We didn’t just touch one.
We stole a Frost and used it to create an invention that could shatter the entire Khatdom. We discovered a secret that could save my people.
My mind felt gummed and cloudy, the lock impenetrable.
Our only stroke of luck so far was that my years of serving as a Street Jadan meant I still knew the best passages through the city, and I had been able to lead our group down a secret route that had been somewhat abrasive. Cam’s sunshirt was ripped in a hundred different places from the constant squeezing against tight bricks, and Shilah still had clay dust in her bristly hair from the roof of the Bathing Quarters Cry Temple. We were still in one piece, but time was running thin.
I cracked my knuckles, trying to figure out a way to pick myself out of the mental rubbish. My throat was parched and burning from the long run, most of which I didn’t recall. One moment I’d been watching Leroi battle the Vicaress with his explosive powders, the gardens of my new home consumed by fire, and then I was stumbling through the Paphos alleyways with the two most important people in the World Cried. It was Shilah’s idea to go to Mama Jana’s, as I had been in no state to form a plan. Neither had Cam. Little Langria had been burned to ash, and we couldn’t go back to my old barracks, so when Shilah suggested Mama Jana’s shop we didn’t argue. Hiding within her unkempt piles of treasures felt like the only place in Paphos that made sense.
If we could break in.
Shilah was right; besting the lock should have been a breeze. I’d been apprenticing under a master inventor for quite some time, and this should have been as easy as breaking a Khatnut with a giant hammer. But keeping focus was impossible, as my head was ringing from explosions and visions of a stolen future.
‘I don’t have any tools,’ I said calmly, patting my empty pockets for effect. ‘I don’t have anything. The supply bags. I don’t know—’
‘Spout, why aren’t you’ – heave – ‘freaking out?’ Cam asked, swallowing hard. ‘I hear them on the next street over.’
I twitched my lips back and forth, barely listening to him. The lock was baiting me, the metal blinding in the heavy light of day. I used to play with them, manipulate them, learn their secrets. Broken locks were a common find in the boilweed piles of my youth. I slowly rubbed the back of my hands, trying to remember what tricks they used to hold.
Shilah grabbed the side of my face. Her palms were slick with sweat and slipped along my cheek before taking hold. ‘We just made the greatest invention in the World Cried, dammit. You once talked with the Crier himself. You can break this stupid lock in your sleep, so don’t go losing yourself, Micah. I’m right here.’
I blinked, everything suddenly becoming more real.
Every line in her face was defined. I could see the tightness of the muscles underneath her skin, the veins in her neck standing up and strained. I could make out each individual rivulet in her braid. Her almond eyes were boring into me, drawing me home.
The shouting and sounds of whips against stone were getting closer, the taskmasters trying to flush us out of hiding. We needed to get inside now.
I took a deep breath and tried not to picture Leroi drowning in all that black smoke. I could still feel his sad eyes on us in the tunnel, presumably knowing the battle that awaited him on the other side of the door. I could still smell the crackling fire on my shirt.
A snap of Shilah’s fingers and a quick gesture reminded me that the Coldmaker was still by my side. We still had the machine.
‘This is bigger than us now,’ Shilah said. ‘And you’re not alone. I’m right here.’
Cam cleared his throat, checking over his shoulder. ‘Me too.’
I nodded. The streets themselves had once given me all the tools I needed. I used to trust that the Crier would provide.
So why did he keep taking away?
‘Keep watch,’ I said, gritting my teeth and balling my fists. I shifted myself into the shadows of the alleyway next to the shop, headed towards the boilweed piles. Almost immediately I spotted a trove of sunclocks, broken parasols, and a large pair of Cold Bellows that I’d once fixed for Mama Jana a while back. She didn’t used to have that much rubbish lying around in her alley, but I was guessing since I’d moved to the Tavor Manor, she was no longer able to salvage her broken goods.
Junked items sat piled up and dusted with morning sand, waiting to be plundered. Under any other circumstances I would have smiled at the notion that Mama Jana actually needed a Jadan like me, but right now I had no capacity for nostalgia. Emotions were only distractions. I did allow logic to surface, and almost instantly I spotted what I needed. Dropping to my knees, I snatched two skinny metal rods from a broken parasol, originally used to keep the shredded fabric splayed.
As I launched back towards the alley, something green and swirling on the wall made me stop. I couldn’t quite make out the symbol, but I already knew what the design would be.
The Opened Eye had been painted in that exact same spot once before.
I stopped just long enough to draw my fingers across the pupil.
The Open Eye was the symbol for Langria, the only place in the whole World Cried where my invention would be safe, as North as North goes. It was the land where truth rained from the heavens, and the Jadan people had all the Cold they’d ever need to remain free. The gardens there were more lush than anything the Nobles could dream of, with forests of sugar cane miles wide, and enough lush fig trees to feed everyone in Paphos. There were troupes of animals that hadn’t been seen since the Great Drought, and even such ancient things as birds. It was a haven for our lost culture, and songs and fruit were of equal abundance. I’d even heard the Langria river waters were cool enough to dive right into. Langria was hope itself, and seeing the symbol painted on the wall gave me enough to hold my tools high as I rounded the front door.
‘You think those will work?’ Cam asked, his nerves apparent. Wide eyes and a haunted look made him seem as good as Jadan at this point.
‘Yes,’ I said, shimmying the two small rods inside the hole of the lock and feeling for the pins. ‘I just have to …’
Loud orders were barked so close that I could almost smell the burning oil on the Vicaress’s blade. Either the Vicaress had a vision of our plan to go to Mama Jana’s – which seemed highly unlikely, considering she was a fraud – or she had gathered more of her army, flooding the streets.
‘Hurry,’ Cam pleaded, sucking down a swig from the waterskin slung across his chest. ‘Not that I’m rushing you.’
Shilah turned and gave him a stern look. ‘Save that water, it’s all you have.’
I closed my eyes and tried to recall how metal could serve as an extension of my fingertips. Leroi often told me a true Inventor’s reach could be measured only in imagination.
He was dead now.
My hands were shaking with fear and adrenaline. The metal rods felt like greased needles trying to stab a single grain of sand.
‘I can’t,’ I said, getting frustrated. The cloud had parted enough to let me remember that Mama Jana’s lock was a snap-pin set-up, which meant the pins needed to be lifted at once. My flailing fingers were only making things more futile. The knowledge alone of how the lock worked was not enough to steady my grip. ‘I can’t feel anything.’
Shilah reached down and placed a hand on my lower back. ‘What do you need from me?’
Cam was muttering to himself under his breath, his father’s name appearing no less than three times within the murmurs.
‘You can make it work,’ Shilah said, matching my calm. It was as if we were back on our cots, taking turns telling stories as the night waned. Back then, safe in the womb of the tinkershop, I’d never thought