Abbee settled into a routine. She swept the precinct, top to bottom, minus the room at the bottom with the round stone door. The mover pit. It was well-known that movers couldn’t levitate themselves, and there were no bricks in the wall of the pit for a person to grab. So no climbing out. Abbee wondered what it really looked like, but she still wasn't allowed. There weren’t any guardrails at the top of the pit and it was a long way down.
The other place she never went was the captain’s office, because the new captain was always in it. Captain Orom. He didn’t seem as good as Captain Barnes. Nobody liked him, for one thing. And he didn’t seem to do much, at least not to Abbee. He never sat on the captain’s pedestal, and he never showed his face in the bullpen. He stayed cooped up in his office all day with some accountants he’d brought with him.
Abbee supposed Captain Orom didn’t want to deal with the steady stream of bad news filtering in from the Yards. Hundreds killed in Three Points. All talented. Scores more injured during the monster’s rampage, due to falling debris and accidents. Whimsy was busy. Abbee learned that healers were rare among talented, especially Class Fours, like Whimsy. Not as rare as refractors, but close. Whimsy was one of a handful of healers in the entire district, and the single Class Four. Classes were how the wizards ranked talented, by a scale of one through five. Class Ones could barely do anything. A Class One Torch could create a little flame off their finger and that was it. Abbee had heard that a Class Five could call down fire tornadoes and level whole blocks. Abbee wished she were a torch. Set Sammy on fire whenever he threatened her.
Abbee often contemplated going to the North Bend to tell Sammy off but never went. She was too busy. Even though Whimsy hardly had any time to herself, she’d taken it upon herself to teach Abbee how to read. Abbee suspected it was out of self-preservation rather than altruism, after Abbee had accidentally picked out a strong acid instead of a healing salve.
Abbee caught other bits about the bin workers forming a union, whatever that meant. It seemed important to the constables. They talked about it whenever they weren’t talking about the Three Points Massacre—or complaining about Captain Orom. They did a lot of complaining about Captain Orom. Abbee suspected he was a distraction from talking about the massacre itself. A sort of focal point for all their pain. The Yard District Precinct had lost thirty constables during that terrible night. Talented constables out on the streets, and more inside the building when the creature got inside. Many of the remaining constables had filed for transfers on account of both the massacre and the new captain. Abbee saw lots of new faces around the precinct. Some got touchy when Abbee commented on how young they looked.
There was a shortage of local talented of all sorts. Movers, torches, spouts—everybody. A few days after the massacre, the Yard District discovered its volunteer fire squad had been decimated. An apartment building burned to the ground, and they’d had to call in reserves from Central District to put it out. That fire had been the talk of the precinct for a whole day, because Parn Trippers had lived there.
The Big Shield received a fair amount of vitriol from the constabulary. The fact that he’d gone to work for the Ringers split the precinct’s opinion right down the middle. On one side, he was a traitor to everyone in a uniform. On the other, he was a bridge between the city and the Tower. Not to mention having someone the constabulary knew in tight with the Ringers seemed like a good thing. But opinion on Parn working for the Ringers solidified in the negative camp after his apartment was burned down, supposedly by a fire tornado. Wizards were bad for everyone. It was better if they stayed up in the Tower, as far as the constables were concerned.
The other person who featured heavily in the precinct chitchat was Vani Brattle. A Class Five Mover from Bloch, of all places. Abbee had never been outside Akken in her entire life. She couldn’t picture what a small town looked like. Vani had helped trap the monster the night of the massacre. That had seemed like a positive to Abbee—until Vani had demolished half the Council House a couple of days later and gotten herself arrested. The Ringers had exonerated her the same day in spectacular fashion. Some big voice in the sky, though Abbee had been mopping the floor in the infirmary and hadn’t heard it.
Vani’s run with the wizards ended the same day Parn’s apartment building burned down, though the events involved seemed sketchy to Abbee. An inn in Overlook fell off the escarpment, and Vani had caused it, as the rumors went. Or she’d been in it. Abbee never found out for sure.
