“What do you look so happy about?”
Her ma’s question tickled Tif’s ears as soon as she turned down the alley her parents frequented near sundown.
Tif’s fa barely paused from the trash pile he was rooting through. “She’s always smiling about something, Aspect knows why. What makes today any different?” He bit down on a green tuber gone brown, grimaced, and tossed it back into the bunch.
“Look at her and you might have your answer,” her ma chided him. Tif’s ma was a slight woman, made thinner by the meager amount of food they all three subsisted on. She carried herself with a long-limbed grace though, weaving her way through the discarded trash with her skirts held up even though the once cream-colored cloth was already stained a pale orange. “Well?” she said when she reached Tif.
That was all the encouragement Tif needed. She hurriedly put her crate down and opened the pack at her waist. From it she pulled out a square piece of paper, embossed with bright yellow paint on the edges and a series of numbers in the center.
Her ma’s smile set itself into well worn creases, a look she had given Tif ever since her daughter had started playing the lotto. “Is this going to be the winner then?”
Tif slid her thumbs, fanning the paper to show that she held not just one ticket, but seven.
Her ma’s eyes widened, and as if he sensed money in the air, her fa was suddenly hovering nearby.
“How did you get all those?” her ma said.
“I beat four marks today,” Tif answered proudly.
“Even if you did, that wouldn’t be enough to buy so many,” her fa said, his eyes scrunching between his thick eyebrows and scraggly beard. “Unless you were wagering more than was smart.”
Tif bit her lip.
“Tif,” her fa said. It was obvious he was preparing to launch into one of his rants about how reaching too far can get your hand chopped off.
“I did wager…” she said, forestalling him, “but on a duel.”
Now it was her ma who looked upset. “You know I don’t like you near duels. They’re dangerous.”
“I didn’t go looking for it, ma,” Tif said, “it was on the way home. And I stayed on the sides.” Tif had tried for years to get her ma used to her being around such things, knowing if she didn’t now it would be even worse once she became a knight. “They’d never waste power on anything besides each other and even the strongest shots only go a few feet past their target.”
“I know how ris works,” her ma sniffed. “But some of them whip it about or miss. You can’t even see it coming to try and get away,” her ma said with a shudder. “One moment you’re standing there and then next your flat on the ground, lucky if you can get back up.”
“Betting on duels isn’t cheap either,” her fa added. “Not like a bit of side street gambling. You must have risked our food money to get that much.”
“Your food is right here,” Tif said instead of admitting she had done just that. She leaned down to the crate and pulled out two round buns wrapped in rice paper. “They even have meat.”
Her fa took the proffered bread, bit off a huge chunk of it, and then pointed to the tickets Tif still held with his other hand.
“We’re taking them back,” he said, mouth full.
Tif tucked the stiff pieces of paper back into her pouch. “You can’t return tickets, fa.” She wasn’t going to leave them out where he might try though.
“Selling them then,” he said, leaving his hand outstretched, the message clear. “They don’t call the numbers until tomorrow. Plenty of people will want to buy them.”
Her ma slapped her fa’s hand away. “It’s her money. She can spend it anyway she likes.”
“She’s not spending it. She’s letting it fall out of her pockets,” he grumbled, but he put his hand down.
“Fa,” Tif said, “you know tomorrow’s drawing is the last before this year’s recruitment call. The fact that I won so many das games and then bet correctly…” She smiled, feeling the rightness of her words. “It’s the Aspect calling me for service.”
Her fa sighed, bringing a hand up to rub at his temples. “Not this again.”
If anything, her fa’s reaction spurred Tif to keep going. “All of the most famous knights got in before they were eighteen.”
He sighed again, shook his head, and turned around. Somehow that reaction was even worse than him arguing against it.
“Fa–”
“Can I have my bun, please?” her ma asked.
Tif knew what her ma was doing, but she could also tell that this wouldn’t be the night her fa finally saw her way. However, tonight would be the night that she could eat meat buns with her ma and that was nearly as good.
