A shrug was the weight with which Scaa felt her dilemma. “They are certainly more empty.” She returned to the drawer, rustling through and picking needles out, placing them on the countertop.
“It’s not that.” Óraithe kicked at some mannequins, shifting them to find only dust and crumbled papers. “Not that at all.”
“Perhaps the problem is you. It could be, maybe, you do not walk them the way you did.”
She had not even bothered to look up from her work to say it, but Scaa’s words put a piece in place in Óraithe’s mind. Putting that change into words or even taking hold of the mercurial feeling of the epiphany proved beyond her ability. The feeling of incompleteness was frustrating, but the small work Scaa had done for her at least offered to make the streets outside feel less unnerving.
Scaa stood, putting needles into her pack and broached another subject that had seen near constant discussion.
“There ought to have been more.”
“The needles? Cloth?”
Scaa shook her head. “Resistance.”
They had come to understand it better, but very few among her party were willing to accept that a Bastion City could be taken so easily, with so few. They had been over nearly every aspect of the center city in discussion and had any place they suspected searched. The first day had given them nothing for their caution. There were simply so few guards in the Low District that they could offer no fight. Naí and Callaire had confirmed as much with every elf they’d asked. Scouts sent to the Palisade confirmed the missing numbers were across the steel from them, staring in and watching the length of the horrible fence. Even then, it did little to calm nerves.
“We can do nothing about the feeling. Only hope it’s wasted on us. We have done what we can about the guards themselves.”
Scaa twisted her mouth, unsatisfied with that. “As you say.” She started for the door. “My nerves deserve at least a moment’s rest.”
Óraithe sneezed into her hands. She looked down at them, wet with snot. “Sisters, ugh. And my nostrils would be thankful for the same.”
They had not set foot in a building without a fine layer of dust at least and it stirred without fail, sending Óraithe into sneezing fits. She wiped her hands on her braies and followed Scaa out into the street.
“Was there anything more? A dozen spools of thread and two dozen needles?” Scaa looked absentmindedly at her pack.
“We could find some use for the mannequins. They could guard rooftops.” Óraithe nudged Scaa. “They would look—”
She cut her words there and Scaa stopped dead still. Óraithe felt someone. They had put themselves against a wall only a half a block from them. No reason for one of their own to do such a thing. Óraithe motioned with her head and crouched, ready to run. Scaa secured her pack as she kept talking.
“They would look absolutely fantastic if we dressed them in—”
They both pushed off, sprinting as quickly as they could toward the corner where Óraithe felt the presence. They rounded the corner as a girl in the uniform of Briste’s city guard turned away and came to a sprint herself. Óraithe raised a small block, hoping to bring the girl down, but she adjusted, stepping over it.
“Just raise a bigger one!” Scaa shouted at her, both of them keeping pace with the guard ahead.
“I want her down, not standing and ready for a fight.”
She raised another, but missed short this time bringing the cube up under the girl’s foot as it lifted off. It was a weakness she had not known she had. Placing the rock at speed was difficult. Whatever she formed took focus, the same as keeping a sprint. Aside from the shape needing to be firm in her mind, the placements were relative, it seemed. She would need to shift them with her speed. She tried a few times again, but there was some trick to it she could not grasp so quickly.
Scaa had gained on the girl. They turned into a long, unbreaking alley between a row of houses.
“Stop running! We’ll not hurt you if you stop!”
The girl did not so much as give a half-step less to her speed.
“She does not believe you.”
“Rrah!”
Scaa dug in, sprinting as fast as she could force her legs to move. She would catch the fleeing guard, just before the end of the alley. Óraithe stopped where she stood and felt the ground below her patiently. Ahead of the girl a large, thin wall of stone shot up across the whole of the alley. She slowed, her hands coming against it. She turned just as Scaa lowered, putting a shoulder into the fugitive. They flew through the wall as Óraithe released it, pulling a cloud of fine dust into the street behind them. Scaa pinned her shoulders as the girl kicked and screamed against the restraint. Óraithe walked patiently toward them, bringing squared bars of rock over the girl and pulling them down tight. It took effort, but she would neither let Scaa nor the guard see as much.
Scaa stood, winded and complaining. “Why must they run? I am not built for it.”
“That may be why they run.” Óraithe stood over the girl. “I do not know your face. Are you highborn? What is your name?”
The girl worked as best she could but the rock did not care. “No! You’ll kill me. I’ll tell you nothing!”
Óraithe crouched next to the girl’s head, looking at her sideways. “Do you know who I am?”
“I…” She looked to Scaa as if it were some sort of trick. “I do. Óraithe. The Treasonous.”
Óraithe looked back at Scaa. “The Treasonous.”
“Oooh,” she said, wiggling her fingers mockingly, “fearsome.”
“Well then.” Óraithe looked back at the girl. “You know my name. What do you know of me?”
“You are a horrible killer! Come to destroy us!” The girl writhed more, spitting her words with anger and hate, so much as she could muster.
“Can you read?”
“No…”
She
