Debris

4.

"As you appear well enough to make a scene in the tribunal chambers-" a puppet man, standing in my doorway, passed me a small white card "-you are doubtless well enough to begin collecting. Leave now."

I stared at the side of his neck, at his jaw, his eyes. Nothing. No seams, no wooden hinges. But I had seen them. I knew it. "How do you know that?" Two days since Devich had been here, two days since I had met Volski in the city. Had Devich told them? But I hadn't told Devich about the tribunal records. "What are you doing? Following me?" But how could these wooden puppet creatures have followed me without being terribly obvious?

"We know that you are ready to begin collecting, Miss Vladha."

I met his dirty-wall eyes and wondered what was going on behind them. "And what will you do if I don't?"

His expression didn't change.

"I am not a debris collector," I hissed at him. "I don't belong with those people. I was pushed, do you hear me! This isn't right, it isn't fair!"

The puppet expelled a long sigh, the most human thing I had seen any of them do. And in that movement I caught a glimpse, tiny and almost hidden by pale hairs, of a line etched down his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his shirt. Fine, thin, dark. But there. Definitely there. "You tried to reopen a tribunal, did you not?"

"Other's hell, how do you know that?"

"Let me assure you, Miss Vladha, that if you do not follow our instructions, if you do not meet up with your collecting team by breakbell this morning, you will be brought before a tribunal of your own. You will repay the veche for the damage you caused, and for the skills you have lost, one way or the other. If not through the collection of debris, then through a sentence of manual labour in the colonies. Abandon your duty, and the veche would have no choice but to strongly condemn such a blatant waste of your newly acquired talents. And as you might imagine, miss, there are few positions for a woman with no pion-binding skill at the edges of civilisation."

Something inside me quailed. I tried not to show it. "You wouldn't really want that. Set up a tribunal and all I'll do is tell the truth. That's the last thing you want." But my voice shook, however much I wanted it to hold steady.

"You refuse to understand, miss. The truth has already been told. Backed up with testimony by senior veche inspectors, no less. The matter is ended." No change of expression. No bluff to call, no threat to challenge.

I looked down at the card in my hand.

Sublevel, 384 Darkwater

8th Keepersrill, Section 10

"Eighth Keepersrill? Are you mad?" Dawnbell had just sounded. How did he think I could travel so far before the next bell?

But when I looked up the puppet man had gone. Too silently, too quickly.

I rubbed my face as I closed the door, and resisted the need to return to bed, pull blankets over my head and pretend none of this had ever happened. Instead, I wrapped my piecemeal suit in the black bands Devich had given me. They were easier to fit now, the skin around the silver mostly healed. I had discovered in my first, nervous proddings of this newly touchable skin that the suit went further into me than it appeared. When I tried to squeeze my finger under the edges I couldn't find a gap between skin and silver. It was a part of me now, deeply.

I had discarded most of my boots – left them on the street for beggars with small feet – so the shoes I pulled on were not as high as I would have liked, not as tight to my calves or made of the kind of hard leather that could keep out cold slush and street-funnelled wind. I made up for it with heavy woollen pants and stockings underneath them. The shirt I picked was the same snowmush grey as my pants, with sleeves long enough to cover my wrists. Then I wrapped myself in my comfortable jacket, tucked my watch into a pocket and again, I stepped out into the city.

The early morning was icy cold. A faint pink smudge lit the clear sky, edging the Keeper Mountain in rosegold. I did up both layers of buttons on my jacket, wrapping it tight around my chest. Still, the wind pried at it, insistent.

I strode out into the near-empty street. Ice clung to the edges of lamps and crowded the rims of windows. The dawn gave Movoc back some of her colour. Dour buildings of pale stone glowed. Dull iron gates, window bars and lamps burnished to faint gold. The ice that coated the streets glistened like mother-of-pearl. And it made my heart ache, to remember the colour I knew hid below this borrowed, reflected light.

I wasn't entirely sure where the eighth Keepersrill was. Further away from the city centre, for a start. From the street outside my apartment I could see the faint tips of the Keeper's Tear Bridge, the bear flags sagging beneath the weight of icy-heavy dew. I turned my back to it. If I followed the Tear down, away from the city centre, eventually I would come to the eighth rill. But this was the second, and I didn't know how many effluent inlets washed their filth into the Tear between here and the eighth. I had less than a bell till breakbell. Walking would take too long, and I wasn't willing to risk that. I needed to find transport, and that meant I would have to pay for it.

I fingered the rublie in my pocket. The disk fitted comfortably in my palm and gave off a slight heat. Sadly, that was all it was good for now. I could no longer read the pions that would have told me how many kopacks I owned.

Time seemed to rush ahead of me, leaving crunching noises in the ice. I dug a hat from my pocket – a leather cap that fit snugly on my head and was inlaid with tightly knitted wool – pulled it down over my ears and jammed my hands into my pockets. Then I headed for the Tear.

Movoc-under-Keeper had started its life – back in the dark days before Novski developed his theory on critical circles – huddled around the Keeper's Tear River. The Tear had always been the life of this city. Its waters rushed, clean and clear, even in the middle of the coldest winter night. It provided Weeping carp to hungry primitives, and introduced them to the great bears that hunted the large, dark-scaled fish. Hundreds of years and a pion revolution later, Movoc-under-Keeper still huddled around the Tear. All levels of veche built their buildings as close to the bridge as possible, anyone with kopacks to spare bought apartments with views of the water. Other's teeth, even Grandeur would have faced the river, if she'd lived long enough to gain a face.

When Novski's critical circle revolution changed the city, two large roads were built on either side of the river. Movoc's arteries. I headed for Easttear.

The traffic began to pick up as I neared the river. Men mostly, rugged up with jackets and leather caps like mine, heads down and shoulders hunched, hurried against the sharp wind that rose from the water. Few women. Bracing the cold, wrapping oneself up in clothes that hid shape, hair and feminine beauty, was hardly very ladylike. There were those who had no choice: the cleaners, spinners, and governesses. This close to the centre of the city, however, most women could afford to behave like ladies. Even the women of my circle, when I had one, only grudgingly resigned themselves to jackets and caps on a construction site.

The driver of the first landau that slid past glanced my way, but didn't stop, even as I waved as frantically as my stitches would allow. Either his coach was full, or he had just ignored me. I frowned, and tugged my cap down where it had started to ride up and expose the bandages over my left ear.

