Mallory nearly fell onto Silver Street, trying to shuffle up the big hill, dizzy and without thought; she felt empty inside. Her feet screamed in protest, and she slipped from the oozing blood that seeped through her makeshift bandages. The world was swimming in and out of focus—but what did it matter? She took deep breaths for the first time since the explosion. She coughed, sputtering on the taste of chemical smoke. After she coughed, the dizziness felt a bit better, though her head still throbbed. She found herself thinking that if she could just get home, everything would be okay—like when she would wake up from a nightmare to dragonfly lights dancing on her ceiling.
On the other hand, if she did not make it home, it would at least be hard to execute her if she were already dead. Alex’s grandfather had been so reluctant to end the trial even when the city was on fire. Perhaps without the public spectacle of humiliating the Matriarch’s house, he might not be able to initiate the next phase of his plan. The fear on his face when she mentioned the book at his house revealed how terrified he was that the truth would come out, and she had all but told the Chief Magistrate she was willing to unveil the secret. Considering his history with fire sprites, and now with three fire sprites attacking the city, the Administrator’s plans were at least on pause if not ruined. Of course, the heirs’ plans were not exactly working out either: How were the fire sprites birthed without the Dikaió? And even more importantly, could they be stopped?
Her view of the street ahead turned slowly sideways then, and she felt herself falling over some obstacle in the road. She willed herself to stay upright, but it was no use against the dizziness that was creeping up her neck and face. She briefly saw blue sky with white cumulus clouds drifting quietly in the expanse ahead of her, and then she saw gray pavement and a sparkly shoe some careless girl had left in the road. Blue sky and gray pavement blurred together in her vision again; she was rolling backwards down the hill. There may have been pain, but her consciousness was so blurred, she could not say where for certain. She came to a hard stop at the bottom of the hill, staring up at the sky with too much shock to register where she was or what had happened. The blue was still there, and the clouds, but there was black smoke at the periphery of her vision. The sound of scraping metal echoed down the wall of skyscrapers, reverberating fiery destruction. Mallory closed her eyes, but the noise could not be blocked out, and even in the darkness, she could hear the scream of fire.
Somewhere outside the screech of metal, she heard running footsteps; someone was close, maybe more than one. Frightened, she forced her eyes halfway open and looked up into crystal-blue eyes. Was it Caleb or the Governor? Or was it a blue-eyed citizen? She forced her eyes farther open. There was a female magistrate beside Blue Eyes. It was Alex and Caleb. They were both covered in soot and ash. Caleb began to rip the bottom of his shirt, and Alex knelt down and began to unwrap Mallory’s feet. Another pair of feet stepped into Mallory’s vision along with the wheel of a Chorus Cart. She turned her head and saw that it was her father. He started to tear strips off his shirt as well. The blur of her mother ran past him and knelt beside Alex to help unwrap the other foot.
The women used the strips of the men’s shirts to rewrap Mallory’s feet, and her mother pulled tight on the one with the lacerations to stop the bleeding. Caleb and her father carefully picked her up and laid her in the cart. Her mother shouted over the sound of the fire sprites, “Take her to the house so we can tend those wounds.”
Caleb did not hesitate and picked up the handles.
Mallory had wanted to get home, but she felt like home had come to her. Tears stung in her dry, aching eyes but she fought them back. She looked down at herself in the Chorus cart and wondered if they should take her to the hospital instead, even as Caleb maneuvered the Chorus cart toward her house. As he turned around to get a good position to go up Silver Street’s hill, Mallory got a brief view down Main Street. There was not much chance of getting to the hospital anyway. The partially completed fire sprite was busy working over one of the skyscrapers with flame. The completed one was missing. Mallory scanned the street quickly, and then she spotted it: The fire sprite was climbing down one of the skyscrapers, balancing a huge plastic barrel full of liquid. Mallory knew at once that it was paraffin.
She sat up unsteadily in the cart, throwing Caleb to the side as he grasped the handles, and pointed. “They’re reloading!”
Caleb stopped the cart with a thud, and Mallory could feel the breath of his “No!” whisp through her hair more than she could hear it.
