John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

He said, “Could you let go of my hair, Amelia?”

I said, “I was saving that kiss. That was my first kiss. Now you’ve ruined it.”

He said, “Could you… please… let go of my hair, Amelia?”

I said, “I am taking at least half of your scalp with me, you little twerp.”

He said, “It is really quite painful.”

I said, “I hope I am drawing blood.”

He wobbled again. “Don’t say such things. It is just as bad for us if they start giggling.”

“Put me down.”

“Let go of my hair, and I will put you down.”

“Put me down, and I will think about letting go of your hair.”

He lowered his left hand, releasing my knees. I felt a surface underneath my boot toes. Then I remembered how narrow the ledge was on which we were standing. With a little yelp, I put my boots right up against his shoes, and grabbed him around the shoulders, pulling myself close to him.

His arms came up under my arms, as if he were a man about to embrace his lover. I was too afraid to push him away, for fear that we would both fall three stories to our doom.

But he was not hugging me. He gently tugged the buckle holding the goggles. They slid loosely around my neck. He pushed back my cap, so it hung by its chin-strap. He plucked at the knot holding the scarf.

I blinked in the sudden moonlight.

We were on a rooftop. We were standing on a scaffolding. Underfoot was a sea of tiles. To our left and right, dormer windows peered West toward the main Manor House. Before us and above us rose the dome of the Great Hall. Little round windows, piercing the base of the dome, were ablaze with light. There was a noise of voices issuing up from below us. There was a metal door, built on an acute slope like the door to a cellar, abutting the dome.

I looked left and right in wonder. Then I realized I was still hugging Quentin, staring at the scene over the top of his brown hair.

I stepped back, and slapped him again. This time, I could put my shoulder into it, and it was a solid blow.

He staggered, winced, and rubbed his jaw. He said, “If you had said ‘put me down,’ they would have dropped us. That’s why I kissed you. You didn’t need to slap me twice.”

I said, “The second time was for a different reason. My first flight through the air! My first time flying, and I missed it!”

He rubbed his jaw and said nothing.

I said, “I was expecting a sensation of motion.”

“The air moves with us. There’s no wind.” He bent down, and picked up his walking stick, which just happened to be lying at his feet.

“So you really are a magician.”

He snorted. “Don’t be an ass, Amelia. There is no such thing as magic. This is the One True Science.”

“How did you do that, if it wasn’t magic?” I said, pointing at his jackal-headed cane. “Did it follow you on its own? And what did you step up on to get to the window? How did you open the window with no hands?”

He just shook his head. “Jaw numb. Can’t talk.” He pointed with the walking stick at the metal service entrance.

“That is what you want me to lift?”

“It’s not locked, just heavy.”

I strode up the tilted surface of the tile, with Quentin coming after me, his too-long cape sliding on the tiles. I put my hands on the door, tugged.

“You’re right,” I said. “It is massive.”

“Let me get on the other side.”

“Just stand back.”

I closed my eyes for a second, trying to picture the door in my mind’s eye. It was both an object in space and an event in time. This door had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Because time and space were actually one thing, one substance, this thing before me was not merely an object, it was an object-event.

Weight was not a property of that object-event. Weight was an action, a behavior, if you will. Earth was distorting the local space-time continuum in such a fashion that this object-event selected toward-earth paths, rather than away-from-earth. As they moved forward through time, those paths seemed to manifest themselves as the energy-conserving behavior known as toward-earth acceleration, what Quentin incorrectly called weight.

If space-time were folded in any other way, the toward-earth behavior could be deflected into other energy channels.

I opened my eyes, stooped, put my shoulder to the door, and lifted it aside easily. I set it down without making a sound.

The two of us stood, looking down into a circular staircase. Gloomy steps wound around and around. There was a light at the bottom.

He said, “I should tell you that I suspect a trap, Amelia.”

“Why? Did the Headmaster expect you to know how to fly?”

“If you told me the correct wording of your oath…”

“I did.”

“…Doesn’t it strike you as particularly lax? And he unlocks the door on the one night he knows we are all dying to find out what is going on here. Vanity says the door is watched. And the meeting is being held at midnight. Why not at nine o’clock, when we are all in class, being watched?”

“You said Fell put sleeping powder in the medicine.”

“Not part of Headmaster’s plan, I assume. They don’t necessarily all talk to each other, or agree when they do.” Quentin’s voice was solemn and quiet. “If I had been forced to say the prayers you and Vanity were told to say by Mrs. Wren, half of my demonstrations would be impossible to me. I cannot imagine they want me to learn the things I learned, or talk to the type of things I am trained to hear. So why didn’t they sic Mrs. Wren on me? It must simply be an oversight.”

“Are we talking about the same Mrs. Wren?” Of all the adults on the estate, she seemed the simplest to me, the easiest to get around when we wanted something.

He looked away over the moonlit snow below, at the insubstantial black shadows of the manor and outbuildings. “Her sorrow gives her strength. Frightening strength. Those who dwell in the middle air below the Moon weep when she weeps, as do their humbler vassals in the stream and field and arbors. Do not be deceived that she is kindly toward you and Vanity; it is because she has no cause to fear.”

He looked down at his walking stick, frowned, and raised it to his face. He stuck the muzzle of the little brass jackal-head in his ear.

He nodded, said thank-you to the walking stick, and said to me, “One comes.”

I jumped down three steps and crouched, draping my body along the stairs, with just my nose sticking over the doorjamb. Because the tiles were slanted, I could see the snowy lawn below.

I yanked on Quentin’s pants leg. “How about getting down? So we’re not seen?”

He lay down beside me.

I squinted. There. Quentin had been right. Again.

A tall man was coming from the direction of the Barrows. At first, we could see only his outline: an upright, athletic figure with a staff or pole in his hand, and long wings of flapping fabric around his ankles, as if he wore a cloak or long coat. There was a round bundle over his shoulder.

He stepped into one of the angles of light a window cast across the snow.

There were black scars crisscrossing his right hand. Old wounds. The pole in his hand was a short spear, three feet of metal spike and three feet of wood, with a heavy weight mounted at the butt end. A javelin, really. The round thing over his shoulder was flat, not a bundle. It was a Roman shield with an iron boss in the center, eight-sided, with images of lightning bolts etched in gold radiating out from the boss.

The coat was long. I thought it might be the skin of coral snakes, for it was pebbly and as red-brown as dried blood. It was lined on the inside with fur of light pink. The elbow-length sleeves were long and loose, and allowed full motion to the man’s arms. A fur hood formed a triangle between his shoulder and head.