The landau looked bizarre without pions. It glided several feet above the ice, silent and smooth, all polished ebony with sparkling silver fittings. Its driver sat at the front, exposed to the morning chill while his passengers rode in insulated comfort, hidden behind darkened glass. The driver held his hands out, fingers loose over invisible reins, mouth working as he coaxed and guided a complex tangle of invisible lights.

I knew what I should be seeing. A landau was usually festooned with bright streamers, and carried on long legs of pion threads. They looped around the base, threading through the nooks and the hooks where wheels and springs would have been, back when horses used to draw them. There were usually six long spider-like legs of many bright and diverse colours. So what looked like gliding to me now was actually crawling. Crawling on light.

The second coach ignored me too.

I had known my life would be different now. But I hadn't imagined that something as simple as signalling a landau to take me down the Tear River would become this much harder, this quickly. My high-necked, tailored jackets had given me status. Their quality said I was a skilled binder, one who earned enough kopacks from her craft to have clothes like that made to measure. Their silver bear-heads shining from the shoulders told how many times I had been employed by the veche, and how many successful commissions I had filled. The insignia stitched into the neck, difficult to see unless one stood close, demonstrated which university I had graduated from, and with how much honour.

Wearing those jackets, I did not have to stand in the slush of melting ice at the edge of the street and wave at coaches as they glided past. Coaches came to me; they sought me out like loyal puppies hoping for scraps. Without them, I was just another person in this too-full city.

A coach finally did pick me up. A much cheaper-looking affair than the silent and dark landaus I had watched gliding past. It had wheels, for one thing. Not all binders were strong enough to create large insect-legs of pure energy, and had to rely on pion systems working in a gearbox and driveshaft to help propel and steer the carriage. This one was painted in a pale lacquer, peeling in places, and one of its steel-mesh stairs was loose.

"Where you headed?" The driver squinted down he slowed the coach beside me. He didn't stop it, so I was forced into a fast walk to answer him. As fast as I could manage, at least.

"Eighth Keepersrill," I shouted over the rattle of wheels and icy stone.

His eyes widened as he realised I was a woman. But then, I didn't look that much like a woman, dressed the way I was. Surprised most people the first time, which had always been the point. I didn't appreciate the assumptions that came with wearing skirts, long hair and glittery pieces of jewellery. As the fatherless daughter of a textile factory worker, I'd spent most of my life fighting against just those same kind of assumptions. But I was not a weak pionbinder, and I was perfectly capable of doing great things, powerful things, and living my own life my way.

At least, I had been.

"What Section?" He slowed the coach further.

Swallowing my pride, I tried to sound grateful. "Tenth." And I smiled. I actually smiled at him.

He nodded. "Get on."

I didn't give him the opportunity to bring the Otherdamned coach to a stop. Ignoring the pain in my stitches, I grabbed one of the rails, pulled myself up and yanked a door open with the other hand.

Three men were already crammed into the interior. One read from a small slide, one seemed half asleep. The third was industriously picking at the seat's worn cushions, undoing the cheap fabric with his fingers, and then repairing it with a whisper to whatever pions would listen to him. Better than boredom, I supposed. As I swung myself in they squeezed closer together, making a space for me. I wedged myself between the door and the man with the slide. He wore a bulky coat that made loud crinkling noises as I pressed against it.

I was suddenly hot, and sore. I flipped the edge of my cap up to reveal my ears, and hunkered away from enquiring eyes. The stitches on my face and the bandages on my neck stood out like a snow-rabbit in spring. My cheeks reddened beneath them, a warmth that sent every thread, every puncture itching.

What I would have given for the comfortable interior of an expensive landau. Temperature-controlled, silk on the seats and a selection of slides to choose and read from. Daily missives from the veche, mostly, but better than staring mindlessly out the window. Which was all I could do now.

We rattled and bumped our way further from Movoc's centre, and out into the poorer areas of the city. With each stop a passenger left, and was almost immediately replaced by a new one. I tried not to let my mind wander over the buildings and what I would do to fix them up. Re-stone the plain wall there with a criss-cross of brick and ornamental shale. Refashion the entire roof on a particular hovel, where it sagged precariously in the middle. I'd fix the roads too, not something an architect would usually stoop to do. Even the most beautiful of buildings can be ruined by uncared-for streets.

Twice, when the coach slowed to ease the passing of men and women on foot, I saw stiffly walking figures, too pale to be real. One stood beneath a lamp. The other walked alongside the coach, close to the window, and met my eyes through the glass. The puppet men. They probably wanted me to see them, to know they were ever watching. I sank down further in my uncomfortable seat.

Finally, the coach came to a squeaking halt and none of the other passengers made to leave. I opened the door, gasping as icy air hit me.

"Eighth Keepersrill, Section ten," the driver called. I tugged my cap down and, gripping the handrails, swung myself around to face him. There were a few shallow indents leading up to his seat and I climbed closer.

The driver whistled lowly. "Agile, aren't ya?"

He couldn't feel the strain in my muscles or the stinging of my scars.

"How much?" I asked.

He drew a rublie from his pocket. It was battered, the small lights that ran the edge flickered unsteadily. I was surprised it still worked. "Eight hundred."

"I beg your pardon?"

He blinked, a small frown creasing greying eyebrows. "Eighth Keepersrill ain't 'round the corner, you know."

I knew. How much time did I have before breakbell?

"I shared a small cabin. It was cramped and uncomfortable. As far as I could tell, you drove us in circles to get as many people crammed in there as possible. If you expect me to pay eight hundred kopacks for that kind of service, your brain has either frozen, or you think I'm some kind of idiot. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

The driver's eyes bulged. "Miss, that's the fare-"

"I will pay you two hundred."

He choked on something, and spluttered, "Two hund-"

"A quarter of the fare for a quarter of the space. That's fair."

"That's robbery!"

I flicked open my lapel and drew out my watch. As I opened it, scowling at the circles, at how Other-damned close they were spinning to breakbell, I'm sure he got a good look at the bear inscribed on the polished brass, its glass eyes deeply blue and teeth opaque white.

I snapped the watch shut. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

The driver paled, like a man who just realised he'd made a nasty mistake and tried to swindle someone far above his social standing. Or thought he had, at least.

"Nothing."

"Good. Two hundred?"

"Yes, miss. Of course."

I handed him my rublie and watched intently as he touched it to his. The lights flashed as the two connected, then flickered green to indicate a successful transaction. I took the rublie with a nod, glad he had no idea that I couldn't see how many kopacks were registered to me, let alone how many he had taken.

