48 - Sky Above Clouds_Paradise of Pretenders

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 O''KEEFE, 1960-1977

 Not now, Qyrie, I tell it. It is not the time for that kind of movement. I see eleven Majors in front of me, some of them have their Minors, and each of them sees our Movement Blue in a different way. I suppose that’s why they’re called Harmonizers, some of them.

 “Where’s Willow?” I said into the air.

 G Major Tailor, rumpling and crumpling her long sock – yellow today – shook her head. “Of all the questions to ask, concertmaster,” she said. “You sent the A Major off to the twelfth residual two months ago.”

 Hoping she’d come back with answers. It was a blue day for us in concert. I see that the one B Major present, Kororo, is silent, brushing her hair from where she sits atop the floe. Each movement of her fingers causes it to shine, reflecting across the cloud-seat in dazzling lines. She wasn’t looking at me either.

 “Qumulo, you called this sectional about the rests on the eighth residual,” A Major Bolero said.[1]</a>

 Always quick to her sheets, Bolero. Perhaps I should have sent her instead. I touch my bind again, and Bolero’s face, which was usually pale like the clouds on the eighth residual, became somehow paler. “We’re going to find the enemy, presto.”

 “Prestissimo,” agreed some others in unison. Kororo continued brushing, her floe drawing icy skeins. Skeins. For the briefest fermata, I almost wish we had some in our ranks.

 “My Mordants reported more than one,” F Major Jacuzzi noted, holding up a finger. Her cloud-rings jingled from it, today discordant.[2]</a>

 “Only one was breaking the clens, evaporating evas, silencing toners and mordants and harmonizers. The other was just watching.”

 “And your Mordants didn’t join?” Tailor asked.

 Jacuzzi lowered her finger. “If they did, I wouldn’t have Mordants.”

 “Here’s a note,” I said. My Majors looked at me – well, those who did. Kororo was still looking off at a distant watershed, unreachable by infinite refrain.[3]</a>

 A Majors Bolero and Encanto, only both here because they were twins, already had their binds out, hovering at attention.

 “Cleave affogato, anyone?” D Major Eberry queried, his arms filled. His own Mordants had excavated an entire area around them, about a measure down. “I’m sensing tension around the loss of some Mordants.” He laughed; his two Mordants echoed it like cloud timpani.

 “Sure, I’ll take one,” Tailor said, holding out her hand; Eberry walked over, and deposited one onto her waiting palm.[4]</a>

 “Your note,” E Major Bassetto’s bind said, from where it lay propped up against a white outcrop.[5]</a>

 Not for the first time today, I briefly regretted selecting the usual sectional venue. But the seventh residual was always freeform. And the cleos, while rarely sighted with so many of us around, would make this brief meeting worthwhile.

 “Jacuzzi – any Majors among those who fell?” I asked her, but a bit higher in volume. If they were all like Eberry’s duo, then there was no caesura to Movement Blue.

 Plop. An affogato had dropped. Eberry bent, trying to recover it before it got devoured.

 “My brother,” he said. “D Major Burberry.”

 Only a D Major, I think, but only solo. I look across the stretch of cloud – no one else had known. “And Burberry’s direct upper chair?” I asked him, in a tone pedal.

 “Bassetto,” Eberry said. He handed a third affogato to Encanto. Encanto politely turned their head.

 “And Bassetto, yours?” I asked his bind, which gave off an F Sharp.

 “Stiletto,” it said.

 Audible sighs from around the plateau. F Major Stiletto had held a no-singing contest the other day. How tawdry…

 “What about the other

 tourists?” Eberry asked. Heads turned; this was fairly novel, unless, of course, he was referring to that group of Scions gathered by the N?tr prince. Perry hadn’t reported any particular Scion of note…

 “Not other, Eberry, we do not welcome tourists who create dissonance in the residuals,” I said. “Just tourists. What of them?”

 “The mchezaji from Sector III?” G Major Niji asked[6]</a>, and Tailor besides him shook her head. “They’re on B Major Windy’s watershed,” she said.

 “The tourists I served two days ago,” Eberry said. “They’re alter people. And they’re Descended.”

