#sumflowers

Near dawn, he’d climbed his way up the winding way of the tree’s limbs to the home’s farther reaches, where his sister was already at work. This portion of the old home had been mostly empty for some years—“dormant” Pin liked to say, like it was something that need only be awoken. When the head of their House had died, her first heir already taken by the Wilderness, most of the bustling business had died away with it. Between the loss of basically all leadership and the harsh crop failures in those lean years that followed, nearly a decade later they were still only just clawing their way back. It warmed his heart to see Pin had taken this project on, though, slowly converting unused portions of the rambling home into indoor greenhouses. As long as Talus Mos was wintering with them and available to provide his glasswork expertise, it seemed a worthy endeavor.

Bailey had scrambled up the last wobbly ladder to enter the converted space at floor-level, looking up into the crisscrossing ropes and scaffolds. The two of them were in harness gear, their long blond hair pinned back from their faces. Talus Mos’s hair was braided somewhat sloppily with various violet beads, while Pin’s flowed relatively freely down her back. She’d grown in more recent years, nearly to Airiadnee’s height. And although she was not Violet, Pin acted as Talus Mos’s assistant, now, as he measured and planned how best to construct the necessary racks and shelves for optimal lighting. He’d almost grudgingly warmed to Pin over the years, as she’d grown more into her own person and stopped only being a reminder of his grief.

“Pin!” Bailey called up, and the girl left off to rappel down and dangle upside-down over his head, one hand collecting the pool of her blonde hair to keep it from her face. “How’s it coming along?”

“Par’quick’em,” she said, reflexively putting the hand that was still holding her hair over her cleft lip as she grinned down at him. “Should be’em done before our Sister-Houses visit. ‘S where get’ee, Bailey?” she added, looking to his ear. Unlike the two of them, Bailey kept his hair cropped short, leaving his ears visible. There were two blue rings there, today, the top one showing their House sigil.

“The House of Rush,” he confirmed. “I’ve got to recite the last part of the Dark Epochs, today, first, but afterward I’ll invite them.”

“Don’t forget to bring the House a gift,” Talus Mos called from overhead, still at work. Somewhat unsolicited. It was a hard habit to break; when Bailey had taken over the House at a young age, even his father’s somewhat clumsy advice had been appreciated. But it had been some years since that was really appropriate. Perhaps he read the silence well enough to recognize the gaff, because Talus Mos paused momentarily in what he was doing to add, “Although I’m sure you don’t need reminders, Warden Reed.”

“Of course,” Bailey answered, his tone neutral, recognizing the formal use of title as a form of apology and choosing to be mollified. And seeing that Pin had grown uncomfortable, he managed to dredge up a smile for her. “I should be back sometime tonight, after nightfall. I’ll check the traps on the way home.”

Here she shook her head, though, righting herself so she was no longer upside-down where she hung. “Not in’ee fancy clothes—don’t wan’ee bloody. I’ll check’em.”

He ran a hand over his clothing, and had to admit to the wisdom in that. The rich cloth was intricately embroidered, the colors vibrant, and even on his tall, skinny frame everything fit well. They’d had to carefully save over the past winter to each afford a set of clothing that wouldn’t embarrass them when they went to call on their cousins.

Still, he didn’t much like the idea of her out in the forest alone. Before the Wilderness took her, even Airiadne—who had been strong Yellow and hunting most of her life—often enough took a companion with her, to watch her back and help her take down anything too big. “Have Lee Parable go with you,” he conceded. “He’s wanted something to do while he waited for planting season.”

“Can’em look after myself,” she grumbled, but accepted the order before climbing back up into the higher reaches of the room, and Bailey set off soon after.

Bailey made good time, arriving close to noon at the House of Rush. Unlike his home, which was built in several parts into old, living trees, this Sister-House sprawled over a tributary from the river, their family’s generator mostly fed by its current. The House was alive with humming activity, both from the family and the many hired hands at work to keep the place functioning, much as Bailey remembered his House being when he was a child.

He eventually found a cousin high enough up the House’s ranking to honor their deal, and a short time later Bailey had an audience of some forty-odd to sit and listen to the last of the history lesson. The Dark Epochs of the days immediately following the Ancients’ downfall tended to garner better attendance than other stories, not only from the children first learning their histories, but also from adults who felt it was an important, cautionary tale. It was, by necessity, a long and complicated story to tell, and sometimes a Blue might spend half a season living in a House, further elaborating on minutiae from this tale alone. From the final days of the Ancients’ sprawling empire, to the madness that led them to containing the Word in print, to their deadly machine that captured the sun, and the monsters they left in their wake. In the dark years without sunlight, creatures from beneath the mountains, under the seas, and beyond the stars spread their blighted tendrils onto the sun-forsaken lands. When the sun escaped its prison, its first blast made wastes of the East and decimated what was once fertile land in the South, leaving only deserts. So powerful was the blast that what men it touched, their shadows were sheared away, leaving only these half-men creatures to crawl the earth, and even generations later the blight was on at least half of every one born. Their fleeing shadows eventually shaped the non-men, who it was said still crept these forests on moonless nights. And there were, of course, the clockwork men that still littered the countryside: these made-things that mostly had lost their purpose, who sometimes still awoke to do their long-gone masters’ deeds as servants or, often enough, as war-machines that slaughtered everything in their paths.

He was aware, near the end of his retelling, that the head of the House of Rush had taken time from his schedule to come and listen to the tale. Bailey had been told he looked quite like his mother’s brother, Rush Arlen, and although he’d had little to do with the man directly for a number of years, he could see at a glance it had been an apt comparison. His Blue training served him well in that he did not miss a beat, his recitation remaining precise, his gestures practiced. It was with some relief he finally concluded, but the feeling of being judged didn’t really abate as Warden Rush invited him back to speak more privately in his office. Once there, after he was paid for his performance, Bailey presented him with the twin vials of spices he’d carried from his home, trying not to think of just how dear an expense it had been. If this paid off, it would be worth it.

Warden Rush accepted them with some puzzlement, saying, “Your spice debt has long been paid, Reed Carson.”

“They’re a gift, as part of an invitation from the House of Reed for a gathering, a week from now.”

Honestly, Bailey wouldn’t be surprised if the Houses of Sedge, Fennel, and Runnel hadn’t gossiped to Rush about their own invitations, already, and Warden Rush was just giving himself more time to consider his answer.

He finally mused, “Your House has gone through hard times, since the Lady Reed Beatrice died. It’s been a lot of work for you, I know, but you seem to have grown into your own as a Blue. I’m glad to see you’ve managed to pull through so well.” He saved Bailey the embarrassment of glancing to his ear, many-times pierced to fulfill contracts outside his House. “And your House—it’s still just you and Reed Adelaide, isn’t it?”

Bailey fought the prickle of shame at the admission, “Yes,” their numbers were still pitifully small, with only he and little Pin left. The question also revealed Rush Arlen knew the purpose of this show of wealth and the invitation to the House, a point further clarified as he went on:

“The House of Reed was dwindling even when your mother, my sister, was born into it. Some forty years ago, these Sister-Houses gathered to judge its viability, and even though it was the weaker House in the union, it was hoped new blood would be enough to sustain it. At the time, the ancestral lands were still rich, even if the numbers had dwindled. A child born into that House would still thrive, so concessions were made to honor an old House that seeded so many others.” He set the vials of spice on his desk, and then bowed his head. “Well, I digress on this old history. Your extension of hospitality is well-received, Warden Reed, and I am honored to accept your invitation.”

Bailey bowed his head in kind, and after a few more pleasantries were exchanged, he graciously declined the invitation to stay the night and set off back for his own home. It had gone about as well as could be expected, he consoled himself, and had been a bit warmer reception than he’d had at the other Sister-Houses. Being reminded of one’s House’s poor resources was never a pleasant experience, but it was something that needed to be addressed in these kinds of delicate negotiations. If everything went well, his House only stood to gain, but he still had the long walk home to worry over how he’d handled things. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made the invitation when he was already there on business, somewhat undercutting his show of resources. He had never been very good with people as a whole, and even less so when he was feeling the sting of humiliation. But spending another entire day to deliver the message had seemed wasteful.

While Bailey was thus occupied, he was surprised to look up at one point further along and realize he’d left the path quite far behind. The woods around him were completely unfamiliar, this far from home, and even with many leaves gone from the winter-stripped trees, it was still rather dark under the shelter of their boughs. A cold wave of fear rushed over him, making him momentarily giddy as he tried to calmly reorient himself by the faint shimmers of sunlight and day-stars overhead. He struck out again, listening for the flow of water and alert for any recognizable landmarks. When he spotted a break in the trees up ahead, his long stride quickened a bit until he came abruptly into a clearing.

Or, well, not properly just a clearing. He shivered as he recognized the dark Ancient metal underfoot, that even these millennia later resisted even a weed’s growth. The space was nearly perfectly circular, and at its center was a cube of white stone, nearly as half as tall as he stood. Its sides were unnaturally straight, precise, crisp, not weathered in the slightest. Along the top, a few inches down, was a groove where the top of the cube would presumably slide aside. And he knew he should leave it alone—he’d just finished telling a long story of the folly of the Ancients and their ways, and there were hundreds of other tales of people foolish enough to meddle with whatever they’d left behind. But the pristine nature of the site made Bailey hesitate. Because yes, what the Ancients left behind was often terrible and destructive, but sometimes there were tools, machinery, weapons that were incredibly useful. They all denied it, but every House jealously guarded some piece of Ancient tech they would never admit to having. And if there was something in there that could help his House…

He put his hands on the top of the cube, bracing his legs as he pushed at it. He was not particularly strong, and he imagined he probably would have looked fairly ridiculous to anyone who happened along, trying to shift this enormous slab of stone all by himself. But in a moment, there was a curious kind of release as some internal mechanism reacted and the stone slid aside in one smooth motion, toppling over the other side.

Words. There were words everywhere, he could see now, written all within the cube’s interior. Like the old mantras against evil, the spells that had been meant to hold devastation back when the Ancients still thought themselves invincible. With creeping horror, he realized that whatever they had meant to contain, he’d released it now. And whatever ruin it visited on the land, that was on his head. He should run, if he wanted to have any hope of surviving this. He might even plausibly deny any involvement. But he forced himself to step forward and face this instead, and his knife—for all the good it would do him—was in his hand as he peered inside to where faint sunlight still only just reached.

There was a woman inside. Or the image of a woman, at least. The features so finely and delicately wrought as to be beyond the imagination of even the most skilled glassworker. Her skin was transparent, as was her arteries, veins, muscles, and bones, down into the center of her. Her hair was the most exquisite work he’d ever seen, so light and true-to-life he almost felt he could reach out and brush a strand away from her face. There were bits of cloth on the figure, apparently added after it was created, but time had rendered them little more than dust. Every line of her was true, every inch precise, perfectly formed. She was curled in the fetal position to fit into the box, one arm cushioning her head while the other wrapped around herself, in a posture at once guarded and yet oddly exposed. As if she only slept. The creation was not without its flaws, however. Thin scars marred the cheeks, too straight and purposeful to be made by time or accident. By now he had quite forgotten to feel frightened, and had nearly forgotten how to breathe. But seeing its damage struck something in him, so he almost felt he resonated in sympathy for the imagined pain. The ache just to smooth away the damage was almost overpowering, and he was already trying to imagine how he would get it home, as ungainly as that might be.

The sun had been shining on it for nearly a full minute when his avid gaze caught the first hint of movement. Within the center of her, the tiniest tick. And then another. Gears within her chest beginning to move, processes restarting. There was a spark, somewhere in its center. Not a sculpture, he realized, far too late—a clockwork. Not art, but a tool of the Ancient’s. A wretched shadow of their own minds, and capable of just as much destruction. While it lay there, still and unaware, he knew he should finish the job. Destroy this thing as well as he could. Or at the very least try to shut it away again. But he felt rooted to the spot as the internal mechanism took up a rhythm, and the outer glass surface began to change, clouding over to a skin tone, the hair shifting slightly even in the slight breeze as it darkened to brown. He’d thought it finely made, before, with only the liking of life to it, but that had been nothing to seeing it actually animated. He could see a faint pulse in the neck of what now appeared to only be a young woman, her chest stirring with long, slow breaths. The long dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks. Oh he should smash it to pieces. Stab it with his knife. Shatter it with a rock. Anything. Anything that would stop this tool of the Ancients from fulfilling whatever its awful purpose must be. He knew he should. He almost could.

She opened her eyes. And he knew he was lost.

Oh such eyes of liquid gold, of living flame—he was caught, mesmerized, at once drowning and burning in their depths. He’d half-climbed onto the lip of the cube, almost without his noticing, as he was enticed closer to their warmth. At some point he’d dropped his knife, his hands apparently having little idea what to do with themselves. The tiniest crease was forming between her brows as she looked up at him. A bemused smile tugged at her full lips as she blinked up at the strange man perched at the edge of her tomb, a slender shadow silhouetted against the still-dazzling light. Her limbs were fluid grace as she stretched, minutely, and made to sit up. But the cascades of hair falling all down her back made her startle slightly, drawing her gaze down. She took sudden stock of herself, grasping at the last remains of her clothes and pulling her waist-length hair about herself like a curtain as her face heated to a bright brand of red, the thin scars standing out white against her cheeks.

Strange to say, he hadn’t especially noticed until that moment that she was naked. Oh he had seen that the clothes had long ago deteriorated and her figure was visible underneath the remains. But in the way a sculpture may be unclothed, or a painting may display a form. As a thing that was meant to be viewed and appreciated. It was only when she reacted—not a mere subject, but a full actor in her own right—that she seemed to transform into being actually naked.

He might have made some small sound. His breath catching, or perhaps his throat working. A very minor reaction, all things considered. But apparently it was a step too far. Abruptly she was surging up, all the liquid power of her molten body coming to a point as her hands slammed into him, sending him flying onto his back nearly at the edge of the clearing. He had a moment to wonder if his spine had broken as all the wind was knocked out of him. But his digits all wiggled at his command, and in a moment he was able to dizzily lift his head in time to see the glassworks figure scramble her way out of the cube. Such a funny little thing, really. Her long hair catching on the wind, she cast him one last blushing look before her dainty glass feet hit the ground and she slipped away into the trees.

He let out what little breath he had, and let his head fall back against the ground. Feeling more dazed than actually injured. But somehow still loathe to move, trying to sort out the flood of emotions he seemed to be lazily floating through.

By the time Bailey had regained his feet, she was long gone, and the light with her. He had expected to make the last leg of his journey home in the dark, only that had been with the expectation of the familiar path. Even so, he knew his stars well enough he might have only been minorly inconvenienced. But a late winter squall had blown over the forest, stirring up a flurry, so that he had both the unfamiliar woods, the night, and the transfiguring power of the storm to contend with. The brittle bones of the trees rattled around him, every step just a little bit slower as the accumulating snow dragged at his feet. He put his head down and walked into the wind, squinting ahead for a familiar landmark. A few times he thought he might have regained the path, only to find he instead walked an animal trail. Even realizing his mistakes, he continued to follow them in the hopes they would eventually lead to at least a water source he might recognize.

Many hours later, when he saw the light up ahead, he thought at first they were stars dancing in front of his eyes. His feet were cold lumps in his boots, the wind seeming to pass right through his skinny frame every time it gusted. He forced himself to pick up the pace, teeth chattering too much to even call a greeting as he recognized a familiar face, but raising his hand as he came within the cast of the torch light.

Lee Parable startled as Bailey nearly careened into him on the proper path, almost dropping the torch as his hands naturally formed signed exclamations of silent surprise. Seeing the state he was in, however, Lee Parable quickly recovered and shrugged out of his own overcoat to sling over Bailey’s shuddering shoulders. Never one to waste words, he didn’t ask why Bailey had been so late, nor what had made him leave the path as he led the way back.

The only time he spoke, it was to say, “Something follows us.”

“Yes.”

Lee glanced back at him; seeing no alarm, his pace didn’t quicken. But there was something in the faraway look in Bailey’s eye he didn’t entirely trust, either, so that his guard stayed up. Bailey still felt somewhat dazzled by the light as he followed its bobbing head back to his door. His thoughts felt rather far away even when Pin descended on them both at the door, fluttering about them as they shook off snow and stomped their boots clear. He missed the anxious look exchanged between them as they got Bailey up to the kitchen, seated near the fireplace. Even in its warmth, back in his own kitchen, still he didn’t seem present until Pin stuck an iron needle in his finger to check whether he still bled.

“Ow,” he muttered, brows drawing down as he brought his bleeding thumb to his mouth.

“Apolo’em,” she said, looking less repentant than relieved. “Look’ee so distant and alien. Wasn’t sure Lee Parable hadn’t brought’em some seemling.”

Bailey glanced over to where Lee Parable was holding the fire poker, giving a somewhat more apologetic shrug than Pin had managed as he set the makeshift weapon aside. The Joplin provided quietly, “You left the path.”

“Yes, well. I’d hope if I were actually a creature wearing your brother’s face, you might have noticed before I was brought into the household,” Bailey grumbled at Pin as she pressed a hot mug of something that smelled medicinal into his hands. “Or leant it your coat. Thank’ee, for that,” he added, returning the heavy garment to its rightful owner. As Lee Parable was hanging it up to dry over the fire, Bailey caught Pin still giving him a narrow look. “What, a drop of blood wasn’t enough for you, you terribly suspicious child?”

