I clench my jaw hard, angling so I’ve got Halle glaring on one side of me and Kelda glaring on the other. “You’re little enough. Too young to be running around Covenant on your own.”
“At my age, Halle was staying by herselfandwatching me.”
Halle shakes her head. “That’s only because Mama and Papa were gone and Val keptdisappearingfor work—”
“I could work! I could help out with the bills!” The way the words tumble out of Kelda’s mouth—like they can’t hardly wait their turn—makes me think she’s been waiting for an opening for this idea for a while. “The lady who runs one of the food stalls on the corner, she says—”
“No!” It’s in unison again. We should take this show on the road.
I brace my hands on the tabletop, flipping that switch in my head that lets me push Val into the background so the Butcher can do their work. My frustrated expression goes cold and blank, imperious as I return both their glares.
“Nothing is changing, all right?” I look over at Halle. “I’m not taking the fabricator job or any other job, so quit asking.” I swing my head around to Kelda. “And you’re not leaving school just so you can work at some food stall and play at being a grown-up. That’s it. Conversation over.”
Kelda’s face flushes bright red, tears welling in her hazel eyes as she spins on her heel and stomps back into the bedroom she shares with Halle. “You are theworstsibling in the wholeuniverse!”
She slams the door behind her, hard enough to rattle the frame, and then it’s just me and Halle on opposite sides of the dining table.
“Nice,” Halle says, fitting a lifetime’s worth of exhaustion into that one word. “That was great.”
She crosses the dining room, calling after Kelda, and soon the only one left standing there is me.
I turn and storm off into my own bedroom, closing the door tightly behind me. Crawling on top of my bed, I stand on tiptoe to reach the ceiling, moving aside a panel in the middle and pulling out a bottle of moonshine from the dark crawl space. I take a long pull straight from the bottle, relishing in the warm bite of the alcohol as it slides down my throat and hits my empty belly.
Mama and Papa never drank moonshine or any other kind of booze that the Heraldic Ministry regularly distributes to dusters. Sure, the Ministry can’t be bothered to always get us our water or naphtha on time, but damned if they aren’t going to make sure we have access to government-approved alcohol.
Placating measures, Mama always said, with acid in her voice.
I should be more like them. I shouldn’t let this shit into the house. It’s going to make everything worse in the long run—my headache, my thirst, my relationship with Halle when she inevitably smells it on my breath—but right now… it helps. Makes it easier to put the Butcher back in their box and soothe the rough edges that Val is left to deal with.
It helps me forget about the blood I put on the decks. Because that’s the job. That’s what I’m paid to do. And deep down in a place I don’t like to look very often, I’m a little bit in love with how good at it I am.
I sink down onto my bed, taking another drink of the moonshine. It’s so high proof that it burns my insides, but I don’t mind the burn.
I deserve it.
The thought drifts up unbidden as I remember Kelda’s flushed expression, the outrage and embarrassment inside her tears. And Halle’s old-soul face, lined with disappointment. In me. They don’t know what I am or what I’ve become, and I never want them to. I’ve worked too hard to get us where we are, even as Halle and Kelda fight and chafe at my protection and my secrets.The figure of the Butcher looms between me and them, and the gap becomes more like a chasm every day.
It has to happen. I love them enough to let them hate me if that’s what it takes. It’s a perfect, pointed pain. The kind of bittersweet hurt that either softens you or sharpens you. Melts you down or hones your edges.
I’m the latter one, and that’s fine by me. Let me be the knife in the dark. I’ll gladly use my sharp edges to carve out a space where my sisters are free to be soft, to melt as much as they wish.
The moonshine swims in my belly, making the room around me float and blur at the edges. I close my eyes, letting it carry me away someplace where there are walls high enough to keep the night at bay.
But only just.
The night prowls just outside the door, calling me. Waiting to eat me up.
CHAPTER SIX
“BY GIVING SO MUCH OF THEMSELVES TO THE FORMATION OF TRINITY, THE HERALDS PROVIDE FOR THEIR CHILDREN. THEY FEED US, THEY PROVIDE US WITH WATER AND ENERGY, AND WE MUST REMEMBER THAT AND KEEP IT WITH US IN EVERYTHING WE DO.”
—THE DIVINE ORIGINS OF TRINITY, THE ARCHIVAL COUNCIL OF THE HERALDIC MINISTRY
Sometimes, in the dark hours before dawn, when I’m dead asleep, I dream of water pouring down from the sky, running in rivulets over my skin, cooling everything it touches. As I reach out, letting the droplets hit my hand, the word comes to my mind:rain.
Water doesn’t come from the sky on Trinity. It never has. So I’m not sure why this rain feels so real, so possible, when I’m asleep. But sometimes I would give anything to stay there in that dream.
Tonight is not a night for dreams, though. I toss and turn, half dozing and restless, sweating through my sheets. I could blame the moonshine, but to be honest, I haven’t slept well sincewe moved into this place and I got my own room. My sisters and I spent our entire lives up to that point sleeping in a tangle, curled up together for comfort and safety and because we often only had one mattress between us. Turns out when you grow up that way, it’s not easy to suddenly sleep soundly all on your own. Kelda hadn’t taken to it at all and wound up sharing Halle’s room.
