Wren's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Wren had been eleven for two hundred years, and tonight he was breaking into the hall of the dead to steal their names. He crouched on the stone sill above the great door, barefoot, silver hair pushed under his hood. His coat hung heavy on his shoulders. He had stitched it himself from the cloaks of every home that had outlived him, or that he had outlived. He could not remember which anymore. Inside, the registry stretched up in tiers of glowing alcoves. Each alcove held a plaque. Each plaque held a soul. Somewhere in that wall were the names of children like him: ageless, scattered, hiding in cellars and market stalls across the Netherworld. He had already found a place for them. A dry cave under a dead orchard, three cots, a stove he had dragged there himself. What he did not have was a way to find the children to fill it. A black cat slipped through the door beside him and sat on his foot. Pippa had followed him for forty years. She never aged either, and she never explained herself. She yawned at the alcoves. "The living plaques are the ones still lit," Wren whispered. "Ageless souls never darken. That's how we find them." Pippa flicked her tail once. He took it as agreement. He dropped to the floor. The guards walked the lower cloister on a slow count. He had watched them for a week. He had six minutes. He went to the third tier and started reading. Most plaques dimmed and flared, dimmed and flared, the way a life should. He was looking for the ones that only shone. He found one. Then another. Then eleven more. He pressed his thumb to each and the name burned briefly onto the pad of his hand, then faded under the skin. On the twelfth plaque, an alarm bead cracked open above the door. A sound like breaking glass filled the hall. From the seam of the bead, a cluster of raindrops spilled out, each one round and shining, each one with a small startled face. They hung in the air and began to shout. "Intruder!" one squeaked. "Third tier!" cried another. "Barefoot boy!" Pippa hissed. Wren swept his coat open and caught the whole cluster inside a fold of stolen wool. He clamped the fabric shut. The muffled voices kept arguing about him in there. Boots hit stone below. He ran. He cleared the sill, dropped into the alley, and did not stop until the orchard swallowed him. In the cave, he opened his hand. Thirteen names sat under his skin, faint as bruises. Thirteen children he could now find. The coat squirmed. He had forgotten the raindrops. He loosened the fold and they tumbled out onto his cot, blinking at the empty cots beside them. "Where are the others?" the biggest one asked. Wren looked at the thirteen names on his hand. "I have to go get them," he said. "And you just told the whole city where I live."