At the risk of ridicule, I put forth the following opinion: By Painter's Grace is not the masterpiece it is often touted as. Rather, it is a melodramatic, overwritten, and altogether misguided attempt to conflate the fall of the greatest city state of the post-retributive era with the relationship between two women. Two women, I might add, who were likely nothing more than friends.

- A Retrospective of By Painter's Grace, by E. C. Hailflint

All four residents of the turret are currently crammed into a tiny, dingy kitchen around a single table. Drew sits at one end, his eyes closed as he sips from an enormous mug of coffee, while Wendy sits at the other, nodding off in her chair. Sylva bounces on the balls of her feet, too energetic to sit down, while Astrid hovers in the furthest corner, munching on a slice of toast that Sylva pushed into her hands earlier.

Astrid never would have imagined that eating breakfast could be so nerve-wracking. She isn't sure what she is supposed to be doing, or even if she is supposed to be doing anything. It had been strange enough waking up in a hammock this morning, and now here she is, eating around a table with four complete strangers. It's enough to almost make her want to skip the meal entirely.

Without any warning, the morning silence shatters. “All right people, listen up!” Sylva shouts, prompting Drew to inhale his coffee and Wendy to fall off her chair in a heap. Sylva gives everyone a grin, reveling in the chaos she has just caused, before she continues. “We've got two weeks until our qualifying match, we have a new member, and due to a certain event of which we shall not speak, no Sentinel. We have to move fast if we want to be ready.”

“This was supposed to be my speech, Sylva,” Drew grumbles, wiping coffee from his face.

“Yeah, well, I got bored. Feel free to take back over, if you like.”

“I will, thank you,” Drew says, his superior look somewhat undercut by the coffee dripping from his eyebrows. “Ok, Sylva already did the basic rundown, so I'll give you the timeline. I already cut a deal to get our new chassis dropped off at noon. We're going to spend today and tomorrow gathering the materials we need, and the rest of the week on construction. Week after that, we'll be showing Astrid the ropes and preparing for our first match. Cool? Cool.” He levels a finger at Wendy, who has yet to get up off the floor. “Wendy, you take Astrid today. Plumb the old junkyard for salvage. Standard procedure; don't take any risks.”

Wendy nods despondently and rises to her feet, pointedly not looking at Astrid. Astrid's stomach sinks. A day alone with Wendy? She's not sure she's ready for that. She looks imploringly at Drew, but he is already engaged deep in an intense conversation with Sylva, and does not spare her any glances.

“New girl.” Astrid jumps at the feeling of Wendy's breath on the back of her neck and whirls around, her heart pounding. Wendy is directly behind her, hands shoved deep in her pockets. How had she managed to creep up on her so quietly? “You ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Astrid hesitantly follows Wendy out the door, stopping briefly to grab her bag of tools. Their exit is marked only Sylva wishing them both a good day.

She and Wendy exit the house at a brisk pace, and set off parallel to the edge of the Jungle. Unlike Drew, who walked slowly and took the time to engage in conversation, Wendy walks like a woman with somewhere to be. Her strides are quick and businesslike, to the point that even Astrid has to rush to keep pace. Her mouth is set in a hard line, and she does not look at Astrid.

“So,” Astrid says, after they have been walking for nearly five minutes in dead silence. “Are we going to talk about what happened?”

“I thought you didn't talk.”

Remembering her promise to herself last night, Astrid squares her shoulders and tries to put a bit of steel in her voice. Wendy can't know how difficult all of this is for her. “Quiet doesn't mean timid.”

Wendy raises her eyebrows. “What do you want to talk about?”

“When we first met. You beat the living crap out of three people, got stabbed, then walked it off like it was nothing. I think that's worthy of discussion.”

“Fine. Let's talk. Not here, though.” Although her words are encouraging., the change in the way that Wendy carries herself is nothing short of telling. Her entire body tenses at the mention of the first time they met, her hands curl into fists, and the corners of her mouth descend slightly. She does not respond, but rather speeds up, forcing Astrid to lengthen her stride in order to keep up with her.

The two of them travel through the deserted edge of Inapithe, the only sounds their footsteps echoing through the street and the distant noises of the city waking up. They walk through increasingly empty streets, up a large hill, and then up a metal ramp that groans underneath their weight, beneath which turgid water is emitting a terrible stench.

Wendy comes to a halt at the top of the ramp, when Astrid is still only halfway up it. She sits on the edge of the top of the ramp and gazes down dispassionately at Astrid. It dawns on Astrid what opposites they must look like to anyone watching. Her tall, pale, and overall-clad, with her messy hair cascading over her shoulders and her skin clumsily stretched around bones. Wendy short, lithe, and dressed like an athlete, her shock of choppy black hair not quite hiding the dislike in her eyes.

