Prize of Night

by Bailey Cunningham

  Outside, the snow was melting. She knew that it wouldn’t last, but it felt delicious all the same. A slushy reprieve from their winter captivity. Ingrid buckled Neil into the booster seat. He was coloring a picture of a monster with two heads.

  “Are you editing today?”

  “Yeah,” Shelby lied. “I’ll be done before sundown, though.”

  “Best of luck. Text me later.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She almost leaned in for a kiss, but just then, a neighbor walked by. Ingrid waved to him. Shelby ended up brushing the hem of her jacket, in a gesture that must have been a mystery to everyone involved. Then she got into her icebox of a truck and rubbed her hands together. The heater was acting up, but she had no money to throw at the problem. It reminded her of every online payment that she needed to make, and all the phone calls that she’d be receiving when she didn’t click send. All the stone-cold voices, demanding the bare minimum, which she couldn’t even give them.

  Shelby could still see her breath, but there was no use in waiting any longer. She pulled out of the driveway, her teeth rattling as she hit every rut in the snow. It was like being on a disappointing roller coaster that ended in vicious potholes. She merged onto Albert Street and joined the flow of traffic heading downtown. Ingrid would be arriving at Neil’s school, listening to his warm chatter. She would watch as he ran toward his very own locker, remembering the time—not so long ago—when he had to be peeled, crying, from her arms by the teachers. He has . . . things now, she’d said to Shelby, her expression bordering on wonder. Lunch in a paper bag, a space all his own, friends. When did it happen?

  She remembered getting lost on the first day of seventh grade. Wandering through the rows of lockers, which resembled Dante’s sinister grove. She was too old to be distraught but felt it anyway, silently. When the secretary finally called to her, smiling from behind her glass partition, the sensation was indescribable. Found. She’d flushed with relief, unable to explain her shivering as the woman in the broomstick skirt led her to class.

  The lie that she’d told Ingrid wasn’t gnawing at her, as she’d expected. Wasn’t that a bad sign? One day, you awoke to find a blemish on the skin of the relationship. For the first time, you found yourself doing harm, and the lies—however slender, necessary—didn’t keep you up at night. Of course, they were all in the business of telling lies. Ingrid still lied to Paul about where she went, after dark. Shelby’s grandmother may have suspected what she was up to, but her mother had no idea. There was no easy way to say it. At night, I go to a magical park and nearly die. I walk through a city of infinite alleys. It’s sort of like a role-playing game, only you forget who you used to be. And the forgetting is the sweetest, the most dangerous part.

  It had been Carl’s idea to play the game-within-the-game. He thought using paper and dice would allow them to try out scenarios before entering the park. Anfractus, the city beyond the park, was governed by the knife edge of chance. Your role was your prayer. In the safety of Ingrid’s living room, they would roll the translucent red die they’d bought from Comic Readers and imagine that the goddess of chance was there with them, peering through a diaphanous curtain. Behind her, the wheel turned on its primordial axle, pulling stars and lives and betrayals along with it.

  Strange to begin a role-playing game that you knew was real. They rehearsed the moves on paper, knowing that they would become reality, after dark. It gave them some semblance of control as they wrote down possibilities and saving throws. It may have been a lie, but at least it was a lie with nachos. A lie that their chosen family told each other. Perhaps Carl needed it most of all. He’d watched his companion die and carried what was left of him across the worlds. Like all of them, he feared what Andrew had become. What he might do. They’d lied to him for months, told him that his dreams were neurotic, that there was no such thing as a hidden city where powers moved beneath your desire.

  Maybe they’d even wanted it to be true. It ended, strangely enough, in a room full of old pianos. Andrew’s eyes were open, his hand stretched out to the woman who’d tried to destroy them. Now they were together, and she needed to know what that meant. If he could still be saved. If he even cared.