"Thank you." I leapt from the side of the coach. Only when I landed in an inch of sludge and sent sharp pains into my ankles and left leg at the impact, did I realise it probably wasn't the best idea. Despite that, I straightened under the driver's appraising gaze.

He lifted gloved fingers to his hat. "Miss."

I turned as if to go, then stopped. "Oh, one other thing."

"Miss?"

How much pride did I have to swallow in one day? What would it take to make me sick? "How much was on there?"

"Uh…?"

I shook my head, tried to pretend exasperation. "On my rublie. How much was on there?"

"On yours? Ten thousand, miss. You must have seen-" He started to pale again. It made the whole thing easier, to know his day was turning out just as well as mine.

"Thank you." I spun, before he got any grand ideas about getting his hands on my rublie, and hurried away.

Ten thousand. Ten thousand! I'd expected the veche to take my payment for Grandeur away, but ten thousand? Had I paid for my time in the hospital, for Devich and the veche men to suit me? Ten thousand wasn't enough to keep my home next moon, ten thousand wasn't enough for the new clothes I needed to fit over the Other-buggered suit. Ten thousand would keep me eating for a while longer, but only if I was lucky, only if I stuck to flatbread and cheese that would have been more appropriate to grout tiles with. I could stretch it out, but not forever.

How much did a debris collector earn?

I peered up at the first intersection. Where in all the Other-cursed hells was Darkwater?

Was it really worth it? If I didn't turn up in, oh, I probably only had a few turns of the third wheel left – then what was the worst that could happen? Tribunal, colonies, some nonsense about civilisation? They meant nothing. I had no life left to take away, no purpose, no health. And soon enough, no home.

What more could they possibly do to me?

I stared at the street signs. One had fallen off long ago, all that remained of its metal fixture was rust and ice. The other had been scrawled on, all semblance of a name scribbled out with thick black paint.

"Are street signs too much to ask?" And now I was talking to myself. "Other's hells! That's it. I give up. I'll take whatever you veche bastards think you can dish out!" I yelled at the sign, and the whole run-down, garbage-riddled eighth Keepersrill, Section ten. "And you can shove your collecting team up the Other's hairy-"

A hand gripped my shoulder. I spun, ready to shout the rest of all the expletives I had ever learned into the face of whoever had been stupid enough to interrupt me.

But the dark eyes I met were calm. I could see my stupidity in their depths, my useless railing. "You must be Tanyana."

I gaped at the man. He was tall, wrapped in a long brown coat that almost touched the sludge on the street. Pale blond curls escaped a tattered hat.

"How do you know my name?" I choked over the words, struggling to get myself back under control.

He glanced at my coat, at the smooth leather of my cap and the shoes, still gleaming beneath the beginnings of a coating of sludge. "You wouldn't come here if you hadn't fallen." His clothes were heavily patched, the hems of his jacket and pants uneven. "And only the recently fallen would still be so angry about it."

"Fallen?" I whispered. Did he know then? About Grandeur.

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm Kichlan." He didn't offer me a hand to shake, in fact, he barely met my eyes, choosing to look over the top of my head instead. "I'll show you where we are."

With that, he hunched his shoulders against the wind and headed down the street that had lost its name. After a moment, I followed.

Tenth Section hadn't seen a repair team or a clean-up crew in a very long time. Bags of garbage clogged the corners where one ugly, hulking grey building met its twin. The stonework on the street and on the side of most of the buildings was beyond repair, and well into the replacement stage of life. Potholes dotted the road, great cracks ran down walls and all of it was crumbling in the face of the wind and the cold.

I already felt out of place, trailing behind Kichlan, suddenly aware of the quality of my own clothes. Hand in my pocket, I ran my fingertips over the rublie's bumps and grooves. Ten thousand could be a lot of money for people living in a place like this.

"Here." Kichlan stopped at a nondescript door once painted in a dark poly-mix, now peeling like snowburned skin.

I glanced around the door, the wall beside it, even the street, but found no number. Helpful, considering the missing street name.

Kichlan turned an old-fashioned iron key in the door's old-fashioned iron lock.

A tight, claustrophobic staircase led below the frozen ground. Dim lights wavered, and I realised with a shock they weren't pion-powered.

"It's gas." I stopped by one of the lights. A small flame flickered behind heat-smudged glass.

Kichlan, several steps below me, glanced over his shoulder. His thin mouth was made firmer and more disapproving by lines drawn with heavy shadow. "Of course."

I stroked fingers along the wall below the light. A faint bump betrayed the presence of a gas pipe behind thin cement and flaking paint. "I didn't think the gas lines still worked." How long had Movoc-under-Keeper employed its factories of pion-binders to keep the lights on? A hundred years, possibly more? And who would use a potentially dangerous, unreliable substitute instead?

"Not many do. Debris collectors are the only ones who use them." Kichlan resumed his descent.

"Why?" I hurried to close the gap between us, my feet slipping on the steps' wet edges.

He snorted. "What do you mean 'why'? You can't expect us to rely on pions instead." The stairs ended at another dark door. Kichlan wrapped his gloved hand around a handle of twisted metal. "Would you trust something you can't control? Something you've never seen and can't even smell, or taste?"

I held back "I would if it's safer than gas" on the tip of my tongue.

Light spilled into the stairwell as Kichlan opened the door. I followed him inside.

My eyesight adjusted to a wide room, sparsely furnished. A low table was pressed into one corner and surrounded by ratty couches and sagging armchairs. Desks lined the wall beside the door, and cabinets crowded another, their doors closed and locked. There wasn't much else. A few empty wooden cartons that didn't seem to serve much purpose. The ceiling was high, with the bottoms of windows letting in light from the street and the occasional glimpse of booted feet hurrying by.

Five curious faces peered at me from the couches and chairs. I clenched my hidden hands in my pockets.

"Found her." Kichlan tugged off his gloves and threw them on a desk that sagged beneath the paper piled on top of it. Paper: another relic from an age before the revolution.

I started to notice the warmth in the room too, and reluctantly withdrew my hands and slipped the cap from my head. "Hello," I said, as I fussed with my hair. The problem with wearing a hat and styling cream at the same time.

"Cutting it close, aren't you?" said a pale young man lounged across one of the couches.

I said, "Streets with no names, doors with no numbers, I have trouble with them. Call it a fault of mine."

He lifted his head to smirk at me. His eyes were sharply blue, his skin heavily freckled.

"We're hard to find, Mizra." Kichlan unbuttoned his coat. "We all have trouble the first time." He hung his coat on the wall and waved his hand loosely at the free hooks.

