Chapter 191 Risa Holds Me Up

I woke because someone was laughing very quietly beside me.

For a moment, I thought I had dreamed it.

The room was dark. Rain moved across the roof, lighter than it had been before we slept. Sera lay against my right side with one hand loose on the blanket. Luna had turned towards the wall.

Risa sat on the edge of the bed, trying to pull a stocking over her heel without waking anyone.

“What?” I whispered.

She looked at me.

“Nothing.”

“You're laughing at a stocking.”

“It's winning.”

I started to sit up.

The room shifted slightly.

I stopped.

Risa stopped too.

“Slowly,” she said.

“I noticed.”

She left the stocking half on and put a hand against my shoulder until I had settled upright.

The dizziness passed. My head still felt tender behind my eyes, as if someone had bruised a place they couldn't possibly have reached.

“I need to go outside,” I said.

“Yes. I guessed.”

She pulled the stocking into place, found my stick, and waited while I got my feet on the floor.

Neither of us said anything about the river.

For once, the problem in front of us was smaller.

It still required some care.

Risa walked beside me along the covered path.

I used the rail with one hand and the stick with the other. Her shoulder was close enough for me to lean against when the floor changed beneath my feet.

At the first turn, I stopped.

“I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“This.”

She looked at the path, then at me.

“Walking?”

“Making you get up.”

“I was already up.”

“Because of me.”

“Because I needed to go outside too, Lucas. You haven't acquired responsibility for everything.”

“Only most things.”

“There he is.”

The shelter ahead held a lamp turned low. Beyond it, the nursery covering rose and fell slightly in the wind.

A worker stood at the outer crossing.

It watched us pass without moving from its place.

Risa lifted a hand.

After a moment, the worker lifted one forelimb.

Neither gesture was quite the same as the other.

I understood it anyway.

We rested on the bench before returning.

The rain had become a fine mist beneath the edge of the roof. It touched the toes of my boots but didn't reach the seat.

Risa tucked the blanket around my legs.

“Very dignified,” I said.

“It's a special service. Usually we just leave people in the rain until they become agreeable.”

“How long does that take?”

“In your case, nobody knows.”

I laughed.

It hurt my head a little.

It was worth it.

For a while, we watched the lamps along the inner path. One near the water station had gone dim. Someone came out with a replacement before I could begin wondering whether it mattered.

The camp continued without me.

I was beginning to discover that I could be relieved and uncomfortable about the same thing.

Risa leaned her shoulder against mine.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I don't know how to be useful while sitting down.”

“Holt does.”

“He has more practice.”

“Then perhaps you could ask him.”

“I might never hear the end of it.”

“No,” she said. “You might not.”

When we reached the room, Luna was sitting up.

She looked at the two of us, then at my stick.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Risa said. “Very slow. Nothing dramatic.”

Luna pulled the blanket back for me.

“Good. I've had enough dramatic.”

Sera opened her eyes just long enough to find my hand.

“Cup?” she murmured.

“On the table.”

“Good.”

Then she went back to sleep.

Risa lay down on my other side. Luna stayed awake until my breathing settled, though she pretended she was only getting comfortable.

I knew the difference.

I didn't make her admit it.

Day 548 arrived pale and quiet.

Not silent. The river still filled the canyon with a sound we could feel through the floor when we stood still enough.

But the hard drumming on the roof had stopped.

Rain fell in separate drops from the covering outside our window.

I lay listening to them until Sera sat up.

“How is your head?” she asked.

“Better.”

“That can mean a lot of things.”

“It doesn't hurt when I lie still.”

She studied me.

“We'll start with that.”

She brought the things for her treatment to the bedside, so I didn't have to cross the room first.

I did only what she needed.

No shelf. No improved cup. No little adjustment to the catch that had been annoying me for days.

By the time she had taken it, I was glad we'd made that decision before I began.

The pressure behind my eyes had returned faintly.

Sera put the cup down.

“That's enough.”

“Yes.”

She kissed my forehead.

Then she went to fetch Toby.

Toby asked the same questions he had asked yesterday.

I gave him better answers.

The headache was easing overall. The dizziness came when I moved too quickly. My leg was sore in the old places, with no new sharp pain or swelling I could see.

He made me move it carefully while he watched.

Then he sat back.

