Dreams of Tirnanoc

Gunfire woke me this morning.

I should be used to the noise by now, I know, common as it is in the Row, but the sound always seems closer than it was before. Today, the humans shot Jimmy. They didn't give a reason, of course; I peeked out the shutters and saw Jimmy, wings shredded by the blast, being dragged away. The humans will blame him, but anyone who knew Jimmy knew he had a bum wing from the war and couldn't get off the ground even if he tried.

Jimmy isn't the first they've cut down for doing nothing at all and he won't be the last. People keep disappearing. Fennel went out to work two nights ago and no one's seen her since. The old faun Silas living just across the Row vanished from his flat, leaving nothing behind but enough blood for us to be sure the sorry fool's dead, and every day the gunfire seems closer. Like they're marching on us.

My Gabriel tells me Burgue wasn't always like this. He tells me that, before the war, there was peace between the fae and the humans, a relative consensus to exist together in the city, and he used to watch faeries like me fly overhead, our wings glittering like stained glass in the sun. I can scarcely imagine it. The cobbles in Burgue are dyed with fae blood and sweet Gabriel can't see it, but I can. I can smell it too, and it sits as heavy as a coin on the back of my tongue, choking, poisoning the air. It's getting harder to breathe.

Our day at the factory showed Gabriel how different our lives really are. He made a mistake and it was the back of my hands that caught the foreman's lash. He didn't understand why. Gabriel's a bit naïve like that, but my heart swells even now to think of his sad eyes, his black hair mussed, tears making lines on his sooty cheeks. I didn't know humans like him could exist—soft and kind, gentle, genuine. He still fills me with wonder. All these months later and I can still taste that first kiss we shared by the river, caught between the gas lamps where no one but the fluttering moths could see us. Every day seems more hopeless than the last, and yet I can't deny how much I love Gabriel. In a better world, we'd be together.

He wants to know about Tirnanoc. He begs me to remember home, to remember I'm more than a whipped factory slave, but all the good memories I have are disappearing into dreams of marching boots and screaming children, cannon fire and the crash of waves against the cramped refugee boats. Dreams of Tirnanoc have become nightmares. It's hard holding on to hope in this dark place.

It's nightfall and there's gunfire out in the Row again. Somebody else will be dead or disappeared by dawn. I should be used to the noise by now. I fear the day that I am.

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