If the twist loaf wasn’t meant to be eaten, it should not have been left unattended on the stand. The baker’s ambiguous setup was truly to blame.
Somehow, Ebony’s impeccable logic failed to sway market security. She received two strikes, one for stealing and another for lying. For lying! Ebony seethed, glowering at the crumpled detention slip. The pink letters jeered up at her. Barred from the market and a week of detention, starting tomorrow. All for a stale hunk of bread.
“Ya think rolling solo was a bad call?”
Beside her on the cracked steps, Barloe frowned. “Faction life ain’t worth it. Least the two of us avoid getting mugged every other week.” He passed her an oat cracker.
Ebony took a bite. The sound was like gravel crunching under a wheel. “Least they get real food.”
“The stamps–”
“Ain’t worth jack and you know it.”
Barloe drummed his knuckles against the cement. “Maybe if you stayed out of detention, earning ‘em wouldn’t be such a hassle.”
Ebony threw the half-eaten cracker at his head. It smacked him dead between the eyes and bounced onto the ground, intact. “You get stuck in them damn rooms ‘bout as much as me! True, we ain’t getting into turf wars, but we sure as hell ain’t safe from upper-Realm snobs. Factions got numbers to back ‘em if nothing else.”
Barloe picked up the cracker, dusting it off. His voice was calm, which made Ebony want to tear her skin off. “You really wanna join one? Ya seen how they treat newbies.”
He was right, presumably. Ebony had never been in a faction before, but she knew what became of faction spirits who couldn’t pull their weight. Detention, as mentally torturous as it was, paled in comparison to bloodied husks left in alleys to recover on their own.
This particular agriculture district had a nasty record of factions. The current groups had formed in the very first year of the training program she and her fellow spirits were slotted into. At first Ebony was deadset on staying out of these glorified gangs. Factions were built around strict rank and following orders. If the program’s obedience training instilled her with anything, it was an unfathomable hatred for authority. Still, she couldn’t deny factions worked. The district overseers always gave them more slack than individual spirits, and even though they constantly tore one another to shreds, the groups that came out on top were comfortably well off. A surplus of food, safe shelter, and a team who had your back. All Ebony had was meager crumbs, the mold-infested trainee barracks, and Barloe.
As much as the prospect was welcoming, Ebony knew it was idealistic. No top-rank faction would accept a new member with zero useful skills or experience–not in a position that offered any benefits. And ultimately, Ebony would rather have Barloe by her side than a thousand faction strangers. He was the only reason she could stand this place. No other spirit would purposefully spill their sack of grain over a vendor’s head just to keep her company in detention.
Barloe looked at her expectantly. Ebony gave him a halfhearted grumble and turned away. Barloe smiled. Out of his cloak pocket, he drew a fresh oat cracker.
“We made the right call, Ebony,” Barloe said, offering her the flavorless biscuit. “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing.”
Ebony rolled her eyes. She accepted the cracker, quickly taking a bite to conceal her faint smile.
✦ ✦ ✦
Detention was agony. Food and water was withheld until the day’s end. The guards in charge put them through grueling labor in the scorching heat, tilling soil across hundreds of acres without earning a single credit towards stamps. Then they locked everyone in a building with no windows and lectured them for hours on the importance of lawful behavior, whether or not any spirit paid attention. Ebony found herself bored out of her mind listening to the same monologue for the millionth time. Her only source of entertainment had dozed off beside her, head on his desk.
Only two days in, and all Ebony could think of was how to steal more food without getting caught. She drummed her fingers on the desk to drown out the mind-numbing drone of the guard at the front of the room. Behind the speaker, the door opened, and another spirit stepped inside. At first Ebony dismissed them as upper class, moving with the confidence of someone who knew they held power, here to check up on the guards. She did a double take when she registered orange. Most upper-class spirits around these parts were garbed in red cloaks, the color of the military division. Only agriculture spirits–harvesters like herself and Barloe–wore pale orange cloaks. This spirit wore orange, so they must be in detention like everyone else. Yet, the way they moved…
The new spirit pulled up a seat beside Ebony in the back of the room, hands folded behind their head, feet up on the desk.
“Come here often?” the spirit asked, grinning.
Ebony’s eyes narrowed, scanning the newcomer’s face. “Do I know you?”
“Not formally, but you might’ve seen me around. Sharing a program does tend to lead to a lotta familiar faces. It’s Ebony and Barloe, right?”
Barloe roused at the sound of his name, blinking groggily. At the front, the guard rattled on, taking no note of the conversation in the corner.
“Yeah?” Ebony said. “What’s it to ya?”
The spirit grasped her hand, giving it a firm shake. “Name’s Mercury. Couldn’t help but notice y’all have a tendency for angering higher-ups.”
Ebony prickled. “Not on purpose.”
