Jewel Brandt's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Jewel set the half-full jar on the tower's base and did the math in her head. Ten stories of wall. One jar of glowing sap. She swept a test line across the stone and it blazed, brighter than any paint she had bought. But one jar would cover a doorway, not a tower. She turned back toward the grove and stopped. The trees still hummed where she had cut them, and a dark ring spread through their light. Taking more would kill that glow. She could not do it again. "Don't," Inker said. The little robot rolled between her and the fence, yellow eyes bright. Its chest screen flashed a hard red line. "You heard the trees. You cut one and the whole grove went sick. Cut another and I don't know what wakes up." It had guided her here, hunting paint for her all season, and now it blocked her path. Jewel knelt to its level. "Then where do I get gallons?" Inker's screen flickered to a small grin. "There's a market underground. People trade paint, ink, all of it. Follow me." It led her down a stairwell she had never noticed. At the bottom glowed a doorway ringed in bright signs. Inside, stalls packed the tunnel wall to wall. Vendors hawked jars, cans, and pigments that lit their faces. Jewel held out her half-full jar of grove sap. A vendor's eyes went wide at the eternal glow. She traded the jar for six large cans of neon paint. Real paint, more than she had owned in months. Not sap, but enough to start climbing the tower again. She hugged the cans to her chest and turned to leave. Two figures blocked the market doorway. White armored suits, blue lines running down their arms and legs. Their helmets hid their faces. The taller one stepped forward first. "That tower is off limits," he said. His voice came flat through the helmet. "You've been painting it. Stop." Jewel's grip tightened on the cans. "It's abandoned." "It's ours to guard," the second one said. He held up a slate. On it glowed a photo of her pink smear high on the wall. "We tracked your marks. We know your face." The first one, Sentinel White, reached for her cans. Jewel pulled back. Inker rolled between them, screen flashing bright, and the sudden light made both guards flinch. In that half-second Jewel ran. She dodged past Cipher Knox, up the stairs, out into the night, cans banging against her side. She did not stop until the market glow faded behind her. She leaned against a wall, breathing hard. Six cans of paint sat safe at her feet. She had her supply at last. But now the tower had guards, and they knew her face. Climbing it in daylight was over. Whatever she painted next, she would have to do it in the dark, with someone watching for her.