Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Nate turned away out of respect. He understood. It wouldn’t really be goodbye, but it would hurt all the same. Reed caught his eye across the kitchen table. He offered Nate a small, encouraging smile.

  Reed had been the one to suggest leaving Pixel with Ivy. It was Pixel’s best chance. If they managed to replicate Agatha’s still and the Remedy formula, she’d have everything she needed when the time came. She’d have a roof over her head until then.

  Ivy would have someone to care for. And Pixel would be able to work on her tinkering every day.

  Letting Pixel stay with Ivy was the only thing Nate was certain about. His chest hurt with the bubbling pressure of all his fears, so he tried to focus on that. And not what was waiting for him on the roof.

  “Are you ready?” Reed asked.

  No.

  Nate nodded. They walked out the back door from the kitchen and climbed the rickety fire escape single file. It creaked and swayed but held fast as they ascended one more story to the rooftop. Unable to hang on to the rails with his bandaged hands, Nate walked slowly, holding up the line—and grateful for the reason to drag his feet.

  The sun set at the far side of the Withers, casting long shadows. Vivid orange streaked across the smokeless sky, and the clouds were green. Warm air tickled Nate’s clean skin. He watched the smog-clouds move longer than he needed to, because it was easier than turning to look.

  Ivy and Pixel stood beside a bin-fire, eyes gleaming and warm from its glow. Juniper sat on the cracked concrete beside them, playing with her hair.

  Nate leaned into Reed to steady himself. Then he saw a concrete platform covered in scorch marks—the signature of a sick-den.

  Alden’s body rested on top of it, swaddled in faded flower-print sheets soaked in gasolex. The sheets covered his whole body, masking all of his sharp angles. Nate had only watched sludge-funerals from a distance. He’d never seen someone burned. He hesitated, his legs humming with the urge to turn and dash back down the wobbly stairs.

  Reed squeezed his hand. “It’ll go up quickly. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to do this,” Nate said. He’d faked calm until now. Seeing Alden’s body there, cold fear stabbed through him. This was too final.

  “Here.” Brick took the torch from Ivy and lit it in the bin-fire. She offered it to Nate. The flames warmed his face and made a quiet, rustling sound. “I lit July. It’s terrible, and then it isn’t.”

  “No. I can’t.” A sob burst from Nate’s chest like crackling wood. There’d be nothing left after this. Nothing but his grief. He couldn’t stand to think of a world without Alden in it and didn’t want to be a part of sending him away. “I don’t want to.”

  He held out his swollen hands, a desperate attempt to make all of this go away. Even if he had the strength to do it, he couldn’t clutch the torch in his bandaged fingers.

  Reed took the torch from Brick and guided Nate’s hand in a loose grip, holding it steady for him. “Yes, you can.”

  A quiet, heavy calm took over Nate.

  Please burn me up.

  It was Alden’s last wish.

  Confronted with the platform and Alden’s body and the fire-streaked sunset, Nate lost sight of everyone else. He felt like the ticking insides of a clock as he took one small step after another, until Alden was right there and the smell of gasolex stung at his nostrils.

  The flames rose in a flash, hot the way the train wreck had been. He cringed back, crying out with shock before recovering with a low swear under his breath. Somewhere, Alden was probably watching him botch a funeral by scorching his own eyelashes off.

  Reed backed away, taking the torch and leaving Nate with the heat.

  Alden had tried to save him all along. He hadn’t failed. He’d unknowingly led him to his mother, and he’d led Pixel to a safe place. A real home.

  Did he know?

  “What should I say?” Nate asked over the crackling sounds of the flames. He didn’t watch. He couldn’t.

  “Walk well!” Reed called out.

  Nate began to laugh, but the sound became something else and his eyes went hot. “Alden hated walking.”

  “I only enjoy one form of exertion, butterfly,” Alden had said with a wink.

