City of Night

by Michelle West

  Water returned in buckets and silence. Arann entered first, glanced around the room, and then set the buckets to one side in the kitchen. He approached Jay, but he didn’t speak.

  There wasn’t much point. They couldn’t go into the undercity without a magestone; that was death. They had candles, but candles were almost useless unless you didn’t plan to actually move; they had no lamp, and lamplight cost money. Finch came to draw Arann away, and he went, but he looked at her once and she had to turn away from his expression.

  It said, naked, all the things that everyone was afraid to even think.

  They were sitting in the center of the room when the door opened. They looked up—all of them, even Jay—as Carver entered. He walked over to the kitchen table and set the magestone flat upon its surface. But he didn’t meet Jay’s eyes.

  One by one, they filed in: Angel. Duster. Lefty.

  Lefty went straight to Arann’s side and stood one step behind him, as if they were alone again in the City, and he didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, what to do.

  Gods, Finch thought. Kalliaris.

  Jay stood. Her eyes were dark with lack of sleep, and dark with something else as well. But she asked the question they were all silently asking. “Where’s Fisher?”

  And she got the answer they were all silently dreading.

  “We lost him. In the undercity.” It was Angel who spoke, not Carver, not Duster. The words were flat, and he bowed the odd spiral of his hair slowly, lifting a hand to his eyes.

  Jay hit the table with both hands; it was the only sound in the apartment. Then she rose and she headed to the other room, slamming the door behind her.

  Fisher did not come home.

  Not then. Not later. Not ever.

  Chapter Seven

  9th of Emperal, 410 AA The Common, Averalaan

  DUSTER DID NOT DARE THE UNDERCITY. She left the magelight in the stand on the kitchen table, surrounded by the flapping tongues of books; the sea breeze was heavy, and the windows were open. She thought about tying them shut. It wasn’t raining. It wasn’t her job.

  Her job.

  Glancing around the room, she saw the den. Saw the awkward space and silence that surrounded each person. Even Lander’s hands were quiet in his lap, as if he’d forgotten all forms of speech in this daylight room. She looked away before he could meet her eyes. Hells, she looked away before anyone could, as if their gaze was painful. As if it would burn. And in this tight little constricted cage of a space, it was just pain and suffocation. She had to get out.

  To get out of here.

  No one tried to stop her. Not Jay. Not Lander. No one else would’ve dared. She said nothing as she made her way to the door. Maybe it took her a little longer to open the damn thing than it should have. Maybe she stayed in the frame, listening for something—some sound, some word, some question. Whatever it was, it either wasn’t coming, or it would take too damn long, and Hells if she’d wait.

  But the door sounded loud as she shut it. Had she slammed it? Hadn’t meant to, if she had. Didn’t matter. She strode down the hall, down the stairs, and down a different hall. Sunlight opened up as she stepped into the street. Sunlight swallowed her.

  It didn’t swallow enough of her, though. Here, the streets crowded with too many people, too many smells, and too much damn noise, she was haunted by the silence. Silence of the undercity. Fisher had followed her. She wasn’t his keeper, she told herself that. Fisher never listened to anyone, and he didn’t cling like a baby to anyone either. He wasn’t great in a fight, but he wasn’t bad; he was just damn quiet.

  Too damn quiet.

  She headed toward the Common because it was the Common, and because that’s where most of the people were going. She could fight the crowd, or slide through it, or dodge it—but she had nowhere else to be, and if they weren’t her den, there was still some safety in numbers. If she wanted safety.

  Fisher had followed her.

  She’d lost him. She hadn’t even been aware that he was gone. She’d wanted to run back, run to where she might have lost him—

  No. No one goes alone. We need to stay together. And Lefty, runt of the litter, had been the first to notice. Lefty. He should have shut up, let her wander off alone. Maybe get her ass lost, same as Fisher’s. He should have. Didn’t.

