Rochester, after the goblet

The Wondrous Goblet sits on its own floating disc over Rochester, which is exactly the sort of theatrical nonsense this city likes. Nothing here is allowed to be merely useful. Even the tavern has to hover.

They passed the goblet around the table and made a game of it. Visions of the past. Lovely. I watched other people drink from it first and stare off like they had left their bodies somewhere near the rafters. By the time it came to me, I already hated the idea.

No. Absolutely not. I do not want strangers looking through anything that might brush against my memory. I do not want my family anywhere near their curiosity. Private things should be allowed to remain private.

But it was in front of me then, so I took it.

I had to reach for it with my right hand, careful not to let my bad arm drift into the stem and knock the thing sideways. The goblet felt cool and a little slick from other hands. Not heavy, exactly, but awkward in the way delicate objects always are when your body will not simply obey you and be done with it. I held it by the stem with my right hand, steadied my wrist, and took the drink because everyone was waiting.

Then there was a hill. A path. Seven satyrs waving in the distance.

And that is the part I dislike saying out loud, because I still do not know what, exactly, that cup shows. Mine. Someone else's. The past in some ruder and less precise sense. I only know what I saw. The figures were far enough off that with my eye as it is, I cannot swear I caught every detail. I may have missed something. I may have missed a great deal. I resent that too.

Afterward everyone kept talking as if that had been harmless.

Later they wanted to jayjump down from disc to disc instead of waiting properly. That is the sort of idea people call efficient when they have two working legs and no sense. I said no. I said it more than once. A short drop still ends with impact, and impact is not democratic. My bad leg does not forgive, my arm does not catch me, and I was already unsettled from the goblet. I did not want to perform bravery for an audience just because Rochester likes building its taverns in the sky.

So I went home instead. I slept with my family near me, which was better than sleeping alone with that cup still in my thoughts.

The next morning Lady Darkness helped me dress. I could manage some of it, slowly. Trousers first, with all the miserable shifting and bunching that comes from trying to pull them into place while sitting. Then the cream blouse, which should have been simple and was not. The lace at the neckline needed fingers more patient than mine, and my left arm contributed nothing except imbalance. Lady Darkness had to straighten the fabric over my shoulder, tug the folds flat where I had trapped them under myself, settle the draped outer shawl so it hung instead of twisting, tie the brown sash properly, and then do half of it again because one loose layer had caught the other. Last was the blindfold over my right eye, which always has to sit just so or it rubs and slips and makes me feel even less assembled than I am. By the time she was done, I had not crossed a room and was already tired. Still... being put in order by someone who loves you is gentler than doing it badly alone.

I took my cane and went back out.

Charlie and Coffee pulled us into their catastrophe after that. Arnold was dead, face-first, with a hideous wound in his head, and two hundred thousand gold was missing. They had five suspects, more panic than composure, and money enough to make murder unsurprising. Raymond Green was the loudest lead, so we started there. His house did not hand us certainty. It gave us something fouler. The servant and kitchen talk made it sound as if violence in that circle is arranged the way dinner is arranged, passed through staff and money and other hands so the people at the center can keep themselves tidy.

At one point, while others were busy with doors and questions, I spoke a little with the bug person. I had been watching the way they held themselves together and apart. I asked what it was like to move as a unit. They answered with that odd calm of theirs, saying ordinary movement was one thing and moving whole distances together was another shock entirely. I told them movement had been difficult for me for a very long time. They asked, with more curiosity than malice, whether my arm and leg had always been this way. I told them no... that something happened long ago and the years around it blur. It was not an intimate conversation, exactly. But it was honest in places, and I do not have many such conversations with strangers.

Then there was City Hall. The board. Craig. More names pinned up for other people to chase through the city. Colin Polsky in the flats. Rose Giant Slayer on the second disc. All of it meant more walking, more waiting, more standing in lines for Rochester's public shuttle system while platforms shifted people between discs like cargo.

