A lovely scent drifted out. I had never smelled anything like it, but it was fresh and sweet. Inside, I saw nothing but colored dust. Impossible to tell what it might have once been, but the aroma alone made my naming day special.
“What is it?” Thimble asked.
Hesitantly, I touched a fingertip to the pink dust. “I think it might be to make us smell better.”
“Do we put it on our clothes?” Stone leaned in and gave a sniff.
Thimble considered. “Only for special occasions.”
“Anything in there?” I stirred, until I touched bottom. “There is!”
Elated, I drew out a square of stiff paper. It was white with gold letters, but they had a funny shape and I couldn’t read them. Some of them looked like they were supposed to; others didn’t. They looped and dropped and curled in ways that made them confusing to my eye.
“Put it back,” she said. “It might be important.”
It was important, if only for being one of the few complete documents we had from the time before. “We should take it to the Wordkeeper.”
Even though we’d traded for this tin fair and square, if it yielded a valuable enclave resource and we tried to keep it for ourselves, we could wind up in serious trouble. Trouble led to exile, and exile to unspeakable things. By mutual agreement, we replaced the paper and closed the tin. We shared a sober look, aware of the potential consequences. None of us wanted to be accused of hoarding.
“Let’s take care of it now,” Stone said. “I have to get back to the brats soon.”
“Give me a bit.”
Moving at a run, I headed to look for Twist. I found him in the kitchens, not surprisingly. I still hadn’t been assigned a private living space. Now that I’d been named, I could have a room of my own. No more brat dorm.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
I tried not to take offense. Just because I’d been named didn’t mean his treatment of me would improve overnight. To some, I’d be little more than a brat for a couple of years. Until I started edging toward elder territory.
“Just tell me where my space is?”
Twist sighed, but obligingly he led the way through the maze. Along the way, we dodged many bodies and wound through the layers of partitions and makeshift shelters. Mine sat in between two others, but it was four feet to call my own.
My room had three crude walls, constructed of old metal, and a ragged length of cloth for an illusion of privacy. Everyone had more or less the same; it only varied in terms of what trinkets people kept. I had a secret weakness for shiny things. I was always trading for something that glittered when I held it to the light.
“That all?”
Before I could answer, he went back toward the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the curtain. I had a rag pallet and a crate for my meager belongings. But nobody else had the right to come in here without my invitation. I’d earned my place.
Despite my worry, I smiled while I stowed my new weapons. Nobody would touch anything in here, and it was best not to visit the Wordkeeper armed to the teeth. Like Whitewall, he was getting on in years, and tended to be strange.
I didn’t look forward to this interrogation at all.
Trial
It didn’t take long to spill our story and show him the tin. He reached inside, letting the pink dust trail through his fingers. The card he handled carefully.
“You say you’ve had this item for some time?” The Wordkeeper glared at the three of us, as if we were guilty of stupidity at least.
Stone explained, “We traded for it together and agreed we’d open it on Fifteen’s … er, Deuce’s naming day.”
“So you had no idea of the contents before now?”
“No, sir,” I said.
Thimble added a timid nod. Her limp made her self-conscious, as the enclave seldom permitted such imperfections. But hers was minor and didn’t impede her performance as a Builder. In fact, I’d say she worked twice as hard, not wanting anyone to feel they’d made a mistake about her.
“Are you willing to swear?” the Wordkeeper asked.
“Yes,” Thimble said. “None of us had any idea what it held.”
They fetched Copper from the kitchens and she witnessed. The Wordkeeper growled as he took the document into evidence. “Get out, all of you. I’ll let you know of my decision in due time.”
I felt sick as we went back to my room. I wanted to show them where it was, anyway. Stone could enter with Thimble present as a chaperone. Like in the old days, in the brat dorm, we flopped onto the pallet together. Stone sat between us and wrapped an arm around each of us. He felt warm and familiar, and I leaned my head against his shoulder. I wouldn’t let anybody else touch me like this, but he was different. We were brat-mates, practically related.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “They can’t punish us for something we didn’t do.”
Looking at the pleasure in Thimble’s face as she nestled against him, I wondered if she might do better as a Breeder. But the elders wouldn’t let her, even if she’d preferred it. Nobody wanted imperfections passed on, even the small, harmless ones.
“He’s right,” she agreed.
I nodded. The elders looked after us. Certainly, they had to consider the matter, but once they’d studied all the facts, no harm would come to us. We’d done the right thing and turned the paper over as soon as we found it.
Absently, Stone played with my hair; for him, it was a simple instinct. Touching wasn’t forbidden to Breeders. They hugged and patted so easily it alarmed me. Builders and Hunters had to take such care not to be accused of wrongdoing.
