Page 92 of The Only Way Out Is Up

“Are you asleep?” he says.

“Not yet.”

“She’s been going out at night more often.”

“She needs to work.” I don’t understand what she’s doing, exactly, but it’s not something she likes. I see the hollow look in her eyes when she comes back, and sometimes there are bruises on her arms. Once she had a black eye. “We need money for food.”

“What if she doesn’t come back?”

“She’ll come back. She always comes back.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” His hand curls very tight around mine.

“Then I’ll take care of you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

He doesn’t know that I’ve been talking to a scavenger crew. They have kids younger than me along, though they only get quarter shares. Fara hasn’t agreed to it, but I don’t plan on telling her. I’m not going to sit around useless forever.

After a while, Somi’s breathing gentles. I lie there in the semi-darkness, staring at the ceiling, imagining that I can see through it to the tiered city above. And then through that, up into the stars.

I open my eyes and look up at the ceiling. If I could see through the carved and decorated roof of Ky’s house, there would be a mass of blue, with lamps so bright it hurts to look at them. Infinitely more pleasant than the dim work-lights and the Asshole down below, but still fake. When night falls, there’s no moon, no stars, only darkness. We live in a bubble, Heapers and Hod citizens alike. A sealed tomb of metal and rock, where nobody gets in or out.

With one exception. And today I’m going to meet him.

Four days have passed, and it’s possible I’ve never worked harder in my life. It feels like a dream, a fugue state, broken only by spectacular meals I barely taste and a few extended periods of unconsciousness. What Ky does during that time I can’t say, but I see her only occasionally when she comes to check on my progress.

I wish she wouldn’t. I’ve always been able to throw myself into my work, so that nothing seems to exist apart from me, the sigils, and the metal. Down below in the Heap I’d never been able to make that feeling last for very long, because there were always distractions. Family, hunting, or the sheer inadequacy of my tools and materials. Here, though, everything I need appears as if by magic. Like in a dream, every problem has an easy solution, as fast as thought.

It’s all I can do not to tear Star apart entirely and begin again. I started the Mark 6 back in the Heap, with the limitations of my workshop there. I’m certain I could do a better job here, but there’s no time. I do the best I can, layering our hoard of sigils to strengthen Star’s limbs and toughen his armor. A variety of nasty tricks are concealed in his carapace, where they will hopefully surprise his opponents. Ky says that keeping some cards in reserve is always a key to victory.

Star himself makes suggestions and (more often) sarcastic comments. If he’s nervous at all about the upcoming match, I can’t sense it. For my part I’m not sure what to think. Just being here seems like part of the dream. And in a few hours—

—I’m going to wake up.

We ride in the runic carriage again, inward and a bit clockwise. There’s a vast open courtyard, tiled in stone, which Ky says is usually used for market fairs or holiday celebrations. Today it’s occupied by a large wooden construction ringed by a wall three meters high. All I can see of the inside is a few simple towers connected by bridges; what purpose it serves, I have no idea.

Carriages are everywhere, the edges of the square so thick with vehicles that our progress slows to a crawl. Eventually we break through to a checkpoint, manned by a line of watchful Arbiters. Ky leans out the window to show our registration, and we’re allowed to proceed to a smaller carriage park. A couple dozen vehicles are already waiting. Some are elegant like ours, while others look like cargo haulers.

“Okay,” Ky says as we draw to a halt. Her thumbs are pressed against her eyelids. “Okay okay okay. Here we go, Taj. No backing out now.”

“Nobody’s backing out,” I say, trying for confidence to steady her nerves. Truth be told I could also use a little reassurance.

“Right.” She breathes out. “Right.”

We disembark, Star trailing behind us. Along one side of the wooden construction is a bank of seats, raised so spectators can see over the wall. In front of these is a platform with several chairs on it, which I’m guessing is for the judge. What really makes my pulse race is the crowd in between the platform and the arena wall; little knots of people standing around their runics. These have to be my competitors.

There are more of them than I imagined, perhaps two dozen runics in all. I can’t tell which are the masters and which are the sponsors, but my attention is on the runics themselves. They’re uniformly big, most at least twice the size of Star, and they come in a bewildering variety of shapes and forms. Many are clad in colorful plates of thin metal, which seems to be entirely for aesthetic purposes; it makes them look like animals or fanciful beasts.

I recognize Vripiai at once; it has new plating that gives it a beguiling blue-and-green pattern around a row of red diamonds. Quech’s height and build make him easy to pick out amid a small group of well-dressed men in the serpent’s shadow. He wears the same long leather coat as when I’d last seen him, his head freshly shaved down to stubble. I nod in his direction to Ky, and her lips thin.

“That’s Devon Dreikin with him,” she mutters, indicating a fat man with shoulder-length hair separated into braids by colorful bejeweled rings. “The Dreikins must be his sponsors.”

“Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation. He always hated Father. I’d have said he was the one pulling Gestian’s strings, but I don’t think he has the balls for an actual assassination.”