Skyglass: Chapter 13

Ballast and Burn

MOSS

Phoenix lunged for her father. I scrambled off the stage, not sure if I wanted to stop her, or protect her, or just get closer to see, but it didn’t matter. I was too far and there were too many people–until Marko grabbed me by the elbow and shoved us a path through.

Fire erupted as we broke free from the crowd, a rippling blade that died just before it reached the ceiling. No one was burned, but her display had finally wiped the lust and pretension from the man’s eyes–now they were just wide and sweat-brimmed as Phoenix shoved her forearm against her father’s throat, her free hand snapping around his wrist to yank the lantern close to herself. His skin sizzled with third-degree burn as her fingers crept up his hand, toward and between his fingers until she had a grip on the lantern’s handle.

“Get out,” she rasped, eyeing the crowds surrounding her. She glanced at me and Marko. “Skyglass stays.”

The crowd didn’t move. Phoenix scuffed her foot on the floor; a scythe of sparks slashed into the throng’s outer rim. “Out,” she repeated, “or I burn you.”

The crowd heaved away from her then, bodyzips shriveling and shrinking from the spit of her sparks. I, however, crept closer.

“No farther, Moss,” she ordered, eyes once more on her father. I stopped.

“Are you going to kill me now?” he wheezed.

She didn’t respond. Instead, she called for Sable.

“Do me a favor?” Phoenix asked, when the guitarist sauntered up.

“Sure,” Sable said.

“Hold a knife to his throat.”

“Happily.”

Blade in place, Phoenix knelt before the lantern, working her father’s heat-crooked fingers free of the handle. “Don’t worry, little sweetling,” she murmured, pulling the lantern free. “I’m gonna rot this piss-sucker up oh-so-nicely.” She closed the hood, cradled the light gently, and thrust her face at his.

“You can scream, if you want,” she said, and exhaled. His eyelashes and brows flared like embers. Her father didn’t scream as her breath reddened his skin–he just burbled from the throat and slid down the wall, panting. Sable followed his fall with her knife.

Phoenix hugged the lantern to her chest and took a step back. “I need the coffin.”

Zinn nodded at Marko, and the two of them jogged back to the stage to retrieve it. Devin sidled up to Phoenix and poked the lantern.

“Hot,” he murmured, then tilted his head up to look at Phoenix. “Your baby sister?”

Her answering smile was gleeful. “Oh yes.”

“Can I see?”

She rolled her eyes. “Later, Devin. I’m a little busy.”

He gave a great sigh, but left her alone. Zinn and Marko returned with the astro-coffin gliding through air, guided by their grips. Phoenix glowered at her father.

“Get in.”

“You aren’t going to kill me?” he asked.

“Oh, you’ll probably still die,” she assured him. “And I’ll be more than happy to take the blame, but…I’ve decided my mother the sun is probably a better judge in these matters. So I’m gonna send her a little gift.”

“So…you are going to kill me.”

Phoenix shrugged. “Maybe she’ll go easy on you.”

“She’s the rotting sun.”

“I thought you loved her.”

He said nothing, and climbed into the coffin. Phoenix slammed the lid, slapped it cheerfully shut, and gave us all a big grin.

“Let’s get him onto the Pixilikker. I don’t know about you, but I am abso-giga-lutely starving. Let’s get some snacklets and alcohol, and turn his send-off into a celebration…”

She paused, and her grin faltered. “That’s okay, right? I mean, you’ve always tolerated my raging and deviancy quite impressively. But…if you don’t want to be with me when I boot my father into space, I understand. That’s on me.” Phoenix turned to me, as careful as I’d ever seen her.

“I can wait,” she said, slowly. “I can do it in secret, so you don’t have to know.”

I knew what she meant. What she was referring to. But things had…shifted. I had shifted.

Parents were never what we wanted them to be, and Phoenix’s father had been the worst. I couldn’t not be there for her.

“No,” I said. “I already know. I can’t unknow any of it. You’ve been dragging me–all of us–into your fire since you set foot in my apartment. I didn’t stop you then, and I won’t stop you now.”

“Hmph.” Phoenix sniffed. “Well, I’m glad you feel that way, dearest Moss.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged–I knew what it was like to cauterize loose ends haphazardly. Helping her scar was the least I could do.

Proceed to Chapter 13, page 4–>