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“The slub is at the other end,” Dante says.
“Who puts in the slubs?” I ask.
“We make some, but others are pre-existing,” Dante says. “There were slubs in Arras when it was created.”
“We’ve been utilizing this slub for months, but if Deniel was a spy it may have been compromised.”
“What happens if the Guild discovers the slub?”
“Sometimes nothing,” Falon says. “They use it to send spies through. Sometimes they send a battalion of Remnants instead, if they want us to know they know. Worst-case scenario is Protocol One. They adjust the whole metro.”
My mind flips back to a hazy memory. The night of my retrieval. “They change the citizens’ memories.”
“Yes,” Falon says. “It’s a combined effort. Spinsters reweave the whole piece, removing the slubs, and meanwhile the Tailors adjust the collective memories of the population. All without ever knowing what the other group is doing. And then the passage is closed. There’s no way for the refugees to get through.”
I turn and stare into the loophole, watching the colors swirl and the light shifting around the twisted strands. It calls to me. But that’s only a space between. Arras isn’t my home anymore, no more than Earth is. If I could, I’d lose myself in the raw beauty, build a life in the very fabric of the universe, among the possibility. But I have plenty holding me here and plenty calling me home. There’s no time for staying in the space in between actions.
“They’re coming,” Falon announces.
I look but see nothing. I shut my eyes and listen. The strands hum and if I strain I can hear the twang of time running tinny through the soft melody of the matter around it. Combined, the sounds are quite lovely, but if I wasn’t paying close attention it would sound like static. I retrain my focus and hear voices. Shadows cast themselves down the convolution of the loophole and a small band of people slide through. There are only five or six of them.
“Evening, Walter, what ya got?” Falon asks, exchanging a salute with the man heading the group.
“Only a few. Five adults. One kid.”
I look closely at the group. I hadn’t seen a child, but then he’s there, clinging to his mother’s leg. He meets my stare, eyes saucer-wide. He’s dressed in a typical academy uniform, but he can’t be too old. He must have started academy this year. I smile at him, but he darts behind his mother’s skirt.
His mother is stoic, looking at us warily. Her dress is worn and I notice that she pulls her thin sweater sleeve up to hide a tear in it. She holds her head high, but I spy a few dark spots by her ear that s
tretch to her neck. Bruises.
“This is the one with credentials,” Walter says, leading a tall man over to Dante and Falon. The man turns his head so they can observe the hourglass techprint hidden along his hairline.
“What can you do?” Dante asks.
“Me?” the man says. “Nothing. I have intel for Dante.”
Dante doesn’t betray that the man has found him; instead he turns and looks to the woman and child. “And this intel secured your passage for six?”
“I wasn’t leaving her,” the man says. “Not after what’s been done to her. I know what happens to people who come here on credit, but believe me, my intel is worth our passages.”
“Fair enough,” Dante says, “but that still doesn’t explain what you know that’s important enough to grant you passage.”
“That’s for Dante to know,” the man says. He lifts his chin as if to press the point.
“You’re talking to Dante, ole windbag,” Walter calls over.
“Sir.” The man’s stance changes and he bows low, raising his fist to his shoulder. “I apologize. I thought you’d be…”
“Older?” Dante guesses. “I get that a lot.” His eyes flick to mine.
“I need to speak with you privately.”
“You can tell me here,” Dante says.
“No, sir, I can’t,” the man says. “I’m under orders from Alix to tell you alone.”
Dante stiffens at this information, but he inclines his head in agreement and the two return to the empty corridor inside.
