Gates of Thread and Stone (3 page)

You’d think the smell would be a mood killer, but what did I know? I’d never even kissed a boy.

The Raging Bull was the fifth building down the long strip of businesses along the riverfront. All the windows were painted red. A large sign announced
“Half off during Week of Sun.”

I ignored the drunken calls of men on the boardwalk and opened the door. Reev stood near the entrance in his usual spot, arms crossed and doing his best “Don’t mess with me” impression. He made it look natural. More than six feet and built like a stone slab, Reev could be pretty intimidating when he wanted to be. That was how he’d gotten this job. Not my top choice for him, but admittedly, there weren’t many.

When he saw me, he frowned. I waved and held up the bag from Drivas’s.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop coming here? It’s not safe,” he said, pulling me into the lobby. His hand warmed my elbow.

I scanned the lobby. Two women chatted behind the front desk, the only people besides us in the small area.

I shoved the bag against his chest. “You never eat unless I bring you something, so quit complaining.”

One of the women waved. I waved back halfheartedly. Angee liked to introduce herself as Reev’s girlfriend, and I had never heard Reev confirm or deny it. She was nice enough, but I wished she’d stop trying to befriend me. The woman next to her had tight brown curls, heavy makeup, and nothing to cover her smooth, dark skin but a transparent slip. She nodded at something Angee said, while her eyes stayed on Reev.

I didn’t like the way she—and the other prostitutes, men and women—looked at him. The way their gazes lingered, the way their half-naked bodies pivoted toward him whenever he entered the room. I wanted to step between them and Reev, and tell those people that he wasn’t like the clients who paid for them.

But I suspected they knew that. And it was why they wanted him.

“Is this your sister?” the woman next to Angee asked. She looked at us and pursed her lips into a pretty pout. “She doesn’t look a thing like you.”

I scowled. Reev had wavy, dark-brown hair and gray eyes. His nose had a slight hook, and he had thin lips and an angular jaw. I, on the other hand, had straight black hair and almond-shaped eyes that weren’t quite blue—more like a watered-down version. Reev once said they were like the icicles that formed on the tree branches in winter. My lips were fuller, and I used to press my fingertip against my pointy chin as if I could imprint a cleft there like Reev’s. The rest of me was skinny enough to look malnourished, and the top of my head reached just shy of Reev’s shoulder.

We didn’t share a single physical trait, because Reev wasn’t actually my brother.

He’d found me when I was eight. He’d been younger than I was now—sixteen and barely able to feed himself—but he rescued me off the riverbank and raised me as his sister.

“How much did it cost?” Reev asked, taking the grocery bag from me. “Should I transfer some credits?”

I shook my head. “Avan gave us fresh bread. As fresh as it can be, I mean. I’m pretty sure that’s fresher than usual.”

He frowned again. He didn’t approve of Avan because of his reputation, but the free food required his grudging acceptance of our friendship. “You should get home now. There’s an energy drive down the street, and they’ll be here for the next couple days.”

I understood what that meant. The Alley had several energy clinics, but the drives held near the river were geared toward the people in the Labyrinth—and those afraid to wander too far from the safety of its narrow walls. Energy drives meant free credits to anyone who didn’t mind needles, and it brought out even the most desperate of folks. Reev didn’t want me running into any of them.

“Where’d you hear that?” I hadn’t seen it on my route this morning.

“One of the girls told me. She was just there.”

I ignored the way my stomach knotted whenever he talked about the girls who worked with him. “If you even think about volunteering, I’ll kick you. When you’re asleep.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Of course not. Same to you. Minus the kicking.”

Donating blood for the energy stones always tempted me. Depending on how much I gave, I could cover the cost of the runners’ tax, and Reev would never be the wiser. The problem was that the
energy clinics were rarely clean, and a bunch of people died every year from infection. The energy drives, however, were sponsored by medics from the White Court, so they were probably safe.

But it was best not to test it. I wasn’t keen on dying, and my abilities to manipulate time didn’t include rewinding it—with the exception of that first experience, which had been a fluke.

I’d just have to work some extra hours and eat what Avan was willing to give me for a few days.

“Come for a job?” asked a voice like gravel.

