She must be lying, I decided. Trying to puff herself up. I pushed another thread tight.
“What duties are you on, then?” Soli bumped me with her elbow.
“Kitchens,” I said, and then wished I’d thought to lie. “Livestock, and sometimes dyeworks.” Modrie Reller made me work the vats once a deciturn so I wouldn’t forget what real labor was or where I could end up if I didn’t work hard at my other duties.
“My brother Luck’s on Livestock,” Soli said. “He says he likes it.” She wrinkled up her face, stuck out her tongue, and made a gagging noise.
I giggled, even though I didn’t mind Livestock duty so much myself. Me and Llell would whisper over boys while we collected eggs and mucked the stalls. She had eyes for Jerej, and neither of us understood yet how unlikely a pairing that would be.
Soli’s mother flicked her eyes up from her work and looked sharp at us. “Hssh.”
Soli and me bit our lips and went back to work. When her mother turned away, we grinned at each other over our frames.
From then to the end of the Æthers’ trade visit, we kept tight. Soli tried to talk Modrie Reller into putting her on Fixes while the Æthers were aboard, but my stepmother gave her a sour smile and said she didn’t think that could be managed. Soli ended up on Livestock with me and Llell instead.
Which I’m glad of, because if she hadn’t, I never would have met Luck.
Soli, Llell, and me were coming around the corner into the livestock bay, milking pails banging against our knees, when I saw him, crouched beside one of our goats.
“Æther Luck, what’re you doing here?” Soli barked and tramped toward him. “Don’t you mind we switched duties?”
Llell and I exchanged a wide-eyed look—Did Soli just shout down her brother?—and hurried in her wake.
Luck shot to his feet. Bristles of hay still clung to the knees of his pants. He rose a half head taller than his sister, but blood flushed his cheeks at her tone. He hung his head so his dark bangs fell over his eyes. A quarter-full pail sat by the goat he’d been milking. My eyes went wide. It was Chinny, our most troublesome, hand-stamping goat. She’d broken one of Llell’s fingers once and always found a way to overturn her pail, simply to spite whoever milked her.
Luck looked up and our eyes met. Blue like welding flame ringed his irises, growing darker as it moved in on his pupils, like the patches of deep ocean you see from close orbit. Nothing like the brown or muddy-green color we shared on the Parastrata. I knew I wasn’t supposed to look on him like that. I never would have looked, except I couldn’t help some of Soli’s Soliness rubbing off on me.
Chinny chose that exact moment to knock over the pail. Milk gushed around Luck’s shoes and swamped the hay.
“Damn!” Luck jumped back. I expected him to jerk Chinny’s lead and twist her long, floppy ear, which is what I’d been shown to do when the goats got nasty. Instead, he sighed and rubbed his forehead so his hair stuck up sideways. “You don’t have a coaxer, do you?”
I unhinged my gaze from his and looked down into the hay. “Right so,” I said. “But it’s always broke, and they say the fix isn’t in it.”
“Soli’ll fix it,” Luck said. “Won’t you, Soli?”
“I’ll take a look,” Soli agreed.
“But you’re . . . ,” I started to say.
Luck and Soli’s odd looks stopped me. Soli couldn’t really do fixes, could she?
My face went hot. “I mean, you’re a guest here.” I hadn’t truly believed Soli about her being on Fixes, but if her brother said so, maybe it was true.
“Plus, you’re a girl,” Llell butted in. “Girls can’t do fixes.”
“Can.” Soli crossed her arms and turned to me. “Show it to me.”
I led them to the back of the pens, clapping my hands to move the goats out of our way. Llell and me tried to keep our distance from Luck, but he walked so close his arm nearly brushed mine. I flipped up the lid of the junk locker, leaned inside, and rattled around until I brought up the coaxer, a foam-lined udder bowl sprouting brittle plastic tubes for milk. I handed it to Luck, and he tossed it to Soli.
“The regulator’s all bust.” I shot a nervous look at Llell. This was real now. What if someone came in and caught us with Luck, and doing fixes no less? I swallowed and looked back at Soli. “It either drips milk and takes forever, or it pulls too hard and burns out.”
“You have my fixers?” Soli asked Luck.
He unsnapped a vinyl pack from his belt and tossed it to her. “I wish you’d keep them. Their head Fix keeps talking on how slow I am.”
“It’s only till the meet’s over. Then you can go back to your precious sheep.” Soli popped open the pack and unrolled it across the top of the junk locker. Dozens of shiny silver readers and tools glistened in its pockets. Soli selected one with a power jack and an amp reader and snapped it into the coaxer’s line-in.
“This might take a minute, depending what’s wrong,” she said. She hopped up on the locker beside her tools and looked up at me. “I could show you the fix, if you want.”
“No.” Llell cut in. She shot a hard look at me and her voice went high. “I don’t think we should be here, Ava.”
I hesitated. They were all looking at me, Soli and Llell and Luck. The words snarled up in my throat, and all I could come up with was a high-pitched “Umm . . .”
Llell spun on her heel. “Hurry on, Ava. We’re leaving.”
Soli snorted and rolled her eyes. “What’re you afraid of?”
I paused, darting my eyes from my old friend to the new.
Llell turned back. “Ava.” It was one sharp word, but it said so much. Come here, and obey, and choose. I wasn’t so girl then, not yet, and because of my odd skin, Llell was the one stooping to be my friend.
I shook my head. “I’m staying,” I said quietly.
Llell’s eyes shot wide. “Come how?”
“I’m staying.”
Llell’s face crumpled, and then went hard and cold. “Right so.” She swept one last look at me and edged out of the bay. I chewed on my lower lip as I watched her go.
“You sure you don’t want to learn?” Soli raised an eyebrow at me.
I backed up a step. “No, no.”
Soli shrugged and set about prying the casing from the regulator.
“I should clean up Chinny’s mess,” I said.
“I’ll help you,” Luck said.
“Mmmn,” Soli agreed, already bent over her work.
“No.” I accidentally looked at Luck again and pushed my eyes down. This was going too far. “That’s not men’s work.”
A twitch of confusion passed Luck’s face. He frowned. “It is on the Æther. Besides, it’s my fault. I wasn’t s’posed to be on this duty firstways.”
“Please.” My voice rose. “Let me do it.”