“What happened out there?” she asked, quietly. “Look’ee… different. Like’ee not all here, still.”

“I’m a bit rattled. I got lost hours ago,” he side-stepped, drinking from his mug to buy time. Nose wrinkling as he gagged it down. “’Sblood, Pin, this is terrible.”

“That’s how’ee know’s medicine,” she answered, primly.

She still didn’t seem wholly satisfied with his explanation, but she stopped pressing while Lee Parable drew up a chair to sit with them and share their company for a while. They kept the conversation fairly light, for as long as he was there. He was very nearly family—he’d helplessly adored Bailey’s older sister, Airiadnee, before the Wilderness has claimed her, and he’d been a fairly dependable friend in all the intervening years since—but there were some things that really should only be discussed within the House. So they spoke in broad terms of their day. Lee mentioned that, for all that this was a late storm, most other signs pointed towards an early spring and an early planting. Pin shared that they’d had a minor setback that afternoon in construction when one of the giant birds that populated the region had tried to poke its enormous beak in through the open glass panel where Talus Mos had been working, and that it hadn’t gone away until Pin had shot at it—and missed—with three arrows.

After Lee Parable eventually left to get some rest, Bailey poked up the fire. Distracted by the dancing light, he found his thoughts wandering, yet again, to the glasswork woman. Wondering how it was her eyes had seemed to contain this same flame. Whether it had been caught at the time of her forming, or whether she generated it anew under those fleeting rays of sunlight.

“Was’t that bad?” Pin asked, stirring him from these musings. “The meeting with Rush?”

“Hmm? Oh,” he set the poker aside, coming to sit back down. “No. No, it was fine. They accepted our invitation. Warden Rush was a bit blunter than the other Houses have been: that they’re going to be judging us pretty harshly, to see if it’s even worth it to help us out. But if he’s not entirely sympathetic, I also don’t think he’s adverse to our position.”

“But might be all’s for nothing,” Pin said, hand creeping to her mouth in an unconscious comfort gesture.

“It might be,” he agreed, wishing he could spare her this frank discussion. It still seemed too heavy a thing to put on her shoulders, even recognizing he’d been even younger than she was now when he’d had to take over as head of the House. He knew she wasn’t a baby anymore, but over the years he’d tried to shield her at least a little from how dire their situation had become. “If they don’t think our House has a future, there’d be no point in naming one more Reed.”

She sighed, but nodded, the atmosphere primarily somber. Houses died, sometimes, when resources or members dwindled too low. They both knew that, intellectually, but it was another thing entirely to live it. On the whole, when a child was going to be born, the two Houses involved would negotiate to provide the new baby with the most resources—deciding which House was stronger and naming the child there. If the Houses were on approximately equal footing, sometimes the child was given to one family in concession for some other trade or promise. But if your House sank low enough, there was little negotiating power, and very few offers would tempt even the greediest House to allow a child to be born into an impoverished name. Occasionally a stronger Sister-House might step in on your behalf to help with negotiations, or they might offer up a fosterling of their own just to keep the House alive. An extreme measure, but sometimes a necessary one.

“Well,” Pin shook these heavy thoughts off, sighing as she stood. “Have’em impress, then, so’s favor’em.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Bailey said, feigning more confidence than he felt, toying with the end of one of his sleeves.

“Go to bed, gloomy,” she said on her way out, not fooled. “It’ll look brighter, tomorrow.”

He nodded, absently, but stayed where he was seated for some time longer, his eyes trailing to the gusts of snow blowing past the enormous windows. Telling himself that he’d primarily imagined he’d heard another set of footsteps trudging through the snow during the long trek home. That Lee Parable’s flame was the first and only light he’d seen in the dark. And that a glass creation couldn’t feel the cold.

The intent still hadn’t entirely formed in his mind when he made his way to the sewing bin. There were a few articles still set to be mended, and others that just hadn’t been put away. This simple old dress of Pin’s, for instance, had been in here for half a year by now. He’d put off repairing it for so long that by the time he’d mended the hem, the child had far outgrown it, shooting up like a weed last summer. So it wasn’t like she would even miss it, really. Wherever it ended up. He told himself he was only going outside to check when he dug out his coat and refastened his boots to his feet. What he was going to check he didn’t quite confront, nor the purpose behind bringing this old dress with him. He stepped into the yard, and from there back beneath the trees. Hearing nothing but the wind winding its way overhead and his own footsteps crunching a new path. When he came to a stump some little ways in, he casually lay the dress there. Pausing for only a moment to feel rather foolish before retreating to the house again. He kept his eyes on the welcoming kitchen lights, moving steadily onward and not looking back. Even when he heard the soft, distinct sounds of fabric rustling behind him.

***

The snow had stopped by early morning. Within hours of dawn, the sun had melted off most of the accumulation. As if to rewrite the prior day and erase all trace of its passing.

Bailey rather wished such a thing were possible. His first thought on waking had been a kind of wordless panic that sent him catapulting from his hammock to the window, his hands dragging distracted through the ends of his hair as he thought back on the day before, as one might recall a particularly bewildering dream. Had he taken complete leave of his senses? Bad enough that he’d awoken some Ancient evil and let it follow him home. Had he actually gone out into the storm last night and given it a Wind-bitten dress?

No, he couldn’t have been that thoughtless. Or self-destructive. Or selfish. Foolish. Irresponsible. Short-sighted. Reckless.

He was on around his third iteration for insults directed at himself when he firmly decided to just push it from his mind. He would just go on as if it had never happened. And hopefully that would be the end of it.

And it wasn’t as if there weren’t a host of issues to otherwise occupy his thoughts. He had a week to prepare for his cousins’ arrival and show off just how well they were doing. And then there was the seasonal hiring coming around again, the work orders to sort, a few more inquiries into whether a good herbalist wouldn’t be willing to apprentice Pin, do another check for any broken windows before the next windy season, and he still needed to go back through and catalogue what they might need from the next passing tinker or whether an actual trip to town would be necessary. Not to mention the seventh-year tithe would be due, and he’d sooner trust his own sums than accept the calculated tax on good faith.

When Pin finally tracked him down late that afternoon, he had therefore had a very busy day with legitimate House business to keep him entirely preoccupied. His long pipe was clamped between his teeth, the thick, colored smoke pooling around the ankles of the stool he was perched on as he distractedly puffed away. The little workroom he’d claimed was covered in little tapestry notations and glass panels of receipts and tallies. In his lap, he had a complicated tangle of strings and beads he was busy braiding together as he muttered under his breath and occasionally jabbed at a little button-covered machine at his side that gave very unhelpful dings at certain intervals. This only seemed to make him type in his sums in an angrier fashion, soliciting ever-shriller dings.

“Oughta just hire’ee Red,” Pin opined.

“Nearly finished,” he said around his pipe, not looking up. “What ‘s it, Pin, busy’em.”

“Found’em this outside, this morning. Know’ee where it came from?” Pin asked, setting something down on a small empty corner of the table.

Still trying to keep a running count going in his head, Bailey was leaning over to grab a red bead from the farther edge of the table when he glanced at it. And then promptly fell off his stool.

It was her. The glasswork woman he’d freed the day before. The creature of living light, of fluid art, of a solid fucking punch, and he was already quite winded again as he scrambled to his feet, choking on a breath of smoke and ignoring Pin’s surprised exclamation. Because of course it wasn’t actually her. It was only a figurine, barely the size of his ring finger. And yet so clearly it was her features: the little slope of her somewhat bulbous nose, the twin scars on her cheeks, the long hair, the rather bottom-heavy shape. As small as it was, every bit of it was still finely, carefully formed—if he squinted hard enough, he thought he could see little fingernails shaped in the clear glass.

“Where’d’ee get’s?” he demanded, eyes watering as he continued to cough up a lung.

“It was on the stoop, this morning. Bailey, what ‘s it? ‘S wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s… nothing to worry about,” he said, picking up the stool and avoiding eye contact. Busying himself with tapping out his pipe, pounding his fist on his chest to get the last of his coughs out. “Apolo’em, Pin, I just took a bad breath, there. I think I’ve been doing these sums for too long. Well, it’s a cute figure. Are you sure Talus Mos didn’t make it?”

“He’s good,” she conceded. “But don’t think’em ever done anything quite this close to life. Almost looks to breathe, doesn’t it?”

“Mm,” he had to agree, and though he had just finished telling himself he should feign indifference, his eye was dragged back to studying the figurine. Almost, yes, he could imagine its tiny breast stirred with breath. He remembered how the actual glasswork had begun with a small ticking of her internal mechanism to signal her return to life and motion.

“’S odd, it turning up on our door. ‘N it almost seems trying to say something, doesn’t it?”

This, too, he had to acknowledge. The figure was curtsying, wearing the dress he’d left outside. She was peeking from behind the curtain of her hair, but even if the little figurine hadn’t been designed with its face visible at all, the posture was obviously one of embarrassed gratitude.

“Strange subject, too. Not a classic beauty. But ‘s something charming about it.”

Something warm and brilliant, captivating and achingly alive. The way a trampled little flower with half its petals missing was still just as lovely, almost improved for its idiosyncrasies. Such a funny little thing, looking just rather unfairly adorable in that hand-me-down dress. Yes, he supposed it was possible someone might get that impression.

And maybe he should be more cautious. Maybe this figurine carried some bit of that Ancient thing’s consciousness and it was only here to spy on them, and he would do better to smash it. Or destroy it anyway, just because of where it came from. But even such thoughts were fleeting—he could no more seriously consider shattering this than he could the actual glasswork.

He glanced over to find Pin not trying especially hard to hide her grin. “What?” he demanded.

“Are’ee blushing, Bailey?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered, which only seemed to be making the heat in his face worse. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Pin gave a delighted laugh. “Oh, are’ee awful’some liar, Bailey. Should’ee just told me had’ee sweetheart, dolty-face. La, now it all makes sense! This’s why’ee’ve suddenly pushed so hard for our Sister-Houses to step in on your behalf, isn’t it? To help negotiate with her House? Oh, sneak’ee, should’ve just told me!”

“Pin, you know that’s absurd. This deal with our Sister-Houses has taken years of careful planning—“

“Is this where’ee were yesterday, when’ee got lost?”

“I don’t know where you get the basis for this fantasy you’ve concocted—“ he started, rather uncomfortable with just how close she was guessing.

“Know’em family? Wait, let me see,” she said, picking the figurine up and skipping back out of Bailey’s reach as she squinted at its features. “Her hair’s even longer’n straighter’n mine. But got’em almost a bit of a Mountain’some look about’em, doesn’t she? Ah, ah!” she cautioned, darting around the side of the table as Bailey tried to snatch the glass figure from her hands. “Let me guess the House. ‘S it Vale? Ponderosa? Luna? But no, stick’em close to home. Almost Aster, and get’em strong Violet. ‘S not Mountain garb, though—almost looks like one of my old dresses.”

“Well if you’re quite finished, I’m going for a walk,” Bailey announced, trying to salvage what was left of his dignity.

“Are’ee going to see her, again? Can I meet’em?” she asked, nearly hopping with excitement.

“No, no, you seem to be doing quite well enough playing make-believe over there.”

“I’ll quit teasing,” Pin pledged. “I know it can be delicate, these negotiations, early on, ‘n I won’t go blabbering to everyone.”

“That’s very fortunate, as there’s no one to meet, you silly thing. There isn’t,” he insisted at her disbelieving pout. “I just need to get some air and check on the traps.”

“All right, keep’ee secrets.” Pin huffed, taking his vacated seat. “But tell’em I said ‘hi!’” she called after him, so that he flinched and glanced around lest anyone else had heard her. At this point not really sure whether he should be more hopeful or horrified at the idea running into the glasswork girl again.

***

Under the cover of the trees, the sun had not yet completely melted away the new snowfall by the time Bailey made his way outside. He was better dressed for the weather, this time around. His fancy clothing he’d packed away again, but his homespun and thick jacket served him in good stead. He readjusted the quiver on his back and held his bow at the ready as he followed a different path from the one he’d tread the day before, walking south to check the traps and see if he could scare up some larger game.

A scant ten minutes had passed when he first spotted the footprints off the path. Relatively small tracks compared to his, carrying the imprint of a bare foot. Another hour’s melt might have obliterated their mark entirely, but he could clearly see which direction they headed: away from the house and towards where he knew there were some old ruins. And maybe he should leave it at that. Let this thing pass out of his life and just be grateful that it hadn’t brought ruin on them all.

His gut told him he’d only narrowly dodged tragedy. His head accepted this notion as sound. And yet he found his feet turned off the path as his heart beat rather too quickly in his chest.

These ruins had been picked apart, over the many years. Only a few sophisticated Red Houses knew how to rework some of the most durable of the Ancient metal like the site where the glasswork had been entombed. But the Ancients had also made their buildings of stone and glass parts that were more easily scavenged. What was left at these ruins was therefore little more than a skeleton of some of the crumbled buildings, not worth dismantling, overgrown with vegetation. It had been built on the edge of a steep drop-off, beyond which the Kin River could be seen still winding its way east before it flowed northward.

It was on the ledge of a dilapidated wall that he spotted her again. She was sitting with her skirts bunched up around her knees, bare feet swinging freely as she looked out over the ledge into the forest. She’d retained her color, but looking up at her profile, he could see that where, before, her expression had been lively and animated, she appeared more withdrawn, now. A cold wind blew, pulling her hair out like a long banner. And while she didn’t shiver, her posture was stiff, and she carried herself rather carefully, as if holding together all the cracks in her glass skin.

“This used to all be city,” she finally spoke. She had an accent he couldn’t quite place, reflective of a place and a time that no longer existed. Her voice a bit deeper than he might have imagined, for her little frame. Perhaps it was only a component of the glass, though, because the chiming resonance of the sound seemed to be finding a place somewhere in his sternum. “So much of what I remember before my long dreaming passes through me, like the sun through my palm,” she said, considering her hand as its color faded to clear and then returned. “But I do know this: the forests had only been lonely oases between the roads. And a city had thrived here, from one end of the horizon to the next.”

His eyes were still captivated by the hand she’d held aloft, and he spoke unthinkingly. “Why didn’t the Ancients make you in their image, with six fingers?”

“Make me?” She seemed to genuinely consider the question as she turned over her hand. “No,” she spoke slowly, her voice rather distant. “No, I made this. I remember shaping every finger to replace the ones I’d have to leave behind. Six was common, but, no, not everyone had that many. And when they said the end was coming, that what would be left of our bodies would be less than human anyway…”

She trailed off and then stopped studying her hands, instead using them to collect her hair and twist it aside. This done, she finally looked down to fully acknowledge Bailey’s presence. He was gazing up in some wonder, still reeling from this information, in many ways worse than he’d suspected: to be not only a tool of the Ancients, but one of them herself. Or what was left of one, under all that vagueness and formed glass. Created to escape the calamity of their world ending. She said she remembered little, but how much of it was forbidden and dangerous? She said she’d made this only to survive, but who knew what terrible purpose might be buried deep in her programming?

 She seemed to become more self-aware under his eye, now fidgeting where she sat. The little movements betraying some inner drive, a richer sense of self than any created thing could boast. Not a creature, not a tool, not an emissary of the Ancient’s evils. Just a young woman whose world had ended and who had survived it as best she could.

“I’m sorry I pushed you. It… I was disoriented, and you were perched there a strange man all bird bone and sunshine, and y-you had such a light in your eye it’s a wonder I could keep my glass innards from melting, but that’s… that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry. And thank you, for the dress, too I… I d-didn’t know if…”

Maybe there was something a little off in her wind-up. She was turning rather red again, and took the opportunity of hopping down from her high spot on the old wall to try to collect herself. She noted how he flinched when her feet touched down on the hard stone, and she offered a small smile that made the cracks in her cheeks shift in a strange way that ultimately was rather charming. She smoothed down her skirts, her hair spilling free around her shoulders and down her back. Such a comical little contradiction she made as she reassured, “I’m more durable than I look.”

Is that why he felt like he was the one who had been shattered? “Yes,” he managed, “I can see that, now.”

He hadn’t really been aware he’d taken a step closer to her until he saw the way she tensed. Not a strict fear response, perhaps, but a kind of wariness that made him immediately halt, to let the tension drain away again. Strange to think she would have anything to fear from him, but it didn’t seem a wise thing to confront just then.

“The cities aren’t all gone,” he offered, pointing over the drop off. “Another half-day’s walk brings you to a little town. And far beyond that, in the desert, is the empire’s hub.”

“Empire?” she murmured, mostly to herself. “No, that… doesn’t sound familiar. At all. How… how long have I been…?” She seemed to catch herself, though, focusing on him again. “Sorry, I guess you wouldn’t know, I was just thinking out loud and…”

“Oh. I might know,” Bailey said, tone casual, suddenly becoming preoccupied with his sleeve cuffs. He felt the burning light of her interested gaze on him and tried very hard to keep his voice lofty and academic. “If I had a few more details I could be more exact. But judging by the technology that went into forming your body, from your tomb, and from your memory of there being a city here—you were right on the cusp of the last of the Ancient Era, before we entered the sunless times of the Dark Epochs. I just finished reciting those histories to my cousins, as it happens, so I know the stories well. But even that tale is days in telling and, really, that’s only the beginning of it from your time. We’ve passed through many eras since then, just to get where we are now.”