 Most of the heads turned; even Kororo’s, while still brushing her hair. G Majors Chiaros and Pintero looked up from their cleave movanos[7]</a>; Jacuzzi laughed. Her cloud-rings jingled a tilde.

 “What are their skeins?”

 Kororo – she was sliding down her floe, hitting the flush white surface with a poof. She brushed off trivially small cloud-flakes from her timpants. More appeared as she looked back up, her face small, her eyes curious and probing.

 “What are their skeins?” she asked Eberry, causing him to drop his cleave. A small claw emerged, quickly, to take it, before disappearing with a pluff. A cleo!

 “B Major Kororo, I submitted my sheets to my upper chair. As is concert,” he added.

 Five scales above him; but, I think, about a third his age.

 By sky, or below? came a whisper from Qyrie.

 Kororo knelt. Inserting her small hands into the cloud-surface, she pulled out the cleo, its claws scrambling. She let it go, sinking back into the white. She stood back up, her head barely reaching Eberry’s waist; her eyes appearing like those spaces of sky between clouds. She was frowning.

 “E Major Azure’s sheets go to F Major Jacuzzi. Jacuzzi, did you get them?”

 Jacuzzi was shaking her head, her laugh’s ebbs still apparent. “No, B Major.”

 “And if she did get them, then Jacuzzi’d have given her sheets to G Major Iota. And G Major Iota would’ve given theirs to Willow.”

 That was why she’d been silent. Kororo

 was the upper chair to Willow. I sighed, making sure it was just audible, piano

 for E Major Calm, sitting just beneath me, to look up, his eyes like stalactites.[8]</a>

 If only Willow herself were here… the next time I call sectional, to call specific Majors would make things clearer; but that is not how we do things here in Movement Blue!

 “So, B Major, you wouldn’t have them, as A Major Willow is still on her session,” Eberry said. I could tell that he had almost said a joke instead, or offered yet another cleave affogato.

 Windy’s latte blues made them taste like Sector I.

 “A Major Willow would have sent notes, at least,” Kororo said. She now turned to me.

 “Concertmaster, the guests who silenced Burberry may also be Descended, may have skeins that bring caesura to Movement Blue.” She then retreated to her floe, her feet nearly slipping off the ice. She resumed her brushing.

 Descended caesura are handled by concertmasters and above, I thought. The barest blue of an image flashes before me – a much, much younger Qumulo, then going by her name by droplet Sella de Agua, then of course a guise for her real name – meeting a pair of luthiers on the first residual, revealing she was Descended, and that (while it had been mostly pretend) she was there to evaporate all the clouds – and witnessing then the descent of one of the Octaves through at least eight residuals – even now, I still have sheets to write. For there’s only one Concertmaster in Movement Blue.

 D Major Eberry, once again, fails to bring cleave of the same quality as B Major Windy’s latte blue. B Major Kororo reminds him of his scale. Various tourists noted, including some Descended. None of note, but provided here. Signed and sung, Concertmaster Qumulo.

 And Qyrie.

 Something like that. Having met the N?tr prince – who, of course, and unbeknownst to Kororo, is not Descended, but fully from a world of magic – who was likely no higher than C Major – I feel this is a song that even Eberry’s Mordants can pursue.

 I look again at the D Major. He’s trying to respond to his superior of five scales – a member of our concert, and the absolute youngest to reach B Major – and one who, according to Willow, had called down binds from the fourth through sixth residuals merely by touching a chord on the second. Binds all already assigned.

 “B Major – Concertmaster Qumulo – C Major Tammarin Le sends their sheets to me. Two of these tourists’ composition – one of them commanded more than one bind, allowing another to pass the test.”

 “The C Major allowed that tourist to go up?” Bolero asked – but Eberry continued, looking at me – “Concertmaster, and the second tourist commanded seven binds out of the chord.”

 Kororo’s brushing stops.

 Bolero is now, too – among with the rest – staring at poor Eberry with an incredulous expression.