The Matriarch yelled, “There’s nothing we can do about it right now! Let’s get Mallory to the house and regroup!”
Mallory laid back and stared in horror as the completed fire sprite began to refill its compatriot’s fuel tanks. Fire danced all around them, raging in places and sputtering in others, even as water rained down from the hydrant sprites on the roofs. There were two or three hydrant sprites on each roof now, and the makeshift elevators were still pulling more hydrant sprites up to fight the fires. The water was slowly putting out fires, but if the fire sprites could refill their tanks from the Culture Co-op’s stores of paraffin on top of the buildings, there would be no way to extinguish all the fires they were starting.
As Caleb moved uphill toward the Governor’s district with the Chorus cart, the last thing she saw on Main Street before her view disappeared behind the wall of the last downtown building was the burning heap of the fire sprite that had been crushed by the falling hydrant sprite.
“That’s it!” Mallory yelled and sat up again.
Caleb, who had been just powering through going up the hill instead of using the zig-zag method that made the trip up easier, nearly dropped the cart with Mallory’s motion. Mallory did not seem to notice and was trying to climb out of the cart. Caleb strained under his wiggling passenger but managed to wheel the cart sideways and set it down.
“Good grief, Mal. What are you trying to do to me?” He asked, rubbing his forearms and triceps.
Mallory did not seem to notice and was trying desperately to get out of the cart. The Matriarch, who had been a few steps behind, caught up and grabbed her daughter’s shoulders.
“What is it, Mallory? What can’t wait until you’re properly bandaged?”
Mallory stopped struggling and looked into her mother’s eyes, “I know how to stop them!”
Her mother shook her head, “The Dikaió didn’t work, Mallory. The Administrator tried to use the words to stop them. When he said ‘Dikaió fire cease,’ they turned on him, and . . .” The Matriarch shook her head.
Mallory let the news of the Administrator’s death sink in. She looked at Alex, and Alex looked away.
Mallory looked back at her mother with fresh determination. “No, Mother. We don’t need the Dikaió. We can stop them another way.”
Caleb leaned into the conversation and asked with intensity, “How?”
“We’ll push the hydrant sprites down on them. The fire sprite’s steel is old, rusted; it’s much more brittle than the new sprite steel—that’s what happened to the one that exploded. A hydrant sprite fell when the fire sprite rammed the building.” She closed her fist and opened it quickly wiggling her fingers while mouthing the sound of the explosion.
Caleb scratched his head, “That makes sense; the hydrant sprites are indestructible, so—”
Mallory shook her head, “The fall or the explosion destroyed the hydrant sprite, too, so they’re not completely indestructible.”
Her father asked, “What if we push the hydrant sprites, and they miss, or don’t stop the fire sprites with one shot?”
“There are lots of hydrant sprites on the buildings. We’ll push as many as needed to stop them.”
Her father’s eyebrows went up. “Then how will we put the fires out afterwards?”
Mallory hesitated at that. Her father was right; the hydrant sprites had another purpose. If they used them as falling missiles, the city would continue to burn. Down in the marketplace below the Governor’s District, the buildings were built a lot closer together, and the proximity of the houses on the streets behind them were also very close—nearly touching each other. If the wind picked up, it would not be like the City Hall fire; the inferno could quickly spread through the whole city if it was not stopped here. The hydrant sprites could not be sacrificed so easily.
Caleb spoke rapidly then, clenching his fists like he was ready for a fight: “If we could get to the Rookery, there are hundreds of un-birthed sprites in the basement forges. We could drop those off the buildings.”
Mallory’s mother shook her head with disappointment, “The only way to the Rookery is up Main Street.”
“Are there no other side streets through the city that go around Main Street?” Mallory asked.
Caleb shook his head. “No, it’s all dead ends and cul-de-sacs in the neighborhoods; the city flows to Main Street. We’d have to go out the South side and walk through the pastureland all the way around the city.”
Then Alex spoke for the first time: “There is another way to get to the Rookery.”
They all looked at her with their eyebrows raised. Alex pointed at a manhole cover in the center of the street. “The sewers run under every street, including below Main Street all the way to the hospital and Rookery. If we went through them, we could get there safely.”
