The dark canyon wall loomed over the lodge, stretching up until it blended into the sky. Hushed rustling from the vines came from above, then a distant tune floated up from the city below. A meandering flute's sweet high notes dipped and swelled in a haunting melody.

Challis lay on the rooftop facing the cliff. She was curled up in a wickerweed blanket, its earthy smell covering her nose, but her eyes were on the thin line of candlelight flickering through the crack along the edge where the planks met the rooftop's clay parapet.

She took a deep breath and reached her mind down into the lodge. She flowed into Rasalas' eyesight with a conscious push of pressure, much like the sensation of crossing your eyes while they are shut. It was effortless now after six years, and a relief from her constant double vision to see through one set of eyes only – even if they belonged to someone else. In the close association of flux between her and her twin, Rasalas' awareness became hers.

She felt his twitch of recognition.

At first, she still saw only darkness. Then, the low murmur of Raffar's voice sounded through the planks beneath her head, and a blurry patch of light blinked painfully open as Rasalas lowered his hands. Trent Gannagen's face came up close, scrutinizing.

When Rasalas was able to focus, Challis saw her father as she rarely did: every care line emphasized by shadow, symmetrical patches of gray in his nut-brown hair and beard. The deep brows and heavy-lidded eyes made him perpetually concerned and exhausted at the same time. He had sunken rapidly into age.

"Look at that. The eye wasn't damaged," Trent said, his voice thick and bushy. "Just a real cooker of a bruise around it." His thumb gently lifted Rasalas' eyebrow. "And lots of red war paint. No stitches this time, though."

He turned away, and Challis got a nice view of the tabletop. Rasalas' arms were bare of cuffs and filaments, and only the standard circunets remained on his wrists. At least the Gannagens weren't so much of a waste of flux anymore, Challis thought, without the supplemental flux intake: the cuffs, a luxury to some and a necessity for on-call flux croppers, were only borrowed by the latter and now the Gannagens were even stripped of those.

"I'm, uh," Rasalas said, "sorry that you saw it."

Four feet below Challis' head, the conversation was as clear as if she were in the room. She listened sadly, thinking of the whole crowd in the eatery that had watched the standoff.

"You, or him?"

Trent had unrolled a leather case and was laying out a neat line of items.

"Both." Rasalas hit the table lightly with his fist. "He grabbed Challis. I had to, sir."

"Saw that, too," Trent said, and dug his fingers into a pouch of illipe nut mash. "There was no stopping her. Hold still."

The view scrunched dark as, Challis presumed, her father smeared the mash onto Rasalas' red and purple bandit mask. Then he pushed aside the protests and followed it up with a layer of gauze and medical tape as well. Based on how little Challis could see out of his single remaining eye after that, Rasalas must have looked gorgeous.

"Leave it," Trent said. "Probably tomorrow, too. Not like you have to be anywhere."

"Yes, Raffar." Rasalas huffed a short laugh. "Wherever Chall goes. She'll be off at first light. Probably go finish mucking out those show stalls."

"Or to Mackrowe. He'll have connections."

"Maybe," Rasalas sighed and stood up from the table, which was short enough to serve as tabletop or bench. "There's got to be something. We just have so few options."

"For work?"

"For everything."

"Well," Trent said slowly, gathering up the tools. "Maybe for your sister. But not for you."

Rasalas sat again, this time on one of the crates against the wall, and leaned back to stare at the plank ceiling. Challis realized he was looking right at the spot where she lay. "I can't do that to her."

"Son." Trent sat across from him in the only chair. "There are things that she could do, quite well, that you couldn't. And you can't let her limits determine yours. There's nothing wrong with taking separate paths for a while." He held up a mollifying hand. "Look. You're both adults. I'm not telling you what to decide."

"But we can't." Rasalas pocketed his fists. "She, um," he began thickly, "I need her around. Especially with other people. I just get so –" He snapped his head back against the wall, making Challis jump.

Their father waited patiently before pushing. His voice didn't rise above its gentle, prodding tone. It rarely did, when talking to Rasalas. "So what? Angry?"

Rasalas closed his eye, and both twins stared at the black for a long moment.

"Forgetful."

Silence filled the lodge and dug into the bones. A low groan came as Trent sat back.

"Is it getting worse?" he asked finally.