  Her hands were fists. She couldn’t uncurl them. Didn’t try. She’d lost Fisher. Fisher was gone.

  Maybe, she thought. Maybe he’d come back. Maybe he’d find some way out of the dark and the silence, maybe he’d be home when she got home, and the den would be loud again, and Jay would finally sleep. She wanted to believe it. Hated herself for wanting it. There were way better things to want.

  Or there had been. There had been way better things to want. She knew; she’d wanted a lot of them. But she’d seen Jay’s face. She’d seen the look in her eyes, and she knew, just as sure as if it were Duster cursed with the feelings, not Jay, that Fisher was never coming back.

  Duster found it hard to breathe. Is this how it started?

  She didn’t even like Fisher all that much, not really. He was just another body on the floor, come rain or shine, just another mouth to feed, another voice to ignore. That’s what he was, right? That’s all he’d been?

  But he was gone. He was gone. She hadn’t had enough time to learn to hate him. She’d learned how to hate almost everyone else she’d met before the den. Not Fisher. She hadn’t hated him enough to make his absence a thing of joy or triumph. All she had was this—this horrible sense of nothing, this break, this uncomfortable tightening of throat and chest.

  And they’d all be there, silent, trying to figure out how to comfort each other.

  She didn’t need their comfort. She didn’t want their comfort. She wasn’t crying, because she didn’t. Nothing made her cry. But . . . she couldn’t breathe. She was—she thought it, loathed thinking it—afraid. She was never going to share that with anyone. She was afraid. He was gone. She didn’t know what his loss would do to the den. She couldn’t even tell herself she didn’t care. She tried. She knew she could tell any of the rest of them—any of them, even Jay—that she seriously didn’t give a shit. But she couldn’t say it to herself.

  Home, hey? This is what home was? This is what Jay wanted her to learn?

  Here, in the open sun, as far from the darkness and the quiet of the undercity as she could possibly get, she found a small gap beneath the trees of the Common and knelt, forehead against bark, eyes closed.

  She could wait here for as long as it took.

  9th of Emperal, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan

  Jay woke, shouting, in the middle of the night. She sat up in bed, threw off her bedcovers and turned, almost wild, toward the magelight.

  Teller, Finch, and Duster were awake before she reached out to grab the magestone and pull it, in her fist, to her chest. She sat breathing heavily, her hair in tight curls dangling in front of her eyes. She didn’t even bother to reach up and push them out of the way.

  Duster was off the floor first, but she always was; she kicked off blankets and rolled to her feet. Even with the magestone’s light dampened by Jewel’s fingers, the edge of Duster’s dagger gleamed.

  Teller touched Duster’s shoulder gently, and she pivoted on her feet. But he stood very still and waited until she relaxed. Duster didn’t wake up quickly; she could move, and talk, and fight, when she was still half-dazed by sleep. Since movement or fighting weren’t usually required, the den waited until she was actually awake; when she was awake, she could tuck in the fury that characterized almost anything she did.

  The day had been hard.

  Jay hadn’t spoken two words side by side. She did eat, but she didn’t eat much, and she didn’t study at all.

  Guilt had taken Fisher’s place in the den. It was an unwelcome addition, but no one had any idea of how to get rid of it. Teller, glancing at Finch who was now standing at the foot of the bed, nodded. Kitchen, he mouthed.

  Finch sig
ned agreement without lifting her hand, and gently put an arm around Jay’s shoulders. Jay blinked, then, and slowly released her death grip on the magestone. She also shoved her hair out of her eyes, as if it were sleep.

  “Duster,” Jay said, still seated.

  Duster looked up.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  And shrugged. But it was an awkward shrug. Teller’s mother had never been violent, but in a rare moment of clarity, Teller thought it would be easiest for Duster if Jay slapped her or shouted at her, bringing her fury into the open.

  Jay swung her legs to the side and slid out of bed. “Kitchen,” she said, although they were all heading that way anyway.