That is why I was in a poor mood. Not for one single reason. For all of it together. The goblet. The jumping talk. Leaving home after Lady Darkness had only just got me arranged. Being dragged from suspect to suspect through a city built for people who can spring, climb, and hustle without paying for it later. By then my working leg was doing the labor of two, my sandals were no help at all, my loose layers kept slipping or catching whenever I sat and stood, and every new destination arrived with the unspoken expectation that of course I would simply manage. I managed. That does not mean I enjoyed it.

By the time we followed the Rose lead to the tavern on the second disc, my body was already objecting to the day. Still... my leg was working well enough, or well enough for me, and I was strangely happy about that. Happy enough that I could help.

I used Mage Hand to carry the tray, then made my own slow way to the bar with my cane. I loaded the drinks one by one, balancing the whole ridiculous arrangement with one good arm and a spell, then dragged my bad leg back toward the table. It was not graceful. It hurt. I was still pleased. Useful is useful. I do not get to be careless with that feeling when it appears.

Then we boarded the shuttle toward the flats.

It was one of Rochester's awful public lines, the sort that lurches people from disc to disc and expects them to be grateful for the convenience. The stop came all at once. Not a warning, not a slowing. Just a brutal jolt, and then the dark.

Not ordinary dark. Magical dark. Thick, immediate, complete.

I was thrown straight to the floor. Face first. My bad arm was no help at all, just there and in the way, and my leg did that hateful thing where it simply failed to be where I needed it. I could not catch myself cleanly. I could not get back under myself fast enough either. I remember the impact, the confusion, the pain that shot through everything, and gunfire in the black. I remember trying to understand where anyone was and realizing my eye was no use to me in that mess. If I missed details, I missed them honestly. There was too much shock and too little sight.

What I know is that Meep went down. I know the wound was the same kind of obscene damage people had compared to Arthur's. I know I asked for help getting up.

And this is the part that still makes me angry: no one helped me. Not then. Not when I was on the floor asking. Not while I was trying to crawl myself out of that shuttle and toward the nearest building like some broken thing clearing the street. I was furious. Humiliated too, which is its own acid. The rest of the party had panic, excuses, grief, whatever they had. Fine. I had the floor, the pavement, and a body that would not cooperate.

Later I learned Persona Light and Dark had only just come back from work. Fishing, gear, the ordinary end of a day. He had barely dropped what he was carrying before he saw the shuttle and me half-crawled out of it, with death still inside behind me. I have thought about that since. What he must have seen: his sister on the ground, shawl twisted, cane useless, clothes pulled out of place from dragging myself forward, and a dead companion still in the bus like some final insult.

My brother got to me before they did.

Persona Light and Dark picked me up when I could not get myself upright. By then everything hurt more than it had any right to. My face, my shoulder, my hip, the working leg from overusing it, the bad one from being dragged wrong, all of it. Emotionally was not much prettier. I was angry, embarrassed, shaken, and so tired I could hardly keep the feeling sorted. Still, I liked being carried. There. Plainly said. I liked that I did not have to force my body to answer one more demand. I liked that he simply took my weight and the whole effort of me with it. My layers shifted and the sandals caught and none of that mattered very much because for a little while I was not falling, not crawling, not asking strangers for help they would not give. It made me feel better at once. Not well. Better.

I was told later that Dookie shot himself after all that. I did not understand that in the immediate confusion; I learned it after. The authorities were called and were predictably useless, distant enough to make their delay sound administrative instead of obscene. Meep remained dead regardless of how long they thought paperwork should take.

Later, back at the shack, we dusted Meep. We spoke about an urn, about colors, about what should be kept and how. I had Persona Light and Dark help me around the table, and I used my magic for her favorite color. Even that took effort by then. Helping after the shuttle was not noble. It was costly. I did it anyway.

I still do not know who ordered the killing. I do not know whether Rochester manufactures cruelty or merely gives it transit access and better clothes. I know the goblet left me feeling exposed, the city left me sore, and the shuttle left me angry enough that I can still taste it.

Under my light, all things are alike for a moment. Then memory returns, and pain returns with it.