They both sat beside the upturned crate, peeling the rice paper from the round bread and setting it aside so they could suck on it tomorrow. Tif’s first nibble of the bun didn’t have any meat, but the bread was so good she hardly cared–spongy enough to have a satisfying resistance against her teeth but soft after that, like she was chewing a cloud, with a touch of sweetness. In her next, Tif found the cream chicken and let the filling sit on her tongue, savoring its richness and pepper spice, before eventually swallowing. Eating slowly like this made it easier to avoid the missing teeth on the left side of her mouth and turned one bun into a whole meal.
“This is delicious,” her ma said. She dabbed crumbs and a bit of sauce on her face with her thin fingers and popped them into her mouth. “Kit’s shop?”
Tif nodded. Kit had a tiny bakery in the lows that she and her three children worked in and slept in, huddled beneath the counter. The tip Tif had given them nearly made Kit cry, and the woman had squeezed her hand tightly in thanks.
Tif and her ma didn’t talk much more after that, listening to each other mmm and ahh over the tastes. Her fa even gave an appreciative grumble as he stretched out on the wooden palette that served as their bed amidst the trash.
Tif let out a contented breath and not just because of the pleasant weight of food in her stomach. Regardless of the outcome of the tickets, she had given her parents a wonderful meal–easily the best they’d had in a year. What a gift that was. If Tif could find the keshe with the face tattoos who she had bet on, she’d thank him just as profusely as Kit had thanked her. Maybe she would have the opportunity once she became a knight.
They were cleaning up–her ma tucking the leftover buns and papers into a gap in the brickwork wall while Tif ate the crumbs that had fallen on her das board–the light of day leeching into darkness, when they heard footsteps approach their alley. Reflexively, Tif and her ma began to shuffle the trash near them, both to let whoever it was know that this alley was taken and to sound like more people than they actually were. There was a grate at the end of the alley they could use to escape into the sewers if they really needed, but that was a last resort.
“Ho there,” a familiar voice called.
Her fa perked up from where he lay. “I bet Awt knows someone who would be interested in buying.”
“I told you–,” her ma started.
“Fine, fine,” he said, putting his head back onto the pallet.
Tif barely noticed the exchange, in disbelief he was back already. The twilight made it difficult to see Awt’s approach, but Tif could sketch the shape of him in her mind with her eyes closed. He was her height, with shoulders that sloped like the mountain and a thick head of hair that was just long enough to curl around his ears. It was his dark eyes she loved most though, which flashed when he was being mischievous or saying something he believed deeply in.
“Lil, Heb,” he said to her parents when he arrived, giving them both a quick bow.
He was healthy and whole and had barely straightened when Tif crashed into him, hugging him fiercely.
“What are you doing here?” she asked and then pulled back to look at him. “You said you wouldn’t be in Lercel again for another week, if not two!”
His lips quirked up a bit, which for him was a smile. “What we were looking for fell into our laps faster than expected.”
“You always did have a knack for whatever you set your mind to,” Tif’s ma said fondly. She had helped raise him after his parents had died and took pride in his successes.
Awt’s fine clothes and the gifts he often gave Tif spoke the truth of her ma’s words, especially considering he had only run errands for the underground a few years now. Even in the fading light Tif could tell that she had wrinkled his collared shirt and vest he wore with her hug. She brushed at them with her hands, feeling the slight curve of his chest into his stomach underneath.
Tif’s fa grunted from where he lay.
“I hope I didn’t come at a bad time,” Awt said, eyeing Tif’s fa.
“Just a…disagreement,” her ma said. “Nothing serious.”
“I see,” Awt said. His tone was noncommittal, but Tif could already see him trying to puzzle it out. “Might I borrow Tif?”
Tif’s ma’s lips compressed. She liked Awt but duels weren’t the only thing in life her ma viewed as dangerous. The lows could be unsafe, especially at night if you were…distracted, as her ma liked to put it, and the thin woman’s gaze was meaningful when it fell on where Tif was still touching Awt’s chest.
“Only briefly. It will be full dark soon.”