 Encanto puts a hand on their twin’s shoulder, as if to restrain her. “And the D Major Eberry, did not get this Descended’s skeins.” They looked at Kororo. Her eyes, blue ringed in white, bright and clear, nearly furious. Encanto continued[9]</a>, “Does the D Major at least know the purpose of their visit?” They look at Eberry.

 “A Major Encanto – this Descended – well, it seems those Descended with her may have different reasons – but this one, Skylark, just wants to go up. How high, she did not say.” His eyes are down – as if he’s trying to relocate the cleo.

 How clear.

 Echoes of ennui around the plateau. “But why,” Tailor is asking, and Eberry shakes his head. “She just does,” he said. “She might be their leader. That was not clear.”

 “So she’s just like us,” I say. I step down from my own floe and give Kororo a calming look. “What is the call of the sky, Majors?”

 “To see above is to sing,” they echo, and I nod. “They are just tourists. Bolero, Encanto – take your below chairs, and theirs – find the other visitors.”

 They nod, and place their hands around their binds – and with them, they sink back down through the cloud-surface.

 “Kororo.”

 She looks at me, still waiting.

 I think she wants to see their singing, Qyrie says. Ebbers didn’t mention any singing.

 “Take Deliri and go to the twelfth residual. Find Willow. Do not return until you do.”

 I think she appears somewhat disappointed – but then again, she is only nine. And Deliri is thirty-two, and the upper chair of Bolero. One of our best…

 “I’ll take two Conductors,” Kororo says, and I nod. Willow may well have discovered the Paradisiacs’ performing venue, or the watershed of the Octaves, or perhaps even the skyports leading to the other Sectors. Eberry is looking miserable. Well, if Willow succeeded, then there’d be no more tourists coming to bring possible caesura to Movement Blue.[10]</a>

 “Give me a cleave pedal,” I order, and Eberry rushes to it.

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 [1]</a> A Major Bolero – TPRMX’s 2015 remix of Ravel’s Boléro

 [2]</a> F Major Jacuzzi – GARNiDELiA’s “PRIDE”, from their 2015 album Linkage Ring

 [3]</a> B Major Kororo – SennaRin’s “Missing Piece -WwisH-”, from her 2022 EP Saihate (Complete Edition)

 [4]</a> G Major Tailor – Valley’s 2022 single CHAMPAGNE

 [5]</a> E Major Bassetto – my head is empty’s 2023 single lose yourself

 [6]</a> G Major Niji – SHAUN’s “Swan Song”, from his 2022 single Omnibus, Pt. 2: Inside Out

 [7]</a> G Majors Chiaros and Pintero – David Parris and Xander Carlson’s 2022 album performance of Watercolor

 [8]</a> E Major Calm – Scizzie’s “aquatic ambience (sped up)”, from his 2022 single aquatic ambience

 [9]</a> A Major Encanto – Wako Composers Collection, The Works of Robert W. Smith, 2019

 [10]</a> A Major Willow – Dani Sylvia’s “I’ve Seen Forever (Live from Willow Studios)”, from her 2023 album 1:11

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 “We’ll try every building,” Luke affirmed, looking around at them all, and then he frowned. “Wait—where’s Skylark?”

 Jaceus did not know. She was going someplace, somewhere higher; a place only her eyes could see. She was like Avien, who’d spend most of his time in the sky, whether or not he was carrying Emeli in his Vareau, and very little of it actually teaching.

 But he supposed that he would discover for himself in what ways, around the ways people lived, Sector II differed from Sector I, and from the place he only remembered as home. He’d told them that he’d find a way here; but so far, they were meeting Majors, who became increasingly fretful about their going up. He could tell himself of who he was. But they didn’t know, and the thought came to him that he could try going in dayform again. Shining in the light revealed of an Emulus. That, certainly might do something.

 Or he could use his bind. He looked at it. Sometime in the last few hours it’d stopped trying to squeeze out of his fingers. Which didn''t make much sense to him as the same handle, held tightly, had been able to carry him with ease up through the sky.

 But in his hand, all it''d done was squirm, and flap its wings.

 “Jaceus, you coming?" Luke asked, coming over; Jaceus met his eyes, their eagerness abated as the plan to find food without taking it from the people here had been made. "We''re just going to ask. Skylark could be eating right now."

