CHAPTER TWELVE

Cuffs

“How much farther do we have to go?” Leta was looking forward to a bath, some food, and maybe even a nap. The trauma armor she’d been wearing was beginning to grow rusty, and the emotions she’d been suffocating were starting to show themselves again. Leta didn’t care for the experience.

“Kiran and I have discussed how to best handle this, and we’ve decided we should make a stop before returning to the underground. It’s something of a walk, unfortunately.”

Leta stifled a groan. It did feel like the two men were trying to torture her. She didn’t want to go anywhere that wasn’t a hiding spot. Being this close to the Basti unnerved her. She wanted to dig a hole deep underground and hide in the burrow.

“Listen,” said Kiran. “I get that you want to rest; I do, too. But those cuffs—we can’t be sure of what their properties are. Wadu forbid they have some tracking mechanism in them; we could lead the crown right to us. We need to get them off first.”

Leta perked up at this. The idea of getting her cuffs off was the only thing that kept her from loudly complaining. She wondered how it would feel, what her wrists would look like, if she would feel like a different person without them. Those thoughts carried her all the way to their destination.

The walk to the shop took almost three hours. Leta’s body was more accustomed to sneaking around corners and up and down stairs. The long-distance walking felt strange, especially on the ashy grounds.

“Why does the ash fall like it does here?” Leta was used to ashfalls. They were like waves on the wind, echoes or death throes of the Cattoleiri. But here, it seemed almost constant. The ash surrounded them—they kicked it up when they walked, and still more seemed to fall constantly from the city and sky above.

“I don’t know,” said Kiran. He walked in a way that seemed to minimize the dust he kicked up. It was like he picked up and placed each foot. Leta thought to try it, but her huge skirts made it impossible.

“Do you think I can get rid of this garb after I get these off? I don’t think I can wear it much longer, and it’s becoming filthy.”

“I suppose we can figure out a way to disguise just your face, but I can’t think of any cultures or other figures that cover their face without covering their body,” said Clark.

Her fingers involuntarily fell into claws, thinking of ripping her face off and getting a new one. No one would recognize her if she weren’t the queen’s twin. Or is the queen the twin of me? Leta snorted a laugh. Her veil muffled it.

The inside of the shop belied the dirty exterior. Leta was learning that the Ashbarrens were not only a place for the castaway and cut loose but also for businesses that are better done behind their own veil of ash, soot, and poverty.

A bell rang overhead as Leta entered. The sound was sharp and clear, not to be missed. The purveyor was seated behind a desk. In one hand, she held a small box, and with the other, two long pins, which she held like chopsticks. They were so sharp it was hard to see in some angles. She appeared to be trying to pick the lock on the small box.

She looked up, then placed her work casually down. “Owner lost the key. Shame. Please come in.” She was a middle-aged woman, with her hair pulled severely back from her face with a precise center part into a plait behind. Her hair looked like it had been done with the help of a ruler and protractor. The door closed behind them, the bolt snapped shut, and they were ushered into two chairs on the other side of her little desk. She’d tucked her work into a small compartment under the desk, leaving the desktop clear.

“How can I help you…sister?” She said, looking Leta dead in the eye and not believing her for a second.

Leta shot a glance at Kiran. He better be right about this. The woman’s name was Edith. She specialized in metalworking of the less savory variety, such as picking locks that you weren’t supposed to have the key to, opening safes, or—Leta hoped—removing cuffs. It felt like stripping naked, but Leta rolled up her sleeves and placed her forearms on the table.

“I need these removed.”

From nowhere, Edith produced a thin pair of spectacles and placed them on the bridge of her nose. She looked over them at Leta. “And how did you get these on yourself, exactly?”

“I don’t think that is important,” said Leta.

“I need to know what I am getting myself into.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“We can pay double,” said Kiran.

“I don’t want double.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the cuffs.”

Leta laughed, “That’s all? Fine!”

“Very well,” said Edith. “The deal is made. Come now, let us get somewhere more private.”

She walked them into her back room, at a nod from Edith, Clark waited out front. “Are you dressed under that, sister?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then.”

Thankfully, the veil was not attached to the rest of the garb, so Leta could leave it on while removing her heavy fabric prison. It felt wonderful to be free, and she hadn’t realize how much it was limiting her movement.