The big story that day was the golem tearing through Central District. Lots of talk about people near the golem’s path dying or getting older. Sometimes Abbee had a hard time teasing apart truth from fantasy when listening to the constables’ rumors. Most sounded ludicrous. Abbee didn’t like the golems, but they’d never moved, and nobody she knew had seen one move. They were just big statues. Plenty of constables in the Yard District Precinct reported seeing the wreckage left behind, and there was an empty spot in the Red District wall. Too many witnesses to discount the story outright.
Vani had supposedly destroyed the golem when the wizards hadn’t been able to. Maybe that was why the Tower had said she was a criminal afterward, because she’d shown up the wizards. That was the going theory in the precinct, anyway. Nobody ever found out, because Vani went into hiding, the rumors said, and nobody saw her for days. The rumors also said that she could fly, but Abbee didn't understand how that worked. Movers couldn't levitate themselves. Maybe it was a Class Five thing. Seemed far-fetched.
Whimsy kept Abbee occupied with her broom and running errands for the other constables. At the end of each day, she collapsed onto her cot. Whimsy had moved it into a spare closet off the infirmary after Captain Orom had filled the upstairs closet with file cabinets. Captain Orom had briefly talked about firing Abbee, but Whimsy had said she was free. Orom liked free things, so he’d let Abbee stay so long as she never went into his office. Abbee was fine with that—one less place to sweep.
Several days after Vani Brattle had vanished, the Bank of Akken reported a breakout. Abbee didn’t understand that at all, but two bank guards reported seeing Vani wrecking the vault door from the inside. A little while later, the Red District’s repeater headquarters got demolished. Some attack in the Tower the same night had the wizards up in arms, but the biggest story in the precinct was two North Bend constables warping themselves with their own wand, of all things. Nobody had high opinions of the North Bend constables, and if anybody might get warped with their own wands, it would be them.
The next night, everything fell apart.
***
Talk during the day was that repeater delivery quality all over Akken had dropped like a stone, and that was if you could even find one. Abbee couldn’t understand why someone would pay real coin to send a message. Not when DotPost was basically free. It seemed outrageous. People complained to the constables, who of course couldn’t do anything, but the constables were the city’s suggestion box—even though most of those suggestions went in one ear and out the other.
The bullpen was abuzz with reports of Vani Brattle sightings in different parts of town. Flying, for the most part. Abbee again wished for a mover talent, though it seemed like someone as strong as Brattle would always get into trouble, so maybe not that. There was also something going on up in Overlook, on the street with all the big houses. Explosions and wizard activity. Everyone in the precinct attributed the events to rich people doing rich-people things, and so long as it stayed up there, it was acceptable.
Abbee was upstairs during the shift change early in the evening, keeping ahead of the dirt the constables tracked into the precinct. Some might view it as an unending task, but Abbee viewed dust as a renewable resource. Her services would always be needed in the precinct. She had a roof over her head, tasty food, endless entertainment, and nobody was hitting her or pushing her into the river. Abbee felt happy and content and safe for the first time since … well, a long time ago.
“Hey,” Harald said as Abbee went past the intake desk with her broom. “Your surname is Danner, right?”
“Why do you ask?” Abbee said.
“You related to a Kril Danner?”
Abbee missed a step.
Harald saw it. “So you know him.”
Abbee touched her face. The bruise was long gone, but the memory still tormented her in the night. “What about him?”
“We’ve got him downstairs till he sobers up. In holding. Been there about half an hour.”
Fear seized Abbee. Nobody could get out of a holding cell unless they were very, very strong, or they could warp like a wizard. Abbee’s father couldn’t warp, but he was as strong as a bear. He was the strongest person Abbee had ever met. But if he could break free, he’d have done it already, and she wouldn’t be here talking to Harald about it. “What’d he do?”
