Books were so much more than an escape. Sometimes, when he was browsing the shelves of the little bookstore, he thought escape was all he wanted, but on the long looping routes he was forced to take now in order to make sure he wasn’t followed and didn’t bike straight into another ambush, he found that some of the stories, the best, stuck with him in ways a simple escape never could. Blueprints to other possible lives, maps of branching roads his life could take if he chose to turn and follow a different path.

He had too many books. The apartment wasn’t big enough to be a library, and for all the makeshift shelving he’d incorporated in his year of life there, it was getting difficult to get dressed in the morning without treading on Dhret’s feet or knocking over the stacks of paperbacks in the corner, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, really read all of them again anyways. So he got rid of them.

Four days after hiding his sword on the roof of the apartment building after he returned from his encounter with his father’s memories and the adept that killed him, Marroo pulled two thirds of the books from their stacks, fished them out from under the bed where he’d used them to hide the sword, and cleared out the corners where the stacks had grown taller than his head. The blanket he folded them into couldn’t hold them all so he resorted to throwing both of their only blankets loaded with books over his shoulders in order to haul them to the book store for resale.

Jansen’s grandson was drinking tea at the counter when Marroo dropped the two makeshift sacks at its feet. The boy leaned over the counter to look at the books then sat back with his cup of tea to look at Marroo. “We aren’t paying for all of those.”

Marroo looked at the bags, then around the store.

“Grandad won’t pay you either.” The boy behind the counter said before Marroo could reply.

“I could wait.” Marroo replied.

The boy raised his cup to him. “Be my guest.”

Marroo looked down at the bags at his feet, then back up at the boy. Steam rose from the cup of tea between them and the grandson regarded Marroo coolly through it. The door jangled as another customer entered and the clerk glanced at the new customer then back at Marroo.

“I could shelve them all for you.” Marroo offered.

The boy sighed and rolled his eyes as he set his cup aside. “Fine then. Let’s see what you have.”

It was a lot of money, an embarrassing amount, when Marroo considered that he paid twice what he got for them in the first place. It was more than enough for what Marroo had planned.

Lightning played through the sky again that night as the Midnight Plains dragged seasonal storm clouds across the city in their wake. Podmandu claimed the bikes were lightning proof, from experience, but Marroo still took his far below the tower tops as he flew towards the Iblanie tower before Dhret’s shift ended.

“Is Dhret in?” Marroo asked when he stepped into the courier’s lounge.

“Dhruv called her down.” One of the boys at the card table replied without turning.

Cathay whistled when she looked up from the game. “Well bleach me blonde and call me a trog.” She said. “He cleans up good.”

The boys at the table with her all looked up and Ajap grinned. “You look like some trog sect leader’s son.”

Marroo tugged at the new formal robes he’d purchased and gave them a half-hearted smile.

Betmo appeared at the door to the lounge’s bathroom brushing his teeth. He grunted something and went back inside only to appear a moment later. “You’re missing something.” He said. He tugged at the Iblanie family pin on his chest until it came free and stepped in front of Marroo. Marroo tried to back away, but Betmo smiled and grabbed his coat. “Robes can show class.” He told Marroo as he stuck the pin to Marroo’s chest. “But without a family it’s just an imitation.” He stepped back as he got the pin into Marroo’s shirt and looked him up and down. The older boy looked strangely naked without the sect badge he wore everywhere. “Now, you look like a sect leader’s son.”

Marroo looked down at the gold trimmed pin and didn’t say anything.

“Lucky girl.” Cathay said behind Betmo. “Someone was just asking about you.”

“Who?”

Betmo stepped aside and Marroo looked up to find Dhret in the doorway. She stopped when she saw Marroo and he gave her a lopsided grin. “I thought,” he told her, and coughed, then looked around at their audience and felt his face flush. “I thought,” he said again, looking at the ceiling, “that I’d ask if I could take you to dinner.”

Dhret didn’t answer immediately.

“Well don’t just stand there girl!” Cathay told her. “Eat him up!” She smacked her lips while the other boys at the table laughed. “If you won’t take him, I will.”

The other boys in the room cheered as Dhret approached Marroo and gave him a kiss. Cathay whistled and laughed. “I think it’s so cute how you both turn red.”

“Shut up.” Dhret snapped, but she was grinning despite herself. “If we’re going to go, lets go.” She told him.

They didn’t take their bikes. The sporadic rain that lashed the city beneath the thunder would have ruined his new clothes and probably the evening but hje hadn’t planned on using the bikes anyways. He stopped her when she tried to mount hers and sent his familiar flitting into the sky after an open aircab while they stood on the balcony and ignored the catcalls from the lounge behind them.

“Is this something we can afford?” She asked, looking up at him.

He offered her his arm and she took it, but didn’t press herself too close. “It is.”

The aircab’s motors hummed as it dropped in front of them and opened its doors, but Dhret glanced at it without climbing in. He leapt in ahead of her and turned to offer her his hand.

“I sold most of my books.” He told her. “That’s how we’re paying.”

She looked away, then glanced back at the lounge before she took his hand and smiled as he pulled her up into the cab. “I thought you’d never clean those out.”

The doors closed and he put both hands on her waist to hold her steady as the cab swayed downward to join the traffic moving between the towers. She smiled as she put her arms around him in turn and they kissed. “What inspired all this?” She asked when they separated.

Marroo felt his face crinkle into a smile at her grin and he stroked her cheek playfully with one thumb. “Just this.” He replied.