I turned, backing up into Reev. Reev’s hand came down on my shoulder. It felt like a shield.

The owner of the Raging Bull, Reev’s boss, was a middle-aged man named Joss. He was thin, with orange hair that made his loose, pale skin look sallow. He smelled like cloves and something earthy and damp. I kept hoping he’d fall into the river and drown.

He snapped his yellow-stained fingers at the nearly naked woman, who then darted down the hall, but his eyes remained on me. When I refused to look away, his mouth twisted, and he gave my body a lazy inspection.

I leaned back against Reev, letting his warmth chase away the chill in Joss’s eyes.

“She just brought me dinner,” Reev said. “Go on, Kai. Get home.” He nudged me toward the door.

“Let me know when you change your mind,” Joss said, winking at me. He had fleshy lips that drooped at the corners and flapped when he talked. “I could get you double Reev’s salary for your first time.” He cocked his head and took another look at me. “Oh, yeah. Definitely a virgin.”

“Joss,” Reev said. I was probably the only person who could hear the anger in his voice.

“Come on, Reev, everyone’s hurting for credits. Use what you got. Or rather, what
she
’s got.”

To be honest, I’d thought about it. There weren’t a lot of other places I could get that many credits. It would be enough to get us out of the Labyrinth like Reev wanted.

But it would hurt Reev, and his approval meant more to me than anything. Not to mention the fact that Joss creeped me out.

I took half the bread for my own dinner and munched on it as I left the docks. In front of the bridge, a woman pulled her bawling kid along the dirt path. Out of habit, I studied her face, even though I knew I wouldn’t see anything familiar. Nine years in Ninurta, and I’d yet to find anyone who looked enough like me to make me wonder.

“Quit that,” the woman said with a sharp tug on her son’s arm. “Get on home or I’ll let the gargoyles eat you.”

I snorted. Reev had never given me the gargoyles story, but I had heard it whispered at school. Parents told their kids that if they misbehaved, the gargoyles that lived in the Outlands would climb Ninurta’s wall and slip into their rooms in search of easy prey. The more superstitious people believed the gargoyles were demons who’d sprung from the bowels of the earth, cracked open after the events of Rebirth.

Sounded silly to me, but considering what I was capable of, I couldn’t completely scoff at the idea.

Not that I wanted to compare myself to gargoyles.

Reev had reassured me that the stories were all nonsense and the gargoyles had never breached the outer wall. But just in case, I had made him promise. Unlike me, Reev kept his promises.

CHAPTER 3

THE NEXT MORNING,
a sandwich waited for me on the counter. Reev had written
“Eat only with a smile”
on the paper wrapper. I unwrapped it and then poured myself the last bit of water from the pitcher. I’d get some more from the pump later. Reev didn’t trust the pump water, but it tasted good enough. A little metallic, but I didn’t see the harm in that.

I sat on a wobbly stool and ate at the counter. On his cot against the wall, Reev turned in his sleep. He came in from work around dawn, and he always made sure to leave me breakfast before getting into bed.

He lay on his side, arm thrown over his face so I could see only his rumpled head above his bicep. The only time he looked fully relaxed was when he was sleeping.

At the back of his neck, beneath the mess of his hair, was an elaborate red tattoo in the general shape of a rectangle, tapered at each
end. It wasn’t visible right now, but I knew the design by heart. The lines were raised like a scar. Around the edge, the skin was shiny and pulled tight, several shades paler than the rest of him.

I’d asked about the tattoo more than once, but Reev refused to talk about it. All I knew was that he hid it with high-collared shirts and his hair.

His large body fit awkwardly on the tiny cot. Everything past his calves hung off the end, and his broad shoulders didn’t fit across the width. I had no idea how he could sleep like that. As amusing as the sight was, there was also something fascinating in the way he slept—the slight part of his mouth, the slack muscles, the inelegant sprawl of long limbs.

Some mornings, I lay in my cot against the opposite wall and watched his chest rise and fall.