Harald read from the intake book. “Assaulting a constable, disorderly conduct, theft. Tried to walk out of Nell’s pub without paying, properly sloshed, and threw a punch at Madge. She doesn’t put up with that from anybody and warped him.”
Abbee was scared of her father, but she was also a little afraid of Sergeant—no, Corporal Madge Poe. Mostly her mouth. Madge was a Class Two Speaker. Speaking was a weird talent to Abbee. Class Twos were more numerous but could only send mental messages to someone within eyesight. They were like one-way telepaths. Speaking silently or aloud, Madge let people know how she felt whether they liked it or not, and it had gotten her into trouble with the new captain. Captain Orom had demoted her to corporal on his first day. She’d called him a “squishy, rich pencil pusher who’d bought himself a badge and a fancy hat” in front of the bullpen. No one was safe from Madge’s sharp tongue, especially not Abbee. Madge never called her by name. Always “street rat” or “smelly urchin.” It changed every few days. Madge had somehow found out Abbee had lived under a bridge, and lately it was “bridgie.” Abbee hated that the most.
“Nell’s is on the edge of the district,” Harald went on. “Your boy probably lost something in transit.”
“He’s not mine,” Abbee snapped.
“Well, he’s downstairs if you want to—”
“Captain!” Vit called from the other end of the room. “Captain! All points alert from the North Bend. Veronna soldiers murdering constables in the street.”
Captain Orom emerged from his office. His expression was one of disbelief. “Veronna? In the North Bend? Sounds like the Benders are hitting the sauce early—”
The precinct door banged open. Val Wilkers, a rookie constable with a nervous demeanor, stood on the threshold. Her face was pale. “Tower’s on fire!” she shouted.
Fifteen seconds later, Abbee found herself out on the front steps on account of everyone in the bullpen crowding outside to see. She clutched her broom and stared at the landmark at the top of the High Falls. The landmark that had stood for her entire lifetime and never changed. The Tower burned. Flames spurted out of several spires, and the tallest, the one in front, was missing its top. Abbee had no idea what could do so much damage to the Tower. Not with all those wizards in it. Fire exploded out of several places at once in several spires. Ominous black smoke spread out over the city, and the ground shivered beneath Abbee’s feet. The constables stared in shock along with Abbee. Eventually, someone started talking, and then everyone started talking, shouting, and yelling. It didn’t sound like order to Abbee. It sounded like panic.
A sharp whistle cut through the din. “Oi!” Madge shouted from the rear of the crowd. “So the wizards have gone and done it now, yeah. It’s a bit over the top from their usual, but that doesn’t change what we gotta do. Quit squawking like a bunch of chickens, and get back to work, before the captain sees you and—oh, hello, Captain. Nice to see you this fine evening.”
“What’s going on?” Captain Orom asked from inside the precinct. “First the Benders are hallucinating, and now … oh. Oh. This is … this can’t be happening—”
“It is, sir,” Madge said. “What do we do?”
“We … uh, I, um, well, we should, uh—”
“Right, sir,” Madge said. “Everyone, back to your posts. Go on, get ready. You know this means we’ll be pulling a double tonight. Vit, get back on the tabs. Recall everybody back to the precinct. And we gotta know what the other precincts are doing. Find out from the Benders if they’ve really got House soldiers over there.”
Constables filtered off the front steps back into the precinct, past Captain Orom. The man hadn’t taken his eyes off the burning tower.
Madge pushed the rest of the constables inside and eyed Abbee. “Oi, Whimsy’s gone home for the night, but we’ll call her back. I’m sure we’ll have injured tonight. You get downstairs and prep the infirmary.”
“Yes, sir,” Abbee said.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, bridgie. Do I look like an officer to you? Off with you now.”
Abbee scuttled past Madge and Orom, back into the precinct, past the bullpen, and downstairs. The air smelled of barely constrained fear. It felt familiar. Felt the same as their flat before her father had come home from the pub. My father. One level down, in the holding cells. Abbee touched her face again.
