My subjects, I speak to you tonight from a place of great love, and great concern.
The last time I heard her voice it was literally saying, Get the hell out of my house. But now she was precise and formal and strangely accented, a mask she put on when it was time to be The Queen.
These are difficult times for many of us. We are angry. We are frightened. We think that our neighbors are our enemies.
I looked to Radha. Her face was so beautiful. Her lips came together in a tiny, strange smile.
Like Connor, she was better off believing that the woman was perfect, all-powerful. The pride she took in her queen was worth more than anything I could offer.
I implore you all to look past our differences. We are all of us brothers and sisters.
I hadn’t told any of them about what I saw. The chimera, murdered. The crowd of people—half of them terrified by the sight, the other half excited.
I am announcing the formation of a new royal commission, said the queen, through the tinny speakers of Radha’s ancient wireless. Ash smiled, at the sound of her mother’s voice, and then she frowned. It will be tasked with investigating the deep divisions that are splintering our city, and recommending the best way forward. If actions are required—if new laws must be passed, if ancient injustices must be remedied—I am not afraid to do so.
Shouts, from outside. Faraway explosions.
Niv’s fists went up, tendrils of lightning sparking in the air around him. Instinctively, he stepped between Ash and the front door. I envied him, his training, his skill. His ability.
Then the screaming started, in the distance.
“Stay here,” Niv told us, but I followed him outside. Ash and Connor stayed with Radha.
Flames raged atop the far tower of the bridge.
“Explosions,” a fellow gawker told us. “People are saying it’s all over the city. Synchronized.”
I asked Niv: “Is this the Shield?”
He nodded. “If I had to guess. He wants to show how powerful his movement is. How the Palace can’t protect the people. We should go back inside. Could get crazy out here.”
We got back in time to hear the queen say, May the gods bless you, and may the gods bless Darkside. The trumpets sounded. The radio people began to squawk again. The smell of smoke drifted in through the open window.
Twenty-Nine
Ash
Someone set Walmart on fire. Kind of a sophisticated operation, evidently. Walked through, dribbled gasoline from concealed containers up and down every aisle, trailed it out the door, dropped a lit cigarette onto it. Fwoosh. Attention, Walmart associates, code orange in aisles one through fifty.
We live close enough that the smell of burning drifted in through the open windows. Lots of smoke, but not so much damage once it was all under control. No one injured.
Still, it was serious, now. The police were all over it.
Walmart, they cared about. Jewel Gomez, not so much.
Another one of Sheffield’s Induction Ceremonies; it had to be. The whole football team knew about this. Knew who did it. Was protecting them. And things were escalating. Getting scarier.
The day after Walmart, I phoned Connor from his driveway. I was still angry at him, but I hoped maybe I could talk some sense into him. Get him to help stop all this before someone got seriously hurt.
“Hey,” he said, just like that, with no exclamation mark. Normally, he’s superhappy to answer a call from me.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m outside. We need to talk.”
He didn’t answer right away. “Door’s open,” he finally said. “I’m in the basement.”
I went inside and walked down the hall, and I had a moment, opening the basement door, when the mildew-and-cinnamon smell of it transported me briefly back in time, to childhood, to Solomon and me standing at the top of the stairs and daring each other to descend to the darkness.
But I was a grown-up now, and I was alone. And the broken bulb at the bottom of the stairs had been replaced. So I didn’t think about Solomon, didn’t spend even a second getting sad over where he might be, because I was on a mission, I had to stay focused, and I didn’t let myself feel the slightest bit of fear following the sound of clanking metal to where I knew I’d find Connor.
His basement had a better weight room than most actual gyms. Connor didn’t like lifting, but he wanted to please his dad, spot for him, be bros.
And there he was, shirtless and sweaty, on the rowing machine. Resistance set so high I probably couldn’t have pulled it a single inch.
“Hey,” he grunted, when he got to the end of his set.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this,” I said. “But someone just tried to burn down Walmart. Was that you guys?”
He frowned, looked at his hands. They were patterned with the checkerboard imprint of the machine’s metal handles.
“Jesus Christ, Connor. People could have been hurt. You could have—”
“Look. I want to talk. But it has nothing to do with any of that.”
I sat down on the floor. There was real pain on his face.
Crazy fears filled my head. But then Connor opened his mouth, and it was so much worse than anything I’d been imagining.
“I don’t want to be your pick-me-up anymore. The person you hook up with when you’re feeling down,” he said, avoiding looking at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be insensitive. I know it helps you. But it’s been messing with me, and I can’t handle it anymore.”
I put my hand on his leg. He pulled it away. “Are you okay?” I asked.
The words looked superhard for him to say. “I care about you, Ash. A lot. And I can’t just do this and pretend it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Oh, honey,” I said, and reached for him, and then stopped. Because I didn’t want to touch him if touching him made him upset. Like even that would be leading him on. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
He looked at me, for what felt like the first time. His eyes were round, hazel, electric. “Didn’t you?”
