Ember flamethrower's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Ember had been working a bent dagger back into shape when she noticed the hooded man for the third day in a row. He stood half-hidden behind the crystal bush at the edge of the scrap yard, watching her hammer. She was twelve and had slept under a tarp at this corner of the yard since she could remember. The old man near the docks had told her, hands shaking, that her parents died the night she was born. Nobody had come looking for her since. Until, maybe, now. She kept her head down and kept hammering. The dagger glowed pink against her anvil, a flat slab of stone she had dragged here at seven. Around her, piles of broken crystal chips sparkled in jagged heaps, blue and violet and pale rose, the leftovers of every weapon she had salvaged. The hooded man shifted his weight. He had a knife on his belt. Ember slid her good file into her fanny pack and counted exits. Two. One blocked by him. "Hey." She spun, hammer up. A boy stood three feet behind her, blond hair sticking out in every direction, glasses too big for his face. He raised both hands. "Whoa. Oh man. Sorry." He glanced past her at the bush. "That guy's been there an hour. I watched from the wall. He's waiting for you to walk to the water pump." Ember did not lower the hammer. "Who are you." "Lewis. Lewis Parks. Orphanage on Creston. Look, honestly, I came because I heard a girl out here builds knives from junk and I want to talk business. But that can wait." He pulled something from his pocket, a tangle of wire and a cracked lens. "This pings metal within ten feet. Cheap version. I made it last week. Your guy is carrying three blades. One up his sleeve." Lewis met her eyes. "You need to leave now. I know a back way through the chip piles. I came in that way." She believed him because he was already moving, and because the hooded man had taken one step out from the bush. Ember grabbed her tool roll and followed Lewis low between the rubble, glass crunching under her shoes. They squeezed through a gap in the rear fence she had never noticed. Behind them, she heard the man kick over her anvil stone. She did not look back. Two streets away, Lewis crouched against a wall and finally caught his breath. "Okay," he said. "That guy knew where you sleep. Someone sent him." Ember pressed her palm to the crystal at her throat. Somebody, after twelve years, was finally looking. She just did not know yet if they wanted her to live. "I need to find out who," she said. Lewis nodded once. "Inventor and investor. Partners. I'm in."