be silent.
Charlonge drew a chair back and sat down with them. She folded her hands inside the long sleeves of her dress. ‘That wouldn’t be wise.’
Her counsel made Retra curious even though she had no plans to join the Wings. ‘Why not? It seems like a place to belong. As good as another,’ she said softly. It was the truth. There was something alluring in the way they banded together.
‘Ixion is a place of freedom and expression. The White Wings and the others impose their own rules. Why would you want that? Especially coming from a province like Grave. Besides, the Ripers only tolerate the gangs, but they don’t approve of them. You will attract more attention to yourself by joining one. It seems you have done enough to be monitored already.’
Retra thought of the warden at home in Grave. ‘What happens when you’re monitored?’
‘The Ripers watch you. Everywhere you go. Everywhere.’
As if hearing Charlonge, Forlorn entered the refectory, his sweeping gaze pausing to linger on them.
Charlonge got to her feet again. ‘Brand won’t forget what you did,’ she whispered. ‘Be careful.’ She moved to another table and sat down with the girls Retra had seen in the dressing room earlier.
‘She’s right about one thing,’ said Suki. ‘Brand is scary – all those scars and things. It might be safer being part of the Wings.’
Retra didn’t answer.
‘Oh, well,’ said Suki, stuffing the last of the bacon in her mouth, ‘it’s still a few hours until Early-Eve. While we’re waiting, let’s go out. I heard that the guy you fancy is playing at Club Abraxas. Markes, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t fancy him,’ said Retra quickly.
Suki scraped the last of her bacon through her sauce. ‘Yeah, right.’
The Abraxas line ran downhill from Vank; a weaving, rocking trip that gave Retra time to stare out of the window at the mountainside’s brilliant nightscape while Suki’s prattle became faster and more excited.
They’d gone to confession before leaving Vank but Test had been dispensing and hadn’t forced Retra to ingest the pod. Afterwards she’d dropped hers over the edge of the platform as they got on the kar.
‘You have to take it,’ Suki warned, as she swallowed a whole red bead. ‘They’ll know.’
‘I don’t like them. They made me see things – visions.’
‘What-kinda-visions?’
‘Demons.’
Suki pulled a face. Then she giggled. ‘It-made-you-dance-all-sexy,’ she said.
Retra noticed that most of the people in the kar were speaking in the same kind of high-pitched, jerky voices as Suki. Had she sounded the same?
When the kar stopped, they piled out, pushing and shoving and mock-arguing. Retra searched the faces on the platform, looking for her brother, but she saw no one that could be him.
She and Suki followed the crowd as they walked the lamp-lit path to Club Abraxas.
Unlike the Drop, which they’d accessed from a bridge, the Club Abraxas entry was deep in the hillside.
As they walked along, the warm air played over Retra like a wet tongue, making her skin pimple.
‘Want you,’ a voice whispered from the dark. ‘Soon.’
Retra glanced to either side of the path but saw nothing save shadowy, low bushes, stretching away into the night. The smell of musk made her look up into the sky. The black rainbow of bats was back, cutting through the starlight in a long arc of black.
‘Suki, do you hear that?’
‘What?-Hear-what?-What’re-you-talking-about?-All-I-can-smell-is-stinking-bats-Can’t-hear-nothing-’cept-myown-heartbeat-bang-bang-bang,’ Suki raved. She jigged as they walked, unable to keep her limbs still.
Retra pressed closer to the people in front of her. She felt relieved when the stars blinked out and they entered Abraxas’s cave system.
The first cave was small, more like an entrance hall, with Ripers standing around watching new arrivals.
She and Suki passed through it quickly into the next, which was wider with a raised stage cut from the rock wall, and passages running off it in different directions. A band of musicians spread across the stage, tuning instruments, most of which Retra didn’t recognise.
‘Krissie-says-Abraxas-has-performers-in-all-its-caves-We-just-have-to-find-the-one-with-Markes-now.’
Suki’s fast talking unnerved Retra. So did her jerky movements.
‘We could look separately,’ she said, feeling the sudden need to get some distance from Suki’s glittering eyes and fast mouth.
Suki danced on her toes a little, agitated. Tears filled her eyes and she ran off without a word.
Retra went to follow after her but fingers gripped her wrist and swung her around.
Modai.
‘In a hurry, baby bat? Why is that?’ He curled back his lips to show off sharp teeth. ‘What did you see? Who did you see?’
Two more Ripers joined him. Retra recognised Forlorn as one of them, but not the other. They crowded