Chapter 16

Raelin limped through Undertown as fast as he could. He left the open ground around the Pointless Compound and entered the streets winding between the support pillars. Near the markets, people brushed past him, then edged away when they noticed the dull gray rectangle beneath the skin of his forearm. Beyond the markets, he cut through the Grime Pit, where soot filmed the road and Dreamdust users slumped against the walls without looking up. Each step jarred his right knee and pulled at the dressing over his ribs, but he kept moving until the Grime Pit’s makeshift shelters gave way to the converted freight shells of the Old Freight District.

Raelin lifted the curtain. Kiri sat at the table with a metal cup between her hands, her loose hair gathered over one shoulder. She turned at the rustle of cloth and beamed when she saw him in the doorway.

“Rae!” The cup wobbled on the tabletop as she let it go. She hurried around the table and wrapped both arms around him.

The dressing pulled tight over his ribs when she pressed against him, but Raelin closed both arms around her. Kiri tucked her face against his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek. His bandaged hand shook where it rested between her shoulder blades.

Kiri leaned back in his arms. Her smile faded when she saw the clean dressing exposed through the square cut in his shirt. She reached toward the taped edge, then lowered her hand and looked up at him.

“What happened to you?”

Raelin opened his mouth, then closed it. His bandaged hand slipped from Kiri’s back as he looked past her toward the table. “Can we sit down?”

Kiri’s gaze dropped to his forearm. She caught his wrist and turned it until the dull gray rectangle faced the light. She pressed its center with her thumb. She pressed again, harder.

“No.” Her fingers tightened around his wrist. “How?”

“I thought I could…” Raelin looked down at her fingers locked around his wrist. “I wanted… something permanent.”

“Raelin Kestrel.” Kiri released his wrist and folded her arms. She lifted her chin. Their mother had given him that same steady stare whenever she knew he was hiding the worst part. “What did you do?”

“I found a folder hidden in Dad’s toolbox,” Raelin began, drawing out a chair and sitting down. “There were maps… a route up through the Shaft.”

Kiri pulled the other chair around the table and sat directly in front of him, close enough that their knees almost touched. “Take it slow,” she said. “From the beginning.”

“You were so sick,” Raelin said. “The medicine wasn’t enough. The factory was gone, and every other site I tried was stripped or claimed. Nothing I did was working.” His fingers curled against his knee. “I had nothing left to try.”

“The folder wasn’t just maps,” Raelin said. “There were papers about the old control systems in the Apex. I thought if I could reach them, maybe I could make the Oracle approve your surgery, or raise your access level, or… something.”

Kiri reached for him, but her hand stopped between them. “You climbed the Shaft.” Her gaze dropped to the gray rectangle beneath his skin. “Rae, you’re…” Her mouth closed, and her eyes filled.

“Pointless,” Raelin said. His unbandaged hand closed over it. “An Eye saw me in the Greenbelt. I ran, but the Wardens caught me in Skyline.”

Kiri reached again. This time she drew his hand away and held it between both of hers. “What did they do to you?”

“They held a shockstick against my side until I passed out,” Raelin said. His fingers curled around hers. “I woke up in the Compound.”

One of Kiri’s hands slipped from his and closed over the scar on her shoulder. She kept her eyes on him. “Why?”

Raelin looked at her, tears gathering in his eyes until her face blurred. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought if I could reach the controls, if I could make something change…”

“No!” Kiri jerked her hand free. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Raelin blinked, and a tear ran down his cheek. “You would’ve said no. I couldn’t…” He wiped the tear away. “I had to try.”

“You said we’d figure it out. That’s what we do, right?” Kiri’s fingers tightened over the scar on her shoulder. “Together. But you knew I’d say no, so you lied to me.”

Raelin looked down at his empty palm. “I asked Lily and Zane to check on you. I thought you’d be safe.”

Kiri’s hand fell from her shoulder. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Of course I would’ve said no!” Kiri’s voice broke. “Look at you, Rae. You could’ve died.”

Kiri stood. “What would I do without you, Rae?”

