“Excuse me,” Adanna said, skidding to a stop while nearly flattening a four-year-old. The little one scuttled out of the way before hiding behind their mother. “Sorry!” she called out, accelerating back down the rock tunnel hall of the Commons.

The hall was bright and blustering despite being well past the common hours, forcing Adanna to weave in and out to avoid crashing into people. There were so many bodies that it didn’t even feel cold.

Everybody talked as they worked on their booths, preparing art, food, or trinkets to give to anyone who wanted them. Adanna lived for that second of joy, lighting up a person’s face as they tried her food. The Tanabata was a day for giving. At this rate, she wouldn’t have anything to offer.

Her basket of ingredients and utensils jingled as she slammed them beneath her booth’s counter. She was running out of ingredients, so she needed to get it right this time. Pulling out a wooden bowl, she got to work.

She took a pinch of Iko spice from Gus, calp flour for the body, oil, a measure of klacker blood for sweetness, and starbark sap. Mixing it, Adanna dipped her finger to thread Moment into the slurry. After some time, the sap ignited. The slurry popped and sizzled, sputtering hot flecks of oil onto her skin.

“Oh, shit!”

Adanna rattled the cubbies around for a lid—she’d forgotten the lid. Scrambling, she fished out a cutting board—it’d have to do. She slammed it over the bowl to seal in the grease.

“Okay, so far so good. Let’s try thirty heartbeats this time.”

Counting, she got to ten.

“Hey Danny,” Ren said with a mouth full of bread.

Adanna jumped. Ren leaned his brutish upper half over the countertop.

“Don’t do that!” The sputtering slowed inside her bowl. “Oh no.” Adanna cracked open her makeshift lid, and the sputtering started back up. “Not right now, Ren,” she snapped. Where was she with her count? Adanna picked twelve and started from there.

He stared at her, unbothered, as he finished his oiled roll. At her twenty count, he chimed in again.

“Gus has something special for you.”

Adanna slammed the lid back onto the bowl.

“Fine. Let’s talk. Do you know what it is?”

Ren fished out another roll and took a bite. Adanna waited as he chewed with an annoyed smile. The popping within the bowl tapered off before stopping completely.

“Can’t say,” he said in between chews. “Said to drop by whenever you had a breath.”

“No point in waiting for the warm to come to you.”

Adanna checked inside the bowl: the slurry had thickened into a full-bodied sticky substance, lightly colored. It looked right, surprisingly. All it had needed was a bit of distraction—though she’d die before telling Ren that.

“Take this outside for me?” she said, scraping the bowl across the booth counter. “It needs to chill.”

Ren peaked into the bowl with a raised brow.

“Looks gross.”

“You look gross. Could you also check on Aelis? He’s been having more fits lately, and Dad isn’t around to help.”

Ren walked off with a thumbs-up.

“Thank you!” she said.

The path to Plygus’s home was second nature to Adanna—past her father’s mills, around a wide bend in the cavern, and down into a secluded, nooked opening draped with plush blankets.

The light assaulted her eyes as Adanna slipped through the blanketed doorway. It was entirely too warm in there.

“Gus! What in the void are you doing?”

It smelled extra organic as the sap fuel immolated in the forge lanterns dangling from the rock ceiling. Were all those damned things lit?

Adanna squinted, finding her way slowly by touch. And touch she did, elbowing a box of utensils and what looked like a fist-sized metal ball, both scattering into the room’s general clutter. She winced. Gus’s muted voice echoed from farther into the cave.

“Adanna? Is that you? Those are rare and sensitive items. Please be careful.”

“Sorry!”

Adanna carefully stepped over a stack of books to sit on a cushioned chair and wait. Heaps of clutter filled the space: hundreds of loose papers, heaps of random trinkets, and some dusty, old furniture, all decorating the foyer in a mosaic of insanity.

“If I don’t trip over it, I forget it,” Gus would say. He’d forget his nose if it weren’t attached to his face.

While she waited, her eyes adjusted, and the room faded from blinding white into something workable. This amount of light had to be unhealthy.

“Plygus!” she called in annoyance.

A slight figure peaked from behind a bookshelf in the back corner.

“Sorry,” Gus said with a gleeful smile. “I’ve guests later and have been tidying up the place.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Adanna couldn’t help but laugh. Gus cackled with her, hobbling over to his usual place atop the stool behind the raised bar countertop.

Gus dived into cubbies, pulling out one after the other. A cascade of dinks and clanks filled the foyer.

“Any more krystos sightings?”

Adanna rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t have believed it hadn’t she lived it. That dive was a fresh stamp in her mind that refused to dry. A week had passed, and it still kept her up at night.

Gus emerged with a slender wooden box. Using it to clear space on the counter, he set it down and waved her over. Adanna walked over, annoyed.

“Settle, girl. I asked in earnest. Sightings or no?”

“Nope, not one,” she said, relaxing. “Still, I just can’t shake this feeling—nothing on Calaria happens without a reason. Everything has its place. Something is happening. Whether good or bad, I don’t know. But it's happening.”

Gus’s smile looked uncomfortably tight. He scratched his shoulder before coughing into his arm.

“You know something,” Adanna sidled up to the counter. “Spit it out.”

Gus chuckled, patting away beads of sweat with a dirty cloth.

“Later, Adanna. Please. I’d tell you if I could.”

“Fine,” she said grumpily. “So, what do you have for me?” Adanna perked up excitedly, staring at the wooden box in anticipation.

