“MMC?” Remi finally says, their face pinched with anger. “Maz Management, Diz, really?”
I groan. Totally called it.
“Look,” I say, cutting off their tirade before it can begin. “Being all high and mighty won’t pay my bills once you all move to Jattapore and I have to get a new flat by myself.”
And there it is, the giant neon elephant in the room we’ve all been silently tiptoeing around, making plans and celebrating futures but never quite acknowledging the core truth: they’re leaving, I’m staying, and this family’s days are numbered in the single digits.
I don’t want to fight, but if they’re going to poke at me, you better believe I’m gonna fire back. “Besides, what was everyone else up to after the spellplague? It was MMC that figured out how to stop the contamination while everyone was dying. MMC figured out what to do with all us sad little orphans. MMC did research on the earthquakes. MMC is researching a cure. Maybe I want to be part of all that.”
“Diz,” Jaesin says warningly.
Remi waves him off. “I’m not just some sad little spellsick orphan. I’m a spellweaver. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be cut off from something that’s like . . .” They gesture wildly at the air around them, air that once held ambient traces of maz at all times. “Like breathing, Diz. I may as well be a techwitch now. No offense, Ania. What you do is amazing, but for spellweavers it’s like walking around with earmuffs and super-thick gloves on all the time. I can’t feel it everywhere anymore. It’s . . . weird.”
Ania wisely keeps her mouth shut. She still has her parents, and their money. She has no trouble getting whatever amount of maz she needs. For us, for Remi, we have to steal it. That’s how we got started siphoning maz from MMC’s pipes in the first place. I sigh and rub a hand over the shaved side of my head.
“I get all that, Remi, I do. But we were ground zero for the worst plague this world has ever seen, and when the whole city was dying, MMC gave people jobs, and bought toys and books for us, and made sure we went to school. That all costs money. I’m not saying they should charge as much as they do, but I’m saying . . .”
And there’s the anger, back again, fresh and hot. Remi is leaving anyway, so what do they care if I work for MMC?
“You know what, I don’t have to justify myself. I need a job. I got a job offer. And I’d be damn good at it.”
Remi scoffs and stands, leaving their half-eaten dinner on the floor.
“Sure. Yeah. Whatever you say, Diz,” they say.
The rest of us finish our dinner in tense silence. Maybe if Remi was staying in town I would work a little harder to keep the peace. Or maybe it’s better this way. Start cutting my ties now so it’ll suck less seven days from now. Maybe our black-market gigs are all that’s been keeping us together the past two years, and now that they’re over, we’re over. Maybe we should have drifted apart long ago.
Once the dishes are stacked and Ania is elbows-deep in dishwater, Remi comes back out of the bedroom doing their best interpretation of Ania’s worship-me walk. My eyes nearly bug out of my head.
“You changed!” Ania says, her gesture flinging soapy water across the room. “You look great.”
“You looked great before,” I say, then quickly drop my gaze. We’re supposed to be fighting. Those are definitely not fighting words.
But apparently it was the right thing to say, because a tinge of color blooms on Remi’s cheeks. “Please. We’re going to Club Nova. I’m gonna bring it.”
Well, I guess that answers the question of what we’re doing tonight. It’ll be impossible to stay mad with them slinking around, dancing in those tight wine-purple skinny jeans and that scoop-neck shirt that’s already slipping off their shoulder.
I roll my eyes at myself. Woe is me, swoon. Whatever will I do? However will I manage? Get it together.
I nod decisively, get to my feet, and walk right past Remi into the single shared bedroom to pull my clothing drawer out from under my bed.
Apparently I need to bring it too.
Four
WE’VE BEEN AFTER ANIA TO get us into Nova for a year. Five minutes inside, though, and I’m already seriously doubting our choice.
There’s sunnaz everywhere, glimmering decorative accents in the darkness, though it’s the most expensive maz there is right now. Twinkling spellwoven lights cling high along the walls and hover overhead, shifting color in response to the music and falling in a glittering shower from the ceiling whenever the beat drops.
I can’t help but hate the place a little bit. Their earthquake wards are probably in perfect shape too.
Maybe Ania was right not to bring us before. The gross display of excess wealth, especially after today’s earthquake, gets under my skin in a big way. Remi forces me and Jaesin to listen to the morning maz update every day by blaring it so loud we can’t plead ignorance. It reports the fluctuating prices and supply of the different strains of maz, and Remi’s tactic has done its job. I’ve apparently absorbed enough of it to be righteously pissed.
It reminds me of the parties MMC throws once a year for all the good little orphans who manage to keep their grades up. I used to go every time. Free food, right? Jaesin came with me for a few years, but eventually he started staying home with Remi, who sat out in protest. Their loss. The parties always started out as civilized affairs. Speeches, bubbly fake champagne, and elderly employees looking kindly upon us poor orphan children. Two hours and significantly less adult supervision later, though, and they looked more like this—all decorum gone right out the window.
Beside me, a wide-eyed girl stares as someone goes tearing past with their hair on fire, screaming at the top of their lungs. I roll my eyes. Anyone who grew up in a group home or in the Cliffs has seen that illusion a hundred times. Maybe rich kids are on such a tight parental leash that they haven’t been overexposed to every prank on the planet? But some things are universal: so long as one single person falls for it, the cycle will continue.
A techwitch from Ania’s school who recently paid me to fix his hardware is repurposing the glowing maz decor for his own means. He’s got a spellweaver buddy drawing the threads away from the wall, feeding them straight into his ware, and he spins the whole mess into some kind of rave hula hoop to accentuate his awful table dancing. The delicate tech protests his wild movements, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
“You’re gonna break it again if you keep pushing it like that, you know!” I shout over the music. I don’t know why I bother. If he comes back to me for more repairs, it’ll only build my post-graduation noodle fund. Seeing him abuse his (gorgeous, expensive) hardware like that hurts me deep in my broke-ass soul, though.
“What did you say was wrong this time?” Nash calls to me from his tabletop, his eyes never leaving his casting hands, completely unrepentant.
“Accelerometer needed recalibration.” I flip the nonshaved side of my hair out of my eyes with a toss of my head and smile. The perfect picture of innocence. “Gotta quit jerking off with your ware on.”
Nash scoffs in my general direction, swaying to the thumping beat of the music. “Well, fortunately I pay you to fix my ware, not teach me how to use it.”