(Strive 10:7)

The days and nights were 16% longer here. My Epoch technique showed that the darkest part of the night occurred when the last five digits of the time all read zero, which meant a full day lasted 100,000 seconds, instead of 86,400. It made things both easier and harder: easier to keep track of, harder to stay asleep the whole night.

So the next morning found us up bright and early, talking with a ten-year-old about cake. At least that was my best guess. I could barely understand what the boy was trying to tell us through his veil of tears, and my first thought was that my earpiece translator was busted. Then I realized he was speaking English.

Apparently, it was his job to guide and welcome newcomers to the city, and he felt rather strongly that he’d failed in that duty. The two of us stood facing the sobbing boy in the bustling street, and people were starting to stare.

“It’s alright, kid,” said El. “Calm down. Tell us more about the cake. For example, where can I get some?”

“I-I thought you two were gone,” hiccuped the kid, who was adamant we addressed him as Scout. “I-it would’ve been my fault. I got there too late, to the elevator.”

I knelt and spoke in what I hoped was a kind voice. “Listen, it wasn’t your fault. We got whisked out of there by—I mean, uh…”

The boy called Scout looked at me in confusion.

“We were whisked out of there… by our desire to explore! We just couldn’t wait to meet you and everybody here.” I gave him a smile that I hoped was believable. “What were you saying earlier?”

The boy was silent for a moment, working to regain his enthusiasm. "The c-city of Shinar’s like a wedding cake. Two levels. C-cut into four slices.”

“Would you like to show us?”

“‘Kay.” Scout wiped his face on his sleeve, before his bracelet glowed blue and he blasted away in a gust of wind.

“Fast little bugger, isn’t he?” said El, scratching herself with a hind leg. “I didn’t even see his hand move.”

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Now that he’d found us, Scout was determined to give us the best tour of the city he possibly could. Our first stop was Shinar’s equivalent of a Wal-Mart, where I traded my hospital clothes for a shirt and pants that were decent, if a bit baggy. Rows of produce lined the walls, and I caught El trying to filch an apple. The store owner was unamused, but Scout loved it. We also found out Scout’s real name from the store owner, but he acted like he didn’t hear me when I called him that, so Scout it was.

The kid had actually never seen a raccoon before. He’d heard of the other El Bandito, but that one, an ornery male, hadn’t stayed in Shinar long enough for him to get a gander. So whenever El wasn’t looking, and sometimes when she was, Scout would stare at her with wide-eyed curiosity.

“I think he wants to pet you, El,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I realize,” she said dryly. “Keep walking.”

As we made our way toward the center of town, Scout zipped back and forth, true to his name, keeping a running dialogue in between jumps up to high rooftops. The other folks we saw took it in stride, waving at him fondly. “So anyway,” he said from a balcony above us, “they call me tower-born, sometimes. Me and some of the younger kids, the babies.”

“So your parents were climbers and settled here?” I asked. “That makes sense.”

“There’s not many of us,” Scout continued. “They tell me there’ll be more soon, Aunt Faye and Uncle Mo are trying. And—” here he went ahead, too far, for us to hear, before returning “—taught me a lot about how the rings and stuff work.”

I seized on the opportunity. “What did they teach you?”

“Well,” Scout said, glad he’d piqued my interest, “you got your aspects and then you unlock spells with each of them using stats. Then, there’s the random spells you get outside of that. Then, there’s resonance, which I don’t really get. You’d have to ask Master Shaw or the research guys if you want to know more.”

All of that was familiar to me except for the part about resonance. Even now, my Corpus aspect seemed to keep me alert and refreshed.

“Why that old fart?” El asked.

Scout giggled at the insult. “He teaches classes, sometimes. Anyway, the annoying thing is, with my kada, I can’t actually get any more spells, because it’s not actually my own,” he confessed. “Got it from someone who passed on. It’s tied to his DNA or something, so I can only use whatever’s already on it. Also, because I’m never outside of the city, I can’t ever get those pills to get stronger. To be honest, I don’t think Mum even wants me to get too strong.” The boy fell silent.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

We arrived at some kind of station, where we pushed our way into a crowded gondola suspended from a long cable. There was no sign of wires, gears, or anything else electrical or mechanical, but just as I began to wonder what we were doing, a brilliant red flare shot from the conductor’s kada, and the conveyance lurched its way up toward the city’s center. Soon enough, we crested the summit to arrive at the aptly named Hilltop.

