1

The few remaining blacksmiths in the Pile have pivoted to serve the wealthy. Charlie wore her apron and mittens everywhere she went – gear that have never seen a day in the forge but seemed to get clients excited. By word of mouth, her business has flourished: a woman blacksmith, seven-foot-tall, strong as an ambler yet good with her hands, wears her apron everywhere. The ensemble was highly marketable.

For a while she had put on a gruff voice, like she grew up chain-smoking inside a chimney, but for her to sound like a blacksmith was pushing realism too far, and clients had found it “alienating”. She struck a balance by dressing up like a parody of herself and speaking like an heiress who happened to enjoy steelwork as a hobby. Hating herself was difficult when her charade could sell a hairpin for three hundred seeds.

There were those who were immune to this tactic, however. James Cowen was one. His annoying apprentice was another. The girl seemed to despise her as if she were some beggar grovelling for money, which Charlie supposed she was.

~

The box was shaped like a coffin, eight feet tall, wider where the elbows would rest. Inside was a complex system of harnesses, shock absorbers, cushions, as if its occupant would want for comfort. Charlie had brought a crate of accessories: removable compartments that turned the box into a suitcase, infusion pumps that turned it into an immersion vat, and straps – long ones threaded with steel fibre.

“Tensile strength of a hair, that,” said Charlie, as if that explained everything. “Where’s my money?”

Sam unlocked the outgoing drawer. The seeds had been delivered a week ago, half in-hand, half on cheque. It made a hefty pile on her desk. “What happened to your accent?” she asked.

“You want it back?”

“No.”

Charlie poured the seeds into a portable sorter. They fell into a rack of transparent tubes, filling them one at time and making a pleasant clinking sound. “Still single?”

“Yep.”

“You know my cousin –”

“No, thank you.”

“What’s up with you?”

Sam opened her mouth with every intention of “heh, you are funny”, but a strange keening came out instead. Inexplicably, she was on the verge of tears. “I…I think I’m going crazy.”

The seeds were still ticking, three tubes filled, twelve more to go. Staring made it tick even slower. “Uh huh,” said Charlie.

“It’s like I’m…I…”

“Uh huh.”

“I was on the palisade,” Sam began, and could not stop. The girl had watched her – what colour were her eyes? She had forgotten. But there was a girl, yes, and she was skipping down the decline, holding her mother’s hand, and she had asked a question. Something about being a Maestro. Did the girl want to be one, or was she asking? Sam had forgotten. But there was a question, yes, and it made her want to throw up, and she did throw up, later, and the woman with no wrinkles had shown her a handful of jewellery.

“…she told me to think about that house on Twenty, she said…”

The pyro’s face was inches away. She was sure his breathe had stank, but she could not smell it, and he had said something about smiling, and smile she did, at the party, the alks smiling at her and she smiled back. Lucia, breaking her fingers, then she had spoken and it was only a dream.

“…she broke my fingers. She didn’t mean it…”

“Uh huh.”

“…then they were all dead. I saw the girl behind the…which one was it I can’t remember, but I saw them, there was one that was spinning like…like…”

“Uh huh. Sam?”

“…then they torched him, but I didn’t even know him. I went because I had to go, but they didn’t even want me there, and then there was this woman…”

“Sam.” Charlie was smiling, but not really. “I’m sorry, I’m trying, really I am, but I don’t give a shit. I came to deliver your box and get my money.” The clinking stopped. Fifteen columns of seeds, ten thousand each, sat quietly in their tubes. “Don’t talk to me about…I’m not here for your problems. If it bothers you that much, go find a…I don’t know, pay someone to listen to you, that’s a thing. Lords Above, all I said was what’s up and you started going off.”

She passed the cheque under a glowstick. The logo of the Palace Above glittered silver and purple. “Ooh, you know everyone else use Finley cheques now. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know,” said Sam.

“Here –” Charlie plopped a heavy binder onto the desk. “– is the manual. And these –” a ring of keys clinked onto Sam’s board. “– are for your Maestro. Look here.” A panel opened on the inside of the box, revealing a severed hand suspended in purple infusion. It was attached to a lever. “Tether to it, and the lock will open just for him.”

Sam closed her eyes, just for a moment, and waited for the bundle of whatever-it-was in her throat to settle down. When she spoke, she sounded calm. “Individual limbs are not –”

“Yeah I know, I read the Fundamentals,” Charlie rolled her eyes. “The foundry maintains the body in a safe deposit. No one’s touching it, no oxidation, good for fifty years.”

“You read the Fundamentals?”

“Sure I did, wanted to be a necromancer.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I tried. Can’t do it though. All that Green whiffing off corpses? I saw it, but I can’t make them move, so I…gave up.” She shrugged. “Out of practice now. Can’t see the Green anymore. Got to retrain my mind.”

“You need to pass the audition to raise the dead.”

“The what?”

“The audition.”

“The…the what?”

“To become a practicing necromancer, you have to audition at the Palace Above.”

A change came over Charlie. Her arms tensed. Her eyes spat fire. “Are you saying it’s like a…a license? You get a license to raise the dead?!”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Sam, “but no one is born with it.”

“So, right now, you can’t do shit, is that what you are saying?”

“Yes.”

“And anyone, a-ny-one, can do this audition thing and raise the dead.”

“If you pass.”

‘But then I can be a Maestro!’ Charlie slapped her bag of money like this was their fault. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I –”

“Then I can just go, right?”

“To the audition? No. You need to be sponsored by a Maestro.”

“But that’s easy!” she grabbed Sam by the shoulders. Her fingers were sweaty and trembling. “Sam, Samantha, you must introduce me. You know so many of them! Aren’t they always hiring?”

“Yes but –”

“Lords Below, I never knew! I thought you had to be born with the…the talent, the quirk, or something. If it’s just like…like getting a license– oh if only I just…asked!” She grabbed her shoulders and shook them. “Sam. Sam. We’re friends. Get me into a House, on Floor Fifteen even, I don’t care. I can work hard, study, do whatever they ask me to do, I’ll do it. I know you know people. Introduce me!”

“I…” Her enthusiasm seemed wrong, somehow. “It’s…”

“Come on, you have no excuse! We are friends!”

“Do you know what they do?”

“They kill people, right? They kill entire Floors of people and turn them into amblers and rent them out.”

“…how did you…?”

“Everyone knows.” Charlie rolled her eyes. “It’s part of the business, Sam. Lords Below, how did you get hired and I didn’t?”

Sam laughed. Charlie was looking at her weird, as if she had lost her mind, but Sam was sure that madness had a sense of humour, and though she was laughing, none of this was funny. “I…alright. I’ll ask Maestro Enri if she wants an apprentice.”

“Why not Cowen?”

“He doesn’t…he only takes one.”

“Oh…I see how it is.”

Charlie was smirking. Sam wanted to slap it off her face, but she could barely reach her with the desk between them. This was turning into a very long day. Again.