Free They Who Fell by Kevin Kneupper

the cabinets, pulling out a fashionable robe favored by many of the upper caste servants. It wasn’t flashy enough to upstage the angels, but it was elegant enough that they wouldn’t be embarrassed, either. It was more fancy than anything Jana had ever worn. A soft red silk that called to mind a kimono, its hand-sewn needlepoint depicted angels in various scenes of glory.
    “Nefta wants us to go with her,” said Cassie. “To the Conclave.”

CHAPTER TEN
    “Y ou bastards get in, and you do it quiet,” said the ferryman. Holt nodded, and the others boarded his boat. Dax stumbled on the way in, shaking the boat from side to side as he lost his balance. But Thane grabbed hold and steadied him, saving him from more than a few dirty looks from the ferryman. Dax sat down sheepishly, started to blame his lack of coordination on the darkness, and then thought better of it. They were on the shore, just south of the old city. Without all the lights, it was surprising how black things could be. The buildings were just grey silhouettes against the night sky, noticeable mostly by the way they blocked the view of the stars. They were invisible before, but now the sky was lit with constellations that no longer had to compete with the constant glow of urban life.
    “Pay me,” said the ferryman. “I don’t risk my ass for free.” He’d worked with Holt for months, but didn’t trust him or anyone else. He was an old drunk, when he could be, but booze was in limited supply. He had a thick grey beard, an ideal mask to obscure the perpetual ruddiness of his cheeks. He was crotchety and disagreeable, but he hated the angels, and he knew how to row. He wasn’t willing to risk his own skin in combat, but he’d tolerate the comparatively smaller risk of silently moving people and cargo in and out of the city at night. Holt liked him despite his orneriness; the elderly learn to own their faults, which makes them easier for others to bear.
    Holt handed him a small bundle—a collection of dried meats and a few pieces of fresh fruit. It’d keep the man going for at least a few days. Food was the only currency anyone much cared about these days, and it was the perishable things that had value. Most ordinary goods were functionally worthless, valued only as much as the labor needed to get them to you. The death toll had far outstripped the physical destruction, and it was the urban areas that had presented the most tempting targets. But once you got out into the suburbs, enough warehouses, stores, and private residences had survived that there were generally more things around than people to use them.
    There had been looting, of course. But there’s only so much you can carry, and only so much you need for yourself. They were still coming across hoards that people had stashed away in their now-abandoned homes—piles of shoes, once trendy clothes, or useless boxes of electronics. Those things could last for decades. But when the food and medicine had run out, all the stolen televisions in the world didn’t do their new owners much good. Industry and transportation had broken down, and without a way to replenish things, people were left to feud and fight until their time simply ran out. The survivors had mainly been those who’d managed to make their way to rural areas. They could grow food there, and had more of it than they needed. Only trickles flowed outward to places like this, far away from any fields of grain.
    Holt thought it was all funny, in a sick kind of way. Before the Fall, everyone had envisioned the apocalypse in whatever form it came as a brutal wasteland and a constant battleground between the survivors. It had been that way in some places, but only for a time. If the world resembled anything now, it was less of a battle and more of a frontier. It wasn’t that there weren’t dangers, because there were many. The angels still roved around inflicting depravities, but mostly at random. The Vichies could well attack you,