Chapter 16

Cable Car Rules - Line 1 to Ocassus

1. Wait for the cable car to come to a complete stop before boarding or disembarking.

2. Allow passengers to exit before you enter.

3. Please remain standing during the ride and keep car doors closed at all times for your safety.

4. Please refrain from arguing about who has the best view - all fist fights are prohibited.

_________________________________________________

It’s like sitting inside a jewelry box. The generous dusting of gleaming stars sit like diamonds on a navy velvet blanket limned by violet. I’m reminded why we have never needed a temple to worship Hesperia.

“When you said ‘the roof’ you made it sound like a lavish location. Not,” Nex gestures around the metal tiles lining the roof of my home, “a literal roof.”

Maven scoffs, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. “I don’t know how we could’ve been any clearer.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Your Highness,” I taunt from beside Maven, bracing my hands behind me. I accept Nex’s glare as a triumph.

Leil takes a quick swig of his mug. “Don’t listen to them, Nex. You’ll learn soon enough that these two are thick as thieves. Can’t trust them.”

I gasp dramatically in a theatric display of offense, while Maven imitates stabbing a dagger to her heart.

“Words hurt, Leil,” Maven sobs.

And there it is again. Leil’s small, soft smile only reserved for Maven. The one that somehow coaxes a different light out in his cerulean eyes. It’s been a clumsy dance watching them toe the line of blissful ignorance and raw confession for three years, but at this point I can’t tell whether they’re both aware or just blind.

“So do these plates,” Nex whines as he adjusts how he sits on the thick sheets of steel surrounding us. “But the view isn’t too bad.”

And surprisingly, he lifts his gaze, directly to Hesperia’s constellation. I watch him. I push the noise of Leil and Maven’s banter to the background and watch the gentle torrent of movement in his grey eyes that shine silver in the low light. The bunching of his dark brows. I thumb the black coin I bought today, again finding myself comparing its aged color to Nex’s hair, his clothing. I allow it for a second, a waning pulse of fascination. Black and silver. There’s so much more there than the color that I see. In the coin, and perhaps him too.

A gentle wind threads through my hair, and I take in the sweet scent of the flower fields it carries. I look between our group: all of us sitting in a circle on the roof of my home, basking in the splendor of the night sky. And I wonder.

Maybe I’ll feel better if I learn more about him. Maybe it’ll make him less of a stranger.

Less of a thief.

“Tell us a truth,” I start. “And a lie.”

Leil and Maven both look to me while Nex cocks a brow at me. “Why?”

Because then I can learn more about you while also learning your tells.

But I just shrug and wait. At least Nex doesn’t press for answers as much as I do, because he confidently drawls, “My name is Nex and I’m wildly unattractive.”

I stifle my reflex to roll my eyes and keep them trained on his face.

Nothing. I can’t spot any change on his face or body.

“Okay, your turn, Leil,” I prompt, keeping a studious eye on Nex still.

Leil’s downturned gaze flicks to Maven for a millisecond before he sucks in a breath. “I herd 33 fish and my favorite time of day is when Maven gets home.” The words tumble out and settle between us. My gaze immediately snaps to Maven, who isn’t sure where to look. But Leil’s right shoulder shrugged when he mentioned his fish.

Lie.

Nex whistles. “That’s a lot of fish.”

“I thought you herded more, Leil,” I lead smoothly.

A bashful smile steals across Leil’s face, but he doesn’t balk when he says, “I herd 39.”

Maven’s eyes flare for a moment, but she doesn’t look up from her chosen spot of the lace of her boot to stare at.

I clear my throat. “Your turn, Maven,” I note sweetly.

She glowers at me for a harsh moment, but she drags her eyes away from me and finds Leil. “Sometimes I steal Ryn’s socks because they’re softer.” My mouth falls open, the boys laughing at my face of indignation, before I realize Maven gulped.

Lie.

“And… I wish Leil would put that mug down more so I can tell when he’s being sincere.”