  Shaking his head, Nate lifted his face and watched embers and smoke curl toward the sky. A quick, certain smile tugged at his dry lips. As long as he lived, there’d be something left of Alden.

  He didn’t say a thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Up on the roof of Ivy House, Nate groped his way along a twisted wire for the gap causing the alarm system to fail. Three weeks had gone by, and the electricity was still off, but a wind-crank on the roof generated enough power to test the system. As he worked, standing on a stack of cinder blocks to reach the ceiling of the rooftop shed, he listened to the quiet hum of Ivy having a picnic with the girls near the fire escape.

  They were celebrating the gates opening, for better or for worse. Not that it really mattered to anyone at Ivy House. Not yet. Word had quickly spread that Gathos City was requiring applications to pass through the gates, and no one without proof of workhouse attendance would be permitted to visit the city.

  It was another insult. But hope weaved its way through anger. Papers could be forged. Regulations would change.

  Everything would change.

  Nate wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

  Pixel’s small voice carried like a song. “What will you do?”

  “Stay here,” Brick said. “What use are those towers if you don’t have credits to buy anything? Or anywhere to live?”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Pixel said firmly.

  “Will they come after us with the gates open?” Juniper asked. She’d developed a habit of following Ivy everywhere. Needing a break from her questions and quiet, constant chatter, Ivy had given her the “very important” task of sitting with the sick and keeping them company. She’d taken to it immediately, so natural and calm with the old ones that James was already sitting with her every evening to teach her the vows of Servants of the Old Gods.

  “You’ll be difficult to find if they do. But I wouldn’t worry about that,” Ivy said. “They have no reason to think you’re still alive.”

  “Good.” Juniper made a small, snarling sound. “I’m not going back. Ever.”

  “I’ll go into the city for work when they sort the mess at the gates out,” Sparks said with an undercurrent of apology. “Find a tailor to apprentice under and make fine clothes.”

  Nate found the end of the wire. Every day, a little more feeling came back in his hands. He pinched the narrow red strand, finding the place where rats had gnawed clean through. The thought of going back to Gathos City repulsed him, but a knife edge of curiosity worked its way to the surface of his thoughts. He’d destroyed Agatha’s still. Maybe, some day, he’d go back to where he was made and destroy the labs too.

  “The clothes are beautiful, Sparks,” Ivy gushed, as if able to utterly forget what the city had done to the Withers, to Nate. “You’ll love them. I was never one for finery. But I have a sweet tooth, and I miss the food more than anything.”

  Ivy launched into a description of Gathos City sweets that would have given Nate hunger pangs any other day. But he couldn’t bear the thought of eating. For the first few days, the medicine James had given him for pain had stolen his appetite away. But now that his hands were healing and he didn’t need it, his stomach was still like the rest of him—raw and cold.

  Grief tightened around his ribs. He took a breath that trembled out and lost his balance when Reed barged into the shed.

  “Whoa!” Reed grabbed him by the pant leg. “Careful.”

  “Careful? You almost knocked me over. You be careful.” Anger rose out of habit, before Nate could remind himself that he didn’t have to use it
like a shield to keep Reed’s tenderness away.

  Reed remained silent, patiently giving him a moment to untangle his feelings. His eyes were big and kind—as green as a leaf in the sun.

  Nate held on to the wall with his left hand, his right still bandaged and unwieldy. His anger drained, and he ducked his head, ashamed to have snapped. “Sorry. Were you watching me?”

  “Maybe.” Reed crammed himself into the corner of the shed, dodging around the scrap metal and copper panels and pipes they’d manage to scavenge so far. They didn’t have a Diffuser yet, but Val had a lead on one.

  Val had come to Ivy House and explained to them, tripping over her words, that Agatha had threatened to find the family she supported as a Courier. She’d been too scared to tell Nate to go to Ivy—and she’d been unwilling to tell Nate to go to the Breakers.

  Nate didn’t trust her, but the only other person he knew who could find a Diffuser in the Withers was gone.