 He was just someone who followed, now. Jaceus thought of the times that he''d take off the Myodor wingcloak, apply some rain to his hair to change it to green, and join the crowd of Wos as they peered around the golden arch. He’d stare in frank and faux amazement at Ila ce turning the corridor, the rays of the sun actually seeming to change in her footsteps. She was just like that. He ran his hands through his green, wet hair and watched.

 They were getting away from him. Jaceus moved his feet and followed, and the snow lifted off his feet as Luke led the way eagerly, heading to the nearest building; and Sterne fell back to speak to Jaceus.

 “Jaceus. You’re in high school, right?”

 He shook his head. “I was. But before—” He’d almost said it. Taenim Laev.

 High school and university both, in the terms of Earth.

 “Before, Jaceus. In the other world?”

 This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

 Why was he interested? Jaceus regretted now, ever mentioning it to them. He had to, to get them on this quest. But it didn’t feel much like one now. He didn’t know where they were going. If Emeli were here, she’d chide him, just as she had Ila ce, on desiring to venture into Palette. If only she could see him now, walking on snow, holding a paltry version of a Magpotis.

 Reflexively, he jerked it. Nothing happened.

 “These binds, they’re truly fascinating things,” Sterne said. “I got really lucky, you know. I only passed because of Cerise.”

 “Yes, you did,” Jaceus said. “She said something about Skylark’s binds all being hers. Skylark took those seven binds out from the chord. So—”

 “No, Jaceus.” And here, the former high school teacher, his black fluffy hair still flecked with white, frowned at him. “I know Cerise did something with this bind I have.” He made a whistling sound, and his bind came about, from behind his shoulders; “So I know it’s mine, even if Cerise enabled it.”

 But Sterne hadn''t earned his bind in the same way. Jaceus nodded though, and smiled. This was a Scion who could speak with the stars. Or his conception of "Capricorn"—"Sterne, did Capricorn give advice on how to eat here?"

 Sterne frowned. Gone was the look of eagerness to know more about the Powers'' leader. In its position was the informant of knowledge that Mr. T served as pseudonym, occasionally telling his students of his trait, and of course they wouldn''t remember, but he told them.

 “Capricorn is reticent," Mr. T said. "Alpha Centauri keeps telling me stories. But they don''t know how to eat in Sector II." His voice was deeper, and Jaceus thought immediately that the others didn''t really ask about the true nature of Sterne''s trait, and while none of it so far was truly magical, he hadn''t felt the use of magic around him, he hadn''t met so many Scions that he could know them as, well as Rennie Jay might capture the various facets of life and society in Sector I.

 "Neither do I," he said. "But Luke has a plan."

 "He does, doesn''t he?" Sterne smiled, levity returned. "And it''s separate from his battle Plans."

 Jaceus smiled. Luke had nothing in terms of field strategy as it came to combat. He had yet to see the former Fury use hand and leg but Luke had lost severely to that Agent he''d suppressed with his shape.

 "Jaceus! Keep smiling like that; we can have them just give their clen-cakes to us."

 Cakes or in their petite form called, mindo above the Lowers levgion. A stable delicacy that had nothing again to the pomes of the Nutrieat. Jaceus sighed, in the deep way of his own that Pur? would entreat, Jaceus, keep breathing like that. It becomes you. This is the way that us Element’r enter Vareau.

 But Jaceus was no Element’r. Jaceus was only Emulus, and only an Element’r, or Vareau-aided, would know those sky-routes as naturally as Ila ce concocted prunesticks.

 By now they’d reached the first building. It was tall and heavy, sitting deeply on the snow like a chord, and there were no windows—it was all just a single slab of ice, or snow, or such combination drawn out of the clen-biology that had only been alluded to here in drops and beats. Jaceus followed Luke and Sterne around its corner; there Cerise was pulling the door open, making a smooth sliding sound on the ice, and indeed there was a small area of it ringing the door, and Agate followed after her, and they were soon all inside.