The Matriarch nodded, “That could work. How do we get the un-birthed sprites back here?”
“We don’t have to,” Mallory said. “The fire sprites are working their way up Main Street, not back this way. We just need to get to the skyscrapers on the other side of them.”
“Sprites are heavy,” her father said. “How are we going to carry them out?”
Mallory grinned and slapped the sides of her beloved Chorus cart. “With these!”
The Matriarch nodded, “Okay! Roger, you and Alex go find as many people as you can to get through the sewers to the other side of the fire sprites. Have them gather Chorus carts and then carry as many of the un-birthed sprites as you can manage. Caleb, I need you to help me get Mallory up to the house.”
Mallory shouted, “No, I want to help!”
Her mother smiled, “You have helped, sweetheart, but if we don’t bandage your feet and stop that bleeding, you’ll be falling on the fire sprites yourself—and I doubt you’ll do enough damage,” she teased. She motioned to Caleb that he should continue up the hill. He lifted the handles of the Chorus cart, and Mallory fell unceremoniously backwards into it. She watched longingly as her father and Alex rushed back down the hill, yelling at the top of their lungs for help.
Mallory was unhappy about getting left out of the plan. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself trapesing through the sewers toward the Rookery. Of course, her mental vision of what a sewer looked like was a bit hazy, considering she had never seen the inside of one. Still, the idea of missing out on her own idea was clouding her mood as surely as the black billows of smoke that were spreading over the city. They finally had some shred of hope, but the daylight filtering through the hazy sky was starting to acquire an odd, dark-reddish tint—almost as if it was evening—though it was still afternoon. The city had grown eerily quiet—even the birds and insects had stopped chirping. The only sound that could be heard was the distant sound of grinding metal.
At the Matriarch’s house, Caleb lifted her out of the Chorus cart and carried her into the kitchen. Her mother pushed everything off the counter, causing kitchen sprites to burst into the room and start cleaning things off the floor. The people danced and weaved between the kitchen sprites, now quite accustomed to their obnoxious presence.
“Put her here,” the Matriarch said, “with her feet in the sink, so we can clean those wounds.” Her mother unwrapped her feet carefully, and then turned on the tap on the kitchen sink. Cold water hit Mallory’s feet, and the temperature shocked her. She squirmed beneath the sting of water entering her wounds and pushing out the glass and dirt. Caleb was leaning on the counter, and she clawed at his arm to hold back a scream desperately working its way up her windpipe.
Caleb seemed to find her scream in his own windpipe, and he yelped. “Ow!” He pulled back from her claws, held his hand to his chest, and looked at her with big puppy-dog eyes full of betrayal.
She laughed out loud at him, and the pain in her feet subsided, at least until her mother poured antiseptic on them. Then Mallory took her scream back, “Yow! Mother! Must you do that?”
Her mother looked at her sternly. “Your whole life I’ve told you the worst thing about a cut is the potential for infection. So yes, I must do this, Mallory!”
“My whole life, you’ve been pouring that wicked stuff on me. I’ve been burned by real fire, and it didn’t hurt so bad,” she answered grumpily.
“And for your whole life, you’ve never had an infection. You’re welcome! Now let’s see. It doesn’t look like these cuts are too deep. I think we can just bandage them, and you’ll be fine. But I want you to stay off them, so they can heal.”
Mallory looked wide-eyed at her mother. “Fire sprites are destroying the city, Mother. I don’t think laying around the house is the best thing I could be doing right now.”
Her mother replied, “And what would you do that the rest of the city can’t, Mallory?”
“Were you not just there on the hill? Who had the idea of smashing them with the other sprites? I can help if I’m out there.”
Her mother shook her head and said, “No, I think you’ve done enough, Mallory. Stay here and heal.”
Caleb spoke up then. “Mrs. Knenne, Matriarch, I believe you’re making a mistake.”
The Matriarch stood up straighter. “I think I know what’s best for my daughter.”
“I’ll have to agree with my wife,” Mallory’s father entered the kitchen.
“Roger?!” her mother shouted. “I thought you were rounding up people to go to the Rookery.”