“You haven't undone the repair.”

I hadn't realized how badly I needed to hear that until he said it.

“But you've asked a healing leg to carry someone exhausted down a wet hill. It's allowed to object.”

“How long?”

“For it to stop objecting?”

“For me to be useful again.”

Toby looked at the table, where Sera's empty cup stood beside the drawing of our house.

Then he looked back at me.

I rubbed my face.

“All right.”

“Rest today. Short walks when you feel steady, with someone nearby. Nothing else with your power unless we need it for Sera. We reassess tomorrow.”

He stood.

“And if the headache gets worse, or the dizziness changes, you tell me.”

“I will.”

He paused at the door.

“Before someone has to guess.”

“Yes, Toby.”

He seemed satisfied with that.

For the moment.

Luna brought the morning report with breakfast.

The overflow had held through the night. The water was still falling, though more slowly now. The neighbour's watchers had found no new flooding around their occupied chambers.

The queen's injured plate was being tended. She was resting on higher ground. Some of her workers had begun checking the nearest dry passages, but the nursery group would stay with us.

“Good,” Risa said.

Luna glanced at her.

“I thought you'd say that.”

“They've only just stopped being moved about.”

“Dot made the same point.”

I took the bowl Luna handed me.

“Any calls?”

“A few broken pieces overnight. Wren's sorting them. Nothing located yet.”

“And the path?”

“Closed below the crossing.”

“The brace?”

“Watched.”

“The—”

Luna put a finger against my lips.

“Eat.”

I did.

She sat beside Sera and stole a little of her breakfast with a clean spoon.

Sera complained and moved the bowl closer to her.

Neither of them sounded convincing.

They let me move to the common shelter later that morning.

Let was not quite the right word.

I said I wanted to sit somewhere that wasn't our bed, and Risa helped me decide whether I actually felt well enough to get there.

We took the covered path.

At the middle chair, I rested.

At the next turn, I rested again because Lena was coming the other way with her stick and Juno beside her, and nobody needed to hurry around me.

Lena stopped when she heard my voice.

“Still standing?”

“Intermittently.”

“That counts.”

She moved her stick along the rail until she found the new cloth marker tied near the turn.

“Who put this here?”

“Sera, I think.”

“Tell her it's useful. The outer crossing sounds different with so many people there.”

“I will.”

She carried on without asking whether the Teeming frightened me.

I liked that about her.

There were things she needed to know to move safely. She asked about those.

The rest could wait until she chose to ask.

Holt had left a space beside his table.

It contained a chair, a support for my leg, and a stack of papers.

I stopped in front of it.

“This looks prepared.”

“You're observant.”

Risa put a cup on the table.

“I'll be at the receiver.”

Holt nodded towards the papers.

“He'll be right here, becoming useful.”

I looked at her.

She smiled without apology and left.

For a moment, Holt and I watched her go.

Then he pushed the first page towards me.

“What am I doing?”

“Writing down what you built before you forget which parts you were worried about.”

“I won't forget.”

“I forgot the name of a man I served beside for six years. Remembered it while washing a sock. Write it down.”

I picked up the pencil.

It took longer than I expected.

A channel looked simple once water was running through it.

On paper, I had to separate what I'd changed from what I'd left alone. I had to mark the shoulder we had opened, the brace beside the crack, and the place where the hard surface ended beneath the lower curve.

Holt made me write what I had actually seen.

Then he made me leave the rest blank.

“Someone will look at this when you're not here,” he said. “Don't give them a confident line because an empty place annoys you.”

I erased part of the lower wall.

He nodded.

Beside the drawing, I wrote that the channel had been made to carry a controlled overflow, not the entire river.

I wrote that the obstruction downstream remained in place.

I wrote that the brace needed observation after the water fell far enough to expose the ground around it.

By the time I finished, the work looked less impressive than it had from the spur.

It looked more useful.

Holt read the notes.

“Good.”

“That sounds suspiciously final.”

He slid another page across.

It was a list of places people were sleeping.

“Don't worry. I've got more.”

We needed rooms.

The storm had made that plain in ways that counting people hadn't.

Tali, Cass, and Edan were sleeping behind screens in the common shelter. Several of the people brought in before them could hear every medical check at night. Olin needed space to move without someone stepping over his supported leg. Matthias needed a place where helping him wash did not require clearing half a passage.

