Page 127 of Code Bound
A small window in the door opens and a man’s heavily mustached face appears. His eyes narrow as he takes in first me and then Locke who is barely holding himself together at this point.
“What’s the magic word?” he asks gruffly.
“What?” I say dumbly.
“The magic word,” he repeats. “What is it?”
I glance at Locke and then back at the man in the opening. “Uh . . . let us in?”
“Wrong,” he says, and slams the opening shut.
“Wait!” I call, hitting the door with my fist. The opening pops back open. “How are we supposed to know the magic word?”
“All players must say the magic word to enter,” he replies, sniffing. “If you don’t know it, you can’t come in.”
“How a-about I come in t-t-there and shove the m-m-m-magic word up your?—”
I hit Locke to stop his threat, trying to think. “Is it an obvious magic word?”
“There are no hints,” the man says. “You either know it or you don’t.”
Cipher?I think.
I cannot give it to you, nor can I hint at it.
But I know it?I ask
All players know the magic word. Whether they choose to remember their manners is another matter.
My brows furrow. Remember their manners? I spent much of my early childhood inside a gathering of Suffer Saints, in a Final Gate Covenant. It’s where the orphans are always dumped, as well as those too sick to function on their own. My mother was one of those who was not capable of functioning, and though my memories of her were mostly images of her lying in bed, her eyes open and unseeing, there are a few that differ.
My mother was broken. Her mind had been destroyed when she’d came through the Harrow as a Luxe-born. She’d had no Tier, no Glitch, but she’d been dragged through anyways. We’re always told that only Tier Fives can travel backwards through the Harrow, but it’s not because your level prevents you from going through like I’d always thought.
It prevents you from surviving.
Travelling in reverse is more painful than travelling forward. There are supposedly ways to combat this pain, but only if you’re a Tier Five. Anything less gets shattered beyond repair. Not their body, but their mind. Some say that going backwards through the Harrow scrambles your brain if you’re not powerful enough, and I’m inclined to believe that. My mother was not a person ninety-five percent of her time in Dross.
But those five percent?
There were three moments that stand out to me as different from the vegetative state she existed in. Once, she’d sat up, gave me her journal, and told me to protect it with my life. I was five. I learned to read after that, simply so I could read her words she’d left for me. The second time, she had screamed and screamed and screamed until someone had given her Softlock just to numb her pain.
It’s the third time that pops into my mind now. She’d been lost for years. I was seven, and this was the final time I’d ever see some sort of coherence in her eyes. It’s also the last time I’d see her alive.
I’d been sitting on the floor, my fingers tracing the sketches in her journal where she’d drawn the hyena. She sat up violently from her bed, going from limp to lucid within a second. She’d frantically looked around the room, found me, and held out her hand.
I was a child who desperately wanted a mother, so I’d gone to her, thinking that this was it. This was the profound moment that she would declare her love for me just like she wrote in her journal.
“Mom, I’m here,” I’d said, taking her hand. “I’m here. It’s Vesper. I’ve got you.”
She’d looked at me with eyes so clear, hope had bloomed in my chest. She’d beaten it. She’d beaten it and I’d have a mother again. That’s what I thought. I thought everything would change. That she could be a mother to both me and Dox, who’d been abandoned beside me long ago.
Instead, she met my eyes and looked right through me. She opened her lips and the words that fell out made absolutely no sense to me then.
“Politeness is power,” she’d said. “Power in silk gloves.”
“What?” I’d asked, confused.
“Politeness is power,” she repeated. “Power. Politeness is power. Remember your manners. Politeness is power in silk gloves. Remember. Manners. Politeness is power?—”