“Of course, Lil,” Awt said. “Just for a quick talk.” After all the time they had spent together, he was well aware of her ma’s worries.
Tif pecked her ma on the cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”
“See that you are,” her ma said, giving a return kiss.
Tif walked with Awt out of the alley, both of them turning left without a word or look passed between them. The lows was such a big place, larger by far than the mids or highs, and while there were plenty of poor who lived there, the base of the mountain absorbed them all into its countless alleys and warrens. One such abandoned feature was an old fountain that hadn’t run water since before Tif was born. Most in the area found it useless, but it had been a favorite spot of theirs for years now, and they both knew the way by heart.
He reached for her hand as they strolled, and she gripped it tightly, enjoying the feel of having him close again.
“You have to tell me everything,” Tif said. “Where did you go? What did you see?”
He tilted away from her. “I can’t tell you everything…”
The higher Awt rose in the underground the more it was like this, but Tif didn’t mind. She knew he’d eventually tell her when the time was right, and it wasn’t like her ma and fa told each other all they did or thought.
“You know what I mean,” Tif said. “Everything you can.”
“I will,” he said, “but first…” He pulled something slim and about a foot long from his vest pocket. “For you,” he said, handing it over.
The street they were walking down was wider than her parents’ alley, so Tif was able to use the last remnants of sunlight to see that it was a flat, cream-colored bracelet with a green spiral pattern. The material it was made of was also exceptionally soft. Hair perhaps?
She rubbed the bracelet between her fingers. “The threading is so fine,” she exclaimed.
“That’s because it’s fairy work.”
“You saw fairies?” Tif said.
“We did,” he answered, eyes crinkling. “The shape of the vines on it is actually very similar to the tattoos the seller possessed.”
Tif looked at the bracelet again. In the fading light, she could barely make out the details of the green parts. She couldn’t wait to see the bracelet in the morning; it would be like getting the present a second time.
Tif was looping it around her wrist, which was long enough to go twice around, when Awt casually added, “Apparently, it’s common among Life worshippers to give you a kiss after a sale. Especially when times are hard.”
“She kissed you?”
Awt stared at her as if the experience was the most natural thing in the world. “She was only six inches tall, Tif. It was like being touched by a feather with the buzz of a hummingbird in your ears.”
Tif was silent a moment. “That sounds rather nice…”
“I suppose it does,” Awt said, almost absentmindedly. She gave him a look, and he finally had the decency to reveal the ghost of a grin before quickly putting it away. “I’m just letting you know for when your travels as a knight patrol inevitably take you into Life territory.”
“And I’m just letting you know that a boy with green eyes you could drown in played me in das today. He might even come back tomorrow.” Tif wasn’t sure if that was actually true, but the boy seemed to have a fierce streak so it was possible he might work up the nerve again.
“I don’t know if I could drown in them but I know what I can.” Awt pulled her close and kissed her, pressing his lips gently against hers–a sharp contrast to how firmly he held her shoulders. He was looking at her seriously when they parted. “Promise me you won’t sell the bracelet.”
Tif blushed. She loved the gifts he gave her, really she did. But after a few weeks of having them she couldn’t help but see them as a way to get something she or her family needed more. Awt had teased her about the habit before, but this was the first time he had asked her not to do it.
“I promise,” Tif told him, and he eased his hold. She’d keep the bracelet as a reminder that even when Awt was far away from her, she was still in his thoughts, and also of the Life tattoos she eventually wanted to get.
She gave him a quick kiss to seal the deal and then spun away to sit on the lip of the fountain they had finally reached.
“Why were times hard for them?”
He paused in the act of sitting beside her. “They said that the Death Aspects in the area were growing taller than the spruces, over fifty feet high.”
Tif gasped. Aspects never took part in conflict, just like they never spoke, but if they were that large it was terrifying to think of the number of corpses that must have been sacrificed to them. The outer wall that encircled Lercel had been breached before, and if Death followers were becoming that powerful, it surely would again. Only when her knuckles began to ache did she realize that her fists were clenched. This was exactly why she needed to become a knight, so she could help protect their home.