I undid my coat. They were all watching as I hung up my jacket. I tugged at my shirt collar, feeling intensely self-conscious.

A sharp-eyed woman standing behind one of the chairs stared at my wrists. "How long?" Brown hair framed her face and bobbed as she nodded toward my suit, wrapped and dimmed by dark cloth.

My throat went dry. "Sixnight and one. I think. And maybe another day or so." It all jumbled together, the falling and the healing.

"Other." When she brushed a strand from her face her suit flashed brightly silver in the morning glare. "Doesn't it hurt, the cloth?"

I raised my wrist. "No. Not any more, at least."

Her face crinkled into a disgusted expression. "Other."

"Is that unusual?" My eyebrows lifted, tugged stitches, and I eased them down.

She snorted a soft laugh. "Unusual? You could say that."

The pale young man, Mizra, chuckled. "We thought you might be fun."

They thought?

"Natasha, Mizra, enough." Kichlan frowned at both of them. "Tanyana, welcome to your debris collection team." His voice drawled the words out a little, making them bitter, tinged with sarcasm. Hardly reassuring.

I swallowed hard in the silence. "Thank you."

"You have met Mizra."

The young man waved his hand in the air, suit glinting on a soft wrist.

"His brother Uzdal."

A nearly identical man sat in an adjacent armchair and regarded me gravely. Twins, they had to be. It was rare to see twins in Movoc-under-Keeper; it was rare to see them in the whole of Varsnia. Few lived beyond infancy.

"You now know Natasha." Brown hair, sharp green eyes. Right.

Would I remember any of this?

"This is Sofia. If you need anything, she's the best place to start."

A small, solid woman glanced up from the wad of paper she was reading. She chewed the end of a graphite pencil. Thin hair, a featureless brown, was pinned in a knot at the base of her head. She wore a shapeless dress in layers of grey.

"And this, finally, is Lad."

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. But when Kichlan turned to Lad his voice softened, and he smiled. I'd been starting to wonder if he was capable of it.

Lad was even larger than Kichlan. Poorly cut blond hair stuck out around his head, and his cheeks had a glow to them, strangely childish beneath a fine layer of stubble. He had been sitting on the edge of an armchair and leapt to his feet at the sound of his name. He grinned at me, so widely it seemed to split his face, and shuffled forward.

"He told me about you." Lad grabbed my hands, squeezed them in his own, and shook vigorously. I hissed as he tugged at sensitive skin around my suit, and the wounds beneath my left glove. "Knew you were coming."

"Be careful, Lad." Kichlan touched the larger man's shoulder. "Be nice to the new lady."

"I am." He squeezed harder and leaned in close to me. His breath smelled sweet, like sugar drops. "He's glad you're here. Waiting a long time."

I tried to pry my hands from Lad's grip. "Thank you."

Beaming like a newly risen sun, Lad gave me one final, extra-enthusiastic shake, and released me. I staggered a few steps and grabbed at the wall for balance.

Kichlan frowned at Lad, but even so his face held none of the disregard he had shown me. "What did we talk about?"

Lad fidgeted with the hem of his shirt and shuffled foot to foot. "Be nice," he said, voice muffled, head low. "When the new lady comes, got to be nice."

It was hard to imagine a man of his size, his strength, talking like such a child. I rubbed at the throb he had set off in my hand. How could I relate to a new circle like this? No, not a circle. Not any more. They were a collecting team. I had to get used to that. Resentment from Natasha, flippancy from Mizra and nothing from his twin, disdain from Kichlan and the small one, now spiced in the middle with Lad's excessive enthusiasm. A bizarre lot.

"And how do we be nice to her?" Kichlan continued to lecture the large man.

Lad lowered his head closer to his chest and mumbled. "Don't touch. Keep back."

"That's right. Are we going to be careful, now?"

Lad nodded. In places, his hair was long and frizzy, and it jiggled wildly. "Yes."

"All right. But I'll be watching you. So you be careful."

When Kichlan returned his regard to me, his face closed up again. It was like a door, a glance of a bright room and suddenly I wasn't allowed to see any further, any deeper. "My brother is enthusiastic. He likes to meet new people."

At least one of them did. "Your brother."

"That's right." Sofia dropped her wad of paper on the table with a bang. "Lad is our special boy, aren't you?" She stood, and patted Lad's hand. He grinned down at her. "Not another collector like him, nowhere in this world."

"He's the best there is." Mizra, still prone, tipped his head over the arm of the couch and peered upside down at me.

"None better." Uzdal's voice was so quiet I barely heard it.

Did they expect me to add to this peculiar chorus of compliments? I kept my silence.

"You're lucky to be on this team." Sofia stepped between Lad and me, hands on hips, and flickered her gaze from my feet to my head. I started to suspect I wasn't entirely welcome. "And I don't care where you've come from, what you did before the accident that brought you here. A good pion-binder is not necessarily a good collector."

"Right." Accident? Did they know? Other, how could they know?

"Hmph." Her lip twitched. "Take those dark bands off, and let's have a look at you."

I ran a finger beneath the cloth hiding the suit on my right wrist from view.

"You won't need to cover them here," Kichlan said, softly, and I had the strangest feeling he understood my need to keep the suit hidden. Why all the changes in my life hurt less if I didn't have to look at the Other-damned shackles of silver and light.

I peeled each of the black strips away and undid my shirt collar so my neck was visible. My neck, and the bandages that crawled up from my left side. They felt heavy on me, even heavier than the suit, and I realised they were what I didn't want to expose to the world. Just like the suit, I didn't want my scars to be real either.

Mizra sat up to watch me, with his brother leaning behind him to get a view too. Why were there so many brothers in this team?

"Stomach too," Sofia said, arms crossed.

I blinked at her. "You want to look at my stomach?"

Mizra chuckled. "Better get used to it. No privacy around here."

My cheeks flushed as I untucked my shirt, lifted it, and tied the ends to expose the rim of silver around my waist and the white edges of padded bandages. The suit cast its own light into the room. It spun lazily, and I realised, as I clasped my hands near my waist, that each piece moved in time with the others.

Mizra whistled, the sound sharp against the room's smooth walls. "Sixnight, you say?"

"And one," Natasha whispered. "Maybe more."

Hadn't they noticed the bandages? Didn't they have questions? "Are you repeating yourselves for any particular reason?" The heat in my cheeks had turned to anger. Easier to deal with than embarrassment.

Kichlan came to my aid again. "A sixnight-"

"-and one, maybe more," Natasha added.

