‘Are you a good eater?’ Yixin cooed. She turned her full attention to Carmine, who slumped on to his side to give Yixin free access to his belly and the soft spots under his forelegs. ‘I always said you would be.’ She slid her hands over his scales, and Carmine began to hiccup and smoke.
‘Hey, cuz,’ Gem said. Asta turned back into the room. ‘I’m going to check out the pit, see if any of the crew is there yet. I’ll meet you back here at– five thirty? The welcome dinner is at six. Then the opening ceremonies.’
‘Sounds good.’ Asta pivoted back to Yixin, who was straining on her tiptoes to see into the room. ‘That’s Gem. My cousin-slash-manager.’
‘Hi, Gem!’ Yixin shouted through the hatch, waving with both hands although Gem couldn’t see either.
‘Oh– uh, hi!’ Gem called back hesitantly. He returned his attention to Asta. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Hey, Yixin,’ Asta said once Gem had left, ‘I have been feeling like a fish out of water ever since I got here. As a vet, you’re professionally obligated to help fish when they’re out of water, right? Do you want to show me around?’
‘Yes! Come along on my rounds! I’ll show you everything, little fishy.’
Asta grabbed her sweatshirt from the leather chair by the window and hurried around to the stables.
4
‘Welcome to Horizons,’ Yixin said as they walked through the main entry tunnel into the raceway.
‘Oh, wow,’ Asta said.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered promising herself that she wouldnotsay those exact words, knowing it would make her sound like a country bumpkin on her first trip to the big city. So much for that.
But who could blame her? The sight was incredible.
On TV, the overhead shots of the racetrack made it look like a tidy microcosm of some mythical land– mountains and valleys and rivers and fiery passes tucked neatly under the containment dome– but down here on the ground, Asta felt like shewasin another world. The entire city of Port Veracruz could probably fit inside this oval. The tiered grandstands that encircled the track only amplified this impression, with thoroughfares and side streets dividing the seats into little suburban neighborhoods. The seats were all but empty now, but by the opening ceremonies tonight, they would hold tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. By the first qualifying heats tomorrow morning, the stands would be packed.
The center of the track was busy with cranes hoisting pieces of the course into place for the drake races. Asta watched one crane swivel over the terrain, a heavy ten-foot ramp hanging from its cable. The mountain was already built, its peak higher even than the upper stands.
Tonight, all this would serve as the backdrop for the opening ceremonies. The illusionists were testing out their designs for the event: a fanciful host of long-dead legendary riders and their dragons, sparkling with magic, who romped up the scramble path and paused to look out majestically over the stands. One of the dragons leaned back and let out a silent roar, and a jet of glittering fire burst from its open jaws before the illusion froze and reset.
Each day of the series, the course would be rebuilt as the races alternated between the drakes and the westerns. Drakes were stockier than westerns– wingless and brutish. Their fences were lower, and the drake courses included tunnels, which the western courses didn’t. But the westerns could fly, and that’s what the crowds came for.
In the dead center of the track was the Needle, its white pinnacle a stark focal point. The Needle was the only part of the course that never changed year to year, race to race. It was the one constant at Silverscale. Mountains might be built up and torn down again. Course designers might bring in fire hedges, steel plateaus studded with wooden posts, river trenches with an actual current, or anything else they dreamed up. But there, in the middle of everything, stood the Needle. Everyone ascribed their own meaning to it. Tradition. Balance. Aspiration. But to Asta, it was just one more obstacle between her and the winner’s podium.
High above the top row of seats and the upper walkway rose a scintillating, magical dome forming the upper limits of the course. The magic was tuned so that any dragons who neared the dome, though suffering no physical harm, would feel like they were in excruciating pain and turn back. The containment dome was more or less transparent, but it made the famous Hallium skyline across the river twinkle with magic, as if millions of fireflies were floating up from the city streets.
Yixin looked at Asta’s expression and beamed with pride, as if she had built the track herself. ‘Do you like it?’
Asta’s eyes welled with tears. ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’ She thought of all the times she’d sneaked downstairs after her parents were asleep to turn on the TV for a fleeting glance of this place, how many times she’d built it out of tin cans and cardboard, and raced plastic farm animals in it. And now she was here. At last.
‘I have intake inspections to do,’ Yixin said. ‘Wanna come with? No pressure. You can stay here looking with your googly eyes all day if you want.’ Yixin imitated Asta’s wide-eyed look of wonder.
‘No, I’ll come,’ Asta laughed, with one more shameless look at the glory of it all. ‘I should probably check in with my crew anyway.’
Yixin went to join several other medical staff loitering by the side of the track. Asta held back, looking down at the row of dragon pits, sunk several feet below ground level, that lined the outer edge of the track along the straightaway. During a race, pit stops were frenzied affairs– a flurry of equipment changes, regreasing, or slapdash first aid– with the goal of returning the dragon and its rider back to the track in seconds. The dragons stood on hydraulic platforms in the center of each pit. These platforms could be raised and lowered to allow the crew full access to any part of the dragon’s body before rushing beast and rider back out on to the track. But with the first race still a day away, the energy in the pits was muted and methodical rather than frantic.
Asta spotted Gem by one of the pits halfway down the row. His cardigan, with its cacophony of multicolor stripes intersecting at odd angles, was unmistakable. He was sitting on the edge, his legs dangling over the side. Several of their makeshift crew were at work stocking the pit.
Asta’s crew boss grunted a greeting as she approached. Torque– whose real name Asta thought was Brandon, or Ronan, or something like that– was a muscly, pot-bellied man of about sixty. He had rich brown skin and a wide face with a jutting jaw. At that moment, he had Carmine’s leather harness on his bench and was prying out one of the rivets.
Asta crouched beside her cousin, fingertips on the ground to steady herself. The sun beat down on the gravel track, and the surface was warm under Asta’s hands. Afternoons like this made it easy to forget that summer was truly gone now, but the sun offered only a short-lived reprieve. By morning, the ground would be white with frost, and the cold would be just this side of bitter.
‘How’s it going down there, chief?’ Asta asked Torque.
‘Aces,’ Torque said. ‘Beats working out of someone’s trunk, waiting for the cops to bust the race.’ He chuckled, and some of the other crew chimed in with their agreement. They had all crewed for Hummer’s street races at one point or another, hauling their gear around from checkpoint to checkpoint in pursuit of their racers. The pits at Silverscale were luxurious by comparison.
Gem looked around nervously. ‘You really shouldn’t talk about that stuff here, guys.’
