Jade War

CHAPTER 33 Not a Safe Place

During his second year in Port Massy, Anden took a part-time job at a hardware store, stocking shelves, manning the cash register, assisting customers with home improvement projects. He still had his usual course load to manage, but he wanted to earn some extra money. He could help out the Hians with some of their monthly expenses, save some cash for the future, and have a little extra to spend. Financially, he’d relied on the Kaul family all his life; now that his prospects in the clan seemed so low, he felt as if he ought to be better prepared to pay his own way through life. Also, he would rather be doing something besides studying. Working at Starr Lumber & Supply would improve his ability to speak Espenian, so in truth, it could be considered part of his education. He could now navigate public transit and read signs and hold conversations with strangers. It was satisfying to feel self-reliant. Anden had never understood why, years ago, his cousin Shae had gone abroad and distanced herself from the clan; now he thought he had a better idea.

He’d continued meeting up with Cory Dauk and his relayball friends at the grudge hall all throughout the winter and the dreary wet spring. When he first told Mr. and Mrs. Hian where he was going on Fifthday evenings, he was surprised that they didn’t seem to approve. He would’ve thought they would be happy he was spending more time with friends in the neighborhood. Instead, Mrs. Hian said, in a tone that suggested Anden might be making a poor decision, “Anden-se, that place is not a good influence on young people. So much violence. It gives people a bad impression of us.”

“I have great respect for the Dauks,” Mr. Hian put in, sliding Anden a gaze of paternal concern, “but the grudge hall… I wouldn’t spend time there myself. The cockfighting and gambling and dueling—those things are against the law. What if the police raid the building and you’re caught doing something illegal? You could have your student visa revoked.”

It occurred to Anden that if that happened, he would be deported back to Kekon immediately and Hilo would have no choice but to take him back in. He didn’t voice this flash of wry optimism to the Hians. Instead, he promised them that he would never engage in gambling or dueling of any kind.

“But there are always a lot of Green Bones there,” said Mrs. Hian, persisting in her concern. “It’s not safe.”

In Janloon, it was common knowledge that the safest places to be were those frequented by Green Bones. Excepting unusual circumstances of clan war, there were few spots less prone to trouble than establishments like the Twice Lucky restaurant or the Lilac Divine Gentleman’s Club. So Mrs. Hian’s worries made no sense to Anden until he remembered that the proposed law Dauk Losun had spoken of last summer had been passed by the National Assembly and jade itself was now another thing that was illegal in Espenia.

He often forgot this fact. He could accept that a great many things were different in Espenia than they were in Kekon, but the idea of banning jade was as hard for Anden to imagine as forbidding the use of cars or money—of course, not everyone could or should have those things because they were dangerous in the wrong hands, but trying to do away with them altogether would be ridiculous. How would society function?

Anden reminded himself that he was reacting with a narrow Kekonese mind-set. Other places in the world had gotten by for thousands of years with no jade at all and so the availability of it now was a new and harmful thing. The recent prohibition against civilian ownership and selling of jade had not changed anything so far as Anden could tell; no Green Bone that he knew of was giving up his green on account of it. All the new law did, Anden thought, was promote a negative view of Kekonese people.

Mr. Hian was thinking of a different threat besides law enforcement, however. “The Crews have left our neighborhood alone for a long time, but the Bosses—they see there’s gambling and moneylending going on here that they don’t control. And jade.” Mr. Hian frowned deeply. “Dauk-jen said it wouldn’t be long before the understanding broke down. You don’t want to be caught in the middle if anything bad happens between Green Bones and Boss Kromner’s Crew.”

This rationale Anden could better understand. Civilians were always better off steering clear of conflicts that did not involve them. Seated in the Hians’ kitchen, he grew quiet and pensive. He didn’t want to cause the Hians any worry on his account, but he couldn’t give up going to the grudge hall and meeting with Cory.

Seeing this, the Hians relented. “You’re our guest, and we feel as responsible for your safety as if you were one of our own sons, but it’s not up to us to tell you what you can or can’t do; you’re a grown man who can make his own decisions.” Mrs. Hian sighed. “You grew up with Green Bones, so naturally you want to be back among them, and who are we to say no? We only want you to be careful.” Anden gratefully promised them that he would be and that they needn’t worry.

