My fingers traced the ridge of leather spines, moving, searching, as if they had little minds of their own, little eyes that widened when they recognized old friends and weathered faces.

"It's after closing."

The short man stuck his head around the corner, irritable and impatient. His droopy ears, nose, and eyelids formed a face of melting candle wax. A face that, upon our first encounter, had earned him the everlasting nickname Mr. Wick.

"Really?" I flashed him my best apologetic smile—the same one I used to feign contrition when I overslept on a school day. "I must have lost track of time."

He blinked at me several times, and I watched those old, shriveled lips crease into a line of dissatisfaction.  Sort of like a rotten pumpkin caving in on itself.

"Give me another minute?" I tried.

Refusing to dignify me with a response, he slowly retreated from my view, his face still screwed up in that awful grimace.

Glad to have his gaze off my spine, I traipsed down another aisle, venturing beyond faded titles and crinkled jackets to the crisp backbones of history.   I snatched the last textbook off the shelf, and my arm dipped under its weight.

Brain food, my mother had called these. More like brain fiber, really—practically indigestible. But I took what I could get.

Most history collections had been lost to the Crash, confining our selection to the High Court's manuscripts: sugar-coated chronicles glamorizing the rebirth of civilization and immortalizing the Patrons who united us.  Sweets to rot your brain.

The High Court insisted no one knew of life before the Crash. They claimed the textbooks revealed all we knew about the Ancients, and the rest was molding, anecdotal fiction. But I knew the vast history of mankind didn't simply erase itself. The scribes didn't snap their quills and toss away the ink. The victors did.

I joined Mr. Wick at his desk and set the history book down between us. His gaze flicked over the cover and up at me, entirely unenthused.  

"All that deliberation for a book you've read a dozen times?"

I huffed.  "I'd spend less time deliberating if there were something new to read." 

He flipped open his logbook and wrote my name beneath the other hastily scribbled Alex Kingsleys on the page.  "Is that so?"

I leaned over the desk—apparently too far into his personal space, judging by the habitual way in which he slid the book away from me. "I heard Havenbrooke has two whole floors' worth of novels. It's a shame we can't make some sort of exchange," I bemoaned, but he purposely avoided my gaze. "I could probably spend a whole week or two absorbed in new content. You know, at home...in my own space...not bothering anyone."

He handed me my due-date slip with an exasperated sigh. "I'll see what I can do."

"You're my favorite, you know that?"

He grunted and slid the history book toward me.  "Goodnight, Miss Kingsley." 

Saluting the candlestick of a man, I pushed through the doors of the library and stepped into a world of chilly autumn wind.  I spit a few hairs out of my mouth and adjusted my wool cardigan, glaring up at the sky and the missing sphere of gold.

At this time in the afternoon, the sun should have barely kissed the Range. But like every day for the past ten years, I could only make out its faint glow against the ashen world above.

It was like the sky had died. 

It sure looked like a corpse, anyway. Gray, dreary. Perhaps a bit rotten and foul.

Some thought it could be the effects of the everlasting firestorm to our west. Others hypothesized that a volcano had erupted in the south, blanketing the sky in toxic ash.

But the smoke never cleared, and the ash didn't fall. The soot remained in the atmosphere—a thunderstorm that never bled rain, a veil shielding us from clear and colorful horizons, blocking the warmth of an autumn sun.

Smothering the stars.

I'd been so young when they'd clouded over, when the distant lights had vanished into the pit of nothingness that yawned above us now.

But a part of me wondered if they hadn't disappeared at all. If instead, they saw life on earth and turned their backs on us in shame.

Lucky's Liquors welcomed me with dim auburn lighting and cigar smoke strong enough to pinken the eyes.  Digging through my belt bag for change, I weaved around the after-work crowd and approached Leith's favorite corner of the pub. 

"Come on, Frankie. You know there's something wrong about all this," Leith murmured, swishing the contents of his pint around as he spoke. "No one even retires from the military anymore. No grunt ever lives that long!"

