The Right to Die | ✓ Amby Winner 2023

0. You Know the Plan

The thrill of a good steal never failed M'yu. Especially when the evening sun peeked out behind the mountain and the icy wind combed his curly black hair as he ran. The young thief stuffed the stolen linkcard in one of his many hidden coat pockets. The crowd, mostly other street rats and honest folk scraping to get by, parted as he ran. They weren't so kind to his Cap mark. A man in a gold-buttoned doublet huffed and puffed behind M'yu, impeded by the closing crowd at every turn. He shouted at M'yu, then pushed over a kid who stepped in his way.

"Done showing off?" Karsya whispered from a dark alley. Her fiery hair framed pale cheeks red from the ever-present cold. M'yu grinned and ducked in.

Her hands went to her hips. "You could have lost him three streets ago."

M'yu shrugged, sly grin still tugging his lips. "We need to get their attention. What's that make, twenty-seven card thefts in the last month?" He tugged his black beanie over his cold ears. "And the Knights still haven't poked their nose down here."

"Uh-huh. So you didn't just want to run him?"

M'yu spread his hands innocently, then spun around her. Sprinting to the dead end of the alley, he kicked up and vaulted to the top of the snow-dusted wall. He turned, hand held down for her. She sauntered over and took it with a sigh. Even through his gloves, her fingers were warm.

Small though he was, his wiry arms pulled her up easily. Together, they leaned against the roof, her shoulder brushing his. Below, the Cap man he'd stolen from still bumbled across the market square. Two little boys—not any of M'yu's thieves, but friends of the boy who got pushed down—ran low with a bit of rope. It tangled around the Cap's ankles, and the man tumbled to the ice.

Karsya snickered.

M'yu's lips turn down. "They shouldn't have done that."

"What, you'll run them and steal them blind, but you don't have the stomach for a prank?" She flips her hair over one shoulder. "You need teeth, M'yu."

M'yu points as the man picks himself up, blood running out both sides of his mouth. Even from here, M'yu can see quivering rage in the man's shoulders and the burning glare he surveys the Gloamers with. They disperse from the street, no longer quite so eager to get in the rich man's way. "We steal his card, he'll go cry to the Magnate. But we hurt him? He'll want his pound of flesh." The Gloamers had had enough flesh stripped from their skin, and M'yu had seen enough of blood.

Karsya fingered her necklace. It was just a rock she picked up from the street and polished till it shined, not a real gem like the Caps wear, but she treated it as her own personal sign of rebellion. We can have anything they do, she'd told M'yu when she gave him a matching one. We just have to take it.

She bumped his shoulder. "Lighten up. Maybe he'll cry a little harder this time then, and your Knights will finally show up. You still got the lockdown on their stage-house?"

M'yu gave her a sidelong glance. "You act like I haven't been staking it out for weeks." His eyes drifted up to the mountain that left the Gloam community in its shadow. At the top, the Caps lived in their gleaming city, looking down on all the Gloamers below.

"I hear they eat cake," Karsya said, following his gaze, "for all three meals."

M'yu's fist clenched, but his words were light. "It would explain why they're so sour-faced." His eyes cut to her. "They're sick at their stomach all the time."

Instead of the smirk he'd hoped for, her gaze dropped. "Should be," she said, knocking a sheet of ice from the roof, "way they run us." The ice shattered on the pavement below. She stayed fixed on it, a broody storm brewing in her eyes.