The early morning was icy cold. A faint pink smudge lit the clear sky, edging the Keeper Mountain in rosegold. I did up both layers of buttons on my jacket, wrapping it tight around my chest. Still, the wind pried at it, insistent.
I strode out into the near-empty street. Ice clung to the edges of lamps and crowded the rims of windows. The dawn gave Movoc back some of her colour. Dour buildings of pale stone glowed. Dull iron gates, window bars and lamps burnished to faint gold. The ice that coated the streets glistened like mother-of-pearl. And it made my heart ache, to remember the colour I knew hid below this borrowed, reflected light.
I wasn't entirely sure where the eighth Keepersrill was. Further away from the city centre, for a start. From the street outside my apartment I could see the faint tips of the Keeper's Tear Bridge, the bear flags sagging beneath the weight of icy-heavy dew. I turned my back to it. If I followed the Tear down, away from the city centre, eventually I would come to the eighth rill. But this was the second, and I didn't know how many effluent inlets washed their filth into the Tear between here and the eighth. I had less than a bell till breakbell. Walking would take too long, and I wasn't willing to risk that. I needed to find transport, and that meant I would have to pay for it.
I fingered the rublie in my pocket. The disk fitted comfortably in my palm and gave off a slight heat. Sadly, that was all it was good for now. I could no longer read the pions that would have told me how many kopacks I owned.
Time seemed to rush ahead of me, leaving crunching noises in the ice. I dug a hat from my pocket – a leather cap that fit snugly on my head and was inlaid with tightly knitted wool – pulled it down over my ears and jammed my hands into my pockets. Then I headed for the Tear.
Movoc-under-Keeper had started its life – back in the dark days before Novski developed his theory on critical circles – huddled around the Keeper's Tear River. The Tear had always been the life of this city. Its waters rushed, clean and clear, even in the middle of the coldest winter night. It provided Weeping carp to hungry primitives, and introduced them to the great bears that hunted the large, dark-scaled fish. Hundreds of years and a pion revolution later, Movoc-under-Keeper still huddled around the Tear. All levels of veche built their buildings as close to the bridge as possible, anyone with kopacks to spare bought apartments with views of the water. Other's teeth, even Grandeur would have faced the river, if she'd lived long enough to gain a face.
When Novski's critical circle revolution changed the city, two large roads were built on either side of the river. Movoc's arteries. I headed for Easttear.
The traffic began to pick up as I neared the river. Men mostly, rugged up with jackets and leather caps like mine, heads down and shoulders hunched, hurried against the sharp wind that rose from the water. Few women. Bracing the cold, wrapping oneself up in clothes that hid shape, hair and feminine beauty, was hardly very ladylike. There were those who had no choice: the cleaners, spinners, and governesses. This close to the centre of the city, however, most women could afford to behave like ladies. Even the women of my circle, when I had one, only grudgingly resigned themselves to jackets and caps on a construction site.
The driver of the first landau that slid past glanced my way, but didn't stop, even as I waved as frantically as my stitches would allow. Either his coach was full, or he had just ignored me. I frowned, and tugged my cap down where it had started to ride up and expose the bandages over my left ear.
The landau looked bizarre without pions. It glided several feet above the ice, silent and smooth, all polished ebony with sparkling silver fittings. Its driver sat at the front, exposed to the morning chill while his passengers rode in insulated comfort, hidden behind darkened glass. The driver held his hands out, fingers loose over invisible reins, mouth working as he coaxed and guided a complex tangle of invisible lights.
I knew what I should be seeing. A landau was usually festooned with bright streamers, and carried on long legs of pion threads. They looped around the base, threading through the nooks and the hooks where wheels and springs would have been, back when horses used to draw them. There were usually six long spider-like legs of many bright and diverse colours. So what looked like gliding to me now was actually crawling. Crawling on light.
The second coach ignored me too.
I had known my life would be different now. But I hadn't imagined that something as simple as signalling a landau to take me down the Tear River would become this much harder, this quickly. My high-necked, tailored jackets had given me status. Their quality said I was a skilled binder, one who earned enough kopacks from her craft to have clothes like that made to measure. Their silver bear-heads shining from the shoulders told how many times I had been employed by the veche, and how many successful commissions I had filled. The insignia stitched into the neck, difficult to see unless one stood close, demonstrated which university I had graduated from, and with how much honour.
Wearing those jackets, I did not have to stand in the slush of melting ice at the edge of the street and wave at coaches as they glided past. Coaches came to me; they sought me out like loyal puppies hoping for scraps. Without them, I was just another person in this too-full city.
A coach finally did pick me up. A much cheaper-looking affair than the silent and dark landaus I had watched gliding past. It had wheels, for one thing. Not all binders were strong enough to create large insect-legs of pure energy, and had to rely on pion systems working in a gearbox and driveshaft to help propel and steer the carriage. This one was painted in a pale lacquer, peeling in places, and one of its steel-mesh stairs was loose.
"Where you headed?" The driver squinted down he slowed the coach beside me. He didn't stop it, so I was forced into a fast walk to answer him. As fast as I could manage, at least.
"Eighth Keepersrill," I shouted over the rattle of wheels and icy stone.
His eyes widened as he realised I was a woman. But then, I didn't look that much like a woman, dressed the way I was. Surprised most people the first time, which had always been the point. I didn't appreciate the assumptions that came with wearing skirts, long hair and glittery pieces of jewellery. As the fatherless daughter of a textile factory worker, I'd spent most of my life fighting against just those same kind of assumptions. But I was not a weak pionbinder, and I was perfectly capable of doing great things, powerful things, and living my own life my way.
At least, I had been.
"What Section?" He slowed the coach further.
Swallowing my pride, I tried to sound grateful. "Tenth." And I smiled. I actually smiled at him.
He nodded. "Get on."
I didn't give him the opportunity to bring the Otherdamned coach to a stop. Ignoring the pain in my stitches, I grabbed one of the rails, pulled myself up and yanked a door open with the other hand.
Three men were already crammed into the interior. One read from a small slide, one seemed half asleep. The third was industriously picking at the seat's worn cushions, undoing the cheap fabric with his fingers, and then repairing it with a whisper to whatever pions would listen to him. Better than boredom, I supposed. As I swung myself in they squeezed closer together, making a space for me. I wedged myself between the door and the man with the slide. He wore a bulky coat that made loud crinkling noises as I pressed against it.
I was suddenly hot, and sore. I flipped the edge of my cap up to reveal my ears, and hunkered away from enquiring eyes. The stitches on my face and the bandages on my neck stood out like a snow-rabbit in spring. My cheeks reddened beneath them, a warmth that sent every thread, every puncture itching.