It was not, in truth, that he wanted to be back among Green Bones, as Mrs. Hian had assumed. Although he enjoyed the food and drink, the displays of jade ability, and the generally convivial atmosphere of the grudge hall (punctuated on occasion with the genuine and deadly serious settling of grievances), it was, as he’d already learned on his first visit there, not really like Kekon at all. At best, it was something entirely different, at worst, an exaggerated facsimile of a working-class Kekonese tavern. If anything, it made him miss home more than ever. What he truly wanted came after his visits to the grudge hall, when Cory would offer to drive Anden back to the Hians’ but instead drove the two of them to his own apartment.

Cory did not own the place he lived in, which was a one-bedroom condo only ten minutes away from his parents’ house. The Dauks kept it as an investment property and were planning to renovate it and put it back on the market once Cory went to law school in the fall. It was drafty, the furnace was noisy, and the hot water heater badly needed replacing, but these were minor discomforts. Anden was forced to admit to himself, with some embarrassment, that he would probably follow Cory anywhere the other man asked him.

After that first time in the car, Anden had spent the entire following week thinking about his friend, about the pale skin of Cory’s torso illuminated by streetlight, about his teasing eyes and quick smile, his shapely hands and mouth. When the weather was still bad the following Fifthday, Cory phoned the Hians’ house to ask if Anden wanted to meet up at the grudge hall again, and Anden said yes. Afterward, he said yes to going to Cory’s apartment. And he said yes to everything else that Cory suggested that night and on the other nights that followed.

Cory was the same in lovemaking as he was in everything else—spirited, good-humored, eager to please and easy to please in turn. For this, Anden was grateful because he felt acutely that he was the opposite: torn between the nearly unbearable force of his awakening desire and the self-consciousness of his own inexperience and nerves. Cory did not take himself too seriously in anything: He played music in the bedroom and danced in his underwear; he gave Anden gently teasing advice about what to do in bed; he admitted that when he was with men he preferred to be the receiver, but he wasn’t insistent, suggesting they should be open-minded and figure out what Anden liked. When they were together, Anden could feel Cory’s jade almost as acutely as if he were wearing it himself; every sensation was heightened to an exquisite pitch. Cory’s aura was as light and sunny as he was, like whipped cream or spring sunshine, gently sweet and addictive, as exciting and tangible to Anden as the sweat on his friend’s skin or the smell of his hair. Sometimes Anden wondered how much of his newfound appetite was for Cory himself and how much of it was the amplifying effect of the other man’s jade, but the combination was utterly intoxicating.

They saw each other every week, and sometimes more than once a week, if they could manage to sneak away from their respective obligations. Anden, who’d never in his life skipped class or showed up late for work, found himself cutting it close on a regular basis. Whenever his mind was idle, it drifted to thoughts of Cory, to erotic remembrances and anticipation of their next meeting, which was never soon enough, even if it was tomorrow, or in an hour.

He wondered if this was love.

Relayball started up again with the spring. They’d lost a few players and gained a few others, but Anden was part of the regular group now; others wanted him on their team, said hello to him around the neighborhood, showed friendly interest in him, and asked him questions about school or work or what it had been like growing up in Janloon.

Then summer arrived, and Cory got ready to leave on his long-anticipated travels, which would take him through the major cities along the coast of Whitting Bay, backpacking into the scenic wilderness of northeastern Espenia and back down into the heartland of the country before ending in Adamont Capita where he would begin law school at Watersguard University.

“Come with me,” he suggested to Anden.

“I can’t.” Anden wanted to. The idea of six weeks alone with Cory was appealing in the extreme. But he was already registered to continue with the IESOL program through the summer, he didn’t have either the funds or the days off from work, and he wasn’t about to abuse the generosity of either the Hians or his cousins by asking them for money. Also, he imagined the Dauks would suspect his reasons for suddenly wanting to leave behind his obligations and travel alone with their son.

“What would your parents think, if they knew about us?” Anden asked.

