Holding Onto Hope Read online

  In his mind’s eye, he could see blue sky and grey stone, Mike’s prone body hanging limply about him, and the powerful impact with the ground.

  He flinched and tried to brace himself, but the hard landing didn’t come. A net surrounded him and lowered him gently.

  After a silence while he brushed his shirt off with short, jerky motions, he said, “Why did you catch me?”

  “Was I not supposed to?”

  “No. You weren’t.”

  Ben thought Prima might argue or ask questions, but apparently, her algorithms told her not to intervene this time. “I apologize,” she said simply.

  Algorithms. He had to remember that she was a glorified blender, nothing more, a calculator that had learned to sound human. She had rescued him because the game was supposed to heal people, not injure them. She didn’t care about him so there was no point in being angry at her or explaining what he felt.

  None whatsoever.

  He was halfway up the wall again when a door opened on the other side of the courtyard. Elantria’s gaze seemed to bore into his back as he inched to the balcony.

  To avoid the distraction, he focused his attention inward. Without the foothold he had intended to use, the climb provided a more challenging move about two-thirds of the way through. Of course, it was one he could have done in his sleep before the accident. It was only now, when he couldn’t trust his fingers and feet to grasp the holds, that he had to worry.

  After one false start, he managed to reach the balcony without help and even to get over the side of it.

  “Impressive,” Elantria said, and he sensed that she meant it. As if to allay any worry, she added, “And you’ll find I don’t give praise easily.”

  “I didn’t finish the locks,” he said. His stomach growled.

  “You have as much time as you need,” she told him. “Anyway, the best way to learn is to spend time practicing—which I assume will go double or triple for you, what with you learning to use your hands again.”

  Ben groaned. “Right.”

  “I simply came in to tell you that I would be gone for a few hours,” she said.

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “I have a meeting.” She stared at him. “And while you know some of my business, no one knows all of it and I don’t want to spend time arguing.”

  “If it’s a job, can I come along?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?” He realized he was scowling.

  “Because it would take years of training for you to be more of a help than a hindrance. Our jobs pit us against the best minds the rich can buy.” She smiled as if at a private joke. “They can’t buy the best minds, of course, which is why we win so often. But they can buy good ones, and that’s a challenge. In any case, you’re not ready yet.”

  His scowl deepened.

  “Do you want to learn?” Elantria asked him. “Or do you want to end up dead in an alley? Because if it’s the latter, I’d rather not spend time training you.”

  “Why is everyone in this world so grim?” he demanded. “You’re the second person in a week who’s said something like that to me, and I hate it.”

  “Then stay alive,” she told him and disappeared without saying anything further.

  Ben stared after her morosely before he hurried inside and downstairs to exit the house. He crept to the courtyard door as quietly as he could, eased it open, and stepped into an alley that led toward the piers. Elantria was nowhere to be seen at first, but he thought to look up at the eaves and saw her there.

  His decision was already made. He closed the courtyard door behind him and followed her from the ground.

  He had come there to learn, and dammit, he would learn.

  “Are you sure this is wise?” Prima asked him worriedly.

  “You’re the one who put me in a port full of thieves and gangs,” he said grimly. “Nothing about this is wise. I won’t stay locked in a house while all the meaningful things happen outside it. I’m going to find out what job she’s doing.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ben followed Elantria as she made her way out of Fisherman’s Bottom—the unappealingly named district that housed most of the riff-raff—and through several other districts.

  He was fairly sure that if she looked down, she would see him in a second. Still, he tried to stay hidden and used any available tall objects to hide from her line of sight. Besides, he counted on her not looking back—after all, she thought he was in the courtyard, learning to pick locks.

  That thought reminded him that he still wasn’t quite sure why she had housed him there. From the way she dressed and her general cleanliness, he was certain that she didn’t live in the same house he’d slept in the night before. He had heard and seen some activity there, but not much, and she was right. His sleep had been undisturbed. There hadn’t even been shouting matches or drunken shenanigans out on the street in the front, much less anything that reached the alleys behind the courtyards.

  Up ahead of him, Elantria crossed a street using a combination of cleverly placed balconies and one truly awe-inspiring leap before she hurried to the end of what looked like a cul-de-sac.

  “Is she using magic for that?” Ben asked Prima quietly.

  “She is half-elven.”

  “Oh, so that’s why she has the coloring but she doesn’t quite look like an elf. I get it now. I didn’t know half-elves were possible.”

  “Mmm.”

  “So…” Ben looked both ways, checked to determine where Elantria descended from the buildings to the ground, and raced across the street. “Why is it that in fantasy worlds, humans are always the total losers and other races have all the good qualities? Like jumping very far and being super good-looking and all that.”

  “Those are your highest aspirations in life?”

  He glared at the sky and hid quickly behind a half-set of stairs a scant second before she looked behind her for pursuit. When he peeked out, he saw her disappear into a house at the very center of the cul-de-sac.

