Look, kid, it’s fine if you don’t want to talk. You can stay here forever for all I care. And I was prepared to let you stand in the pouring goddamn rain for days if you wanted, protesting whatever you think is wrong with me. You’re just not a threat to me, okay? The reason you ended up here is because you pulled a knife on that guy - just some guy, tryna do his own thing - to prove a point. I don’t know where you thought that’d get you. You didn’t really mean to kill him, I know that. Yeah, don’t worry, he’s fine. And this vow of silence or whatever you think it is: I don’t know what kind of bleak stoicism you’re trying to convince me of but honestly it’s depressing and you’re proving nothing.

    What kind of family you got back home? Think they miss you? Yeah, I don’t need you to tell me, I’ve got it all right here but I mean, come on, just give me something to work with. I’m not your enemy. I don’t usually see cases like you personally. It’s all up to the guards - well, we call them rehabilitators because they’re not really guards, it’s not like I need guards; fuck, makes it sound like some kind of supposedly benevolent police state; “rehabilitators,” the hell was I thinking calling them that - anyway, it’s up to the guards to put you back in line, with the softest kid gloves this side of the Raktar, mind you. But you just break my little heart, with your jaw clenched in righteous anger and a ten page fuckin’ manifesto written in your eyes.

    I know this is going to sound cliche, but I used to be just like you. We used to have this thing called poverty. Not that you would know, conjuring shit from thin air like it’s nothing. I mean, we had magic when I was a kid, but not like this; few knew what it could really do ‘cause everyone thought there was some kind of integrity to living under the illusion of freedom. But yeah, I was a poor kid living on the west side of Derdian, which you probably know as the land of Flak and craft beer. I played Flak all the time, you know, before it turned into this major thing. We threw poles around without any proper gear like head trauma was no big deal.

    But around your age I didn’t do any of that anymore, thought it was for kids; little did I know, right? Anyway, when I was your age I’d sulk in bars and wait for someone to come along and see me and think I was cool. Wore this sleeveless denim jacket with patches sewn in, bands named shit like, “Magefucker” and - yeah, I saw that smile, don’t lie - and “Runic Lobotomy,” god did we hate mages back then. The dives in Derdian weren’t like they are now, they were these godawful holes in the wall that smelled like cat piss. You could see the mold eating away at the corners of every bathroom, not like the bartenders gave a shit ‘cause when you worked in a place like Derdian in ‘67 you were poor and when you’re poor you can’t see past next Thursday and the owners of these places lived in either Sanctis or Methulum, drinking champagne in their upscale apartments.

    And god, the shit that went down in those places. It was like those old gangster movies that the King confiscated and wiped in ‘62. Yeah, you think you’ve got it bad now, we weren’t allowed to have too long a memory because what happens when a person knows where they come from? But the shit that went down: one time I was just sitting there moping over some tasteless glass of something or other, the lone patron at like two PM, when in marches Kar, this skinny thing I went to high school with who thought he was king of the world. He had like six guys behind him; apparently he got the attention of someone in Cypher’s royal family when he shot a kid peddling a competitor’s line of Corn and Cypher let him into their little sapio cult.

    But Kar marches in, thinking he was the shit just ‘cause he had a few runic sequences memorized, and he goes up to the bartender and he just starts railing on him. Not a word spoken, he just goes up . . . I mean, he went up to the counter and grabbed the bartender by the collar and brought his face right down on the wood. There was blood everywhere, nose popped like a water balloon. Ever seen someone’s nose get broken? No? That’s ‘cause it doesn’t happen anymore, ever, and who do you have to thank for that? But hell, I jumped right out of my seat, saw myself leaping to the guy’s defense, punching Kar right in the gut. But it didn’t happen, I was all shaky and sweaty. No, I just stood there, I just watched.

    The guy was fine, I mean as fine as you could be with your nose in pieces. Fine as in not dead. Kar let him go and he reeled, gasping for air like he’d just been underwater five minutes. Kar was speaking all soft, with the quiet confidence of someone who’s got six guys built like rhinoceroses behind him. He said some pretentious shit like, “You’ve benefited from our benevolence for a time beyond what you can afford.”

    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the bartender was saying, eyes half closed and little tendrils of snot and blood stretching between his wet lips. Guy was a mess.

    “You’re through. We’re buying this establishment from you, whether you agree with the decision or not.” Fucking asshole, Kar. He let a moment or two pass before barking at the poor guy. “You’re leaving, now.”

    “Okay, I’m going,” he conceded. Could barely get the words out.

    “You’d better be, Groth.” Kar spit that name out like it was a dirty word, not that he’d ever touch a mouth like mine with a ten foot pole. Thought talking like a normal person made his brain congeal or something.

    Anyway, this guy Groth stumbled out from behind the counter, must’ve taken two minutes for him to walk six feet ‘cause of how much his legs were shaking. “I don’t see much haste in your step; do I need to correct that?" Pretentious as hell, I'm telling you. He eventually made it around the counter when two of Kar’s thugs grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out the door, tossed him on the street like the bouncers that place never had.

    Then Kar turned to me. “Raena,” he purred. His tongue was just oozing honey, and god, I’d never felt such fucking rage. I mean, to prove my powerlessness by fucking up some helpless guy in front of me and then to just turn around and say my name like that. I know this guy wanted a shot with me, ‘cause, I admit, I was a bit like him back in high school, thinking myself some kind of intellectual. Fantasized all the time about being the populist hero who’d re-derive magic and take it out of the hands of our oppressors - I mean, give me a break - and I mean I guess I wasn’t wrong but it could’ve been anyone, I was just unlucky enough to be the sad bastard tasked with poring over a rune tablet for years after everything went to shit.

