backtracking, as these side alleys were often blocked by trash piles and unexplained barricades, had drawn out their journey. She was hot and tired and she wanted to be anywhere but under Exmore’s sky.

“This is Broad Street,” said Wegen.

The boulevard lived up to its name, being wide enough for four horse-drawn carriages to run abreast.

Wegen said, “Holding the pistol I gave you?”

Farisa said, “I’ve got it.”

Wegen looked out into the street. “You don’t have enough experience for precision shots, so if someone’s charging you, aim for the belly. Lots of stopping power there, even if you land a little low or high. Do not aim for the head, because it’s too small a target. No mercy shots to the knee either, same reason. Ready?”

“As anyone.”

“Here’s an opening,” Vikus said.

Wegen said, “Three, two, one… now.”

They sprinted across Broad Street. Farisa’s breaths, like waves forming a wake, piled on top of each other. They reached an alley on the other side.

“We made it,” Wegen said.

Farisa heard a man run behind them. Two Globbos were chasing him, and he was screaming for help.

“We’re a quarter mile from Tunnel Six,” Wegen said.

Vikus scratched his neck. “Is there another option? I hate that place.”

“No, there isn’t.”

Farisa recovered her breath and sense of body as they inched through the spaces between buildings. Nothing grew in these corridors, due to the lack of direct sunlight even in top-sun summer. An odor of fermentation was everywhere. They came to the wall of a windowless white building, two stories high and otherwise bereft of distinction.

“Vikus, help me lift this,” said Wegen. The two men squatted to move a heavy cement plate. “This building is what we’re going underneath.”

Farisa could see why Vikus had complained, knowing this tunnel was on their route. The narrow crawl space, so tight they had to belly-crawl in single file, had been bored into the building’s foundation. The bodies of the two large men, Wegen in front and Vikus behind, blocked out all light. Wegen’s boot often collided with Farisa’s hand, for which he reliably apologized. Farisa’s shins and knees hurt from contact with concrete. The space smelled worse and grew hotter as they moved forward. At one point, the ground rumbled and dust flew everywhere, causing her to sneeze. Her neck tightened; her arms tingled; she felt the welling up of a need to escape, as if she had awakened deep underwater and had six seconds to swim to the surface. I’m inside a mouth, a mouth in the ground that could close around me, and here I am all dirty and barefoot and if I die I will be found like this. The Marquessa’s electric hand twirled its ghostly fingers around her heart, daring her to scream a lethal scream that would surely collapse this dusty, dark tunnel, and then...

A crack of light came, just in time.

“Once I move this thing, we’re out,” Wegen said.

“Thank God,” said Vikus. He paused. “What’s ‘this thing’?”

“A body.”

Farisa’s first sight by natural light was the shaking of her hands. She stood in open air, on the other side of that windowless white building, not a moment too soon, so relieved to be out of the tunnel that she scarcely noticed that Vikus and Wegen had taken on the ugly task of moving a fresh corpse out of their way.

She asked, “What happened?”

“A sniper round got him,” said Wegen. “We need to be wary of windows and rooftops.”

Vikus said, “Any idea why?”

“He was one of the orcs.”

Farisa looked back to see a body that had been covered in blood-soaked rags. Iridescent blue flies were circling above it.

Wegen said, “We are—”

“Don’t even tell me that we’re so close.”

“I wasn’t going to. We are in more danger than I realized.” He paused. “There’s a playground on the next street we have to cross. I don’t hear any children, so there’s someone there. We have to be soundless—we have to be careful.”

They were. They walked sideways, breathing slowly and moving only when ambient noise would mask their own. They checked all of the sooty windows and rotted balconies and black corners before taking a step. They spotted the Globbo on the playground, tracked his gaze, made sure he did not have backup, and waited for the man to leave. Wegen knew where they were going, the time of day to the minute, and the precise safest moment to cross Evler Street.

And it still wasn’t fucking enough.

“Wegen!” Vikus returned fire—one, two, three—and a man, who had appeared on a balcony only just then, fell.