She paused at the doorway to the infirmary. The ground rumbled. Glass jars and bottles on Whimsy’s supply shelf rattled. A few were close to the edge. Abbee set her broom against the wall and hurried into the infirmary. She caught the bottles as they were about to fall and pushed them back. Another earthquake rattled them forward again. Abbee fetched a stool and spent the next fifteen minutes moving the entire shelf of bottles to the wider countertop below. More room down there. She found some dusty books and set them in front to form a wall.
The rest of the infirmary was as Whimsy had left it. Orderly. The woman kept a neat operation. Abbee didn’t have to prep anything. Madge had sent her down here to keep her out of the way. Abbee didn’t know why Madge wasn’t in charge instead of Orom. She seemed like she knew what she was doing.
Abbee waited for a long time. She thought about going downstairs. Seeing her father in his cell. She went to the first stairwell landing and glanced upstairs. Constables ran past the stairwell in both directions. Lots of shouts. Abbee pieced together bits of coherence from the chaos. House soldiers in the streets in Red, Central, and the North Bend. Killing constables. They hadn’t come this way yet.
She waited but still no Whimsy. Abbee hoped Whimsy was okay. She started to worry. Whimsy lived in Central District. What if the House soldiers had gotten her? Abbee went up to the top of the stairs. She was about to go to the front desk and ask Harald when Madge spotted her from across the bullpen.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Inside Abbee’s head, Madge barked, “Go back downstairs and stay there!”
“All right, all right,” Abbee said.
She turned around and went back downstairs. The bottles were still in their little fort. The infirmary was clean. Ready.
The floor shifted beneath Abbee’s feet. She grabbed the examining table for support. The bottles jumped on the countertop. It felt like the whole building had jumped. The constables went quiet upstairs for a moment. Their shouts got louder. More urgent. Abbee wondered what was happening and if she should leave. She almost laughed out loud. She had nowhere else to go. The reason for that was downstairs in the cells.
Abbee decided she wanted to see. She went downstairs. She wanted to show her father that she was with the constables, that she’d made it without him. That was something he’d always said to her and her mother. They couldn’t make it without him. Abbee was making it just fine. If her mother had had the strength to leave, then maybe Abbee wouldn’t have had to live under a bridge. She wouldn’t have had to dodge creepy boys or anyone who thought pushing her into a river was funny. Abbee’s fear of her father battled her rising anger, and her anger won out. She knew she was blaming her mother and she shouldn’t do that. Maybe Abbee could’ve done something instead of hiding under her bed while her parents had fought. Conflicted emotions chased Abbee downstairs to the cells.
Constable Darren Scolp was on duty. He was so new and so young that it felt weird to Abbee to address him with the same deference as Sergeant—no, Corporal Poe. But Abbee was twelve and smaller, and Darren was uptight about his shiny badge.
“What’s going on up there?” Darren demanded.
“Tower’s on fire,” Abbee reported. “Veronna’s attacking the city.” She looked around the corner to the cells. Ten barred doors, five on each side. Offset, so the holding cells didn’t face one another.
“Who’s tha’?” a deep voice slurred.
Abbee tensed. The voice brought back dark memories.
“On fire?” Darren echoed. “Veronna? And that’s ‘Constable Scolp’ to you.” He looked around. “I’m going upstairs. You stay here and keep an eye on the cells.”
“Me?” Abbee asked. “I’m no constable. What if they—”
“It’s fine,” Darren said. “They’re not going anywhere.” He gestured at the numbered levers on the wall behind him. “So long as you don’t bump these and let any of them out, you’ll be all right. You can barely reach them, anyways. I’ll only be a minute.”
Abbee frowned. She didn’t need anybody reminding her about her height. “What if Captain Orom sees you?”
Darren snorted. “He never comes out of his office. Besides, he has no idea who anybody is. He wouldn’t remember me even if I poked him on the nose.” Darren dashed off.
Abbee muttered a couple of discouraging words in his direction. She hoped Madge saw him.
