Page 61 of Wings of Ebony
Here she go with that again. She says I wake up asking about some little boy. I know the dream she’s talking about, but I don’t talk in my sleep. “Not true, Bri. I don’t even snore.”
“Youdoooooo.” She turns to Luke. “She does, right?
“Hey, I slept overonetime. Don’t get me in the middle of that.…”
“Wrong answer.”
“I mean, of course, babe,” he says. “Rue, you talk in your sleep.”
“This is an attack and I don’t appreciate it,” I say, a laugh tickling my throat.
“No, but really,” Bri says. “I’m tracking the timeline. I got this, trust me. Ride or death. The watch will be ready.”
“Die, Bri. Ride or die.”
She my girl, that was her point. We do our handshake thing that’s three steps more complicated than me and Luke’s.
“By the way, what was all that about?” Luke asks, nodding at where the General just was.
“Ugh,”I say. “I don’t see how you work for him.”
Luke’s been interning with the General, trying to get promoted to Patrol. That would take him out of mine work and get his family a bit bigger unit. Luke has no siblings or anything. He’s just not ’bout that soot-covered, long hours, manual labor, mine-worker life.
“Guy’s a jerk,” he says. “But hey, if it gets me a better gig, I’ll do what I have to do.”
“I mean, I get what you saying. Hustle mentality for life. But that dude… nah. Just, nah.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Let’s just say I don’t like his vocabulary.”
CHAPTER 20
THE SCENTS OF GHIZONhit me before the sights do. Iron striking stone clatters as my feet touch the ground. Bri’s coordinates put me on Market Street. The street runs through the Commercial District of Ghizon, which is basically their version of an outside shopping mall, and empties into Bri’s neighborhood.
Close storefronts stuck together like narrow townhouses line the street ahead, some towering, some in odd topsy-turvy shapes, others short and squat. Like the Central District, large screens hang outside the windows of storefronts; Benevolence, Duty, Fidelity appear and disappear on them.
In, around, and between the stores, crowds hustle from one place to the next, yapping to their friends, carrying bunches of bags. Dwegini. Only they’d have the time (and money) to spend a leisurely day out and about. Zrukis work sun up to sun down.
Careful to keep my head down, I rush past Peekey’s, a store in the shape of a giant O, like a donut—or lekerae, as they call it here. You can tell what’s inside the store by how the outside is done up. The screen on their shop window flashes images of icing drizzling on knotted pieces of dough, on repeat. Sugary sweetness fills the air as I hurry past, when the screen changes to an image of theChancellor waving and smiling. The General is behind him and the wafting cinnamon smell turns to sulfur. I keep moving.
I have to stop him.
“And how do you do today, mais?”
My heart jumps at the voice as the doors to a gadget shop swish open. I exhale.It’s only a spell.I rush past, ignoring the talking doors trying to lure me back with a two-for-one sale.
“Oh, excuse me,” someone says, but I don’t look up. I hurry, faster. Not so fast that I look suspicious, but much faster than a normal stroll. The center of the street opens up and I hang a left at Befuddled, an herb shop with elixirs and remedies that’s basically a giant tree with floors upon floors of shopping built into its branches. I hop over a protruding root eating into the cobbled street as I spot the entrance to Bri’s neighborhood, a dot in the distance. Almost there. Once I pass a few pet stores, a jewelry shop, Muses and Mixes, a spot to buy music and even take lessons, and countless odds and end boutiques, Bri’s block is easier to see.
Suddenly, an elder man with a cane stops mid-street and stares at me. I pull my hoodie on tighter and try to get lost in the chattering crowd. It’s only then I notice the screens lining the stores up and down Market Street have changed.
Images of the Chancellor’s mug have been replaced—with mine.
SHIT.
The screens are silent, but words run along the bottom of the screen.
IF SPOTTED, INFORM PATROL IMMEDIATELY.