“I suppose… I’ll pick it up as I go,” she began dubiously, looking off the way he’d pointed. “Because so much of my memory is a smudge on my mind’s eye, I could just try to make the best of what I have? Start fresh in that town down there?”

Her mouth was setting with determination as the thought seemed to take hold, her resolve firming. But was that really such a good idea? Walking in blind, without a House to speak for her, without a clue as to custom? Amongst strangers who could, at any time, divine her origin? He told himself that it was only the thought that this could somehow be traced back to him that made him feel a lurch of panic, his words a little rushed as he offered, “I could fill you in, on what you’ve missed. Not all of it. But enough to get by. If you like.”

She hesitated, and he tried to keep his face neutral, eyes directed to the side as she considered this alternative. “I don’t want to impose,” she began.

“You made that little figurine, didn’t you?”

“Y-es?” she said, stretching the word out. “Sorry, I didn’t know if you’d… want to actually see me again after…”

“How did you make it, out here? I didn’t see any tools.”

“Well, um, yeah, but there’s old glass all over the ground, here.”

He glanced to her and she colored a bit as if embarrassed, again. But she bent to the ground to demonstrate, shifting the old rubble between her fingers. As he watched, the glass bits—smoothed almost into pebbles by time—began to glow a hot red, growing malleable and stretching as she teased it into a little flower shape. And then, just as quickly, formed it back into a ball and dropped the red-hot glass back to the ground.

“That’s very useful,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “Can you also use tools, if someone were watching you?” At her hesitant nod, he said, “Well. If you’re that good at glasswork, you’ll have a steady career. There’s always more work to be done, even if it’s in construction and repair and not fine art. There are some projects around my home—you can help, there, while I tell you a shortened version of the histories. As kind of an informal contract.”

“That… actually sounds perfect. Okay, it’s a deal!” she agreed, moving forward and snatching up his hand in sudden enthusiasm.

He’d just watched her melt glass with those fingers. He wondered at himself, that his first instinct had still been to clasp her hand in return. Frankly, under the circumstances, he probably deserved to have his whole limb charred off for that. But her hand was only warm to the touch, as any person’s would be. Her beaming expression somehow making him feel a little brighter, a little lighter. How could someone have created glass eyes with so much depth to them—even if she had been some master worker in her prior life, how had she captured that nuance? Even from only a step away, her façade was flawless, every glass hair of her eyelashes perfectly formed.

To the eye. His hand knew better. She was warm, yes, but the texture of her skin was still smooth, hard, unyielding glass. It was worth remembering, he told himself sternly, even as she released him and danced back a few steps again, looking a bit flustered.

“Sorry, I… Yes, that sounds like a good plan. And thank you. Um. So what should I…? I actually forgot to ask your name.”

“It’s Carson, of the House of Reed,” he replied, somewhat relieved to have a protocol to fall back on. “And if your memory is still a smudge—I suppose you don’t remember what you were called.”

“Actually, there’s something engraved on my sole, so I think that must be right,” she said, balancing on one foot as she looked at the bottom. “See, it says ‘Catherine Derringer,’ so either that’s me, or someone was having a real laugh with me while I was—“ She looked up, startled at his sudden movement. He’d stepped away from her, and she was surprised by how bloodless he’d gone. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes were riveted on the words. “Can you get rid of that?” he asked, hoarsely. “The way you made your skin color, or even if burn’ee out’s—can’ee remove that?” She put her foot back down, and he was finally able to meet her eye, seeing how tense she was again. “The written Word can’t be suffered,” he started, but even trying to explain it seemed too much to bear just then.

Ultimately, he shook his head, the long gap of history between them. Taking his kerchief from his pocket, he knelt in front of her. And, although she was still quite confused, she permitted him to tie the fabric over her foot like he was wrapping a wound, hiding it from view.

He straightened, already visibly calmer. “Perhaps that’s where we’ll begin, then.”

***

They had a somewhat circuitous path back to the house as Bailey took the opportunity to first check his hunting traps and try to lay some groundwork for telling the histories. Although she was full grown and seemed to have some fuzzy memory of her life during the Ancient times, it seemed best not to rely on that recollection and just try to start from scratch. He therefore approached this latter task as he would for any very young student, which meant essentially going all the way back. The glasswork woman, he found, made for a fairly receptive audience, and once she’d forgotten a bit of her nervousness, she had copious questions about nearly everything: What was this Word? How does a Word speak itself? Why did the Wind have a will but most other things in the cosmos didn’t? How do you eat a Word? Was this supposed to be allegorical? And so on and so forth, but she had to outright stop him when he got around to talking about writing being part of what caused the Ancient’s end.

“That can’t be right,” she insisted, pushing her hair out of her face again.

The forest path here was a bit narrow, but she turned sideways and trotted to keep up just so she could confront Bailey on this.

“Writing is—it’s how you learn! There’s just no way to communicate aloud all that information. And if you had specialized knowledge, it would get lost if you didn’t tell enough people before you died.”

“We get by.”

“But how is this any worse than just speaking? Isn’t that also messing with the Word, or whatever?”

“Some think so,” he conceded. “North of here, the Joplins only allow the children to speak, and adults are expected to know better. So they sign—“ “See, that’s also language!”

“—as people were intended to, without treading into the specific domain reserved to the Word. But for most people, just speaking isn’t profane in the way trapping the Word in immutable forms would be.” He glanced to her, and seeing her somewhat mutinous expression, said, “This isn’t debatable.”

“It just seems so… backwards. And inefficient.”

“It’s the way of the world, Derringer Cater—Catherine,” he said, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar word.

“Cat’s fine,” she brushed it off, missing his look of quickly-controlled surprise.

“I can say it properly, Derringer Catherine,” he said, somewhat stiffly, as if to prove that he could.

“Hmm, well. So, wait, you don’t keep any records?”

“Oh. No, we do. In beadwork, or made in glass sheet grooves. As approximations of the ideas, and mostly to keep track of House business.”

“Seems like cheating,” she muttered as they stepped from the path to visit the third trap. She absentmindedly gathered up the hem of her skirt to lift it away from the melting snow, otherwise seeming oblivious to the cold conditions. “And it also just seems like the wrong lesson to learn, here. I know we must have done a lot wrong, but for you guys all to take from that that illiteracy was preferable to—good God!” she broke off as she spotted something caught in the trap, her feet scrambling backwards so that she nearly fell right on the slushy earth. “What the hell is that?”

Bailey wasn’t entirely certain, himself. Creatures could look so different, when they were as sick as this one was. He couldn’t tell if it had initially had that rat tail, or if that was another product of the mange that left clumps of matted, bloody hair scattered about the trap from the creature’s thrashing. The trap itself wasn’t designed to permanently injure, but it’s skin was so delicate even its attempts to free itself had resulted in most of the flesh sloughing off. It had what looked like six functional limbs, and one boneless one growing from about midway up its hind-quarters. Its milky eye told him it had likely been blind from birth. Its open sores wiggled with parasites that seemed to have come from within.

“Not fit to eat,” he sighed, drawing his knife to put it out of its misery. He avoided the snap of its spindly teeth to slit its throat. The blood that wept from the wound was sluggish and thick, and he quickly wiped his blade clean in some of the melting snow. He’d need to find another place to reset the trap, let the forest reclaim this patch while the carcass rotted.

Derringer had been quiet while he did this, her face a mixture of disgust and pity. “Are there… a lot of things out here, like that?”

“Not as many as there used to be. They’re born sick, so most don’t live long enough to reproduce. And we’ve done a pretty thorough job of killing the ones that do manage to survive. It’s been a slow process, but now it’s fairly few and far between you find one as bad off as this.”

She was more reticent, again, as she followed him back to the path. Her colors seemed a bit muted, the bright gold of her eye dimmed as she watched the ground. Eventually, she offered softly, “We really screwed up, didn’t we.”

He didn’t dispute it. “There’s more. And there aren’t enough steps between here and the house to tell it all. It’s more than just the writing on your foot: you’re going to need to be on your guard against anyone discovering your origins. The Ancients were powerful and fearless, but their ingenuity was often tainted with their own self-destructive tendencies. What we have from the Ancients, their machines or their medicines, we have slowly tested over the course of generations. Anything new—anything unexpected or potentially dangerous—we generally destroy. Clockworks are a mixed bag, sometimes still useful and able to repeat the functions for which they were made. I’ve never heard of one quite like you,” he admitted, “but as I say, that doesn’t help you much, because that means you’re wholly new.”

“You destroy things just because you don’t understand them?” she asked, and as shaken as she still was, she couldn’t quite hide the contempt in her voice. “Seems a bit barbarous.”

“You think so? Ah, well. Perhaps we are a barbarous people.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“In the Era of Coldstill, five generations from the Sun’s release,” he cut her off, making a sign of the era to signal the start of the lesson, “was the township of Casing, named for the Ancient tech casing in the town’s center. Near the base of the Mountains was it founded, during the times when the kingdoms were still forming and the fertile plains were yet unruled. Being so near the Mountains, they carried on the city-state form of government, where no family has any kind of direct political voice as our Houses give us. Casing was a bustling town that made use of the rich farmland, timber, natural ores from the mountainside, and, most importantly, the Ancient’s treasures they mined with impunity. They knew the dangers, but laughed at them as old superstitions from the ignorant and cowardly. And for a time, they seemed justified. The township of Casing grew and thrived, utilizing Ancient technology to tend their crops, to gather resources more easily, to subdue their enemies. It was a beautiful town, by all accounts. If you have the stomach for it, you can still go see it. The city is there, as it likely will be until the sun finally winks out: every inch of it, every paving stone, every child, every blade of grass, perfectly preserved from where they were covered in the Ancient dark metal that does not corrode. No one is sure exactly how it happened. Some think the Ancient artifact at the town center used to be some sort of city-maker, meant to create buildings in an instant, as some of the stories say, and that it was only that the controls had some internal miscalculation. Others think it might have been sabotage, from ones trying to punish them for their hubris. Whatever it was, it must have happened in an instant, to capture them like that, totally encased in metal, without a hint of fear or knowledge of their impending end. And so it remains, as a reminder to those who would needlessly meddle with the Ancient’s things.”

The forest path was a bit narrower, here, requiring that they go one-by-one. At his back, Derringer seemed to be absorbing the story, too engrossed in its implications to even interrupt with a question. Her steps were slowing, and when she stopped entirely, he turned back. She stood on the path, her hands twisting the fabric of her skirt in a nervous gesture. Her head was bent slightly, the long sweep of her hair partially obscuring her face. The angle of light through the trees showed her skin had become somewhat translucent again, casting refracted light onto the earth around her. At the neckline of her dress, Bailey could just make out a shadow of her inner workings as they hummed away inside of her, a perfect mechanism of engineering and art that still somehow didn’t account for the spark of living light in her eyes as her gaze darted up to meet his.

“If that’s all true,” she said, “if Ancient things are so terrible—why are you taking me back with you? Why did you wake me up at all?”

“Ah, well. It figures. All this knowledge of history, and apparently I’m still not very wise.” He could see she wasn’t satisfied with that answer, her silence prompting further response. “The histories are reminders. They help guide us. But we can still reason for ourselves. As I say, I don’t know that there’s ever been another like you. We’re warned from unintentionally injuring ourselves from technology left behind by the Ancients. But you aren’t a thing that was left behind you’re… a person. Misplaced in time. If you hurt me, it will be by your own volition. Is that your intention?”

“No. Not intentionally,” she said, and he rather wished she hadn’t sounded so solemn about it. She was looking at her hands, again, something pained flickering over her features. “I remember making this form. So there must have been something, before. But… I can’t really tell you I was that same person, for sure. Maybe this is only a… casing, for a very sophisticated machine with a facsimile of life.”

“Well,” he said. “If you are just clockwork—at that level of sophistication, is there really any difference?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She let her hand drop, her opacity returning as she straightened her back and gestured him on ahead of her towards the house. “But I can see why you might caution against putting that question to the public at large. It seems more something I’d rather work out for myself, rather than risk just having any old person decide it’d be a good idea to try and smash me.”

From behind, she saw a shudder run over his skinny frame. He tried to shake it off as owing to the weather as he readjusted his coat, but she could see his ears had reddened a bit with the emotion he’d suppressed. A curiously visceral response as he only gave a brief nod of agreement and swiftly changed the subject.

When they finally reached the house, the day was deepening towards twilight, again. The faint speckles of the stars that had persisted through midday now reclaimed the sky in earnest as the heavy red sun gave way for another night. One day closer to when the Sister-Houses would be arriving to judge their progress and determine their viability.

That seemed like something to worry about tomorrow, though. For now, Bailey was trying to figure out how to get the glasswork woman into the house without exciting unnecessary attention. It was inevitable that Pin would discover their visitor, of course. But he could only hope she would keep true to her promise of discretion, even if this wasn’t exactly what Pin had had in mind. Better to have everything sorted and above board even before he saw anyone else. So he avoided the front and the kitchen entrance. From a distance he had spotted Lee Parable heading in from the fields—his sensitive skin heavily veiled even against the weak winter sun, carrying a soil-testing apparatus slung over his shoulders—but Bailey had only given a wave of acknowledgement. He then hustled Derringer Catherine around the side at the base of one of the trees that made up a farther wing. The bark was worn smooth where generations had placed their hands, so that even if she weren’t following right behind, Derringer probably could have made her way up to his bedroom window. It was a rather charming little room, she reflected, shimmying down from the wide sill. A bit cluttered, perhaps. A hammock was strung up near the window they’d entered, with the thick coverlets on it rucked a bit. Elsewhere were incidentals people tended to collect wherever they might stay for long, the way dust gathers in the corners of a room: a half-finished tapestry, some baskets of yarn, a few little machines, clothing stored more or less in bins, a few glass figurines that caught the light. A kind of litter of life. She wondered, suddenly, what her room had looked like. It made her feel a little less real, to not even have such a banal way to mark her history.

Bailey had been checking the hallway. It hadn’t really occurred to him until they’d arrived, but he was not unaware of just how much of his private life he’d unwittingly exposed to her. Seeing the hall was empty, he hastened her out of the room with no small amount of relief.

They were curiously twisty hallways, rather narrow and tall for the most part, with sunroofs high above and more rooms and alcoves speckled down their path. Eventually they came back to the accounting room where Bailey had passed most of the day, and he was chagrinned to find that Pin had left the glass figure of Derringer right in the middle of his workspace. Determined not to let it rattle him, he merely cleared a space to quickly draw up a simple contract that would pass inspection. He also took the opportunity to supply her with an old satchel and directed her to make a bowl and utensils for herself from some of the glass—the bare minimum anyone would leave home with—so she at least had the appearance of having traveled there. He then dug out a violet earring for her. Trying heartily to ignore the little thrill that swept over him when her fingers brushed over his.

“This looks like your ring,” she said, turning over the earring to look at the tree design as she nodded to the ring on his hand.

“Well I should hope so; it’s my House’s sigil.”

“It’s pretty. Although some might say a symbol that means a specific thing is a kind of word,” she said, a smile breaking out across her face at his disgruntled frown. She pushed her hair back a bit from her face as she considered, “I don’t even know if my ears are pierced, come to think of it. Can you see if…?”

He kept his expression still as he managed a mute nod and got up to go to her side of the worktable. She was perched on another stool, there, her feet nowhere near the ground. She kept her gaze fixed ahead, cheeks only slightly pink, head cocking to give him better access. He was trying to still the trembling in his fingers as he finally was given permission to touch—and yet reigned in the temptation, so that he only lightly brushed her hair to the side. Still marveling in the warm flow of her locks over his fingers. Her eyes were lowered, eyelashes skimming the top of her scarred cheeks. He saw her shiver slightly as he uncovered the shell of her ear and found they were indeed pierced. Wordlessly, he took the glass earring from her and fastened it in place.

He stepped back, quickly, as she reached up to feel the earring, spilling her hair over her other shoulder. She seemed oblivious to the effect she had on him as she mused, “I suppose it must seem a strange thing not to know about yourself. To exist in a body you don’t seem to properly own. But every time I try to recall, it’s as if I’m looking back through fogged glass. I can make out… fragments. Sometimes the shape of it more than anything. But few details. I wonder if it was because of what I did to myself, to make me like this—or if in the long centuries of my sleep, it all simply faded out of me. Like an old book left out in the elements, the sun leeching all my colors and words away.” She stirred herself, glancing to him and saying, “Um. Or I guess not a book. Since you don’t… Sorry. So, what now?”

What indeed. He had been puzzling over it while he’d been drawing up the contract, until then mostly acting on instinct. He’d considered just trying to hide her in various projects about the rambling house and just make time to give her history lessons as well he could. But that ultimately seemed a recipe for disaster if Pin stumbled upon her and launched an interrogation. Better to act as if there were nothing to hide and keep this within his control. So he said, “I can show you to where they’re working on the new greenhouse. It’s glasswork, but less technical skill involved than your talents actually warrant—mostly grunt work—so it won’t take much of your concentration while I fill you in on more of the histories.”

