The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,23

my thing, but it was mixed with a sweet blend of spices that wasn’t unpleasant.

“You working overtime?”

“Detention. Some Elven girls decided to dig around in history and use what they found to bully the other kids. A fight broke out with a couple of Gnomes. I’m supposed to go back in and explain to them why that’s all in the past.” Her sigh could have sunk a sailboat.

“Still ironing out the kinks of the all-inclusive elementary school?”

“I just hope we get a chance to. We get more complaints than enrollments right now. Every parent wants us to give their kid the same schooling they had when they grew up. Dwarves want metalwork. Elves want history. The Gremlins want clargamary… whatever the fuck that is.” She threw her cigar on the ground and crushed it under her boot. “We’ve moved on, but nobody gets it. They’d rather send their kids to The School of the First Stream or The Lycum Home of Education, where they keep kids separate and teach them species-specific shit that doesn’t matter anymore.”

She looked up at me properly for the first time, like she’d only just realized she’d been talking to a real person.

“You got some tobacco in your teeth,” I said. She picked it from the gap in her incisors.

“You the guy they’ve got looking for Rye?”

I nodded.

“Well, you better find him. He’s the only staff member anyone respects. Without him, I don’t think we get another year.”

She waddled off, back inside, to convince some kids that the old world was gone so we’d better work together because we don’t have a choice.

At least I was starting to understand why Burbage wanted to keep things so secret. Ridgerock was a dangerous idea. It represented the fact that some people were ready to move forward. Too many of us were still clinging on to the old, dead world. I had my mansion. Others had their faded photos or their rusted swords with notches scratched into the side to remember how fearsome they once were.

If Rye was still alive, what would he be clinging to? It looked like he’d accepted his future: slow, simple and short. Maybe there was already a message at my office from Richie telling me that it was over. What then? Find out who did it, I guess. Work out why Rye was in the teahouse in the first place.

Sure. That’ll do. Focus on the future. Move on.

7

Sunder was a tough town even before the Coda. Back then, Economics was the adversary. You rolled the dice on the burgeoning metropolis knowing that the competition was fierce but the rewards would be substantial. There was still hunger, but it was honest hunger. Suffering was a natural part of city life and we all shared it equally. You didn’t resent the suffering; it was just the side dish that came with your meal. If you hit the dirt, the ground had been softened by a million others who’d stumbled there before you. Misfortune and misery and hardship were the base elements of our existence. It was apathetic and impartial.

Not any more.

Now suffering was a weapon. A disease unleashed by one side against the other. A thing that was done to someone by someone else. There were real villains now. Real enemies. Our fears had been dragged out of the darkness and placed on our neighbors’ faces. It wasn’t life that hurt us now. It was them. The other. The enemy.

Painted on the side of the building were three words. They weren’t fresh. I’d probably walked past them a dozen times without noticing. I’d been so deep in my self-loathing I thought everyone just hated me. I was wrong. Everyone hated everyone.

The paint was probably weeks old, but no one had done anything about it. It wasn’t hidden away in an alley either. Big black letters on the corner of the intersection where everyone could see. It wasn’t just an opinion. It was a message. A warning.

MAGUM MUST DIE.

I stood beneath the sign feeling my blood bubble like hot tar. Magum was an old-world title for Wizards, Witches, Warlocks and anyone who could manipulate the magic. In modern times, the name had been appropriated by certain Human groups as a way of lumping together any species connected to the great river. If it had a touch of magic, it was Magum. The rest of us: Humans, horses, dogs, cats and some other animals had never been connected. We missed the blessing and so we were spared the