“I was, and I did. We ran into the Governor and the Chief Magistrate. When Alex explained the plan to them, they took over organizing the people, and I came home to check on Mallory. I agree that going out there is not what is best for her.”
Caleb shook his head. “We’re not talking about what’s best for your daughter right now. We’re talking about what’s best for the city. I’ve never seen anyone who can solve problems the way Mallory does. Even my father says she is a brilliant strategist, though he disapproves of many of her actions. If there are problems executing her plans down there, we need someone capable of making effective decisions and pivoting in the moment. She has lived this way her entire life, solving problems in the moment and recovering from injuries when they happen. We need Mallory there to help.”
Mallory’s mother squirmed and pointed at her daughter’s feet. “She can’t go into the sewers with her feet like that. They’d be infected for certain.”
Caleb nodded. “I’ll concede that. We do need a way to get her past the fire sprites to help organize our counterattack though.”
The Matriarch straightened and pulled her shoulders back, “She cannot walk on those feet. They need to heal. I won’t allow it.”
Caleb looked down at the woman, his blue eyes flashing. “With all due respect, Matriarch, if Mallory does not help us stop those fire sprites, her hurt feet will be the last of her issues . . . all of our issues. They’re aiming to wipe out this city.”
“And who’s fault is that, Caleb Aiworth? Wasn’t this your idea?”
Caleb’s blue eyes did not blink, “Yes, I made a mistake. What’s happening is my doing, and I’ll take full responsibility—after we stop these monsters. But I need Mallory with me to stop them; I don’t think it can be done without her.”
The Matriarch turned her gaze away, and Mallory’s mother withered into the arms of her husband. “Why is everyone so intent on taking my daughter away from me, today?” She whispered into his chest.
“Mother!” Mallory choked on tears. Seeing her mother show such weakness made her heart swell. “Mother, I’ll be okay. I promise.”
Caleb nodded, “I’ll carry her in a Chorus cart and protect her feet—and her life—with my own if needed.”
Mallory’s father shook his head. “And what if you both lose your lives in the fire?”
“Mother, you’ve given your life to this city in service. It’s something I was never going to be able to do—but I can do this—and if it costs me my life, so be it.” Mallory reached out for her mother’s hand. “Life is more than just existing.”
Her mother took Mallory’s outstretched hand and said, “Your grandmother was fond of that saying, but existing is better than dying, Mallory.”
“Birth and death are just a part of life,” Mallory pulled her mother into an embrace. “I very nearly died earlier today without fulfilling my purpose. My decisions have cost a lot of other people their lives, but I still have a chance to save the ones who are left. Today, Grandmother’s prophecy will be fulfilled; this is the day a Matriarch who is a Dikaió Chorus saves the city.”
Her mother breathed deeply. “Fine, but we’re going with you two.”
Her father nodded vigorously and added, “Quite right!”
Caleb worked carefully with Mallory’s father to lift her off the counter and back into the Chorus cart. The Matriarch still looked uneasy about the whole ordeal, but she came along quietly.
Back on Main Street, the small group rounded the corner to see if there was a way to skirt the fire sprites. Mallory’s parents stayed behind the cover of a wall and peeked their heads out. Caleb and Mallory had to go out into the street for Mallory to see because the Chorus cart could not be angled more stealthily. She desperately wished she had one of the wheelchairs from the hospital; The Chorus carts were very uncomfortable. Mallory did her best to ignore her discomfort, as she surveyed the battlefield.
Two skyscrapers on the left side of the street were engulfed in flames. The hydrant sprites and the firefighters on top of the buildings were trying desperately to keep the fires at bay, but the half-completed sprite was standing at the corners of the buildings and adding flames to both. The flames were slowly winning the fight. Across the street, the fully completed sprite was concentrating its fire on another building. The steel beams of the building were growing red as the flames climbed; soon it would be engulfed in flames like the other two. Mallory could barely see beyond the fire sprites: Multiple figures covered in muck were pushing carts full of silver sprite steel. Platforms carrying empty sprite husks were being raised quickly by fresh arms, but she saw that they could not get sprites to the skyscrapers that were on fire, nor save the firefighters on top of those buildings.