“We were safe,” Awt said, sitting down. He eased the grip of one of her hands and gave it a squeeze. “We only saw a few groups of Death worshippers and only one with tattoos. And what about you? Yeq told me that you had a big win today.”
It was an effort to bring herself back to the here and now, but thinking of squat Yeq instead of the horrors of Death helped.
“I did,” she said. “He even told me that I should start going to the Lane to bet.”
“Don’t let your ma hear that,” he said, and Tif laughed, though the sound was as much to drive away her troubling thoughts as it was for the humor of his words. “So,” he continued, eyes twinkling with curiosity. “How’d you do it?”
This was why she loved talking with Awt. Her parents hadn’t even asked about the duel. She told him how she had lucked on them in Ker-Und square and how unevenly matched the combatants were.
“And you bet on the one with less ris because…?”
“When the other was nervous, he touched his tattoo sleeve, nowhere else, so I figured he didn’t have any besides those.”
Awt shook his head in that knowing way he had. “Maybe he didn’t want to give away that he had more tattoos than what he was showing.”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “But the one with the face tattoos was so obviously overmatched that I figured he must have something planned.”
“And what was it?”
Tif put her lips by his ear like she was telling him a secret. “He used gold to recharge halfway through the match!” She clapped her hands as she revealed the answer. In all the duels she had watched, she had never seen someone do that before and was sure Awt hadn’t either.
“Of course,” he said, his expression souring, which was the opposite of what she had hoped. “Keshe would rather spend their money taking ris from each other than buying it fresh.”
Tif could have told him that the keshe who had won had earned a bit more through the duel than he would have sacrificing the gold for tattoos, but she held her tongue. Awt blamed keshe knights for the breach that had killed his parents and when his mind went down that path it was best to let him come back out again on his own.
“So,” he eventually said, “what did you spend your winnings on?”
“Guess!” Tif said, smiling, slapping him on the knees. A bit of air escaped Awt, almost a laugh, and Tif’s heart warmed, glad to be able to cheer him.
“Your monthly lotto ticket?”
“Bought that days ago.” She had, so didn’t feel bad about the omission of her recent tickets. He’d have to say as much in order for her to admit it.
“New clothes?”
She made a face at thim. “You know the worse I look, the more likely someone is to think they can beat me.”
“A big meal for your parents?”
Tif shook her head. She had tried that once, when Awt had given her a necklace made of brass. All three of them had gotten well and truly sick from overstuffing themselves and her ma had made her promise never to bring that much food home again.
“You saved it?” he said, sounding more than a little skeptical.
“You’re just being silly now,” she said. “The best way not to lose something is not to have it in the first place.” She tapped him in the cheek. “Or have you been out of the lows so long you’ve forgotten?”
“I’ll never forget that,” he said very stiffly.
Tif giggled at him, like she often did when he got too serious, and Awt seemed to catch himself, visibly relaxing. “So, what is it?”
She turned away. “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
“Tif…”
She gave him a look over her shoulder, smiling. “It won’t be a long wait.”
“Good,” he said, and they both leaned into each other, meeting for another kiss.
When their lips parted, they propped their bodies together, looking up at the stars–the bright pinpricks having just begun to poke through the blackness of night. Few people in the lows could afford oil for lanterns, so there was no other light to distract from seeing the far off gems. The stars were said to be other worlds, each with their own Aspects, and over the years she and Awt had made up their share, from Bone to Rust to Laughter. Tonight they just sat there though, content in each others’ presence, staring at the sky. Tif was sure that Awt was thinking about whatever he had managed to find, and she kept imagining herself winning the lotto and immediately buying the Golden tattoos she needed to become a knight. She had meant what she had said to her fa, she could feel it in her chest, this was it.
Despite her excitement, Tif couldn’t deny how comfortable she was sitting there, feeling Awt slowly breathing against her side. She’d have to leave in another moment, lest her ma come looking for her, but that was alright. This unexpected time with Awt had been blissful, and at the end of an already wonderful day.
And tomorrow would be even better.