  He worked on the still every daylight hour, sleeping in the shed beside the growing machine and only stopping when his hands cramped up too much to use them. Even then, he read over Ivy’s notes and scrawled out his own plans. Pixel helped him, acting as his hands when he couldn’t manage delicate work that had come so easily to him before. She never complained, even when he kept her tinkering through meals and Sparks and Brick had to come up looking for her.

  Lately, he’d been finding her own notes beside his. Little additions to his figures. Suggestions that spoke to a gift for tinkering that would soon surpass his own.

  Peeling paint flecked from the wall onto Reed’s shirt and forearms. He brushed it away with his long fingers. “What are you working on today?”

  “The alarm. Ivy said it’s been broken for ages.” He couldn’t call her anything else. It didn’t feel right on his tongue. “She needs it working with the still up here.”

  “It’s good to see you tinkering again.” Reed studied him with a halting smile, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to.

  “Trying to,” Nate said, frustrated with how slow it was working with one hand. Something else slowed him too—the nagging worry that if he built another still, someone else might take Agatha’s place. He pushed the worry aside. For Juniper. For Pixel.

  And when he let himself want a future, for himself too.

  Reed pushed through the silence. “Did you see all the mending Sparks has been doing? She’s happy as a star about it. Ivy’s got some fancy, shiny sewing needles.”

  “I know the feeling. These are good tools.” A new belt hung heavy on Nate’s hips, a familiar weight that made him useful. Even at a one-handed pace, tinkering was easier than carrying on a conversation when he didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure what they were. What they meant to each other now.

  “You were his wish, you know,” Reed said abruptly, blurting the words out like a cough.

  Nate’s fingers went clumsy, and he gave up on trying to get anything done. He hopped down from the cinder blocks, landing heavily and mostly on Reed. “What?”

  Reed rubbed his elbow. “He was in love with you.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Nate blanched. He’d said the same thing to Alden when Alden had prodded and pushed him about Reed.

  It’s not like that.

  Was it?

  “Nate.” Reed touched his shoulder carefully, like he was reaching for a sharp edge. His warm fingers drifted, absently tracing the skin at Nate’s collar.

  “He thought I was with you,” Nate said, struggling to talk through the shivery sensation of Reed’s touch. “I think . . . Pixel told on me.”

  Reed’s hand went still. “Told on you?”

  It was a betrayal to talk like this when Alden was gone. But Alden had relished gossip, drinking up neighborhood news and stories of woe and betrayal from every chem fiend who sat in his shop long enough to be interrogated. He’d probably love this.

  Nate’s voice came out choppy and upset. “She told him what I felt about you.”

  “What do you . . .?” Reed’s fingers clenched up in Nate’s shirt. “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing. She could tell.” Nate’s skin lit up like a fever. “Everyone could.”

  Reed let go of Nate and stepped back as if Nate had struck him. But he didn’t have anywhere to go. Another shower of peeling paint fell into his hair like falling ash when his back hit the wall.

  “I couldn’t tell.” The words rasped out of Reed. “I didn’t know.”

  Nate stared at him, recognizing the hurt and longing in Reed’s eyes like he’d only just learned how to see. Their past was a fog of lies and pain, but he knew one thing clearly: he’d pushed Reed away again and again.

  And Reed had never given up. Even when he’d made Nate leave the gang, he’d begged him to get clean, to come home.

  He hadn’t known how Nate felt, and he’d fought for him anyway, with the stubborn hope that lit Reed up from the inside out, brighter than any of the lights in Gathos City.

  Hope blossomed in Nate now, big and frightening—so much scarier than facing down the stillness. Looking down at his feet, he said, “I don’t know how to fix this.”

  But he wanted to. He wanted it so badly.

  Reed took his free hand carefully, rubbing his thumb over the knotted scars on Nate’s palm. The sensations were different now. Numb in places and too sensitive in others. Nate shivered, scared to look up at Reed’s face.