Cory made a face. “What does it matter what my parents think?” In Kekon, queerness was considered a natural, if unfortunate permanent condition afflicting unlucky families, not unlike stone-eyes and children with birth defects. Cory explained that in Espenia it was commonly thought of as a sign of weak character, similar to addiction and indebtedness—a situation that some susceptible people were predisposed to fall into if not careful, but might recover from. “Bad luck can be turned around,” was Cory’s wry assessment of the prevailing attitude among Keko-Espenians. “Look, crumb,” he explained to Anden, “I know my da. He’s a traditionalist from the island, like you. What he cares about is that his son wears jade. He’ll let me get away with just about anything else, but wearing jade, being true to our roots—that’s an absolute must for him. I suspect at some point, my ma will start making noises about me getting married and having kids, but come on, I’m twenty-four! Plenty of time to think about that later.”

The summer days were long and hot and smelled of dock fumes and piss. Seagulls wheeled in the sky and left shit on lawns. Tourists crowded the transit system. The streets swelled with traffic and street vendors, petty crime and road construction. Port Massy was an expansive world-class city in a league above even a burgeoning metropolis like Janloon; after living in it for sixteen months, Anden still felt as if the place completely defied familiarity. At times, it seemed to him that the sheer size and cultural scope of Port Massy only made his life shrink, made him want to take refuge in the routines and people he felt he could trust.

The Fifthday evening before Cory’s departure, they played relayball as usual in the high school field. Anden was keenly aware of his friend’s presence at all times. He felt as if he were a small planet caught in the gravity of a star, circling at a helpless distance from its radiance. He watched Cory scramble and leap for passes, laugh and joke, push his hair out of his eyes, and perform the silly dance he did when he put the ball between the point posts. Anden fumbled the next pass and the ball flew into the net. He cursed under his breath.

When they went to the grudge hall afterward, Sano, the doorman, clapped Cory on the back and said, “Last we’ll see of you for a while, heh? Travel safe, and don’t forget about us in Southtrap when you’re a big shot attorney.” Downstairs, Cory’s friends had pushed several tables together. Derek’s mother had baked a cherry spice cake, and people were signing messages in a notebook for Cory to take with him. Anden had no idea what to write in the book, so when it was his turn, he wrote, in careful Espenian: Thank you for your friendship this year. You made me feel at home in Port Massy. Good luck in law school! and then felt wretched about it. He turned to look for Cory again and saw him with his arm thrown over Derek’s shoulder, laughing uproariously at something Sammy had said. Jealousy stabbed into Anden like a talon knife to the gut. At Watersguard, Cory would be immersed in new experiences and surrounded by new friends, confident young fellow Espenians. Anden turned away and took a piece of cake.

There were no duels in the grudge hall tonight, merely the usual entertainments. Dauk Losun and Dauk Sana were nowhere to be seen, perhaps so Cory could enjoy one of his last nights in Port Massy away from the watch of his parents, but Rohn Toro was present, sitting by himself at a small table by the door, quietly enjoying a drink and nodding to people who touched their foreheads in silent salute as they passed him.

“Did you hear about Tim Joro?” Anden overheard a man nearby talking to two others. “Died from a sudden heart attack. Only fifty-four years old. He was always drinking and getting in trouble with the law, though, so I guess I’m not surprised.”

“What about his poor wife?” asked a woman.

“Moved back in with her parents.” The conversation continued in more hushed tones. Anden glanced again at Rohn. Occasionally, someone would slide deferentially into the empty chair opposite the man and lean forward to speak to him quietly. Rohn’s expression rarely changed; he would nod a little or ask a question, but he maintained the serenely impassive look of an animal at rest, alert even in its own lair. The people who came to speak to him did not linger or make social talk; they left so that others could come in their turn. Something about the understated gravity in these small interactions made Anden think of home, of the safety he’d always felt and taken for granted in No Peak territory.

Cory came up behind him and grabbed him in a bear hug around the shoulders. “Hey, crumb, it’s toppers in here tonight,” Cory said, letting go innocently. “You doing all right? Have you tried the cake? You want another drink?”

Anden turned around, forcing a smile onto his face. “No, I’m fine. It’s a great party.” His voice fell. “I’m happy for you. I’m just… wishing Adamont Capita wasn’t so far away.”

“I told you, it’s only a three-hour bus ride, crumb,” Cory exclaimed. “It’ll be easy for me to come home to visit.” Anden didn’t feel comforted by this, but Cory said, “Come on, gang along with the rest of us.” He led Anden back to the cluster of their usual relayball friends and cheerfully announced, “Hey, did you all know Anden’s an uncle now?”

