Updraft by Fran Wilde Read Free Book Online Page B

needles, and bone chisels. Only the small holes drilled all the way through had crisp edges, perhaps made with one of the few metal drills that remained in the city. Those were the province of the bridge builders, the artifexes. Like Naton had been.
    The discarded robe in the rag bag and the bone chips in my hand made me wonder. I fought the urge. Couldn’t risk thinking too hard about the Singers.
    But Nat lifted the chips and hefted them. “My father could have made these,” he whispered, although everyone had gone up to the market. The tower was wrapped with ladders and ropes as people hauled their extra from gardens to the tower council’s farm stores.
    â€œDon’t you think the chips are too old for that?” I shifted from the guest area into the deeper recesses of their quarters. I lifted a lid on a basket, poked a finger through the handwork that Elna took in. Searching for a way to switch the subject.
    â€œThe holes in the chips. The shadow of an older carving, not fully ground away. Something’s been erased, and replaced.” He jumped as Elna dropped onto the balcony. As she entered, Nat pushed the skein back into my hand and stuffed the scrap of cloak into a basket. I slipped the bone markers into a pocket and prayed they wouldn’t clatter too much. Elna had very sharp ears.
    â€œForgot my sewing kit. You two had better get going,” she scolded. “Three more tiers to clean.”
    Ugh. We’d done the worst one yesterday. The next three likely had occupants too, but anything would be more sanitary than Tobiat’s. We got moving.
    My feet were barely off the ladder when we met an occupant of the day’s first tier. A woman rushed from the shadows, her clothes ragged, but less so than Tobiat’s. She was so weighed down by the Laws tied to her wrists, they clattered when she moved. I couldn’t read them before she ran forward and grabbed Nat’s bucket. Pulled. Nat leaned back, trying to keep it from her. The two of them spun closer to the edge.
    I tried to push them towards the tower’s core, towards safety, by placing both hands on Nat’s back and shoving. All of us were wingless. None would survive a fall here.
    A whoop and a cry made the woman let go of the bucket. Her wind-scarred eyes widened as Tobiat charged in, waving his hands and bellowing. She dodged his hands, then slunk away.
    â€œLooks like we’ve made an ally,” I said, catching my breath. Tobiat looked marginally better than the day before. And I remembered what Elna said about respect. “Thank you for your help.”
    Tobiat made a face. “Cleaning.”
    â€œYes, and we have to do it fast,” Nat said. No time to battle scavengers.
    Tobiat glared in every direction, a crooked, unwinged guard. The woman had disappeared into the shadows.
    Tobiat stepped to the balcony’s edge, then jumped.
    I screamed and ran for the edge, expecting to see his weathered form plummeting to the clouds. Instead, I saw he’d managed to land on the lower balcony and roll. “Cloudtouched,” I whispered to Nat. “He’s gone.”
    â€œCould have used him,” Nat grumbled. We gathered our rags, wary of every shadow and skitter.
    The tier had less junk on it by far than Tobiat’s. I dipped my rag in the damp bottom of the bucket and squeezed the cloth nearly dry. Nat did the same. We knelt side by side on the bone floor, scrubbing at crusted spots and stains. When I moved to scrub the central wall, which had pushed far out into the tier, my fingertips and knuckles scraped against the rough bone more than once. I didn’t stop scrubbing.
    No more scavengers or undertower folk troubled us.
    The sun had barely moved by the time we climbed to the next tier. I began to hope we’d make the wingtest after all.
    The Singers offered the test to all the quadrants, in four-tower groups, twice each year. Anyone who’d flown at least twelve seasons,