Harsh, artificial light paved the way for Clara as she hurried home. Her body ached after the long day, but her mind was too preoccupied to feel the pain too badly.
Everyone was home by the time Clara entered the quarter, or at least, everyone should have been home. Ezra still poured over bills, Emme played with an old, battered toy, and Archibald dozed off against the wall. Amyeliana was unaccounted for.
"Amyeliana?" Clara mouthed to Ezra when he looked up at her.
Ezra raised his eyes to the ceiling and then shrugged.
Clara's stomach rumbled as she looked at her rations box sitting next to Emme. But she put her oxygen filter back on, wrapped her head back up with her scarf, and left the room without a word.
Clara climbed back out of the dwelling, but instead of going back outside, found the staircase at the far end of the building and kept going up. She pushed open the trapdoor that led to the roof and climbed outside.
As expected, Amyeliana sat with her legs dangling off the side of the building, looking up at the airships that circled above. Clara approached and sat next to the teenager.
"You're lucky."
Clara closed her eyes at Amyeliana's words. Clara knew she was lucky. She only wished Amyeliana could be as well.
"I know," Clara said. "As much as I try to keep Emme from romanticizing things, it is better working up there than down here."
"It's not fair."
"I know."
"Any of it." Amyeliana wasn't angry, but her voice sounded broken. "Work, it's just so hard."
Amyeliana worked in a factory, where everyday she carefully assembled fancy hairbrushes that would eventually be sent to the families living in the air. It was a job often held by those first entering the workforce; the process needed nimble fingers. But Amyeliana often came home with stiff, aching hands and pain in her back from bending over all day.
She worked too hard for someone so young.
"You know I keep my ears open every day for a job opening," Clara reassured her. "You'll get into the fresh air, eventually."
"I know, I know, and I love you for it, Clara," Amyeliana whispered. "I'm sorry I'm like this, I just can't help it sometimes."
Clara put her arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "Don't apologize," she said. "It's not your fault."
Amyeliana sniffed, and Clara's heart broke. Amyeliana and Archibald used to drive her and Ezra up the wall with all of their antics, constantly cracking jokes and playing pranks. But now, both of them just seemed too tired.
"Alright, enough of me," Amyeliana said. "Please tell me you have some sort of crazy story from work. You always do, even if you won't tell Ezra and Emme."
It was true. Clara told Amyeliana the most about Araminta's antics. But she was still unsure as to whether she should tell her about Harrison. "Well, it has been an eventful week," Clara said.
Amyeliana let out a laugh, and Clara could picture the devilish grin that she wore under her head cover. "I knew it! I knew something was up the other day when you got home. And if you didn't tell Ezra, it must be crazy."
"Oh, it's crazy all right." Clara bit her lower lip and then spilled everything to Amyeliana.
It felt good to finally get everything off her chest. And Amyeliana was the perfect audience, gasping in all the right places but not interrupting with questions.
"Wait, you kissed him?"
Alright, maybe one question.
"Technically, he kissed me," Clara said, but then she groaned. "But wait, it gets messier." Clara walked Amyeliana through the events of the current day, and her awkward run in with Harrison.
"Oh, he definitely knows something's up," Amyeliana said.
"What do you mean?" Clara said, on the verge of panic. "He can't know, he can't know anything."
"I mean, I'm sure he doesn't know anything," Amyeliana said. "But right now, the wheels are definitely turning in his head about why your boss doesn't want him to even talk about the ball. And he already knows that he knows you from somewhere, even if you deny it and he can't place it. So, he knows something is up."
"Well, for all of our sakes, he better not figure it out before his wedding," Clara said grimly.
"So you're not going to do anything about it?"
"Do anything about what?"
"About the fact that you clearly like him!"
"Amyeliana!" Clara exclaimed. "There is nothing to be done. My feelings are irrelevant."
"But if you told him it was you..."
"Then I would be fired and we would lose our primary source of income."
"Or he would fall in love with you back and you would get married and we would all go to live in his fancy airship."
Clara snorted. "He's betrothed, Amyeliana. That's basically engaged. Maybe they are engaged. I don't really know, it's all much more complicated than it needs to be. I appreciate your optimism, but I think I should focus on keeping my job than getting someone to fall in love with me."
Amyeliana gave a dramatic sigh. "You're boring."
