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The Lanes fucking stank. It was hard to tell how much the Lanes stank until you’d left them, but once you had you’d always be able to tell. The air up above was so clear, so pure in a way that Vi struggled to put in to words. She’d been, what, eight, when she first went up to the Promenade? Every day since then, she’d been able to taste it, a sour scratching at the back of her mouth. Vander would talk about it sometimes, when he was in the mood to tell his stories. Thick, choking clouds of chemical residue, suffocating those in the mines and poisoning those outside. Less now than there used to be, but the scent was baked deep into the stones of every building.
Faint wafts of alcohol drifted down from above her, fruity notes and deep earths and sharp tangs that threatened to burn the back of Vi’s throat just from smelling them. The Last Drop was busy, as it always managed to be, a small haven of safety where you don’t need to watch over your shoulder – at least, not as much as normal. Mylo and Claggor gently snored in unison on the other side of the bedroom. They’d been working all day, tending tables and taking orders, and had collapsed in exhaustion with the room still lit.
Candle-smoke drifted in front of Vi’s face, one more shade of grey against the others that surrounded her, bringing a soft sooty smell as its last memory of burning. It was late at night – she wasn’t sure how late, half an hour since the candle was snuffed, maybe – and sleep wasn’t coming.
She knew why. Every couple of seconds a new sound would come from below her, the soft rustling of wool sheets, a gentle whimper. Powder was tossing back and forth on the lower bunk, making enough noise to keep her older sister awake. Vi chewed the inside of her cheek.
“Powder?” she asked, staring up at wood panelling of the ceiling, trying to keep her voice low as to not wake her brothers. “What’s up?”
Powder mumbled something indistinct, her voice small and wavering around the unclear words. Vi could picture her reaction as clearly as if she could see her face, the way she would avoid eye contact, the quiet non-answers.
Vi didn’t have the energy for this. She’d been babysitting Powder all day, and she just wanted a break. Pow could bring it up in the morning if she needed to, could bother Vi when she had the strength of will to care about her latest bickering fight with Ekko, or whichever gadget she couldn’t get to work properly, or whatever it was.
“V-Vi?”
Vi could have ignored her. She could almost hear Claggor telling her to – Powder would be fine, she’d fall asleep eventually, and if she didn’t, she could make it through tomorrow tired. The little bit of hardship would do her good, Mylo might have said, it would go a way toward making Vi’s kid sister less likely to jinx every job she took her on.
Her kid sister.
“Talk to me, Pow.”
“You- you know those games we play?” she asked, still hesitant, searching for the right words even as she said them. “With our monsters?”
“Yeah, I know. The ten-footed kiddo-squisher, right?”
“Mhm, those.” There was a hint of a smile in her voice at Vi’s description, despite her distress. “What… what do we do if one of those comes looking for us? If a ten-footed kiddo-squisher tries to get us? B-because you said that they can smell if you’re scared of them so I can’t hide and there’s gonna be more than one of them so I won’t be able to run away and I really don’t want them to catch me, Vi, what can I do if they come looking?” Words spilled out of her breathlessly, the dam holding back her thoughts having been shattered.
“You know how that works, Pow, come on.” It felt like breaking the magic of the game to say it out loud. “There’ll always be a bigger monster. A friendly razor-toothed muncher that eats kiddo-squishers, that kind of thing, y’know?” She grimaced to herself; that had sounded better in her head.
Powder hummed something that sounded like agreement, but her breathing stayed tense and shaky. Vi didn’t say anything, waiting for her sister to figure out how she wanted to continue.
Moments stretched into minutes, quiet enough that Vi was almost able to convince herself that Powder had gone to sleep. Vi might have believed it, if not for the occasional false starts at sentences, breaths taken in to make words that never followed.
Vi rolled over, manoeuvring herself in the narrow bed. She propped herself up slightly, squinting down in the darkness over the edge of her bunk, looking for Powder. She was barely visible in the low light, more identifiable by her movement than anything else.
Something eased in the room as Powder caught sight of Vi, a softening cadence of her breathing, a gentle release of tension just from the reaffirmed presence of her sister.
“What if they’re not monsters?”
Vi knew what she was talking about, of course. You didn’t speak with that kind of fear without good cause, and Powder had more than enough reason to be afraid.
“What if it’s the Blues coming for us, Vi?”
Thoughts came to her unbidden.
Red smoke filling the air, acridity coating her tongue and filling her lungs.
The smoke drifting lazily in the air took on a different quality, harsh where it once was familiar, sharp where it was soft.
Armour such a dark blue it’s black, lit up for an instant by the flash of a rifle, the retort so loud her ears stung.
Powder whimpered gently, the sound muffled under the weight of the memories.
Grey eyes staring at her, unblinking, unseeing. A childhood of warmth and care replaced by a limp body.
A moment of shifting, uncertain light from above let the faintest glow spill into the room. Blue eyes glinted at her from below, shining with trust and shimmering with tears.
Powder’s gentle singing, a mask, a distraction to protect what innocence she had left.
“Vi?” Powder’s voice was wavering, quietly begging for reassurance.
Vi swallowed, forced the memories down. Her eyes refocussed on the grey smudge of her sister below. There were bigger problems to deal with than her own thoughts.
She reached down, one arm dangling from her bunk. Powder took it, her hand small and swallowed up by Vi’s.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s monsters, or…” Vi swallowed. “Or if it’s Enforcers, or anything else in the world.” Warmth swelled with in her as she made her promises. “As long as I’m with you, you’ll be safe. Nothing’s going to get you while I’m here.”
Vi squeezed Powder’s hand, and Powder squeezed back. For a moment they were bound together, inseparable, united. “I’ll be there, Pow,” she said. “Even if nobody else is, I’ll always be there with you, sis.”