When that floor was cleared, the Ylef and small woman headed up the vine.
I let the scythe rip back into my chest. “Guess we’d better get going.” I nodded at Warcry’s prosthetic. “Think you can make to the Heartchamber on that?”
“What’s the alternative, grav? You gonna carry me?”
Beside us, Rali’s feet shifted. He turned to the green girl, who was still inexplicably hanging around.
“Thank you for your assistance,” he said, clasping his hands and bowing to her. “You’ve been more valuable than you can ever know.”
“Me?” Her eyes glimmered as she stared up at him. “But you saved me. I should be thanking you.”
Rali nodded. “You’ve helped me understand a very important truth about this world and my place in it, something I couldn’t grasp before. This brief meeting with you has given me hope for the universe. I can’t possibly thank you enough for that.”
The green of the girl’s face tinted darker like she was blushing. Fast as a hummingbird, she stretched up on her toes, kissed Rali on the cheek, then ran to the vine and climbed up.
Rali put his hand to the spot like he’d been punched.
Warcry smirked. “How about ya, big man?”
Rali’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
I grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
Lost Mirror Spirit
NO ANGEL OF DEATH OR leftover Contrails ambushed us when we made it out of the newly destroyed broadcasting station and into the cloudy gray light of the day suns. Sushi turned visible again and swam around happily, which I figured meant there really was nothing to worry about.
We’d barely gone ten steps when Warcry’s prosthetic finally gave out for good, folding in half with a metallic shriek.
“That’s well classy.” He ripped it off and hooked the straps over his shoulder like a duffle bag. “Guess I’m gonna have to break down and let your sister order me a new leg.”
Rali blinked and looked from me to Warcry like he hadn’t realized we were there until Warcry said something.
“Oh, right, yeah,” he said, shaking his head like he was trying to clear the cobwebs. “You should message her. She’ll probably want to build you one. In the meantime, here.” He gave Warcry his walking stick.
Warcry grunted thanks, and we got moving again. The slog back to the Heartchamber was slow. Rali’s walking stick kept Warcry moving, but it wasn’t very effective in the muddy bogland. The end sank into the muck whenever he put weight on it.
We made it back to the Heartchamber at day sunup the next morning. I hit the call button for the elevator, then leaned against the wall, exhausted. With Warcry out of commission and Rali daydreaming about that green girl, I’d been left to deal with the bands of ferals we ran across. Even with Corpse Fire running almost constantly, I was tapped out.
When we got on the elevator, though, Warcry hit the market court button.
“What do you need down there?” I asked, punching the button for my floor.
“To put me name in at Scheduling,” he said like that should’ve been obvious.
My eyebrows jumped up. “For a fight? On one leg?”
“I’m a bleedin’ champion, grav. I’ll fight on me knees if I have to. Warcry Thompson doesn’t take forfeit losses.”
Rali hmmed. “I’d better put my name in, too. I thought about taking the absentee loss, but I’d rather see Biggerstaff’s face when I lose intentionally. Think he’ll hold me to that lifetime agreement when I’ve got a perfect record of zero wins and twenty losses?”
I snorted. “How better to protest mindless shows of strength and status?”
“Exactly,” he said, pointing at me.
The elevator stopped on my floor.
“Fine,” I said, hitting the Door Close button. “I’m in, too. No absentee losses.”
Luckily, Scheduling was booked until late afternoon, so we’d have some time to rest. I grabbed some breakfast and scarfed it on my way back upstairs, then took a shower in my en suite bathroom.
Clean, full, and finally feeling like I could sleep without a guilt trip waking me up, I dropped onto my bed, hitting the pillow so hard it rocketed Sushi at the ceiling. She yelled some nonsense at me and swam back, nipping at the covers until I got under them and held them up for her.
Sleep hit me like a smash cut. One second I was shutting my eyes, the next, purple shimmered across the surface of a pond. The little flashes were more like raindrops than lights. Wet grass squeaked under my feet. I knelt on the bank, and wetness soaked into the knees of my jeans while I watched the drops hit the water.
In the pond, long flowing purple and white fins waved, then disappeared. In their place my dad appeared, sitting on his bunk in his cell. He read a letter while a cup of ramen congealed on the steel table next to him. From my angle, I could just barely see Gramps’s cramped, shaky cursive on the page.
Out of nowhere Dad looked around. “Grady?”
The letter dropped onto his lap.
“Probably not.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Probably just crazy. But if it is you, if you can hear me, I’m sorry about everything, buddy-boy. I didn’t mean for any of this.” He hesitated a second, and when he spoke again, it was like he was begging somebody for something. “If I could do it over again, I’d do better. If I just had the chance. Swear to God I would.”
I took a swing at him. This was what I’d wanted—for him to wish he’d been a better dad—but now that I was hearing it, it made me angrier than ever. Because he didn’t get to do it over again. None of us did. This wasn’t a game where you got to respawn at your last save point. Him screwing up everybody’s lives, me killing that Nameless Ylef, it was all forever. We