As ridiculous as Amyeliana was being, Clara could help but feel laughter bubble up inside of her. It was nice to see the younger girl actually act her age, instead of the mature woman she was being forced to grow up into.
"But seriously," Amyeliana said. "What are you going to do if he figures it out? He doesn't seem unintelligent."
"How would you know? You haven't met him." Clara dodged the question.
"Because unintelligent people annoy you and you would never even want to be friends with one, let alone kiss one."
Damn this girl and her logic.
"I don't know," Clara said, honestly. "I hope I never have to figure it out, but if it does happen, I'll just deal with it then. I mean, all I really have to do is hold out until the wedding. Then, even if he finds out, it's not like he can do anything about it."
"Yeah, he'll just be miserable for the rest of his life."
"Well, that's not my problem," Clara said, exasperated. "It's not my fault he was born into a family that thinks arranged marriages are the way to go."
"It's not his fault either."
"Well, it's less my fault than his," Clara argued. "He can at least say something about it if he doesn't like it. If I said something, his parents would probably chuck me off the airship."
Instead of being horrified, Amyeliana giggled. "I suppose that wouldn't be good."
"No, it really wouldn't."
Amyeliana started coughing at that moment, and Clara observed her with concerned. "Why do you even like sitting up here?" Clara asked once the fit died down. "The oxygen filters help, but they're not magic, you know?"
"I know," Amyeliana said. "But it just gets so stuffy down there. And I'm around Archibald all the time, and I love him and everything, but I just need space."
Clara could understand that. She looked up at the airships. "Which one would you want, if you could have any of them?" she asked.
Amyeliana looked up and thought for a moment. "That one," she finally answered, pointing at the sky. The chosen airship had three balloons supporting it, and a black and gold body.
"Nice choice."
"It's hard to believe that steam and helium keep them going. I mean, they're just so big."
"Technically, I don't think it's helium." The world had run out of helium a long time ago.
"Fine, manufactured helium," Amyeliana said, and Clara guessed she was rolling her eyes. "It's still impressive."
"I suppose." Clara's stomach rumbled again.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Amyeliana sounded guilty. "You probably haven't eaten yet, have you?"
"No, but it's alright," Clara reassured her.
But Amyeliana got up anyway. "Let's go back inside."
Anxious to get out of the bad air, Clara didn't argue.
Just before they reached the door leading back down to the building, however, a loud bang followed by several seconds of shaking knocked both of them off their feet.
When the shaking stopped and Clara got her bearings back, she just caught the collapse of a building only a few blocks away from them. She and Amyeliana watched the dust cloud erupt into the air.
"I didn't know there was a demolition scheduled for today," Clara said. It wasn't uncommon for buildings to just randomly collapse; factories had to be built somewhere, but usually the residents of the surrounding area were given at least a day's notice.
"There wasn't one," Amyeliana said, sounding troubled.
Clara cursed under her breath. "We should get back down there," she said. "You know how terrifying demolitions feel when you're underground." Thanks to the usual warnings, Clara and the rest of her family usually made a point to come to the roof when they happened. But the few times they had been caught underground, it felt like the whole place was going to collapse.
The pair hurried down, and when they finally opened the door to their quarter, the other three greeted them immediately. Archibald pulled his sister into a hug, and Emme grabbed Clara around her waist. Ezra gave her a concerned look, but relief was already spreading across his features.
"What was that?" he asked when everyone finally calmed down. "A building?"
Clara nodded. "Yes, we saw it go down. It's not far from here."
Ezra looked worried. He always looked worried when something out of the ordinary happened. And Clara couldn't blame him. Unlike in the air, where people attended fancy balls and randomly called upon others for meals, everything down on earth had an order. Nothing was spontaneous, nothing happened randomly.
"I'm sure it's fine," Clara told everyone, although she knew Ezra would be able to tell that she was just as worried as him. "They likely just missed our dwelling when handing out notices."
Her explanation seemed to soothe the younger three, but later, as Ezra and Clara lay side by side, trying to sleep, neither could figure out a way to shut their eyes.
"What if you had been walking by when they did it?" Ezra hissed. The other three were asleep, but the last thing either of them needed was Amyeliana, Archibald, or Emme hearing their concerns. "You could have been crushed."
"But I wasn't," Clara said. "You can't think like that, Ezra. It was probably just a mistake. And besides, they clear areas before destroying something."
"You're right," Ezra murmured. "Just promise me you'll be careful?"
"I always am."