Wild Magic

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The Wounded Moon was gibbous and low in the western sky and the night-torches had burned down to faint red glows when they left Jigambi’s Rendezvous.

Staying in the heavier darkness by the buildings on the west of the Sokajarua so they wouldn’t have to cross the street when they reached the Edge, eyes constantly moving, cloaks pulled tight about their bodies, Reyna and Jea strode rapidly along without speaking until they were off the pavement into the Edge, picking their way over the dirt ruts of Verakay Lane.

Reyna pushed the hood back, scratched vigorously under the pomaded braids behind his left ear. “Aaaah.” He kicked at a dirt clod, lurched as his foot dropped into a rut. “Sicuzi says the chain I ordered ‘s ready, but he’ll have to wait for his coin till next party.” He stepped out onto the high crown of the Lane, his moon-shadow jerking across the hardpan. Over his shoulder he said, “How’s your girlfriend?”

Jea drifted across, walked several minutes beside him before he answered. “Frightened,” he murmured. “She’s pregnant. Told me when I went to read the cards for her yesterday… no, day before, counting from now.” •

Reyna slapped his forehead. “Hoo-ah, my friend, you’ve got more nerve than me. You’re dead if her husband finds out. Cheoshim potzhead.”

“Well, it’s not something we can help, you know.” Reyna closed his hand over Jea’s shoulder, squeezed, then let go. “The baby, it’s yours?”

“She won’t say. Won’t say anything, just cries.”

“You better hope it isn’t. You know what the Cheoshim think of bleach in their bloodlines. What are you going to do if it’s yours and shows it?”

“I don’t know. She won’t leave him. I’ve tried. I’ve said we can go somewhere else. Well, we’d have to, wouldn’t we. She’s afraid.”

“Raised that way, what can you expect?”

“I know.”

They passed the scribbled walls of the school, rounded a bend, and saw a slight shadow gliding in and out of moonlight; it reached the Beehouse and went inside. No yanking on the bellpull, no waiting for Panote.

Neither of them said anything. They both knew who it was. Locks and bars shifted for Faan, shifted so automatically she didn’t even think about it.