  They picked up the rest of the den on the way to the table, which added ten minutes. Jay took her usual chair, and Teller brought one of the chairs that rested against the far wall. He also picked up a slate and chalk as Jay deposited the magestone on the table, whispering the light to an almost uncomfortable brightness. She stared at it, wide-eyed, as if she were seeing something else. Which was fair, because she was.

  “It’s dark,” Jay said.

  Teller began to write.

  “It’s not like the undercity. It’s night dark, but dark. Everything smells funny,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

  “Where are you?” Finch asked.

  “I think I’m in a forest. But it’s like the idea of a forest. The trees are so thick-trunked, they look like buildings. I think that’s why it’s dark,” she added. “So many trees. But there’s room between those trees. And stuff growing between them as well. I’m running,” she added softly.

  “From what?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned, closing her eyes. “A hunter, I think.”

  “You can’t see anyone?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hear anyone?”

  She nodded slowly. “Voices. Distant voices. And . . . horns. I run faster. I break branches and things close to the ground; I can’t see them,” she added. “But I clear the big forest, and I’m out in the open. The moon is full,” she added. “So there’s light.

  “But there’s also someone standing in the clearing, and I’ve seen her before.”

  There was a pause in the transcription as Teller looked up.

  “She looks at me. Same woman as—as last night. Long, dark hair, perfect, pale skin. Perfect teeth,” she added. “No sword, this time. But her hands are red with fire, and shadows drip from her hair. She smiles when she sees me.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Yes. Two names. I know this, but she doesn’t give me either. Instead she holds out her burning palms and says, “The gods are coming, and it is too late to stop them. She throws the fire—but not at me; she throws it at the forest. And it starts to burn. I can hear the screams and shouts of men and animals.” She paused, and then took a deep breath.

  “One of those animals clears the fires, and enters the clearing to the left of me. He passes so close, I want to run and hide, but I can’t move because if I move I might catch his attention. It’s focused on her.”

  “What kind of animal?”

  “Huge.”

  Teller’s hand stilled. “Ummm, anything more concrete?”

  “I can’t really see him clearly. It’s like he’s a bunch of different animals, and they all overlap, so he’s blurred at the edges. Giant, different animals. But he has horns. Not like cow horns,” she added.

  “Antlers?” Angel offered.

  Jay nodded. They thought she was finished, but she spoke again. “But he tells me to run, and I can’t help it; I run. Except I’m not running through forest anymore. I’m running through the holdings, and the streets are disappearing at my back.”

  “Disappearing?”

  “Into shadow,” she whispered. “Except it’s not shadow; there’s no light to cast it, and no light to penetrate it. It’s like the undercity would be if magestones did nothing. It is eating the whole damn City almost as fast as I can run.”

  Silence, then, broken only by the sound of Teller’s writing. He looked at Jay, and then looked at all of the den. “Day two?” he asked.

  “It’s not exactly the same,” Carver began.

  Jay lifted a hand before anyone could agree or disagree. “Day two,” she said heavily as she pushed herself out of the chair and stood. “Are we betting on day three?”

  “Can’t,” Jester said cheerfully. They all turned to look at him. “You’ve got all the money,” he added.

  Someone smacked him, but it wasn’t Jay; Jay had already turned to stumble back to bed.

  10th of Emperal, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan

  It almost wasn’t worth the effort of going to sleep.

  Jay did, because her sleep was going to be interrupted, and she reasoned she might as well start “early.” Everyone else sat in the main room, lounging against found wall space, or sprawled across patches of floor. Lefty lay beneath the kitchen table, his elbows against the wood grain, his hands propping his head up.

  There wasn’t much talk. Even Lander’s hands were still. They listened, hard, for the sound of steps outside in the hall; they glanced far too often at the very uninteresting door.

  Finch watched them all, her arms wrapped, as they often were when things were awkward, around her chest. She had done all the cleaning and tidying there was to do, but even that had been difficult; one less plate.