 All was quiet in the room. It was spacious, filled with white corners that projected deeply into large piles of snow, and there were children playing in it, diving into it in their warm white shirts and using their hands to form balls of snow and ice which they proceeded to lick, throw up the slopes to watch them roll down, or toss them each other in the most casual mockery of combat.

 It wasn’t something he hadn’t seen before. Some of the more eager Lye would teach their youngest, secured in their placenta to float just out of them, yelling at each other in the briefest formations of the words they’d just learned, and Jaceus watched as Sterne and Cerise immediately went to joining them, taking up balls of snow in their bare hands and replicating the throwing and the tossing.

 “OK, so no food, not counting all of it which, you know, we can probably eat,” Luke said. “Let’s go to the next one.”

 But he let them play for a few more seconds as Sterne picked up a hapless child, who perfectly allowed him, and set it on top of one of the hills, and watched the child go down.

 “Wonder if they have birthport?” Cerise asked as they left. “Or do all these kids just emerge from the snow.”

 “And they’re birthed from the clens, yeah,” Luke said. “I don’t know, they probably have something similar. Birthports was introduced before the Sectors were made, right?”

 “No, it’s something unique to Sector I,” Agate said. “Anne Restor.”

 Sterne clapped his hands as they reached the next building. Empty, silent, white. “That’s right. Birthports are like portals, after all.”

 Jaceus thought of the portals, and how they had their own shapes, and that if Sterne was right, the children of Sector I came out of such things that had their own shapes, which meant—

 —But he refused to allow himself to consider further. There would only be so much that he did to help the others here, or learn about their world. He was a prince of the N?tr and he would return. It was well into the second year now. And he wasn’t reading Rennie Jay anymore.

 Cerise pulled the door open. Screech.

 Beyond it lay a small space, with two doors: both with lettering etched in ice on their centers. Majors and above only on the left. Minors and everyone else on the right.

 Cerise laughed. “Of course,” she said. “And right next to the kids.”

 “What do you mean?” Sterne asked. He approached the door labeled Minors: running his hands over the white blocks, only the M capitalized. “Majors, like Eberry, and Tammarin Le. We’re not Majors, so—” He stopped—“Unless, Cerise, you’ve been leading us all this way because you are—”

 “No,” Cerise responded. “I’m not a Major. Majors are irksome, and it takes a lot to become one.”

 Jaceus nodded. That made sense, but he decided to assume that Cerise before had tried, Major or Minor both.

 He stepped up behind Sterne. “What happens if we go through the Majors’ door? And where does this go?”

 “Their rehearsal rooms,” Cerise answered. “Majors usually have Minors with them, they’re kinda like—hmm, I guess a bit like the Agents with their partners in the field.”

 “What?” Agate said.

 “Yeah,” Cerise said. “Rehearsal rooms are for Majors only. And above, look.” She waved her hand over and above only. “As we saw, Tammarin was C Major, E-bore D. There’s E through B above that. And then—”

 She paused, once again not revealing just how much she knew, Jaceus thought. “So here they congregate. Regardless of just how high up they are in the scale. Eberry was easy; I don’t know, if you learned about it in school, it’s Sector II’s military.”

 “Military,” Agate said. “But there haven’t been wars since—”

 “I know,” Cerise said. “It doesn’t matter. The people here are weird. They sing all the time, and pretend to fight, when they’re completely different, alter different, things.”

 Jaceus decided to reserve recollection on what she’d just said. Because Qumulo had seemed like she could fight, and not sing.

 “So we go through here, then,” he said, pointing to the Minors’ door. “And everyone else. They have to eat, so there’ll be something through here.”

 Cerise nodded. “Something. Everything is through the clens, and they’ll probably have cleave. That’s really all they eat.”

 Luke didn’t appear too satisfied with that response, but Jaceus noted how Agate’s eyes lit. She had really liked that cleave, even though it had tasted to Jaceus no differently than water, maybe with a touch of that spark that bluesimmer had. But he knew that the rest of them (well, besides Cerise, in all likelihood) hadn’t had bluesimmer. So he nodded again, and Cerise pushed the door open, and the emptiness and silence of before was shattered.