Kichlan didn't miss a beat "-is a very short time to adapt so well to a new suit. Particularly at your age."

I ignored that comment. "Is it?" I remembered what Devich had said to me, about being strong. Maybe this was what he meant. "What do you mean, adapt?"

"Just look at them." Mizra dropped off the couch and approached me. He was tall, I realised, and very thin. He walked, slow and laconic, like someone strolling through water. "They're glowing steadily, and the spinning is synchronised. It usually takes moons to get to that stage, filled with hard work and a lot of practice."

Had the bands ever been out of sync? I'd not noticed.

Sofia began to undress. "Right, let's get you into your uniform. We have a lot to do today and don't need you to slow us down."

My eyes widened. "What, exactly, does this involve?"

She gave me a withering look, even as I realised she was wearing something else beneath her shapeless dress. The top was like a corset, boned around her chest, but not tight enough to inhibit her breathing. Dark material, lined with more stiff bones beneath the fabric, stretched over her shoulders and down her arms, ending a few inches short of her wrists. Of course, the strange outfit left a gap at her stomach, enough for the band of silver metal and an inch or so of skin. She wore pants in the same dark fabric, finishing above her ankles. The boning continued through the whole thing and softened with the contours of her body, with her own bending, the movement of her joints and muscles.

I had never seen anything so form-fitting, so revealing, even though it covered her completely, and couldn't decide if it was ridiculous or hugely inappropriate.

A horrible thought dawned on me. "What is that?" I choked over the words.

Sofia gave me a cruel smile. "Your new uniform. Like it?"

"Other's balls."

Mizra chuckled as Lad pressed his hands to his lips, snorting giggles behind his palms.

"Now, now." Kichlan fetched a packet wrapped in clear poly from the desk and passed it to me. "You'll get used to it."

"The uniform is strong, it is warm, and it does not impede the use of your suit," Sofia said as she planted herself in front of me. "Swallow your pride, and just put it on."

She was a rather ineffectual shield, but Natasha didn't offer to help and no one seemed inclined to ask her. So the smallest woman present was the only thing between the men and me as I pulled off my clothes, and tried to squeeze into the strange black top and pants. They smelled strongly of their poly wrap. The material was a lot like the dark strips Devich had given me, too stretchy to be normal, thin to the touch, but strong when pulled.

I untied my shirt first, counting my blessings that I'd chosen a long one, and replaced my loose, comfortable woollen pants with the decidedly uncomfortable new pair.

My new team were not modest about their staring. I told myself not to care, not to feel self-conscious, and focus more on easing the material around my ankles and over stitches.

They kept quiet until I had pulled off my shirt and was trying to work out if I could keep my camisole on underneath the tight black uniform.

"You're hurt," Lad murmured.

I glanced up to see his expression shocked, eyes tearrimmed. And I swallowed hard.

"Yes." I gave up the fight for a moment and straightened, so they could all see the bruises, the bandages, the scarring and the stitches. How strange that my new team had noticed the suit first, but maybe that was the kind of scarring they understood. And standing beneath the scrutiny of people I would have to work with, I realised the suit and the stitches were one and the same to me. Cause and effect. All a part of my fall. However much I wanted to keep them hidden, to deny their existence, it couldn't be sustained.

"So," Uzdal said, tone flat. "You're the architect."

Had I really expected to maintain my anonymity? Grandeur was a big statue, her fall must have been spectacular. In a terrible way.

"I told you she would be," Kichlan said, and I wondered at his wooden expression. "Powerful binder makes a big mistake, we get a new collector. Doesn't take much to work that one out."

Makes a big mistake? I bristled. "I didn't make any-"

"Why didn't they heal you?" Kichlan somehow twisted the question into an accusation. "Why give you stitches? They will leave scars. I thought healers would do anything for their fellow pion-binders, even ones who throw themselves from great heights and drag buildings down with them."

"The healers did the best they could for me." Why did this make him so angry? Had the veche dragged him from this dank sublevel to clean up all the debris I had left behind? Oh, the terrible injustice of it all.

"Is that what they told you?"

What could I say to that? I had no idea what he meant, and was at a point where I really didn't care. Instead, I sent Sofia a silent glance as I wrapped fingers around the hem of my camisole. She nodded, barely perceptible, and mouthed, "Leave it on," her voice little more than a breath.

The black top squeezed on, tight boning pressing against my chest, my shoulders and arms. I waited for pain, but if anything, the firm but yielding pressure seemed to calm my stitches. Dressed, I flexed my hands, extended my arms and turned the inside of my elbows up. The material curved with me, not prodding, not constricting. It felt like a second skin, a tough one, strong when I rapped it with my knuckles. And a little too warm.

"You don't go outside like this, do you?" Warmth in an underground room was one thing. Warmth in the middle of a Movoc winter demanded many, many more layers. And the whole uniform wasn't proper. Too much skin, too much shape.

Sofia clicked her tongue. "Of course not. It's easy enough to cover, just wear what you would normally, bar any underclothes. You won't need them."

"What's the point if we wear clothes on top of it?"

Kichlan passed Sofia's discarded garments back to her, and said, "With the uniform on we only need one layer. One loose layer. And trust me, when we start collecting you'll understand. The last thing you want is clothes getting in the way."

Sofia lifted an eyebrow. "You might have to wear skirts next time though."

"I have pants loose enough to go on top of this."

"Not a good idea for a debris collector to stand out." She gave me a stern look. "We need to walk around unhindered, unmolested. If you start trying to be different, trying to get attention, you'll make life harder for all of us."

Attention? That wasn't why I cut my hair short, and wore men's clothing. "I have some very loose pants."

Kichlan sighed. "As I was saying, wear the uniform beneath your clothes. Get used to it. You can be called on at any time, and must be ready to respond immediately."

"Immediately?"

He nodded. "When accidents happen – like architects who lose control of their buildings, say – we have to be prepared. Any time. All the time."

I refused to rise to the barb. "Given the effect debris can have on a pion system, I understand why."

Enough debris could slow a whole system down, leaving pions unresponsive and ultimately useless. Any system, no matter how large. And what was Movocunder-Keeper but an enormous pion system, a system of systems, built from pions, with pions, entirely dependent on their smooth working. From fountains to landaus, nothing operated without them. Imagine running a hospital without working pions, or the heating system, or the lights. A whole city in chaos, utter darkness and cold.

