Day 62, Season of Winter, 502 AV
It was a clear, crisp night. Akajia's veil had long since fallen across the world while Leth sailed her heavens and Zintila's consorts danced and winked over streets, coloring Alvadas' impossible architecture in a curious shade of blue.
Kit tried her best to stay low and in the dark and remember her purpose, stepping out from an alley into the streets. She kept her head low and winced as she tripped over a loose stone that sent her staggering through into the open. Kit looked urgently to either side and, thank the Trickster, no one was passing through who might see.
She peered up at a nearby rooftop and saw two shades crouched with the moon at their back, their whole bodies cast in shadow. But Kit had expected them to be there. She turned her eyes to the street.
There were lanterns set on high metal poles. Each one glowed with a different color, setting stark, lively shadows against the absolute dark down the always curving road. In the center of the street, standing in front of one of the lanterns, Kit found her mark.
Kit offered an experimental prayer to Akajia to keep her safe and hidden and crept across the ground. Or at least, she tried to creep. Again she tried to move on her tip-toes, pushed herself so low to the ground that she nearly fell over on her face. Her eyes flickered between the mark and the shadows on the roof. She bit her lip and soldiered on, her footfalls making soft, unacceptable noises in her ears as she advanced.
Kit was getting closer now. She was just at the border of green light that so infatuated her mark when she pulled out her borrowed knife. Her hands were clammy as she held it, and she took step and step and step closer . . . No reaction. Kit held out the edge of the blade toward their purse with a shaking hand, bit down hard on her lip and cut it free from the belt.
But she'd forgotten to get into position to catch it, and the purse fell to the floor, mizas scattering across the ground around where it hit the ground around them. They turned, their face framed in darkness, and Kit winced as though struck.
"You," Rechail, boss of Kit's new 'sisters,' was scowling. She couldn't see it, but Kit could hear it in her voice clear as Syna's dawn. "Are the saddest damn excuse for a cutpurse I have ever seen." She sighed. "Pick up those mizas," the half-Isur said, looked up and made a beckoning gesture toward the rooftop shadows.
The two shapes vanished, only to emerge from the same alley Kit had come through, not trying to hide at all. Shy, the diminutive mute, and Nim, the smooth-talking pickpocket. Like Rechail, Kit estimated the girls were a few years her senior. But a few years meant a lot, and she found herself the shortest, runtiest member of the sisters.
Apparently the most useless, too. Kit's shoulders sank sharply, and she looked at everything that wasn't Rechail. "So!" Re said, talking over Kit's shoulder. "How'd you think she did?" Kit looked back at the other girls, hoping to find some kind of praise there.
Nim was her best hope, but Kit's heart sank when she looked back and saw the girl scratching at her neck. "That was just . . ." Nim shook her head. "Embarrassing." Kit felt a flash of shame; Nim had been the one to vouch for her to Rechail, the only one one her side. Kit breathed hard out of her nose and looked to Shy.
The silent girl rolled her eyes and made a quick gesture that Kit had quickly begun to realize was some kind of insult. Maybe Shy couldn't talk, but she found ways of making her displeasure with Kit well known.
"I was never good!" Kit insisted, turning around and glaring up a the older girl, balling her hands at her sides, trying to bottle down her frustration. "You never taught me!"
"You know," Nim said, cheerful. "She's right."
Rechail glared back at Nim. Kit closed her eyes and thanked Nim in her mind. With her acknowledgment, it'd be a little harder for Rechail to brush aside Kit's complaint. Rechail was always probing for more weakness, more little inadequacies, and she was the boss, so she always got away with it. "Wanted to test her, was all." was all. "Nim, you said she'd a natural talent for thieving. What in Yshul's name made you think that?"
"Not this sort of thieving," Nim held up her hands and brought up a disarming smile. "She'd be real useful in getting up to high places and finding entrances we couldn't usually reach. Burglaries would be a cinch."
"Well, before we burgle first we gotta stake out the house. Can she do that?" Kit's toes curled. "Between them, we gotta nick our stuff off marks in the street. Can she do that?"
"Did you think I'd be a perfect thief right off?!" Kit half hissed, half pleaded, stomping her feet against the cobbles and crossing her arms in front of her.
"No." Rechail said, her mouth twisting in an unpleasant direction. "I thought you'd be a passable one."
Kit's shoulders sagged, and she felt despair wrack her face, but other children seemed immune to the expression that would have adults kneeling and apologizing at a look. No one in the sisters rescued Kit.
"Listen kid," Re said. "You can back out. You don't gotta do this."
"You keep saying that!" Kit felt an anger that pushed her close to tears. "You want me to leave!" Kit meant it as an accusation, but Rechail seemed utterly unphased by it.
"Yeah." She said, "yeah I do. You've got a mum and a da who'll tuck you into bed and keep you safe." She put her hands on her hips and stared daggers at Kit. "What's this to you then, a game, like tag, like hide and seek? It's not a game to me, not a game to us!"
"My Mom and Dad aren't here, they're NEVER here!"
"Oh. Right. Aunt and uncle, isn't it? Oh boohooohaaa! Every kid thinks they've the worst damn parents in the world till they stub their toe and go crying on home. What's wrong, Kit? No auntie around to kiss it better?" Then, only then did Kit realize that tears had spilled out of her eyes. Kit tried to wipe them away with her arm before they could leave a mark. "Aw, did I hurt your feelings? Why don't you . . ."
Kit threw herself at Rechail in a wordless, snarling lunge. Clearly Rechail wasn't expecting Kit to actually do anything; though Kit was younger and smaller and lighter the sudden impact threw Rechail off balance and put the pair of them on the ground.
They rolled, Kit tried to slam her fists into Rechail, only to realize how much punching with her thumbs inside her fists hurt. Rechail got it done fast; she slammed her forehead into Kit's hard enough to daze her, and then suddenly she was on top of the roll. She sat over Kit with her purple-tinted fist held back, waiting to bring it down on Kit, hard.
Kit's face was still wet from the tears. She stared up at Rechail with an utterly hopeless expression.
And then Rechail lowered her fists. After waiting a moment to see if Kit would react she stood up entirely, leaving Kit the freedom to push herself back away from the boss. Shy was smiling like she'd gotten the best present you could ever hope for. Kit couldn't tell what Nim was thinking. "Go home to your aunt and uncle." Rechail told her. "This isn't your world."
"Fall into the Void," Kit hissed right back, still sprawled out on her back, still beaten. Rechail could throw her out, she could leave Kit behind, but dammit all she wasn't going to drive Kit away. Not like this. Kit wouldn't give the girl the satisfaction. "No."
Kit expected Rechail to be angry, to yell or threaten. Instead she just stared with an odd look on her face. Rechail shook her head and ran a hand over her face. "Why are you so set on this?"
"Cause everything I am is gray." Kit said. Let her be smart, let her be clever, let her be something worth looking at. Let her be something other than the little girl being quietly ignored in the corner of her uncle's house. Anything else.
Silence snared them for a very long time.
x
