“Some
of our superpowers are like the kind in comic books. Some of them are
stranger.” Trope smiled softly and turned away from me, looking out over
the city below. The towers and lights along the dark horizon were parallaxing
as the ship slowly drifted in the arc of its patrol. The stars and
streetlamps and bending distances made me think of fairyland.
“Can I go to fairyland?” I asked her. She brushed her shoulder-length hair back from her face. It was the same colour
as the starlight. Turned back to me, began to reply, a long groaning
sound rising from behind me, from inside the ship, its strange and
ghostly engines. Trope paused until the noise faded.
“There’s
other places you have to go first.” I must have looked sad because she
reached over and took my hand, and Trope didn’t really like to touch
people that often, because of her training she said. “You will go there, though. You’ll have to, I suppose. I will take you, or maybe BurningBright. Or maybe even one of the Normals.”
Her
eyes and voice had that deep feeling about them that made me a little
scared and excited. A chime sounded from inside and her features became
very still. I knew I would have to go. I imagined the inside of the gem
and rotated it. It didn’t move.
“Trope, I think the lock is-“
