| |
“Mind if I sit here?” I asked, gesturing to the edge of the man’s bed.
He looked up from the book he’d been reading. “Why?”
“I wanted to ask you something,” I said carefully. It was weird to ask for his life story, but I needed to know if Ace was right. Were all these people hurt at work? There were supposed to be regulations to prevent this sort of thing. Were they not enough? Were they too late?
“What?” the man asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
“I just wanted to know what happened to you,” I admitted. Lying was an art I hadn’t mastered, and if the guy was going to be mad at me either way, I should at least be honest.
He raised a brow. “You want to know why I’ve only got one leg?”
“Yeah, and how you ended up here.”
He shut his book, fire burning in his eyes.
Oh no, I definitely made him mad. Time to go. “Never mind, you don’t have to tell me-”
“Sit down. I’ll tell you how I lost my dang leg at the bloody steel mill.”
He didn’t wait for me to sit before launching into the bribes given to the safety inspectors so the outdated equipment in the mill didn’t have to be replaced. Of how the old machines were finnicky on the best of days, and when he kicked one to start it up again, it released a burst of melted steel all over his leg. The burns had been bad enough, but then they were poorly treated and grew infected, until he had to either lose his leg or lose his life.
“Can’t hold down a job when you can’t stand,” he said. “Can’t pay bills without a job. Been here for months.”
There was a gaping hole where my stomach used to be. “That’s awful,” I said.
A man across the room piped up. “You think that’s bad? You should hear how I lost my hand at the logging factory!”
He launched into his own tale, which sparked someone else to rant about how they got hurt, and the chain continued with everyone trying to one up each other. I listened to every tale of bribes and faulty equipment with growing horror.
Was this what life outside the palace was really like? Were people really suffering this much?
I stumbled back to the spot Ace and I had claimed in a daze, sliding down against the wall until collapsing on the floor. My head spun. “How did this happen?” I asked.
None of this even touched on what happened to some of the men in here who didn’t seem able to talk at all, who seemed to be living in their own little world. I didn’t know how to approach any of them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. What I’d already learned was bad enough.
Ace gave me a long look. “I tried to warn you. It’s...hard, here.”
No kidding. The room felt like an abyss of bad luck.
And this was just one room, in one shelter. How many people in the kingdom had similar stories?
From the way Ace had brought it up, I’d known it would be unpleasant. I still hadn’t been prepared for how bad.
“There’s one more thing you should see,” Ace said, standing and holding out a hand.
I eyed his hand warily. “I’m not going to like what you show me, am I?”
He shook his head. “This is why we aren’t eating here.”
I inhaled and tried to find the motivation to take his hand and stand up. How much worse could this place get?
Ace waited patiently until I finally accepted his hand, and then he led me out back into the hall and to the large doors of the community room.
Long tables and benches filled the room. People were scattered among them, some in groups, some by themselves. Women with children shared plates of food between them. An older man spoon fed broth to an old woman with no teeth.
Ace bypassed the center of the room to where the serving tables were. Workers with green ribbons handed out rolls and bowls of soup that looked like nothing but broth. Small portions of some kind of grayish meat loaf were served with mushy corn.
I was very glad Ace made us eat before we came. Nothing on this table was appetizing, and seeing how many people were here, with no other options for food...it wouldn’t be right to take any when we didn’t have to.
“Is this all they have?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ace said. “Even getting this much is a struggle sometimes.”
I shook my head. “This is all wrong. Why is it like this?”
“Because you palace people never come to places like this,” he said. “You have no idea what the rest of us have to go through.”
That had never been more obvious than right now. “I swear I’m going to change all this when we get back. Will you help me?”
He did a double-take. “What?”
“Help me fix this, make it right. You understand it all better than I do.”
He blinked. “Uh.”
I genuinely wanted his help, but it also occurred to me that this could be another way to get my brother to willingly stick around the palace while he kept denying he was my brother.
“Think about it,” I offered. “I’m going to go lie down and pretend I don’t exist for the rest of the night.”
He followed me back to our room. Two blankets had been left in the little bare floor we’d claimed for the night, and I thanked the room at large before taking one and hiding under it.
If this was the kind of shelter people had when there were no other options, it was no wonder they preferred to stay on the streets or turned to crime. No wonder they cried for revolution.
Ace’s way of life made a lot more sense, too. He took care of himself and his friends so no one else had to. It might not be a good life, but it was his and he’d built it. I was starting to understand that a little more.
It was a long time before I was able to fall asleep.
Conversely, it felt like no time at all before someone kicked me awake, and I heard Ace gasping for air beside me.
He must have had another nightmare.
The room was dimmer, but some lights must stay on all night because I could see him sitting up and trembling.
“Ace?” I asked.
He jumped to his feet and hurried from the room without a word.
Groaning, I got up to follow him. I knew nightmares weren’t his fault, but couldn’t he at least stay inside when he woke up?
I dragged my hand over my face and chased him down the hall back to the front doors. Two men sat beside them like guards, quietly chatting, but they looked up when Ace barreled past them and slipped right out into the street.
“Wait, are you coming back?” one of them asked after him.
“Probably not,” I said, even though it pained me to give up on sleep for the rest of the night. “We’re Jack and Ace.”
Nodding, they let me out to check on Ace.
For a second, I didn’t see him.
My heart jumped into my throat. He could disappear on these streets and I’d never see him again. I’d be all alone out here, completely clueless to how anything worked.
Then I spotted him hauling himself up onto a roof down the block, and I let out a sigh of relief.
I used levitation to follow him up there again. He’d perched himself at the very top of the roof and sat down, looking up at the stars.
“So, is this just a thing with you?” I asked, taking a seat beside him. I yawned so hard my jaw popped.
“I’m sorry, go back inside,” he said. Something in his voice sounded off. More fragile, almost.
Humming, I shook my head. “Already told them we wouldn’t be back.”
“This is my problem; you don’t need to worry. I know you’re tired, and it’s cold out.”
With the lack of sun, it was downright freezing out here, but I didn’t bring it up. “I am exhausted,” I corrected, and let my head fall onto his shoulder. It wasn’t something I would have done if I’d been more awake, but he didn’t react so I didn’t move. “But we’re in this together, and I’m not leaving you alone. I’m here if you want to talk about it. Or if you want a distraction, I can come up with something. Or if you want to sit in silence, that’s fine, too.”
He didn’t say anything for a while, so I assumed he chose silence and let my eyes slip shut. It was too cold to worry about drifting to sleep and falling off the roof.
“Can you distract me?” he quietly asked.
“Sure.” The first thing that came to my mind was Miranda, one of the noble girls around my age. We exchanged letters a lot, discussing everything from what we had for breakfast to politics. She would tell me about her garden, and I’d tell her about my fencing lessons with Lucas or my latest painting.
So, I told Ace about her, and then about some of the other noble kids, until the sun came up and the town started to wake and our stomachs growled.
“Thanks,” Ace said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. “Think we can find some breakfast?”
He nodded. “And then I’ll find another steamcycle to steal.”
Our ride with Lafiyet was probably long gone, so this was the next best thing. “Sounds good.”
It would be slower than a skimmer on the river, but any progress was good progress, and I was learning that beggars couldn’t be choosers.