Abashed by the attention but proud nonetheless, Anden produced the wallet-sized photographs that Shae had sent him. One was of Niko sitting on the floor of the kitchen in the Kaul house wearing a green T-shirt and blue shorts, holding a plastic toy talon knife in one hand and a half-eaten cracker in the other. He was holding the cracker out, as if offering it to the photographer, probably Wen. The camera appeared to have caught him by surprise—he stared out of the photo with a slightly bewildered expression, crumbs on his chin, one eye squinted in a way that made him look so similar to Lan that it was sometimes painful for Anden to look at the picture.

He’d been astonished to learn of Niko’s existence. Every time he thought about this boy he’d never met, he felt a deep pang of sympathy. Niko was an orphan too, brought into the Kaul home in the wake of tragedy (his mother and stepfather were killed in a terrible house fire, Shae had explained). No doubt he’d felt as lost and confused as Anden had been. If only there was some way he could reassure Niko, tell him not to worry, because unlike Anden, he was a Kaul in both blood and name.

The second photograph was of baby Ru, eight weeks old, though he must be nearly eight months by now. Anden had asked for more recent photographs in his last letter, but it took so long to get them, and he was not about to bother the Weather Man over such a small thing. Ru was cherubic and had a lot of dark hair; he held one pudgy fist cocked by his head and the other extended, as if in a fighting pose. It made Anden smile. His friends in the grudge hall exclaimed appreciatively over the photographs and handed them back. “They’re so cute!” exclaimed Tami, the flirtatious young woman who Anden had learned was studying at Port Massy College to be a dental technician.

Derek said, “Are you going to share your own news, Tod?”

Tod looked around the circle and squared his shoulders. “I enlisted yesterday.”

A brief silence followed this announcement. Cory said, “Good for you, Tod.” Sammy said, “Yeah, that’s toppers.”

Tami’s friend, Ema, asked, with a touch of concern, “What do your parents think?”

“My ma’s worried about me being deployed in Oortoko, but she supports me. My da’s against it, says it’s a betrayal for me to fight on the side of the Shotarians after what they did to Kekon and to our family.” Most Kekonese-Espenians came from families who’d fled the Shotarian occupation of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. Many had distant relatives who’d been part of the One Mountain Society, who’d been tortured or executed.

“I don’t see it that way at all,” Tod said, a little angrily. “The occupation was thirty years ago, and besides, I wouldn’t be fighting for the Shotarians, I’d be fighting for Espenia, to keep the ’guts from thinking they can take over the world. The recruiter I’ve been talking to said that they’re really interested in getting more kespies like us to enlist.”

“I’ve been thinking about it too,” Sammy admitted.

“It’s the only legal way to wear jade now,” Tod pointed out. “And if the immigration records show that at least one of your parents came from Kekon, you’ll be put on the fast track to special forces. If you make it in, you’ll get a medical exemption: low or no SN1 dosing, no three-year restriction. And you won’t be prosecuted for having worn jade prior to your service.”

“You won’t be able to wear any of your own jade, though,” Cory pointed out. “I’ve heard they start everyone at square one. Even if you already have training in some of the traditional disciplines, they want to build you up their own way.”

Tod stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, “I think it’s worth it. I’d like it if people saw us as patriots, you know? If they realized that jade can be used for good, to serve Espenia.”

Those two things, Anden might’ve pointed out, were not the same at all, but he held his tongue. This was the most bewildering conversation he’d heard during his time in Port Massy. A Green Bone serving the government that banned his jade? Willingly leaving his home to fight in a faraway country for people to whom he owed nothing, in a way that was almost certain to kill jadeless civilians and break aisho? It was astonishingly un-Kekonese.

Anden knew, from discussion at the Hians’ dinner table and from the Kekonese-language newspaper that they subscribed to, that Kekon was hosting more than a hundred thousand ROE soldiers on Euman Island and providing economic and logistical support to the war effort, and still the Espenian government was pressuring the Royal Council for more. The Kekonese were understandably angry. Shae had been vilified for her former military ties to Espenia and been forced to defend her reputation in a near lethal clean-bladed duel against Ayt Mada—something Anden could barely imagine and felt a little sick even thinking about. The foreigners and their war were causing nothing but trouble for his cousins in No Peak.

Anden was sad to admit he’d lost some respect for Tod.

