How Much?

PrologueMica moves carefully. Not only is the room dark and her hold slippery, but she’s also trying to be quiet. This is it. There’s just this one tiny step she has to complete and once she does it, she’ll have managed to sneak away undetected. Long will she crow in victory—to herself and maybe to Randy—that she managed to get passed her sneaky brother and his friend. Oh, she can almost taste it. Sweet, sweet victory. Just a little bit more, aaaand…There’s a light in the room. It’s the small light from her old baby monitor. Since then, it’s been the in-home communication system because it seems silly to get one expensive machine that they’ll only use for a few years. But it shouldn’t be turned on. It’s gone from its place on her desk and now it languishes on her bed, its perpetual movement gears laughing at her with their soft whir. They know. “s**t,” Mica mouths. But she still hopes, alright? They might have caught her sneaking out, but until they catch her coming back in, she has a case. She can argue that…ah. Actually, it doesn’t have to make sense, personal accomplishments are like that. Now, how to get on the bed and avoid any squeaking? Mica has these heavy bones that just weigh a lot so she can just throw herself on the furniture. She’s not a big girl, in fact, Ollie calls her twig and it’s not because she’s young. Though she is that too. But it’s mainly because she’s skinny so she doesn’t know where the weight comes from. She heard somebody respond to the accusation that they were fat by answering that they were big-boned and it sounded good enough. Mica’s tall so she has enough bone to make sense for her too. In this instance, it’s almost impossible for her to sit without a sound. More than that, she’ll have to move the monitor to get under the covers. It’s cold outside and storming, and there’s no way she’ll fall asleep without her mountain of blankets. They are there more to relax her—she gets twitchy when it rains out and the stronger it rains, the worse it gets. Wes found out when she was little that the blankets help and she will forever be grateful to her brother for it. She wouldn’t even know where to start to figure out an answer, but he managed, having only her gestures and the volume of her crying as guides. Wes, may or may not be the best older brother ever. Actually, at the end of the day, he was her dad. He raised her since she was little and their parents died. She doesn’t remember them, but Ginnie thinks he’s her dad for true and that’s why Mica’ll refer to him as her brother. Even in their little mutt town people turned up their noses at illegitimate children. And it’s not like they look like each other much, anyway. Except for the eyes, almond-shaped and black, they don’t have any features in common. He is dark-skinned, and not like he is a hybrid either, but like any of the people in one of the real towns. She, though, has white skin. Not as pink tinted as Ollie’s but white none the less. She has a birthmark that he doesn’t have, the strands of hair right above her ears are white, and she’s going gray. At seventeen, ugh. This used to be another thing she had in common with her brother, their long, glossy black hair, but…oh, well. They don’t even have the same skill. Or rather, he has one and she doesn’t. Her point is, she doesn’t take after Wes and she would if they were father and daughter. Ginnie said that’s just more proof that she had a mutt mother and they had a baby and, at this point in the conversation, Mica just gives up. There’s no convincing Ginnie. Mica will do what she can to preserve her brother’s reputation, but she can’t stop people like Ginnie from talking, no matter how badly she wants to. But, coming back to sneaking out and Wes’s title as the best brother she could have wished for, one thing that annoys Mica is that Wes is, above all, smug. Ollie too. Both of them just won’t accept that it doesn’t look good on a person. They’ll continue to hold petty things above her head forever. She won’t be able to escape the teasing. She can just imagine herself being an old lady in a clockwork rocker that she managed to swindle from Randy and Wes suddenly saying, Remember that time you sneaked out and thought that we wouldn’t catch you? And Ollie would laugh like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard and…No. Maybe Mica is slight enough to be able to completely envelop herself in the blankets and not disturb the monitor. She can do it. Yes, she can. She can—she freezes. The monitor just made a noise. Something’s going on downstairs, Mica can hear her brother say something but she can’t tell what. They’re all too far away from the monitor. If only she could get closer to hear better. “Why are you here?” Ollie’s voice asks, raising his voice. Who? Mica snatches up the monitor and puts it to her ear, her curiosity getting the better of her. Then she closes her eyes, pained. She could have just moved the damn thing from the beginning. She rolls her eyes and blames both of them for her exaggerated care. They take special joy in destroying her soul. Mica mouths several curses but they soon peter out. She has some listening to do. “Well, that is an interesting way to speak to your chieftain,” a male voice says. Is that…Ilixo? He’s the chieftain of the region and he’s a pretty big deal. According to Randy, nobody saw a white man from the settlers win the trials, but he did. He is still unbeaten almost a century and a half later. He used to be a magnet mage, the kind that creates the power sources that attract magic and power everything around them, but then he thought he’d be better as a leader. Randy, she can tell, has always been a little jealous. His skill is in influencing magic so he could direct and repair the machines, power sources included. He can’t make them from scratch so he has always considered it as a personal insult that somebody can wield that sort of power and let it go to be chieftain. But Ginnie also said that Ilixo wasn’t as all-powerful as he seemed. Apparently, she knew—probably heard her parents talking, that’s how she had all her opinions—that he was barely hanging on. Nobody seems to like him and there had been many betrayals over the years, from what Ginnie said, but Mica could never trust Ginnie. What was Ilixo doing in Mica’s home? “Chieftain,” Wes says cheerfully. “Would you like something