Much of Hilltop’s area was dominated by a round plaza. Well-kempt buildings stood around it in a ring, and Scout pointed them each out to us in turn. “That’s the Guilds’ Congress, where important masters meet to talk about important things. Rich person’s house. Another rich person’s house. And that one’s the lighthouse, obviously,” he said, pointing to a tall building from which the beacon of light projected.

Looking up at it was like staring into the sun, but as I shaded my eyes, I could just make out…

“Is that a person?” I asked.

A man wearing sunglasses sat at the top of the lighthouse with a beverage in one hand. The other he held lazily out in front of him, and the beacon that lit the entire city projected from it, exactly the same way my light spell did. Just a million times brighter.

“That’s Paul,” said Scout. “He’s cool. Upgraded his Lux spell on the ninth floor. He takes the day shift, and then someone else does nights.”

I started seeing rainbow spots in my eyes, so I averted them as Scout led us to a viewing platform at the edge of Hilltop. From there, I saw the entirety of Shinar for the first time, and I finally understood the cake metaphor.

One quadrant of the city was devoid of buildings, covered in the green squares of cultivated farmland and gardens. Paths wound around a shimmering lake, and sometimes I’d spot the distant glimmer of a kada ring as someone used a minor magic. There was even a small cemetery, with headstones placed in orderly rows. By and large, it looked peaceful and serene.

The other three quarters of the city were packed with buildings, and four boulevards shot outwards at ninety-degree angles like the spokes of a great wheel, dividing the city like… generous slices of cake. And Hilltop, where we stood now, was the second tier, with the beacon of light as a gaudy cake topper.

“Garden, Public, Merchant, Guild,” Scout pointed out each quadrant in turn.

After looking at each for a while, I lifted my eyes upward. Outside the walls of Shinar, herds of monsters wandered about the prairies, and things larger than birds spun in midair, sometimes bouncing off of an unseen wall girdling the city. This city would never grow beyond that invisible circle.

“So you’re out there watching the elevators? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It’s not bad.” His chest puffed out slightly. “I just wait on the wall, listen for the bell-wire, and run there and back. I can more than handle it.”

The thought of Mia gnawed at my brain. “Could you show us the portal to the next floor?”

“You’re leaving already?” asked Scout.

“No,” I assured him. “I just want to see it.”

We left the viewing platform and plaza behind, passing into a back alleyway that was shaded from the sun by taller buildings. Two men stood chatting next to a nondescript door. One had a yellow ring about the shade of mine, the other had one like El’s. They stiffened for a moment as they heard footsteps, then relaxed as they saw the three of us.

“Hey, sport,” said one of them to Scout. “Showing the newbies the ropes?”

“This is Xavier and El,” said Scout. “I’m giving them a tour of the city.”

“Well aren’t y’all lucky?” said the other. “Go on ahead.”

An ornate elevator cabin sat at the center of the room. Shooting out of the top was a thin beam of light that served as the cable, stretching up through a gap in the ceiling to disappear into the blue sky. It was clear that the building had been constructed around the device, intended to provide a bit of security. Two guards and a shoddy old door. With Mia’s specter lurking at the back of my head, I realized that it wasn’t enough, by far. And no one knew.

I pulled a few rainbow candies out from my inventory with a gesture. “Thanks for showing us around, Scout. I appreciate it.”

Scout’s eyes went as wide as they could, before he shrank back, looking hopeless. “Mum said—”

“Just because they’re your parents doesn't mean they know what’s best for you.” I closed his small hand over them. “Trust me.”

“Yeah,” said El. “Trust the stranger offering you suspicious candy.”

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After he’d secreted the stat pills in his inventory, we left the elevator room, and Scout announced his farewell to us by jumping off a cliff. I scrambled to look over the edge, but he was already a tiny dot below, dashing away across the rooftops.

“Mature for his age,” I said. “It’s a bit sad. So much responsibility.”

“I’m two-and-a-half, and you never tell me that.”

“That’s not the same thing at all—”

The ground juddered sharply, twice, before returning to normal. Some people nearby cried out, while others whooped and hollered.

“The hell was that?”

“A towerquake,” said a familiar voice.

We turned to see Selene staring at us impassively. She was maybe one of the last people I wanted to see at the moment after embarrassing myself last night, and I flushed as I remembered my proposition.

“Listen, I’m sorry about what I said last night. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just like music.”

She didn’t seem offended. If anything, she just seemed bored, ignoring what I said to deliver her message. “Artem wants to see you.” She had barely finished speaking when she turned around and strode away. “Something about a test.”