Coldmaker(16)

My Claw Staff waited impatiently by my side, sitting on top of the pile of waxy fabric it had dredged up, urging me to go home. I’d got what I wanted. After working on Mama Jana’s Cold Bellows, I was now riding a dangerous current of inspiration. The boilweed heaps behind the flower shops had offered me the rest of what I’d need for my next invention. Since the waxy fabric was used to protect the flowers from the Sun as they were delivered, I figured it must also be good at keeping Cold in. Now, I had the Wisps and the materials to make the Idea happen.

I needed to firm up a few new excuses on my crawl home.

In the distance, the Crying finally stopped, and even the stars began to dwindle. The night wind continued to bring in cool air. I yawned deep, enjoying a few moments of Gale’s breath, and then finally let my back settle into the crook it was used to.

I sighed. It was time to go.

I packed up my things and strapped the Claw Staff back to my thigh. Taking one final glance into the alley just in case, I began crawling the long expanse of rooftops back to my barracks. If I was lucky I’d get a few hours of sleep, enough to take the edge off.

I’d just crossed into the Garden District when I saw her.

She was lying flat on her stomach, just like I was, her body huddled on a nearby roof. I wanted to call out, but I wasn’t sure if she was lying motionless because there was a taskmaster lurking in the alley below. My heart began to pound in my chest, nervous for what I might say to her.

I crept over to her, slowly, so the waxy paper wouldn’t rustle in my boilweed bag. Shuffling up from behind, chest hammering, I noticed she looked smaller than I remembered, and her uniform was dirtier. She remained still. I picked up a few pebbles and tossed them forward so they’d land just beside her legs.

No reaction.

I couldn’t tell if she was just dismissing the stones, or if she was unconscious with heatstroke. I took a chance and lifted myself to my knees, jolting my head from side to side, but the street seemed clear as far as I could tell, so I gritted my teeth and stood up, rushing over to her body.

Then I stopped short. The body wasn’t hers.

And it was dead.

Kneeling down, I extended my Claw Staff and rolled the corpse over. The boy’s head had a long piece of boilweed slung over one eye. I recognized him as the feral prowler from last night. I had to put a hand over my mouth to stifle my choking, wondering how the few beetles crawling over his face had been able to devour so much of his remaining eye.

The boy’s limbs were stiff, the blood having pooled in the lower half of his body, and I knew there was a chance he’d been lying there for most of the night. I spun around looking for a loose brick or big chunk of stone. Finding a piece on the next rooftop, I tapped beside the body, trying to scare away anything that might sting or snap from the folds of skin.

‘Family,’ I whispered, making sure the boilweed sling was still tight around his head. Manoeuvring the eyepatch revealed something shiny and smooth tucked away in the empty socket, and I realized that’s where the boy must have hidden the items precious to him. He was an Inventor in his own right. He’d had a need and had created a solution. It was crude, and simple, and beautiful; and although I yearned to know what sort of plunder he’d been keeping in there, I thought it best to let the boy carry his secrets into the darkness.

Making sure the nearest alley was deserted, I rolled the body to the edge of the roof, stepping clear of the little brown insects. One big heave and he was in the air, a hard thud following below shortly after.

In the morning, the dead-cart Jadans would patrol the alleys, but not the rooftops. The boy deserved to rest in the sands with our other fallen kin.

There were dozens of different reasons why he might have died, all unfair, and all perfectly believable. He was born Jadan, which meant he was born in debt. A Noble had probably demanded his eye for some unintended slight, and thus doomed the boy to a very short, very desperate life of scavenging half-blind in the darkness. Anger seethed in my chest. My hands balled into fists, stopping tears that begged to be released. This boy wasn’t alive eight hundred years ago. He had nothing to do with the sins behind the Great Drought, and he didn’t deserve to reap the punishment. None of us did. But still, the Crier continued to forsake us.

Scuttling away, I touched the waxy fabric in my bag, deciding I should use the opaque material for something else. Something less offensive to the Crier. But it was hard, knowing how much needle and gut Abb had in the healing box, how easily I could stitch the body of the Idea together. How perfect it would be.

Jadans could die anywhere, and for anything. There didn’t need to be a reason. Really, I should just take the leap, considering most other paths had us ending up like the eyepatch boy anyway. The Crier hadn’t cared about my other inventions. The crank-fans went against tradition, too, alleviating some of our suffering; and I had about a dozen of those.

My fingers trembled, thinking about putting the crushing chamber of the Idea together. If the Crier didn’t like what I was planning, then He wouldn’t have let me get this far.

Perhaps His Eye genuinely was closed to the Jadan people.

Either way, my feet itched to step into the unknown.





Chapter Six


Five days later I stood on my corner, back hunched against the sizzling sky, thinking again about the three Wisps.

The Gospels told us to focus on one thing only during Procession day: the mercy of the Khat, and how he’d saved the Jadan people from extinction. Though I was supposed to reflect on the fact that I wouldn’t have any Cold without his benevolence, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done.