“I know tha’ voice,” the deep voice said.
Abbee heard springs creak in protest.
“It’s you, Rat. I know it. Come ’ere.”
Rat. Abbee felt sadness and anger at the same time. Her mother had called her “little mouse” when she was small. Before she had learned to walk, Abbee had been a fast crawler, and she’d fit into many tight spaces. Abbee’s father had called her Mouse. He never called her by name. After Abbee’s mother had disappeared, Kril Danner had started to call his daughter Rat.
Abbee walked around the corner. She stayed near the opposite wall. Kril Danner stood at his cell door. He was nearly as tall as the ceiling. As big and terrible and awful as Abbee remembered. A little thinner. Greasy dark hair hung in front of his eyes. He didn’t look good. His clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed in ages. His left hand was missing a finger. No wound, no scar, just smooth, clean skin as if he’d been born without it. Abbee knew he’d had ten fingers. Harald had been right—Kril had lost parts when warped by Poe. Abbee hoped it was more than just the finger.
Kril’s face broke into a wide sneer at the sight of her. “Look at you with yer fancy jacket, Rat.”
Anger smothered Abbee’s satisfaction at Kril losing bits to a wand warp. “My name’s—”
“Rat.” Kril finished with a bright grin. “Everyone knows ye’re a rat, Rat. Twisty and grimy.” Kril gripped the bars of his cell with his meaty paws. He sneered at her. “Ya can take the rat outta the gutter, but ya can never take the gutter outta the rat. Like yer mother. Got ’er from the gutter.”
Abbee wished the levers on the wall had an option for incineration.
“Everybody out!” a voice cried down the stairs. “We’re evacuating. Golems are marching through the city. Everyone out. Scolp, release the prisoners. Even the big one.” Footsteps trotted back up the stairs. Whoever it was, they didn’t know Scolp had left his post. They didn’t know Abbee was down here. She took a step toward the stairwell.
“Lemme out,” Kril said.
“No,” Abbee snapped over her shoulder.
A voice down the hall called, “Hey, let me out!”
Another, “Me! Let me out! I never hurt nobody.”
Abbee hadn’t realized there was anybody else in here. She trotted past Kril’s cell, glancing in the cells as she went. All empty save the two at the end. A man and a woman. The man was thin and shifty-looking. Abbee had seen a lot of people come through the precinct, and she’d learned to put them into buckets. The first bucket held people down on their luck. They’d made a silly mistake and wouldn’t make another one again. The second bucket held those who preyed on the people in the first bucket. The woman looked like a first-bucket person. The shifty man looked like a second. Abbee knew Kril Danner occupied a third bucket, and that bucket wasn’t worth saving at all.
Abbee took note of the numbers on the cell doors. Seven and eight. She went back.
Kril swiped at her. “Lemme out. You lemme out, Rat.”
Abbee dodged him. She got to the levers on the wall. Found the numbers to the cells on the end. She flipped the lever marked 7. The woman’s cell. Her door swung open, and she stepped out. She hurried up the hall, dodged another swipe from Kril, and stopped at Abbee. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” Abbee replied. “Actually, if anybody asks, tell them Constable Scolp let you out.”
The woman smiled. “I will.” She ran up the stairs.
“Hey,” the shifty man called from the end of the hall. “What about me?”
“Lemme out,” Kril repeated, his voice rising. “You let me out, Rat. You let me out.”
“No,” Abbee said. “No.” She hesitated. Grunted. She reached up and flipped the lever for cell eight.
The shifty man came out. He trotted past Abbee and grinned at her. “Thanks, kid. I’ll remember you.” He ran up the stairs and was gone.
Abbee turned to leave.
“Don’t lemme die in here,” Kril pleaded. “Your mother woulda let me out. You know she woulda.”
Abbee froze. He was right. Abbee’s mother had endured enormous abuse from her husband, but she would’ve let him out. Abbee’s mother had been good. She’d been everything Abbee wanted to be. Kind and forgiving, even in the face of adversity. She would’ve let Kril out.