 <hr>

 Her stomach full, Skylark thought of the last time she’d had something truly good, and all she thought of was the times Alauda would make something blue, saying it was Lowers version of bluesimmer, and as soon as their parents left for some birdwatching convention, he’d throw it all around the room, using both his fingers and his power, and she’d watch it reflected in his eyes like the ocean.

 She smiled to herself, and watched as the next Minor stepped up.

 It was Peridot. He opened his mouth, slightly; and she knew that he recognized her, but back then she hadn’t been wearing the clux, but he’d seen her gain the seven binds, which lay at her feet in a ring, only the tips of their handles protruding from the snow.

 But Peridot didn’t say anything, and even if it was because Oliviet wasn’t here to scold him, he couldn’t be offbeat, here – here he was just someone who was ruddy and green and smiling, anxiously, as he knelt to touch his bind to the one in front of the ring. Skylark watched as the only other Major in the room, the same one who’d given her the clux – E Major Calm Ic Icle – who still didn’t seem much more than Tammarin – kept the Minors in line, occasionally whistling low Es and E sharps, his slender white bind prodding their backs.

 “Next,” Skylark said.

 Peridot’s face shot up, his eyes soft and alert. He was probably glad to get back to Tammarin Le. Skylark had nothing for him, and as Peridot fluffed up his light-green hair strands, singing a low note, Skylark thought, Alter one, and the rightmost bind in the semicircle, one with blue feathers so dark they were green, floated up out of the snow and stayed there, its wings slaking off the excess; Peridot’s bind shook its wings rapidly and Skylark’s shot forward, a short horizontal vector, striking it, pinning it to Peridot’s face: he swung his arms back a few times as the feathers on his bind slowed to a still.

 Alter One returned to its position in the snow. Skylark thought, Good, and it shone a bit, warming the snow around it.

 Eventually Peridot’s bind came off his nose, and Peridot, taking his bind, its wings clasped around itself, stared at Skylark so hard that she could almost hear him saying, as if he had a receptor, You beat me, and Tam couldn’t get you in their orchestra. But he didn’t actually say anything, and rubbed his nose, and walked back to not the end of the line – good, she didn’t think she could go through it again – but to the slowly growing audience of defeated Minors with binds and others about her age, but without binds – sitting in pairs and trios across the slopes of snow built up towards the back.

 She looked at Calm. He was still inspecting the line, keeping it steady; he gave no indication of stopping. His

 clux had the words MOVEMENT BLUE; and hers still didn’t, but she was supposedly a G Major, and that was above E Major, right?

 “Next,” she said, but the next was already kneeling, her hair nearly obscuring her face, and Skylark for no reason felt a beat of worry, that somehow this one would summon eight binds from across the room, from other Minors’ hands, but the Minor just touched her one bind to Alter Blue, and Skylark, sighing, thought Alter One again and, this time, pushed the girl back a meter, and she lay there, on the snow.

 Skylark looked at the line. There were at least ten more. Since first stepping through the Majors door she thought it’d be Majors, but so far, mostly Minors.

 Mostly Minors. There was an E Major, right there.

 “Calm,” she said.

 Some uncertain stares around. They couldn’t be calm, they were being tossed back on the snow over and over.

 “E Major Calm,” she said, more loudly; it sounded so strange, coming out of her mouth like that. E Major Calm.

 Like Agent Calm. But it just didn’t feel that way to her.

 The remaining Minors in line all turned towards Calm. He had just leaned against one side of the wall there that almost looked like it was designed for leaning against it, with a human-sized indentation. But it was snow, and so it was literally made from someone leaning up against it, over and over.

 He saw her, and gave an uncertain sort of smile, or a frown, or a sneer, and before she could decide he tucked up his clux and tossed back his soapy, dark orange hair. Then he came off the indentation and started walking over. A bind flew up out of a pocket in his cloak and hovered around his head, and soon the stage was just her and Calm, and she knew what was going to happen.

 “G Major Skylark,” he said.

 Hearing it made something jump – and settle, just as quickly – in her chest.

 I am a G Major now, she thought. And I have seven binds.

