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Part 2: Chapter 7: Soother
[???: Magnet]
The fourth was hard, hard, hard, but by now I was strong, strong, strong.
I saw, constantly, consistently, one simple collection of coins, and knew the rightness of what I did with great certainty.
[Soother 2:7.1]
I burned bronze, harder and harder...
Part 2: Chapter 6: Firesoul
[???: Magnet]
I had long since learned not to look at lopsided possibilities with anything but suspicion, for the most part.
So often the sight seemed to be a foretelling of failure compounding onto failure.
[Firesoul 2:6.1]
Ferrous eventually gave in and admitted...
Part 2: Chapter 5: Leecher
[???: Magnet]
These days I tried to keep firmly to the middle path, where the shoulds and the should nots were equal weights on the scale—or close to it.
I was becoming a force for balance, I realized. For harmony.
[Leecher 2:5.1]
The sight of Arcadia was...
Part 2: Chapter 4: Soulbearer
[???: Magnet]
My second gift, once I returned it to its rightful place, seemed for some reason to be reduced—it showed the same piles of coins, but they were now unmarked.
Which was which?
[Soulbearer 2:4.1]
She walked up close, almost within arms' reach, to...
Part 2: Chapter 3: Archivist
[Archivist 2:3.1]
She was in the park we'd hung out at a couple of times, sitting against the fence and rhythmically throwing out balls to a happy pack.
I sat down companionably and started scratching Angelica the way she'd taught me.
"Taylor," she acknowledged...
Part 2: Chapter 2: Connector
[Connector 2:2.1]
"What's wrong wif 'er?" Dean said, grinning at his own tired joke.
I couldn't make my brain move fast enough to respond in time. How did she do this so quickly? Was I accidentally storing in zinc, somehow, or was she always tapping it, also...
Part 2: The Fourth Life
Part 2: Chapter 1: Trueself
[Trueself 2:1.1: Gnat]
After my contact with Ferrous, there was a less painful kind of nostalgia in putting the lessons Emma and I had learned at camp to good use. It was strangely satisfying to be able to be—mostly—self-sufficient, now...
Prologue
[Prologue: Ferrous]
She fell like a lightning bolt out of—me.
A sight only I will ever see, I believe.
I feel an echo in that, somewhere beyond myself.
I stand on a vast white plain, stretching endlessly all around, my feet sinking gently into its surface.
I kneel down to touch it...
Epilogue
[Epilogue]
She removed the rest of the gauze that had been keeping her contained, binding her, blinding her now, by now-numb touch, having to rip it off where it was sticking to her eyelashes.
A little late for all that, anyway, she thought regretfully.
It was a strange reversal of...
Chapter 5: Rioter
[Rioter 5.1: ???]
I could fix this city, I thought, licking my ever-dry lips as I flew, ping-ponging between womb-wide lines with ease, listening intently to the rhythms I knew so well by now.
The only thing still trying to slow me down was this frustratingly thick air.
I...
Chapter 4: Smoker
[Smoker 4.1]
This was a second chance at a first impression, I realized as I was pulling myself maddeningly slowly across the city towards the loft. With people who could understand, people who could help, people I cared for—however that might have happened.
There were—a...
Chapter 3: Seeker
[Seeker 3.1]
Sophia Hess turned out to be surprisingly difficult to pin down.
The more surprisingly because she actually seemed to be interested in me, too.
[Seeker 3.2]
Idly, at lunch—it was Sloppy Joesday—I was playing with copper and chromium, burning and flaring and...
Chapter 2: Augur
[Augur 2.1]
I gazed, fascinated, at the two girls in front of me.
The two—almost Taylors but not quite.
One was the me I kept being surprised not to see when I unexpectedly caught my own reflection in something. Her face was unscarred. I burned some tin and glanced over at...
A Comedy of Ferrous
Chapter 1: Lurcher
[Prelude]
—with a sudden snap, I was myself again, climbing unsteadily to my feet.
Okay.
The capes wouldn't help. Villain, or hero, or whatever the difference was supposed to be. I wasn't sure why I had expected anything else.
How could I do this? I...