Exhibit 9: "Evasion"

I thought it might've been better if I'd drowned there.

Instead, the current dragged me to the waterwheel and spat me out where I belong. My ankle was twisted, my nerves were peaked, every inch of my skin made tacky and itchy with sewage. I felt like I'd been struck by lightning, and the next bolt was coming right behind me. Like a panicked animal, I dragged my sorry self down alleyways as fast as I could to get back to Harmony's. The remnants of Keelo's spell let me climb up to my room's window with less hassle, but I still collapsed to the floor and crawled to my bed immediately.

Next thing I knew Cora was jumping on me. Early morning light searched for me through the window.

I told Cora to leave me alone. There must not've been much fight in my voice, because she didn't.

Then came Promise and Harmony. "Eyes up," Harmony whispered to me, pulling me to my feet, making a disdainful face at the ruins I'd made of her sheets. When I'd seen that face before, telling her about some unlucky mark I'd pickpocketed on the second level, it was usually followed by a lighthearted shake of the head. This time wasn't. She towered a foot over me, her face stern. "They're looking for you. You're going to the cellar."

I knew it was true, but I just shook my head. "They didn't see my face. My hood—"

"You have a resumé here, jackass. A long one. They're searching for you by name." She pulled me to the door. "You're hiding in the cellar."

Desperation pulled my eyes to Promise. "You can—you can do something," I sputtered.

He looked at me for a moment, then turned away with a nod. "I'll do some work."

Harmony led me to the wine cellar. I thought about asking for a glass, or tapping into it myself, holding my mouth underneath the nozzle—I couldn't even lift my arms. My pathetic, scrawny, sick little body betrayed me.

I couldn't run, could barely hide, couldn't even occupy my thoughts. Cora came clomping down the stairs, looking none the worse for wear. She was wrapped in two big ol' comforters, draped one over my damp, shivering shoulders, and passed out next to me. I didn't mean to, but I did the same.

My sleep was pocked with cruel dreams; I jerked awake, panting, clutching my chest, only to be dragged back down again. Constance was there, his eyes glowing evil gold, Ian silently crying behind him. Viola drew the molten gold from her father, and he collapsed dead; she shaped the light into a sword, hammering relentlessly as furious sparks flew. Her face was a torrent of grief and rage, her eyelids disappearing into their sockets as she struck the object of her ire.

Carmen looked at me with disgust, shaking her head as tears streaked down her face. Timera just stood over me, staring down, lookin' for all the world like she didn't care if I lived or died. She didn't even care if I saved her—I didn't even know where she was. Would she be at a point on Harvest's map? One of the Favors?

Those thoughts pelted me as I gasped awake again, sweat trailing down my grimy back and stinging my eyes. Rubbing them would be worse, so I just squeezed them shut and pressed the back of my head against the wall. The cool stone and the warm comforter were grounding, but my breathing wasn't slowing; it couldn't. They did nothing to shield against the mental rocks hitting my brain. I couldn't dodge from where I was sitting—my evasion is practiced, but it'd been whittled down to nothing. My body was sagging, unresponsive, and my mind with it. I was defenseless.

I think Cora saw that. She bumped my shoulder. "You smell disgusting."

"I am disgusting," I said as a joke, but it, uh, didn't quite land.

"Hm." She leaned her head back next to mine. "That was a disaster."

"No shit."

"Plenty of it. All over you, actually."

That was pretty good. I was in no fit state to appreciate it.

Instead, I let it bubble up again. There was—a thing inside me. It had rushed out when I killed that guard, when I couldn't outrun it anymore. Pretending it didn't exist didn't help; not looking at it didn't help. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it had wings.

"What, I'm speakin' in riddles now?" I tried to joke after I said that to her. "Killin' folks makes you talk in riddles?"

Cora didn't smile. She just looked sad.

My smile crumbled, and I sank forward over my knees. "The world is gonna end."

"No." Cora shook her head fervently, holding up the Favor around her neck: a small, iridescent rainbow stone, no bigger than a pearl. "No, we'll find these in time. It hasn't even been a month."

"Cora." I looked her full in the face, my expression contorting uncontrollably. "The world's gonna fucking end," I laughed. "It's gonna happen. This is what we've been leading to."

Her determination wavered. "What—what does that mean?"