The silence hits us all in the gut, any laughter swallowed. Maven’s sharp stare is unflinching as she tracks Leil’s every movement, as if she’s silently challenging him. We’ve never addressed Leil’s affinity for strong drinks, and we’ve all certainly shared dizzy nights and aching mornings. But I knew it bothered Maven. The frequency, the amount, the unpredictability. Maven is an excellent scribe because she has perfected her shorthand and because it’s predictable work.

Maybe playing one truth and one lie wasn’t the best choice.

The cool breeze only emphasizes the cold stillness on Maven’s face, a coldness I’ve never found there. Maven is warmth. Maven is kindness. Maven is the compass I’ve followed a litany of times. But her comment on our way home coupled with the sight of the mug nestled in Leil’s hand as we walked in the door… it stirred something in her. Something cold. Something stirs in Leil too, because he doesn’t flinch or look away. In fact, I think he’s holding his breath.

He doesn’t breathe when he returns her gaze, eyes hard and locked, and he doesn’t breathe when he slowly and very deliberately puts down the mug between them.

I don’t dare speak, not even when Nex keeps looking between Leil and Maven as if the anticipation is too much and this is the most intriguing thing he’s ever beheld. To be fair, this is the boldest either have ever been with each other, and I can’t find the strength or dignity within me to tear my attention away.

But one moment they’re staring each other down, waiting for someone to break the spell. And the next, Maven has gotten to her feet and stiffly walks along the roof to the open hatch leading down into the hallway of the house. Yet Leil follows her with his eyes, a burning question simmering within, before he too stands and follows her down. I itch to know what’s going on inside, wishing that it’ll resemble an understanding they’ve been needing.

Once Leil’s out of sight, Nex let’s out a sharp breath. “Do I want to know what all that was about?”

My shoulders slacken, the tension leaving my body. “I’m fairly certain you could deduce that yourself.”

Nex chuckles before sliding down the roof to sit beside me, although luckily leaves a good arm’s length between us.

“I believe it’s your turn. A truth and a lie,” he cues.

I fill my cheeks with air and release it slowly while thinking. “I once broke my arm trying to ride a goat.” Nex coughs out a laugh. I ignore him. “And this is my favorite spot in the world.” I crane my neck and I’m there. In the stars, in the expanse, in Hesperia’s embrace. I wish myself far into the heavens I always imagined would hold peace for someone like me.

“Wait, so you didn’t break your arm riding a goat?” Nex asks skeptically.

A spark of wry humor wells up in me. “It was my leg.”

A full, unrestrained laugh flows from him and it sings across the rows and rows of metal roof tops like the wind still playing with my hair.

I pull up my knees and lean back on my hands. I wait for his shoulders to stop bouncing with each bout of laughter before I say, “To continue the interrogation from last night, what drew you to your apprenticeship? Did you always want to be a Chemist’s apprentice?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Nex finally breathes out the final note of amusement, then lays down on his back and folds his hands behind his head, eyes to the glimmering stars.

“I’ve always found the inexplicable tantalizing.” He eyes me while waggling his brows. “I like to flirt with possibility.”

I roll my eyes and look away from him.

Shameless flirt.

“Alright, if this is going to come even remotely close to a symbiotic partnership, I’ll need you to answer some more questions.”

“Okay, shoot.”

I purse my lips while I filter through the hundreds of questions flitting through my mind. Maybe I’ll be able to spot his tell this way.

“Have you always lived in Ocassus?”

“All my life.”

“Did you always want to be a Chemist’s apprentice?”

“Nope, I was aiming for High Chemist to be honest. Made it to second year of Institute actually.”

I snap my head around so fast I think my brain stem breaks. “You attended Institute? For two years? And then, what, quit?”

Nex tilts his head further back to take in more of the sky. “Not quite like that, but pretty much.”

“But—”

“Next question.”

He uses the same absolute tone he used last night when I asked why he tried stealing the compendium, so I decide to file that question away till I can find a better time to ask again. I sort through my list of questions again.

“And then you trained to be a Scavenger?”

“Yes.”

“With your older brother?”

“Younger, but yes.”

Younger? That makes Nex the oldest. I honestly was expecting him to be the younger brother.

