Folding the Sky

-11-

It was almost certainly not going to be the time of their lives.

    The second Zuri stepped from the train, a wave of hot, humid air enveloped her like a cloud; her hair was frizzing and sticking to the back of her neck before the group had even made it off the platforms. Everything about Sinje was bright: the ceaseless glare of the white-hot sun, the reddish-pink cobblestone streets overgrown with lush green weeds, the glittering, cerulean river that wound through the middle of the city like a ribbon given life. The Celestials left the train station and were immediately entrenched in a new, shimmering world of spice-scented air and jovial voices and somewhere, the calming twang of a banjo.

    Zuri stood frozen in place for a moment, clutching the straps of her pack, watching the massive riverboats roll slowly down the waterfront, wooden turnstiles lapping up water like a dog's tongue. Naino was a landscape painting: monochrome, simple, standard. Sinje reminded Zuri more of a piece of cubist art—it was vivid with color and not everything about it entirely made sense together, but that was the allure.

    "Aldric, you okay over there, buddy?" Jem asked, and everyone's eyes swiveled towards the ice wielder, whose forehead was already beaded with fine drops of sweat.

    He did look a little faint, Zuri thought, but nevertheless he spared them all a weak smile. "Fine. Just not very used to heat, is all."

    Chike frowned. "Can't you just...cool yourself off?"

    "And give myself frostbite, not to mention blow our cover?" Aldric said, and shook his head. "No thank you; I'll just have to rough it. Kalindi, where's this shop of his?"

    Kalindi shrugged her shoulders back, stepping out of the way of incoming foot traffic as the train horn whistled shrilly. "A little further in," she answered, "but I figure you might want to set your things down first."

    "Oh, forget that!" Jem exclaimed, winding her dark hair into a neat bun at the base of her neck, her eyes shining with fervor beneath the spectacles. "I want to get going. We've been sitting still for like, three hours."

    "Minus the hostage situation," Zuri pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "Sure."

    The look Kalindi gave Jem then wasn't exactly of disdain, but surrender, like she knew arguing with Jem would be both fruitless and enervating. Zuri couldn't fight a smile. The princess learned fast.

    "Fine," Kalindi said. "It's this way. And don't get lost, either. I'll leave you behind."

    So they walked. The further they got into the city, the denser the crowds grew, a sea of people in bright clothes mingling among the squat, brick buildings and the motley of merchant stalls set up between them. If Kalindi weren't walking so fast, Zuri would have stopped to examine the fruit selection. The air was bright with the sweet aromas of crisp red apples, mangoes, pineapples. Maybe she would send a crate back to Baba later, she thought. Perhaps the sweetness would keep him from worrying too much.

    At the city center, the crew crossed a high-arching bridge right over the river, the bridge's iron bars twined with emerald ivy. On the other side, the crowds thinned again; they walked another half an hour before Kalindi drew them to a stop at a storefront at the very edge of the inner district that reminded Zuri a lot of the haunted-looking hotel she'd been in just days before.

    She shuddered. Everything that was bright and green about this strange, foreign place, and then there was this dilapidated structure, like a dismal exhale captured in stone.

    "Here," Kalindi said. "This is where Schmitt was last spotted."

    Aldric leaned close, straining to peek within the wooden slats that covered the grimy windows. "When? Five hundred years ago?"