Farisa’s arms broke out in a painful tingle. This couldn’t be real.

“Come on,” Vikus said.

Wegen had taken no undue risks. He had been strong and brave. His head did not belong like that.

Farisa screamed.

Vikus grabbed her hand as they ran across the street. Vikus was right next to Farisa, but his voice came from miles away. “I’ll do this before the rage hits me. It’s better than you deserve.” The air exploded and the Globbo’s sobbing and begging ended.

Farisa shivered, despite the four-flag heat. “I could have…”

“You’re at fault for nothing,” Vikus said.

“I thought...” I would be able to do something. She looked at her unused pistol. She had always imagined a gunfight as having an opening, a middle, and an ending, as in Jakhob’s Gun., where the first volley broke a beer glass and the second dented a shop mirror, giving time for hiding, for pursuit, for aim—for a mage’s intervention—but this one had already ended by the moment of her first awareness. Real gunfights, she learned, were fast, brutal, and unfair.

Her ears were still ringing as she asked Vikus, “How’d you react so fast?”

“Training.” He looked at Farisa. “Help me with the body.”

They dragged the shooter’s corpse into an alley.

“Wegen deserves a good burial—a Vehu burial—but we can’t go back now. Too unsafe. There might be another one.” He handed Farisa a knife. “Let’s take a minute for the ’bo that shot him, though. There’s usually nothing, but sometimes we get useful information.”

They cut the shooter’s clothes away, finding nothing. They looked through his wallet. His Global Company identification card had been printed six years ago. He was thirty-five years old and held the rank of Z-10. His shoes were filthy and had holes in them, and there were open sores on the backs of his legs. Some of his teeth were missing. No rings were on fingers; there were no signs of any standing. The man’s money purse was light. Vikus counted the bills and coins.

“Five days’ rent. No soldat leaves money in the barracks, so this must be all he had in this world. Five days’ rent.”

Farisa shook her head. “Then what the fuck was he even fighting for?”

“We should go.”

The sky seemed to have taken some kind of poison into its color—the outgassing of factory vapors, the destruction of another ancient forest, an early Alma haze; it could have been any such thing. No sun or wind or rain would clean the upper dome of its grime.

Vikus said nothing until they were within sight of the Vehu District, the southern checkpoint of which had been re-established. “He was the top math student. He couldn’t spell for shit, but he was smart. And if you got that motherfucker drunk, Farisa, he was funny. He was so funny.”

“You’re allowed to cry,” she said.

“As night falls, I am sure I will. Let me get us home first.”

#

In the heart of the Vehu District, the temple clock announced the closure of the afternoon’s fourth hour.

At the checkpoint, the blue-clad soldier of God said, “Your names are?”

“I’m Vikus.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“You wouldn’t. I’m swamp Vehu, but I serve Merrick and Nadia Kapel up at 139.”

“The Kapels? Aren't they leaving for the Trail? I doubt they have work for you.”

“They know who I am and they will want to see me.”

Farisa added, “He killed a Globbo two hours ago.”

“Chora 173,” the guard said.

Vikus asked, “What about it?”

“Recite it.”

“I don’t know it.”

Farisa said, “To death I speak without fear, for in God’s heart I was born… That one, right?”

“Looks like the—can I say tar—?”

“You cannot,” Farisa said.

“Well, it looks like the… girl’s better read than you, Mister Vikus.”

Vikus laughed. “She’s better read than a lot of people.”

“On my life, I’ll vouch for him,” Farisa said. “He saved it. My life, that is.” She jabbed Vikus with her elbow. “Tell him something only a Vehu would know.”

“Like what?”

“I’m a foresta,” Farisa said. “If I knew it, it could not, by definition, be such a thing.”

“White is five, green is twenty-five, and black is a hundred,” Vikus said.

“You may pass,” said the guard. He looked at Farisa. “As for you—”

“She’s with me,” Vikus said.

“She’s not—”

“I’m not Vehu, but I believe my goddess and your god are the same.”