I chew my lip. “Why’d you stop?”

“Next question.”

Worth a shot.

My list is quickly growing shorter as I reach the less prioritized questions. “What’s your favorite food?” He turns his head towards me and cocks an eyebrow. I shrug. “You can tell a lot by the food people choose to indulge in.”

He watches me for a moment before returning his gaze skyward. “It used to be honey candies from Helios. Most treats, honestly.”

“What is it now?” I ask and move to sit cross-legged.

A sly smile grows on his lips. “Noodles.”

I roll my eyes. “Compliments won’t make me trust you more.”

“Maybe not, but I’ll still give them when you’ve earned them.”

It’s a good thing it’s dark or he would see how crimson my cheeks are turning, which probably would bloat his ego even more.

“Greatest fear?” I croak while boring a hole into the roof tiles with my stare.

“The real one or the one you tell someone you hardly know?” His tone is light, so I almost don’t clock how his lips are pressed tightly together, how his brows slant.

“Both,” I challenge.

Nex chuckles. “Lizards and paper cuts.”

I almost guffaw at his reply. “I can’t tell which one of those would be your real one, because they’re both juvenile.”

“I like surprising people,” he says flatly. “Just like you like proving people wrong.”

I keep my eyes trained on a chipped corner of the steel tile by my feet. “I don’t like people making assumptions.”

Another full laugh erupts from Nex, effectively breaking the kindred atmosphere of the evening. I turn to him and watch him nearly roll over as he clutches his stomach.

“What’s so funny?” I snap.

Nex shakes his head at me as his sudden laughter subsides. “You don’t like others making assumptions about you, but I bet you had assumed everything about me the moment you laid eyes on me.”

“You were actively stealing the compendium!” I point an accusatory finger at him as I raise my voice.

Nex raises a hand in surrender. “All I’m saying is you don’t like people assuming you’re incapable, and I don’t like people claiming to know me when they don’t. In a way it’s the same thing.”

He rocks forward to sit up again and leans back on his hands behind him. The way he stares up at he sky like a man whose been deprived of the view makes me wonder exactly how devout he was before. And what happened to extinguish that.

“So, lizards and paper cuts?” I circle back.

“I had a pet lizard as a child, but I definitely didn’t know how to properly care for a lizard and one day it bit me. I’ve always been a bit apprehensive of them since then,” he explains coyly.

I smile. “And the paper cuts?”

“They’re… reminders,” he answers, but when he takes a deep breath, his shoulders barely move.

Yesterday I would’ve plowed forward to extract as much detail from him about his brother, Hesperia, and apparently paper cuts. But tonight, I can tell that for some reason, paper cuts is his real fear, and I don’t feel like forcing him to expound on why.

“What was your weapon of choice during your Stormglass Trial?” I continue, albeit quietly.

I watch as his shoulders slacken again and move with his breathing. Then he nods towards my waist. “That flasklock pistol.”

I look down at the same decorative cogs I noticed on the pistol I admired just two days ago.

“You kept it for how many years?”

“Four. It’s my good luck charm,” he says with a childlike twinkle in his eye.

“Is that your collectible then? Pistols or items you deem are ‘lucky?’” I ask, remembering how there wasn’t multiples of really anything on him that would easily give away what he collects, like my coins. I almost feel bad for taking it from him. Almost.

“No, I don’t collect lucky charms,” he deadpans. “Just that one.”

“Why this one in particular?”

“It helped keep my brother safe during our Stormglass Trial,” he replies as monotonously as before.

My eyebrows pinch together. “How?”

“By shooting another candidate off my brother’s back.”

My mouth hangs open and I can’t get a word out. Nex notices. “What?” He huffs. “There are rules against helping another candidate, but not about bettering your chances. All people needed to know was that I got an obstacle out of the way.”

My skin feels the cold breeze more profoundly and I’m suddenly more aware of how exposed I am… on the roof… at night… alone.

With thief and a murderer…

Nex tracks me with his eyes, and I can’t help but feel like a prey being stalked. I shake away the thought. “You killed someone,” I state.