“Who’s working on it now?” she asked, following where he led back out into the hall.

“Oh. Well. My fauder, Talus Mos, mostly, but my little sister has been assisting him.”

He spoke casually, but he was toying with the cuff of his sleeve and walking a bit quicker to try to cut off conversation. Eventually their windy path took them out on a farther limb and up through the floor of a rounded room perched on a higher bough. She squinted up through where the fading daylight was being caught by the clever play of glass panels. Grunt work, indeed!

Up along one of the high, sloping walls, she could see two people in harness at work: an older man and a teenage girl, carefully fitting one of the glass panels into the wall. The girl held it in place while the man made a few minor adjustments and then carefully ran a glowing-hot tool along the joining seam, to do a first seal. He nodded his approval, and the girl let go, glancing down for the first time.

“Oh!” she said, her eye immediately falling on Derringer Catherine. Her hand leap to her mouth, even as it split in a wide grin and she began to giggle uproariously.

“What’s funny?” the man demanded, also looking down but seeing little amusing about the situation.

Pin was already rappelling down almost faster than she could dole out the slack. “And who’s’ee, stranger?” she asked, in mock-shock.

“This is my sister, Reed Adelaide. And she’s Derringer Catherine. She’s been hired on to help out a bit.”

“Has’em, Bailey?”

Pin was grinning fit to burst while her brother pretended not to know what she was on about. Derringer wasn’t feigning being in the dark, at least, and could only try to return a somewhat confused smile of her own as the girl transferred her attention to the newcomer. Derringer could see the family resemblance between the two of them—both being rather tall and willowy blonds—and even with Pin’s cleft lip, the facial structure was fairly similar. She was also a bit annoyed that even with this sapling she had to look up to see Pin’s smile turn conspiratorial.

“So’ee came after all?” she stage-whispered. “La, but aren’t’ee na’much bigger’n your figurine’n all.”

“She’s here to help put up the greenhouse,” Bailey said, firmly.

“Don’t’ee worry. I won’t tell,” Pin assured her, ignoring him.

“Oh, uh, o-okay,” Derringer said, a bit dazed.

“And get’em lots’some time to talk, while we work!”

“You brought on new help?” Talus Mos was making his way down quite a bit slower. “I told you we’d finish before your Sister-Houses arrived. I keep my word,” he said, a bit stiffly.

“I know you do. But I need Pin elsewhere.”

Pin, seeing her chance to interrogate the newcomer slipping away, set up an exuberant protest that she was learning a useful skill and they’d already had setbacks, so they needed all hands on this to finish in time. At the same time, Talus Mos was arguing this wasn’t what they’d agreed to, they were all going to be in the way of one another, and that he still needed Pin to keep on-schedule. Bailey was trying to address both of their complaints at the same time, which just ended up with them all talking over one another, trying to get a word in edgewise. They certainly were a rowdy bunch, Derringer reflected, their words ringing off the greenhouse surfaces and right through her glass bones, until she finally interrupted, “I won’t be in the way!” which at least got their attention.

“I like odd hours,” she said. “I can work at night, and we’ll get it done twice as fast without getting in one another’s way.” She didn’t really seem to need sleep, as far as she could tell, so this seemed a good compromise.

“I’m amenable to that,” Talus Mos immediately agreed.

Pin was the only one whose aim was thwarted, now. But she ultimately had to content herself to that, telling herself she would still find a way to slake her curiosity. As Derringer Catherine claimed this a good a time as any to begin work, crying off that she had already eaten, Pin had to instead grill Bailey in undertones all the way back to the kitchen as they went to prepare the evening meal.

“Thought’ee say didn’t know’ee’em?” she sing-songed.

“Did I.”

“Is she staying long? Have’ee talked to her family? Where’s Derringer House? How’d’ee meet her out here?”

Pin didn’t seem to mind very much that he ignored her and just busied himself at making the meal, mostly just delighted to have something to tease him about. It had been a long, dreary winter of years for their House. She knew how he’d struggled to keep them afloat, always worrying about the family, putting it before all of his own needs. It relieved her that he finally wanted something for himself, which seemed to be making him happy in an embarrassed kind of way. So she didn’t push him too hard, mostly content to pester as she only hoped Derringer Catherine would stay with them for a long, long time.

***

Dinner was a busy affair. Beyond trying to tiptoe around Pin’s questions, an influx of House business snared Bailey’s attention.

First came agents from Harrington and Raise—Sister-Houses to one another who held longstanding contracts with the House of Reed for harvesting and land development. It still galled Bailey that in those early, lean years, he’d been forced to sell a long-coveted plot of his family’s land to the House of Raise. It had been necessary, and he had been sure the price was dear, but he couldn’t help the little twist of bitterness whenever he thought of it. His opinion of their Houses was not particularly high in any case. Their labor was steady, they fulfilled their contracts, and he envied them their numbers; but he’d yet to meet one of them who particularly interested him as people. True to form, these two were rather bland bead-counters who primarily seemed to enjoy one another’s company. They stayed for the meal after they had given confirmation of when and how many laborers would be supplied, but they declined to stay the night.

While they were cleaning up afterwards, the cook Bailey had hired weeks before arrived with his two assistants. This of course required some delicate maneuvering as contracts were affirmed, control of the kitchen was ceded, and proper housing was arranged. By the time Bailey was finished with that and left for them to start on tomorrow’s bread, he found Talus Mos waiting to ambush him, dancing around the insecurities that had seized him, given time to think it over. And so he had to be reassured that no, he was not being replaced, everything was fine, there was still a place for him here. And just when Bailey thought his working day might be over, Lee Parable had to politely request his attention yet again as regarded the soil sampling results, to work out which crops to plant where and how much seed and fertilizer they might need. This took some calculation, and they had each smoked approximately three pipes before they felt satisfied with their plan and left it for the day.

Bailey’s bones ached. Had been aching since his first growth spurt, although he hoped, by now, that he was nearing his full height. He decided to seek some relief in the steam room, down in the lower level. It was a large room, and he was grateful to sit alone in it, unbothered, and let the heat seep in. By the time he went to laboriously pump the shower cistern full, most of the aches had dissipated, and he was able to tolerate the cold shock of the drawn well-water. He looked forward to spring, when the river was not so frozen as to be dangerous and he wouldn’t have to do all this work just to get clean.

By the time he emerged, feeling marginally more human, it returned to him in a rush that he should really go check on Derringer, to see how she was settling into the work. He had meant to go back as soon as they had finished eating, but in the middle of everything else, he’d fallen back on his old routines and completely forgotten. A dread foreboding crept over him, his stride growing increasingly longer, as he only then realized that he hadn’t seen Pin since dinner.

Coming up through the floor, a glance skyward gave total vindication for his fears. For there was Pin, in harness again with a stack of glass plates, beside Derringer Catherine. They had paused in their work and—Bailey’s heart gave a lurch—Pin was holding onto the glasswork’s arm, tilting it as though to inspect it. Those dangerous glass fingers were held loose, the Ancient thing appearing calm and tolerant. When Bailey stumbled over the last ladder rung and clattered his way up with a hoarse shout, they both glanced down in some surprise, but still quite at their ease.

“Pin, let go!” he snapped, his fear putting an edge of anger into his voice.

“Derringer said’em I could look’see,” Pin answered stubbornly. As he was getting his own harness on, below, she continued talking to her companion. “And made’ee them, your own self? I’ve a cousin,” she continued, “lost a leg. Bone rot brought a fever that nearly took’em with the leg. When he’d recovered, get’em a mechanical in town, and barely slowed’em down. But’s just a machine—nothing like get’ee, here. ‘S like art. You’re wasted on the greenhouse. But how’d’ee lose both arms?”

“Not… all at once. I had time to prepare,” she put off actually answering, and was somewhat grateful for the interruption as Bailey made his way up to them.

The climb had given him a chance to cool the immediate spark of fear he’d felt, but Pin still felt it prudent to let go of Derringer’s arm and interject before she could be scolded: “I wasn’t snooping; get’em assist, and accidently brushed her arm, and ‘s only curious’some, anyway, and said’em fine, right, Derringer Casser—Catr…” Realizing she didn’t have much chance of pronouncing the name properly, she somewhat lamely repeated, “Derringer?”

“Um. Yes? She was helping,” she agreed, more firmly.

“I can take that over,” Bailey said. He was pleased that his hands were steady again when he gestured for the glass plates Pin was holding. “You should get some rest.”

Pin clutched them to herself instead, brows drawing down. “Why’s’ee not get’ee the same?”

“I have histories to recite. It’s part of the exchange for her work. You can stay if you like,” he shrugged, tone implying he didn’t care one way or the other. “But it’s all things you’ve heard before. And you’ll still need to be up with the dawn to help Talus Mos.”

“Thank you, for all your help,” Derringer Catherine put in at this point, so Pin’s expression was slightly less sour as she handed the glass plates over to her brother.

Even so, she lingered for a while longer, rather unsatisfied that they seemed to actually just be sticking to business. His recitation of the histories was such a basic primer, she wondered if he was deliberately doing it to bore her. But Derringer seemed to be listening attentively as she worked, asking appropriate questions. It was really quite dull. They worked easily, smoothly together, anticipating one another in their work and moving preemptively to meet the other’s needs. But Pin didn’t see any sign of the wistful looks or longing sighs she felt would have been more appropriate to two secret lovers. Finally, admitting defeat, she rappelled back down to the ground, sparing a last glance at them. Still working together in attentive synchronicity. Derringer’s skirt was bunched up almost scandalously over her knee, nearly bumping into his from time to time as they seemed drawn together, like two flames joining over the breath of oxygen between them.

When she was gone, Derringer set aside the tool she had been borrowing to switch over to just using her glass-molding hands, the work progressing at a much faster pace. Apparently preoccupied, she found the courage to broach the subject, “Sorry. I r-really didn’t plan that. It just kind of… I didn’t know what to say or… And it just seemed easy enough to let her think it was just my arms, and… I’m sorry, anyway, if I scared you, or…”

“It’s better than I could have come up with, on short notice,” he admitted. “And it was probably bound to come up.” There was a long pause. She had just about given up hope that he was actually going to address the real issue when he said, quietly, “It’s not you. Not entirely, anyway. If I really had doubts, I wouldn’t have let you in. I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near her. But…”

His hands were shaking. His lips twisted, holding back something vicious. A kind of fear lurked in the hollow spaces of his face. But when his averted eyes finally returned her gaze, she was the one who had to look away—the way one hides from the intense glare of the sun on a snowbank. She felt, again, a kind of aching emptiness in the heart of her. She found herself wondering if she had ever known someone who had cared for her the way he clearly cared for his family. Someone she must have entirely forgotten, somewhere in these many years. Strange to think even such passion could simply be lost.

When he began, again, to recite the histories, they both seemed only too eager to let the matter drop.

Even with a world of words to channel, the human body can only act as a conduit for so long. Bailey kept up for as long as he could, eventually settling in one place on a ledge to keep talking. Derringer set up a platform to take the glass panels from more swiftly, and she went ranging along the forming walls. The breaks between his stories began to stretch; his words began to soften and slur. Watching her work was hypnotizing. Her fearlessness when she’d slipped the harness and tied her skirts to one side, making new toeholds for herself as needed and smoothing the glass away as she finished. The little artistry she started to add to the panels, making landscapes and figures appear with a brush of her fingers. The steady sureness that entered her posture when she let herself get lost in her work. The distracted way she’d tucked her long hair away. The strength in her legs glimpsed when she would tense and shift from one part of her project to the next. Her body was fire licking the insides of this lantern room.

She could see the sun threatening the horizon when she finally sat back from her work, lest the rest of the family catch her at it. Only when she heard the first birdsong did it occur to her that the room was otherwise quiet. Had been quiet for some time.

At some point Bailey had dozed off. Perched on the ledge, still sitting in the safety harness, his cheek rested against the rope. It would be quite the rude awakening, should he fall. As she climbed up, level with him, she was struck by just how sleep changed him. The worry and caution eased away; his lips, slightly parted, lacking the somewhat mocking smile. Thin bones and gentle lines under threadbare clothing; almost breakable. It was only in motion, with the full force of his will and passions, that he seemed so formidable. Taking a seat beside him on the ledge, her hand hesitated before she tried to gently brush some of the hair off his brow—wild-growing wheat, it resisted the furrows her fingers attempted to make to tame it into line, springing right back. Under what sun did he fully ripen? He stirred at her touch, eyes opening blearily in some quiet confusion for the curious expression on her face.

Oh God. What had she been thinking? Her hand withdrew, swiftly. Apologies already bubbling out of her as she shifted over the ledge.

“Wait—“

The sound was tremendous in the quiet room. She had landed solidly, but steadily, uninjured. Only thrown off-center when Talus Mos poked his head up from the ladder she was approaching. He gained the room and looked around in some alarm.

“What was that? It sounded like a hammer falling!”

“It’s nothing to worry about. Derringer Catherine, wait, I—“ he let out a wordless gasp of discomfort upon moving his legs, the pins and needles spiking through him with a vengeance.

“Did you sleep in the harness?” Talus Mos demanded, disapproving, watching him fumble slack out of his line as he scrambled to get to the ground.

“If I could… if I could j-just get out of your way,” Derringer muttered, actually rather wishing Talus Mos would move aside and let her escape.

But now he was looking around, his face transforming with astonishment. “Eaten Word. What did you do? This is nearly three days’ work you finished. In a night!”

“Oh? I’m? Sure it wasn’t that much?” she tried to brush past, her heart sinking as Bailey made it to the ground.

“Maybe not. If you didn’t do it correctly,” he said, clearly dubious. “If they weren’t properly set—“

“Feel free to check,” Bailey said, still wincing as sensation returned to his legs and he limped over. Talus Mos didn’t go quite so far as to say that he intended to do so, but it was clear from the way he was setting up his own equipment that he was going to look back over her section of the wall.

Even with the way clear, now, she didn’t flee, waiting for Bailey to approach. But her face was rose as the dawn overhead, not daring to look at him. He missed the easy confidence she’d shown the night before; wondered, wildly, if there was some magical combination of things he could say that would restore her to how she had been. He felt at a rare loss for the right words.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, clearly mortified.

“No, you don’t have to—“

“I shouldn’t have—“

“You didn’t—“

Up the ladder, Pin finally made her way. She was still idly chewing on some of the breakfast she’d brought with her and wishing she’d heeded the advice to get to sleep earlier. But as she emerged up the ladder it all seemed rather worth it: Because there they were and she had just known it. There was little mistaking their postures. Her skirts were all tied to the side, exposing one leg almost to the hip. They were both a bit red. The edges of his fingers had found their way to her wrist. The gesture somewhat arresting, but less a demand, more a question. Gentle. Something she could have easily pulled away from, had she wanted to.

He only looked guiltier by immediately pulling away when he saw Pin. “Well. You’re up early. How did you sleep?”

“Better’n’ee, if’n had to guess,” she said, ever-so smug and wise.

He chose to ignore her tone. “I’m going after that egg today. Derringer Catherine,” he said formally, “if you would care to accompany me, we can continue from where we left off yesterday. On the histories,” he added, belatedly.

“Hasn’t’em working all night?” Pin asked, seeing all that had been accomplished and showing a touch of concern. “’S dangerous. If’n you’re caught…”

“No, I… I can go. I’m not tired,” Derringer said, willing to take just about any excuse to get past this awkwardness at this point.

It was only after she’d followed him through a brief trek to the kitchen to grab some breakfast and back outside that she thought to ask: “Um. Sorry. What egg?”

***

Things of that size really didn’t belong in the air.

That was Derringer’s first thought upon spying the enormous bird-creature up the tree. Even from this far away, it was impressive. It was the size of an ambitious sapling itself, nearly four times her own height. With leathery, triangular wings, and a beak large enough to swallow her without use of the sharp, black teeth within. It made strange crooning bugles from time to time that echoed through the trees, its long neck swaying as it made minute adjustments to its nest as it became more agitated, its bugling becoming more frequent.

Behind the house, Bailey had made a stop over to grab some equipment from a shed on the perimeter, including some climbing gear, two large satchels, and a strange kind of horn. The horn was clearly made of some kind of bone, but it was shaped less as a tube, more of a kind of thin, sloping wave. While they had walked along into the forest, he’d blown into it from time to time, reproducing a sound much like the one Derringer was hearing now. On closer examination, she realized now that the “horn” had actually been a bony kind of crest, like a miniature the one she could see on the bird—although how the animal was producing any sound from that, she wasn’t sure.

“There are eggs up there?” she whispered, dubiously, when he’d reached a temporary break in his recitation.

“Oh yes. I’ve been keeping an eye on them,” he assured, matching her low tones.

“It’s winter.”

“Quetzes’s eggs take three years to hatch.”

Well, when you’re the size of a flying behemoth, apparently you can stand to take your time. Still, it seemed rather a shame, given that, and she shifted, uncomfortably. “What’re you going to do with them?”