The roofed paths worked.

The rooms attached to them were becoming too crowded.

Holt tapped the list.

“People can tolerate a lot for three nights. They shouldn't have to tolerate it for three months because the arrangement hasn't killed them.”

I looked at the little drawing of our room in the corner of the page.

“We have more space than some of them.”

“Yes.”

“We could—”

“No.”

“You don't know what I was going to say.”

“I've met you.”

He leaned back.

“You don't solve the whole camp being crowded by making one more room miserable. Plan the next rooms.”

I sat with that for a while.

Then I turned the page over and began.

Sera joined us before midday.

She brought her own pencil and moved my first line.

“The door opens into the wind.”

“It was a provisional door.”

“It was a wet door.”

Holt watched us with the expression of a man enjoying an argument he hadn't needed to start.

We drew two small sleeping rooms with a shared sheltered entrance. Then a wider room where Toby could work without asking visitors to move every time he needed a clean bowl.

No new ground cut until the slopes had been checked after the storm.

No loading the edge above the stores because it happened to be empty.

A dry place for wet coats that wasn't over someone's bed.

Sera added a low shelf reachable from a seated position.

I made the turning space wider.

She looked at me.

“For Nessa?”

“For me, yesterday. For anyone carrying a bowl. For someone who doesn't want to climb over a chair at night.”

She nodded and kept the wider space.

The drawing grew.

For the first time since the river rose, I thought about building something that didn't have to be finished before the next warning arrived.

Risa returned with food and an expression I knew well.

“What?” I asked.

“Three people have asked if I'm supposed to be working.”

Holt put down his pencil.

“Did you tell them you weren't?”

“I was sitting at a receiver.”

“Sounds like idleness to me.”

She laughed and sat beside me.

“One of them brought me a blanket.”

“That seems kind,” Sera said.

“It was. I already had two.”

I looked at the blanket across my own knees.

“Perhaps they're issuing them by household.”

Risa leaned against my shoulder.

“I don't mind being looked after. I mind becoming a problem everybody else has an opinion about.”

Sera rested a hand on her arm.

“We can tell them what you need.”

“I'd like them to ask me.”

“Then that's what we'll tell them.”

Risa sat quietly for a moment.

Then she reached across and took half the bread from my plate.

“I need this.”

“You could have asked.”

“I could have.”

Holt looked away, smiling.

Dot came to the table after the meal.

She carried a shallow tray with two objects on it.

One was the broken fastening the worker had left with Ade. The other was a new piece of the same unfamiliar woven material, bent into the shape the fastening had once held.

An example.

“They have brought the part that should move,” Dot said. “The first piece only showed the break.”

I reached towards it.

Sera moved the tray half a hand's width away.

“Look.”

“I was going to.”

“With your eyes.”

Dot turned the new piece slowly.

It wasn't the fog-grey substance from the spine or the marked fragments. It had fibres, layers, and places where something had been grown around a curve. I could understand enough of it to know there was more I didn't understand.

“Do they want a copy?” I asked.

“No. They want to know whether we have a way to hold the two ends while their repair sets.”

I looked at Sera.

She looked at Holt.

Holt looked towards the rack of ordinary tools.

“A clamp,” he said.

Dot's lights shifted.

“Yes. That may be a much shorter explanation.”

Benedikt found one that was too narrow.

Dov suggested using a wooden spacer to spread the pressure. Jonas adjusted the fastening so it could be tightened without crushing the fibres.

I sat there and held the example while they worked.

That was my contribution.

It fitted.

Ade took it to the worker waiting beside the outer shelter. Dot went with him to explain how the screw moved and how to loosen it again.

The worker tested it twice.

Then it took the clamp and the broken piece beneath the covering.

Holt watched it go.

“There,” he said.

“What?”

“Something fixed. Nobody bled.”

“I didn't bleed while making most things.”

“Promising. Keep the average down.”

Sera put her pencil in my hand before I could answer.

We went back to the rooms.

By afternoon, Risa was asleep beside me.

She had meant to sit for a few minutes before taking another short turn at the receiver. Her head had settled against my shoulder while I was reading Holt's notes.

I noticed when her hand loosened around mine.