Challis couldn't tell with his eyes closed, but Rasalas could have nodded. Or shaken his head. She lifted herself up and out of his mind and stared for a long breath out at the cliff.

A nearby goat brayed while someone scolded it. The sounds moved on then, replaced by the rolling rush of winds that swept down the canyon walls. Challis' hair tickled her neck and she sat up. She set a small candle in the protection of the corner, lit it, and wondered vaguely if Rasalas had nodded. What if he forgot about the incident entirely and tried to go to the stables the next morning? Rib-eye wouldn't take pity on the bandages.

A beat later, Rasalas creaked up the ladder. He stepped onto the roof, glanced at his sister, and plunked himself onto the parapet. One hand pressed at the headache.

"Shut up."

Challis smiled. "Looking good."

He reached down into his bedroll for a smoke, re-rolling it before digging for his lighter.

"Just because you can always see me coming," he gritted, talking around the smoke in his teeth, "doesn't mean I'll swoop in and save your ass every time. One of these days I'll need you to stay out of my head and… you know. Let me go."

Challis watched him light it.

"Which day?" she asked wryly.

He leaned tiredly on his elbows and gave her a flat look. "Use your imagination."

Challis didn't. After a quiet beat, Rasalas looked over at the scraping sound coming from her direction. She was looking at nothing, going by feel, sharpening two stubnickers on each other. Each little multitool was a stubby piece of iron about four inches in length, with a rounded end for gripping or hammering and a flat edge for screwing or cutting. The fat end was sandpaper rough, and every part of the stubnicker could be used to mend or compress or tighten any part of a pterosaur saddle that needed attention.

"What are you doing?"

Challis felt the edge of her stub. "Not smoking. I'm the smart one."

He grinned and blew a stream of heat in her face, setting flux particles alight so that the air shimmered before dissipating away. "Give me that."

She tossed one of the stubs at him. Technically, the little tools belonged to the tack boxes in the stables, but Rib-eye would never miss them.

"How's the hand?" Challis asked.

"Fine. It hurt, though."

"Be worse tomorrow without those cuffs," she said. "Thank you, by the way. Your timing was perfect."

He pleasured visibly. "I know."

"And now we're jobless."

The smile fell. "I know. We haven't been jobless since..."

"Raffar sold out." Challis looked away toward the grounds. "And it wasn't you. I'm the one who went after Rib-eye and got you into trouble."

The sounds of children giggling and squealing echoed up to them from somewhere further down the canyon. Challis' thoughts trailed after them. She remembered her little times, when the days flashed by, when the biggest ordeal was the boys pulling her hair and then her brother doing it too. Mother had scolded him most satisfactorily, and he had never betrayed Challis since. They got each other in trouble, yes, but by sheer grace the trust remained intact.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Remember mother's contests with us?" Challis murmured.

"Mm."

"And Hianette," Challis went on. "And what's-his-face. What was his face?"

Rasalas squinted at the sky. "Oh. Oh, um. We called him something. Chunk? Chunk. I miss that jerk. I only remember playing him double-stack checkers. He always won. The jerk."

Challis smiled slightly. "I thought he gave himself handicaps."

"He did."

They went silent again. Challis cleared her throat.

"Like, playing left-handed?"

He bubbled up into choking laughter. Challis joined, going for another round when Rasalas started coughing on his own smoke.

A distant chorus of shrieks battered the canyon walls. The Gannagens watched through Rasalas' eye as a pack of thrikes came in from the last patrol, riding the downdrafts of the west slopes before gliding out over the grounds. In her imagination, Challis turned them right back around out of the canyon to soar over the surrounding mountainscape on nothing but air. It looked so easy. Double wings pumping on either side, graceful thrusts catching the wind currents and floating over a mile, then mile after mile away from this place.

"Mmph. Stop," Rasalas said quietly, reeling her back in. He was massaging his forehead again with both hands. "Nuggets. We don't have a grub's chance at windworking now. We're so behind on our debt installments. Raffar said he got another commission, but it won't be done for two weeks."

"Maybe we could go snip a few crucial stitches on Corvin's saddle."

"Perfect, except he wouldn't have to pay out of his own pocket. Oh, gierdammt!"

