Eugene
At the same moment, I turned on my heel.
"Damn it."
Once is chance. Twice is inevitability. In a city this pointlessly vast, running into the same man twice in so short a span was bad enough—and our eyes had met both times.
"He really was after me. Shit..."
The book, the newspaper clutched in his hands—camouflage, no question. Had he truly been absorbed in either, a lifted head would have come with a glance around, not a stare aimed straight at me on the first try.
Only now could I be certain. That old man. A bounty hunter, without a doubt, come for the two hundred pounds on my head.
Step. Step. A quicker tread. I picked up my pace by degrees. Keeping up the act hardly seemed worth it anymore, but breaking into a run through this crowd would only make me easier to spot. I forced down the gooseflesh rising over my whole body and swept the street with my eyes. Where was the fastest way around?
"All right. The bakery alley."
"Bread's good. I'm rather fond of it myself."
Thump. Something settled onto my shoulder. Rough, and warm. Very much like a human hand.
"Ah?"
Creak. Creak.
I worked my stiffened neck around, and a shadow that had not existed seconds ago fell across my face. A bulk like a bear. A grip that looked fit to crush my skull. An old-fashioned coat and hat, and a presence no cane could conceal. The bounty hunter was standing right there.
"Good to meet you, lad. I'm Benjamin—"
"Get away from me!"
Like hell I was getting caught like this. I dropped hard, throwing off the hand on my shoulder, and from that same crouch drove a savage kick backward. The target was the one vital spot that could drop even a bear.
Thud!
A clean impact rang out.
"...Ghk."
The effect was magnificent. His face twisted into something murderous, and then his legs clamped together and he sank to the ground, his whole body shivering in fine little tremors. As expected. Bear or monster, one kick ended it. A man who has taken enough blows to the vitals learns to land them better than anyone else—he knows precisely where a hit hurts enough to kill. I had struck the vital of vitals dead center. He would not so much as twitch for three minutes at least.
"Don't you go catching people to make your money."
I hurled the words while I had the opening, then broke into a sprint toward the next neighborhood over. I still had not earned the price of today's bread.
His legs were still shaking.
Sixty years he had lived, hale and free of any worry over his joints, and a single moment of carelessness had let a blindside blow through. The result was wretched. He had sat collapsed in the middle of the avenue for a good five minutes before his trembling steps carried him back to the bench. The stifled snickers drifting in from every side were almost endearing beside the pain.
Benjamin Oslo turned it over.
"Tough little bastard."
"Do not rationalize. Who was it that boasted every day of being in fine health, only to take a teenage boy's boot to the groin?"
"Dorothy. Quiet..."
"I am aware."
Dorothy inclined her head slightly and settled, light as anything, into the seat beside the old man. Both of them were dressed in civilian clothes, yet Dorothy wore the expression of someone in garments that did not suit her. For Dorothy Oslo, an officer of the Frauvia Federal Army, the dark green dress uniform was everyday wear.
Like fountain-pen ink across a sheet of pure white paper, black eyes and sleek black hair stood out sharply against her pale skin. Fellow officers often spoke of her that way: a winter beauty, an automata—and you don't resemble your father in the slightest. She generally ignored the last remark.
Dorothy brushed the dust from her clothes with mechanical care and lifted her head.
"Mr. Oslo. He got away. Do you intend to continue the pursuit?"
"Call me Father, and I'll answer you."
"Good day."
"Hey."
Benjamin caught her in a hurry as she truly made to leave, forgetting the hollow ache between his legs. The aftershock arrived.
"Ghhk..."
"......"
"...Don't look at me with quite so pathetic an expression."
"I beg your pardon?"
For a single instant Dorothy's eyes were the eyes of someone regarding filth. In the space of a blink they returned to their usual deadpan. Benjamin sometimes found his daughter's inner thoughts difficult to read. And he thought: now this—this is my daughter.
That was one matter. A more urgent one sat directly before him. He discreetly adjusted the way he was sitting and answered her question.
"Keep after him? Of course. I have to."
"Is that so."
"Yes. I seem to have left him with the wrong idea."
Benjamin recalled what had just happened.
Don't you go catching people to make your money.
Fear had lain in the boy's eyes as he said it. Not terror. Fear the way rust takes a copper dome—endured so long through cold and hunger that it had become an ordinary part of the day. Benjamin knew that look well. And because he knew it, he could see what lay beneath: a keen, pervasive intelligence, scored through with fear and buried under it.
The misunderstanding had to be cleared.
Dorothy nodded slowly.
"Then I will assist you. Mr. Oslo."
"Not going to call me Father right to the end, I see."
"......"
"You don't turn that look on your superiors in the army, do you?"
"......"
No answer ever came. Dorothy Oslo had already left the bench at an unhurried pace.
The tin was light.
