Gates of Thread and Stone(2)

“I saw you leave the White Court,” the girl said, her sweaty hand sliding against my skin. Her nervousness didn’t reassure me; it only made her more unpredictable.

“Look closer,” I said, and glanced down at the messenger strap on my shoulder.

I brushed aside my long black hair, and the girl focused on the yellow bird sewn into the old canvas. It was the District Mail Center’s logo—a quaint bit of symbolism about flying and freedom, which was deeply ironic and something I didn’t think about for fear my eyes would roll clear to the Outlands.

The moment the girl realized what she was looking at, her body grew rigid and her already pale face went ashen.

“W-well,” the girl began, “you—I—” She shouted a curse. The knife at my ribs dug harder; I sucked in my breath. The girl swore again.

“Are we done then?” I felt kind of bad for her. She couldn’t have been much older than me. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, though most kids around here had broken into their first shop by the time they were five. Didn’t know if that was true for me—I couldn’t remember anything from before I turned eight.

I had to get going or I’d be late returning my bag to the DMC. My route was timed, and I couldn’t afford to lose any credits.

The girl’s hand tightened around my neck. “You’re pretty,” she said, her gaze flicking across my face. “And those eyes are something else.”

I groaned. Here we go.

“Bet you’d get me a good price at the docks.”

I had heard enough.

I reached out with my mind, feeling for the threads of time that flowed around us. They were everywhere, if you had the ability to see, intertwining the people, the weathered buildings, the stones beneath my feet. They moved everything forward in constant motion. Always forward. I imagined my fingers dragging the fibers, making them catch and slow.

Time never truly stopped. That, as far as I could tell, wasn’t possible. But I could slow it down for a few seconds, just enough to get the advantage.

The girl’s painted lips continued to move in minute degrees, her voice an indistinguishable thrum. I fought the threads that snared me as well, twisting out of the girl’s grip and pushing at the knife against my gut. The weapon was crude, nothing but a scrap of broken metal with one end wrapped in rags for a handle.

I couldn’t hold the threads for very long. Time slowed only in the space around me, and the mounting pressure to continue forward and catch up with the rest of the threads broke my grasp. Time snapped ahead, rebounding. I wrenched away, riding the momentum of speeded time, and hit the ground. Pain flashed up my arm.

Behind me, the girl gasped.

Dread rooted me in place. She saw.

I jumped to my feet, brushing off my palms as I spun to face her. She couldn’t have seen. No one but Reev was aware of my manipulations. For everyone else, the perception of time remained unbroken, preserving the belief that no one but the Kahl possessed magic.

The girl wasn’t looking at me. In fact, she wasn’t even standing. She knelt beside the alley wall, her knife jutting from her belly where she’d fallen against it.

I watched as she slid sideways into a boneless heap. Her head hit the ground with a crack. I flinched, searching up and down the alley, but if anyone saw what happened, they had already moved on. Nothing I could do would help her now.

As I turned away, the girl moaned. I glanced over my shoulder. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear her mumbling.

I looked toward the exit to the open street. I should leave her. Her nervousness and the clumsy way she had attacked me made it obvious she wasn’t a seasoned criminal. But she wanted to sell me at the docks—she deserved whatever she got. The city would be better off without another desperate mouth to feed, and with people disappearing every year, what was one more?

Besides, this wasn’t a hidden alley. Someone would probably find her in time.

But what if she has someone waiting for her? A brother. A sister. A baby hungry for dinner. What would happen to her family if she didn’t get up again?

Stupid conscience.

The nearest runner was around the corner. Alerting the runners was the only way to get ahold of the Watchmen—short of walking into their local post, which I sure as drek wasn’t doing. But the runners charged a ridiculous tax for their services, credits Reev and I couldn’t spare, and while I could lie about my name, they’d demand an ID to verify citizenship.

I glared down at the girl bleeding into the dirt. Drek.





CHAPTER 2




WHEN I WAS ten, Reev had spent one of his Sundays off work with me by the river. We’d scavenged for bugs on the muddy bank and wondered what mutant abilities we might get from falling into the murky water. He pretended to throw me in, and I had been so stupidly scared he would actually do it that I twisted my ankle fighting him off.

Reev had felt terrible. He promised not to be so rough, and I told him to shove his promise in the river because nobody put restrictions on my brother, not even my brother. It made more sense in my head.

He had carried me all the way to our box in the Labyrinth. I remember the way his hair scratched my face, the heat of his shoulder against my cheek, and the smell of the river—sickly sweet like rotten fruit—on his clothes. His voice murmuring unnecessary apologies had been the only soft thing about him. Everything else had been—still was—hard, unyielding, strong.