“Over here.” Edith gestured to a chair for Leta to sit in, then reached up and pulled down a lamp. Somehow, she had managed to get some electricity down to this place of dry darkness. She examined the cuffs from all angles. Leta had as well, and she was worried that she’d come to the same conclusion that Leta had: that there was no way to take them off. But certainly, that couldn’t be true. They’d been put on. And certainly, if what goes up comes down, what goes on must come off. She had been unconscious for the procedure, as the physick had called it. When she’d woken, she’d been in no pain. “That’s thanks to the medicines,” they’d said. She’d come to realize that the medicine was not for the pain, but for the memory.

Edith’s hands were thin, exaggerating her every joint and tendon, and her quick fingers felt over the outside of the cuffs, then the insides of the cuffs as far as they could reach. Then she produced a tool that looked like a long, sharp toothbrush with a head five inches long and bristles only a half-centimeter high. She forced Leta’s arm down onto the table, creating as much space as possible at the top of the cuff, which was still only enough for her smallest finger. She put the tool into the cuff, with the bristles up and felt around, backtracking and jiggling as she went. She repeated the procedure, rolling Leta’s arm back and forth, then with the other arm. She continued to do this with increasingly smaller tools in increasingly smaller areas until she said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” asked Leta.

“I can open it.”

Never had Leta thought that she would take a day trip to a shop and have someone tell her casually that, for a price, she could have her freedom back—or at least some of it.

“Then do it,” she said. Then added, “Please, if you would.”

Edith gave a knowing look to Kiran, who handed her over two gold stays.

“I thought you said all you wanted was the cuffs,” said Leta.

“No, I said I didn’t want double. The fee is the fee.”

Leta’s impatience was enough that she didn’t even bother to argue with the woman. The cuffs were beginning to itch.

Edith pulled out a box and flipped it open, revealing an array of long, thin tools, each with a different shape on its end. She ran her fingers across them, her children, then chose one and began her real work.

She didn’t look up or speak while she picked and cajoled the cuffs. Leta could almost hear her asking nicely at times and demanding at others. She worked her ministrations on one cuff, then the other. The entire procedure took about two dozen minutes. Then afterwards, she smiled. Leta’s two forearms still sat on the table, outstretched between them. Edith took her two hands and gently placed them on either side of the left cuff and pulled. Nothing. Then she repeated it on the other side. Still, nothing. She took out a tool with a flat tip and tried to pry it open from the inside, but the cuffs did not indicate that they had been loosened in any way.

“I have unfastened the lock. You are keeping them on.” She waved her hand at Leta and sat back in her chair and glared as if Leta had failed her.

“I’m doing no such thing,” said Leta. Then, for emphasis, she picked up her arms and shook her wrists. The cuffs felt as sure as ever.

“No, not physically, girl. These cuffs are not just metal; there is something more to it. I could feel it. You have to be ready for the cuffs to come off. Try.”

“I don’t have to try. I’m ready for them to come off.”

“Clearly, you are not.”

“Clearly, you are a fraud.”

“I’m going to ignore your petulance. Once. I will even give you back your fee in good faith. But when they fall off, and they will, you bring me back the cuffs—and the fee. And don’t think I won’t know. I have eyes in the Ashbarrens.” From a hidden pocket, she produced the two coins and handed them back to Kiran. She was apparently finished dealing with Leta. That was fine. Leta had dealt with enough swindlers; they couldn’t handle being called out on their game. She just hated getting her hopes up, and then being let down. The cuffs would remain. The robes would remain. It was starting to feel like all Leta had was remains.

The robes dragged back down the soft ash-lined street as she explained what had happened to Clark.

Kiran looked down at his feet as he kicked up petulant little dust clouds and ran his hands through his hair. The habit down in the Ashbarrens made him look like he was turning gray.

“Edith is quite good,” said Clark. “If she says they may come off in time, then they very well may,”

Maybe it was crazy to believe, but if the cuffs really did come off in a week, or a month, and her hair grew out, and she managed to find a way to change her face, maybe she could just get a real job and live a normal life.

There existed a perfect moment under the bright light of full day, while they walked in the middle of the street, catching the last rays of the sun that set too early in the Ashbarrens, and Leta’s face reached up towards the light, and she could believe it. She could believe that there was something out there that didn’t end in imminent heartbreak and failure. But then a gust of ash got in her eyes and the weight of her disguise wore at her, as did the endless traumas and heartbreaks of her life. A life she shouldn’t have lived. She didn’t think that anything good would come of vengeance. But Leta had stopped looking for good a long time ago. She hoped Clark and Kiran would forgive her for her future treachery. Maybe her inevitable death would be her penance.