  Shelby found a spot on Rae Street, next to Andrew’s place. Everyone looked gleeful as they walked through the slush. The temperature was above zero, which signaled a citywide celebration. As Shelby watched from inside the truck, a young man unzipped his coat, slightly nervous, as if he might be breaking the law. Then he grinned at the blue sky, just standing at the corner. Paralyzed by sunlight. It was still cold, but people were dressed for a spring day. When winter lasted for seven months out of the year, as it did in Regina, you had to seize upon mild days. They were slushy little miracles.

  She should have brought a coffee. It wasn’t the first time that she’d done this. Maybe it always felt like the first time, because she was so close to turning back. All she had to do was drive away. It wasn’t as if she’d discovered anything. But curiosity drew her back. Would it be just the same? Or would he look up this time?

  Andrew exited the apartment. Like the young man on the corner, he looked at the sky. It swallowed his shadow. A couple walked by, pushing a baby in a giant stroller, with extra-large cup holders. Both fathers were trying to maneuver the pram around melting islands of snow. Andrew watched them as they passed. His expression was difficult to read. He rubbed his arm lightly, which ached in the cold—he’d told her that much. Then he zipped up his jacket and walked toward Thirteenth.

  Carl texted her: What kind of chips?

  Shelby stared at the message.

  Then she laughed. She sat in the truck, laughing until her sides hurt, until she could barely breathe. Then she stepped out, landing in a boggy puddle that devoured her boots. She followed Andrew. It was easy—he never turned around. Stalking is simple, she thought, and instantly regretted it. This was what programs liked Criminal Minds referred to as “escalation.”

  Andrew stepped into a nearby café. For a while, he just read at a table by himself. Then a man sat down next to him. It took Shelby a few moments to realize who it was. When she did, her stomach turned to ice.

  In Anfractus, he was called Narses. A fallen general—the former right hand of the woman who wanted them dead. Shelby’s hands were shaking. Any minute now, she would burst into the café. Any minute now. But she didn’t move. She watched them through the fogged glass, speaking like old friends. When they were done, Andrew grabbed his bag and left without another word. The man stayed behind to pay for their coffees.

  It would have to be now.

  Shelby stepped into the café. She sat down at the table, just as he was leaving a tip.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He looked at her mildly. “I believe it’s called lunch, Shelby.”

  “Sit down.”

  He assented. “You’ve been following us.”

  “Following him. This is the first time that you’ve turned up.”

  In Anfractus, he was a spado. A eunuch who’d served his mistress faithfully, on the other side. In the city of Regina, he owned a club. It was a place where they’d often gone, to dance beneath the lights, to vanish into fellowship and the pulse of music that begged them to be higher, better, stronger, younger. They hadn’t known that he owned the club until recently. It was a collision of worlds that nobody was pleased with.

  “How’s business?” she asked.

  “Not great. I’m this close to bringing back the snowmen.”

  She frowned. “Isn’t that more of an outdoor activity?”

  “They’re dancers.”

  “Oh. Clever.” Shelby folded her arms. “Why are you here?”

  “The last time we spoke, you weren’t interested in hearing what I had to say.”

  He was right. The spado had tried to give her advice, but she’d walked away. She remembered that warm nig
ht. Her first kiss with Ingrid. They’d still assumed that Andrew remembered nothing, that they had so much time to figure things out.

  “I suppose you’re working together now. Taking advantage of those trusty eunuch skills. Can you administrate someone to death? Fluff their pillows in some fatal way? I think there’s a capon in some play who gives poison ice cream to Cleopatra.”

  He didn’t move, but something shifted between them. His voice was granite. “Have a care, child. I’ve commanded armies. I saved your life.”

  “That was Narses. If we were all the sum of our characters in the game, then I’d be a crack shot with a longbow.”

  He shook his head. “You still haven’t accepted it. There are no characters. There is no game. The park doesn’t take you to another world. It shows you what’s beneath the surface of this one. All the dark seams.” Now he leaned forward. “Everything is wilderness. The city most of all. That’s where the really fantastic betrayal happens. But not every park leads to a place like Anfractus. Some lead to forgotten corners. Oubliettes of shadow and half-truths. One park leads back to the beginning, though nobody can find it.”