A voice in the back of Abbee’s head screamed that she shouldn’t. She reached up on tippy-toes and flipped the lever to Kril’s cell. The door creaked open. Kril pushed out and turned. He spied Abbee and scowled at her. Before she realized what was happening, he’d crossed the space between them. He moved so fast. So fast for someone so big.
Kril’s scowl twisted in anger and loathing. “I’m gonna—”
A big fist fell at Abbee’s head. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She was stuck in the corner. Abbee raised her pitiful arms and shied away. That big fist crashed through her forearms and into her face. Abbee felt bones shatter, and her world went white with pain. She crumpled and went down. The blows kept coming. Fists and feet. A curse with every strike. Kril’s grunts and yelling filled Abbee’s ears.
All at once they stopped. Abbee tried to move. Her arms didn’t work, and she hurt so bad. Even thinking about moving her arms hurt.
“Gotta put you somewhere,” Kril muttered. “Someplace they won’t find you.” He gave a dark chuckle. “I know where. A big hole, like where I put ’er. A big hole for a little rat.”
Kril grabbed Abbee by the hair and pulled. She tried to move her arms and stop Kril, but nothing worked. Kril dragged her by the hair out into the hall. Everything was fuzzy through her swollen eyes. She caught a glimpse of her arms. Both broken. Whitish shards poked through the skin at her wrists. Kril turned left and down the stairs. Abbee caught a glimpse of a stone portal. Another door. More dragging.
Pain lanced through other pain. Her neck hurt, and gravity tugged at her. Abbee peered into the darkness. Kril held her at arm’s length. His lips twisted in contempt. He glanced down. Abbee looked down and saw only shadows. No, the floor. A round lip where the floor ended. The toe of Kril’s boot hung over the edge. Abbee realized where they were. The mover pit. Kril was about to drop her into the mover pit.
The floor, the walls, and the ceiling rattled. Earthquake. A big one. Kril’s expression turned to alarm as he slipped on the edge. He tipped toward Abbee. The walls tilted, and the dark hole swallowed them up.
Abbee and Kril fell. They fell forever.
A terrible fury rose in Abbee. She was falling into a hole with her father, and if she’d just left him in the cell, this wouldn’t be happening. But she’d felt sorry for him, like she’d felt for her mother, and look where it had gotten her. Compassion had gotten her killed. At least Kril would die here with her, and she’d never feel sorry for anyone again. Abbee fell toward her death, and all she felt was rage.
She crunched into something hard and unforgiving. Felt her head hit stone, and bones already broken shattered further. Heat and pain crashed into her. Abbee wondered if she was dead. She should be dead, but she still felt so angry. She felt it all. And something … else. Something new. Like a fire inside. Everywhere, all at once. Abbee felt her bones knit back together. Felt muscles reattach, teeth fall back into their sockets. Wounds closed, and her left eye, which had been in the process of bursting, re-formed. Abbee felt everything. Wonder, agony, awe, and terror mixed into a symphony of awful. She registered a big weight on top of her. Smothering her. Abbee stretched out her arms, trying to find purchase. Both her arms shouldn’t work—both had been broken—but they seemed fine now. Abbee crawled out from under her father’s limp form. She wriggled free and scrambled away in the pitch black.
Her head banged into stone. Abbee’s hands found a curving stone wall. She twisted around, pressed her back against the wall, and raised her hands into the gloom. She couldn’t see her own hands. She couldn’t see anything. No light. Nothing. She held her breath and listened. Nothing. She couldn’t hear or see Kril. He wasn’t moving. Abbee realized she was over here, he was over there, and she’d fallen into the mover pit. Kril had landed on top of her. She should be dead. She had felt the impact.
And … and … and more.
She’d felt her body put itself back together. Felt her wounds heal.
Understanding and confusion crackled through her. I’m talented.
