Smoke and Shadow: The Fireweaver, Book 1

Chapter 23. UNRAVELED

CHAPTER 23. UNRAVELED

"Like taking candy from a baby." Santoine handed the wristscreen back to Mehlie as they rounded a corner, heading toward the sounds of Market. She joined the two ends of the rainbow band with a snap of the magnetic enclosure.

"Now they've got the collars on," she said, marveling at the screen, which showed an aerial view of the Festival and two solid little dots moving steadily along, staying together. But then suddenly, the dots changed. They were just two circle outlines of the dots, as though ghosted.

"Wait a minute," Santoine pulled her wrist over to get a good look at it. And then his eyes matched her own. "They aren't in the gardens any more." When he tapped on the moving icons, to pinpoint their exact coordinates, one phrase displayed. Unable to determine exact location.

"What does that mean?"

"It means..." His brow furrowed. "I don't know what it means. It's like they just disappeared."

"I told you!" Mehlie rocked back on her heels.

Santoine turned his face from the screen, let go of her arm.

"What is this all about?" Santoine said, whose gaze was usually carefree and teasing. Not so right now.

"Actually...I'm not sure," Mehlie said, chewing on her thumbnail. "But I overheard some people talking at the Stayhouse one night. Something about Anomalies. The Labs...Denai must have heard it too."

"You mean your Aunt Denai, right?"

Mehlie was a pickpocket and a thief. Could get herself out of any number of scrapes. Lying was as easy as breathing when you had to do it to survive. But in front of Santoine, somehow she couldn't. More like she didn't want to.

"She's not my aunt," Mehlie admitted, picking at an invisible spot on her sleeve. Changing the bangle that Lorelai had given her to purple. She was still angry that Denai had outright forbidden her to go to Markets or Festival. Hadn't even waited to hear what Mehlie had to say. Who was she to tell her what to do? "She's not my anything. Just a way into the Stayhouse is all." 

She looked up at Santoine, whose expression she couldn't read. Was there the smallest amount of pity there? She bristled at the thought of it, but he remained quiet. And his eyes were kind, no judgements. He seemed to want to hear more. Maybe she was just ready to pour things out.

She told him just enough. That she'd come all the way from Banasoi, up north. That part was the truth. But she left a few things out. She didn't tell him about the lonely nights. She didn't tell him about the hunger that always scraped at her sides. Didn't tell him about the hitchhiking. The one time she'd had to run away, in the middle of the night. Didn't tell him about the abandoned house she'd stayed in during a storm.

She liked too much when his eyes lit up at the adventure in her stories, like it was a hunger of his own. He'd probably never been out of the city gates, raised as an elite in echoing, gleaming soklo homes. So, she painted a different picture. Gave him what he wanted to hear. Gave herself a story she wanted to claim. A boy like Santoine had everything he could possibly want, all of it given to him in an impossibly cushioned, sanitized world. She liked feeling that this was something she had that he didn't. And so the stories grew.

"I ended up here," she said, relishing how he hung on her every last syllable. "In a Stayhouse with a criminal. I mean, the Uruques were after her." She told Santoine about the Stayhouse raid.

He seemed utterly baffled by it all. "Why do they want her?"

"Unless she still has an Anomaly?"