Page 22 of Ashes of Gold
“Your tricks are no use,” Kai says. “But for those inside the District, Patrol has almost all gone plain clothed. They’ve renamed themselves and—”
“BEEP! BEEP!”
The light on Bri’s device flashes with a pulsing red. Zora steps in front of me and I almost have to shove her out the way.
“I can handle myself, really.”
If she heard me, I can’t tell. She crouches low, hand on her weapon, watching, waiting.
“You carry the Ancestors’ magic,” Kai says. “She is protecting it more than you.”
“I—”
“BEEP! BEEP!”
Kai rolls her eyes.
“I trust Bri’s gadgets. If it’s beeping, someone is definitely nearby.”
Jhamal nods in agreement.
“Let’s get to higher ground, see what we can see,” I say. “We need to know where the enemy is to run from them.”
Kai hesitates but nods and takes off. Her girls form an octagon, their backs to one another and weapons out. They crouch, gait loose, bouncing ever so slightly.
“You go that way,” I say to Jhamal. His lips are a hard line, but he runs off in the direction I tell him. Bri and I follow the pulsing beeps, they grow louder the closer I get. Her hands are shaking, but her elbows are firm.
“Stay behind me,” I say as we peek around a corner near what used to be some sort of art gallery. A statue is overturned in the courtyard outside what used to be a dormitory for first-year Bound students. But other than that, no one else is there. That I can see. A rumbling noise rolls in the distance, and I hold my hands up at the ready. Just in case. Bri wanders around the statue and the device in her hands screeches louder.
“Help me with this,” she says, pushing on the crumbling plaster that was the Chancellor’s head. “Someone’s under here.”
“Get back.”
Bri scurries backward.
I probe the spells covered in cobwebs in my brain until I sort the one fordestroy.Hope this works. “Perdch yee’me.”
White shards fly through the air as my magic blows the statue into pieces. I jerk us into a huddle. When the dust clears, what’s left is a body. Gray skin, long hair, and an open-eyed stare. He’s about my age. I lift his sleeves, looking for onyx bubbles protruding from his wrist, but there’s nothing. Bri’s gadget beeps quieter.
“Magic was used here. Very recently.” She bangs the top of her doohickey. “But the whiffs of it are fading. Or this isn’t working anymore or something.” She shoves it in her bag with a scowl.
That march of Patrolmen… they killed him?For tagging a statue?! I can practically hear what Jhamal would say:There is no such thing as fairness in war.
His legs and arms are sprawled out like an X. In his right palm is the letterLpainted in red. His lips are so dry, they’re peeling. I trace the lettersM-A-C-Apainted on his forehead in red.
“Maca.”
“Short for Macazi,” Bri says.
“The magicless bother no one,” I say, the injustice of it twisting nerves inside me. “They lived in community housing and those that were released from there are hardly seen by anyone.” No telling how bad it’s been for them now that the Central District is in pieces. The last time I saw a Macazi, he was no more than five years old. I was running from being captured by Patrol and I’d given him a carcass of meat. I can still remember the way his curly hair bounced as he ran off to take it to his family.
I search the dead man’s pockets for weapons. He has light scrapes on him, and his hands are dusty.
Bri sniffs them. “It’s the plaster from the statue. He must have toppled it after tagging it.”
The stuff underneath his nails says he fought hard against whoever hurt him.
Light footsteps and clanging armor behind me tell me that Jhamal and Kai’s search came up empty. Instinctively, I look for the window on the top of the Chancellor’s tower, but we’re too far away now to see it. I press a palm to the Macazi’s forehead. He’s cold, so cold, like he’s been here like this forever. Like someone wanted this to happen here… and for us to find him.