to drink? Tea? Ale?” “See, demon?” Ilixo has a cruel, mocking voice. And who’s he calling demon anyway? “That is the proper way of addressing your superior.” “I had a contract, I fulfilled it. We’re done,” Ollie answers in a cold voice. “That means you leave us alone.” “Hm, what an interesting way of looking at it,” Ilixo sneers. “Naïve, to be sure. But interesting.” There’s a pause and then, “The ale, if you please.” Her brother’s voice is strained. “Certainly,” Wes says. “I will not hesitate to—” But Mica never finds out what Ollie will do because he’s neatly overridden by Ilixo, “There are people who will find out where I am if I disappear. People who may not like me, but they do not like a demon either. What makes you think I will hesitate to bring attention to your little…” A pause. “Family, is it?” A growl, surprisingly animalistic. Wes, then. His is a skill meant solely for the growing things. It means that it has kept him young, but he can’t influence mechanicals. He is, however, known for getting along great with animals, even clockwork ones seem to like him a lot, and with time he’s borrowed small things from their behavior. Ollie speaks next. “Are you threatening us? Them?” Another pause. “Of course I am, Oliver.” Ilixo’s voice sounds amused, even though Mica doesn’t see the humor. “That is what I do.” “What do you want?” Ollie sounds defeated. “I am glad you asked!” Ilixo says as if he’s praising his dog. His way of speaking is getting on Mica’s nerves. “There is a necromancer that got too big for his breeches. I need you to…cut him to size.” “I’m not working for you anymore!” Ollie shouts. “Ollie,” Wes says. He’s…scared? “Think!” “I am thinking,” Ollie says desperately. “If I do this, he’ll just ask again. And again. We’ll never escape him.” There’s silence after that. Mica presses her ear closer to listen better. It pokes back and she almost lets a yelp loose. She loves mechanicals, alright? She loves that they mostly have an open face, she loves the principles of perpetual kinetic movement that they all follow, she loves how they’re sturdy if not exactly easy to repair, and she even likes the look of the gears. She’s isn’t somebody who hates going forward and being smart and making things easier for everybody. She isn’t…It’s just that they’re pointy! “I am willing to swear an oath,” Ilixo finally answers. Somebody snorts. “I’ll definitely believe it,” Ollie says, this time mockingly. “Out of the goodness of your great heart, you’ll even keep it.” “We can make it binding,” Wes chimes in. “Wes,” Ollie sighs. “We’d be trying to outfox the fox. You don’t know him as I do. There will be some way for him to wiggle out of it, there always is. And he will take advantage. If we’re lucky, we come up with something airtight, he’ll make his escape hatch.” “Perhaps I should let you two confer?” Ilixo asks. “Do listen to him, Oliver. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, not one full of steam.” There are signs of a struggle and Wes asking over and over, “What else can we do?” “Move,” Ollie answers with a growl. Mica has never heard him growling before. “We can’t stay here anyway. Who knows who he told?” Move? From Haven Thirty-eight?! Leave their whole lives behind, people they care about and who care about them? Leave Randy? How can they?! “I’m sorry,” Ollie says. Although Mica understands that they must’ve gotten close to the monitor, he seems like he’s talking to her. “There is no other way.” Mica closes her eyes, the pain of going turning physical. “We can’t go. Mic—we can’t,” Wes says and Mica feels a wave of affection for him. “We are here and whoever wants to come can come.” “It can end now,” Ollie answers, sadder than Mica has ever heard him. She doesn’t know what he means, though. If it is that easy, why doesn’t Wes agree? “No, Ollie, it won’t end. We have to give him this chance,” Wes whispers. They must’ve gotten close to the monitor now. “If he doesn’t take it, then we did our best and we’ll face the rest. We can’t bring problems here so we won’t do anything that asks for trouble. If it comes anyway, we’ll deal with it.” “What are you saying?” Ollie asks and Mica wants to know too. “We find out more. Thirty-eight is close to the border so a necromancer with a grudge is not the person you want to have this close. We could be in danger,” Wes says quietly. “You believe him,” Ollie warns. “Don’t do that.” “Then we won’t,” Wes whispers. “We don’t promise anything.” “Where is the necromancer?” Ollie asks loudly, making Mica flinch. “At the northeastern border somewhere, deep in the forest,” Ilixo answers amused. “We can take a walk,” Wes offers quietly. “See the truth with our own eyes. We leave Mica here and we’re back in two weeks. At most a month. I think that’s perfectly doable.” What. “You realize that just because you say it in a calm tone it doesn’t sound less crazy,” Ollie replies. Yes! “We can’t move, I won’t let you go alone, and I think there’s more to the story,” Wes says somberly. “I understand you think it’s simpler to just move but I don’t think that’s better.” “You have a feeling?” Ollie asks but, contrary to all Mica knows, it sounds serious. Why? Wes is not an oracle, he’s a…some sort of nature mage. He doesn’t have visions. “I do,” Wes answers. And Mica knows, as true as she knows her name, that they’ve kept secrets. They admitted it to her, even. She’s too young to know them yet, they’ve said, these are secrets that she can’t turn away from after she hears them. That scared her and she would have called bullshit because of it, but they also said that they’d do anything to make sure she has a childhood. It made her think. They’ve always been so open that against her better judgment she believed them. Wes was crying, she remembers it like it was ten minutes ago. He said that one thing she can always be sure of was that they love her very much. Ollie’s smile confirmed it. She let it go then, and she can’t make herself regret it. One thing she knows for sure is that they love her. Another thing she knows for sure is that she loves them. She won’t stay home as they go and face a necromancer. She can’t. They may never come back, just like her parents. But she didn’t know her parents, while she loves Ollie and Wes with a strength that surprises her. Suddenly, her going away from home doesn’t seem an impossibility. It seems inevitable.