He had begun pulling the ladder up onto the rooftop, but stopped to slap his thigh. "Tofflar left us those coppers in his helmet. Forgot all about them."

"Shame, you could have bought Tofflar's girlfriend something nice."

At his deliberate lack of response, Challis softened her tone. "We could still fix that visor of his before tomorrow. We just need to –"

"Stables," Rasalas said heavily, the single word communicating all it needed to. The Polescos pterosaur grounds were out of bounds now, and they wouldn't be allowed in anymore during the day, much less after late half-light. They couldn't get to the barns unseen by patrol, unless they made like lizards down the sheer cliffside. Oh, and there was only one good eye between them.

"I hate it when you're right." Challis blew out the candle. "Let's go get it."

"We really shouldn't."

"We're out of a job," she pressed gently. "Every little bit helps."

"Chall." Rasalas' head turned sharply, and Challis knew he was trying to fight the determination coming from her, the subliminal pressure bending him to her will as if he had been the one to suggest it.

She let him suffer for a moment. Then,

"Ten coppers could buy us a whole slug of balappus bark," she mused to herself. "Someone I know would give a limb for that much."

Rasalas went completely still. Challis saw the dumb look on his face, and could almost hear his heart racing. Her own mouth was watering at the thought of all that balappus, gummy and sweet and single-chewedly bringing heaven down to earth.

"That…" Rasalas grumbled, "is atrociously unfair."

* * *

Oedolos was a young city in an old canyon. The rise and fall of the waters on the westernmost side of the Petchkan continent had drawn the inhabitants from the grasslands further into the Oledroccan mountains, aerating the ground as they went with irrigation systems to aid the spread of the river to the higher elevations inland. Water towers were constructed in the canyon to bring it northward, and uphill, to the city's tip of Polescos. There it stopped. The final tower in the line stood just under four hundred feet tall, a corrugated structure that also served as an intersecting base for no less than five stone skyways circling around its middle. One of the skyways overlooked the pterosaur grounds, split into two, and plunged into the canyon wall two hundred feet above the mud barns.

Rasalas led the way up the path toward the bridge. It was a few bells past half-light, but no lights were needed on the walls: the giant cloaks of wind tumbling down the canyon at night were enough to activate flux particles in droves. From a distance, the walls swirled with different hues of gold playing over their surfaces in an enormous rippling game of tag. Where Challis and Rasalas crept along the path in the middle of it all, the breaths they took frothed over with a breathable energy that vibrated down deep enough to jumpstart the marrow in their bones. By the time the Gannagens arrived at their destination, the bones were so sparking-hot they felt they could have taken flight.

Which was a perk, considering what waited for them. But they let their heart rates slow enough for a full beat of looking and leaning over the railing. The dark shape of a skyway rose out of the dark in front of them, spanning into empty air beyond. Where they stood, the beaten path disappeared into a short tunnel that rounded a corner out onto the surface of the bridge, the railing curving with it so that the blindest of travelers could get onto the skyway without trouble. Challis stepped back from the railing.

"Let me look."

Rasalas braced himself while she pricked up into his eyesight, then took another long look. Challis noted the water pipes beneath the bridge. They ran between the abutments to the first set of piers further out before running to the mud barns below.

"Are you sure this will work?" she asked.

"Scat swears by it," Rasalas said simply, then swung his legs up over the railing with a flourish.

They glided along the supports and ducked under the buttress until the underside of the bridge surrounded them, a geometrical marvel of stone and rusted metal beams where it wasn't pocketed in deep shadow. Challis checked and tested every step before shifting her weight. She could see very little and if she lost her grip, she could break into pieces on the crisscrossing beams below as easily as be caught by them.

Now it got tricky. They had to step out along the center beam that bolstered the pipes, reaching up to slide their hands along the underside of the bridge. Balance was key, and they had to scoot apart so their combined weight wouldn't crack any supports. Rasalas skirted nimbly along the pipe where it left the center beam in a zigzag to touch the inside edge of the pier. He steadied his feet on metal bolts before looking back at Challis. Perched there in the stark shadows with his arms wrapped around the pier, he gave the distinct impression of a raccoon, climbing around at night with inverted mask coloring.

The pipe spanned an empty space of six feet. Four well-placed steps if she did it right. Below, there was only a steep slope of canyon rock. Just to see that much took her a good beat or two of sweeping with her peripheral vision.

