Page 37 of The Only Way Out Is Up

Very slowly, I take Ky’s hand. Her fingers are long and thin, pads calloused from swordplay.

“I’m in,” I say.

PART

TWO

FOURTEEN

First,” Ky says, “we shower.”

I’m familiar with the concept, but I’ve never taken one; back home we just use a tin bath outside the back door. Here the showerhead is on the catwalk outside our room, with only a patchwork rag curtain for modesty. I sit outside while Ky strips down to make sure nobody tries to take advantage. It’s late enough that it’s starting to get early, and traffic on the street below is getting denser. I can see vendors setting up their little carts, people hauling goods in wheelbarrows, steam starting to rise from hundreds of tiny chimneys as the early-morning shifts prepare breakfast. Behind me, the sound of water splashing across Ky’s body is endlessly distracting.

Once she’s done, it’s my turn. The water is lukewarm, but it blasts into my face with enough pressure to make me gasp. The cake of hard soap takes oily dirt off me in chunks. By the time I emerge I feel cleaner than I ever have in my life, and I grimace at the necessity of putting my sweat- and blood-stained clothes back on. Ky is already dressed and rapidly braiding her hair, which she’s brushed to a breathtaking sheen. It makes a club-thick tail down to the small of her back when she’s done.

“We’re going to visit my fixer,” she says as we descend the stairs on the outside of the building. “He’ll have the info we need.”

“If you’re from Hod, why do you have a fixer on Malkuth?”

“Because I wasn’t a particularly good little girl,” she says, grinning wickedly. “It’s a good thing, too. I’d never have gotten away without his help. We just need to have a little chat about some things.”

Star rides in my pack, primary optics protruding so he can look around. Back home, where runics are less common, I’m usually more cautious with him. But here on Malkuth they’re everywhere. Some are the same simple models I’ve seen in the market, big and slow, made to lift and carry and not much else. Others are more intricate, in a fantastic variety of designs, often with decorative outer plates that evoke some sort of animal. Cats and dogs, bugs and pigs, even fish and birds, though I’ve never heard of a runic that can properly fly. Or swim, for that matter.

As we pick our way through the crowded streets, I even see a couple of them fighting. There’s no official arena, just a circle of pavement a meter wide surrounded by shouting men and women clutching fistfuls of bits. Between them, two runics barely bigger than my outstretched hand nip and tear at each other. One is two-legged, with a beak-like projection tipped with a steel spike, while the other has an insectoid frame more like Star’s. The insect is getting the worst of it, sigils popping inside it in sprays of red sparks.

It’s not very different from watching that turtle-runic fight the idiot. The two machines don’t block or dodge; they just lurch forward and tear into each other, then back off to try again. Their masters, standing behind them, keep yelling commands: “Attack! Forward! Back, back, rear up! Attack, attack!”

Picturing Star in that fight, I appreciate Ky’s point. If I had to manage Star that way in a fight against a Twisted, we’d both be dead. And the amount of money that changes hands is shocking, too. Malkuth may be poor compared to Yesod, but everyone here is throwing around bits in a way that makes my eyes water. Maybe Ky’s plan of winning cash in runic fights isn’t completely crazy.

“We’ll have time for that later,” Ky says, piloting me away when she notices me staring.

“How much later?” I say. “I’m going to need to go back down before long, just so my family doesn’t think I’m dead.”

“You have family?” she says, a little too quickly. “Girlfriend, boyfriend? Kids?”

“A brother and sister,” I say, and I’m sure I detect a hint of relief in her face. “Or as good as. We’re all orphans, and we grew up together.”

“Who raised you?”

“Fara. She was…” I hesitate. I’ve never been exactly sure how to describe her—somewhere between mother and oldest sister. “She used to take care of us.”

“Used to?”

“She died.”

“Oh.” Ky looks over her shoulder at me. “Sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right.” I shrug to cover the ache in my heart. “Now it’s just the three of us.”

“We’ll get you back to them by this afternoon,” she says breezily. “I just need your help with one little thing.”

We pass out of the densely packed residential area and into a district of large, blocky buildings with big doors and no windows. Warehouses, at a guess. Most of them have skylights to admit at least a little illumination from the fake sunlight overhead. Ky takes us down a side street and points out a shabby-looking example at the end.

“That’s Weslai’s place,” she says. “Can your climbing gear get us up to the roof?”

“Why the roof?”

“Best way to sneak in.”