The room seemed to become very small around that contact.

Her breathing. The warmth of her against my arm. A strand of hair caught at the corner of her mouth.

I moved it carefully.

She didn't wake.

Across the shelter, Wren glanced at the receiver clock, then towards us.

I lifted my free hand.

“I can take it,” I whispered.

Wren looked at my leg, propped in front of me, then at the papers spread across my lap.

“You can ask me to find someone.”

I glanced down at Risa.

She looked exhausted.

Not ill. Not in danger.

Just someone who had spent too many hours being steady for other people.

“All right,” I said. “Would you?”

Wren nodded.

A few minutes later, Iona sat down at the receiver with the notes beside her.

Risa slept on.

I stayed where I was.

When she woke, she sat up too quickly.

“My watch.”

“Covered.”

“By who?”

“Iona.”

Risa looked at the receiver, then back at me.

“You didn't wake me.”

“No.”

“I asked you to.”

“You asked if I'd tell you when it was time. I told Wren you needed relief instead.”

Her eyes narrowed.

For a moment, I thought she was going to be properly angry.

Perhaps she was.

“You should have asked me.”

“You were asleep.”

“You could have—”

She stopped, looked at my face, then let out a breath.

“Did you try to take it yourself?”

“Briefly.”

“Lucas.”

“Wren pointed out a flaw in the plan.”

“Only one?”

“A large one.”

Risa pressed both hands over her eyes.

Then she laughed, once, unwillingly.

I waited.

When she lowered her hands, she leaned against me again.

“Next time, wake me long enough to ask.”

“All right.”

“But thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“And don't steal my watch to impress me.”

“I can barely steal your blanket.”

“You've been trying all week.”

That evening, the queen sent food for her nursery group.

We heard the carriers before we saw them, their feet making a different sound on the outer path from the workers who had been passing through all day.

The load came by the higher internal route, now open enough for supplies though still awkward for the youngest.

The queen had not simply left them with us and hoped we would discover what to feed them.

Her people brought what they needed.

Our people helped make somewhere dry to put it.

I watched from Holt's table while Old Son moved an empty frame into position. A carrier tested the frame, then lowered its load onto it.

Old Son flashed once.

The carrier paused.

Dot came over and explained something to both of them.

After a moment, Old Son moved back, and the carrier took the frame a little farther under the roof.

“What happened?” I asked when Dot returned.

“Old Son wanted to know whether the balance was correct. The carrier thought he was asking it to move away.”

“Is it correct?”

“Yes.”

“And now they know?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the two of them working beneath the covering.

It was a small misunderstanding.

I was grateful we had finally reached the sort that could be solved without anyone drawing a weapon.

I asked Dot about the queen's plate before we went to bed.

“The damage is stable,” she said. “She is uncomfortable. She is allowing her people to do the work she would prefer to do herself.”

Risa made a soft noise beside me.

I ignored it.

“Does she need anything we can provide?”

“Not at present. She asked about your head.”

“Better.”

Dot waited.

I sighed.

“Still tired. No more bleeding. Toby will look again tomorrow.”

“I will tell her that.”

“Tell her I haven't made anything else.”

Dot's lights brightened slightly.

“Except the treatment Seraphina needs.”

“Yes.”

“I will be accurate.”

Risa put her arm around my waist as we started towards our room.

“Very annoying, being known.”

“I wouldn't recommend it.”

“You'd miss us.”

“Yes,” I said.

I leaned enough of my weight against her for her to feel the answer.

“Yes, I would.”

The next day, I woke before the others and stayed in bed.

It was harder than I expected.

Light lay against the curtain. Beyond the room, someone was moving a bucket. I could hear Liam talking to Anja, his voice low enough that I couldn't make out the words.

There were things to do.

There would always be things to do.

I watched the little bird on the window ledge until Risa opened her eyes.

“You're thinking.”

“I'm lying here.”

“Suspiciously.”

“I thought you'd appreciate it.”

She moved closer beneath the blanket.

“I do.”

Sera was still asleep. Luna's hand rested across the empty space between us, her fingers almost touching Risa's shoulder.

I put my hand beside hers.

Outside, the bucket moved on without me.

Day 549 brought a break in the clouds.

Not blue sky everywhere. A pale opening above the far ridge, followed by light that made every wet surface in Scarecrow shine at once.