The coin pouch that had held twenty-one shillings used to jingle. What was this hollow rattle supposed to be? I drew a single coin from the tin, which gave off a forlorn metallic note, and the sound died at once. There was no mistaking what that meant.
Five in the afternoon. The haul so far: one shilling.
"Tsk."
I licked my bone-dry lips and looked up at the sky. I had not eaten a thing, and still a bitterness spread through my mouth.
"I had it wrong..."
A miscalculation. Heading for the next neighborhood over had not been much of a choice. Shaking Remi's crew and the old man was all well and good, but I had ended up a long way from the federal army camp. The chatter of officers and their families. The way they spent their money. Bright clothes, elegant bearing, and all the rest. Stripped of that uncomfortable Frauvian bustle, the scene was desolate past bearing.
Five years ago. A street that looked as if it had been carried here intact from the days when columns of refugees filled the whole country. A dead street. Nothing but people with sunken eyes. What they gave a beggar was neither pity nor a coin, but thorough indifference. Seen from here, the passerby who had tossed me a single coin was practically a saint.
"A penny, if you please—"
I called out with everything I had, and not one person spared me a glance. I was beginning to understand why there were people sleeping rough here, and not a single one of them begging. Sensing the air of a wasted effort, I left my spot before the sun went down.
And so the ordeal began again. Which route should I take? I had to get back under the bridge while avoiding Remi's crew. It was evening; surely they would have eased their watch. That was my guess, but from the moment I stepped out of the neighboring district, something felt wrong. By the time I neared the shopping street, suspicion had hardened into certainty.
"Remi. The sun's going down."
"So what if it is."
"!"
The instant I heard the voices, I stopped and dropped low. Two men. It was them. They were out on the avenue, but luckily I was still inside the alley. Hidden in the dark with no fear of being seen, I strained my ears as far as they would go. Concentration brought their words through all the clearer.
"No, I mean... I was thinking maybe we can quit the patrol now."
"Huh."
"We haven't seen him all day. Maybe he never came out at all. Let's search again tomorrow."
"...You screwing with me?"
Crack!
The sound of flesh meeting flesh. I flinched. Remi had finally raised a hand against his own man. He had taken it all the way. Whether the one he had hit groaned in pain or not, Remi raised his voice.
"You let one shitty little beggar brat run you around, and you can still sleep? You fucking leech. The money in there was your food and the price of your clothes. This look like somebody else's problem to you? Grinning while you take your cut, and now you want to clamp your mouth shut?"
"......"
"Fine. If you're gonna stay this useless, then get the hell out. Huh? I said get out."
"S-sorry."
"Sorry? Fuck you!"
Remi slammed the wall as he roared.
"Get back to patrolling the shops. We grab that little shit and squeeze him, and the fifty pounds comes loose, doesn't it!"
Soon the sound of his furious breathing faded. From the direction, I guessed he was heading toward the bank. The exchange had broken off, but a voice kept coming.
"Fucking bastard."
"All he can do is beat people from back home and pitiful kids. Disgusting piece of shit."
"......"
"Not like I'm any different."
"I'm such a goddamn idiot..."
The other one muttered to himself for a while, then at last trudged off. He seemed intent on circling the shopping street in silence, just as Remi had ordered.
"......"
My head was starting to ache. With an attitude like that, I could well believe he would organize shifts and keep them patrolling through the dead of night. Which meant—
"If I don't want to starve, I'm supposed to turn myself in."
They had taken their boss's rage head-on. They would not be stopping the patrols anytime soon. But I could not go far. I was bound to come back near the camp. The only people who readily parted with a coin worth a loaf of bread were here. They were clearly holding to the notion that if they kept chasing, they would catch me eventually. Of course, no one could call Remi a clever strategist even as empty flattery. He was simply consumed by rage.
"......"
And yet the trouble was that the method worked entirely too well. He was the head of a crew, and I was alone. He had grown up hard on these streets, and I was still young. He walked around and shook money out of people, while I had to sit still and wait for someone to toss me a coin. Unfavorable did not begin to cover it.
They had gone, and still I was somehow afraid to step out onto the main road. From the alley I looked up at the sky. Three-story buildings stood in a row. Railings, rooftops—so many places to set a foot. If only I could walk those heights as I pleased, giving Remi the slip would be nothing at all.
"...Wait."
All at once, I came to my senses. I drew the spellbook from inside my clothes and flipped it open with a rustle. The pleasant smell of a book tickled the tip of my nose. In one motion I opened to the page I had lightly folded down. Written there was a single line I still could not decipher.
λευιτατιον
A spell for flying through the sky.
"...Ha. Hahaha."
A hollow laugh slipped out of me. To think magic would be the way out of this miserable fix. Ah. Good. I wanted so badly to learn more. If I meant to make that dream real, I had to keep my wits sharp. I went deep into the alley and dropped onto the ground. And I resolved it.
Until I had mastered this spell, I would not go back under the bridge.