The Matriarch covered her mouth with her hand and said quietly, “Those poor people.”
Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know how we can save them; we have to focus on the plan.”
Mallory had decided that enough people had died today because of her poor choices. She looked around. There were three skyscrapers between them and the ones that were on fire. She pointed up at the skyscraper next to the one the fire sprites were torching. “If we could pull the elevator platform all the way up and onto the roof of that building,” then she pointed to the one on fire, “and we could get the ropes across to the fire fighters on that one, then we could use the four sets of ropes and the pullies to make a horizontal elevator of sorts.”
“What?” her mother, father, and Caleb asked in unison.
“I wish I had something to draw it on. Give me your hand, Caleb. Look, Caleb’s hand is the platform. You can see that the platforms are already connected at the four corners via pulleys.” She pulled up Caleb’s fingers, so his hand made a cup shape. She touched his fingertips with her pointer finger. “After the rope is across, we can run it through each of these pulleys. The platform can dangle from the ropes like a carriage. We can use another unthreaded rope to pull ourselves across to the other building.” She made a motion of pulling on a rope, as if she were in a tug-of-war game. The trio around her nodded uncertainly.
“How are we going to get the ropes across to the building that’s on fire? Or tell the firefighters over there what to do?” Caleb asked.
Mallory bit her lip. That was a tough question. There was really no way into the building with the fire sprite blasting away at the entrance. Some of the ash that was floating in the air nearly landed in her eye, and she batted it away. The ash swirled and danced in the air following the current of her hand and then floated away. That gave her the idea, “Now, we really do need some paper and a pencil. The firefighters will likely not know how to read, so I’ll draw a picture of the directions on the paper, and then we can fold it like the paper birds we used to make as kids. The paper birds will float over to the firefighters, and they can tie the ropes themselves.”
“And how do we get the ropes over?”
Mallory looked around the street. It was not market day, so all of the Dikaió Culture’s market tables were folded and packed away. Grocery boxes were sitting neatly stacked on top of them.
“Caleb, what happens if you throw one of the grocery boxes in the air?” Caleb grabbed a grocery box and flung it into the air. The propellors under the box immediately kicked in and brought it down to a safe landing.
“That’s what I thought,” Mallory nodded. “Now try throwing it across the street.” Caleb threw the grocery box as hard as he could, and once again the propellers engaged and slowly brought the box down, but it maintained its forward momentum and trajectory, landing the box several feet away from them.
Caleb smiled, “Do you think it will make it across the gap between buildings?”
The Matriarch said, “It’s going to have to.”
Caleb nodded, “Okay, Mister Knenne, can you help me load Mallory on the platform with some of these grocery boxes, and the two of us will pull them up the building? Matriarch, I’m sure one of these floors has an office of some sort with paper and pencils. If you take the stairs, you should be able to find some and meet us on the roof. Grab enough to send over multiple messages—the updraft between these buildings might blow some of them off target.”
The Matriarch looked up at the twelve-story building and breathed in heavily. “Okay,” she said with a quiver in her voice, putting a hand on her stomach. Mallory had completely forgotten that she was also carrying her tiny, little sister, and she would have to carry them both up all those stairs. The Matriarch reached up and pinned some stray hairs into place, pulled her shoulders back and then ripped open the double-doors and hurried inside in search of paper and a stairwell.
Caleb and Mallory’s father began pulling on the ropes to lower the elevator platform on the side of the building, and Mallory sat and watched the twelve-foot sprites work over the buildings with fire. They seemed to be learning as they went, testing points of integrity in the buildings, seeing what would burn and what would not. They had been at this awhile, and only managed to set these three buildings on fire. So far, any time they let up, the hydrant sprites were still able to beat down the fires.
Mallory thought about the ancient magic possessed by the people who constructed these buildings generations ago. Unlike City Hall and the houses on Manuel Street, these buildings seemed like they were designed to withstand fire. She had a real urge to get out of the cart and go investigate the buildings that were on fire, to understand what kept them from being consumed. Her hands grasped the sides of the cart, and she was just starting to lift herself up when she felt the cart lurch: Caleb was behind her. “Okay, Mal,” he said, picking up the handles. “Here we go!”