Indigo's Keeper [Indigo B2]

Chapter 2 - Deals

Three hours later with her skin dry and pinched red from the cold, Athira touched down on top of one of Sirah's many skyscrapers and squinted out across the city as her eyes adjusted to the light.

"Alive check," came Kione's voice from the wristlet she'd agreed to wear when she left base, if only so Zoe didn't tear the city apart looking for her.

"Alive," muttered Athira, her voice strange in her still-ringing ears. She settled on the side of the roof, one leg dangling over as she made a doomed attempt to smooth her wind-blown hair. "Are they okay?"

"They're... fine," said Kione, like he'd wanted to say something else.

Athira hugged her other leg close to her chest, resting her chin on her knee. They'd had this conversation enough for her to guess what he'd been going to say. That Indigo were physically okay. That she'd upset them by leaving so abruptly, that she should stop avoiding them and let them help her—like there was any helping her when some Colour and a scratch threatened to turn her into a monster.

At least he'd stopped, if only because he was taking her threat of not answering her wristlet seriously.

"You were out of range for a while," said Kione when she remained silent. "Usual spot, I'm assuming?"

"Usual spot," said Athira quietly. Out and over the ocean. Away from Sirah's sprawling lights, its oblivious people below. Until she was high enough that the darkness swallowed her, until the air was thin enough to make her head spin and the wind was finally cold and vicious enough to rip into the molten core that sat festering inside her. "I thought you said your tracking would follow me all the way to Nomstral."

"It would," said Kione, sounding offended. "But when you get high enough, the tracking gets... weird. Your dot jumps around large distances at a time, like it can't get a good read on exactly where you are, but I always have a rough idea. Usually. Your Black never stops providing me with interesting challenges."

Athira made a note of that, just in case. "At least you finally managed to make a Frame my Black can't break." Usually, when her Black met an Orange Frame, it overloaded it near-instantly—something about most Frames not being designed to handle so much pigment at once.

Kione groaned in reply. "A baby step, but an important one. The wristlet's design won't work on a large-scale Frame like the Colourformer system. I've been considering it, but I can't seem to work out why—"

Athira tuned Kione out as he rambled on, picking at the edge of the sticky bandage on her cheek as her thoughts wandered back to her earlier conversation with Shift. She'd run through it in a hundred different ways in the past hour, wondering if there'd been another way that didn't leave her haunted by the look in his eyes.

"—Which reminds me, the Wardens sighted Karma in the Underground earlier."

Athira blinked, finger frozen on the edge of the bandage. "What?"

"More specifically, in Chief's club."

Athira's stomach sank as she gripped the edge of the roof. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Because you were out of range having your temper tantrum in the sky," said Kione. "And because it's been two hours since the sighting, and I have better things to do than try and check in with you every three seconds, since someone doesn't bother letting me know when she's back unless she needs something."

Athira couldn't exactly argue with that, but she couldn't bring herself to apologise for it, either. "I suppose that gives me something to do tonight, other than follow a bunch of Wardens around on their wild goose chase."