"Just 'cause the Court won't admit we're losin' to a dictator like Godric Sterling does not mean we're dealin' with the supernatural, you welt," Frankie replied from across the lopsided table, his beard peppered with droplets of alcohol.

Their topic of discussion didn't surprise me in the slightest. Only three subjects seemed to dance upon civilian tongues these days—gossip of marriage, anticipation for the annual Tournament, and whispers of war.

Over the last decade, we'd watched soldiers fall at a rate unprecedented, and the death toll hatched rumors of a new enemy encroaching on our border. Many suspected an ally of Rhea, the neighboring kingdom bent on wiping Ells off the map. But there lay the root of confusion: no other territory still existed in the northern hemisphere.

At least, none we'd been informed about.

"Not dealin' with the supernatural? Then explain the sun! Where's the sun gone, Frankie?"

"It's still up in the sky, ya numb-skull!"

A harsh laugh.  "Tell that to the farmers who can't grow our barley."

I cleared my throat, and both men turned to look at me.

"Leith," I greeted.

He sighed and held out his hand, a flat look on his face.  At forty, the man spent most of his days tending to his music shop, stone-faced and miserable. The only time he ever appeared to come to life was here at Lucky's, where he could shed his formal wear and discuss conspiracy theories with his drunken peers.

I dropped the skits into his palm. "To keep quiet should the old man come asking."

"Yeah, yeah, I know the routine," he muttered, slipping the change into his trouser pockets. He leaned back in his chair. "Say, Kingsley.   You're always thinking more than a girl ought to.   How do you feel about the military keeping the details about the war so hush-hush? You suppose they're hiding something?"

I patted the history book at my side—a transcript of inconsistencies and missing pieces. "They're always hiding something, Leith. It's how they keep us on our knees." I raised my brow.  "The real question is what they plan to do with those secrets, and how far they'll go to ensure we never find out."

He pointed at me, and then at his companion. "What did I say?"

"Not that!" Frankie exclaimed.

With a quiet laugh, I left them to their speculation, trading the dark, hazy bar for the suffocating crowds of Belgate. 

Around me, midday masses hovered in thick clusters, loitering about the stalls and gritz, walking so slowly. Women shopped with male escorts at their side. Small boys weaved around them, picking pockets or stuffing them with Tournament fliers. The little girls were nowhere to be found.

Swerving through bodies, I felt as if the old brick buildings were closing in on me from all sides, cracking the cobblestone beneath my boots, pushing the residents even closer to one another—as if this town weren't incommodious enough.

Lost and forgotten on the western outskirts of Ells, Belgate had grown into its own hybrid of a city, entrapping its citizens in giant stone walls to secure its water resources and rich farmland. To our east, the Range rose in rippled hills—to our west, the Rim, the mountainous border of our nation. And beyond that, Rhea. 

It was a city of rules and snitches, fake smiles and curtsies. No one really said what they meant, and no one really meant what they said. Of course, those who did were sentenced to a multitude of behavioral write-ups and remedial counseling courses—a punishment I'd grown quite familiar with upon entering academia.

I'd nearly made it out of the marketplace when a woman shouted my name. 

I was tempted to dismiss it, not particularly eager to see what I'd done wrong, but something about her timbre gave me pause.

"Alex, love!" she called again, and I recognized the cottony rasp of her voice.

Nova.

I pivoted, grinning at the small, wrinkled woman wrapped in shawls and ugly jewelry. Crisp gray hair hung about her hunched shoulders, and she'd pinned her face-framing layers back with the decorative beads and wires she'd collected on her travels.

"Don't you eat?" the merchant grumbled as I made my way over to her wooden booth.   Her gaze swept over my knotted, windblown hair, my skinny legs, and my scuffed and battered boots. "You look thinner than you did yesterday!"

"I do eat."

"Mm."

She handed me a heavy sack, distributing the weight evenly between the history book and her favorite gift.

"More beans?"

"They warm your heart." She poked my arms. "And fill your bones."