 She smiled like she was just getting started, that she knew exactly how much energy her binds had left, even though she didn’t, and she had no idea, as they’d never flown about at her command this much before.

 But I’ve saved Alter Blue. Her lead, which had just been touched, the other six taking turns.

 “E Major, I can’t pick any of them,” she said. Were all Minors this slow to respond? The bind that Ultramarine, not even a Minor, had shot at Sterne had been faster than anything she’d done so far…

 “Sorry, G Major,” Calm said. “We normally hold auditions out and send sheets down to the residuals at least a week before. These were all the Minors and page turners we could scrummage up.”

 She’d come here, demanding that she go up, and some Major telling her she needed Minors, now, not just binds, even if she had seven of them, even if that was insane, and that she’d missed a sectional from Concertmaster Qumulo, and she’d nodded and nodded and nodded and now she was here, defeating everybody. It still felt like class – not any class she had taken – but like class, still.

 And she never studied.

 Skylark thought, Alter Blue, and, with the barest twinkle of white, her lead bind shot up out of the snow, and flung itself across the air like a book closed at Calm.

 In a single, brief moment, Calm swept his cloak up and around – time seemed to slow down – and – he enveloped Alter Blue in the clux, stepped to the side, and the clux kept going straight, hurtling into the indentation. It hung there, the clux settling itself over the bind, like a towel waiting to be used.

 She wasn’t in Lowers. She was in Sector II! Skylark threw those thoughts away and, without thinking their names, summoned the remaining six, which hung in the air before her, like the haloamps she knew they had in Plent, and she thought Horizontal, and she felt a jerk forward, as all six of them swept forward, and Calm – once again – time seeming to slow down – his eyes hard – and a second set of eyelids arose over them, his eyes turned white – and a flash of white spun across the six darts, a soft series of cracks and they spun out of control, and Skylark lost her balance, falling back, and landing on the snow. Ploof.

 She looked up. It didn’t hurt – the clux had covered her – but – she was a G Major! This E Major had been so shocked – and she looked around, but she couldn’t see her binds, and Calm was just standing there, inspecting his white bind like it was a new pencil, and she realized that that sound in the background before had been muted discussion from the crowd, now they were silent. They were watching a G Major fall down.

 No. She was here, by herself, she hadn’t seen them in two days, and she was G Major Skylark. She thought it to herself two more times, as if she was saying it, and then pulled herself up.

 She laughed. She wasn’t in class. Falara wasn’t sleeping by the window.

 Wait – something hit her side, she looked down – it was a long white bind – back up – Calm was still holding his, his eyes like silver plates – a flash of that Porter, Perry, rushed through her mind – and she grabbed it.

 “Staccato, staccato,” Calm said. “What are you doing, G Major?”

 Skylark smiled.

 “I’m just testing you, Calm,” she said. “You can do better.” Her chest began to heave a bit; this was taking a lot of concentration, really pretending. What if her binds were wrong? Was she really G Major? She also felt, strongly, that Calm wasn’t trying hard at all – he had intentionally waited until some Minors had tired her out – and this all felt like that one time in v-World she’d played the wizard, and Falara the witch, and they were fighting, and of course Falara was going easy on her, and –

 Calm was standing right next to her. “G Major, you’re embarrassing yourself, you’re a piacere, but not on beat,” he said, so that only she could hear; she nodded, and handed him his bind. “Take this,” she said. “I won’t go easy on you anymore.”

 What had Cerise said? That she wasn’t using her trait? And, obviously – as she stepped back a few steps, and Calm slid back to his position at the far end of the stage – she realized that, obviously, Calm could be doing all this without any magic, that all the Majors and Minors here could use their binds to fly through the air just by thinking

 it. That wasn’t any different than what she was doing.

 Just how strong were G Majors?

 Come to me, she thought, and various portions of the snow around on the stage broke apart, as her binds pushed themselves out, and they all came before her, hovering in the air, their wings outspread. Alter Blue wasn’t there – it was still stuck to the wall over there. Skylark took a step forward.