“To protect my brother,” he defends. “Relax, I just shot him in the shoulder. Enough for the guy to back off.”

I scoff. “And what does your brother think of that?”

If I had a brother harm someone to better his or my chances of succeeding during the Trial, I would’ve cut his harpoon rope.

Nex’s eyes darken. “The dead don’t think.”

I find a way to silence the gasp that presses against my lips. A million more questions flood my mind and I’m about to arrange them according to the likelihood that he’ll answer them, when Nex shifts beside me. I flinch, but he only lays back down and resumes his original position of stargazing with his hands tucked under his head. An understanding passes between us, the shared title of loss written into your memories. But while I find solace in communing with Hesperia, in who does he find respite?

“I have a question,” he announces. “Who was the guy on the stairs?”

Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me sooner.

I sigh and pull my hair back and out of my face. “He’s someone I used to… spend a lot of time with.”

“So an ex-boyfriend?” He deduces. The cadence of his voice sparks a glimmer of the same shame I’d felt earlier.

“Don’t sound so judgmental.”

“I’m not. I just think you have an interesting taste in men.” The glimmer evolves into a simmer heated with frustration. I twist my hands in my lap.

“You don’t know me,” I force out.

My frustration bubbles directly under my skin when he has the unending nerve to laugh.

“I think we’ve established that I know you enough.”

“Stop speaking to me like I’m a child!” I exclaim, my voice echoing out over the metal roofs and into the chilly night. I expect my anger to burn and sting, but I find it simmer down to a rumble, then fizzle out. Nex is silent, and I don’t dare look at him.

I cradle my head in my hands. “Ugh! Why do I feel so angry with you?! It’s exhausting.” I tug at the hair gathered in my hands.

Why do I feel so out of control?

“Because you’re allowed,” Nex says quietly, almost like a plea, and it’s enough to release my hair and peek at him. He’s still laying down like he’s been stargazing the entire time, but he’s looking at me instead. “You’re allowed to be angry with me. I won’t be offended.”

“That’s not the point,” I say, shaking my head.

“People usually feel emotions the strongest with someone who allows that emotion to express itself fully. Kind of like a flower will blossom under the right conditions.” He looks to the sky again. “I won’t be bothered by however you express yourself. So, you’re allowed.”

I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth in a steady rhythm, anything to ground myself. “Raiden was a… distraction. He wasn’t someone I explored a real relationship with or hoped to stay with. Just someone to distract me, which he was good at. But I knew it couldn’t be long-term, especially when Leil would regularly block the front door till I sent Raiden away. Maven’s lectures helped too.” My self-deprecating chuckle swallows the tension in the air, and I pull my knees all the way to my chest as I hug my legs.

“Have you always lived in Callanth?” Nex’s voice reintroduces lightness and I smile at his apparently innate ability to detect needs, like my need for him to change the subject.

“All my life,” I echo his earlier answer. “And yes, I’ve always been intrigued by a Chemist’s apprenticeship, but never thought I’d get the chance. My favorite food is goat cheese bread. My greatest fears, both real and the one I tell strangers, are drowning and freezing to death. And my weapon of choice—” I tap the dagger at my waist “—was this dagger. Did I get them all?”

Nex isn’t taking in the dark expanse above us anymore. He might as well have been, because he’s looking at me with the exact same expression bathing his face. Is it curiosity? Maybe an ounce of fascination?

A gust of brisk wind rushes across the rooftop and across my exposed skin, raising the hairs it touches.

“One more,” he drawls.

“Okay,” I note skeptically, rubbing my arms for warmth that the arm warmers don’t provide.

“How well can you lie?”

***

Ice and wind. It licks down my spine like a ravenous beast, its teeth sinking down to my bones. I can’t escape it. Can’t move. Not if I don’t want to die. Not if I don’t want Maven to die. Fear curls around my entire body, strangling me, keeping me in place. It claws and scratches at my right hand, and like kindling to my terror it wells up in my throat till a scream rips from it. My scream dies on the wind as the ice claims me. Again.