  Shelby frowned. “Like the little park on Osler Street?”

  She remembered that park. Barely a green footprint laid over the site of a warehouse fire. Cozy and overgrown. That was where she’d kissed Ingrid, while sitting on an art installation that may have just been pulverized stone. That was where she’d seen Andrew slipping sideways into a patch of darkness.

  “If it’s not a game, then what is it? Did some part of Andrew really die? Does anything we do there matter?”

  He stood up. “Meet me in Victoria Park at midnight. I’ll take you to someone who can answer at least one of those questions.”

  He walked out.

  Later that night, they met at Ingrid’s. It was only a practice run, but the whole company was there. Sam, who became an artifex when she stepped into the park at midnight, trailing sparks and machinae behind her. Carl, who made a passable trovador, when he wasn’t snapping strings. Ingrid, who wore a single bronze greave and carried the chipped blade that had protected them countless times. And Shelby herself, the sagittarius, who aimed her bow at horrors. They had lost their auditor, the one who fed bread crumbs to hungry spirits. Andrew had slipped away, just like that. Now he belonged to a different company. He was in league with Latona, the ruler of Anfractus. A month ago, she’d tried to raise hell with an ancient horn. Now she was watching their every move.

  It wasn’t a game. Shelby knew that, even if she couldn’t admit it. The parks led to different places, all of them real and dangerous. The magic didn’t choose everyone. She had no idea how it worked. But every night, people were carried off to treacherous cities, where salamanders breathed flame and worshipped Fortuna in her exquisite disarray. Nothing escaped the shadow of her wheel. And she loved games. So they rolled with their lives. They rolled for power, and salvation, and sometimes—predictably—for desire. Who wouldn’t? In the city of Regina, they were graduate students, overcaffeinated and burning with imposter syndrome as they marked endless papers. After midnight, in the park’s grip, they could be anything. Heroes. Monsters. Even whole.

  They played the pen-and-paper game on Ingrid’s floor. Neil watched in silence, eating his crustless grilled cheese with ketchup. His eyes danced as Carl described wine-soaked alleys, where assassins hid like rubies among the debris. The game was both false and impossibly real. It was a dream that they tried to catch hold of. She saw it in Carl’s eyes. The need for control. Let it work, just this once. The dancing die, the baited breath. This was the ritual that connected their ordinary lives with the extraordinary darkness beyond.

  When it was time for Neil to go to bed, they took a break, so that Shelby and Ingrid could read to him about Scaredy Squirrel and his fear of unexpected parties. After he was asleep, they returned to the campaign. Paul made appetizers. He took their game in stride, having no idea that it was connected to anything real.

  After the quest was completed and the dishes were done, they said their good-byes. When Shelby said that she wasn’t sleeping over, Ingrid’s expression was hard to read. Not disappointment, exactly. Something else.

  “Text me when you’re home safe,” she said. Keeping her dice covered.

  Carl pulled on his toque. “I think we’re ready for tomorrow night.”

  “Right now,” Ingrid replied, “I’m ready for the five hours of sleep that the universe has decided is my reward.”

  Shelby kissed her on the cheek. “Night. See you soon.”

  Carl politely looked the other way, as single people sometimes do. Shelby didn’t quite understand it. He used to go out every night. He was charming, when he didn’t try. There was no reason for him to be alone. She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t do it without raising dust and shadows. Instead, she said: “Careful. The stairs are slippery.”

  Albert Street was still at this time of night. She listened to A Tribe Called Red, nodding along to their drumbeats. In the dark, everything was honest. Music, fogged breath, maple, slush whisper, tire beat. Cars passed her, blind to her fear.

  She parked on the edge of Victoria Park. It felt perfectly empty, but she knew better. In the distance, she could see the giant light sabers, winking just beyond the trees. They were part of an installation, but from here, they could have been foxfire. Every blink turned the park a different color, rendering the trees as stained glass. Shelby let the dancing lights lead her to the war monument, where he was waiting.