Cory apparently did not feel the same way. “I think it’s toppers what you’re doing, Tod. I hope that—” He didn’t finish because a sudden motion caught his attention. Rohn Toro had leapt to his feet and was standing stock-still, his eyes unfocused in the way that Anden knew to be the expression of a Green Bone concentrating intensely on something in his Perception. A muted burst of rattling noise, like the popping of a dozen firecrackers, came from the street above. Gunfire.

Rohn tore up the stairs like a demon. A wave of confusion, then worry, then fear swept through the enclosed space of the underground grudge hall. Several people began to scramble for the stairs toward escape, but Cory reacted, just as he had when Tim Joro’s wife had run out into the lanes of speeding traffic. “Don’t go up there!” he shouted, in an urgent and commanding voice that Anden had never heard him use before. “Stay here, everyone.” He looked to Tod and Sammy. “Green Bones will go first. Don’t come out until one of us says it’s safe.”

Three men and a woman—Anden had seen them in the grudge hall before but didn’t remember their names—rose from their seats and joined Cory, Tod, and Sammy as they ran for the stairs. Most of the people nearby moved aside to let them pass, but a few still tried to follow or push ahead of them. Protesting voices started to rise. At the foot of the stairs, Tod spun around and threw a wide, shallow Deflection that swept through the hall, knocking off hats and upending drink glasses. “Stay here, we said!” The Green Bones raced up the stairs.

Anden stood rooted to the spot for a second. Then he ran after them. He couldn’t say why he did so; he wasn’t a Green Bone, and he wasn’t armed with anything except a compact talon knife. He didn’t think about any of that. The only thing on his mind was the fact that Cory was disappearing up the stairs without him.

“Hey, islander, where are you going? They said to stay put!” Derek shouted after Anden, but neither he nor anyone else moved to actually stop him. On the main floor, Anden saw Mrs. Joek and the other food vendors crouched underneath their tables in fear. Rohn Toro was nowhere in sight. Anden caught up to Cory, who turned, eyes widening with astonishment and alarm. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “Go back downstairs with everyone else!”

A muffled, agonized groan came from behind the metal doors. “Sano,” Tod said. He ran to the entrance and threw it open. The large doorman was slumped against the brick wall, gurgling, bleeding from a profusion of bullet wounds. Tod fell to the man’s side. “Oh shit. Shit.” One of the other men ran to help Tod pull Sano inside. A slick red river trailed after them across the concrete floor. “If only my ma was here, maybe she could do something…” Cory’s voice was trembling. “Can anyone else do medical Channeling?” The others shook their heads, panic on their faces. Anden’s hands closed helplessly; in the Academy, he’d learned the basics of Channeling for first aid, but it was no good to him now. Tod tried anyway, but Anden could see it was already too late; there was too much blood loss and the light was already going from Sano’s eyes. Mrs. Joek began to crawl out from under her table, muffling sobs in the crook of her elbow. “No, stay there,” Cory ordered her.

“Let’s check the front,” Sammy suggested. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Where the fuck is Rohn?” They hurried to the unmarked interior double doors that led into the front of the building, the community center proper. Anden followed, even though Cory shouted at him again over his shoulder to stay behind. The community center was dark, the tables, chairs, and bookshelves discernible as shadowy outlines. The front windows of the building had been blown out by gunfire; shards of glass glittered on the carpet and the streetlight illuminated the bullet holes in the door and walls. A figure stood in front of the building, looking out at the street, framed by the jagged outline of the shattered window. The air from a nearby grate billowed Rohn’s coat; otherwise, he was as still as a lamppost.

“Rohn-jen,” Cory said as they came up cautiously behind the man, staring at the damage. Rohn held up a black-gloved hand to stop them. “They’re coming back for another pass.” Three cars barreled around the corner, engines roaring. A second later, machine gun fire clattered to life.

Cory fell upon Anden and dragged him to the ground as Rohn, Tod, Sammy, and the other Green Bones threw overlapping Deflections that sent the bullets veering into walls and furniture, into the ceiling where they shattered the lights, and into the floor where they gouged chunks out of the carpet. Anden hit the ground with his shoulder. He heard someone else let out a shout, of anger or pain. “Stay down!” Cory ordered, then his weight was gone as he leapt up to try and help the others.