Abbee had presented. A healer, maybe, but that didn’t make any sense. Healers couldn’t heal themselves. Her wrists itched. She rubbed at them and felt something there. Something rough and flaky. Abbee couldn’t see in the dark, but she knew at once what it was. Glimmermote. The sparkly dust came from talented and wizards alike; more mote meant more effort. Abbee felt astonished that she’d presented an actual talent. Astonished that she had mote of her own on her wrists. She shouldn’t be alive. Healers couldn’t heal themselves. The fall should’ve killed her. Still, Abbee couldn’t argue with the fact that she’d fallen into a mover pit and lived. She was alive and Kril was dead.
Well, maybe not that last part. She didn’t know if he was dead for sure.
She inched across the floor. Her hands found a leg. Abbee jerked away and waited. She nudged Kril’s body again and backed away. Froze. Listened. Nothing. She poked Kril again. Same thing. He didn’t move. Abbee’s fingers found his face. It felt wrong and squishy and wet. She jerked away again. Got closer. She put the back of her hand under what felt like his nose and held it there. No warmth. No breath. Kril wasn’t breathing.
Abbee waited to feel something. Her father was dead, and Abbee felt … nothing.
A little indignation, maybe. He was dead, and she was stuck with his body at the bottom of a mover pit. Stuck in the dark.
“Hello?” Abbee shouted. Her voice was rough. She cleared her throat, and something caught in it. She coughed and spat. Something wet hit the floor. “Anyone hear me? Hey! Someone help!”
Nothing. Nobody. Abbee heard a thud. Felt it. Felt it through her feet and her back. Another one. A few of them. Moving away. Somewhere far above her. Little earthquakes.
Everything went quiet. Abbee sat against the far wall and hugged her knees to her chest. She stared into the murk. She couldn’t see anything but knew she was staring at a body.
It was quiet for a long time.
***
Abbee heard a sound from the top of the pit and jerked awake. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. She strained to identify the sound. Footsteps, maybe. Light flickered, and a steady beam pointed down at her. She shielded her eyes and saw a shadow hanging over the edge.
“How did you get down there?” a man called. Abbee didn’t recognize his voice.
“I … we fell.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“My … there’s someone else down here. He’s dead.” The light moved and illuminated Kril’s body. He was face down, but Abbee knew nobody would recognize him anyway. Too much damage.
The shadow at the top shifted. Abbee realized it was the man’s head. “You fell down there from all the way up here?”
“Both of us did. I think … I landed on top of him.” Abbee hoped the man didn’t hear the lie.
“How long have you been down there?” the man asked.
“I dunno. A while.”
“This pit likely saved your life.”
“From what?”
“Wait.” The man moved away.
Panic seized Abbee. “Hey! Where’d you go?”
The man’s head reappeared. “Would you like to get out?”
Abbee stared at him. What kind of idiot wanted to be down here? “Yes, I want to get out.”
“Then wait.” The man disappeared again.
Abbee heard footsteps somewhere up above. Heeled boots. Bright light bobbed up and down, growing brighter as the footsteps neared. The edge of the pit stood out in sharp contrast. Abbee made out a large metal plate hanging from the ceiling. Round.
“What are you doing?” a woman’s voice asked.
“There’s someone in the pit,” the man said. “A girl.”
The light neared, and a bright spot slid out above the pit. Hung in midair. A glow globe, Abbee surmised. It made the small light the man carried look feeble in comparison. Abbee squinted against the glare. Someone leaned out over the pit, holding a staff. Something moved at the top of the staff. Abbee couldn’t make out what it was from all the way down here. The woman with the staff leaned back out of view.
“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “There’s no one here.”
“Yes, there is,” the man said.
“You know what I mean. And before you say something else completely obvious, I don’t mean those House soldiers I found near the holding cells either.” She wiggled her staff. “It’s fortunate that Veronna brought their talented soldiers with them. Dealing with them is much easier when they’re unconscious.”