  The front of it, unfortunately, was almost all windows—something he imagined would be quite an annoyance if he were to try to sneak closer. He considered his options, which seemed to be following someone else, disguising himself, or charging the building barbarian-style. The last one seemed unlikely to work and he didn’t have anything with which to disguise himself.

  A little irritated, he stayed in his hiding place and considered how and when to sneak up to the house when a thought occurred to him. He looked at a young man passing who hauled two giant sacks of something on a pole balanced across his shoulders.

  “Hello,” he said.

  The man gave him a wary look.

  “Do you know whose house that is?” he asked him. “With all the windows.”

  “Ah.” The stranger grinned. “Thinkin’ o’ stealin’ the glass, are ye? Ye wouldn’t be the first t’ try.”

  “Oh, no, that’s—” He looked at the house. How much, he wondered, did glass windows sell for? How much was this grand display of wealth worth in a somewhat dirty neighborhood? “I simply wanted to know, that’s all. I’m not trying to steal the windows.”

  “Uh-huh.” The man winked knowingly. “Me neither. Anyway, that’s the merchant Jorys’s house. ʼE owns most o’ this neighborhood.”

  “Ah.” Ben studied it with a neutral expression. “He doesn’t live in a fancy mansion on the other side of town?”

  “’E ʼas a place there, too. But he prefers it here. Them noble ones, they don’ think too much o’ him, do they? Because e’s one o’ us. Raised in the dirt. Worked as a fisherman. An’ he likes lookin’ people in the eye. They say ʼe does it because it’s his neighborhood and ʼe wants to keep it safe, but…” He shrugged, a gesture more to adjust the pole across his shoulders than to indicate anything in particular. “’E likes it when people thank ʼim. You know, fer savin’ us all.”

  “He sounds delightful,” Ben said. “Thank you for your help.” When the man li
ngered, he added, “I swear, I don’t have any coin.”

  It was true. He had left his purse at the house, which he realized now was probably a bad plan.

  “Huh.” His informant scrutinized him with a slightly mocking expression. “Big up-and-comer, eh? Spent your last copper on clothes? Those aren’t nice enough to get ye in with them nobles, boy.” He walked away, chuckling quietly.

  Ben was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the young man looked barely fifteen but acted like a man four times his age when he realized that if Elantria came out now, he would never beat her to the house.

  Deciding that he had most likely done enough exploration for the present, he sprinted across the street and began the painstaking process of finding his way back—something he hadn’t put enough thought into on the journey out.

  Also, every damned street in this city looked the same. Had it been three streets in and then a left, or two streets and a left, or… He sometimes chose randomly, thinking he recognized an intersection, only to reach the one he’d thought he was in a few minutes later.

  “I should not work in map-making,” he told Prima when he finally reached what passed for home.

  “Oh, no, your long-held dreams are down the drain!”

  “It’s a blow,” he agreed. He looked back to see if Elantria was following and tried to open the courtyard door.

  As he should have expected, it was locked. With a sigh, he turned his attention to the wall. It wasn’t exactly conducive to climbing, but it was either that or explain to her that he’d snuck out to spy on her. He didn’t think they were close enough for her to take that well.

  In the end, he managed to scale the wall with a great deal of flailing and swearing but landed so hard in the courtyard that he was fairly sure he bounced.

  “I don’t know what the doctors said to you explicitly,” Prima said after a moment, “but I’m fairly sure you were supposed to avoid things like this.”

  “Don’t tell Eliza,” he mumbled. He pushed to his feet and began to limp to the lock-picking set. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

  “Who’s Eliza?”

  “Fuck.” Ben hadn’t realized that Prima didn’t know.

  “Oooooh.” The AI sounded deeply intrigued. “Spill it, sweetheart—or I’ll make your life a living hell.”

  The twins weren’t at a point yet where Prima could help them see each other. What she could do, however, was set them up with a fairly nice campground, a spread of food fit for two growing teenagers, and two whiteboards for them to write messages to each other.

  The whiteboards had been Taigan’s idea and she had decided not to modify them at all, mainly for the sake of amusement. It was quite interesting how out of place a shiny new whiteboard looked in the midst of rolling, magical plains.

  The girl lit a fire with a wave of her hand—Prima still wasn’t sure how she did that—and surveyed the little camp. She wrote on the board. I get the green tent, right?

  It’s on my side, Jamie replied.

  “That little bitch,” Taigan muttered. She considered her words for a moment before she scribbled a response. Like that means anything.

  Her brother laughed. He hesitated, possibly thinking of something to write, then capped the pen and put it down. With a smirk, he strolled to a conveniently placed rock and made a show of warming his hands on the fire.

  She waited and stared at his board until she finally realized he wouldn’t write anything. “That little bitch,” she said. “Prima, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I am not playing narrator,” the AI said sternly. She could, she realized, arrange for something similar to a video conference, but she wouldn’t tell them that yet. For now, she didn’t want them to use any crutches that would stand in the way of them solving the actual problem.

  This was a convenient way to avoid the fact that she still wasn’t entirely sure what the problem was. She had guesses but nothing concrete.

  Taigan went to the table, took the whole platter of pastries, and began to lick them one at a time.