Our entire living space was one room—one freight container, to be exact. Trains, like most industrial technology, had been out of service since Rebirth, but there were still remnants in the junkyard from which the East Quarter had sprung. Rows and rows of towering freight containers formed a giant cube of metal decay. The Labyrinth had been built around and inside it; walls and roofs erected, and hallways and staircases shoved into the spaces to connect everything. The only people who knew how to navigate the Labyrinth were the residents, and we liked to keep our secrets.

It made the East Quarter the ideal place for anyone wanting to disappear.

The cucumber and lettuce sandwich was bland, but the corners of my mouth turned up anyway because of Reev’s silly note. He used to leave me random messages all the time when I was younger. He did it less often now, but I privately wished he’d kept it up.

Reev rolled onto his back, rubbing his face. “Eating with a smile,” he mumbled sleepily. “That’s my girl.”

I beamed, cherishing the warmth that infused my chest. “Go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

“Wanted to make sure I caught you before you left,” he said, pillowing his head against his arm. The position made his bicep bulge. “I don’t need you to bring me dinner tonight.”

“Why’s that?”

“Angee’s packing me something.”

I ducked my head. “Oh.”

I took a long gulp of water to wash down a final bite of sandwich. Then I wrapped the other half inside the paper with Reev’s message and put it in the cupboard beneath the counter.

Reev watched me through half-closed lids. His eyes were the shining gray of the sky during the Week of Sun. The rest of the year, an endless wall of tumultuous yellow and orange clouds dominated the sky. Sometimes, at dawn or dusk, the colors flared, and the sky looked like it had been set on fire.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly. He did that on purpose, adjusting his voice to that low, sedate tone that soothed me.

“Nothing,” I said. “I better get to work. Sleep in. That’s an order.”

I ruffled his hair as I passed. I made a quick stop at the communal washroom down the hall and then headed for the exit. Our corner of the Labyrinth had two sets of stairs, rusted metal sheets hastily nailed together with equally rusty nails. I usually took them slowly, which earned me a few curses from the people behind me. I didn’t care. Better slow than dead.

The narrow halls had enough room for one person to pass through comfortably. I tried not to touch the walls—they were perpetually damp from the dips and cracks overhead where rainwater caught and remained. Nothing dried inside the Labyrinth, and the pockets of trapped water overflowed whenever it rained.

On the ground level, the paths grew wide enough for two people. A couple of lanterns burned here and there to ward off the darkness. The Labyrinth’s construction didn’t allow for much daylight to get through. People outside the East Quarter likened it to being buried alive. The comparison wasn’t so far off, but the leaders here—a bunch of grumpy old people who made decisions on behalf of everyone who lived in the Labyrinth—refused to invest in energy stones because they claimed it meant reliance on the Kahl. That, and they couldn’t afford them.

The mail keeper was just outside, each mailbox stacked behind her in a similar style to the Labyrinth. The carrier who covered the East Quarter didn’t like me, which meant I’d never be able to convince him to give me the tax directly.

“Nothing for you today,” the mail keeper announced cheerfully. She slapped her dirty gray cap against her matching tunic. One good thing about being a carrier was that I didn’t have to wear the hideous mail keeper uniforms.

I frowned. “Are you sure?” Tax charges never took more than a day or two to arrive. I chewed the corner of my lip. Maybe the carrier had lost it.

A shout came from behind me. “Get out of here!”

I looked up. Residents had gathered at the entrance to the Labyrinth. I waved my thanks at the mail keeper and wandered over, craning my neck to see what was going on. Couldn’t be anything good. The people here weren’t exactly neighborly.

A young man about Reev’s age stood off the path, facing down the growing crowd that circled him, closing in. He looked worried. A little desperate. It wasn’t an uncommon expression, but I could tell by the quality of his clothes and his clean face that he wasn’t like the people who hid in the creases of the city. He wore a fitted black leather tunic, matching pants, and high boots—the boots alone cost six months of Reev’s salary.

“Go on!” someone shouted. “Your kind isn’t welcome here.”

The young man drew a deep breath. “Can you tell her I want to see her?
Please
. Just tell—”

Something flew toward the back of his head. I opened my mouth to shout a warning but stopped myself.

The man’s arm snapped up, easily snatching the rock from the air. He hadn’t even looked.

The crowd went silent, its hostility heavy in the sudden quiet. And I realized exactly what he was.