 Flash of white by her eyes. Shtick,

 one of her binds threw itself up in front of her, and with a spattering of snow, no, snowflakes – they coalesced into her vision, filling all that she could see – and her bind was gone. Calm’s bind, still together and tall, flew back to Calm’s waiting palm, where it lay itself on its side.

 Skylark immediately went to her knees and searched the snow. It was all just snow. What had been her bind had fully disintegrated.

 Some murmuring from the crowd. A G Major had just lost one of her binds, to an E Major who still wasn’t trying yet.

 OK. OK. It wasn’t anything alter important. She could just go back down there to the chord and get another one. But the thought didn’t feel right, and as she got back up, she saw that Calm’s clux hanging over her Alter One was shaking, and she felt a renewed sense of hope.

 She could do this. She still had six; he only had one, even though it was faster, and the way he moved – she’d thought she’d been using her trait, but maybe she hadn’t and the thought made her feel – she didn’t know. She thought of the time she’d flown up, even if that had been just through the binds, and she thought of the time she’d kept the Porter up on the ceiling, and he’d only fallen down because she’d let go. Not because Jaceus had come in.

 How did it go? I think of gravity, or something like that, when she’d presented her powers to the rest of the Furies. Or she’d always known, or she’d always thought about it that way. She’d just thought the direction up until now.

 She raised her hands.

 The towel on top of the bind rose off completely and her bind was there. It sang a C which shifted immediately into a D and then an E, F, and G, and as she kept her hands up, it returned to her, but this time it was different, it wasn’t coming because she’d thought for it to, but because she’d made it move. She kept it there, just before her, as with her left hand she felt

 for the others to come to her in the same way, but no – they were already there – but they matched the notes that Alter Blue was keening, and the whispers returned in the Minors watching. In that moment, she felt that she could move them, and so

 I did. I sent them all to E Major Calm in wide movements, forward and curving, anticipating his own movement up. And so he did. Another flash of white and his legs left the floor. The whispers became breaths. And he used his bind to fly, like she had seen back there on the first residual, and the way he moved now to dodge and swerve, not his cloak but only him, coordinating left, right, turning over – his orange hair sending glitters and specks across the snow, from the light –

 – She had seen nothing like it. He dipped and soared through the air, as she kept thinking, imagining the gravity beneath his body crescenting the air, narrowly shifting, almost as if he were actually dancing, all the while keeping his bind in the clutch of his left arm, and the people there were focused on his every movement there, but she kept imagining the air beneath and around him just – it’s just gravity, and I have six of them – no, seven – and so they flew. Flying circles and darts and yet he moved around them all. But as she watched, Calm adjusted his hold on his bind – took glances down at her, standing on the floor of the stage – and he knew, she did, she knew, that she was G Major, and without thinking, she watched as her hands in front of her began to follow the E Major’s movements, as her fingers – she had ten of them – followed her binds, almost as if they were acting on their own, and her binds were moving faster, Alter Blue becoming a streak, and a collision of white and blue, and an eighth bind in the mix fell out.

 She watched it plummet. E Major Calm descended.

 Just before it hit he touched it, and prevented himself from crashing, but her binds were striking, and before they hit, beneath his orange mop, he raised a hand – in surrender – he was giving her this moment – his movements were now hers – and she let her hands drop to her sides.

 One by one her seven binds came to attention, vertically at attention, around the fallen Major, and before she could think for their full return the silence around was growing, no, it was changing – sound – and they were clapping, she turned her head and looked, they were taking snow from the pile around them and rubbing it in their hands before clapping some more, some hums were emanating from their own binds, all different sounds merging into G, and Skylark, looking at Calm through her smile, cold, her breath forming – walked forward, and, one by one, selected her binds from the air, before landing on the eighth – his – and touching it to his shoulder.

 And as she watched – his eyes were lowered – the wings on Calm’s bind were shrinking, retracting into the handle, and re-emerging on the bottom half – so she turned it over – and handed it back – she dropped it onto his lap.

 “Key,” he said. “G Minor Calm Ic Icle, for your concert.”

 “I am G Major Skylark li Agle,” she replied.

 And the applause grew.

AliNovel

48 - Sky Above Clouds