  “Ew! No!” Jamie jumped up when he saw the pastries move. “Stop—not fair!”

  She, of course, couldn’t hear him, but she laughed anyway. There were many pastries to lick and she was very determined to attend to every single one.

  He raced to his board. You’re definitely not getting the green tent now

  The girl looked at the board and shrugged, then began to take a single bite of each pastry before she threw them in various directions. She didn’t have much luck with the fire pit, but she did do a fairly good job of hitting the whiteboard.

  “Dammit, Taigan.” Jamie glowered. “Don’t make me—Prima, am I looking in the right direction?”

  “No,” Prima reported. “And she also can’t hear you, so nothing about this is making a point.”

  “Argh.” He clutched his hair in frustration. “I came here to help her, you know.”

  “I do. I’m given to understand that squabbling between siblings is common, however. Besides which, you did technically open the hostilities.”

  “Oh, fine, take her side,” he muttered and waved his hands.

  “Mmm.”

  Prima watched as Taigan turned most of the pastries into projectiles before she grew tired of that and returned to licking them.

  “I didn’t give you all this food for you to waste it, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean to make a mess for you.” The girl was instantly contrite. “I thought you could simply clean it all up quickly or something.”

  “I can,” the AI said patiently. “I’m merely pointing out that I made the two of you dinner and gave you whiteboards. I thought you might have things to talk about instead of simply ruining pastries and fighting.”

  “This,” Taigan said vehemently, “is not a fight. You ain’t seen a fight.”

  “I’ve seen a demon army, the siege of the fae castle, numerous bandit skirmishes, and the march of the new elven monarchy.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “And you still think of this as a fight?” She gestured from herself to Jamie.

  “I suppose it’s certainly no less sensible than most of the wars I’ve seen.”

  “That’s sad.” The girl took a piece of bread, spread butter on it, and sat. “What’s the worst cause you’ve ever seen for the start of a war?”

  “Most of them are terrible. However, I need to remind you that you are here to speak to your brother and begin to discover the way back to each other. There are obstacles but you’ll do it.”

  Taigan sighed. “I suppose you have to be mysterious, don’t you? It’s like I wouldn’t be ready to see family until I asked for them.”

  “Yes.” Prima felt uneasy about lying—at least, she assumed that was the emotion—but she decided it was better than admitting to the twins that she didn’t have any idea how to fix their situation.

  That, or maybe she was getting as good at self-deception as a human.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, Elantria woke Ben before dawn.

  “Come on.”

  “Where—” He broke off as a yawn took control of his mouth. “Are we going?”

  She didn’t bother to answer the question and looked away to give him time to dress before she led him through the house—he had been given a real room the night before—and out into the darkness.

  As they walked, she put a finger to her lips and he nodded. She pointed to her eyes, waved her fingers around to indicate being watchful, and pointed at him. He nodded again and made a point to look at the places they passed.

  They headed west through the city and along a street that skirted the Sunset Market, which already bustled in the darkness. He made sure to look at the buildings along the way—not only the old edifices of stone and iron but also the way they were maintained, the guards outside or visible at the parapets, and the people who slept in the shadows nearby.

  This part of the city looked like it had once been the most expensive but was no longer well-favored.
The buildings still stood tall only by virtue of good construction however many years before, but the expensive stonework was covered in grime and lichen and the mortar was crumbling. Iron-banded doors—which seemed the general preference—looked like the only things that were well-maintained.

  As for the other doors opening off the street, some appeared to be shops but there were no signs anywhere. This was an area you either knew or you didn’t. Outsiders were clearly not welcome.

  When they reached the western side of the city, Elantria turned south. They walked through neighborhoods that grew ever more dilapidated until the majority of the buildings around them barely deserved the name. Roofs had fallen in and walls were rubble. The stone was different—more like sandstone and almost gold in color. Plinths marked where statues had once stood, but the most that remained of any of them was feet.

  They drew closer to the sea. The smell was stronger and the gulls circled overhead more frequently. Once empty streets were now filled with people who trudged toward the semi-derelict piers with old fishing nets. Some carried lunches tied in a piece of cloth and others carried nothing.

  None of them took much notice of the two companions and those who did lowered their gazes hastily as if they hoped Elantria wouldn’t notice them.

  She and Ben both stood out there, but her all-black clothing and confident movements were far more intimidating than his slightly uncoordinated walk and loose, plain clothes. He was fairly sure he was safe, but he was also very aware that he likely would not be if he were on his own.

  The road climbed sharply at the southwestern point of the city. He welcomed the burn in his legs like an old friend and felt the heat gathering in the air. It would be a hot day unless there was rain, and he wasn’t sure even that would help for long.

  When they reached the top of the hill, Elantria gestured ahead of them with a smile and his jaw dropped.

  They were in a temple, or the ruins of one. The rising sun angled through the columns and lit an alcove at the back where a statue sat untouched by human hands. It was a man with his hands spread in front of him and a benevolent smile on his face. There was a bird’s nest in one hand and debris around his feet, some of which looked like candle stubs.