“I have to go,” Stone said regretfully.
“To make some brats or look after them?” Thimble asked with a flash of ire.
For a moment, I felt so sorry for her. To me, it was painfully obvious she wanted something she could never have. Unlike me. I had exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t wait to start work.
He grinned, taking the question at face value. “If you must know—”
“Never mind,” I said hastily.
Her face fell. “I should go too. Hope you had a good naming day, Deuce.”
“Apart from seeing the Wordkeeper, it was fine.” I smiled as they both left and fell back on my pallet to think about my future as a Huntress.
The first time I saw Fade, he frightened me. He had a lean, sharp face and shaggy dark hair that fell over his forehead into the blackest eyes, like a bottomless pit. And he bore so many scars, as if he’d lived through battles the rest of us couldn’t imagine. Hard as life had been here, his silent rage said he’d seen worse.
Unlike most, he hadn’t been born in the enclave. He came in through the tunnels, half grown when we found him, half starved and more than half feral. He didn’t have a number designation, or even any concept of how to behave. Still, the older citizens voted to let him stay.
“Anybody who can survive out in the tunnels on his own has to be strong,” Whitewall had said. “We can use him.”
“If he doesn’t kill us all first,” Copper had muttered back.
Copper was second oldest at twenty-four, and she served as mate to Whitewall, though it was a fluid arrangement. She was also the only one who dared to back-talk him, even a little bit. The rest of us had learned to mind. I’d seen people exiled because they refused to obey the rules.
So when Whitewall decreed the stranger stayed, we had to make it work. It was a long while before I actually set eyes on him. They tried to teach him our ways, and he spent long hours with the Wordkeeper. He already knew how to fight; he didn’t seem to know how to live with other people, or at least, he found our laws confusing.
I was just a brat at the time, so I wasn’t involved in his assimilation. I was training to become a Huntress. Since I wanted to prove myself with blade and boot, I worked tirelessly. When the strange boy got his name, I wasn’t there. He didn’t know how old he was, so they guessed when to christen him.
After that, I saw him around, but I certainly never spoke to him. Brats and Hunters didn’t mix, unless lessons were involved. Those earmarked for combat and patrol duties studied under the veteran Hunters. I’d spent most of my time training with Silk, but a few others had schooled me over the years as well. I formally met Fade much later, after my own naming. He was teaching the fundamentals of knife work when Twist delivered me to his class.
“That’s all,” Fade said, as we joined them.
The brats dispersed with quiet grumbling. I remembered how sore my muscles had been when I started training. Now I took pleasure in the hardness of my arms and legs. I wanted to test myself against the dangers beyond our makeshift walls.
Twist tilted his head at me. “This is your new partner. Silk ranked her as the best in her group.”
“Did she?” Fade’s voice sounded odd.
I met his black eyes with a lift of my chin. Can’t let him think he intimidates me. “Yes. I scored ten out of ten in throws.”
He raked me with a scathing look. “You’re puny.”
“And you’re quick to judge.”
“What’s your name?”
I had to think; I almost said Girl15. I fingered the card in my pocket, finding comfort in its edges. It was my talisman now. “Deuce.”
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Twist said. “I have other things to do.”
He did, of course. Since he was small and fragile, he couldn’t hunt. He served as a second to Whitewall, running errands for him and taking care of administrative tasks. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him just sitting still, not even at night. I lifted my hand as he went around the jagged metal partition to another section of the settlement.
“I’m Fade,” he told me.
“I know. Everyone knows you.”
“Because I’m not one of you.”
“You said it, not me.”
His head jerked in a nod that said he didn’t want to answer any questions. Since I refused to be like everyone else, I swallowed my curiosity. If he didn’t want to talk, I didn’t care. Everyone wondered about his story, but only Whitewall had ever heard it—and maybe he didn’t even know the truth. But I was only interested in Fade as the one who guarded my back, so it didn’t matter.
He changed the subject. “Silk assigns hunting parties daily. We join the rotation tomorrow. I hope you’re as good as she claims.”
“What happened to your last partner?”
Fade smiled. “He wasn’t as good as Silk claimed.”
“You want to find out?” I lifted my brow in a challenge.
The space had cleared of brats, so he shrugged and took a position in the center. “Show me what you’ve got.”
It was a clever tactic, but I wasn’t that green. The offensive fighter lost the chance to assess his opponent’s style. I shook my head at him and curled my fingers. He almost smiled; I saw it start in his eyes, but then he focused on the fight.
We circled a few times. I leaned toward caution because I’d never seen him spar with anyone. I watched the Hunters every chance I got, but he didn’t spend much time with them outside of patrols.