“I have cousins who train them. They can carry a rider well enough, although they’re a bit expensive in upkeep. They don’t breed in captivity, and you can’t train the adults. So there’s always a dearth. It’ll hopefully sufficiently endear me to them when they arrive next week.” He said the last somewhat dryly. His fingers drummed against his knees, straightened cuffs that needed no straightening, brushed flecks of mud away from his shoes.

“Your sister mentioned you have, um, cousins coming to visit. Is it a big deal?”

“Oh. I’m sure we’ll manage,” he didn’t really answer her, but just then he stiffened, murmuring, “There it goes!”

Sure enough, apparently fed up waiting for an answer that would never come, the bird was shaking its wings out, waddling in place, shifting from side to side. And then it launched from the nest. It was like a boulder, at first, falling from a mountainside in an inevitable battle with gravity—until, miraculously, those enormous wings opened with a percussive sound like a drum being struck, and away it swooped off into the trees.

They wasted no time in scurrying to the tree holding the nest. The borrowed shoes had spikes in the front of them, their hands holding hooks to drive into the bark. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do if that great thing came winging back early. She could perhaps act as moral support when it snipped Bailey’s head off. But even such dreary thoughts couldn’t sustain her for long. There was a kind of thrill in it, now, a bubbling mix of fear and excitement in her glass innards that almost felt to sting. The sentiment echoed on Bailey’s face as they scurried up the tree, his teeth flashing in a biting laugh.

His shirt was soaked through with sweat before long, despite the cold in the air. His limbs were quaking as the ground fell away, muscles protesting the unusual activity. She was keeping pace beside him, tireless and cool, as she had been for sunsets of generations—that inner ticking would run longer than the sun. As they neared the nest’s branch, she outpaced him a bit in her eagerness, face alight with expectation. He wondered if she would hunt like this: powerful and lithe, single-minded in her purpose. He was very much tempted to take her. Although before then, he told himself, averting his eyes, he should really probably see about getting her some trousers…

This was certainly a third-year nest. It reeked, that lizard, fetid stench of moulting. The heat was sunk deep into the twigs, so that moving over it felt like stirring live coals from ashes. And so they uncovered the eggs. There were nine in total, each the size of a human torso. One Bailey could tell at a touch had never quickened. But the others were viable, something healthy and living stirring within. Only waiting for their season of life. He looked up to find Derringer’s grin matching his own, the sweet warmth of her expression creating a strange kind of fire in his center. She had a smudge on her cheek from where she’d brushed it against the wet bark. Such careless artistry. Didn’t the Ancients make holy buildings of stained glass?

But then she was looking away, a hand at her chest as though she was trying to contain something, there. Or perhaps as if there was something already constrained. Her brow furrowed as she turned away to sling off her pack and carefully lay the egg she’d collected within while he did the same. They covered the other eggs as best they could with the precious time they had, and then beat a hasty retreat. On their backs, the eggs continued to radiate left-over heat through their delicate shells all the way back to the house, where they finally stored the eggs beside the fire they stirred in Bailey’s room. He had debated keeping them in the main sitting area, or perhaps in the kitchen, but he feared the temptation would prove too much and someone might abscond with them in the night. No, better like this, kept marginally secret, where he could keep an eye on them.

“Do you do that all the time?” Derringer asked behind him.

“No, this was only the second time,” he said, turning back.

He wasn’t sure why he felt quite so shocked to see she’d sat down on his hammock, her little feet not quite touching the floor. Most of the furniture in here was covered in projects he hadn’t bothered to clear away. So naturally it would be the most logical place to sit, enthroned among his heavy quilts. She’d drawn them around her shoulders in what must have been an unconscious gesture, because as he cautiously seated himself beside her, she seemed perplexed by the question: “Are you cold?”

“I don’t think I do that, anymore. Feel cold, I mean.” She toyed with the edge of the blanket, thoughtful, as she pushed it off her shoulders. He found himself staring at the delicate brown hairs along her arms, moving even with such a small generated breeze. “I’m not really… sure what I feel. I know it isn’t like it used to be, but it’s hard to say… how. The blanket is soft. It traps heat. But it’s not… comfortable? No, that’s not it, it doesn’t give comfort. It’s a thing that’s there, it has these properties, but something almost seems to interrupt it before I can properly feel it. Although there were a few times where I almost thought…” As she had spoken, her hand had crept to her chest, over where her heart should be.

She was startled from her reverie when he took her other hand. Glass, his fingers told him, but what did they know, anyway. “And this? What does this feel like?”

“Um. A h-hand?” she said, giggling nervously. Oh she wished he wouldn’t look at her with those big, pale eyes. There was that feeling again, like a creeping vine twining through all her innards, making them seize in her mechanism—was he trying to draw it out of her? “Bony? A bit cold? Distinctly hand-shaped?”

He could call on such a lazy smile. It had been a mistake to look at his mouth. If he breathed into her, would she grow warm and fogged? She was losing her opaqueness, the facsimile of skin. Could this glass reform into new shapes under the press of those fingers?

And no, actually, this wasn’t right. In her chest, there was something seriously wrong—something bound and breaking, something she wasn’t supposed to touch…

She dropped his hand, ducking her head so that her hair swept forward. Waiting until she felt the sensation pass. Grateful for the silence; that he didn’t press. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to feel all that, just yet,” she offered at length.

He shifted slightly, giving her a little more space. It wasn’t easy on a hammock, but at least he was making an effort. Eventually he just stood up, giving them both some much-needed distance. A few breaths passed as he apparently settled something within himself before he said, “Our original arrangement still stands. I have a few other things to take care of, today. But I can come keep you company in the greenhouse again, later?” his tone making it a question. Although he only watched her from the corner of his eye, a very slight smile tugged at his mouth when she avidly nodded agreement. Both of them trying not to feel entirely foolish as he left her there.

***

The days settled into a loose kind of pattern. There was a feverish amount of household work to manage in preparation for both his Sister-Houses’ visit and also for the coming growing season. Contracts made months before were fulfilled as the home filled with laborers, agents, travelers, and craftsmen. There were many rooms that still needed to be aired out, and he had a running checklist in his mind of minor repairs to see to. Bailey was fully preoccupied when the message reached him that there was a man outside. He had so far refused to come in or announce himself, but had asked for an audience.

When his schedule was somewhat clearer, Bailey finally made his way out to check on this mystery person. There were sometimes shy sorts, afraid to leave their Houses’ names until they were sure of the reception. A few had clearly fled without permission, carrying no token to allow them to negotiate a contract, their labor still rightfully owed to their House. Often these were better politely fed and then passed along, rather than potentially incurring their family’s wrath.

But the ones Bailey found outside were known to him. The man who met him at the edge of the clearing surrounding the home was a middling-age Red, his long hair very nearly hidden beneath all the beads braided into it. His face was wrinkled perhaps somewhat prematurely: with care, but also with smiles.

“Warden Reed,” Bailey was greeted, formally, but warmly.

“Solaris.” Leaving aside any family name still felt awkward in his mouth. A sad kind of reminder. But if there was any sting left to it, the older man didn’t show it. “And Marta?”

Solaris gestured back further into the trees, in confirmation. “We’ve come to fulfill our contracts, to see to your records and generator.”

“I recall. You didn’t have to wait out here.”

“You had quite a bit more activity around than usual. We weren’t sure… She wasn’t sure…” His face had balanced to slightly more care than smile for the moment as he glanced back into the trees again, where a very large shadow shuffled a bit closer.

Even hunched nearly double, as she was, she still dwarfed the men. Even since the last time he’d seen her, a year ago, she had grown again. Her limbs and digits each carried an extra joint to them, creating three segments of each. They said in the times of the Ancients, modification was rapidly becoming the norm. But born mods were rare these days, only occasionally cropping up in a family every few decades. Bailey rather suspected quite a few more were born than actually lived to adulthood. Marta, herself, had been unwanted by either parent House, the gossip went. What would have happened to her if Solaris hadn’t cut ties with his House and decided to raise her himself was unknown. But the two of them seemed happy enough: Solaris was an excellent weaver and recordkeeper, while Marta had a way with engines, even as young as she was. And although she was shy and generally awkward, she clearly looked well cared-for. Even now, Solaris’s concern seemed to be solely for her, showing little of the exasperation or sullenness one might expect after being made to wait in the cold for another’s comfort. Perhaps the loss of his family’s name wasn’t such a bitter thing after all.

“Warden Reed,” the girl mumbled, looking as if she would much rather stay hidden behind her tree. “Didn’t’em wanna disturb’ee guests.”

“No one is disturbed. Don’t be ridiculous.”

She was about Pin’s age, he remembered. They used to play together, when they were younger. And just as with Pin, she didn’t seem assured with the kinds of platitudes you might give a child. Her eyes were altogether rather too world-weary as she paused before saying, “If say’ee, Warden Reed. I’ll start now. But if please’ee, the work on’ee jenny will go faster if someone would bring’em meals and a cot down.”

There seemed little point in argument. When he had a moment to speak with Solaris alone, the man had turned fairly solemn as he explained that their last contract had been cancelled after too many workers quit rather than work alongside her. It had been a big project that required many hands, in close proximity, for long days.

She seemed relieved to be left alone in one of the root basements in the Reed home to do minor tune-ups to a generator. Bailey didn’t really have the time to try to fix what was broken in this situation, although it made him feel somewhat sick at heart to think of her cooped up down there. He was somewhat less than subtle in telling Pin she had an old friend who she really mustspend some time with and counted it as a minor victory when he spotted the two of them strolling the grounds in the evenings.

Bailey’s own nights were quite busy. Each day, he waited for the light to fade from the sky with ever-mounting anticipation until he could once again spend his time with the glasswork woman. He thought he had been fairly successful in pushing down any unwanted or unwarranted feeling of disappointment, but that didn’t stop him from reveling in what little time he had with Derringer. Trying to be concise in telling their history, but entertaining as well. Cursing that so much of the past was tragedy and warning; straining his memory for those stories that might bring brief delight or humor, if only because of the way her face would flush and her bright eye would turn to him to share in her joy. He busied himself with patching up some of his sister’s old trousers while he tried to keep his mind on reciting histories. Only to be continuously distracted by some of her questions, which would reveal something of the world she’d left behind. Or by her laughter, her smile, the way she kept losing herself in her work.

It was dangerous. He’d known from the start that it was, with anything the Ancients had touched. But there was another kind of danger. He’d felt stirrings for women before; he wasn’t made of stone. And of course he’d faced rejection. She had said, plainly, she couldn’t reciprocate. And he’d accepted that. Or he thought he had. He kept his distance, he didn’t press, he didn’t ask, and he certainly didn’t touch; they talked, and they kept to their work. So why were these feelings still so volatile? Seeming to rise and fall with the facsimile of breath stirring in her chest?

Maybe it was the closeness of the work. After the second night, she’d already finished with the greenhouse. So she took to roving his halls, learning the layout of the home as he directed her to minor repairs, or simply showed her around. The house was asleep, so to keep up conversation they had to stay close and speak softly. He was thus hyper-aware of her every movement, taking great pains to keep from any accidental touch, any misplaced word, until he felt his chest might burst with suppressed emotion. It was a wonderful kind of agony, at once exhausting and thrilling. It could go nowhere; it was completely unsustainable. But for those few brief nights, he tried to just enjoy it while it lasted.

Bailey sensed trouble when his father tracked him down a few days in. Talus Mos’s stance was tense, his face set, but he waited for Bailey to finish with the matters he was immediately tending to. Not an emergency, then, but still official.

“Warden Reed,” Talus Mos began, the formality in the address immediately concerning Bailey, “I would never cheat you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Bailey responded automatically, startled.

“And I am not lazy,” Talus Mos went on resolutely. “And yet I… have no excuse. That Violet woman you brought on, of the House of Derringer—I don’t know how she finished that work so quickly, but I’ve checked it over myself. It’s sound. Artistic, even.”

“Oh. That,” Bailey said, relaxing. “You needn’t judge yourself based on her work.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “And I tell you, with the equipment we had, I couldn’t have finished that in twice the time she did, working alone, and at night. I worked as fast and as well as I could, but I have no excuse—“

“You don’t need one,” Bailey said to stop this outpouring, as much for his sake as for his father’s.

Talus Mos had had somewhat weak spirits, ever since Reed Beatrice had passed. The risk of loving only one with such a blind passion. He was prone to melancholy, only slowly pulling himself back from oblivion when he saw how the children of his late lover’s House might still need him. He had done what he could, taking solace in his glassblowing skills as a sign of his continued usefulness and worth. Being outshone like this had therefore shaken him rather more than either of them could have guessed. He looked old. And lost. His shoulders rounded, little care gone into his braids. Bailey had a twinge of fear, realizing his burden had always been greater than he had initially imagined. He had spent so long worrying over Pin, trying to prepare for her future, he’d rarely put much thought into what would become of his father, if their House’s fortunes should fail. Talus Mos was not a young man, anymore, and his own House hadn’t had much to do with him for twenty-odd years.

Bailey couldn’t leave it like this. “She wasn’t… working with the same equipment,” he allowed. “It made the work easier for her.”

“Other equipment? She brought it with her?”

“It’s an heirloom,” Bailey said, to cut off further inquiry. Something from the Ancients, proprietary to her House, and something she would almost certainly be unwilling to share. Bailey told himself it wasn’t exactly a lie; she was something of an artifact, herself.

But this seemed to be enough. Talus Mos let out a breath of relief, setting aside that burden of inadequacy, at least momentarily. He even managed a smile. “Well, in that case. But heirloom or not, she’s certainly skilled. But I suppose you would know that. You’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”

Bailey turned back to the looms he’d been sorting through. “Have I? Oh. Yes, I suppose. She needed a brush-up on her histories.”

“That seemed to have worked out well for the two of you, then,” Talus Mos said, not blind to the deflection. He paused before saying, “I only met her briefly. But Pin seems to like her. She says she has the most peculiar yellow eyes…”

Bailey glanced over at that. “It’s not like with Nee,” he said, quietly. “It’s not the Wilderness. Her eyes are just like that.” Seeing a trace of pity in his father’s face, he had to smile. “I’m not deluding myself. And if you saw for yourself, you wouldn’t mistake it.”

“If you say so.”

Bailey had certainly spent long enough studying her eyes. It was true, they were a golden sort of color rarely seen in nature. When the Wilderness got a hold of you, it created a similar effect, leeching yellow into the eye. But the Wilderness distorted the iris, making it fill nearly all the white of the eye. There was nothing like that with Derringer Catherine, captivating as her eyes were: like bonny little flowers springing out of the snow.

“What?” she asked, the second-time she found him looking into her eyes a bit too long. He saw her fidget with nerves and immediately looked away, cursing himself.

“Nothing. My little sister only accidentally stirred up some trouble when she told Talus Mos about your eyes.”

“What kind of trouble?”

He paused, but she was likely to run into this again. “When the Wilderness claims someone, sometimes their eyes change to look a little like yours. It’s rare, and people mostly only hear of it. Those who have seen it first-hand are unlikely to make that mistake. So it’s not something you need to overly concern yourself over.”

Her hair had been slipping loose again. He fought the urge to brush it away from her face. They’d found another broken window in an out-of-the-way room in a farther corner of the house, and after she repaired it, they’d mostly been sitting in conversation for most of the night on the sill. The globes they’d shaken into life had slowly gone back to sleep. The moonlight on her skin was a scarlet wash. Her eyes had a soft kind of lighting to them, like dim candles behind a screen Still the most luminous points in the room.

“Talus Mos. That’s the older guy who was working in the greenhouse? And he’s your… father?” she asked, still not very clear. At his nod, she asked, “And who’s the other guy, the quiet one? Is that your brother?”

“Lee Parable? No, not exactly. He left Joplin, which is further to the north and has no Houses as we do, so they all take the House name ‘Lee,’ for political purposes. He has known our family for years, though, and he shares a kinship interest with Reed Adelaide, my little sister.” At Derringer’s inquiring glance he elaborated, “She was born of him, and of my older sister, Airadne.”

“So she’s…? Wait, what?”

“Before the Wilderness took her,” Bailey said, thinking this was what had confused her.

“But then she’s not… If she’s Parable’s and Airadne’s daughter, then she’s not your sister.”

“Yes, she is.”

“No, she’s your niece.”

“’Niece’? What’s a niece?”

“It’s—come on,” she said, getting flustered, standing up and starting to pace, “when a sibling has a daughter, that’s… that’s your niece.”

It seemed to be all semantics, to him. They were all children of the same House, raised in the same generation. Who the parent was generally made little difference except perhaps between said parent and child, should they form any kind of bond.

“I fail to see the importance of such a distinction.”

“No, it’s important,” she insisted. “I mean not just in terms of who’s your actual sibling, but also, just… Being an aunt or uncle is… I mean, it’s special! When my niece was born, I—“

She stopped pacing suddenly, her back to him. There was a wretched sound; it might have been her that screamed, or else only something internal starting to yield to pressure. She crumpled forward, a hand at her chest, another covering her mouth. He was on his feet in an instant, all the hairs raised on his neck as he approached, only to halt when she turned half-towards him. Her colors came and went, fading in and out with her labored breaths.