  “I don’t believe that. You can fix anything.” Reed drew Nate’s hand up slowly, turned it and kissed his knuckles.

  All Nate had ever known was how to run and hide. He was painfully exposed now, his eyes wet with tears, his fingers trembling in Reed’s. There was only one secret left. “I told Pixel I loved you.” His breath shuddered. “I always have.”

  Reed’s gaze snapped up. He dropped Nate’s hand, and Nate started to stumble back, worried he’d said too much, that it was too much, too ridiculous. And then Reed’s mouth was on his, urgent and careful all at once. He pulled Nate against him, leveraging the wall, getting his fingers knotted up in the tangles in Nate’s hair. He cursed softly under his breath as Nate laughed and winced at the same time.

  “I’ve never done this before,” Reed whispered.

  “I can tell.”

  “Is that bad?” Reed asked. “I know Alden—”

  “No,” Nate said quickly. “Reed, no.”

  Reed’s chest rose and fell with a quick sigh.

  Nate nudged his nose against Reed. “I haven’t either. We never did anything. We weren’t together.”

  “Are we together?” Reed tripped all over the words.

  “Do you want to be?” Nate asked, knowing he sounded painfully eager.

  “Yes. I want to be with you.” Reed’s exasperated breath puffed against Nate’s skin. “I’ve always wanted to be with you. I thought it was plain.”

  “I never should have—”

  “Stop. No more being sorry. No more.”

  Reed dragged his mouth across Nate’s cheek and found his lips. It wasn’t like the broken, urgent kisses they’d shared before. This was sweet and unsure. Nate smoothed his hand up Reed’s strong arm in a way he’d never let himself before. Reed was familiar and warm and solid beneath his palm. A startling urge to touch more of him took Nate’s breath away.

  “I like the way you chew on your lip when you’re working,” Reed said. “And how I can see you making plans, even when you’re quiet. I like that you’re brave. Even when you’re scared, you’re the bravest person I know.”

  Brick had told Nate once that Reed didn’t have enough practice being loved on, and now Nate was sure he didn’t have enough practice having somebody say nice things. He squirmed against Reed, trying to make the kissing happen again.

  “Are you trying to distract me?” Reed said against his mouth.

  “I am.”
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  It worked.

  Feverish heat unsteadied Nate from his head to his toes. He held on to Reed tighter and laughed a nervous sound into their kisses, certain his legs were going to stop working entirely.

  “What?” Reed pulled away a little, like it pained him to stop. “Am I doing it wrong?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Nate’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I like it. I like it so much.”

  “You,” Reed said, soft and amused. A dimple formed at his cheek, and Nate closed the distance between them with a kiss that left no room for secrets. A noisy thing, hands reaching, needing. They moved together in a dizzying connection brighter than everything else, Reed whispering his name like a wish.

  Then someone punched Nate’s shoulder. And by the sound of Reed’s hissing intake of breath, they punched Reed’s arm too.

  “Ow,” Nate said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Brick batted at them both. “You should come out and listen. Miss Ivy’s telling the best stories.”

  Nate spun to face her and grinned like a fool when Reed wrapped his arms around his chest and kept him close. His chin stung from Reed’s stubble, and he felt like he might float away to the stars if Reed didn’t hold him tight. “What kind of stories?”

  Brick gave them a look and pushed a wild lock of red hair out of her eyes. “You’d know yourself if you stopped necking and got something to eat with us.”

  Reed snorted softly into his hair. It tickled. He gave Nate a little push.

  “Hold on.” Nate pretended to dust his filthy clothes off as he waited for his body to stop burning up. His tool belt wasn’t doing much to hide the extent of his interest in all the kissing.

  Reed left the shed first, climbing over a pile of metal, and Nate allowed himself a long look at Reed’s limber form. Brick shook her head and grinned.

  “Never seen him like that before,” Brick said.

  Nate rubbed his face, willing the blush away. “Like what?”