People came to the edges of the shelters to look at it.

The nursery carriers stayed beneath their covering. One worker moved into the light and held still for a long time.

I wondered whether it was enjoying the warmth.

Dot said she hadn't asked.

For once, we left a question alone.

Toby checked me after Sera's treatment and breakfast.

The headache was nearly gone. I could stand without the room moving. My leg still needed care, but the tired shaking had eased.

He allowed the usual gentle movement along the rail, with rests.

“No catching up,” he said.

“I hadn't said—”

“You were preparing.”

I looked at Risa.

She held up both hands.

“I didn't tell him.”

We walked the covered rail after the morning meal.

Sera came with us, carrying the little bird in her pocket because Nessa wanted to see where its shelf would go.

Luna joined us at the turning place after handing over the crossing watch.

For once, all four of us were outside without going anywhere dangerous.

My leg warmed gradually.

The pull above the knee eased after the first short stretch. At the chair, I sat before it became a contest.

Risa leaned against the rail.

“You're disappointed.”

“A little.”

“Because you didn't walk farther?”

“Because I could change the channel, and this still takes thought.”

Luna sat beside me.

“Yesterday you needed a hand to reach that chair.”

“The day before yesterday, I made diamond.”

“And it didn't carry you home.”

I looked at her.

There was no cruelty in it.

Only the truth, offered gently enough that I could accept it.

“No,” I said. “It didn't.”

Sera took the bird from her pocket and set it on the rail.

“We'll keep working on both things,” she said.

The bird leaned on its uneven feet.

Then settled.

The shelf was made that afternoon.

I didn't make it with my power.

Dov had already cut a piece of wood to the right size. Sera marked the raised edge from her drawing. I held the pieces on the table while she and Jonas fitted them together.

Nessa supervised from a chair she had insisted was close enough to see.

“Higher,” she said when we showed her where it would go.

“Risa has to reach it,” I said.

“So does the baby.”

“The baby won't be standing for a while.”

Nessa considered that.

“Then lower.”

Risa laughed and chose a place beside the bed where a hand could reach without stretching.

Jonas fixed it securely while I stayed out of his way.

The bird went on it first.

Nothing else.

There would be time for other things.

I hoped there would be so much time that we would forget we'd once been frightened by an empty shelf.

Risa ran a finger along the little raised edge.

“Thank you,” she said.

She meant all of us.

We could tell.

The first eastern call came while we were putting the tools away.

Wren sent Ade to fetch Risa.

Not running.

That distinction mattered enough that I noticed it before I heard the message.

“Something she should listen to,” he said.

Risa looked at me.

I got my stick.

“I can sit at a receiver.”

She studied me for a moment, then nodded.

Sera put the remaining tools in the tray. Luna was already at the common shelter when we arrived.

The broad transmitter remained disconnected.

The receiver hissed softly beneath Wren's hand.

“Listen first,” she said.

We did.

Nothing came through for nearly a minute.

Then a voice broke out of the static.

“…east side… ridge gone… forty…”

A burst of noise swallowed the rest.

Risa leaned forward.

Wren's pencil moved.

The voice returned, fainter.

“…Friese… anyone receiving…”

Risa stopped breathing for a moment.

I knew because I was close enough to feel it.

Nobody spoke until the transmission ended.

Then Luna looked at Wren.

“Same call as before?”

“Similar. I heard the name twice. I wasn't certain the first time.”

Risa's hand found the edge of the table.

“Play what you have.”

Dot brought the recorded fragment back through the receiver's small speaker.

Static.

A man's voice.

The broken word that might have been a place.

Then the name.

Friese.

Risa closed her eyes.

I put my hand against the small of her back.

“Is it him?” I asked quietly.

“I don't know.”

The answer cost her.

She listened again.

“I want it to be. That's not the same as knowing.”

Wren put down her pencil.

“We'll keep the next one.”

Luna pulled the eastern map closer.

“And we'll work with what we can actually hear.”

We did not answer with the tower.

I saw Risa look towards the disconnected lead.

Only once.

Then she turned back to the receiver.

“Can the queen ask along that side?” she said to Dot.

“I will ask her.”

“Tell her it's my brother. It might be my brother.”

Dot remained still for a moment.