"You were a skilled architect, weren't you? A strong binder." Kichlan's voice was soft again, like he couldn't decide if my past made him angry or sad. What did it matter, how skilled I was when I was a pion-binder? All that was gone now. "Before you fell."

My throat felt dry. The uniform was too hot. "Yes. Before I fell."

I held Kichlan's gaze, tried to decide if I could read sympathy in his eyes, or a bitter kind of confusion.

Then Lad broke into the silence. "He likes it." He grinned. "Thinks you look good in it. A lot."

Mizra burst out laughing as Kichlan gaped at his brother. Sofia glared at me from beneath thick eyelashes. The anger there, the resentment, was far deeper than anything she had shown me yet. The whole new-team arrangement wasn't really going very well.

"Let's go," Sofia growled the words, pulled her clothes back on and stalked to the stairs. I collected my own clothes, tugged them on, and followed.

Lad was bouncing on the balls of his feet as I stepped back into the glare of Movoc-under-Keeper. I shielded my eyes and squinted into the hard blue sky. Clouds hugged the edge of the horizon, probably flocking to Keeper's Peak and the lesser range of mountains in her shadow. I hoped they would spill over as the day wore on, keeping some warmth in the city, dulling the worst of the sharp sunlight.

"Lovely day to be collecting." Mirza hunched himself into a jacket patched together from scraps of leather and wool, and wrapped a widely knitted scarf around his neck. Guilt nudged at me. I was acutely aware of the lamb's wool cushioning my ears, of my smooth leather shoes and the heavy, wind-blocking lining of my coat.

"Aren't they all?" Natasha mumbled into the high collar of a jacket that swallowed most of her head.

Their attitude didn't dampen Lad's excitement. He giggled and repeated, "Lovely day!" over and over. He sang it, like a child with a newly learned expression, loudly, softly, without apparent tune. And he continued to bounce as Kichlan fought to secure Lad's loose scarf.

"It's going to take all day to calm him down now." Kichlan gave up on Lad's scarf altogether and muttered as he stalked past me.

Was that my fault?

As the others started down the street, Kichlan gestured for me to follow him. "I guess the most important thing I can tell you is to fill the quota."

I blinked at him. "Quota?"

He gave a little sigh and nodded. "Every sixnight and one the debris we have collected is taken away by the veche." He rustled around in a brown leather bag he had swung over his shoulder and drew out a strange container. It looked like a jam jar with a lid that sealed tightly, but was made of a dull metal instead of glass. It didn't, I rather quickly assumed, hold jam. "We put the debris in these, and they'll count the number we send back full. After a decent sixnight we'll fill seventy-two. Any less than that is a problem. Although, they'll be after-" he flicked his fingers, counted under his breath "-eighty-four now you're here."

"Wonderful," Sofia muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

"And if we don't meet this quota?" Why didn't I shut my mouth when it wanted to ask questions like that?

"Inspection." Kichlan's face took on a thundercloud aspect, dark, foreboding. Inspection hung in the cold air like it was written in ice. The rest of the team held their breath. "And we don't want that."

Well, I could understand not wanting to endure a veche inspection, particularly considering their presence at Grandeur's construction site when it all fell apart. But the tension I could suddenly feel felt a little extreme. What could be so bad about an inspection? A lecture, a rap on the knuckles? But those hanging-ice words told me there had to be more to it than that.

"To avoid such an event we have devised half a dozen set loops," Kichlan continued, expression still dark. "You will learn them over the next sixnight or two. They take us past places where debris congregates. Faulty lamps, old sewers. Pion systems that aren't functioning properly. It has worked, so far, to fill our quota and keep from attracting unwanted veche attention."

"Kich's idea," Lad told me, tone light compared to Kichlan's face and everyone else's heavy silence. "He decided the ways we should go and we always find some."

"Oh, Lad." A smile swept Kichlan's thunderclouds away. "You're being hard on yourself. We also have a secret weapon-" he nodded to his younger brother "-thanks to Lad, we always find the debris we're looking for, even if it's off the loop. Other teams aren't so lucky."

Lad, still bouncing and drawing further ahead, grinned proudly.

I gave a sharp, quiet sigh. "Aren't we lucky."

"You'll see," Sofia said, expression smug.

"Just remember one thing." Mizra wrapped an arm around half of Lad's wide back. "When it comes to debris, always follow Lad's instincts."

"Always," Kichlan echoed him.

Once we left Darkwater we headed from side street to side street, poking into every shadow, scrutinising every corner. I found myself immersed in a uniformity of poor brickwork, unwashed streets and cracked windows. I had no idea how I was supposed to remember the whole twisting route, let alone half a dozen different ones.

In these poorer areas kopacks weren't spent on frivolous fountains or expensive walkways that required intensive pion systems to run. Even if I still retained my pion sight, the buildings in these sections would have looked dull to me. Almost lightless. That wasn't to say they were like the ancient buildings at the city centre, built by hand in a time before critical circles. Rather, they were constructed cheaply and quickly, by smaller circles and with weaker, shallow pions. The buildings stood, barely, and did not weather the passing of time particularly well.

"Pay particular attention to shadows," Kichlan lectured me. The others were a good five strides ahead, talking among themselves. Mizra gestured wildly and Lad nearly fell to the icy flagstones in a paroxysm of laughter. "Dark in colour, debris is easy to miss in the shadows. We do not collect at night for this reason. Unless, of course, in an emergency."

"Of course."

Mizra waved his hands in the air, and now Uzdal was laughing too. Even Natasha let out a soft chuckle. Lad whooped, the sound echoing. A face peered down from a slit of a window, high up in the flat, unpainted cement wall. I glanced up to see an old man, hair thinning and face heavily lined, scowling as we trooped past.

"Mizra," Kichlan called. When the young man turned around Kichlan made gestures over his mouth, then pointed at Lad. Mizra shrugged, only to be rewarded with a clenched fist. Finally, Mizra nodded, and the laughter ceased.

Seemed a pity to me.

"Where was I?" Kichlan clasped his hands behind his back, and lifted his head. He could have passed easily for a university lecturer striding along like that. All he needed was a black cape and a bear's claw pinned to his breast.

"You were telling me about emergencies," I said, At least emergencies sounded interesting.

"Remember to wear your uniform all the time."

"So you said."

"Even at night."

I balked. "At night?"

"I told you to wear it all the time, Tanyana. And I mean it. If you are called to an incident at silentbell what will you do? Trust me, you won't be given time to dress." And then, Other's beard, the bastard sneered at me. "When the call comes-"

All the time? That was ridiculous. "How will I know if there's an incident when I'm snug in my own bed and sound asleep?" And how did he expect me to reach that state of sound asleepness wrapped in a hot, hard, second skin?

