POV: Mara
Night folds over the scaffolds like velvet with fingerprints. The Glasswalk qualifiers turn the river to a ribbon of reflected stars; lanterns hang in rows, each a small throat singing its note. I stand at the First Aid table with linen, splints, salve, and water, sleeves rolled, braid pinned high so hair doesn’t fall into wounds.
“Breathe,” Pia orders the world, hands cupped to her mouth like a horn. “You glittering maniacs—breathe with your feet!” She’ll shout herself hoarse by middle bell; she considers this a civic duty.
Lorre prowls the line of panels like a benevolent cat. Apprentices queue barefoot, faces inked with the fragile bravado of youth. “No heroics,” Lorre reminds them. “Clever feet, clever breath, soft eyes. If you fall, fall like you meant to.”
Aster hums in my ribs, tuned to the runes. “Right steps. Right song.”
The first walker—Caro, my earlier ankle—goes slow; the panels answer kind, a sweet bell for each step. He wobbles twice, corrects, reaches the end, and the crowd gives him a soft storm of claps. The second tries speed, then remembers sand exists and revises his theology midair. He lands in a hail of laughter, more relieved than humiliated.
“First Aid has oranges,” I call. “One per bruise.”
“Two per humility!” Pia adds.
We work a rhythm. Wrap, press, cool, tease the proud and steady the scared. My hands remember kitchen burns and find the same pace: slow enough to be precise, quick enough to beat panic. Lorre passes at intervals, taps my shoulder once when I improvise a sling from a torn banner. “Use the ribbon,” she mutters. “If the city insists on pretty, make it useful.”
Above, on a narrow balcony that cuts a line of shadow across the scaffolds, I feel him before I see him. Cael stands with Jax at his shoulder; no cloak, just the Crownward blue-gray swallowing moonlight and giving back a darker kind of shine. He watches the walkers, not me, but when I look up, his gaze finds mine with the clean, exact attention of a man checking weather.
Pia bumps my hip. “Focus,” she whispers, eyes dancing. “Men are like lanterns: you appreciate from the street; you don’t lick the glass.”
“Who licks glass?” I ask, scandalized.
“Cato, after two ciders,” she reports, then cups her hands again. “Steady breath, clever feet!”
The sixth walker misreads a panel’s tone—steps heel first, panel answers with a sour ping—and slips. He doesn’t fall to sand; he falls jaw-first toward the edge of a frame.
“No,” I say, already moving. I slide under the scaffold lip, catch him halfway, and twist so his jaw meets my wrapped forearm, not metal. He yelps; my arm will bruise like a sunset tomorrow, but his teeth remain his.
“Don’t bite me,” I tell him, breathless.
“Wouldn’t dream—ow.”
“Good.” I palpate quickly: no fracture, just shock and pride and a jaw that wants ice. “Open, close.” He obeys; the hinge works, the world keeps its color. I press a cold cloth into his hand and steer him to the table. “Sip water. Chew air. You’ll curse me later for saving your beauty.”
Around us, the crowd’s attention snaps back to the next walker as if directed by an invisible conductor. They cheer the saved boy only in passing. I feel relief like a solved equation. “I prefer it that way,” I murmur.
Pia hears. “You prefer right things winning over loud things,” she says. “An unpopular kink.”
“Shut up and hand me the salve.”
She does, grinning.
Up on the balcony, Cael says something to Jax. Jax answers without looking down. I don’t need to imagine what they’re saying; I’d rather not. Duty, routes, pressure lines, the art of letting a city bruise without letting it bleed.
We run the table for another hour. Someone’s toenail protests modernity. Someone else thinks courage is a substitute for balance. I tie, fold, soothe, lie (“you’re fine”) when fine just means will be.
Near the end of the night, when the river looks like spun glass and voices turn softer with used-up adrenaline, a lantern above our table flickers—not the warm honey of used oil but a brief, startling white, like a fish belly catching moon.
No one remarks. No one sees except me.
Aster goes very still inside me, a held note with teeth. “Not ours.”
I tilt my chin, scanning the wire filigree overhead. Lorre’s crew did everything right—runed arcs tidy, dye-glaze even. The flicker leaves no ash, no crackle, no scent. My tongue tastes of frost for one beat, then sugar for the next. The light returns to normal like a liar who learned manners.
“Mara?” Pia asks, following my gaze.
“Nothing,” I say. “Light flirting.”
“Glassy tart,” she says approvingly, and returns to barking encouragement at a pair of twins.
I file the whiteness in my mind’s ledger under asks questions later. I don’t touch it with words; words make things louder.
When the final bell releases the field, the apprentices spill laughter like coins. Lorre takes my hand and squeezes once. “You’re steady,” she says again, like a benediction. “Tomorrow, same time.”
“Yes,” I say.
On the balcony, Cael is already gone, which means he left before the last cheer, which means he trusts the city to finish a joke without him. I hate how much sense that makes.
We pack the kit; Pia croaks like a toad and insists she is still beautiful. I sling the bag over my shoulder and do not look up again.