“Ki…” Her name caught in Raelin’s throat. He covered his face with his unbandaged hand and folded over his knees, his other arm clamped across his ribs. A sob broke through his clenched teeth, then another, until his whole body shook.

Kiri knelt in front of him and drew his hand from his face. Tears streaked her cheeks, but her jaw stayed set. “Rae. Look at me.”

Raelin lifted his head. “I’m sorry,” he got out between sobs. “I’m sorry, Ki. I’m so sorry.”

Kiri’s mouth trembled. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” She pulled him against her. Raelin buried his face beside her neck and sobbed against her shoulder.

Raelin stayed folded against her until the sobs eased enough for him to sit upright. Kiri settled back into the chair and rested a hand on his knee. “Tell me the rest,” she said.

This time, Raelin began with the days after the factory. He told her how he had found the folder hidden in Dad’s toolbox while she slept, then spent the following week checking old sites, only to find each one taken by other scavengers or marked with Kozar’s sign. Each night he returned to the hidden pages. As Kiri’s medicine tin grew lighter, the route through the Shaft stopped looking like a plan that had died with their father and began to look like the only option he had not already lost.

Kiri asked when he had made the decision, but Raelin could not give her a definite moment. The pack had come together one necessity at a time. By the time he asked Lily to check on her, the decision had already been made. When he messaged Zane the next morning, he was on his way to the Shaft.

Once Raelin reached the climb, Kiri leaned forward in her chair, her hand still on his knee. She stopped him every few sentences to ask how he had hidden from the workers or what made him choose one branch over another. Raelin traced the route across the tabletop with one finger as he answered, and soon they were both bent over the invisible map, working through it like any other salvage problem.

Raelin took her up the Shaft, through the warm service corridors behind the Habitation Blocks, and down into the utility tunnels. When he described climbing through a hatch beside an orchard and seeing the open sky above it, Kiri gasped and caught his hand halfway across the table. “You saw the sky?”

“It was so big, Kiri…” Raelin turned his hand beneath hers and squeezed. “The sky just kept going and going and going. And below it, rows and rows of trees. Every one of them full of red and golden fruit.”

One corner of Kiri’s mouth twitched as she narrowed her eyes at him. “All that fruit, and you didn’t bring me any? Not even one?”

“Well… that’s when the Oracle found me.” Raelin’s fingers loosened beneath hers. “My OmniLink lit up and started screaming before I could take another step. It told me the Wardens were coming, so I ran.”

Raelin told her how he ran uphill through the orchard, red and gold fruit falling behind him as the Wardens closed in. How his knee gave out among the restaurant tables in Skyline. When he mentioned the diners’ applause, Kiri shook her head and closed both hands around his. Her grip tightened as he described the Wardens pulling away his pack and pressing the shockstick to his side. Then there was nothing until he woke in the narrow module at the Pointless Compound.

Kiri looked down at his forearm, still holding his hand. “What happens now?”

“I don’t know,” Raelin said. “The Wardens kept the pack, Dad’s tools, and the folder as evidence. My score is minus one thousand and fourteen. I’m assigned work every day, but it only pays a few points.” Raelin glanced down and pressed his OmniLink by habit, but no display lit beneath his skin. “Today’s task is due at eighteen hundred.” He looked at Kiri’s forearm. “What time is it?”

Kiri woke her OmniLink. Azure light spread beneath her skin. “It’s almost eleven hundred.” Her chair scraped back as she stood. “If you have to finish by eighteen hundred, we need to leave now.”

Kiri lowered her arm as the display faded. “Does anyone else know?”

Raelin shook his head. “No. I can’t send messages anymore. I came straight here.”

“I’ll tell Lily and Zane,” Kiri said. She crossed to the curtain.

Raelin braced a hand on the table and stood. “You’re coming with me?”

“Of course.” Kiri turned to face him. “I know I’m not supposed to overdo it, but you don’t look much faster than me right now.” She held his gaze. “I’m still angry, Rae. I understand why you did it. I really do. You still lied to me, and it’s going to take me a while to forgive that. But whatever comes next, we decide together. Both of us.”

Raelin nodded. “Together.”

Kiri lifted the curtain. Raelin limped back into the street, and she fell into step beside him.