Sister Cities

Part 12: Vi

So would you teach me I'm the villain?

Aren't I?

Aren't I the one constantly repenting for a difficult mind?

Push me down into the water like a sinner

Hold me under

And I'll never come up again

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Ekko brings us up to date in the morning. He looks like he hasn't slept much. The enforcers and the rebellion are stuck at a stalemate; I fly up with him to check it out for myself, and it looks rough on both ends. In fact, we make it just in time to see enforcers coming out of the border homes they apparently took over last night and entering the depths of the Undercity. Fires bloom, the roar of them interrupted by the sound of rifles as they beat down doors at random. It looks like a rage reaction more than anything, even though it's probably supposed to be strategy. Get their own hostages, make the rebels sympathetic, kill a few extra people to prove their authority, take Topside back. Bastards.

The rebels don't look like they're gonna give up much for the rest of us. All the fires are out across the river, mansions reduced to black smears, and Pilties cower in the middle of a knife-ridden circle. I don't think the rebels will last long, but they gave it their all last night, and it'll count for something.

Us and the Firelights are just hoping the enforcers don't come this way. The guard is doubled, but they're all on the inside— Ekko is the only one allowed (by his rules) to go out scouting once he's gotten me back in, and he's in full battle gear with two warning flares, a gun, and his ax. I don't want him out there, but I don't want to undermine his position either, so I give him a tight hug and let him go.

We're not expecting Caitlyn today, so Heimerdinger is the one I have to consult when Powder demands to come with me for a bath, but refuses to let me look. He digs up a long chain that can be hooked to the wall and around her neck so I can ignore her while she's at the water pump and vice versa. She doesn't mind being leashed, but she takes two-thirds of the soap. I rebraid her hair under the sun and she watches a group of kids playing hopscotch on a thirty-foot board drawn in chalk.

"Stupid Sevika," she mutters.

"Isn't she doing what you and Silco wanted?" I ask.

"No. He wouldn't have shared the plan with her either, since she just messes everything up all the time."

"You don't think the rebellion's gonna succeed?"

She snorts. "No. There's just gonna be a bunch of dead people and worse pushback from the enforcers. There's no Zaun without Silco and me."

Vander seemed to think Zaun was a shitty pipe dream, and even having been a revolutionary, I stand by that. Especially if Powder was intended to co-head it as Jinx. Though, honestly, I don't think Silco would have given her much agency when it came down to it— she was his weapon, not even his confidant, definitely not his equal.

One day, this city's gonna respect us.

Why did I spend time on that type of thing with her? I wouldn't let her see bodies or grief or ruin— hell, I barely let myself think of them— but I could never shut up about winning.

A scrawny feathered kid breaks off from the hopscotch game and runs up to us. I throw my arms halfway around Powder before I've processed that he's maybe eight years old.

"Want to play with us?" he asks her.

Powder looks over her shoulder, eyes round and shining.

"No," I say.

"Please?"

"Absolutely not!" a man calls from the side. "That's Jinx. Take her back inside," he adds to me. "Now. This is fucking outrageous."

I don't follow orders from people who can't kill me, unless they're Ekko, so that's a non-starter. In the time I spend staring the man down, Powder jumps up and starts bouncing on her toes, pulling her chain to its full length. That puts her within reach of the kid. I'm terrified for a second, but she just holds out her hand and says, "I'm Jinx."

"I'm Sparrow," the kid says, making the man's jaw drop. All the hopscotch players have gone still and are watching, each of them curious, none of them upset. Their parents are a different story; they start circling us, holding us in place like the Topside hostages.

Powder doesn't notice. "Please?" she says to me. "Pretty please? With a cherry bomb on top?"

The way she says it is fully innocent. I'm aware that she could just be tricking me, but the way she's being looked at makes me angry, so I get to my feet and walk her to the board. She's laughing before she even gets on it. The kids back up. She takes it at the speed of light, not a single stumble, and they erupt into cheers.

All the parents start shouting at once. Powder and the kids don't pay them any mind, and all I pay them is a smirk.

She's attached to my wrist now, and I hold her with both hands too. One wrong move and I'll take her down. I'm not blind.

But until she gives me a reason besides simply being Jinx, I let her play.

The game dissolves by itself after about half an hour, with kids disappearing to eat and get lectured for hanging out with a terrorist, and Powder lets me bring her back inside with our lunch. She sits cross-legged on the floor, still wearing the leash rather than the handcuffs so I don't have to help her. The sun has started bringing out her freckles.

"So are you," she says over her shoulder. I look instinctively to see who she's talking to, but of course there's nothing.

"Who do you see the most often?" I ask.

She turns back to me. "Mylo."

I'm kind of surprised at that. He did get on her back the most day to day, though, and he was the first one to call her a jinx. "Was that him right now?"

"Yeah. He said I'm being annoying."

"Yeah?" I try to aim my eyes toward the same place she did and put on my "shut up" face. "Mylo, shut up."

Powder cackles delightedly, leaning back against her bed frame. "He's such a fraidy cat."

I study her freckles again and ask, "Does anyone you see ever say anything nice to you? Actually nice, not just 'trying to manipulate you into doing something' nice."

"No." She laughs less delightedly this time. "What would be the point of that?"

"Is there a point in this either?"

"Duh," she says. "Making me sad."

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Intro lyrics from "Stay Down" by boygenius.

this is the last sort of preparatory chapter before Shit Gets Real. i'm so thrilled. thank you for reading!