“Come with what?”

“It’s the middle of the night. Four men are sleeping in the woods, and they don’t know it, but they’re sleeping around a leopard. One man sleeps near the tail, grabs it, and thinks he’s found a furry snake. The other man grabs the ear—”

“I’ll let you in,” the guard said.

“Graza,” Farisa said.

On the other side of the barricade, the roads were clear. One could see that Globbos had been here, as the houses were freshly damaged, and a schoolboy of about six was writing in chalk on a stoop—he crossed four white lines with a green one. Still, efforts had been made to restore the street and homes to a livable state.

Farisa asked, “What’s this about the colors?”

“The colors?”

“What you said at the checkpoint. ’White is five, green is twenty-five, and black is a hundred.’”

“You don’t want to know.”

She understood; she thought of Wegen. “What color do they use for one?”

“We just call that bad luck.”

#

Vikus unlocked the door of 139 Andor Street. “Merrick?”

Something had changed in this house. No single item stood out by being missing or disturbed, although much had been moved out of place, but it no longer felt like a place where a door might open, a light might come on, or a voice might be heard.

Vikus’s voice quavered as he looked around a doorframe. “Merrick?”

“He’s treating the injured up at 263,” said Nadia.

“We were unable to get on the train,” Vikus said.

“I thought you might have trouble, given the quake,” said Nadia. She put her arms around Farisa. “I’m so glad you're alive.”

“I’m glad to be here. You look like you haven’t—”

“Slept? No, I haven’t.” Nadia walked into the dining room; Vikus and Farisa followed.

As Nadia fixed and served tea, Vikus and Farisa described the events they had seen.

Nadia shook her head. “Wegen was a good man. Deserved a lot better than what he got. I’ll have someone sent within the hour, and we’ll arrange a proper burial. The funeral, though, will have to be in our hearts only. It would be a target.”

“The barricade’s back up,” Vikus said.

“It won’t be for long. The Globbos will come back.” She turned to face Farisa. “They’ll wait for nightfall, so you can stay here until then, but—”

“The trains will be out for three days. The quake did a lot of damage.”

“I know. So, Farisa, we’ll need you to take a tunnel out of here, but there’s only one where you won’t have soldats waiting for you.”

Vikus said, “Are you talking about 263?”

“I am.”

“How is she going to get in?”

“Merrick’s the doctor. They’ll let her in on his word.” She looked at Farisa. “The house has no doors. They exist on the facade, but they’re decoys—they open to a concrete wall. The only way in is through the roof. The magic in that amulet has ‘run out,’ so to speak, so you’ll have to go at night.”

“The glamour never was very reliable,” Farisa said as she looked at Vikus. Ouragan, who seemed a pound and a half thinner than yesterday, curled up on a heating vent. “The magic went off and on.”

“It worked when you needed it to work.” Nadia sat down. “There was an intelligence behind it, and I wish I could explain more.”

“So, I’ll be going over the rooftops?”

“That’s right. There’ll be planks laid out to bridge the gaps between buildings. You should go as soon as it gets dark.”

“I will.”

“The two of you both should sit down for what I have to say next.”

They did so.

Ob

Oblique sunlight sharpened the dark marks of fatigue under the old woman’s eyes. “I intended to have this conversation under other circumstances. I should say that, until this morning, I did not expect there to be much of a conversation to have. Merrick and I have no living children, as you both know. What you might not know is that we used to have twenty million grot. Merrick’s practice, when it was legal for Vehu to be doctors, brought in fifty thousand per year, although now it barely breaks even.”

Farisa looked at Vikus, whose gaze remained on Nadia.

“The gold we once owned sits now in Company vaults. It’s gone. Our art either has been sold or will not sell. Half of my family’s wealth went into Reverie, and it would have been worth the whole sum if our resistance had succeeded. You might ask why I am getting into all this. Merrick and I have funded all our travel needs, as well as those of our companions on the journey to the Yatek. We’ll scarcely have use for money once we’re there.

