That’s suspect.
“I know what you mean. Been there,” I say. Moms’s mattress got bedbugs once and we had to save up for four months to replace it.
She stares a second, confused. “I can’t imagine Aasim’s daughter sleeping on the floor, but—”
“Let’s be clear. I just met him. I don’t know him. So… just… chill out with all that mentioning him, please. My Moms raised me. Alone. And it’s not like this back home. It’s…” I gaze out a nearby window. The banners from the ceremony still flutter in the wind. A juggler flips colorful balls in the air using one hand and they burst into birds in every color and flutter off, while a crowd of admirers throws coins at him. “It’s just different.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter because once we’re Bound, it’s off to the dorm for a year of training. With our own beds!” She dances in place. “Oo! Maybe we can room?”
“Maybe.” The thought of not seeing Tasha or home or anyone I actually know for an entire year makes me sick.
She throws a salty look at her pocket and I know that noncompliant gadget is still under her skin. “What’s wrong with your thing?”
“Oh my PRI Mod? It’s nothing.”
“Rule number one of friends—no lies. Just keep it real.”
She turns beet red. “Wait, friends? I… we… really? O-okay.” She pulls it out of her pocket. “I don’t usually get to show anyone because, well, it’s not magicked or anything. My parents think it’s stupid. Just some dumb particle rearranger I made.”
It’s clunky and cold and I can clearly see the spot where one piece is refusing to slide into the other. I give it a push, just in case. No luck.
“What does it do?” I ask.
“It takes apart molecules and places them somewhere else.”
“In English?”
“My bag with my books is so heavy.”
“Okay…”
“I didn’t want to walk all the way from the quad, the dorm, back home just to drop them off between classes. So I made this thing. It shrinks the particles into tiny molecules, transports them through the air, and makes them reappear in my room.”
“Uh, Bri that’s not at all dumb. That’s the coolest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Wait until I’m Bound,” she says.
Another faint scream plays under the music.
“I’m going to add some cloaking and locator spells to it so I can send and retrieve stuff any time I want.” She wears a silly grin. “I’ve been studying magic and more complex spells since I was eight, years before I could even think about being Bound.” She pats her stack of papers. “I’m ready.”
Good, because the shit sounds painful. Am I ready?
“Yo, foreal foreal. You’re smart. People back home get paid a lot of money to pop off some dope shit like this.”
She narrows her eyes like she’s deciphering a code.
Translation. “You’re really smart, Bri. This is impressive. And bump anyone who says different.”
She chews her lip, then smiles. “Y-yeah. B-bump?”
“Bump.”
“Bump them!”
I smile. Can’t even help it. I turn the gadget over and over in my hands. “You can make anything? Like, anything anything?”
“I’ll put it like this: I’ve never not been able to make something I tried to make.”
“How long does it take you to make stuff like this?”
“Depends. Why, what are you thinking?”
Tasha’s face ripples in my memory. Her tears, the screaming when the CPS lady came and took her away. I rub the edges of Moms’s photo in my pocket.
Travel. I wanna go home.
CHAPTER 5
THE EARTHY SCENT OF Ghizon hits me like a slap. Slate walls surround me, and a draft creeps through my cotton hoodie, chilling my bones. I land on the metal deck at the south end of New Ghizon’s Central District, staggering as I try to catch my balance. My head’s swimming. That transport spell makes light rail travel feel like snail speed.
Great, I’m “home.”
Patrol pulls me upright by my throbbing wrists. Sickness sloshes in my gut and breathing takes more concentration. I wish I could just explain why I did what I did. Get them to understand. But that’s foolish. My best bet is to get away from them first chance I get.
Creaky aluminum lights bob overhead, swaying in the humid island air. An array of metals clank, suspended in the air, snapping and shifting together piece by piece, assembling themselves. The warehouse? They’re taking me through the warehouse? We push our way through the room, which feels like an auto hobby shop, buzzing with magic mechanics and maintenance crews. Patrol’s heels clack clack clack on the floor and my heart echoes their beat.
The sounds of tinkering dissolve into a silence that would freeze a pot of boiling blood.
Bystanders pause. Work halts.
Despite my hazy vision, it’s clear: All eyes are on me. I want to ask what the hell they’re looking at, but I keep my head down, focusing on the woozy pulsing, which, thanks to Tasha’s water, is a bit better. Shouldn’t they be in class? Or somewhere besides here, gossiping, gawking? You’d think I’d be used to it by now. People tripped when I first showed up. A Ghizoni girl being Bound the same day as me even asked to touch my skin. Like, what?
“Where to, Keef?” A pair of Patrolmen fall in line behind me, one at each side.
“Straight to the Chancellor with this one.” Three guards escort me.
Three.
For saving someone’s life.
Muted pounding beats in the distance. We push open the steel doors at the back of the warehouse and a dusky sky greets us. Outside, a cemented path twists and turns around the tall steel and glass buildings that make up the Central District of New Ghizon. It’s weird that they call it new Ghizon, when there is no old Ghizon. Colorful tents and food and craft vendors line the walkway as far as I can see.
I scan for red square frames and unruly blond flyaways. No luck. She has to know my lack of a response means I got caught up… I hope. Where is she?
Crowds of people move through the street dancing, arms and legs covered in multicolored stripes, while the ting of plucked strings ring in the air. Celebrating. Happy. Oblivious to the fact that my sister almost died today.
Buildings as tall as skyscrapers loom on either side of the crowd. Their lacquered walls dotted with rows of windows stare like hundreds of peering eyes. The farthest building in New Ghizon’s Central District is my dorm-style hall. Oversized screens hang outside the residence dorms, the Infirm Ward, almost every tall building in the District, playing the usual images of the Chancellor, smiling and waving, on repeat.
Always on repeat.
To the west, Yiyo Peak, jagged and dotted with specks of glass, kisses the fading sun. Even its radiance annoys me. Thousands of homes shine like squares of polished glass dug into its jagged surface. Twinkling lights grow brighter, like a night sky plastered onto a mountainside. The brilliance should mesmerize, but each flicker is as comforting as candles on a grave.
Banners slung from one end to the other without strings read ABDU YOI’FURI—DAY OF THE FOUNDERS. That’s right. That is today. Of course, of all days I could be arrested, I’m snatched up just as half of Ghizon takes to the streets to herald its founder. Their glasses clink, overflowing with fizzing drinks. “J’syon hi!” Good health.