“My niece…” she croaked out. Her face was awful, the grief vivid. Her contorted expression created terrible canyons of the scars on her cheeks. “Oh God, I remember… her. Wh-when she was born, her little hands—the first time I held her, her hands couldn’t even close around my finger. She was—“

She gasped, and the shrill, piercing sound was now clearly coming from her chest, like tortured metal being reshaped. Panicked, Bailey begged her, “Let me help.”

Reluctantly, she straightened somewhat and let him approach, hand still at her breast. “Something is… wrong,” she admitted. “Loose.” She pulled down the front of her shirt a little, her chest wall abruptly becoming transparent.

Bailey was not a healer. He had a fairly rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. Once, as a child, he’d gone with a gaggle of other children with an Orange to see a demonstration in the closest little town, where a healer had preserved a cadaver for the class’s inspection. Looking, now, none of the glass-replicas in motion seemed to bear much resemblance to that long ago corpse. But there was one part, at least, that didn’t seem to be properly moving: at the source of the trouble, there was a still, dark little organ. Opaque where the rest of her was still clear. Something in what looked like a strangle-hold of metal, only feebly struggling in its grip. Three bands surrounded the little organ, with the uppermost metal bent slightly, as though ruptured.

“Your heart,” he whispered. Awe in his voice. “I think it’s an actual heart. It’s bound,” he said, looking up from its little prison to her face.

He hadn’t realized how close he’d actually gotten to her until then. How hard he would have to fight the desire to try to give comfort for the quiet pain he saw there. He knew he would likely only make it worse if he tried.

“Is that what hurts?” she asked, her voice as soft as his. “The binding?”

“The undoing,” he admitted. He should move away. Out of arm’s reach at least, so his treacherous arms wouldn’t so ache to hold her. A fool, he couldn’t bring himself to bring this plan to fruition. “One of the bands is giving way.”

He saw the flicker of fear, and then when she had mastered it. Her voice only shook a little. “Wh-what happens if they come loose entirely?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. A thousand terrible thoughts occurred to him, each more unbearable than the last. Somehow in thinking of all the potential ways she might pass back out of his life, he had never really considered any loss would be entirely permanent. She was a creature of flame, born countless generations ago. If the force of the Ancient’s folly and time hadn’t been enough to destroy her, it seemed unlikely much around here would. And even if he was overreacting, just seeing her in so much pain was sending him into a flurry of unexpected impulses and emotions.

He might have gone on to do something entirely foolish if behind him he hadn’t heard, “Reed Carson?”

Bailey spun around shielding as much of her from view as he could. Irrationally upset at the interruption, heart pounding in fear that someone might have seen her glass form revealed. When he saw it was Lee Parable, he barked out, “What? What is it?” with far less courtesy than he usually showed the Joplin.

There was a long pause. Lee Parable’s face was obscured in the dark. This is it, Bailey thought, feeling like he was in freefall. He should have been more careful. He never should have let it get this far, care this much. He only had himself to blame.

But when Lee Parable spoke, it had nothing to do with either impoliteness or Derringer Catherine.

He said, “Spores.”

The word hung there, drifting about the room. An evil cloud overhead.

Bailey’s legs nearly tripped out from under him as he bolted back for the window, all other thoughts forgotten. As if by looking he could change the narrative. Maybe Lee Parable had been mistaken. A trick of the eye, or a common dust cloud. But he could not long disbelieve his own eyes: the unmistakable miasma of scarlet, leaking from the moon’s bloody grin.

“Where’s it making landfall?” he choked out, holding the sill.

“Two days north,” Lee Parable answered.

Bailey’s hands were shaking, the wood creaking somewhat under his grip. “Spores?” he heard Derringer Catherine ask, tentatively, but his mind was already racing. If they left, now—right now—they might just be in time. The party, all of his careful plans; it was all for nothing, now. But there was no use thinking of that. Lee Parable was waiting for an answer, and there was only one he could really make.

He turned away from the window, saying, “Wake the kitchen staff, first. Tell them we’ll need rations. Then get Pin. Have her rouse the house and get everyone down into the front yard. I’ll be in the armory. Go!”

Bailey could hear the house waking around him, even as he ran, himself, down to the bottom levels. Voices calling, sleepy, panicked, confused, but there was no help for it. He almost didn’t notice Derringer had followed him down until, shaking a globe into life at the armory door to put in the complicated code, the light caught in her wide, glass eyes.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, trembling. There was something in her look—a hollowness, stark as the scars on her face. She may not have remembered the cataclysm that ended the Ancients. Not the specifics of it. But here in the dark with him, hearing the pounding of footsteps overhead in a heart’s stampede, an echo of it still sounded through her.

He busied himself at the door, hands dancing over the tapping sequence that would admit them. It unsealed with a hiss of stale air, the room long unused, but it swung open easily at a touch.

“The moon,” he said, already heading to the far wall where the apparatuses had remained untouched these many years. Trying to remember all the steps he needed to take, as they’d been explained to him. Checking the fuel gauges, straps, extra canisters. They were designed to be worn like packs, the canisters carried on the back, and the wand to spray the fire out like one was watering the earth. Each also came with a protective face-mask, to protect against inhaling either the smoke or the spores.

“Or rather, the forests on the moon. You Ancients did your job too well, there. You meant them to thrive, and they did. But the spores they began to put out, well… I suppose you couldn’t have predicted they could cross that narrow channel back. It took them a while to do that, apparently, but now it’s every 30 to 50 years. It’s early, this time; it’s only been 27.”

The equipment was sound, and he felt a moment’s rush of relief. There was enough here to properly equip a proper House’s size, and spares left over. Of all the things their tithes had to go towards, he was at least grateful that even the lowliest of Houses was always supposed to be well-supplied in this manner.

“Wh-what happens when they get here?” she asked, coming over to help him pick up the packs and stack them outside the door for easier retrieval.

“They grow,” he stated, wryly. “And grow. On anything. In the smallest hint of nutrients. But they weren’t designed for such a rich environment, or so heavy an atmosphere. They sprout and gorge and claw their way up and push out everything in its way until they collapse under their own weight within about a week; rotting, stinking corpses.”

“He said it’ll touch down north of here?”

“It’s too much for any House to handle alone,” he answered. They were now down to just a handful of the packs, each of them picking up as many as they could carry to take directly into the yard. “If we didn’t come together—is everyone ready?” he broke off as Pin trotted in, panting.

She gulped air, nodding. “’S get’em fast’em, ‘n’ cross bett’n ‘cease. ‘S mine?” Pin asked, eagerly, as he passed her a pack.

“You’ll need to keep a sharp eye out. Landfall will come at night. I doubt it will reach here, but—“

“Here?” Pin burst in, face coloring. “No, ‘s come’em with’ee.”

“Hmm. Well. No,” Bailey said, suddenly very busy in re-checking the equipment in his arms. “You’re staying here, to watch after our own lands. I’m going to ask Talus Mos to help you. You’ll need to keep the fire lit in my room, remember to turn the eggs…”

Pin had a few colorful phrases to say on this subject, rather too furious to care that they had a wide-eyed audience. “’S babies half’em age, going!” was the first semi-intelligible thing Derringer was able to pick up. “Any big’em’nough walk’s get’em ready!”

“Yes. Well. And they have others they’ll be leaving at home, to watch their holdings. No one expects us to abandon everything; we each give as much as—“

“Then stay’ee,” Pin said, inspired. “’S’more important, keeping the head of the House, ‘n if’n happen’some’em, ‘s’not as bad—“

“Don’t be absurd,” he said, coolly. And by now Derringer was quite wishing she could just squeak by and leave them to squabble this out, but Pin was still blocking the door.

“Why’s’t absurd’em? Don’t’ee strike the twig ‘n’ kill’ee tree, ‘s the roots burn’ee. So the House. If I’m a twig—“

“You’re not a twig,” he snapped, his voice cracking on the word. Derringer kept her eyes averted, but she couldn’t shut her ears. Oh why couldn’t she have just barreled past the willowy girl. “Pin, I can’t lose any more branches. And it won’t come to that,” he insisted as she started to protest, again. “Please. Stay here. We’ll be back in a few days, and it would be nice if we had a house to come back to and not a pile of splinters. Oh, now,” he said as Pin started crying, the fear finally reaching her past her indignation. He awkwardly shifted the packs he was carrying around to give her a one-armed hug, trying to reassure her that they were prepared, that nothing was going to go wrong. This, at least, finally freed the doorway, as Derringer slipped out, lugging as many of the packs as her arms could carry with the nozzles trailing along and bumping her knees.

The yard outside was a mass of shifting bodies, turned grotesque under the red moonlight. Derringer tried not to shiver as she began passing the packs out, saying that yes, more were coming, and no she didn’t know when they were leaving. Luckily Bailey followed her out shortly and was able to call them to order quickly enough, telling them where more of the packs had been stacked in the hall inside, checking that food had been distributed.

“All contracts can be considered suspended. If you need to renegotiate, this is something we can settle when this is over. Landfall is two days’ walk north of here, and we’ll need to walk through the night.”

“Have the other Houses been reached?” someone asked. “Do they know?”

“We don’t have a tuner,” Bailey admitted, “or any other way to directly reach them.”

“We could send a runner on ahead,” someone else began, doubtfully.

“I’ll go.” It was so dark in the yard, it was safe to say many had not even realized Marta was there on the outskirts of their ring until she had spoken and began to unfold her modified limbs. A few people stifled yelps of surprise as she abruptly loomed overhead. Bailey realized he had never actually seen her at her full height, before; even when standing, there had been a kind of stooped shame to her posture. It was absent, now, as she tossed back her hair and said, “I can be quite swift.”

“Marta,” Solaris cautioned, at once warring with pride and terror, “you can’t go on ahead, alone, not through those woods. I’ll… I’ll come—“

“You’ll slow me down,” she said, not unkindly, but as simple fact. To Bailey, she said, “I’ll get the word out. We’ll be ready.” And on her long, unusual limbs, she strode, disappearing into the forest as fast as a candle blowing out.

There was little else left for them to do but to sort the last of their affairs out and follow after her. Bailey managed to find the time somewhere in the midst of all the tumult and noise to convince Talus Mos to also remain behind, as people broke off either to go back to their homes for more supplies or further instruction, or else prepared to set off north. Frankly it was shocking to Derringer how fast order seem to emerge out of this chaos, and almost before she knew it, they were getting underway.

Bailey glanced back, once, at the tree line, looking back towards home. Spotting a little figure perched up on top of the house as a lookout. She was wearing the flamethrower pack and waving back madly in defiance of her own fear. Stained by the moonlight as they were, her tears almost looked like blood.

***

They moved under torchlight, their shadows writhing across the trees, over the frozen ground in a ring. They bunched together, closer than they might usually walk even with a neighbor. There was no sense in trying to be quiet; their presence was known, their actions closely watched by unseen eyes. Through the darkness outside of the fire’s reach, they could hear things rustling in furtive fits or deliberate treads. A knocking sounded through the trees several times, the noise tracking them. And so they hummed and sang, making a kind of net around them, as if the thin weave of light and sound could offer protection.

And maybe it did. They grew accustomed to being watched, and nothing came out of that dark to confront them. Many of them knew this path north, by daylight, and tried to take solace in spotting landmarks to track their progress and bolster their spirits.

There came a point in the night, however, when they all drew to an abrupt halt. There had been a movement through the trees. Not the wind, but a kind of sigh nonetheless. It swept over them, through them, an oppressive weight. It hit some harder than others. Some seemed not to notice it at all beyond the basic animal sense in the herd, seeing others be affected and halting to wait for them. A few merely shivered. Others stood blinking in confusion. And some were driven from their feet entirely. There was an alien sort of curiosity in the invasion, but whether it garnered their purpose was difficult to say. It passed on again, leaving them to gather themselves, wipe sudden tears from their eyes, and—for a few—to be quietly ill in the bushes. None of them wanted to discuss it, but by hasty agreement a break was called for.

Derringer had been one of those who had merely seen the effects, ducking under Bailey’s arm to hold him up as his knees buckled under him. He seemed somewhat dazed in the aftermath, staring off into the trees as though listening for something Derringer could not hear. By slow degrees his eye returned to tracking the flickering dance of the fire, and then to his companions, and finally to Derringer where she sat beside him under his arm.

“The Wilderness,” he managed on his second attempt, his throat creaking and wooden.

She opened her folded fingers to show him the stones collected there. A wry smile pulling at one corner of her mouth and stretching the scar on that cheek. “So they told me. And I told them it hasn’t got me, but it doesn’t seem to do much good. I’m forming a nice little collection,” she jangled them together before letting them fall out of her palm back onto the ground. “You don’t really throw rocks at them, after they’re taken?”

He shook his head. He was going to tell her it was only superstition. A stone given kindly, now, to remind them—when their minds turned—not to come seeking wrath by stealing livestock or crops. But he was still feeling too vague, a kind of restlessness in his own skin that failed to form the thoughts to words. He knew it was dangerous, leaving himself open like this, seeking after that seductive call at the edges of his hearing. With an effort he dragged himself back to the light and warmth of their company and was surprised to find Derringer still so near to him. Closer, even, having pulled the corner of his open jacket around herself. Giving a kind of embarrassed grimace as he shifted to slip that arm from the sleeve and drew it instead around her waist.

“They kept asking if I was cold,” she mumbled, toying with the frayed edge of the kerchief still tied on her bare foot, over the written words.

“Is this all right?”

She nodded, almost seeming to test herself—or her resolve, or how much she actually felt—as the rigidity melted away by slow degrees, tucking her chin down and settling against him. With her head so close to his chest, he only hoped she couldn’t hear how his heart was pounding, couldn’t feel how his arm around her trembled. His gaze traveling over the waves of her cascading hair as it puddled around them. He wished she would look up so that he could drown in the liquid flame of her eyes, but was terrified to move and spoil it all. All thought of the Wilderness’s dark mysteries driven from his mind. Oh if he could only extend the night, halt the murderous turn of the moon’s ill-begotten spawn and stay like this for a little bit longer.

“When this is over,” she began, her voice small.

But the group was stirring, gathering together again. She flinched back away from him, standing before he had even regained his wits. The absence of the warmth along his side felt a punishing brand as they set off again.

With the dawn, they were heartened to see signs of others having recently passed through here. When they passed near the House of Rush, they were actually greeted by agents of the House who offered refreshment and told them Marta had been through hours earlier. This lightened their steps a bit as they continued on, and before noon their path had joined with a larger and somewhat slower group that had formed from a number of lesser Houses. Many of these, too, had good tidings of having been awoken and warned in plenty of time to start out, while a few others were lucky to have simply spotted the coming spores for themselves. There was a feeling of buoyant comradery in the meeting, less festive than martial, and enough to make them all momentarily forget their sore feet and sleepless night. It likely would not have been sustainable for the full journey, but they were fortunate to have an herbalist in the group they had joined. In one of their brief halts, a fire was set and a cauldron yielded a vast amount of a stimulant the herbalist called the Traveler’s Spirit. It was a thick, green liquid with chunks in it that made it difficult to force down the gullet. It also smelled of wet grass and had an unpleasant turpentine aftertaste.

The long stretch of the road ahead seemed to melt away after that. Bailey could little recall what had happened between his first sip and dusk of the following day, when they found themselves nearing the encampment gathered to meet the spores. It was less that there was a blank spot in his memory so much as it felt that nothing that had happened had been important enough to remember, all the many steps blurring together into a haze of travel. With the effects wearing off, however, his body remembered the trip perfectly well. His feet ached and his legs shook with fatigue. There was an acrid burning in the back of his throat, and his stomach was painfully empty. Without the Traveler’s Spirit, he wasn’t confident they all could have kept up the pace to get as far as they had, so quickly. But it was not an experience he intended to repeat, if given the opportunity.

There was little time to dwell on it, however. Here, the hive of activity quickly swept over their group as people had food shoved on them and were then assigned to tasks and sections to cover. Overhead, the first groups to arrive had already been hard at work in the upper canopies of the trees, shaving off many of the higher branches and erecting platforms so people could fire at the spores overhead without catching the whole forest aflame. Others on the ground level were seeding competitive fast-growing mosses and fungi to make the earth even marginally less accessible to the descending spores. A group of Joplins who had made their way south into the empire were passing out chemicals that could be poured on anywhere they still managed to take root.

Somehow, Bailey finally found himself on one of the upper platforms, less than an hour from the expected landfall. Dotted out as far as his eye could reach were flickers of flame where others waited in preparation. His eye was mesmerized by the sheer numbers of people he could see still mobilizing below—more people than he had ever seen gathered together in one place. The wind set the platform to swaying, the chillness finding its way through his clothing. His nerves jangled unpleasantly, even his weariness being displaced as he glanced over to where Derringer waited with him on the other side of the platform. Lee Parable was initially going to join them, but had ultimately decided he was more comfortable sticking to the chemical route on the ground, rather than deal with the machinery. He could dimly see Derringer fiddling with her pack, now, frowning at the wand apparatus.

”Do you know how to use it?” he asked, and she startled.

“Oh, are you back? I mean, communicative?” She picked up her gear and moved closer, looking somewhat relieved. “Sorry, it’s just… It was so creepy. After you guys took that green stuff, it was like I was suddenly walking with a bunch of zombies. You were all silent, and you just walked straight through without a break for anything.”