Abbee didn’t know anything about any House soldiers in the precinct. Wood scraped on stone. Abbee saw movement over the lip of the pit. She squinted. A thick wooden rod attached to a rope. The rod slid downward, bouncing and knocking against the stone walls of the pit.
The woman leaned out over the edge again. “What are you going to do with her once you get her out?”
As soon as it was within reach, Abbee grabbed the rod. Pulled it down and sat on it, crossing her legs around the rope. She turned and rested her back against the wall. “I’m ready,” she called.
The rope quivered, and Abbee jerked up off the floor. Her feet dangled. A few seconds later, another quiver, and she rose again. The ascent was slow. Abbee wanted it to go faster, but she wasn’t in charge here, and she kept quiet about it. The man might decide at any time that Abbee wasn’t worth the trouble and leave her down here.
Rise, stop. Rise, stop.
“Do you want help?” the woman asked. “You sure? I would’ve thought, with you having only one arm, you’d—fine, fine, do it your way. The slow way.”
Halfway up, one stop lasted a lot longer than normal. Abbee couldn’t see the pit’s floor anymore. “Hey,” she called. “Why’d I stop?”
“That staff might be a problem,” the man said.
“It will be a problem if I need it and don’t have it,” the woman said. “The one second it takes to summon is more than enough for a Forged. Not to mention those pesky assassins who keep seeming to know where I am. So far, they’ve all been talented, and that’s gone in my favor. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“No. And speaking of talented, this is a mover pit.”
The woman leaned out over the lip. “Are you a mover?”
Abbee wasn’t about to tell the woman about her talent. She wanted to ask what the woman had meant about forging. It sounded like a thing worth knowing about, but a woman with a staff and a glow globe was a wizard, and the wizards hadn’t been good to the Yards. Abbee didn’t trust wizards. “I’m not a mover.”
The woman leaned back. “See?”
The man’s head appeared. “Hug the rope, and put your hands under your arms.”
Abbee frowned at him. “What for?”
“Do you want to get out?” the man asked.
Abbee did as she was told. She folded her arms and jammed her hands into her armpits. Tilted her head and tucked the rope under her chin. It was rough and chafed her skin.
The rope shuddered against Abbee’s chin. She slid up the side of the pit again.
“What was that about?” the woman asked. “She said she’s not a mover.”
Abbee slid upward. Her hope grew strong as she neared the lip, and she blinked back tears. She wasn’t there yet. And her head was starting to hurt. She frowned. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Her stomach lurched, and the pressure grew. Her vision blurred and darkened even as she grew closer to the glow globe. Abbee opened her mouth to say she didn’t feel so good, and passed out.
***
Abbee came to and sucked in a breath. Her head pounded in her skull. It felt like her brain was trying to get out. She groaned and rubbed her temples with one hand. She was awake. She was alive. Stars glittered above her in the night sky. She was outside. Abbee rolled over. She was on a bedroll on the grass. A small fire burned a few meters away, painting her face with its warmth. Trees all around. Abbee had never been outside the city at night and didn’t like all the strange sounds. Didn’t like the shadows.
A man sat cross-legged on the other side of a low fire. His eyes were closed, but his chin was too high for him to be sleeping. He had an old face with wrinkles around his eyes. Old-man spots on his shaved head. He wore a loose-fitting, short-sleeved shirt that had been white at one point but was now streaked with ash. Baggy black trousers and no shoes. His right arm was missing. The stump poked out of his shirt. An old injury. His other arm hung loose, and he had his hand in his lap.
Abbee sensed this man was dangerous. He wasn’t big like her father, but he wasn’t small either. She knew the relaxed state was a ruse. “Where … what happened? How did I get here?”
“Let us begin,” the man said, opening his eyes.
Abbee recognized his voice. The man at the top of the pit. She looked around for the woman with the staff. “Begin what? Where’s the other one?”
The man unfolded his legs and stood up in one smooth motion. “I am called Ipsu. Who are you?”