"I was trying to tell you." He tapped at his wrist. "You'll know."

The suit then. I couldn't get away from it, could I? Not at home, not in my sleep, not anywhere or any time. "Fine."

"Good." Kichlan was silent for a moment. "Should be easy for a skilled ex-binder like you to work out."

"Great." My left knee was starting to hurt.

We trekked further. More small windows opened, letting in the crisp morning air. Wet clothes and bedding were hung on wire strung between them. People stepped out into the streets. Men dressed in dark suits with smallbrimmed hats tucked tightly over their ears. Women in wide skirts, heavily layered, rustled against the flagstones in rose pinks, wildflower cream and bright sky blue. Their hands were wrapped in muffs of fur dyed to match the colour of lace hemming or glimpsed underskirt. Some wore thick hats, wide enough to keep the sun from delicate skin but low enough to protect their ears, but most donned more elaborate versions of my own: tight around the head, topped with soft moleskin and rimmed with fur.

I tugged at the lapel of my unfitted, tailored-for-a-man jacket. I played with the ends of my short-cropped hair.

"Now do you see what I mean?" Sofia hung back from the others to grace me with a self-righteous smile. "You really don't fit in, do you?"

I supposed that was a bad thing. "I don't see you dressed up like some oversexed flower waiting for the bee."

Ahead of us, Mizra let out a raucous laugh that had Lad quickly following suit. Sofia scowled. "I look like a woman of my station. You should try it sometimes." She hurried forward to smack Mizra on the back of the head.

I decided it was easier to hold my tongue than argue the point.

We didn't get much further from the Keeper that day. We wound our way through small alleys and side streets, squeezing through gaps in wooden fences, climbing a few stunted iron railings and opening rusty gates with hinges that screamed to wake the Other. I supposed it was intentional, this keeping out of the way. Away from people, away from the thoroughfares, away from space and sunlight and open sky. Because debris kept to the corners, Kichlan said, because the passage of coaches, of people, could sweep it away like dust. I didn't believe him. I was convinced, as I strained to squeeze through a cracked iron gate that refused to open any further, that the collectors were not following debris. They were avoiding people.

Then Lad, out in front and pushing along nicely despite his size, stopped. Mizra ran into his back – the experience a lot like I imagined walking into a wall would look like – and hurried to step away, expression apprehensive.

The team wrapped themselves in tense silence, all at once. I glanced from face to face, but all attention was reserved for Lad. The big man cupped his hand to his ear. Listening. He nodded, to no one in particular, and started abruptly down a different alleyway.

"Quickly." Kichlan grabbed my elbow and dragged me with him. "Once he's found it there's no slowing him, no stopping him."

I tripped on what was left of the gate and allowed myself to be half-carried, half-dragged into the alley. The stench of cat piss made me gag, while Kichlan's grip jarred into my shoulder. I struggled upright, and started running, finally able to shake him off. "Found what?" I panted behind him.

He spared me a glance, disbelieving. "Debris, of course."

I couldn't see anything, not even the Other-forsaken sludge I was stepping in. Even if the whole alleyway was teeming with dark, wiggly worms of debris I wasn't sure I would see it.

Lad turned a corner, Mizra and Uzdal close behind. Sofia, with a kerchief pressed against her nose, and Natasha, expression ugly with disgust, were a step behind them. Kichlan, probably impatient with my slow, limping run, nearly missed the bend.

"How does he know where it is?" I asked, trying to breathe through my mouth and talk at the same time. Anything to lessen the smell.

Kichlan grabbed my arm again and forced me to match his pace. His face was lit bright with flashes of sunlight and a wild smile. Somewhat mad, somewhat alarming, but alive. And proud. "He's Lad." The grin caught me and dragged out a smile of my own. "That's enough, isn't it? He's Lad. He knows."

We halted at a dead end. Roughly fired clay bricks – ugly and dark and made, I guessed, of ungainly or reluctant pions – stretched upward in a wall so high it blocked the Keeper from view. I peered at the soles of my shoes as the others shuffled aimlessly, moving boxes of rotting wood aside, lifting the worn-away edge of what was once a drainpipe and flinching back from whatever hid there. I touched an adjacent wall, just as ugly, for balance as I tipped my foot up. I had definitely stepped in something far below savoury.

Lad stood at the dead end, shoes swimming in scummy liquid. His face was hard to see in the dim alley, but what muted and grey light did penetrate it showed his lips moving slowly, his voice so quiet it was lost in a distant and incessant drip. Almost, I thought to myself, like he was talking to pions. What a strange and ridiculous thought.

Kichlan said nothing, only watched his brother. I put my foot down and leaned against the wall, just as Lad spun toward me.

"Look out!" he cried, and lunged forward as the wall gave way. His large hands fumbled with mine; I grabbed air and slippery palms but could hold onto neither. I fell backwards, into a putrid puddle of water, as a heavy shower of bricks rained down on me.

I scrambled desperately, hands beating at the falling bricks, feet slipping and kicking for purchase. And just as suddenly as the wall had collapsed, the stones stopped falling on my head. I opened my eyes to a semicircular dome of silver that wrapped around me, that shielded me from the rest of the wall.

What, by the Other's own hells, was that?

"Tanyana!" Kichlan yelled, voice muted through the silver ceiling and the Other only knew how much rock. After a breathless moment I heard scraping and the clattering of stones, then tapping.

I coughed until I could spit up the brick dust clogging my throat. "Kichlan? What is this?"

"How did it do that?" Someone – Sofia – was talking on the other side of the silver. Not, I noticed, trying to get me out from under it. "It's dormant, Kichlan. Dormant! We haven't even shown her how-"

"Give her help!" Lad shouted. "He says to be quiet and help her!" I agreed with him.

"Tanyana," Kichlan yelled again through the metal. "Don't let this frighten you. This is your suit, just your suit doing what it should do. You need to calm down and get it under control."

Calm down? I thought I sounded like the calmest person here. "How do I do that?"

A moment of half-heard muttering. "Your suit is more than bands of silver."

"I have come to realise this," I mumbled to myself. My voice echoed strangely in the tight space.

"Your suit is all this silver stuff too," he continued, oblivious. "It's in your arms and legs. It's so deep inside you wouldn't know it's there, until it does something like this."