“Course not.” Mercury winked. “Just clumsy and impulsive. And faction free, I heard?”
“If you’re tryna recruit, you’re looking in the wrong place,” Barloe said firmly. “We ain’t interested.”
Mercury laughed. “Nah, factions are overrated. So many spirits, so much violence. Always competing. There’re much better ways of getting what ya want. Much more effective. Much more fun.”
For the first time in hours, Ebony fully tuned out the lecture. She was sure she had seen Mercury’s face before in a sea of spirits during training. She hadn’t paid him much mind. Now her focus was fixed. His words tugged at some cord in her chest, and she wondered how it was that she never clocked this self-assured, unconstrained spirit before.
“Call it an accident,” Mercury continued, “but y’all attract authorities’ attention like flies to the rot.”
Was he insulting her? Ebony glared just in case.
“Only the bad kind,” Barloe muttered.
Mercury clapped his hands, smile widening. “Exactly!”
Ebony clenched her fist. “What do ya want? Cause if ya ain’t come over for nothing but insults–”
“I want y’all’s help.”
Ebony frowned. “Why?”
Mercury turned fully in his chair to face her and Barloe. “Cause getting by ain’t the same as living. Factions tear each other apart for scraps, but no matter who wins, the factions ain’t the ones making the rules. They ain’t the ones with any real power.” His eyes wandered down to the front of the room. “Spose I am here to recruit ya, in a sense. Not for a faction. Consider it a mutually beneficial partnership. We fly under the radar of factions, but still work together to take what we need.”
“Why are ya pitching this to us?” Ebony insisted.
“Cause I’ve been paying attention. Y’all are resourceful, getting by without support from a bigger group. And ya hate being told what to do, which I respect. ‘Sides, I wasn’t insulting ya when I said ya attract attention. That’s a useful skill. It’ll take some honing, but believe me, if I didn’t think y’all had potential I wouldn’t be here.”
Ebony scoffed lightly. “Like ya had a choice, going to detention.”
“Oh, I did.” Mercury slipped off his chair and onto his feet, stretching. “I never get caught ‘less I want to.”
“You’re one cocky farmer, ya know that?”
Mercury grinned. “I’m confident. The difference is in the execution.” He pulled his hood down lower, concealing his face.
For a single moment in the room, there was silence. The lecturer paused between lines; the tapping of a restless spirit’s foot missed a beat; the spirit rocking in their chair teetered on the very edge; Ebony stared up at this strange spirit.
Then the silence ended, explosively.
The building shook as a catastrophic bang flooded the halls. Ebony flinched, ducking off her chair and covering her ears too late to block the sharp ringing. Barloe crouched under his desk beside her. His head snapped frantically around, trying to locate the source. From her position on the ground, Ebony saw the guard who had been lecturing at them vanish in a cloud of red smoke, presumably to deal with whatever made the sound.
Mercury stood above them both, wild glee in his eyes. He laughed, voice echoing around the room. Other spirits stared at him, flabbergasted. He ignored them, climbing over the desk behind him and approaching the back wall. He turned back to Ebony and Barloe, beckoning.
“What the hell are ya–” Ebony’s hiss was interrupted as another explosion went off, smaller this time. The wall beside Mercury shook, cracks splintering across it. Mercury lifted his hand, summoning a mattock. He slammed the tool’s head into the wall. Bricks crumbled around him. Where the back wall of the detention center once stood, a gaping hole now allowed sunlight to cascade through.
“Freedom awaits!” Mercury sang, his voice unrecognizable from the one he spoke with mere seconds ago.
The spirits around Ebony reacted faster than she did, clambering for the exit. Somehow, in the panic, Mercury reappeared by her side, hood still low and voice still altered.
“Detention’s been canceled.”
Barloe scrambled to his feet. “How did ya–? They’ll have our hide for this!”
“Lesson one,” Mercury said. “Ya only get punished if ya get caught.”
“They got a list of our names! Even if they don’t know exactly who done it, they know who all was in here!”
Mercury drew a stack of papers from his cloak. “This list? Oh dear, seems to me they misplaced their roster for the week.”
Barloe gawked.
Ebony pushed herself up. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, but for once, it wasn’t fear. It was exhilaration, and it felt incredible.
“Now move,” Mercury instructed, “the distraction won’t hold ‘em long.” He gave them a sly wink. “Although I imagine y’all can help me with that next time.”
With that, he turned to the hole, climbing through and dropping down on the other side. Ebony paused, exchanging a glance with Barloe. She couldn’t help the grin that wormed its way onto her face. Barloe sighed.
“What the heck,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
One after the other, they leapt through the hole in the wall, breaking into a sprint as they landed. Fleeing the building, they laughed, joyful, exuberant, hysterical.
Ebony felt alive.