I smiled at her mischievous eye, partner to an empty left socket. She didn't cover up the orbit—good for business, she always said. She claimed she sold the other in exchange for the Eye of Sight, and frankly, I was inclined to believe her.

I set my items aside and hopped up on the shop's counter, admiring the array of foreign trinkets lining her back shelf.   "Any new fortunes for today?"

Nova could predict anything from weather patterns to the juiciest scandal in town, but most people treated her like a stray dog. To the elites, she was either a loon who believed in magic or a quack who preyed upon those who did. To the rest of us, she was the widowed, childless merchant on the corner of Market Square.

She grinned, removing the old draw-string pouch from her belt and emptying the contents into her dark, age-speckled hand. Closing her eye, she mumbled a few incantations before dropping the collection of bones, nuts, shells, and pebbles onto the circle of painted wood.

I stared at objects' orientation, wondering what the wishbone landing next to the crow's foot could mean, or if the die landing blank-side up had any significance. Then I glanced up at the woman to watch her interpretation unfold. 

It was my favorite part, seeing her piece it all together.

Her brown eye flickered at the contents, and her breath hitched, fingers twitching away from the circle. For a heartbeat, her features flared with something like muted terror. Astonishment. Pain. But the moment passed as quickly as it came, and she shook her head, dismissing whatever she'd seen.

"What was that?" I cried, trying to keep the alarm out of my voice. Her reaction had been nothing short of disconcerting, especially given her spotless track record. "What did you see?"

She swept the bones back into her pouch, smiling lightly. "A day full of troublemaking and dire consequences, love."

I sensed there was more to it than that, but I wouldn't push her to tell. When Nova chose not to disclose information, there was typically a good reason for it.

"So nothing out of the ordinary, then?"

She chuckled, shaking her head, and I slid off the counter, deciding I'd rather not know the details of my inevitable grounding anyway.

"Ah—Alex? Won't you do me a favor before you go?"

I pursed my lips, eyeing her suspiciously. "What kind of favor?"

She seized a ceramic vase from her shelf and placed it on the counter between us, looking up at me with that face.

My bones frosted over. "Nova, you—"

"I just want to know how much it's worth. Besides, you need to practice."

I rolled my eyes. Practice was the last thing anyone needed, but I slipped off my glove anyway.  Checking both directions to make sure no one was paying us any special attention, I pressed my hand against the smooth, rounded surface of the vase.

Instantly, flashes of white fire assaulted my vision, burning the center of my palm, searing my flesh. It felt as though I'd grasped the rungs of a grill, and I fought the impulse to pull away.

"An exotic antique," said a hollow voice, a faint whisper bouncing  off the dark corners of my mind.  A pale, manicured hand slid a pile of coins over a wooden table, and I lived a thousand static memories along a crumbling road. Then I was falling, crashing, drowning in a whirl of blues and blacks and greens...

I gasped and wrenched my hand back. The memories vanished, leaving only a spell of dizziness in their wake. The crescent-shaped mark on my palm was already fading.

Nova stared at me expectantly. Completely unperturbed.

"About six skits...give or take. That's how much it sold for." I wiped the beads of sweat from my temple, and the old woman clasped her hands together like she'd won a prize. "Where did you even get that? The bottom of the river?"

"Many valuable things pop up on the banks, Alex," she said, sensing the disapproval in my tone. "Lost items want to be found. Almost as much as keepsakes yearn to be lost."

I snorted.  "Right."

I'd always envied Nova for her career.  Though the widow barely scraped by, she was free to roam the country, permitted to visit the other gated cities.  She acted as if there was nothing to see out there, but I knew she harbored extensive knowledge about the world—and a thousand precious secrets.

I slid my glove back on, releasing a breath at the comfort of concealment. They were typical fighting gloves, fingerless and black, common among men. But covering my hands all day every day never ceased to weird everyone out.

"Chin up, love," she whispered. "Someday you'll realize that different is better, and better is progress." She shooed me along. "Now go on, before you miss your lesson!"

As I hustled away, I could feel her gaze lingering on my hands.

Lingering on the two fisted weapons at my sides.