  “There may be some turbulence. We aren’t going to Anfractus.”

  “Then where?”

  “Farther,” he said.

  Shelby tried to pierce the line of trees. All she could see were flashes and the white silence of the monument. This was more than a lie of omission. Like so many of life’s unexpected turns, it was a roll that she couldn’t take back.

  She began to undress.

  2

  The alley was the same. Yellow moss crept across the sun-warmed brick, trembling slightly, as if startled by her presence. The cobblestones were sharp against her bare feet. In the distance, she could hear the city’s thunder. The oaths and footfalls and thrum of flies were all familiar, but there was something strange about them. A new accent. It took her a moment to interpret everything that she was hearing. Sunlight made patterns at her feet, and as she watched them, some of the details returned. She remembered the spado’s invitation, the unfamiliar gateway, the metallic taste of her own lie. On the very edge of knowing, she felt the velveteen flutter of the other, the woman who was a part of her. Not her opposite, nor her complement, but rather a silent sister. They stood on different shores, gesturing to each other across fen-locked darkness. If she looked closely at the needlework of sunlight, she could almost see the woman’s face. If she listened past the din of imprecation and hammer-song, there was a word, perhaps a name. But it stayed out of reach.

  This was not her city. Anfractus was a world away. Even if she’d wanted to escape, she wouldn’t last long beyond the walls. Not with the silenoi hunting her after nightfall. The rest of her company had no idea where she was.

  I’m naked and alone, in a foreign city. My ally owes me nothing. He could sell me to the highest bidder and make a tidy profit. I’ve come full circle, to the vicious beginning.

  Only, this time, she knew her name. Morgan. She knew what she was capable of. Unfortunately, she also knew the array of fatalities that waited for her, just beyond the alley. Ignorance might have been sweeter. When you transitioned for the first time, it was like waking up in a different body. This was different. More like waking up in an unfamiliar house, with the unsettling knowledge that everyone in the next room had been up for hours.

  The first time had been a mixture of panic and wonder. She’d nearly died on several occasions, and escaped through some rogue turn of the wheel. This time, she was prepared. She knew most of th
e things that might kill her. That was something, at least.

  Morgan scanned the brick wall in front of her. It offered no secrets. But there was still a chance. She ran her fingers along its surface until she came to a loose brick. She managed to work it free, scratching her hands in the process. Another brick came away more easily. She set them both on the ground and peered into the hole. It looked empty, save for an outraged beetle that came skittering out. But nothing was as it seemed in this place. Offering a silent prayer to Fortuna, she reached in with her hand. Nothing but cool air. She reached in farther, until she was nearly up to her elbow. Something tickled her fingers, but she chose to ignore it. The darkness was heavy, like a shawl wrapped around her hand. Closing her eyes, she reached farther, until most of her forearm disappeared. That was when she felt it.

  Praise the wheel. I was right. Sometimes cities do keep their promises.

  She withdrew a familiar bundle. It was her bow and painted quiver. A small clay jar held wax for the bowstring, and there was also an assortment of poisons in glass vials. She laid these carefully on the ground and reached into the wall once again. This time, she nearly dislocated her shoulder. But in the end, she came out with the rest: sandals, cloak, boiled-leather hauberk, and smallclothes. They had transmigrated somehow, from her original alley to this one. Maybe this was her alley now. She had only the fuzziest idea of how it worked, but it didn’t surprise her that both cities were in correspondence with each other.

  As soon as she was dressed, she began to sweat. Morgan chuckled. She supposed that had she been a real lady, all those pretty jars would be filled with cosmetics rather than poison. In the end, she preferred to stink and stay alive. The weight of the bow was reassuring, even if it was more suited to the battlements. As long as she could find a breath of distance, she’d have no problem turning her attacker into a pincushion.

  She wondered if Narses was waiting for her at the mouth of the alley. She had no reason to trust him. But his fortunes had fallen. Now he was little more than an exile. Perhaps neither of them had much to lose at this point.