    But anyway, there Kar was, my name catapulting from his tongue like it was a poem and he was your freshman literature professor who’d spent just a little too long reading it over and over at two in the morning. Not that there was really much literature to read when I was your age, and not like I had a college to go to. But he said it, my name. He said, “Raena, what happened to you? Spending your time in a place like this?”

    “Don’t . . .” I started. Don’t what? The hell was I gonna say?

    “It’s hard for people like us,” he crooned. “We have to find help where we can get it, and I’m offering. I’ve offered so many times, yet you scorn me. You turn me away.”

    I was scared. Still sweating. “I’m okay. I promise.” God, I sounded pathetic.

    “Raena. I like you. And I’m sorry you had to see that. If he had given me a choice, I would’ve been kinder. I would’ve talked with him.” The guys behind him were antsy. Just itching to break the next nose or whatever. “But he didn’t see reason. People here are desperate, Raena. They cling to whatever they have. And sometimes they have to discover what’s truly low to reach the heights they’re capable of.”

    “I know,” I lied. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

    “The deal is in his favor. He’s going to have some money when this is all over.” One of the guys behind him smirked. Another guy whispered something to Kar, and Kar flinched. Just ever so slightly. I took that to mean Groth wasn’t getting his money. “Raena, I have to go. But I’ll see you. I always do.”

    Yeah, I don’t think that came out like he meant it to. But okay, I was in a band, and this guy showed up at like a third of the concerts we played. Best fuckin’ experience of my life, that band - we called ourselves “The Palm from Whence Comes the Flame;” yeah, mages again - but I was sick of seeing his ugly fucking mug hovering a foot above the crowd in every pit, waving his arms around, high off his ass. Well no, he wasn’t high because he never got high, he probably went home and thought about how he was the only person in that pit to truly appreciate the heights of passion to which . . . Well you know what I’m tryna say, he acted like he was in some sort of trance but never once had a molecule of Corn touched his blood.

    But as I watched him go, the shock had worn off. Seemed normal, almost, like I was watching him march around Swift Street with his entourage again, except this time there was a dude lying in a pool of blood there too, crying his eyes out. I waited ‘till they were gone to leave, ‘cause what was I gonna do? Just walk right out with them? And I almost knelt down near this Groth guy and offered to help him out, but also, what was I going to do? I didn’t know shit about medicine, I couldn’t give him his business back, I’d just be there. So I left. I got on my bike and started up the engine - god, that thing smelled like ass - and headed home.

    Now, home for me up until I was - what, 13? - was this stitched together little shack with a person per square inch. There were two families that lived there: mine, which had my mom, my dad, sister, Aunt Ilda - picked up my mouth from her - like six cousins. No, actually, just two, but it felt like six because then there were the Rodaels, who consisted of this couple and the guy’s sister who was a widow, and then you’ve got their five adult children, and I’m pretty sure two of them were fuccking each other. No, I shouldn’t say that, they were cool. I think one of them got conscripted, never heard from him again.

    But you’ve got to get an idea of what this place looked like. Back in ‘42 they built all these prefab houses and tried to market them like a sort of sleek alternative to the aesthetic hodgepodge that was urban housing at the time, but they were ugly as shit and literally no’one wanted to live in them. And it’s not like Derdian was a shithole at the time, these houses were just butt-ugly. Well it was a shithole, just not as much of a shithole, but the basic idea is that there were all these houses that were empty.

    So, naturally, you’ve got squatters who move in and then the corporation that built them got mages - fucking mages, can you believe it? From the embassy - to clear them out, burned them alive. So if nobody wanted to live there before, nobody wanted to live there after all that, and the corporation straight up said fuck it, we don’t want this plot of land anymore. Sold it dirt cheap to some gangster along with all the unused prefab components and this guy just rearranges the whole thing. Basically just dumps everything he’s got in the dirt and lets it fall where it falls, then moves a bunch of people in and expects them to sort out the mess. And then he goes, “Hey, if you like your shitty house, take a shot at this shitty job,” and you’ve got hordes of indentured servants - practically, if not legally - working in the factories that make the philosophers’ rune tablets, ‘cause they’ve gotta come from somewhere.

    But we didn’t live there forever. No, then we moved to this apartment, this studio, up in Methulum. It was supposed to be better, and my aunt ran off with some guy and the cousins split off too so we had a lot more space. I started working to help out with rent. Packed refrigerated boxes full of delicacies and put them on the back of a dragon headed straight for the palace because, you know, philosophers’ve got to be fed treats or they won’t make spells like a good little civil servant ought to. You know a dragon’s wings don’t do shit? They’re just for show, it’s all a chip in their brain, just like mages have.

    Anyway, I got fed up with that quick enough. Felt like I was doing the same thing my parents did, groveling in the dirt in service of people who didn’t care about me. That’s when I found my band, who knew this guy who made . . . Shit, how long have I been talking? Leave me alone with someone who keeps their mouth shut and I just have a field day, I guess. Listen, kid: I wanna hear you say that you won’t do it again. That’s all. There’s no harm in letting you go: if you try to pull some stunt like you did back there in front of the palace, it’s “poof,” you’re back here, nobody gets hurt. But still, I wanna hear you say it. It freaks people out, you know, all of it, and I’d like to keep it to a minimum if possible.

    But I guess you’re still bent on playing the mute. That’s fine. Look, the guards’ll get you something to eat and then you can sleep it off, and in the morning maybe you’ll feel differently. I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?