Nixie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Nixie crouched on the cracked tan pavement below the palace wall and watched the heir walk past for the third morning in a row. He was maybe twelve, all clean hair and clean laughter, waving at a baker's boy across the square. Nixie's teeth itched. Somewhere under that soft chest sat a bright knot of luck holding the whole kingdom upright, and she meant to yank it loose and watch the boy fall the way a birthday cake falls. But she needed a perch. Imps steal best from above, and the ground was for dogs. She sized up the roofs along the parade route. The chapel gable was taken. A one-eyed raven the size of a cat hissed at her and clacked its beak. Nixie flipped it a rude finger and scurried on. The next roof, a slate one over a wine seller, belonged to a fat tom with a chewed ear who yowled and swiped her cheek before she'd cleared the gutter. Blood ran into her mouth. She spat and grinned. The third roof was worse. A grey moss-backed gargoyle uncurled from the eaves and spoke without moving its jaw. "Move along, little thief. This ledge is paid for." Nixie dropped back down to the faded lot behind the guardhouse and kicked a loose stone. Every good perch in this city was already leased to something meaner. The heir was two streets away now. She could hear the crowd cooing at him. Then she saw the sword. A guardsman had propped it against the wall while he pissed behind a cart. It was a crimson blade with red stones in the crossguard, taller than she was, the kind of showy thing that came out for parades. Nixie didn't want to swing it. She wanted what was under it. Nothing that pretty stayed upright without luck pinning it there. She crept close, wrapped both small hands around the pommel, and pulled the luck out of the sword like a splinter. The blade tipped. It slid down the wall and clanged flat on the pavement, ringing across the square. The guardsman shouted. Every head turned, including the raven's, the tom's, and the gargoyle's. All three abandoned their roofs to see what fool had dropped a royal weapon. Nixie was already climbing. She scaled the chapel gable in four quick pulls and settled into the raven's warm hollow before the bird remembered to come back. From up here she could see the whole parade route. She could see the heir stop, turn, and stare down at the fallen crimson sword with his clean, curious face. He took one step toward it. Then another. Nixie licked the blood off her lip and smiled. She had her perch. And the boy was walking, all on his own, toward the first piece of bad luck she'd ever laid in his path.