Several items came flying through the broken windows and tumbled across the carpet. Anden, still on the floor, blinked at the red flame that rolled toward him: a lit rag, stuffed into the neck of a glass bottle full of liquid. In seconds, Anden realized, the flame would reach the gasoline and the homemade explosives would go off and light the building on fire.

Anden lunged forward and grabbed the bottle. He felt a sharp jab in the knee as a piece of glass cut into his skin. Scrambling to his feet, he ran for the broken window. He hefted the bomb to hurl it back out into the street. The burning fabric fell across the back of his hand and he cried out in pain. His throw fell short; it spun end over end toward the sidewalk.

A gloved, speed-blurred hand snatched the burning object out of the air like an intercepted relayball pass. In a burst of Strength and Lightness, Rohn Toro flew toward the black cars as they fled down the street, showing their taillights. Rohn heaved the lit bottle; it sailed like a missile over the top of the rear car, breaking on the hood and igniting in a small wall of fire as gasoline sprayed the windshield. The car swerved and its front right tire ran up onto the curb of the sidewalk. The grill struck a fire hydrant with a crunch of metal. The front doors flew open and two men stumbled out of the car.

Rohn strode up, drawing a revolver from the inside pocket of his jacket. He put two bullets in the chest of the driver. The other man swung up the Fullerton submachine gun he’d used to pepper the building. Rohn shoved him back hard with a left-handed Deflection; the shooter was thrown against the open door of the black car. Rohn shot him in the head. The man slumped to the asphalt, and Rohn put another bullet in his face. Rohn looked down the street; the other two cars were gone.

Anden turned around, clutching his hand, trying to see through the spots of red in his vision and the grit on his glasses. Cory had grabbed one of the other explosives and yanked out the rag; with Steeled hands he was snuffing out the flame, grimacing with pain and intense concentration as he suffocated the fire between his palms. One of the other Green Bones was disarming another unbroken bottle in the same way, but the others were desperately battling fires. One bomb had shattered against the concrete wall outside and was burning itself out, but another had broken against a table inside and lit the carpet on fire. One more had rolled into the room with the Deitist shrine and exploded; a fire raged in front of the replicated mural, igniting the frayed kneeling cushions.

Anden grabbed the nearest thing he could find—a wooly blue area rug from the daycare center—and threw it over the fire in the shrine, stomping it out with his shoes. The woman Green Bone ran into the room with a kitchen fire extinguisher, and after fumbling with the thing for a moment, sprayed foam over the remaining flames. She ran back out to help Tod and Sammy, who were dousing the other fire with buckets of water. In a few minutes, the community center was dark again. Anden staggered back into the main room. The faces around him were streaked with sweat and some were bleeding from glass cuts; hair and clothes and hands were singed. “Seer’s balls,” Tod gasped, bent over with his hands on his knees. “Those were crewboys—Kromner’s people. Those fuckers.”

Rohn Toro stepped back through the broken window as the sound of sirens rose distantly. “Anyone with jade needs to leave now before the police arrive,” Rohn said. “Split up and lie low for a while. Don’t talk to any cops; you don’t know anything about what happened here. I’ll call and leave messages when it’s safe.”

“All the people still downstairs in the grudge hall—we need to get them out,” Cory said.

“I’ll take care of that,” Rohn said. He turned to Anden. “You stay and help.”

Anden nodded dumbly, though he had no idea why Rohn thought he would be useful. Cory protested, “Don’t pull Anden into this; he shouldn’t even be here.”

“He already is,” Rohn said. “I’ll take him back to the Hians’ house afterward.” The sirens barreled closer; still, Cory hesitated. “If you’re caught here now,” Rohn growled, “you won’t be going to Watersguard.”

Cory looked as if he wanted to argue further, then closed his mouth. “Cory, you should go,” Anden urged him. The Pillar’s son gave Anden a distressed look, then turned to the others. “Okay, you heard Rohn-jen.”

The six Green Bones left in a hurry, parting ways on the sidewalk and disappearing down different streets. Rohn turned to Anden. “I need time to get everyone out the back of the building before the police have a chance to detain and question them. The cops who show up might not be as easy to handle as the ones we regularly see; if they get a chance, they might harass and threaten people into pointing out who in the neighborhood’s a Green Bone, maybe even point to the Dauk family.” Rohn’s eyes raked over Anden’s face. “I need someone to go out front and delay the police for a while. Can you do that?”