“Vikus, I know you have a girlfriend. I’m sorry I never got to meet her. This house and its furnishings, in whatever state they are in when Exmore settles down, are yours if you want them. Should you go into business, Merrick has written glowing referrals, sealed and available in the post office, smallbox 151.”

“Congratulations,” Farisa said. “You and Mazie could start a life.”

“She’s not…” Vikus slowed his speech to a stop, eyes shifting.

“Farisa,” Nadia said.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“You have Merrick’s watch. You have Ouragan. She’s important to me, and she will become important to you. Protect her, and she will protect you. Keep her alive and healthy.”

“I will.”

“The books and art in this house belong to Farisa,” Nadia said as she looked at Vikus. “This house is yours, and you may sell it, but those possession, unless they are destroyed, go into safety at wyzohn haletz-ter.”

“Two sixty-three,” Farisa said.

“Correct.” Nadia refilled her teacup. “Until this morning, I believed our losses and our recent needs had taken us down to our last dollar. However, I found in my grandfather’s things a drawer full of paper money, as well as gold. The bills are more than a hundred years old, and no efforts were made to preserve them, so are valueless. The gold is still gold, and it’d be weight if we took it on the trail.” She handed one velvet purse to Farisa and one to Vikus, to whom she said, “There are ten more of these that I expect you to disburse to the servants.”

Farisa, uncomfortable, looked inside the pouch. “Nadia, this is a lot of money.”

“I know it is. I also know you intend to go with Claes to Bezelia. Seventeen hundred should cover your share.”

“I didn’t do anything to earn this,” Farisa said.

“You will.”

A riotous sound came from the street.

“And you, Vikus, might do so sooner. Block up the door, in case the Globbos are back.”

“Of course.”

Farisa began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Nadia.”

“For what?”

“This madness in Exmore is happening because of me, isn’t it?”

“No. We’ve been on borrowed time here for a while.”

“It shouldn’t be ‘borrowed time.’ You’ve been in Exmore for two hundred years, and half of the art, music, and literature that made this city what it was has come from people like you. As much as it’s anyone’s, it’s your city too.”

Nadia said, “Do you know what possession is?”

“What?”

“Possession is God’s least favorite kind of prayer. We shall meet again, if not before, in a world where the notion does not exist.”

“Before,” Farisa insisted. “This isn’t goodbye. I will see you again.”

Nadia looked at the wrinkled skin of her veiny hands, then away. The woman seemed to have aged two decades since last night.

“I wish we had time to discuss the long future, I really do.” Shouts were rolling up the street, moving from south to north. “For now, though, we must put priority on surviving the next twelve hours.”

#

Farisa looked through the bag she had packed the night before; the plan then had been for Nadia to send it fifty miles east, but now she would be carrying it during her rooftop run, so she was glad to find that it was light. The pack had a few books in it as well as nuts and dried fruit, as well as some salted meat for Ouragan.

She looked out the window—it was still too bright to go out just yet.

Rest was impossible. Whenever she closed her eyes, she remembered Wegen’s death. There had been no warning. He had missed no signs. No symptoms but the big one, Doc. A goddamn ambush by a low-rent shithead who had become visible at the time he fired his gun, a shithead who was now just as dead as Wegen but didn’t matter. As it had happened, she could not have known where to look; the man had covered himself well. In the noxious fluid of frozen time, however, the moment could be played backward and forward, and she failed and failed again in it because the past never changed. She tugged at her roots, as if twisting the right lock of hair would put her six hours back in time, but it had no such effect.

Morbid rumination, she decided, would solve nothing. She was not hungry, but she was feeling faint from a lack of food, so she went downstairs to the third floor, where there had once been a full pantry, finding nothing left but a stale biscuit that dried out her mouth. Over a railing, she could see Nadia on the second floor, praying. Not wanting to disturb the old woman, she returned to the bedroom, then petted Ouragan’s head as she waited for darkness to arrive, though it was late enough in the spring that this happened slowly...

