Heart Glass

Part 8

The courtyard of the castle blinded Raid with its shimmering lies.

Coriglass was everywhere— climbing up into the huge buildings of tall, arched wooden doorways, changing plain windows into beautiful stained glass, humming and winking light beneath his feet, spreading around him and the two Corignis members in a circular stone path, and surrounding a grey fountain that was spewing buckets of water every second.

"Water— " Raid started towards the fountain, but Ordan grabbed his shoulder.

"Stones, kid, you're gonna get us caught already," Cork muttered. "It's not real. Inside the archives, there's plenty of water you can drink."

Raid flushed, feeling like a moron for being so easily fooled by the 3D imagery on the coriglass fountain. He'd never seen anything like it— the castle was truly beautiful, especially compared to the long, dark, rocky tunnel he'd just been climbing through for hours.

Thousands of pictures of flowers and stone and colors made the courtyard look like a twinkling magical place full of variety and life and decoration. Digital vines grappled the shining "stone" walls and etched into the cracks like the place had been there for hundreds of years, when Raid knew for certain that it had hardly stood for two generations. People bustled around him, wearing equally shiny, vibrantly colored clothing made of fabric that Raid was struggling to estimate prices for in his head in Beta's black market, looking so incredibly...clean. And well-fed. Just like all of the Knights he'd known his whole life. But they didn't look as cruel as the Knights...at least, not at the moment.

Raid looked down at his own new clothes given to him by Corignis— a collage of purples, greens, and the purest white he had ever seen— smooth, light, comfortable cloth that wouldn't last a day in the mines. His long sleeves were dark purple and reached to his fingers, where a useless strap of cloth was wrapped around his thumb and ring finger. What was the purpose of that? To keep the sleeve from moving?

This outfit was worth at least a month of extra food. Three weeks of water portions. If he never saw Ordan and Cork again after this, which was kind of his plan, he knew exactly what he was going to do with the disguise. And the peachy make-up stick that could cover up the green triangle on his face, now tucked away in his pants pocket? Well...he might actually keep that.

"You still look kinda rough around the edges, so don't cause any trouble," Ordan said, his eyebrows knit together in concern. "You sure you're okay after that fall?"

Raid nodded, trying not to let his slight irritation show at being babied.

"Unfortunately," Cork gestured to one of the buildings with a tall, intimidating pair of fake wooden doors. "Some of the castle Knights know us, so this is as far as we can take you right now. Through that door is the castle archives, where some public tablets are available for searching the city maps. You will need to find open disease clinics. Do you have any idea how you are going to bribe one into helping a Wreck with no money?"

"Well, first of all," Raid lowered his voice. "They won't know what I am. Second, yes. I'm going to bribe them with a tree seed."

"A what?" Both of their eyes blew wide open. "How did you get one of those?"

"I didn't. It's a lie." Raid snorted. Gullible.

"A doctor would certainly know better than to trust a child to have a seed," Cork said indignantly.

Raid shrugged, trying to pretend that his plan wasn't haphazard and desperate and that he could totally pull it off. "Don't worry about it. I'll be fine." And if everything went awry, he'd just steal the treatment, like he'd been stealing other necessities from the Knights for years.