“We won't be overheard here.” Wendy crosses her arms across her body. “So what did you want to talk about?”

Astrid decides that a direct tack is best. “What happened the day we met?”

Wendy sighs deeply, as if this whole exercise is deeply exhausting. “You keep acting like something weird happened the day we met. Nothing happened. As per usual, Tove was being an asshole, so I beat her up. Her friends were assisting in her assholery, so I beat them up too. She tried to stab me, but her knife is as dull as she is, so it didn't work.”

“That's it?” Astrid says, nonplussed. “That's all you have to say?”

Wendy idly picks at her gloves and rolls her eyes. “Should I have anything more to say?”

With some difficulty, Astrid manages to keep her growing irritation out of her voice. “Why have you been acting so weird around me?”

“That one's easy: Because I think you're a terrible fit for this team, and I don't want you here. Any other questions, new girl, or can we get back to working on our jobs?

A rush of heat crawls up Astrid's neck, and she takes a few steps forward, prompting further groans from the unstable ramp.

“Ok, ignoring all the gaslighting you just did, and the fact that all you did is give me a summary of what happened, and didn't remotely answer any of my questions, because you didn't, by the way, that doesn't explain anything about why you've been acting so weird. You've been a jerk ever since I showed up for the interview, all the while refusing to talk to me about what's wrong. If this was really about you thinking I'm a bad fit for the team, you would have just said so in the interview, instead of blowing up so spectacularly. I know why Tove doesn't like me, but for the life of me I can't figure out why you don't. So are you going to tell me what's going on here, or am I going to have to get the truth from Drew or Sylva?” Astrid stops, taking a breath for the first time since starting her rant. Some of her bangs have come undone and fallen in front of her face, and she knows that she must look ridiculous.

“Wow,” Wendy says, looking somewhat impressed and more than a little taken aback.

“I pay attention to how people act around me. Now are we going to talk about this like adults, or not?”

Wendy stares at her, for once without disdain or disgust, but with something closer to genuine interest. She gets to her feet and motions Astrid to come up to the top of the ramp with her. When Astrid reaches the top, all thoughts and anger related to Wendy momentarily leave her. Spread out before them is an enormous junkyard. It is so expansive and the scrap is piled up in such enormous hills that she cannot even see the far side of it. Astrid can spot old engine blocks, discarded building materials, and pieces of machinery so complex as to be unidentifiable. All of it gleaming like silver and gold in the early morning light. Her hands itch to break out her tools and go to work. It's like a dream come true.

“Good, right? Dumping ground for half the mechanics in Inapithe. Only ones who ever come by here are us, and metal artists looking for raw materials. Been a hot minute since I was last here.” Wendy gazes idly around the yard, then without warning turns to Astrid and stares up at her with a piercing glare. “I think I've got a way we can work this out?”

“What's that?” Astrid says distantly. She can scarcely take her eyes off the landscape in front of her. There's so much treasure to be found.

“You see that pile?” Wendy indicates a distant heap of scrap, on top of which is balanced a huge girder, like the arms of an enormous scale. “Race me there.”

Astrid tears her eyes away from the junkyard to stare into Wendy's face. “How does that solve literally any of our problems?”

“You win, and I explain myself. For real, this time.”

“What happens if you win?”

Wendy smiles. It's beautiful, intimidating, and makes Astrid's entire body breaks out in a cold sweat. “You leave the team, and we find a different mechanic.”

“What?” Astrid shakes her head. “That's not fair at all. I'm a terrible athlete,” she says, gesturing at her horribly skinny arms. Several other things to call the idea occur to her, such as “dangerous,” and “juvenile,” but she doubts that those criticisms would be treated remotely seriously.

“Yeah, probably. Here's the thing, though,” Wendy says, still smiling. She uncrosses her arms and points at Astrid. “I've been watching you too, and I may not know much about you, but I can tell two things. You're stubborn, and you can't stand losing.”

Astrid tries to resist. She really, really tries. If there's one thing she hates, though, it's backing away from a challenge. She lowers herself into the type of crouch she has seen sprinters do, and coils her legs underneath her, mentally preparing for how much this is going to hurt.

“Fine,” she says, her confidence bolstered by the hot anger still coursing through her. “Let's do this, or whatever. I'm going to win, and then make you tell me everything.”

Wendy's smile grows into a predatory grin, and she drops into a crouch beside Astrid. “Now there's something I'd like to see.”