Her description did nothing to relieve his stress, and he took out his pipe to distract himself. “That must have been exceedingly dull,” he said, dryly, to cover how his hands shook somewhat.

The red cloud overhead was fast descending, occasionally blotting out the moon entirely, so that Derringer seemed to flicker in and out of sight. “I tried talking to you a few times,” she admitted. “But it was like you were looking right through me.”

The colored smoke from his pipe drifted lazily on the wind. They were lucky it was such a clear, calm night. He knew he should feel grateful the spores hadn’t fallen during a storm or where heavier winds could have blown the spores across half the whole northern lands. But mostly he just felt sick, even the smoke doing little to cut the cold steel wire of tension in him.

“There’s something… I tried to say before. Maybe it can wait,” Derringer said, looking away. And whatever it was, he was suddenly certainly he didn’t want to hear it. However, his heart had only begun to lift when she continued with, “But it probably shouldn’t. It… has to be said. When this is over…”

“Derringer—“ he tried to forestall her words, perhaps with an inkling of where it was leading, even if he didn’t yet want to admit it to himself.

“When this is all over,” she said, firmly, turning to look at him again, “I need to leave. I’ll walk back with you, but then I need to go on. To that little town. Or further south. Maybe to Osla. I don’t know. But I have to go.”

Even in the dark, the crystal reflection of her eyes was a sun-glow. He felt scorched under her gaze. Like a weed drying up and crackling in the summer heat. Right in the heart of him was a sense of brittleness and withering. “I’m sorry,” he said, leadenly. “I… You told me not to, but I pushed you too far—“

“You didn’t. I pushed myself, maybe. But that’s not… You said there were bindings,” she said, putting a hand to her chest. “That they were weakening, bending. I can feel them breaking. I don’t know what will happen to me if the bindings break. But I can’t imagine I’ll survive the aftermath for long.

“While we were walking, I… tested myself a little. Trying to put pressure on just where I can still feel it hurt. It’s like a sore tooth, I just can’t keep my tongue from prodding it. And I… I need to leave. Now. Before the leaving is what finally breaks me altogether.”

His throat worked. He almost said, “Then don’t leave at all.” But it was a senseless and selfish request. Her bindings might hold for another year, or a decade. They might last the rest of his lifespan. And if she waited that long, how much worse would it be when he was finally the one forced to leave her, slipping away into death. It was delusional to think she would stay so long, anyway, a light contained in his tiny lantern, when she had all the rest of the world to set ablaze. Stupid to imagine she would waste even years with him when she could barely stand his touch as it was. And he was a fool twice-over for not having learned his father’s lesson: never to wholly give oneself to just one person.

Before the moonlight was covered again, she watched him swallow down his objections. It almost made it worse, seeing such terrible understanding in her expression. He looked away before the light could return, and it was almost with relief he heard the first shouts of warning from the other platforms.

The spores had arrived.

The sky was awash with red. The descending units, individually, were delicate, spindly things no bigger than a woman’s littlest finger. Along one end of them were wiry protrusions like tiny legs, the bottom section being more of a rod with a bulbous point on the top that contained the actual spores. It was this conversely delicate design that protected them from reaching too great a speed on entering the atmosphere. With the air resistance dragging at it, the weaker parts of it would sheer off, little by little, as terminal velocity was eventually reached just as the ground came rearing up and, on impact, the spores could be released more easily. Their form, luckily, meant that they tended to move rather closely together, caught up in one another’s protrusions. It limited the amount of space that needed to be protected against their invasion. Unfortunately, this also meant that when they did descend, it was en masse, like a hail of arrows already bloodied.

Flames sprouted up to meet the onslaught. The defenders waved their wands overhead, their protective masks in place, aiming at their targets as best they could. Small grenades, tossed overhead, took out still more. The light illuminated their targets, and it was gratifying to see how they sizzled and fell. But the onslaught was unyielding. For every fifty they singed, there were a thousand more directly behind, and still falling. Bailey almost felt he merely waved a torch at the dark, and that the great mass of red gnats swayed out of his path and back again. Below, the ground workers were kept just as busy, scouring the earth in wide swaths, only to go back to the ground they just tread and begin again. Children scurried along between the trees or jumped from platform to platform, bringing extra fuel or chemicals or shovels. At one point a little fellow who looked to be only a handful of summers old tried to carry two of the heavy canisters himself. He misjudged his leap between the platforms and there was a horrifying shriek he barely managed to gasp just before he hit the forest floor.

There were other accidents. The spores had not fallen in their area of the world for some time, and very few had much experience dealing with flames or anything like combat. More than a few people suffered burns, and others lost their heads entirely. Bailey remembered hearing one woman shrieking that the spores were in her eyes. She’d ripped the protective mask from her face and plunged her own nails into her eyes. The last intelligible thing she’d said was that they were burrowing into her, and then only dissolved into broken screams. Her partner on the platform had been forced to quit her own efforts in order to try to get the mask back on the inconsolable woman before the spores really did find their way into the nutrient-rich bloody chasms she’d left in her face. But Bailey had his own battles to fight, and could watch no longer. At some point they must have sent someone else to collect her, because when he looked again, she was gone.

They tried to work in shifts, as best they could, so there was always someone with a full canister while the other switched out. As the night dragged on, however, Bailey began to flag. His hands were clumsy, numb, each burst of flame a smear on his eyes—red and black and white, swirling together into a long nightmare. And then there came a point: there was barely a shout of warning before one of the grenades, thrown too carelessly, exploded directly overhead.

Bailey didn’t remember the blast, exactly. He found himself flat on his back, precariously close to the platform’s edge. Her ears were ringing, eyes almost too painful to open. One leg was dangling into darkness while the other was crumpled uncomfortably beneath him. His protective mask had been blown clean off, and the smoke was nearly unbearable, so thick he almost felt it lodged in his throat. He felt a warm, inhumanly smooth hand on his brow, and his streaming eyes opened to find Derringer kneeling over him. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears, the roar of fire, the panicked screams. Over her shoulder, he could see the sky was still filled with spores. Their wretched journey nearly at its end. Greedy for the rich soil beckoning below.

Her fingers found his cheek, and his eyes were dragged back to hers. Her other hand clutched the front of her clothing, over her chest, in a fierce, agonizing kind of grip. And amidst all of this, perhaps it was strange that his first clear thought was to worry what this was doing to the bindings over her heart. If his ears were properly working, would he hear that awful creak of bending metals again?

“I’m all right,” he tried to say, but when he attempted to sit up, she put a hand to his shoulder, firmly propelling him back down. But perhaps this was the push she needed. There was a steady kind of fire burning in her eyes, now, a look of purpose settling over her features as she set aside her own equipment and stood, looking up into the sky.

Her hands were moving together. Almost as one might roll a ball of clay. Palm to palm, they slid, smoothly gliding together, faster and faster, until between her fingers he began to see sparks. They moved between her hands until there was too much for her to directly contain, there. Little spits of lightning began to crawl over the fine bones of her wrist and creep over her fingers until they seemed bathed in the light. Only then did her hands start to move apart, the electricity sizzling as it leapt from one hand to the next, finger to finger, and back again, building louder and brighter all the while until it held steady: arcs of lightning held between her hands, growing thicker and more powerful the farther she spread her arms. Until at the last she made a motion as if hurling it into the air.

It was as if she’d called a thunderbolt directly from the night sky. The white-hot energy burst through the swarm of spores all the way into the stratosphere, burning everything in its path. Bailey, whose eyes were still only recovering from the grenade, thought he might actually have been blinded. He rolled to his side, still coughing wretchedly. And he must have fallen unconscious at some point, because the next he knew it was daylight that was weakly making its way through his eyelashes. He was lying in a canvas hammock, and he could hear the groans of the wounded around him. His lungs still burned, but at his first movement, water was pressed to his lips to at least satisfy the worst of it. When finally he could properly open his eyes, he found Lee Parable and Derringer Catherine hovering over him.

“Take it easy,” Derringer quickly cautioned when he immediately tried to get up.

“The spores?” he choked.

“It’s pretty well sorted,” she assured. At his somewhat frantic look, she said, almost too casually, “We ran into some luck at the end, there. I guess all that atmospheric disturbance was good for something: some heat lightning took out a lot of it all at once.”

Lee Parable was frowning, but he didn’t directly refute her, instead saying, “I saw the sky lit up white through the branches.”

“So you didn’t miss much, and a lot of people left already. Lee Parable says he’s going to stick around for a few more days to help try to kill any we might have missed. Oh, and someone stopped by? He was kind of tall, blond? I think he said he was, oh, Word in Rust?”

“Warden Rush,” Lee Parable provided, which made quite a bit more sense.

“And he wants to talk to you—oh not right now,” she protested when he started to get up again, looking like she might just bodily pin him to that hammock if he kept up in this ridiculous manner. “When you’re feeling well enough!”

“I’m all right,” he said, trying to wave her off and feeling primarily uncomfortable they were making such a fuss over him.

“No, you’re—Bailey, stop, just wait for the healer,” she finally snapped. And perhaps she merely took it for docility, that he abruptly lay perfectly still, his face turned a rather bright shade of red as he tried very hard not to look at anything at all. Although how she could be so oblivious to how perfectly embarrassed her companions were, he wasn’t sure. Lee Parable was reduced to hand-speech, giving abrupt apologies for why he had to leave, right now, immediately, and be elsewhere. Bailey wished he could do the same. Of course, it wasn’t like she had intended to publicly address him in quite so intimate a manner, he had to remind himself. She likely had only picked it up from hearing his family address him, and hadn’t realized the significance of it. And right now, he was far too mortified to even broach the subject with her.

At the very least, it kept him lying still long enough wait for one of the healers to take the time to come check him out. The healer was a rather frazzled-looking older lady who checked his ears and eyes and listened to his chest, frowning when she heard he’d had smoke exposure.

“I don’t like the sound of your breathing,” she said, frankly, “but you otherwise seem well enough to travel. If the cough keeps up for another few days, see someone.” And then she was off, seeing to someone with a burn covering half of his exposed skin.

Bailey’s legs felt rubbery, and he moved stiffly at first, grateful for Derringer’s arm. But by the time he saw Warden Rush still organizing a few of the ground units, his stride was fairly sure again, even walking alone. He had only time to feel freshly embarrassed for his poor state of dress before his uncle spotted him, giving an approving nod.

“You organized things quickly,” Warden Rush said, after the initial pleasantries were over. “It’s one thing to plan at one’s leisure, but doing things right under a time constraint is another thing entirely. That modified girl, the Houseless Red—I’ve spoken with five Houses who said she was their first news the spores were even falling.” He considered Bailey a moment longer before saying, “Don’t concern yourself too much, setting up another meeting with all of our Sister-Houses. We’ll all expect a delay. But when it does happen, you have my support.”

“Y—I… Thank’ee,” Bailey managed, nearly swaying on his feet at the unexpected rush of relief he experienced, only for Warden Rush to laugh and clap him on the shoulder.

“We’ll take it from here. You should get back.”

There did seem to be little enough for Bailey to do, there, and those with bigger stakes in the land or with more resources seemed to have it fairly well-covered. The walk back would certainly be a more leisurely one, following a trickle of people heading back south either to hunt the ground for any missed spores or simply to go home. Bailey might have felt glad to have the walk back to spend as much time as he liked with Derringer Catherine, if it weren’t for the fact he knew this journey was the last he would see of her. He wished he could somehow contrive to drag the trip out a bit longer. But it wasn’t wholly contrivance that resulted in somewhat frequent stops as his breath was stolen away and his coughing worsened.

Still, he didn’t think very much of it until he coughed up the first drops of blood.

In his palm, the droplets glared crimson against the pale linen of his kerchief. He had touched his nose, at first, to find that, no, this could not be blamed on a nosebleed. He thought, then, perhaps it had been only the force of his coughing. The ache in his chest had not abated, as they had walked, and now—mere hours from home—the sensation in his chest had gradually built to a stabbing pain. As the pain had worsened, so, too, had his cough. But maybe it was only the smoke damage.

He could not long lie to himself. The hand he held to his chest could feel the frantic beat of his heart, but it rested near a darker secret: an unspooling of deadly tendrils where it had nestled in his lungs. The blood in his hand blurred with bitter tears, his legs becoming shaky beneath him. It was only fear of further indignity that kept him from fainting entirely, as with a force of will he closed his hand around the soiled cloth and made his shoulders straighten. He had retreated some few steps to get some privacy while the latest coughing passed, and now he forced a look of unconcern on his face as he put the offending object in his pocket and rejoined Derringer.

“Are you all right?

If he told her, he might well undo all the effort that was going to be put into sending her away in the first place. There was nothing that could be done, and it would be selfish and cowardly just to put this burden on her so that he wouldn’t have to carry it alone. Better to smile, now and let her make a clean break of it.

“Of course,” he reassured.

She hesitated, seeing how he had picked up the pace rather significantly, before she ventured, “We could rest a bit longer, if you need to?”

“There is no need.”

She bit her lip, accepting this as something of a rebuke, no matter how airily he spoke it. Perhaps she had misread the situation, and it was only his injury that had kept him dawdling before, rather than any kind of reluctance for the journey’s end. Maybe she had been projecting, all this while.

As much as she had tried to soften it, leaving would still be enormously difficult. That night they fought the spores, after she had called out some of the deepest energies she could feel percolating within her—there had been that dreadful moment when she had turned back and found him lying so very still, with his limbs still all at awkward angles from where he had been so carelessly flung. He didn’t answer to her call, her touch, and the little flutter of a pulse in the delicate curve of his neck had seemed such a fragile, thready thing. She hadn’t intended to feel anything, then, but it hadn’t stopped the terrible wrenching ripping its way inside of her as she gathered him up to take down to the healers. Later, given some time alone, she had allowed her skin to become translucent and taken a cautious survey of the damage. There was now only a single band still in place over the trembling heart, the strain visible even on brief review. If she was smart, she would avoid any further stress she could possibly manage until, perhaps, she could find some way to fix what had already been done.

As they neared the house, she wondered if she wasn’t entirely a fool that she hadn’t broken off from his path, already. There was nothing she had left at the house that she could not replace, and listening to the wretched hacking of that painful cough wasn’t doing either of them any favors. But she kept by him, anyway, increasingly concerned, the paler he became. A few times he had to stop and lean against a tree and cough into his kerchiefs. But he waved aside assistance, managing a smile, and not slackening their pace in the slightest.

As they entered, at last, into the courtyard around the house, he at least allowed his shoulders to sag in relief. The home was quite intact, even if the ground were a bit scuffed-up, still, from when they had had their impromptu gathering. There were a few chickens hissing warnings at them, flashing tiny black teeth in a challenge, but Pin shooed them away as she came at a gallop towards them, giving a brilliant smile she didn’t bother to his behind her hand.

Before Pin could reach them, Bailey said in undertones, “I’ll be sorry to see you go, but it’s perhaps better done sooner than later.”

“I… Yes, you’re right. I should probably…”

But then Pin was upon them, nearly sweeping Bailey off his feet in her enthusiasm. “Oh, slow’d’ee, had neighbors pour’em through all day, and get’ee lead feet ‘n’ all!” she said, but rather too excitable for her scolding to have any weight. But this turned rather to concern as he abruptly bent, coughing heavily into the kerchief he fumbled from his pocket. “Are’ee hurt?”

“Just… smoke,” he gasped, eyes streaming a bit as he was wracked with another cough. “Derringer,” he said when he could speak, the word almost a plea, for she hadn’t made any move to leave.

At Pin’s curious look, Derringer shuffled her feet, guiltily, starting to step towards the house. “I… I have to go.”

“Now?” Pin asked, blankly. “It’ll be sundown in a few hours, get’ee fresh start if’n—“

“No, she has to—“ Bailey started, grabbing Pin’s shoulder in his desperation, but then he could feel it coming on again. And he knew, within the first few coughs, that this time was different. When the blood came, it wasn’t the small droplets he’d managed to conceal so far, but a flood of red spilling past his lips onto the churned earth.

His sister shrieked, now holding him up as he shook and shook, giving weak gasps as he drowned in the torrent. Pin was sobbing, terrified, and when he finally got the breath to whisper something to her, she shook her head violently.

“What’s going on?” Derringer asked, hovering, uncertain. “Let me help, I can help get him to the house, we can get a healer—“

“This doesn’t concern you,” Bailey snapped at her, the viciousness of his tone making her stumble back. “Go. Now.”

She watched Pin help him make his limping way to the house. Neither of them looked back. Pin was trembling nearly as much as he was. When they got to the door, they were met by a number of people who had returned to fulfil their contracts and come, curious at the noise in the yard. Pin didn’t answer their questions, but instead simply requested they help him up the stairs to somewhere comfortable.

To Pin fell the unhappy task of the arrangements. Talus Mos had to be told, of course. Although she kept trying to sort that duty to the bottom of her list, she went to him first. It was as terrible as she had anticipated, but she didn’t have time for his grief. There was the wood to gather, and the spice to collect. Bailey would have told her her to skip most of the ceremony, but he wasn’t consulted, and it was with an obstinate air she put all of her efforts into making all the proper arrangements. Trying to push away the heartsick by falling into the work.

