“Oooookay,” Lift said. “Um, you can be crazy all you want. It’s fine. I like crazy people. It’s real funny when they lick walls and eat rocks and stuff. But before you start dancing, could you tell me where those other two are going?”
“You won’t be able to outrun them.”
“So no harm in telling me, right?”
The assassin smiled, though the emotion didn’t seem to reach his eyes. “The man who can vanish, this presumed Lightweaver, is an old philosopher well known in the immigrant quarter. He sits in a small amphitheater most days, talking to any who will listen. It is near—”
“—the Tashi’s Light Orphanage. Storms. I shoulda guessed. He’s almost as weird as you are.”
“Will you fight them, little Radiant?” the assassin asked. “You, alone, against two journeyman Skybreakers? A Herald waiting in the wings?”
She glanced at Wyndle. “I don’t know. But I have to go anyway, don’t I?”
17
LIFT engaged her awesomeness. She dug deeply into the power, summoning strength, speed, and Slickness. Darkness’s people didn’t seem to care if they were witnessed flying about, so Lift decided she didn’t care about being seen either.
She leaped away from the assassin, Slicking her feet, then landed on the flat ramp beside the steps that wound up the outside of the building. She intended to shoot down toward the city, sliding along the side of the steps.
Of course, she lasted about a second before her feet shot out in two different directions and she slammed onto the stones crotch-first. She cringed at the flash of pain, but didn’t have time for much more, as she fell into a tumble before dropping right off the side of the tall steps.
She crunched down to the bottom a few moments later, landing in a humiliated heap. Her awesomeness prevented her from getting too hurt, so she ignored Wyndle’s cries of worry as he climbed down the wall to her. Instead she twisted about, scrambling up onto her hands and knees. Then she took off running toward the slot that would lead her to the orphanage.
She didn’t have time to be bad at this! Normal running wouldn’t be fast enough. Her enemies were literally flying.
She could see, in her mind’s eye, how it should be. The entire city sloped away from this central rise with the Grand Indigestion. She should be able to hit a skid, feet Slick, zipping along the mostly empty street. She should be able to slap her hands against walls she passed, outcroppings, buildings, gaining speed with each push.
She should be like an arrow in flight, pointed, targeted, unchecked.
She could see it. But couldn’t do it. She threw herself into another skid, but again her feet slipped out from under her. This time they went backward and she fell forward, knocking her face against the stone. She saw a flash of white. When she looked up, the empty street wavered in front of her, but her awesomeness soon healed her.
The shadowed street was a major thoroughfare, but it sat forlorn and empty. People had pulled in awnings and street carts, but had left refuse. Those walls crowded her. Everyone knew to stay out of canyons around a storm, or you’d be swept up in floodwaters. They’d gone and built an entire starvin’ city in direct, flagrant violation of that.
Behind her in the distance, the sky rumbled. Before that storm hit, a poor, crazy old man was going to get a visit from two self-righteous assassins. She needed to stop it. She had to stop it. She couldn’t explain why.
Okay, Lift. Be calm. You can be awesome. You’ve always been awesome, and now you’ve got this extra awesomeness. Go. You can do it.
She growled and threw herself into a run, then twisted sideways and slid. She could and would—
This time, she clipped the corner of a wall at an intersection and ended up sprawled on the ground, with feet toward the sky. She knocked her head back against the ground in frustration.
“Mistress?” Wyndle said, curling up to her. “Oh, I do not like the sound of that storm.…”
She got up—feeling ashamed and anything but awesome—and decided to just run the rest of the way. Her powers did let her run at speed without getting tired, but she could feel that it wasn’t going to be enough.
It seemed like ages before she stumbled to a stop outside the orphanage, exhaustionspren swirling around her. She’d run out of awesomeness a short time before arriving, and her stomach growled in protest. The amphitheater was empty, of course. Orphanage to her left, built into the solid stones, seats of the little amphitheater in front of her. And beyond it the dark alleyway, wooden shanties and buildings cluttering the view.
The sky had grown dark, though she didn’t know whether it was from the advent of dusk or the coming storm.
Deep within the alleyway, Lift heard a low, raw scream of pain. It sent chills up her spine.
Wyndle had been right. The assassin had been right. What was she doing? She couldn’t beat two trained and awesome soldiers. She sank down, worn out, right in the middle of the floor of the amphitheater.
“Do we go in?” Wyndle asked from beside her.
“I don’t have any power left,” Lift whispered. “I used it up running here.”
Had that alleyway always felt so … deep? With the shadows of the shanties, the draping cloths and jutting planks of wood, the place looked like an extended barricade—with only the narrowest of pathways through. It seemed like an entirely different world from the rest of the city. It was a dark and hidden realm that could exist only in shadows.
She stood up on unsteady feet, then stepped toward the alleyway.
“What are you doing?” a voice shouted.
Lift spun to find the Stump standing in the doorway of the orphanage.
“You’re supposed to go to one of the bunkers!” the woman shouted. “Idiot child.” She stalked forward and seized Lift by the arm, towing her into the orphanage. “Don’t think that just because you’re here, I’ll take care of you. There’s not room for ones like you, and don’t give me any pretense about being sick or tired. Everyone’s always pretending in order to get at what we have.”
Though she said that, she deposited Lift right inside the orphanage, then slammed the large wooden door and threw the bar down. “Be glad I looked out to see who was screaming.” She studied Lift, then sighed loudly. “Suppose you’ll want some food.”
“I have one meal left,” Lift said.
“I’ve half a mind to give it to the other children,” the Stump said. “Honestly, after a prank like that. Standing outside screaming? You should have gone to one of the bunkers. If you think that acting forlorn will earn my pity, you are sadly misguided.”
She walked off, muttering. The room here, right inside the doors, was large and open, and children sat on mats all round. A single ruby sphere lit them. The children seemed frightened, several holding to one another. One covered his ears and whimpered as thunder sounded outside.
Lift sank down onto an open mat, feeling surreal, out of place. She’d run all the way here, glowing with power, ready to face monsters that flew in the sky. But here … here she was just another orphaned urchin.
She closed her eyes, and listened to them.
“I’m frightened. Is the storm going to be long?”
“Why did everyone have to go inside?”
“I miss my mommy.”