Debris

It? I squinted up, only to find low and rolling snow clouds, the sun a dull disk in their midst.

"Come on." Sofia sounded agitated. "We've got it all. Time to get back."

When I stood, head thumping to the beat of my heart, I realised they were all waiting for me. Even Lad, who no longer cowered in the corner and whispered for forgiveness, was holding two jars of debris and looking very pleased with himself. I wanted to ask how long I had lain on the rubble and slept, but my mouth was full of dust, and it took everything I had to focus on placing one foot in front of the other.

5.

Snow began to fall before we reached Darkwater. A final flurry of winter, like a childish swipe at the approaching spring. I tilted my head to catch the light, icy flakes in my mouth, and let them melt away some of the dust and the thickness of sleep. I kicked into the thin drifts that draped across flagstones, leaving dirty footprints, and feeling that bit cleaner. Its soft touch on my head soothed the throbbing, but stung in the freshly made cuts.

"That's the end of that day, then," Uzdal murmured as Kichlan worked the old-fashioned lock and let us into the sublevel. I wasn't sure what bell it was, anymore. Pale white clogged the bottom of the windows, and didn't give much of an indication of the time.

Kichlan brushed away flakes from his eyebrows and hat. "Jars in the corner, please. Tanyana." He waited for my attention to continue. "Do you see what they're doing? Full jars go on the shelves until the veche come for a collection. Empty jars only on the table. Do you understand?"

I nodded, still feeling heavy and dull, not much better than I had in the sunlight and on the rubble. He frowned at me.

"Everyone hurry home," he said, and took Sofia's remaining jars. "Don't want anyone getting caught when this gets worse." As it was bound to do. Movoc-underKeeper loved her snowstorms.

I watched as Kichlan filled the shelves with jars, and the rest of the team left the sublevel. I counted them. Ten jars. Was that enough? Would we meet quota? I didn't want to be responsible for an inspection, not when Kichlan's thundercloud face hovered hazy but dark in my memories.

Pincers. Tweezers. How had they done that?

I clenched my fist. Silver oozed from my wrist to coat my hand and ballooned into something round and twice its size. That was a fist then.

"Tanyana?" Kichlan's voice sounded dim, like my ears were stuffed with wool. "What are you still doing here?"

Gently, I opened my hand again. Whether I moved my hand at all I couldn't tell, all I could see was the silver bulb flatten, and that was all I could feel. I cupped it carefully and slow. A flat palm. Like a spade.

"It's time to go home." Kichlan was closer. Was that Lad I could hear, murmuring and worrying in the background? "You can practice tomorrow, don't worry about it now."

I twitched the corner of my mouth. It was all the same, all part of me. The bulb was my fist, the spade was my palm. And I knew how to extend my arms, I knew how to grasp something with my thumb and forefinger. So I reached, as though there was debris in front of me. Slowly at first, my second arm, that dull silver almostliquid grew. Then faster. I opened my thumb and forefinger and the silver split.

"Watch out!" Kichlan cried.

Silver crashed into the ceiling. Cement spilled in a waterfall onto my aching head. I jerked my hand back and the silver rushed into my wrist, pushing me to the ground, sending spasms to my shoulder. I could feel it, I was certain. That almost-solid, almost-liquid, strong silver in my skin, my bones, and all the spaces in between.

Kichlan dropped to his knees beside me. "Tanyana," he sighed. "Didn't I tell you? Go home. Don't, for the love of Keeper, try that again. Not until you've had some sleep at least."

I glanced up. A large hole, a good two feet wide, was cracked into the cement. At least, from this vantage point, it appeared to be only a few inches deep. "I'm sorry."

"You will be, when Sofia sees this." He gripped my hands and helped me stand. "Just go home, Tanyana."

I nodded, still numb, and climbed the stairs.

But I could go no further than the eaves of 384 Darkwater. Snow built on the toes of my boots, and I wondered how I would get home. I stank, my body hurt and my head swirled like the snow drifts growing in the street. No coach would pick me up in this state. There was a ferry on the Tear. I could try that. Did it run in a snowstorm? What bell was it anyway?

I dug my watch from its niche between my coat and the uniform skin. It rattled alarmingly. Pieces of glass fell to the snow when I drew it out. My hand shook. It had borne the brunt of the stones and rested shattered, broken, in my palm. The bear's head was unrecognisable. Glass had come loose from its inlay. When I pressed the latch the cover fell off, and the circles and bells tumbled with soft chimes to the ground.

All I could do was stare at it. My watch – my life before any of this had happened – shattered in my hand. I couldn't move.

"You need to be careful, Lad. Don't you remember what happened last time?" That was Kichlan, emerging from the sublevel.

"Course I do. But wasn't my fault, Kich. I was just following," Lad said, tone teasing between sullen sulking and genuine apology.

"Tanyana got hurt."

"Tan." Lad hesitated. "She okay, brother?"

"This time. But that's what I mean, you need to be careful."

"I will tell him." Lad's voice hitched. "Tell him to be careful."

"I know you will, Lad. I know you will."

Dimly, I wondered when I had become Tan.

"Just next time, don't listen to him so much-" Kichlan stepped onto the street and saw me. He stopped, startled, and raised an arm to hold back his brother. Or perhaps shield him.

"He knows better than me, brother." Lad, oblivious to my presence, pulled the door closed. It locked with a heavy clang that echoed from the stairwell behind it. He made a great show of pushing against it, checking, it seemed, that the lock would hold. "Can't ignore him-"

"Lad, hush."

Lad finally noticed me, hands still on the door handle, eyes wide. Perhaps I wasn't supposed to have overheard that particular conversation.

"Tanyana?" Kichlan approached me slowly, one hand half-extended. I felt like a stray cat in the snow.

"Tan!" Lad bustled up close. I thought I should probably flinch, or step back, or do something. But as it was I stood there, hems soaking up the snow. The cold sent chills through my legs, and I shivered.

Lad smiled at me, but this faded as I didn't respond. He glanced over his shoulder at his hesitating brother. "Kich?" He waved his hands, a gesture of uselessness. He reminded me of a fat honeybee, with his hands flapping out from his sides like that. I wanted to laugh, but only shivered instead.

As Kichlan approached, Lad leaned over him and cupped his hands around his mouth. "She's cold," he whispered. Hardly conspiratorial, I would have had a harder time hearing him if he'd spoken plainly. "Why isn't she moving?"

Why indeed? I frowned to myself, skin on my forehead numb. Home was so far away, and there was all that snow in the way. It was too hard, I realised. I was standing still in the cold, in the snow, because it was all too hard.

And my watch was broken.

Kichlan pressed his finger to his lips and Lad shuffled over to give his brother room. "Tanyana, shouldn't you go home?" Kichlan asked.

I stared down Darkwater. The useless signpost was lost in thick haze, as were most of the buildings beyond it. The roads were not left to the snow this way in the second Keepersrill. Already the snow-shifters would have swept the powder away. I didn't expect to see them here, their great shapes hulking dark against the white, their wide metallic wings brushing the snow away with stiff feathers. Their drivers knew the streets to keep to, knew where they would be tipped for keeping a lady's skirts dry and preserving the integrity of a man's shoes. There were no spare kopacks to pay them with as far out as the eighth Keepersrill.