Her smile widened in response to his. “Just what?” She asked.

“You’re smile.”

She kissed him again and the aircab rocked them gently as it slid around a curve on their way to the destination he’d set for the familiar before he sent it after the cab. “Did you have some destination in mind?” She asked. When he told her where they were going she got a panicked look and put her hands to her hair. “I’m not dressed for that!” She told him.

He laughed. “You’re always dressed for it.”

The dance hall he took her too was not the sort of place a sect leader’s son would have taken a girl like Dhret. That sort of place would have bankrupted them before they’d even sat down, but it was well spoken of, and had tables under a gondola on the roof where they could watch the lightning flash between the towers while they ate and music that boomed from garlands overhead as they twirled among the other dancers afterwards. The place was a mixing pot of the city’s people. Pale skinned girls danced with half-breed boys while dark skinned girls clung to the shoulders of other silver eyed men like Marroo. In his new robes, and in the formal dress Dhret wore even for her courier duties, they looked like they belonged.

“You look beautiful.” He told her when he caught her glaring at the earrings on a girl near them between songs.

“I didn’t even wear a necklace today.” She shouted back over the rising music.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “It’s not what you’re wearing that makes you beautiful.”

They kissed, and she was grinning as they parted to start the dance again, she was still grinning when they tumbled into bed wearing nothing at all.

She cultivated with him in the morning.

They sat on top of the humming utility box above her little garden of potted plants and held hands as the core shone down between banks of clouds to steam away the rain left on the city’s roofs by the passing night. He could feel her spirit even through his veil, waxing and waning in time with her breath while the aura of corruption he always watched for hung beyond the horizon like one of the distant shapes that filled their sky, far beyond immediate concern.

She smiled when she opened her eyes to find him watching her and he felt his own lips curl upward in a reflected smile of his own.

“I should go.” He said when they’d spent too long smiling at one another while they listened to the city waking up around them. He didn’t move, and eventually she squeezed his hand.

“You’ll be late for your shift.”

“I know.” Smiles met, and Marroo thought of the woman he’d looked down on through his father’s eyes as she wept. He leaned forward and stroked the contours of dhret’s cheek where it dimpled when she was happy. She put one hand up to press his palm to her cheek and he met her eyes only to fall into them.

“I want this to be our future.” He told her.

Dhret blinked. “We can’t go dancing every night.” She told him.

“Not the dancing.” He replied. “This.” He ran his thumb back over the corner of her smile. “This is more important than anything to me.”

The smile faded as he said it, as though acknowledging her happiness had caused it to evaporate, and she looked down at the hand she still had on the metal roof of the utility box they were sitting on.

“One night isn’t enough,” Marroo told her, “but I meant what I said last week. I love you. I want to do better for you.”

She pulled his hand from her face and gripped it tight in her lap as she looked away, out at the city that surrounded them, while she chewed on her lip.

He watched the daylight slide from her face as a drifting cloud obscured the core.

“I love you too.” She said. She turned back to him. She blinked and two lonely tears left her eyes. Then she leaned in to kiss him hard on the lips, not a tender kiss but a statement. She smiled at him when they parted, but it was a smile as hard as the kiss instead of the easy smile of only a few moments ago.

He touched her cheek again anyways, then, when it seemed like there was nothing left to say, he let her go and stood up. He stretched and let his spirit stretch with him. The breath that ran into his meridians felt like cool water on a hot day, even when the sword icon stirred at the back of his spirit to inch towards his aura. For a second he stood out in the world’s spiritual reality like a sword in a field of grass, then he pulled his breath back in, veiled it in his flesh, and became invisible again.

“The tournament is tonight.” He said as he sat at the edge of the roof to pull on his shoes. “We can go and look for a new apartment soon.”

He smiled at her, but Dhret’s smile grew troubled and she bit her lip without saying anything and looked off into the city. He got his shoes on and waited.

She tossed her hair out of the way as she turned back to him. “Won’t you be on a route tonight?” She asked. “I thought this was a twelve hour shift.”

“Imlay can cover it.” Marroo replied. “I have enough points. I’ll tell Athesh I’m done when the tournament is over and we’ve found a place. We can go somewhere better, start something new.”

“I don’t understand.” She said. “I thought…”

“You said you wanted a better apartment.” Marroo said. He looked down at the plants beneath his dangling feet.

“What was all of that about change then?” She asked. “What did you mean, if you didn’t mean…”

It was Marroo’s turn to look at the city as an aircab buzzed by the top of their apartment followed by a swarm of tiny glowing familiars that looked like windblown sparks in the half light of the storm clouds. “I don’t want… much.” Marroo said as he watched them pass. The familiars drifted apart to merge with other lanes of darting figures while the cab disappeared into thicker lanes of traffic and Marroo looked down at his hands. “I’ve always known what I didn’t want to be, but I didn’t know… there wasn’t anything… I wanted to be, until I met you.”

He met her eyes while she chewed her lip and studied him.

“I love you.” He told her. “I want to make you happy, to have a life with you. Whatever that takes.”

The wind danced in her hair and twitched the loose fabric of her dress as she turned away from him to think.

“What is it about the family that makes it so hard for you to imagine leaving?” He asked.

Her dark eyes moved abruptly to his and she looked at him for a long moment before shaking her head. “What is it that makes you want to run from them so much?”

Marroo thought about it for a moment then nodded. “Stay here.” He said, then pushed himself off of the roof into her makeshift garden.