And I had. On some level, I must have. I didn’t want to see it, because seeing it would mean I was an awful person, playing with his emotions, hurting him, ignoring his pain for my own momentary sense of well-being.
Humans are so strange like that. When we don’t want to see something, we just don’t see it. Or we tell ourselves it’s something else. That’s pretty much an essential part of how we survive in this world.
The smell of his sweat was strong in the air. Normally the scent was sexy to me, exciting. Now I could see it more clearly. All this “manliness” . . . it didn’t match up with the soul behind his eyes. He was something softer, kinder, more sensitive than the world wanted him to be.
An image flashed in my head: irrational, absurd. Connor as a six-year-old, being carried piggyback by a fully grown Solomon . . . in a weird little hut. Laughing like the happiest kid on the planet.
“If you want to go out on a date sometime, call me,” he said. “Roller-skating. Bowling, over in Catskill. But without that? I’m sorry. I thought I was mature enough to handle it, but I’m not.”
I didn’t answer, not right away. The easy thing to do was say, “Yes, let’s go roller-skating.”
But the thing was, I couldn’t. And he deserved better than that. So all I said was okay.
For a second he looked surprised, and then he nodded. “See you around, Ash.”
I wanted to say more. It felt wrong, after everything we’d done together, to have so little in the way of goodbye. But I didn’t want to make things worse. So I just went out the door.
Me, and all my unanswered questions.
Thirty
Solomon
Niv scoured the airwaves for a while, but all the news was awful. Only an hour had passed, since the synchronized explosions all over the city. Dozens of people were injured; each side was blaming the other; spontaneous street demonstrations turning into brawls. Fires were burning out of control. All the mamm
oth-drawn trolley lines were out of commission for the foreseeable future.
The city was in a state of raw panic. The Shield himself phoned in to speak with one radio station, his voice sounding eerily young and cheerful.
These terrorist atrocities are not our doing, he said. This is just another example of criminal elements in the othersider community attempting to discredit us.
Police Commissioner Bahrr was on the radio as well. Demanding the queen take action immediately, to make magic illegal, to mandate that all othersiders wear an identifying mark on their clothing, to establish a curfew.
“He’s been demanding she do all that for years now,” I said. “He knows she won’t. So why keep asking?”
“Because every time she refuses, the press hammers her over it,” Niv said. “Says she won’t keep her people safe. Some even call for her to abdicate. Very smart of him, actually. He knows he can’t attack her directly—she’d fire him. But he can play the press against her. The constant media attacks have diminished her popularity, the past couple years, and made him more popular.”
He switched the radio off. We sat on the floor with our backs against the bed, side by side, knees touching. Connor snored from the top bunk; Ash slept silently on the lower bunk, right behind us. Only a couple of hours had passed, since the queen’s speech.
I pulled two tatamis out from under the bed, and unrolled them.
“You sleep,” he said. “I should stay awake and . . . stand guard.”
Sirens sounded, from outside. He turned and looked at Ash, her noble sleeping profile, and then he reached out to touch her arm. As though he was convincing himself she was real, she was alive, she was safe. For the moment.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “You’re exhausted. I can see it in your face.”
He started to protest, but I put a hand over his mouth. I felt him smile. When I took my hand away, he yawned.
“See? Get some rest. We’re safe here.”
I blew out the lantern. Niv lay on his back, and I lay down beside him on my side. Facing away. Six slim inches separated our mats. I could still feel the heat of him. People said firesiders and lightningsiders had abnormally warm bodies, but I was pretty sure that was faulty folklore masquerading as science.
“They’ll kill me for this,” he said. “For running away with her. Kidnapping her, essentially.”
I opened my mouth to say, Of course they won’t, but of course they would.
“Ash will fix it,” I told him. “We’ll bring her back to herself, and she’ll explain what happened, and we’ll be forgiven.”
“Not just us,” he said. “Ash is the secret to saving the whole city. Queen Carmen can’t stop the Shield, and won’t challenge his movement. Or the police, for that matter. But Ash has an awesome power inside her. She could stop them. Save us, save this city. But it seems so . . .”
Unlikely. Impossible. Overwhelmingly difficult. Likely to end in at least one of us ceasing to breathe. Neither one of us finished the sentence, because there was no good way to end it.
We lay in silence. I didn’t shut my eyes. Someone was hollering through a megaphone from far away. Cops, conducting random sweeps of anyone out on the streets, likely. A bad night not to have a place to sleep.
Of course I couldn’t sleep myself. My head was too full of the things happening all over the city at that very moment. One part of me wanted to grab my camera and go find them. Another was frozen in place. Eventually I opened my eyes and turned around. In the dark I could make out the shape of Niv’s body, his bare shoulders, his sturdy chest. I could see that his eyes were open as well.
“Can you . . . come over here?” he asked. “Lay with me?”
I wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. My feelings about him were messed up enough already. I didn’t know what it would be like, pressed against him on the floor. If I’d be able to keep from kissing him. If there was any reason not to. “Sorry,” he said, when I hesitated just a second too long. “That was silly of me. I’m not a little kid.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said, feeling bad for my indecision, knowing what it was like to be lonely. To feel frightened. I shifted my body back and forth, inched my mat over until it was up against his. He rolled over onto his side and I spooned in behind him.