Her eyes closed and her mind flirted with sleep and some time had passed when, although she felt no tremor, quake bells pealed. A window shattered on the first floor. A scream came from the street. “We’re movin’ in!”

The quake bells continued.

The man yelled, “It derren’t change th’operation!”

A loud crash came from downstairs, and Farisa ran in its direction. “Nadia! Nadia, I can help—”

“Go,” said the old woman, crouched behind a toppled shelf. A glint of light reflected from her gun. “Vikus and I can handle them. I’ve survived far worse.”

“Nadia, I can’t risk—”

“Go! Protect Ouragan!”

Right, Ouragan. Farisa ran back up to the third floor, to the fourth floor, into the bedroom where Ouragan had curled up on the floorboards over a heat vent, seeming not to have heard the quake. Had age turned her deaf? Outside, the chopping up of the night air by shouting and gunfire worsened—how could anything alive be asleep? She picked up the cat to wake her, but Ouragan hung lifeless.

The twenty-five-year-old cat’s heart must have given out during the tremor.

“No, no, no, no, no.” Farisa kissed the striped back of the gray cat’s neck. A knot of sadness formed inside Farisa’s head. “You’re going to live. I made a promise. You’re going to live.”

She heard an explosion.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, as if Ouragan could hear her. She put the animal’s body in her leather satchel, next to the gold watch Merrick had given her, and ran for the balcony, where a rope ladder hung from the roof. She climbed it and—as Nadia had instructed her to do—discarded it after use. On the roof, she could see a whole city in chaos, with gunfire flashes everywhere.

For a long time, Farisa would not know whether Nadia survived the night.

#

She ran, as if she and the night air were all that mattered. She had shoes this time; a good fucking thing that, because some of the roofs were wet. Street and house signs had all been taken down, but the correct addresses—she ran over 149, 151—had been painted up here. Sometimes, she had to climb or jump because the buildings met at different heights. She crossed the makeshift bridge—a wide plank—between 155 and 157. House 163 was a full story higher than its neighbor, so she had to climb a stone gargoyle to reach it.

Shouting and fighting continued in the streets below. The brown-clad police, rather than prevent the destruction, seemed eager to join in. Windows were breaking so often, the violent tinkling sound of cracking glass rolled on as a continuous clatter. Across the street at 168, a toppled carriage lay in the middle of the road, separated from its horses. A young man threw a glowing bottle at it that burst into flames. As Farisa crossed the roof of House 171, men with a battering ram banged on its door. One shouted, “Take ’em alive!”

Somewhere in the 180s, she heard a voice dead center in her head.

Get down. This one’s big.

She crouched behind a brick chimney. The house shook. She had felt Exmore’s minor tremors, but this one brought a sound unlike any other—a patternless, agonized rumble that seemed to come from the sky and horizon as much as from the ground below. Houses across the street spilled bricks like they had been built by children. Quake bells rang in all directions. Orange-yellow flashes came from the east. The ground took almost a minute to steady itself.

Once she could stand, Farisa continued her run north.

The District had fully awakened. Householders doused looters with soapy hot water. Neighbors defended each other from the looters in gray as well as the unclothed ones. A few of the brown-clad police disobeyed their orders and chose to defend the innocent, resulting in patches of mutiny.

A man brandishing an iron pipe shouted, “Mekkiza vihou,” as he chased a teenage boy up the street. Farisa, aware she was running parallel to him, wished she could help, because the gray-clad assailant was faster on the lanky boy, and catching up as the kid ran into a dark courtyard where...

A harsh ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta sound, delivered with flashes of light, illuminated the Globbo’s body, which jerked in all directions, as if mangled by air, then crumpled in a pool of its own blood. The boy was safe.

She continued running, the noise of the machine gun still bothering her ears, her chest still pumping. The houses were farther apart, so a few of the rooftops required a running jump. The sound of an explosion, barely a hundred yards away, broke her focus as she leapt from 233 to 235, and she expected to fail, but landed on the roof’s fringe, required a moment for balance, and resumed her run.