When it finally came time, she looked desperately for tasks unfinished; for any way to delay the inevitable. But there was nothing left to do but the final step.

He’d changed out of his bloody clothes, and he was at least strong enough to walk to the pyre under his own power. He would not—could not—be buried in the family crypt, as their mother had been. Not with the spore aching to burst its way out of where it had nestled in his chest, borne there on the wind when his mask had been knocked loose. But she was determined that he would still have a proper send-off.

It was a House affair, and they were given their space to manage it privately. Talus Mos would have been permitted to attend, but neither of them had really expected him to; he wasn’t really strong enough to endure it. The house was shuttered and dark as the two of them made their way to the little clearing as the sun dipped low over the horizon. All the earth was dark, even if the sky held traces of light.

The wood they had gathered was stacked high enough that he had to hoist himself up, to sit on top. It was not the most comfortable place, perhaps, but he didn’t expect to be there long. He felt curiously detached, once sitting there, taking out his belt knife. Almost unable to believe it. Just a few days ago, there had seemed to be so much promise still left.

“Warden Rush pledged to back us,” he said. “They don’t expect to be called soon, but you should… use this. Call it a funeral feast. People get… sentimental on such occasions.”

He stifled a cough, determined to have his say. There had been no more hemorrhaging since that first scare, and he would not have his last words lost to another.

“Lee Parable can manage most of the planting supervision this year alone, if he has to. We settled what seeds we’d need, and where. But pay attention, and rotate them next year.”

He was pushing it, talking this much, and he couldn’t restrain the cough that tore through him, then.

“Don’t waste the spice on me,” he said when he could. “And remember to take the ring, after I…”

Pin was trying to keep her crying quiet, and he couldn’t bear to look at her as he positioned the knife at his chest. It wobbled in his grip. And he was afraid that, at the last, he wouldn’t be able to do it. But the alternative was to ask Pin to do it, and that could not be tolerated.

And he might have found the courage, then, if he hadn’t looked up to see her approaching through the trees. With her long, long hair floating along in her wake, coming from the gloom, her step slow and sure and her wide eyes alight, she almost seemed an apparition. He opened his mouth, intending to beg her to leave, but he didn’t have the will to ask it of her, again. Instead he was silent as she approached, curiously expectant, though he knew not of what.

Preoccupied as she was, Pin didn’t notice Derringer had arrived until she was standing on the other side of the pyre. There was something frightening in her expression: distorted not by pity nor sadness, but a with avid ferocity as she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me, about the spore?” And when he could give no response, she began climbing up on the bundled sticks and snatched the knife from his nerveless fingers, letting it drop. She pressed, “You would have let me leave without telling me?” Seizing his shirt-front, pulling herself up entirely, he could see the swirling, living light in her eyes as she hissed into his face, “You were just going to die, without saying anything?”

She was too near. Her powerful limbs were almost a cage around him, the heat in them a sweet balm to the wretched shivers he’d been repressing. They were both nearly breathless, and of their own volition his hands had come up to seize her upper arms, fingers partly buried in the molten flow of her hair. Oh if he had to die, would this be such a terribly bad way to go? But—

“Dear, your heart,” he said, weakly.

“Damn my heart,” she growled, closing that last distance.

It was, perhaps, less a kiss than a calculated attack. Her mouth found his, but then so did the flame. It drank on his inhalation, trailing down into his lungs, until it touched the coiling tendril of the sprouting spore, and that burning agony was worse than anything the spore had yet inflicted on him. His fingers spasmed, ineffectually, but there was no breath left in him to scream, no strength to resist. She had gone entirely translucent, focused as she was, and the light in her was nearly too bright to look at. She blazed, little more than fire in a woman-shaped casing, as she held him, burning out the last of the contagion and cauterizing its many wounds.

His first breath of the cool night air was almost unbearably sweet. It rushed to his head so that he swayed, still held up by Derringer’s arms.. But then she let go. She was stepping down and back, away from the pyre. Her hands held at her chest in a staying motion. He could hear Pin, sounding utterly bewildered, shouting questions. She’d ran around and collected his knife, holding it at Derringer in a terrified but determined manner, but Derringer wasn’t even looking at her.

“Wait,” he said, trying to get his feet under him. But she had fled, and Pin had latched onto his arm.

“What was’em?” she demanded. “Are’ee hurt? It was wearing her face—“

“I’m not hurt, she burned it out of me. Let go.” And then, knowing that wasn’t nearly good enough: “Please, I have to go, I’ll explain when I get back.”

There were no footprints to follow, as he had that first day. But there were occasional little signs of her passing: the bent undergrowth, broken twigs, scorched earth, and the smell of lightning. And really, there was only one landmark nearby that she would recognize.

He burst onto the ruins to find her standing at the ledge, her back to him. The light had fled, and it was only under the stars he picked out her form. When she turned, her hands were still clasped at her chest, but her expression was clear.

“It’s breaking,” she said, plainly. “And… I knew it would. I had to get here, before… But I think I’ve figured it out, now. It’s all right.” She took a small step backward.

“Stop! What are you doing?”

“I’ve figured it out,” she repeated. “This… this glass skin. It isn’t me. Even if I lived in it for another thousand years, it was never me.” She took another step back, her heel at the rock ledge. Not even she could survive that drop.

“Don’t. Please, don’t. We’ll fix it. We’ll put the bands right. Please.”

“Shh, Bailey,” she said, giving a tremulous smile. “I know you’re frightened. And I’m sorry. But… it’ll be all right.”

The wind tugged at her, her hair arching out over the ledge. She took a step. And then she was gone.

.

Cathy ran her hand over the car’s baby-blue fin. She didn’t know much about cars, but this one looked like it had rolled right off the set of an old movie.

“Where’d you get the car?” she asked Gray. His face was friendlier than many of the other iterations of him she’d seen before, the freckled skin unmarred as he only gave a sleepy grin in answer and climbed into the back to stretch out on the bench seat.

She drove the first leg of the journey, Carson riding shotgun while Gray continued to nap in the back. Cathy kicked off her shoes, her skirt hiked up to her knees as she scooted forward to reach the pedals. Delighting in the rumbling hum of its engine. Old as the car had to have been, the odometer said there were only a few thousand miles on it. It certainly drove as if that were true, the highway rippling out underneath them like a ribbon pulled through the countryside.

They made good time, cutting their way west beyond the mountain range by the time the sun caught up to them at noon. The roads felt empty, so many people having already fled east weeks ago, but there were the occasional pockets of traffic: families packed in with all of their belongings, hunched over steering wheels with grim determination as they headed in the opposite direction.

“If they knew where we were going, do you think they’d try to stop us?” Cathy murmured after one family outright gawked at them, the driver flashing his lights.

“Maybe,” Carson answered at length, the word a defeated sigh.

They found a rest stop to stretch their legs and eat a few of the packed sandwiches. The air reeked of pine. It was quiet but for the rustling of needles and the wind of passing cars. They sat at a picnic table covered in flaking paint, gouged with unreadable names and carved hearts. She traced her fingers over one of the more legible pairs of initials, and wondered if their love had lasted as long as the vandalism.

They mostly had the space to themselves, seeing only the occasional car come and go in the brief time they were there. It was early summer, yet, the snow barely melted off the mountains, and this pass only recently reopened. Even with the radiant heat, a cold breeze still made gooseflesh stand out on Cathy’s arms, bared to the elements.

“Are you cold?” Carson asked beside her, feeling her shiver.

“Trees only learn to stand against the wind,” she told him, watching the dark hairs standing to attention, rippling slightly. Ultimately felling those forests when she turned them against the table, exposing instead the ragged scars on her forearms to the distant sun. Still such a wane, yellow light.

She leaned into him, pulling his arm around her. Grateful for the closer source of light and warmth as that life-giving hummed through her skin.

Gray took the wheel next, and Cathy navigated. He drove fast, with the rumble of the engine battling with the loud rock he’d tuned the radio to, his own voice booming enough to shake the shiny metal carriage. In all, it created a kind of deafening roar that was its own silence. One hand gripped the wheel while the other tapped out a rhythm against the door, his open window making a wild tangle of his shaggy hair. His teeth flashed in the light, his eyes hidden behind an oversized pair of sunglasses. He practically sprawled in his seat, carving out as big a space in the universe as he possibly could manage.

Conversation made impossible, Cathy glanced into the backseat once, to share a look of amusement. Only for an unexpected bubble of laughter to escape her when she saw how Carson had to sit with his knees nearly to his chin, all scrunched up in the back even in an old boat like this one. He took her good humor in stride, the transformative joy in her face more than a fair trade for his minor discomfort. For a little while, their mission was forgotten, their dire circumstances pushed to the backs of their minds as they all enjoyed the ride.

Late afternoon, they pulled over to the side of the road, and two cars headed in the other direction did the same. No one especially wanted to leave the relative safety of their vehicles, but they all knew it was the better strategy to face what was coming.

They heard it first, a rumble like thunder building in the cloudless sky. Then the ground started to shake, faint tremors building to an unsteady rocking, and then a violent thrash. A disorienting weightlessness descended next, feet scrambling for purchase that no longer existed. Cathy could hear the woods screaming behind her, the stress on the trees too much for many of them to bear. There was a solid two feet of free air between the car wheels and the ground when the wave passed and they all crashed to the ground again, the earth shaking for only a minute more as the last of it rolled by. Before long it was just them and that thunderous sound, growing fainter every second. One of the younger kids across the way was crying, but for the most part everyone just checked their vehicles, secured their belongings, and got back on the road.

They stopped at an abandoned diner near dusk. The place looked like it had been ransacked. The windows were all busted out, the kitchen raided, and the power was off. End-times graffiti coated most of the walls, calling on people to pray and repent. But with night falling, most of those words just faded into the gloom. They brushed the glass off of a booth, set up some candles, and tried to keep their spirits up as they ate their rations.

“That town we passed through was completely empty,” Cathy noted.

“Except for the dogs they abandoned,” Carson added, suppressing a shudder at the memory of the feral pack whose ears had pricked at the car’s passing.

“Makes sense,” Gray shrugged, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth. “We’re only a few hours away. I’m surprised there are any buildings left to abandon, this close, to be honest.”

Cathy nodded, absently, her bottom lip caught in her teeth as she toyed with the candle-wax. “I just… I know we’ve talked about it. But this is all still pretty confusing. You said the origin of all this, the pulses and gravity-bending, all that, is because of where our reality’s worn a little thin against another. I.. am really not completely clear on all that, still, but okay, multiple realities screwing us over, fine, I’ll just take that as a given. But if we pull this off—and we should be able to—why are our chances still so low?”

Gray slouched in his seat, frowning over the question. “Yeah. ‘Chance’ really is the right word, here, isn’t it. Um. So I told you, these other realities, these other worlds, it’s like soap bubbles. Sometimes floating free, sometimes all stuck together, some pop, some merge, all fine and dandy like cotton candy. Infinite bubbles. Some, like, completely alien, and some that are really alike—very similar worlds, I mean.”

“Like they were created on the same breath,” Carson suggested.

“Y-es, same kind of content, right. Okay, but, like, they’re not all the same. We’re throwing some math in here, now, so these are some sophisticated bubbles. Because not all of them have the same chance of existing, and some are a lot more probable than others.”

“Right,” Cathy was following so far, “like when you flip a coin, the heads side-up reality breaks off from the tails side-up.”

“In principle, yeah, something as simple as that.”

“Okay, so,” Cathy pressed, “why are our chances low? There’s infinite realities, right? We’re all a coin-toss away? So aren’t we all just as likely…?”

“Um, yeah, no. Because not everything is a coin toss. Sure, the probability you’ll get heads is 50/50, but what were the odds of you being born with that exact shade of brown hair, or that you’d breathe just so many times today, or I dunno, that you developed nuclear weapons but didn’t blow yourselves all to hell? Add all of that up, and we just… This world just isn’t as probable. We’re weaker. And right now, that other reality all rubbing up on us, gettin’ all in our grill, is about this close to popping our world altogether. It’s just more durable. If we can kinda shake loose, we could snap back to normal, or we could all die. I dunno.”

“Well who says their world was more likely anyway? It all happened, so it’s 100% likely.”

“I dunno? The probability gods? You gonna finish that sandwich or what?”

Cathy slid it across the table to him, her stomach a shriveled pea. While Gray wolfed it down, beside her Carson said softly, “We could still change our minds. See if this sorts itself out naturally, ride out the tremors for as long as we can. Or… we can leave. Retreat back to my world.”

The offer was exceedingly tempting. But: “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to fix this.”

“It’s not yours to fix; you didn’t break this.”

“No, but I have the means. I’d… I mean, we’d essentially be leaving everyone to die. Or to never exist, I’m… still not super clear? Do you…?” she asked, glancing up at him, but unable to stand his pale gaze for long. “Do you want to leave?”

“Well yes, we should get back on the road,” he sidestepped.

She caught his bony wrist before he could slither out of the question altogether, pulling him up short before he could escape out of the booth. It was still difficult to meet his eyes, but she could focus on where she gripped his arm. “I’m serious. If you want to bail, I understand.”

“We’re losing the last of the daylight,” he tried again.

“M-maybe it’s better if one of us survives this—“

“Cathy, Cathy, stop,” he said, pulling his arm free and putting his hands on either side of her face to force her to look at him. “I’m not leaving you here. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not worth a conversation. You said you can’t leave, so neither will I. Oh, Cathy dear,” he sighed, using his thumbs to wipe away the few tears that spilled down her cheeks. Hating himself a little for how grateful and relieved she looked, just then, that he wasn’t going to abandon her to this.

“Well cool beans,” their shaggy-haired third-wheel piped up, hopping out of the booth. “And good news, cuz it’s your turn to drive, blondie.”

There were no other cars now. The headlights picked out the road in front of them, but otherwise it was darkness and sky. What small towns they passed by were unlit, a few hold-out streetlamps occasionally enough to tell what used to be there. In the dark, those crumbled structures all began to look like the desiccated corpses of some great beasts slain by the pulses.

Gray was in the back again, either asleep or just preferring to keep quiet. The radio was silent now, having long passed out of range of the last towers. Cathy had curled up on the seat next to Carson, leaning into his side. He drove one-handed, his other resting on her hip. Her legs were curled under the flow of her skirt while she tried to quiet the angry hornets buzzing in her head.

“I wish we’d taken more road trips,” Cathy said at one point, her voice small. “Traveled. Just for the hell of it. Not because we had to, but just because we felt like it and wanted to be there together.”

“We still might. Although frankly it’ll be less fun in your car, without these bench seats.”

“I wish we’d had more time. This… If it was just dying, I don’t think it’d be so bad. I’ve seen what happens after you die, or most of it. But if we never existed at all… What’s going to happen?”

“Nothing. This will fix it.”

Cathy sighed, looking up into the rearview mirror. When they passed under a streetlight, Gray, in the backseat, met her gaze in the mirror. He was expressionless, the disorienting light almost making his brown eyes seem red. Like old, dried blood. They passed back out of the light, throwing him back into shadow.

Near midnight, it finally came into view. Exactly what alerted them where, precisely, it was, was difficult to pin down. They all straightened as one, shifting forward in their seats as their eyes unerringly fell on the right spot in the sky. What was there to see was really not much. Maybe a slight distortion. Carson thought it looked like the way heat rose off of a sand dune in the middle of the day. Cathy was reminded more of an oil slick, a hideous false-rainbow splotched in the air. Unconsciously, their teeth were all grinding as something on the edge of hearing sawed at their nerves. It was less a sound as it was an interruption of other noises, a ringing kind of quiet. It only grew worse, the closer they drove, the car starting to skitter on the uneven pavement and the small pockets of broken gravity. At last they were directly beneath it, their eyes humming in their skulls as they stumbled out of the car and retrieved the cargo from the trunk.

It looked so ridiculous. Like a firework, or maybe a child’s bottle rocket. Mostly it just looked like a tin can on a stick. Flimsy, and absurd. And it might just kill them all. Or un-alive them, or un-make them, or whatever it was that happened when your reality just Wasn’t, anymore.

None of them moved to pick it up.

“There’s another pulse due in 28 minutes. We might have just enough time to outrun it in the car,” Gray said, his words almost lost in the high anti-sound.

Ultimately it was Cathy who took it out of the trunk. Together, the three of them aimed it, holding onto one another as the ground swayed drunkenly beneath them. Three hands held the match. And the three of them saw it taken into the sky. The way it almost floated up, like a balloon on a string, being drawn into that wrongness overhead. Cathy realized she’d forgotten to actually look at the sunrise that morning. She hadn’t called her mom. She’d meant to. At lunch, she was going to, but it slipped her mind. It had all gotten away from her, somehow. And no, please, call it back. Give her just a few more minutes. She couldn’t feel her lips, was she speaking? Had she said any of this? Or her fingers—were they still holding her hands? She couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop watching the last of it, but she couldn’t feel them with her anymore. She couldn’t remember having ever felt as alone as she felt at this moment. Divorced even from herself. Was this what it was to not be? Was this the rest of eternity?