“Something extraordinary,” Gus said with a quirking brow. The quirk continued to rise past the wire rim that captured thick circular lenses—which made his eyes appear twice smaller than they were—until it peaked. “What might it be?”

The box was slender, about a half span long and two fists wide. There could be anything inside of it.

“Some rubber?” she guessed.

“Useless in the cold.”

“Oh! Some dried Chiadani fruits?”

“You wish.”

“How about a fine silk lady's dress—the ones they wear in Cabor.”

Adanna imagined wearing the fine silks by dancing around the foyer while kicking piles of papers into the air.

“Nothing as vapid as that,” Gus said, waving his hand as if to clear a stench. “Enough, I’ll show you.”

Gus unlatched the box's corners, swinging it open on greased hinges. They both peeked inside.

It was a stick. Granted, it was the fanciest stick Adanna had ever seen, but a stick nonetheless. There were ornate metal trimmings and what appeared to be a handle at one end. The wood was charcoal black, lighter than starbark, and smooth.

“Wow,” Adanna said, feeling up its sanded length. “What is it?”

“Why, it is the pinnacle of innovation! Pick it up, look at it. Try figuring it out for yourself.”

As Adanna carefully lifted the stick from its case, she noted how heavy it was. Metal components peaked out along the stick's length, with the most prominent bit sticking out like a lever from what seemed to be the bottom. The lever pressed down with a click but didn’t do anything.

Carved recesses for fingers at one end confirmed it to be a handle—it was next to the lever. That let Adanna hold the stick comfortably, and she swung it around, pulling the lever with her index finger.

“Eh?” she said haughtily.

“You’ve got the right idea.”

Flipping the stick over, Adanna peered down its length. There was a hollow tube inside the stick, one she couldn’t even fit her pinky finger into. Next, she looked closer at the metal trimmings. At the top was a dial that looked like it threaded on. As she twisted it, it did indeed. It popped off after winding the dial for two eternities, revealing an empty chamber.

“This thing is strange,” she said, peering inside. “I’m ice cold; I’ve got nothing.”

Gus took the stick, gently brushing across the sanded grain. “The fakiha tree has black leaves,” he said.

“Leaves?”

“They’re like petals, but for trees—lots of Iko trees have them. Anyways, these leaves grow on each branch. Those branches grow into a perfectly flat plane to capture the day star's light. Meanwhile, their leaves are used in teas and for medicinal practice.”

Gus let all that sink in, and she drank it up. The Iko had everything: tree petals, wind trains, and a day star. The day star was supposed to be so bright that it washed out the sky with light, although she guessed that was exaggerated. How could one star beat out millions? Gus waited until she nodded to continue.

“But the fahika’s wood is even more special.” Gus handed the stick back. “Why, do you reckon?”

Adanna hated that she hadn’t checked before. She closed her eyes and searched. And there was nothing.

“Why isn’t there any Moment?”

She waited for a response. None came. She gasped.

“There isn’t any Moment!”

Gus laughed as Adanna twisted the stick, searching for a wisp or a glimmer. Backside, frontside, there was nothing—absolutely nothing.

“Exactly! Now, pour water into that chamber at the top.”

Gus handed her a canteen, and Adanna carefully drizzled water into the open cap.

Adanna guessed how it worked now. The wood was the perfect insulator, housing the water-filled metal chamber. She could boil the water with Moment through the wood. It wouldn’t have worked with starbark or any other wood she knew of.

“Close it?” she asked, tightly threading the dial back into place. “And now I just…?” she gestured to the chamber, twinkling her fingers.

“Precisely.”

Tongue out and brow furrowed, Adanna focused her Moment. Breathing out, it flowed from her hand and through the strange wood. The wood acted like a funnel, focusing her breath into the vessel. When it touched the water inside the void, it dissipated into heat. Adanna kept feeding it Moment. The grip grew warm despite the wood insulating.

“Be careful,” Gus said. “You don’t want too much pressure.”

Nodding, she continued carefully feeding.

“Okay, I think that’s enough.”

She held the stick pointed up and pulled the lever.

Adanna expected a small pop, like when you ignited starbark sap. Instead, the room exploded. It recoiled her arm back while spinning her to the ground. Her ears felt like they were about to bleed and rang like the morning bells.

“Ouuuuch,” she said, eyes watering. She couldn’t hear herself like she was in a dive. She forced a yawn to clear out her ears. “Hello, hello,” she tested. It didn’t work. “Worst gift ever,” she laughed.

Gus kneeled next to her, checking her head and ears.

“I said—too—pressure.”

“What?!”

Necessarily shrill screaming echoed into Gus’s home. Otherwise, how would Adanna have heard them?

“Is that real?” Adanna looked at Gus. His face was flats white.

“It is!” he yelled. “I fill back up!”

He took the stick, refilling the chamber after scrambling off the threaded cap.

“Wait, you want to do that again? Are you insane?”

Gus grabbed Adanna by the shoulder and stared into her eyes. Gus was never serious, this being a first.

“Noctivora! Aim—” he pointed the stick at her— “and pull!” Gus pulled back the stick and dropped something into the tube end before using a long metal rod to ram it deeper. He shoved the boom stick into her lap.

Adanna took it, feeling numb. Everything was happening at once. It was too much. Noctivora? In Sableshore? The noctivora wasn’t something they should have to worry about. It was an inner territory problem, Valkar’s problem. We lived out on the flats—the dull, nothing-ever-happened flats.

Gus shook her.

Time snapped back into focus.

“I’ve got to go.”

Adanna shot up, taking the boom stick out of the blanketed entry and into the hall.