This building, 239, was an apartment complex surrounding a courtyard. Families had huddled together, with babies squalling and mothers praying for their husbands, sons, and daughters to return safely. Four teenagers, with guns mounted on a parapet, were defending the position. She worried that they may not be enough.

As Farisa landed on House 243, a man shouted, “Girl! On the roof!”

She thought—the day had twisted her—she had heard Wegen’s voice, so she ran forward, eager to see him alive in contravention of the nightmare she had experienced, but the voice, of course, had not been his. A man in a gray uniform with a golden cravat spotted her.

“Get ’er alive!” he yelled over the cacophony of breaking windows.

She sprinted with such fury that she was unaware of having jumped to 255 until she found herself in midair, bracing to land when she heard another male voice.

“Idiot! Get over here!”

The orange dot of a lit cigarette glowed behind a brick wall. The boy smoking it didn’t look older than fifteen.

“This is as safe as it gets,” he said. “We’ve got our own eyes on the planks, and this house is booby-trapped, mouth to asshole. If the G-Comps—I mean, the Globbos—try to come up here, they’ll lose three dozen men.”

Farisa, covered in sweat, caught her breath behind the brick wall. He grabbed one of the several buckets of ammunition that was here, reloaded his pistol, peeked over the rim and fired.

“This’ll be over soon. It’s not the whole town, or even the pessimou. A few dirty cops started this.”

“Working for the Globbos?”

“Who else?” He pointed his gun over the rim, peek again, and fired. “The Globbos are too cowardly to send more than a dozen of their own men, but the people of Exmore know that we Vehu hold the city up. We’re the only money—well, not me, I haven’t got any—in the damn place. We’re culture. Without us, the whole city would go down its own storm drain, and people know it. The Globbos want everyone, including us, to think the whole world hates us, but it’s just a few. A dangerous few.”

He reloaded his weapon, then looked again and fired more shots. It unnerved Farisa that an affable teenage boy, although doing so for a righteous cause, could open fire on human bodies with so little hesitation.

During a lull in the streetside chaos, he asked, “So, where ya from?”

“I’m from everywhere and nowhere,” Farisa said.

“Aye, same as we say.”

“Much the same, yes.”

“And where are you going?”

“House 263.” Farisa regretted letting it slip out.

“I can’t let that happen.”

“Oh. You’re going to stop me?”

He raised his gun hand.

“You wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t. That was rude. I will not let you die tonight, but two-six-three is not for you.”

“It’s the only safe place for—”

A woman’s scream came from across the street. Farisa looked over the brick wall to see three men. One was guarding an alley, watching Andor Street, so no one would intervene. The second had torn her clothes off and had his gray-clad arm under her naked breasts. The third, advancing, unbuckled his belt.

“Sorry, I gotta handle this.” The boy fired twice. His first shot missed, and the second one grazed the arm of the man on lookout. “Shit, it’s jammed. Hand me one of the guns in the... red bucket.”

Farisa did so, but said, “The raper’s mine.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

“I am the weapon.”

She closed her eyes. Sensing the blue, she felt an obstructed buzz, indicating that a nearby power line was live, but had a weak spot in it no more than a few yards away from her. She heated it until the cord snapped, and took enough control of its sway as it fell from suspension to land the tail in the center of his chest. Blue-white flames engulfed him. He pissed himself a cloud of steam.

“The other two are yours,” she said.

The burning man’s desperate roll down Andor Street doused his flames, but left him too helpless to be a threat. The second soldat, the one who’d been on lookout, lost a quarter of his head—enough, it turned out, to solve the problem—to the Vehu boy’s bullet. The third Globbo, although the woman had broken free, chased and caught up with her.

He was now holding a knife to her throat. “You assholes are making me do this.”

“Fuck,” Farisa said. “Fucking fuck.”

“I’m not a good enough shot. I don’t want to hit her.”

She judged the distance. “I have a plan.”

“You do?”