  She walked past Arann, who was sitting to one side of the kitchen table under which Lefty lay; she stepped over Carver’s extended legs and walked around Angel’s crossed ones; she touched Teller’s shoulder and glanced at Duster.

  Duster’s version of talking was a little bit more animated than Fisher’s, because it had to be; Fisher just didn’t like to talk. But in the past two days, Duster had hardly spoken a word. Not to the den. Not to Jay. When she did bother, it was sharp and harsh, a shadow of her early days in the den.

  Finch, who had never been Duster’s victim, grimaced. When Duster was this withdrawn—the last time it happened had been after a run- in with Carmenta’s den that had not gone particularly well—the only person who could reach her was Jay. And that was partly because Jay didn’t find the sharp edge of Duster’s tongue all that threatening. She didn’t apparently find the sharp edge of Duster’s dagger all that threatening either, which was good, because Duster pulled it every time she had an argument.

  Jay, however, had been almost as silent as Duster.

  “Any point in going to sleep?” Jester asked.

  Angel shrugged. “I’m not going to bother,” he replied. “And if you fall asleep and start snoring, you aren’t either.”

  Jester laughed. Angel, using the sign language of the street, rather than den-sign, made plain what he thought of that.

  Finch wanted to hold on to this: It was normal. It was the way things always were. And it gave her hope that in the end, they could find normal again.

  But the boys fell silent, and it was a heavy, gray silence that darkened as the sky did. Finch waited for a while, and then headed toward the window, where the moon lay above the tall buildings across the narrow street. Silver moon, shadowed face, it seemed so impersonal.

  It was.

  Fisher was gone and the only people who knew, or cared, were in this apartment. But his absence robbed them of words, which was a bitter irony; he would have liked the silence. If she disappeared, if she vanished into the utter night of the undercity, the last thing she wanted to leave her den was this silence; it was so like a wound, but there was no blood, and nothing to tend or bandage.

  She might have said it, might have told them how she felt, but Jay shouted instead, and they rose almost to a man—the exception being Jester—pausing as they neared the door to let Duster and Teller through. Finch, lingering at their backs, simply moved to the table to wait.

  Jewel sat on her chair, with the soft glow of light in her face. She missed fire, sometimes, because with fire came heat; she would have raised her hands to cu
p even the smallest of candle flames, because it would have eased the ice from her fingers.

  Instead she clasped them loosely in her lap. Her shoulders were bent and curled, as if to ward off blows; she knew this, but couldn’t bring herself to straighten them. Maybe no one would notice, in the dark.

  Teller whispered the magestone to a brighter light. Not its brightest, but he needed light to work with, and she knew Teller well enough to know that he gave her as much space as this small, crowded room allowed. Tonight, she wasn’t sure she wanted it, but couldn’t bring herself to say as much; that’s not what he was here for.

  Not what any of them were here for.

  “It’s her,” she said bluntly. “She’s back.”

  She could hear Teller’s breath break; it wasn’t a sharp inhalation, but it was a pause. After which, he started writing. She couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to write things down. She couldn’t even remember when they’d started. But now? It was part of the vision, part of the nightmare—the last, and best, part. She could listen to the even scritching of chalk against blackboard, and even when she spoke, she was aware of what it meant: people were here, they were with her, and they believed enough in what she said that they were willing to transcribe it.

  “Still no name?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know what she is,” Jewel whispered, “but she’s not a god.”

  Teller’s hand paused. “How do you know?”

  “Because I saw gods.”

  “Gods. As in plural.”

  “I think so.”

  “Sorry,” he added. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Tonight,” she said softly, “Interruptions are good.” She turned in her chair, draping one arm across its back. “Interruptions are good because it’s too damn big. What can we do about gods?”

  “Die?” Jester suggested.

  She heard someone hit him. “Don’t.”