“Don’t trust me? I’m terribly wounded,” Alden murmured, ushering his grandmother out of the room.
“It’s fine. He doesn’t know where it is.” Nate dropped one necklace after another on the counter. The beads clicked and rolled against the glass.
“Keep the purple one, little Pixel princess,” Alden said as he came back. He grabbed a penknife off the counter and tapped it against the glass rapidly. “It suits you.”
“Really?” Pixel asked, snatching it away from Nate as if expecting him to protest. She pulled it on and smiled, weaving her fingers around the shiny beads.
“Stick that thing under your shirt, or you won’t make it a block without losing it,” Brick said.
Nate helped Pixel get it hidden. Alden’s generosity unsettled him. He’d never seen Alden give anything away for free, but there was something oddly genuine about his affection for Pixel. “Thank you, Alden. I’ll pay you back for it.”
Alden smiled too sweetly. “I’m certain you will.”
CHAPTER NINE
Nate panted as he followed Brick up the dark stairwell to the room Reed and the gang had taken over in the bank. He squeezed Pixel’s hand—more for his own comfort than hers. “This building is too tall.”
“Better up here than in another basement.” Brick lit the way with a crank-light. She stepped around a pile of fallen plaster and dodged a sticky pile of sewage. “Mostly.”
It was impossible to get away from the stink of the Withers. In the summer, waste-trenches in the alleys steamed until the air thickened with rot. In the winter, the smoky-sour scent of burning garbage clung to everything.
A handful of kids, street-dirty and thin, passed them on the stairwell. They carried bags full of garbage coated with sludge. Pixel’s fingers twitched. That’d be her fate, if she were alone. Dodging trappers every day and twisting trash into makeshift sticks of kindling to sell at the market.
At the next landing, the kids gathered around two Servants in long robes. The Servants handed them rolls of gray bread and jugs of water. Nate and Brick hung back in the shadows as Pixel darted over with the other children and accepted a roll.
“Gods watch you,” one of the Servants called to Brick and Nate, her voice as gentle as a lullaby.
Startled by a wave of sadness, Nate took off up the stairs.
“What spooked you?” Brick asked as she caught up to him with Pixel.
Nate shrugged. He couldn’t explain the hollowness in his chest. When he reached the bend in the stairs, he looked back, feeling foolish. The Servants were already out of sight.
“How do you get to be a Servant?” Pixel asked with a mouth full of bread.
“Who knows?” Brick huffed. “They pick who they want.”
“People who have magic?” Her eyes darted to Nate, and he shook his head tightly.
“People who have a strong stomach. There’s no magic here,” Brick said, gesturing at the crumbling walls and the sticky garbage on the stairs. She guided them through the hole in the wall that led from the stairwell to Reed’s new hideout.
Nate stumbled, surprised by the muggy wind blasting through the room. He caught sight of the dizzying view and sank to an unsteady crouch.
“Why. . .why is there no wall?” he asked, trying not to look. The hole where a wall should have been was ragged and scorch-marked—the scar of an old fire.
“Doesn’t matter.” Brick helped him to his feet and nudged him toward the solid interior wall.
“No wonder nobody claimed this place.” He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes until the dizziness passed.
“Everyone knows to stay well enough away from the edge, and we’re safer high up,” Brick said. “Trappers aren’t welcome here, and the A-Holes aren’t stupid enough to come up this high.”
“How high are we?” Nate had lost count as they climbed.
Brick smirked. “Eighteen flights.”
He dared a look at the gaping hole. That explained the distant gleam of Gathos City’s silver towers.
“You scared?” Pixel asked, pressed tight against his leg like she needed to hold him up.