“I will keep both statements clear.”

Risa nodded.

I drew a chair beside hers and sat.

This time, she was the one whose knee moved beneath the table without stopping.

I wanted to put a hand on it.

I didn't want to make her feel watched.

After a while, she took my hand herself and held it between both of hers.

We waited.

The next call came near evening.

Clearer at the beginning.

“This is Sigmund Friese. Eastern group. Water has taken the lower crossing. We have forty people, including children. Moving to the high clearing above the burnt ridge. Our shelter is failing. If anyone can hear this…”

The signal thinned.

Then returned for two words.

“…still here.”

Risa made a sound I had never heard from her before.

She stood so quickly that the chair scraped behind her.

Luna caught it before it fell.

“That's him,” Risa said.

No uncertainty now.

Tears ran down her face before she seemed to notice them.

“That's him.”

I stood beside her slowly enough not to lose my balance.

She turned into me and held on.

I put both arms around her.

For a moment, the whole shelter disappeared.

There was only her breath against my shoulder and the name she had been carrying through every unanswered search.

Alive.

Not safe yet.

But alive enough to ask for help.

Luna let us have that moment.

Then she began asking the questions that would get him home.

Which eastern ridge had burned? Who had seen a high clearing above a lost crossing? Could the forty move together? How much shelter remained? Was there a route from the neighbouring brood's territory that didn't depend on the flooded low ground?

We did not have most of the answers.

Holt came to the table with his weather book and the older patrol pages.

Liam stood beside him, already looking towards the eastern edge of the map.

Sera put water in Risa's hand.

“Drink first,” she said quietly. “Then listen.”

Risa drank.

Her hands shook.

Nobody pretended they didn't.

The queen's answer arrived before the light failed.

She knew we were searching for Risa's brother now. Dot had passed the name as sound, the family relationship as carefully as she could, and the fragments of location the call supplied.

A neighbouring brood had seen humans near burnt trees east of the ridge.

That did not prove they were the same forty.

It gave us somewhere to ask the next question.

The queen was sending the request onward through queens willing to carry it. Her own guide could lead a party to the edge of her territory when we had a route beyond it.

“She also has a message for Risa,” Dot said.

Risa looked up.

Dot's voice softened.

“She understands that this is one of your missing brood. She is helping look.”

Risa pressed her lips together.

For a moment, I thought she wouldn't be able to answer.

Then she nodded.

“Tell her thank you.”

Dot did.

We stayed at the receiver after supper.

Fresh watches took the outer path. The nursery lamps remained steady. Somewhere beyond the shelters, the river continued running through the cut we had made.

I sat beside Risa with my leg supported beneath the table.

She leaned against my shoulder while Wren copied the exact words of the clear call onto a new page.

SIGMUND FRIESE.

Not added to the list of people home.

Not yet.

But moved out of the empty space where we had known nothing.

Risa watched the pencil finish his name.

“I don't know whether to laugh or be sick,” she said.

“You could do them in that order.”

She turned to stare at me.

“That was awful.”

“I've been learning from you.”

Her laugh broke halfway through and became a sob.

I held her while it passed.

There was nothing I could change into stone or glass that would make waiting easy.

I could sit beside her.

I could listen when the next call came.

Tonight, that was how I held her up.

Day 548–549. Risa holds me up.

Headache easing. No further bleeding. Leg sore but repair holding. Gentle movement only. Toby reassessing. Sera's daily treatment continued; no other power work.

Overflow holding. Water falling. Queen resting on higher ground, injured plate being cared for. Nursery group stays with us. Their supplies arriving by the higher internal route.

Plans made for more sleeping rooms and a proper medical space once the ground is checked. Wrote down the overflow work and its limits. Ordinary clamp helped mend a brood fastening.

Made the baby's shelf with wood and other people's hands. Bird on it. Risa says the height is right.

Clear received call from Sigmund Friese. Risa recognized him. Forty people in an eastern group, including children. Lower crossing lost. Moving towards a high clearing above a burnt ridge. Shelter failing.

Broad transmitter stayed disconnected. Queen asking neighbouring broods. Possible sighting east of ridge, not yet confirmed as his group. Luna and Holt checking routes. Liam preparing.

Sixty-four people home.

Risa's brother alive when he called.

We know that now.