Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,15

them slinking around, dancing in those tight wine-purple skinny jeans and that scoop-neck shirt that’s already slipping off their shoulder.

I roll my eyes at myself. Woe is me, swoon. Whatever will I do? However will I manage? Get it together.

I nod decisively, get to my feet, and walk right past Remi into the single shared bedroom to pull my clothing drawer out from under my bed.

Apparently I need to bring it too.

Four

WE’VE BEEN AFTER ANIA TO get us into Nova for a year. Five minutes inside, though, and I’m already seriously doubting our choice.

There’s sunnaz everywhere, glimmering decorative accents in the darkness, though it’s the most expensive maz there is right now. Twinkling spellwoven lights cling high along the walls and hover overhead, shifting color in response to the music and falling in a glittering shower from the ceiling whenever the beat drops.

I can’t help but hate the place a little bit. Their earthquake wards are probably in perfect shape too.

Maybe Ania was right not to bring us before. The gross display of excess wealth, especially after today’s earthquake, gets under my skin in a big way. Remi forces me and Jaesin to listen to the morning maz update every day by blaring it so loud we can’t plead ignorance. It reports the fluctuating prices and supply of the different strains of maz, and Remi’s tactic has done its job. I’ve apparently absorbed enough of it to be righteously pissed.

It reminds me of the parties MMC throws once a year for all the good little orphans who manage to keep their grades up. I used to go every time. Free food, right? Jaesin came with me for a few years, but eventually he started staying home with Remi, who sat out in protest. Their loss. The parties always started out as civilized affairs. Speeches, bubbly fake champagne, and elderly employees looking kindly upon us poor orphan children. Two hours and significantly less adult supervision later, though, and they looked more like this—all decorum gone right out the window.

Beside me, a wide-eyed girl stares as someone goes tearing past with their hair on fire, screaming at the top of their lungs. I roll my eyes. Anyone who grew up in a group home or in the Cliffs has seen that illusion a hundred times. Maybe rich kids are on such a tight parental leash that they haven’t been overexposed to every prank on the planet? But some things are universal: so long as one single person falls for it, the cycle will continue.

A techwitch from Ania’s school who recently paid me to fix his hardware is repurposing the glowing maz decor for his own means. He’s got a spellweaver buddy drawing the threads away from the wall, feeding them straight into his ware, and he spins the whole mess into some kind of rave hula hoop to accentuate his awful table dancing. The delicate tech protests his wild movements, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“You’re gonna break it again if you keep pushing it like that, you know!” I shout over the music. I don’t know why I bother. If he comes back to me for more repairs, it’ll only build my post-graduation noodle fund. Seeing him abuse his (gorgeous, expensive) hardware like that hurts me deep in my broke-ass soul, though.

“What did you say was wrong this time?” Nash calls to me from his tabletop, his eyes never leaving his casting hands, completely unrepentant.

“Accelerometer needed recalibration.” I flip the nonshaved side of my hair out of my eyes with a toss of my head and smile. The perfect picture of innocence. “Gotta quit jerking off with your ware on.”

Nash scoffs in my general direction, swaying to the thumping beat of the music. “Well, fortunately I pay you to fix my ware, not teach me how to use it.”

With an overdramatic flourish of his wrist, he activates the implant in his index finger again. It releases a thin, glowing strand of aeraz, which he weaves into a simple breeze pattern with exaggerated gestures like some kind of flailing, spell-casting octopus. Then, with a sharp snap of his forearm, he pulls the final thread taut and flings the spell in my direction—sending a gust of humid, sweat-scented wind straight at me, like jet-propelled dog breath to the face. The fragile strands of the spell crumble a moment later, but it’s too late for the poor bartender. The spell wasn’t that strong, but it was enough for the bottles lined up