I put the lid on my maniac laughter, but it didn't do nothing. "It's been too good for too long." I put my face in my hand. "The shoe is dropping. I can't keep doin' this. I'm gonna die."

I started dry heaving again. Cora patted my back until I stopped, drawing myself back up. "We're all gonna die. We're gonna starve." I jerked my chin toward the stairs. "They've—the world's already ended for them. They're already starving, and I—that poor girl." I remembered Charlie, screaming her head off, not even knowing the worst of what would happen, just that it didn't feel good. "That didn't do no good. Didn't do no good."

The part that scared me the most at the time was that the kill was mostly reflex. For some reason, that was what I fell back on in that pinch. It scared me how good it felt.

I told her what I'd done, and what I'd seen: the giant reservoir. A massive problem that would take time and dedication to fix. Something a doddering old person and a corrupt shadow ruler wouldn't be fixing any time soon.

"I just… thought this whole thing would be a lot simpler," I admitted, sniffling.

Cora went through a whole facial journey when I said that. She studied me for a long few seconds; later, she told me she was thinking, Is that what I look like? Not an easy thing to hear, but it was the last push she needed.

"Yeah," she said, sitting back like she'd had an epiphany. "Maybe it can be."

Soon after, Promise and Keelo glided down the stairs.

"Nicholas is open to dropping the charges," Promise said just like that, "but he has conditions."

I felt cornered—I didn't believe it. My eyes narrowed. "What's that?"

"Lady Ester has no heir." He raised his eyebrows at me. "We're to supply one."

Silence coated us like the grime coated me—nah, that's a gross one. I don't do much poetry anymore. Sorry 'bout that.

This part's unpleasant, so I'll summarize. Keelo asked if I wanted to rule the city, which seemed to be what Promise was implying. Nicholas would retain complete practical control, but I'd be his puppet, and this time it'd be written into law. I knew they didn't like it; we were all uncertain. Except Cora.

"I'm doing it," she kept saying. "It's going to be me, I'm telling you." She stood up straighter, and suddenly her too-polite way of talking matched her demeanor. "I was born for it. I've been running for too long."

I really, really didn't want her to do that. We'd known each other for such a short time, but we'd been through the goddamn wringer. She was my pal. Mostly, she was a mirror, and I didn't like seeing myself say these things.

But that wasn't all she said. "It won't go the way he's planning," Cora said with ironclad certainty. "Lady Ester still has all the legal power here, but Nicholas steers her decisions. I don't think she even knows." She looked at all of us. "So we have to show her."

They had to help me to the street and up the first few steps. I'd be damned if I had to go invisible, so we stormed straight up the front steps. The guards jumped in front of us, but stepped aside when they recognized me and Promise; that, and I half-drew my rapier and said, "Move." It was probably mostly Quincy, though.

Lady Ester was even older than Constance. She looked like she didn't even remember her own name, and her eyelids drooped so much I wasn't sure how much she could see. But when Cora helped her down the steps, her gasp at the squalor below told me she could see enough.

She liked Cora a lot, and had her actual assistant get started on the legal shit once she learned of Nicholas' arrangement. She was none too happy with him when we told her he'd been siphoning resources from the poor to feed the rich; her assistant told us most of the council were among those elites, so they all worked together to deceive her. She'd tried to tell the Lady numerous times, but didn't feel safe after the first few attempts. She looked grateful.

Frankly, it didn't matter what Lady Ester thought of Big Nicky. We had business with him otherwise.

See, something Nathaniel told Cora the night before on their long stroll upstairs—they had a large private bath out behind the palace, they liked to soak for a while in the morning before getting to the "work." So while Cora went with Ester to sort things out, Promise, Keelo, and I figured we'd enjoy a soak with 'em.

Nathaniel didn't have to be coaxed too much; he squeaked as soon as he saw us, begging Promise not to hurt him. Nicholas was a little more stalwart, but Keelo's hand around the back of his neck and my sword to his throat convinced him to get movin'. We let 'em put their robes on—we're not total cretins.

Anyway, I dragged a tragically stoic Nicky down the steps to meet his people while Natie sniveled behind us. A crowd had gathered at the bottom—I stood behind the big man as I addressed them.

"Nicholas Ridice!" I shouted. "Head Advisor of the city! Beloved by all his subjects—"

Loud jeers and boos hit us from below, and for the first time since my father had died, my sister had been kidnapped, and I broke my best friend's heart, I felt myself truly smile.