I remembered being strapped to the veche's table. The muscle spasms from wrist to shoulder. The ache, the pressure, further down than any surface scratch could have been. Fluids pumped into me. Fibrous, wiggling things trapped in glass tubes. I had seen it happen, I had known the suit was moving deeper.

"I see."

He hesitated again. "The suit is part of you. Your legs, your arms. You know how to move your arms, don't you? Your feet? The muscles around your stomach, your neck?"

"Of course."

"Then you can move the suit."

I looked up to my wrist. Dimly, I could see a connection, where the silver on my wrist had grown, spread, flattened into the ceiling that now shielded me. The silver was part of those spinning, glowing bands. They were a part of me. And as I thought about lowering my arms that very symbol-scrawled silver bubbled back down into the bands on my wrists.

I blinked against sudden sunlight before large hands scooped me out of fetid sewage. "Tan!" Lad crushed me against his chest. "Too slow, too slow!" he cried.

It took a bit of coaxing for Kichlan to convince his younger brother to put me down. I was so grateful I even accepted Kichlan's shoulder to lean on, deciding walls weren't to be trusted. "Are you all right?" He studied my face, my head, my arms and my shoulder.

"Other of a first day." Mizra would have sounded more sympathetic if he hadn't been grinning evilly.

I fingered the top of my head and ignored him. Some of the bricks had scraped away skin, leaving dots of blood on my fingertips. And even though my uniform and suit had saved me from the worst of it, I suddenly felt sore all over. Exhausted and sore. Because from Movoc's greatest statue to one of its most decrepit walls, the city was trying to kill me. And maybe it was the dust clogging my throat, or the blood on my fingers, or the ache in my bones, but I was starting to wish it would just get it over with.

"How did you do that?" Sofia glared at me. "I thought your suit was dormant. How did you know what to do?"

"I didn't do anything." My head rang with the words. I knew I should have felt more shaken. Frightened by the wall coming down on me, confused by this suit that apparently should not have just saved me the way it had. Maybe it was the blow to the head. I just wanted to close my eyes.

"That's not possible."

"Sofia," Kichlan said in a warning tone that sent vibrations through me from his shoulder.

"Look what you found," Uzdal called from the hole I had made in the wall.

I pushed away from Kichlan's nice, stable shoulder and stumbled around loose bricks to stand beside him. On the other side of the wall was what could only have been an old city sewer. Walls chiselled into stone, not a dollop of cement anywhere, had eroded beneath a trickle of thick slop and made the foundations of at least three buildings now grown on top of it dangerously unstable. But, strangely enough, that barely caught my attention. It was the cluster of debris, squirming in the near-darkness like fat, baby snakes that held my eye.

"It was hard." Lad stood between us, stooping to get low enough to look in. "Should have known but didn't understand so you broke it. Sorry you got hurt, Tan. Sorry."

"Next time, try not to crush anyone." Mizra patted Lad's shoulder, but the large man jerked away from the touch and stomped off to huddle in a corner.

Kichlan watched his brother and sighed, before pointing a finger at Mizra and running it across his neck like a knife. Mizra frowned, but I couldn't help noticing how pale his cheeks were. "That's a great find, Lad," Kichlan said, loudly. His brother showed no signs he had heard. "Let's get it collected," Kichlan told the others in a softer voice.

He unhooked the bag he had over his shoulder and drew more metallic jars from its well-worn brown leather. He passed them out to the rest of the group. "Everyone set?"

I sat on a pile of rubble and watched as the others crowded around the hole in the wall.

"Here," Kichlan said, holding up his wrist and drawing my attention. "This is the way they're supposed to be used."

His suit flickered, more of the symbols rose to the top of the liquid and the spinning inside band stilled. The symbols pressed their sides against each other, swelled, and rose from his wrist before splitting into two solid, silver prongs. They grew, extended into the hole in the wall, pinched a small, wiggling piece of debris and drew it out.

"Debris cannot be touched." Kichlan held the debris over an open jar. "Not by hand, not by instrument, not by anything." He lowered the debris, opened his tweezers. "Except the suit." He sealed the lid. "And the jar."

I stared at the jar. Why? What was the suit made of, and was the jar the same thing? Why had mine protected me, moved without command? And could I ever get it to do something that precise, that controlled?

Kichlan gave me a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, it's been all too much for one day. And we don't usually drop things on new team members when we're trying to teach them either." He winced, and sent a guilty glance at his brother. "Just rest while we clean this up. You can try collecting some tomorrow."

Tomorrow? Another day with these people, this dirty stuff, these horrible silver appendages. What an entertaining prospect.

I leaned against chunks of ancient brickwork and let myself feel the aches. The throb in my head, matched by a larger, broader pain in my shoulder where I had fallen. Sharp twinges from stitches pulled and jolted. Had any dust found its way into my bandages? I would have to strip them all when I got home and clean everything carefully.

Sunlight lanced down from the small gap between leaning buildings. I tipped my head to feel it on my cheeks, and squinted against the pale gold. Were those clouds, edging their way over the blue sky, or my poor eyes made hazy by a throbbing head?

Dimly, I became aware of Lad whispering, "Didn't mean to, didn't know, should have told me." How could I hear him? It sounded like he was right beside me. My head was too heavy to lift, my eyes held closed by the sky's light. "Can't hurt her. Not again. If I hurt her, I can't go out any more."

He's sorry, you know. A voice from the rubble, from the sagging building. Don't blame him. It isn't his fault.

"I know," I whispered.

"Tanyana?" Kichlan's worried face blocked the sunlight. "Are you all right?"

I struggled to sit up, finally levering my body straight with my elbows. My mouth tasted dry, caked with the same dust that weighed down my face. I ran a tongue like paper across my teeth.

"Were you talking to anyone in particular?" Mizra crouched beside Kichlan.

I blinked, spurring tears, and my head rolled on a stiff neck. "Dreaming," I croaked. I must have fallen asleep with the sun on my face.

Kichlan's smile didn't quite ease the worry in his eyes. "Well, it's been a hard day. But no time for that now." He glanced up. "We'd better get moving before it hits."

It? I squinted up, only to find low and rolling snow clouds, the sun a dull disk in their midst.

"Come on." Sofia sounded agitated. "We've got it all. Time to get back."

When I stood, head thumping to the beat of my heart, I realised they were all waiting for me. Even Lad, who no longer cowered in the corner and whispered for forgiveness, was holding two jars of debris and looking very pleased with himself. I wanted to ask how long I had lain on the rubble and slept, but my mouth was full of dust, and it took everything I had to focus on placing one foot in front of the other.