Toxic Heart

“You’ve got nowhere to go!” someone shouts behind us.

Kyle.

I glance back at my older brother. He’s limping toward us, a silver pistol in his hand. Behind him, soldiers with the Rose insignia on their black uniforms are marching steadily. Up ahead, more soldiers have created a wall that neither Turk nor I will be able to break.

I look to the side. The fragile railings of the bridge—gleaming metal beams that seem to float in midair—would be easy enough to jump over, but then what?

We would fall, swiftly and desperately, into the Depths.

For a second, I see something shimmering in the air nearby. Something that looks an awful lot like a face.

Flanked by his soldiers, Kyle approaches. “This is the end of the road, Aria.”

I stare again at the dark blue sky.

Inhale deeply.

And run straight for the railing of the bridge.

“Aria, no!” my brother screams.

I jump.

The breath is sucked out of me as I tumble toward the dirty canals hundreds of stories below.

To my death.

For Johnny and Melinda Rose, it seems that thorn is their daughter, socialite Aria Rose, with her mystic boyfriend, Hunter Brooks, son of the late mayoral candidate Violet Brooks.

The Roses are no strangers to controversy. They made headlines this summer when they announced that seventeen-year-old Aria was to wed Thomas Foster, son of George and Erica Foster and younger brother of Garland Foster. The Roses and the Fosters have been political rivals for generations. The marriage between Aria and Thomas would have united their families just in time for the August mayoral election, which Garland Foster was favored to win against Violet Brooks, the registered mystic who many felt was the voice of the poor people of the Depths, mystics and nonmystics alike.

Of course, after the discovery and subsequent ravaging of the secret underground tunnels where rebel mystics have been hiding for decades, and the deaths of both mayoral candidates, the election—and the wedding—were canceled. Hunter Brooks is now leading the rebel
cause in the Depths, and the united Rose and Foster families are leading the Aeries dwellers.

The surprise here has been Aria Rose’s shifting alliance. Her engagement to Thomas Foster seemingly broken, she has publicly declared her love for Hunter Brooks and her support for the mystic party.

With city morale at an all-time low, Aria Rose’s support for the mystics makes one wonder if more Aeries residents will shift loyalties, and if that will affect the outcome of the most devastating war the city has ever known.

Meanwhile, we’re waiting for the lovely Aria’s next move.…

—from
Manhattan View
, an Aeries society e-column, 19 September

“And block,” Shannon says.

She’s standing a few feet in front of me, a long wooden kendo stick at her side. Without hesitation, she lifts the stick and swings it at my head.

I raise my right elbow to block her, but she’s too fast.

All I see is a flash of color before I’m on the ground, staring up at the blazing, white-hot sun, my head throbbing. It is oppressively hot—so hot I can barely think.

At least the grass is soft. Sort of.

“Get up!” Shannon bends over me. “Man. It’s like you’ve never fought before in your life.”

“I
haven’t
,” I reply, rubbing the side of my head, making sure I’m not bleeding. Until a few weeks ago, the only physical activity I’d ever really done was a handful of squash matches in the Florence Academy gym. And dancing, of course, at various debutante balls in the Aeries.

“Oh?” Shannon says, poking my leg with her stick. “I seem to recall your being in a pretty huge battle recently. Then again, you did end up in the hospital. So I would say you lost.”

The tone of her voice is teasing, which bothers me. That entire night is a blur: my parents’ army raided the underground hideout of the rebel mystics, who retaliated with mighty displays of their powers. It ended with Violet Brooks’s death and my hospitalization—and a war that continues to this day.

Shannon pokes me again. “What are you going to do if someone attacks you and you fall? Just lie there? Get up and strike back.”

I groan, pushing myself into a seated position. The surrounding field is an open square of land, though in the not-too-far distance are dozens of trees, clumped together like knots of hair, stretching their bare limbs up toward the clouds. This area—once prime farming land in Upstate New York—is nothing like the shiny skyscrapers that I’m used to in Manhattan.

Of course, none of the land is prime anything anymore: the sweltering heat has left the grass brown and yellow and stiff. There’s been no respite for the past two weeks, ever since I left the hospital. Shannon has been drilling me every day. According to her, I’m a terrible student.

I brush the sweat from my forehead and wipe my hands on my training gear, stretchy black fabric engineered to reflect heat. It can’t possibly be working. I’m so hot I could explode.

“Now watch me.” Shannon drops the kendo stick to the ground and holds up her hands. She tucks her fingers into her palms and makes two fists. Then she brings her arms into her chest until her fists are just under her chin. “This is the correct position.”

I mimic her. “Okay.”

“Let’s say I’m running toward you, ready to attack. You don’t
have time to run away, so you have to defend yourself. You get into this position … then what?”