"Oh! Ya don't like him?" The shouts grew violent as his calm facade started to crack. I palmed the back of his damp neck, his hair grazing my glove. I touched it with my blade. "So, what should we do? He's in your hands."

"Kill him!" One brave voice suggested, which was quickly echoed. I only hesitated for dramatic effect before planting my boot in the small of his back and sending him crashing down to the first level. His bones cracked and his skin ripped as they tore him apart.

Power surged through me then. Not the kind that makes my eyes turn purple; something I took for myself, whatever that meant.

Maybe I wasn't running from the end. Maybe I was the one to bring it.

That high didn't fade for a long time. It stayed strong as we started bringing people up to the second and third levels, as we reunited kids with their families, as we set up tents and moved people into empty houses and vacant rooms in the palace, and as I finally took a goddamn bath.

Cora had a tiara on her head next time we saw her. Shit moved quick. She was to learn the ropes from Lady Ester and her assistant, but she already had a head start with the whole princess gig. Still, she had her work cut out for her, but y'all already know, she's made a big dent in just a year. Apparently she gave Lady Ester a third wind; last time I visited, she was riding Venun like a pro.

She loved to ride horses in her healthier days, and thankfully, she had plenty to choose from. I chose a beautiful gray stallion—named him Shimmy. He's my best boy to this day.

Over the next week, we got to know a lot of people. It brought me back to those days of playing with the kids we met on our trip, running across rooftops and pranking guards. This time, though, they made themselves a lot scarcer. No way they'd try something in the middle of a whole civilian uprising.

We rested. We danced. We partied. Only one person was shedding tears for Nicholas, and he was in the corner of every picnic, every teatime, every meet and greet with the new heir.

While we celebrated, Nathaniel lurked. One night, after I confided in Promise about my killing feelings—filtered through the high of victory though they were—Nathaniel paid me a visit.

As I slept fitfully in my clean bed, keeping the bad thoughts away much easier now, but still artfully dodging, I heard the creak of a door. A small blade glinted above me in the moonlight. The hands that held it shook, waiting for a long time for something. Some sign.

We locked eyes. That was his sign. He exhaled a gale, let the knife clatter to the floor, and trudged out of the room. That was the second time I felt a true smile bubble up from me; it's a lot easier to make a game out of hating yourself if you have a good opponent.

The next morning, a crowd of happy citizens saw us off as we rode out on our new horses—Keelo'd picked a white one for themself. Life wasn't fixin' to be easy for everyone, not just yet, but they were off to a hell of a start. Cora would face plenty of challenges, but I know now that she stomped every single one of 'em, and will continue to.

It was a big chapter of my life comin' to a close, so I chose to reflect it with another watercolor. Smiling folk holding up big jugs of clean water, the early sun shining down on 'em. It felt right. We bid Cora farewell, not knowing if it'd be the last time.

The energy was high, and we rode out of the city as heroes, but it kept nagging at me. The guilt. The things I kept trying to push down. I'd killed a man in cold blood; I learned during that week that ninety percent of the guard were children who'd been Reaped. He was probably one of 'em. Nicholas was a human stain on the world, but the way his bones crunched—I liked it, but that wasn't somethin' Lucky did. At least, it was never depicted so graphically. It didn't feel like this.

I'd made one bastard pay, and I told myself I'd make every single one I came across pay tenfold. I'd kill a god and die trying.

Things were getting better again. Good things came out of what I did. But that wasn't why I was doing it. I'd convinced myself I was saving the world, making Harvest pay for mine and my people's suffering—it was a damn good lie.

I ran toward the problem, and ran away from the fallout of it, every time. I couldn't stand to stay in Solas; too much pain there. Now, I couldn't stay in Mistston to continue the work I'd recklessly started, or to see my friend grow into her new role. Too much pain. Just another diversion, like us stopping in the city in the first place.

Ya know what the problem is? Money. That's what motivated Nicky and pals to hurt people, and the lack of it has dictated my whole life. Maybe I'd be a lazy sack of shit if I'd been born rich. Who's to say?

Fuck. I'm tired. Imber, can you handle the bidding for this one?

GALLERY OF FORTUNE SIMPLECREEK—RECEIPT—9/18/1316

EXHIBIT #9: "EVASION" SOLD TO HARMONY HAVEN (140 GP)