"You can do it," Rasalas whispered. "Think your center of gravity down into your feet. Do you want me to close my eye or keep it on you?"

Challis considered, hating the thought of either. "Can you climb down a bit so you're underneath? Then you can swoop in and save my ass if I fall."

He did, getting a good grip so he had one hand free, then looked up at her. "Now. Open or closed? We can't be here all night."

Challis blinked at the two flickering pipes in her vision. "Closed," she decided. "I'll make a lot of noise if I start falling."

"Not too much or we'll get caught. Stop worrying, you'll be fine."

She was fine. Challis planned out her exact movements, ran it through her head a few times, then stepped across the pipe as if crossing a room.

When she was hugging the pier at last, Rasalas chuckled.

"Nerves of steel, mic sachsa," he said, tapping her boot. "Ready to move, or do you just want to give up and stay here?"

They spat on their hands and skidded carefully down the pier, now well in view of a night patrolman if he looked in just the right place. The pipe split into two side-by-side ones, which stuck out at an exposed angle just before meeting the roof of the closest mud barn. Challis and Rasalas became breathless shadows and, for fear of any quick movement lighting up a streak of flux particles visible from across the courtyard at night, eased onto the rooftop with all the care of sloths.

From there, it was an easy drop to the ground, and they were hidden in deep shadow on the cliff side of the pterosaur grounds.

Challis pressed into Rasalas' mind again so she could see. Almost at once Rasalas had to sit down, already dizzy after working with only one eye, but it didn't last long. They ducked silently around corners and passed through the first courtyard before the first guard appeared. He stood underneath a service office, a little spindly tower fifteen feet off the ground, in a central spot where he could sit in shadow and see in all directions. There were actually two men there, one of them in white. Rasalas crouched and peeked around a corner, but they were talking in low voices and not giving much attention to the quiet grounds.

"That one," Challis breathed into his ear from behind, then toddler-turned his head in the right direction. "We mucked halfway through that stable earlier."

They sneaked down the ramp. When they were safe inside the stable, Rasalas went off to find the Tofflar helmet. Rich orange light glowed from the seams of a monster hulking in the corner: a two hundred fifty slug vat for the fresh flux from the windworkers post-flight and the flux croppers post-stall-stripping. Coiled springs as fat as snakes hung from its sides. Challis wondered how hard it would be to strap together a wire network from the stalls that connected to the vat so she and the others wouldn't have to do it manually, and…

A scraping noise spun her around. Jagged teeth gleamed between the thrike's jaws, no less frightening behind bars, or rather between bars as they had shoved far enough to push at the mesh netting surrounding the stall. One large, slitted eye reflected orange from the flux vat, and a birdlike twitch showed her the other eye. The midwing joints clung bonily to the cage. Challis could just make out its dark silhouette of wings as she stood there, slowly inhaling the shimmering flux that washed over her in a cloud.

"Sorry," she said softly. "Not this time."

Rasalas had turned the corner to look along the far wall, she could tell – it was a double stable with two back-to-back rows of stalls and two outer walkways. Challis stood back and listened to the thrikes inside, most of them nested down and quiet. A few deep-throated rumbles blew scattered leaves out into the aisle.

The fodder bin creaked under her fingers. Challis glanced at the door. She quickly unhooked a dead rabbit and eased the bin closed. Nearby stood a bucket of rice berries from the garden, so she scooped up a handful of those too and tipped some into her mouth.

The closest thrikes had honed in on her instantly. Challis went to the first one that had already introduced itself and prepared to toss the rabbit inside. Might as well make friends while she could.

Then a metal hinge squeaked. Challis stared down the row at a gate swinging slowly inwards, the latch hanging loose. The stall was empty except for a piece of leather rein knotted to the bars inside. Challis stepped toward it. The strap had been chewed through.

"Hey," she called, hardly lifting her voice at all. "Ras?"

A leaf fluttered down from the loft above the cage. Then a low, whiffling growl crept over the hairs of her neck and she looked up.

The canyon beasts of Polescos were predators. You couldn't let your guard down around them, with or without windworker training – and nobody, not even a gendracco, was allowed to be alone with one.

This one, however, was as intent on breaking the rules as she was that night.