“This used to be my favorite time of year,” he said. “The week before Unmasking Day. As a kid, it was always the best holiday.”
“The food alone,” I agreed with him. “The fried dough. We’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
“Thanks, Solomon,” he said, and kissed my forearm.
I kissed the back of his head. It felt so easy, the way we fit together. I didn’t want any more than this. The moment was magnificent the way it was.
And then he spoke.
“You were right,” he said, turning around so we were face-to-face. “Not to trust me.”
Thirty-One
Ash
I didn’t trust them, so I made the arrangements myself. I chose a public place, the strip mall on Fairview Avenue, against the white-painted wall of what used to be the back of the Fairview Cinema. I picked a date and time, and called Sheffield to tell him to have the whole team there, then.
“We just got the invites for the Halloween dance,” Sheffield said. “Can I give you a bunch, when we see you? We could really use help handing them out.”
“Fine,” I said, fully intending to deposit them in the trash as soon as I was out of his eyesight.
The Halloween dance is a weird tradition in Hudson. It’s held at the high school, but it’s open to the whole town. Hosted by the football team, to thank their neighbors for their support. Two dollars a ticket, and the proceeds go to fund their end-of-season party.
“You’re the best, Ash,” he said, before I could hang up on him. The saccharine sound of his voice started my eye twitching. Ever since my accident, this has been a sure sign of a headache on its way.
I put the shoot into my calendar. I prayed it wouldn’t rain, and then I bought three giant umbrellas to cover my camera and tripod. And then I thought to myself that it might make the shots better, all of them standing in the pouring rain; it would wear down their resistance and help me get to the core of who they were—the Truth—so I prayed it would rain.
Walmart was packed. Parts of the store were shut down due to fire damage, but the rest of the place was full of people. The stink of burning plastic was almost completely gone from the air. I picked my way through the crowd, sneaking glances at every passing face. Connor’s revelation about Sheffield’s Induction Ceremony scheme had me all shaken up. Suddenly everyone was a potential arsonist or criminal.
How many of these people had done terrible things—and how many more of them had simply gone along with it when others did, or turned a blind eye?
To practice, I took pictures of my mother. Put her up against a plain beige wall.
“Don’t smile,” I said, but she kept smiling.
“Stop,” I said, maybe a little too harshly.
“Sorry, honey,” she said, laughing. “I can’t help it. It’s like a reflex at this point. Aim a camera at me and I break into an idiotic grin.”
It was a strength, really. The ability to smile through every calamity. To be calm when other people—usually my dad—were trying their best to lose their minds. Through the lens she looked like some kind of queen or diplomat. Short hair, tiny earrings, just enough makeup. Her darkness was distant, an orbiting swirl of little black stars blooming and bursting.
Distant—but I could sense it. It existed.
There was some of it in everyone.
Thirty-Two
Solomon
Niv’s darkness was there. Had always been there. Distant—but I could sense it.
“Tell me what you mean,” I whispered to him, there on the safe, warm floor of Radha’s home, with the whole world falling down around us.
He did not answer me right away. When he did, I could hear that he was crying. �
��They’ve got me, Solomon. Going back years.”
“Who’s they?”
“The police,” he said, and his breath smelled like cinnamon and chocolate, like the little boy he had been. “When I was ten, when I first started working as a stableboy at the Palace, they came to me. My mom was in prison, and they told me that if I didn’t work for them, they would make life hard for her. Kill her, even, if I disobeyed, or if I told anyone at the Palace about what was going on. My handler would come check in with me once a month. Ask me what had been happening. What I’d seen, heard. It made me sick to work for them, but in the beginning, it wasn’t such a big deal. I didn’t have any power or responsibility back then, and certainly nobody ever told me anything valuable—but pretty soon I started getting promoted. They made sure I moved closer and closer to the center of the inner circle. Until pretty soon I was the Refugee Princess’s number one aide.”
“I knew it,” I said, and I wondered if that’s why I didn’t feel angrier.
“I pretty much hated myself, for what I did. But you have to believe me, Solomon. I love Ash more than anything, and I’ve never ever given them any information that could help them to hurt her. And I never would.”
He was crying harder, now. I held him tighter. Told him shhhhhhh. Told him we would figure it all out. Told him everything would be okay.
“They have her,” he said, through sobs. “My mom. What’re they going to do to her, now that I’ve run off?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“My handler liked me,” he said, rolling over, onto his back, away from me. “She came by the safe house, told me that the cops had learned about the Shield’s plan for the attacks, during the queen’s speech. Told me the Destroyers would be coming for Ash at the same time, and they’d kill her guards if they had to. Told me I should go out for a kebab when the speech started, if I knew what was good for me. As soon as she was gone, I took Ash and headed straight for the Underbridge.”
I touched his face. It was the only thing I could think to do. Pressed my hand against his cheek.
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