“He will... let her go and drop the knife.”

“That’s your plan?”

“Two seconds after it hits the ground, take him out.”

“How do you know this?”

“Just trust me. Two seconds. Not before.”

Farisa went into the blue again, finding it harder and harder to project herself forward, because the increasing distance from her body, as if she were tethered by an elastic band, heighted resistance at thirty... thirty-five... forty feet, to the point where the sensation was almost unbearable, and she could do very little—all she could muster was a tiny spasm in three of his fingers. The knife did fall. The woman broke free. The mage, using the blue’s force against the distance between her mind and body, snapped into herself in time. She had fully exited when the third man’s head bobbed as his neck exploded.

The boy said, “You’re a mage.”

Farisa, in a cold sweat, said nothing.

“The two-second wait was so you wouldn’t be inside when—”

She nodded.

“What would have happened?”

“I don’t want to find out.” Farisa’s exhaustion doubled her weight. “Now, do you understand why I need to get into 263?”

“No,” the boy said.

Farisa lifted a sleeve, baring her shoulder. He seemed unimpressed.

“Look closer, idiot.”

“Sweet scar,” he said. “But I have a girlfriend.”

“Do I really have to spell it out?”

The boy fired—it took four shots to do the job—at a pair of Globbos chasing an old woman. “You may have noticed I’m busy shooting people.”

“Sophya wy fariza.”

“You’re a librarian?”

“Shoulder scar, sophya wy fariza.” Was he really this ill-informed? “Also, there’s my skin color. You see how dark I am.”

“I don’t see color.”

“Bullshit. Sweet of you to say, but bullshit.”

“No, I mean that I am colorblind in both eyes.”

“My name is—”

Farisa felt a thump in her heart. She had escaped the blue before the soldat’s head had left his body, yes, but she and he were still entangled, due to that moment of interaction, enough for her to feel an interweaving of fates, a sense of bodily failure spreading through her torso and limbs. An explosive headache forced her to shut her eyes.

“I’m not well,” she said.

“Then rest. I’ll tell you if I need your help.”

“Meow.”

“Don’t be weird.”

Farisa looked around. “That wasn’t me.”

The leather bag unfolded itself. Ouragan’s silver head poked out.

She’s alive! “Looks like I have a cat to take care of.”

“Looks like.” The boy continued watching Andor Street.

Crawling to keep her profile lower than ground sight, she went over to the cat. Bodily aches were spreading and breathing had become difficult, but having Ouragan curl up in her lap made her feel better. She wondered if there might be something to that madhouse legend in which cats—at least, this one—had healing properties.

She had fallen into a light doze when she heard a woman’s voice. Someone in black clothes had come to the roof of 257. “I need a bridge!”

“Help ’er out,” the boy said. “I gotta keep watching the street.”

Farisa, deciding that she would take this opportunity to get to 263, took her pack and stood up. Her vision went gray for a moment, but she was able to find her bearings and pick up a hardwood plank. She set it across the gap between the houses. Though she was terrified that it might bend under the woman’s weight, it seemed able to support her when she tested it with one foot.

“I can see if there’s a better one,” Farisa said.

“It’ll do,” said the woman in black. “Thank ya.”

Urban fires had yellowed the sky and the woman’s silhouette was dangerously visible. Farisa, knowing a Globbo would take the opportunity if one were here, went into the blue once more, and this time her fatigue left her lights dim and nearly imponent, but she could perceive the rushing red of a flying bullet, which she diverted so it went over, rather than through, the woman’s head.

“That was fucking close,” she said.

“Aye,” Farisa said. Closer than you know.

The boy put one bullet in the street-level gunman’s crotch. The second opened his chest. He was no longer a threat.

The woman removed her black woolen face mask. She looked about forty and had the twang of a pessima. She asked the boy, “Is this one ’er?”

“Yoy, she is.” The boy’s accent had also changed. “She’s Farisa.”

The mage’s legs no longer supported her. Her head swam; her eyelids grew heavy and closed.