Young Writers Society

“I think I’ll go get my jetpack back from my place,” Cyrin told Mireya as they stepped through the Projection wall again and reentered the casino. “I’ve missed it.”

“A day and a half where you can’t take it through airport security, and you’re already getting jetpack withdrawal?” she asked jokingly.

“It’s been very hard on me. Have some sympathy.”

Mireya laughed, pushing the casino door open for them as they both stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll head to Clarity’s. You won’t be long, right?”

“About twenty minutes. One way’s going to be faster than the other.” Cyrin held out a hand, tilting and moving it to represent an object in flight.

Mireya nodded, pointing to a skyscraper a few blocks down the street. “You know where to find me, then. Safe wandering— don’t bump into anything while you wander,” she added, finishing the typical blessing with teasing advice.

“Safe wandering.” Cyrin gave her an amused smile, and they got a playful nudge of the shoulder in return before she walked away, blue coat fluttering in the winter wind that had picked up again. They went in the opposite direction, up a flight of stairs leading to the monorail station.

The next train going over the ravine pulled up to the platform just as he got there, and he took a seat by a window. The monorail travel wasn’t nearly as thrilling as flying by jetpack, but there was still an exhilarating moment when the train left one edge of the chasm and then there were only the rails above the emptiness. Far below, a frozen river snaked through the mountain valley, boulders and rocks from avalanches speckling the pine forest around it. Cyrin didn’t get scared by it. When he’d been new here, he’d traced the cliff edges with his finger on the window like a cartographer getting acquainted with the landscape, but even then, it had felt familiar to him. Crystal City wasn’t home, but the mountains were.

Downtown was different. The nature-chiseled sides of the ravine gave way to metal and glass stretching into the sky, standing tall against the fierce winds. The city’s own light bounced off the reflective surfaces, scattering the beams. Even when he came from the very aptly named Prism of Storm City, the sight didn’t feel like something Cyrin had known his whole life. Storm City was battered stone, marble and bronze, all arches and pillars for support, grand and great but still rooted to its mountain foundation. Crystal City, meanwhile, felt more untethered, its buildings reaching for the peaks like it was trying to boast how far it had come.

Just as Cyrin got off a few stops down the line and took the stairs down to street level, ready to walk back to their place, their wrist buzzed with another message. A small smile settled on their face when they pulled it up and read, then typed back.

>autumnleaf:

hi! heard you got back!

>cyring-wolf:

just did! sorry that it was too late for visiting hours but i’m absolutely coming by tomorrow!

>autumnleaf:

!!!

>cyring-wolf:

how are you and Freckles?

While Autumn worked on a reply, they switched over to the weekly email that her doctor had sent while they’d been on the plane. Cyrin scanned the report, looking for anything out of the usual. Stable condition, steady health, no new or worsened symptoms. Relieved, they moved back over to the message Autumn had just sent, a caption for a picture of a cheetah stuffed animal, sitting on a hospital nightstand.

>autumnleaf:

he and i are both good!

getting cold here but that’s how it is

>cyring-wolf:

remind me to bring over a quilt or something! i have plenty

>autumnleaf:

thank you :)

Cyrin started to type another message to ask what kind of color she’d like, but the first word came out severely misspelled. With some confusion at how it happened, he deleted it and tried again, but the next attempt was just as incomprehensible. It took him a moment to realize it was because his fingers had gone strangely numb all of a sudden. He flexed them, frowning, and found it was hard to curl them, let alone make any accurate movement with them.

That wasn’t right.

A thought that he should pay attention to where he was at struck him, and Cyrin looked up from his screen, realizing he’d almost made it back to the block his apartment building was on already. He’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk connecting to the last alley before the doors, which wasn’t a spot he lingered in much. It never felt like a good idea. But he couldn’t feel his hands, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the cold.

Then they felt a slight tingling in their hands, almost like a shiver in their skin, and Cyrin gradually recognized the indication that their Hollow was somewhere close— the one of nine types of magic that a Minor Mage was sensitive to. It felt just like the vibrations that their type of Hollow magic caused, trembling and shaking.

Someone nearby had Tremor magic.

A freshly cast spell of it, too. Cyrin wasn’t bothered by the Tremor magic in old spells like the shield or artifacts in the Permafrost’s Fall, but the power coming from a new casting was almost overwhelming for him, like an allergic reaction to the very energy it had. He shook out his arms, trying to keep the tingling numbness from spreading.

There was no good reason for someone in a city filled with skyscrapers to have the kind of magic that could topple buildings.

Great. Now I’ve got to be responsible and do something about it.

Saints knew the police wouldn’t.