Folding the Sky

-27-

It would be over sooner than Kalindi thought. Twenty minutes. She just had to make it through the next twenty minutes.

Despite having been passed out asleep just an hour before, Jem led their trio, lantern held just above her head as she maneuvered around the mezzanine, footsteps clanging against the rusted metal grates. Chike dragged along behind her, his shoulders tensing at even the slightest sound, Kalindi pulling up at the rear.

Five minutes had already ticked by, and the mill showed no signs of human life. All of the lights were dead, submerging them in a thick, stifling darkness through which the lantern barely pierced. Kalindi ran a finger along the railings, and drew it back again in disgust when it left a trail through a dense layer of dust. They heard no voices, found no hidden stash of supplies or food. Another few moments passed, and Kalindi was beginning to give up hope. She let out a sigh before she could stop herself.

"Hey, no depressing noises, Kali," Jem called, glancing at the princess over her shoulder. In the warm glow of the lantern, Kalindi could just make out the proud smile on her face. That only made her want to sigh more. "Even if we don't find anything, Frosty and Zuri probably did."

"If they didn't?" Kalindi said. "If we got here too late, and now we're just wasting our time?"

Chike shrugged, and though his voice quivered unconvincingly as he did, he said: "Then we just keep going. What else would we do?"

"We can't just keep going," Kalindi muttered, folding her arms across her chest. "Not if we don't know what direction we're headed in."

She just couldn't stand another blunder like the market. She wouldn't survive the humiliation.

She still remembered the day she'd first heard her mother mention Vernon Schmitt, about a month before. Kalindi had been crossing the courtyard to the gardens when she heard the low hum of voices drifting from behind the shut doors of the throne room. It was like discovering the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle after years of searching, and she knew she had to go, even if she had to beg for it. She had to prove to her mother, and to herself, that there was more use for her than hiding behind the walls of Celandine.

Her mother called Kalindi's isolation protection, and maybe for a while, Kalindi had believed that. But she'd grown older, opened her eyes, and realized that there was more danger within Celandine than there was outside of it.

That was why she couldn't go back empty-handed. She refused.

"Actually, we can," said Jem. "It's a whole thing. Trial and error—you just keep doing shit until something works. Have you heard of it?"

Kalindi sighed again, this time out of exasperation.

"Ah-ah," Jem said. "What did I say about depressing noises?"

"Jem," Chike said, and stopped walking, so suddenly that Kalindi almost slammed face-first into his back. "What's that in front of you?"

Kalindi nudged Chike aside, trying to see what it was he was referencing. They'd reached the end of the catwalk, the tops of the pulp vats behind them, and a strange, looming shadow ahead of them. It looked like a framed painting for a moment, until Jem brought the lantern closer.

It was a tall, wooden loom, the tapestry within it only half done, rows of vibrant color disappearing abruptly into sparse, ratty warp threads, like a garment damaged with bleach.

A gasp passed Kalindi's lips as the three of them gathered closer. Very little of the image made sense to her; it was more of a collage of images than a chronological sequence. She saw a black, smoke-filled sky, the stitched triangles of flame seeming to flicker and dance before her eyes like authentic fire. Something—a white beam, a shooting star—split through that same sky, and below it, beneath the smother of smoke, was a coffin, its lid partially open.