Anden said, “I’ll do it, Rohn-jen.”

Rohn nodded and clapped him once on the shoulder with a gloved hand. Anden felt the momentary pressure of the man’s jade aura, then Rohn strode back through the wreckage.

Anden went out to the front of the building and ran down the block toward the sound of the approaching sirens. When he saw the red-and-blue pulse of the squad car’s lights, he stepped off the curb and waved his arms urgently. The vehicle came to a stop in front of him. Anden brought a hand up to shield against the glare of the headlights as the door opened and a middle-aged policeman stepped out. He had a thick mustache and squinty eyes—not one of the cops Anden had seen collect from the grudge hall before. “What seems to be the problem here?” the officer demanded. “Were you the one who called in a report of gunfire in the area?”

Anden had no idea who had called but he nodded at once. He understood why Rohn had given him this task. Anden wore no incriminating jade and looked Espenian. He could pose as a concerned non-Kekonese bystander, not anyone that might be connected to the grudge hall and to the Dauks in any way.

Out of spontaneous inspiration, Anden spoke with a mild Stepenish accent. “I saw three cars racing up and down the street.” He had never been to Stepenland and did not speak a word of the language, but a few of his classmates in the IESOL program were Stepenish. A Stepenish accent was distinctly recognizable and easy to affect, and as Anden’s Espenian had greatly improved but was not perfect, it would serve to hide the only obvious indication that he was Kekonese. “They were going too fast, and the people inside were waving guns and shooting out the windows.”

“Typical bloody Southtrap goons,” the police officer grumbled. “Did you see which direction they went?”

Anden nodded and pointed west, away from the community center. “That way. About five minutes ago.”

The officer nodded in thanks, got back into his squad car, and drove in the direction Anden had indicated. Anden doubted he would be misled for long. In short order, he would discover the bodies of the dead men, the burned car, the bullet casings in the street and the shattered windows of the community center. But Anden had done as Rohn had asked: He’d bought time.

Anden waited until he was sure the squad car was gone and there were no others on the way. Glancing around to ensure he was truly alone and unwatched, he walked quickly, but not too quickly, back toward the community center, circling around the building to the grudge hall entrance at the back. Rohn Toro was closing the metal door. He was alone, and all the cars in the lot were gone. It appeared as if he’d succeeded in clearing out the building and sending everyone home. “I sent the policeman toward Fifty-Fourth Street,” Anden said as he hurried up to the man. He looked down at the puddle of blood next to the grudge hall door. “What about Sano?”

Rohn said, “Mrs. Joek took him to the hospital. It was too late, though.”

Anden muttered, “Let the gods recognize him.”

“My da used to say that. But I don’t think there are gods in Espenia. Not our gods, anyway.” Rohn began walking purposefully away from the building, crossing the parking lot and entering one of the nearby alleys. Anden followed. The sound of another siren rose up—perhaps the police officer had circled back and discovered the bodies and the car by now.

Rohn Toro stopped and turned to the brick wall beside them. He felt around the surface with his gloved hands, then closed his fingers around a slightly protruding brick. He pulled and it came loose, revealing a small, hollowed-out space. Carefully, the Horn took off his black leather gloves, folded them neatly, almost reverently, and pushed them into the small crevice. He replaced the brick so that all that was visible was the slight unevenness between it and its neighbor.

Rohn grimaced and leaned heavily against the wall for several seconds, as if suddenly nauseous. Anden recognized the signs of discomfort for what they were: jade withdrawal. Rohn Toro’s jade was stitched into the lining of his leather gloves. When necessary, he could remove and hide them in a secret location until he had occasion to return and retrieve them. If he was stopped and questioned by the police later tonight, they could strip him naked and not find a bit of green on him.

Rohn straightened away from the wall. Hesitantly, Anden offered a hand to help the man; he had seen Rohn’s abilities tonight and knew it could not possibly be easy to live as a Green Bone in this way, putting on and taking off so much jade at an instant. Rohn was not young either, perhaps fifty already—how could his body handle it? But the Horn was steady now; he gazed at Anden and his mouth moved with wry embarrassment, as if the younger man had witnessed him in a moment of vulnerability, fly open and pissing against the wall.

They continued down the unlit alleyway.