Free Chaos by Sarah Fine Page B

going?”
    Takeshi led us over to one of the doorways. “The square, the central meeting place. It’s just south of the Bone Palace, and it’s where they hold the lotteries an d . . . other events they want the public to witness.”
    “The lotteries?” Ana asked, making sure her own hair was fully concealed beneath the hood of her cloak.
    “It’s how they decide which of them gets to go through the portal. The favorites of the Queen may go at her command, but the rest go by lottery. They enter their names and vie for the chance to possess a human body—to escape. The drawings take place every night. Even Mazikin need hope.” His jaw flexed with tension. “It will take us a few hours to walk.”
    With my head bowed, I followed him onto the road, Ana trudging next to me, her powerful stride reined in. I flinched as a growling, distorted voice rang out over some kind of public announcement system, echoing above the din of the street. Takeshi stopped dead, listening, and then continued on. Ana cursed under her breath.
    “What is it?”
    “They’re calling all citizens to the square at the black hour,” she translated.
    “It’s the coldest hour of the darkness,” Takeshi said. “Think of it as midnight.”
    “For the lottery?” I asked.
    “No.” Ana reached for my hand, and I let her take it in hers. It seemed less like an affectionate gesture and more like an attempt to hold me in place. “The Queen is playing host to the newest resident of the city,” she said in a hollow voice.
    I focused on the pressure of her fingers to keep from screaming, from flying apart. As the growling speech went on, Ana’s grip steadily tightened until she was nearly crushing my hand, but she didn’t translate any more for me. I was about to ask her when the voice cut off with a blast of screeching feedback, allowing me to hear the noises of the street, the sounds coming from the buildings around us. Since we’d arrived in the city, it had been mostly quiet, save for the distant industrial noise coming from the factories. But now, all around me, the Mazikin hooted and snarled. Engines roared. Metal rattled and clanged.
    Humans screamed and moaned.
    In the gray twilight, the electric lights began to wink on, just enough to show the way. Shadows danced on the black pavement, silhouettes of snouts and rounded ears, of barrel chests and clawed hands. And more human shapes, too, hunched backs, trembling shoulders. The Mazikin and their slaves.
    “There are more humans in the city than Mazikin.” Takeshi patted my head as he spoke, as if I were his mute and devoted dog. “About twice as many.”
    “If they outnumber the Mazikin, why are they slaves?”
    “I’d start with the fact that nearly all of them came from the dark city,” said Ana. “It’s not as if they were in fighting form when they got here. They were already hopeless enough to have taken their own lives.”
    “And those who fight are punished in terrible ways,” added Takeshi. “In a place where there can be no escape, where you go on and on, and so does your suffering, that’s a terrifying prospect.”
    “But not all of them have given up,” I said, thinking of that woman in the cart, chained and on the way to the meat factory, looking at me like I might save her. I hadn’t come here for that woman, and she wasn’t part of my mission, but I couldn’t help wanting to be worthy of that hope in her eyes.
    Takeshi assessed me coolly and tugged my leash as we crossed the street. I shivered as chilled air crept under my cloak; now that the sun had fallen below the skyline, the temperature was dropping as rapidly as it had risen. I pulled my gloves from my waistband and slipped them on.
    From behind us came a grunt, and Takeshi responded with a fierce growl and a wave of his clawed hand. The streets were growing crowded as the Mazikin came out to play. The pungent musk of their fur and the deeper scent of human misery—sweat and blood—wafted over me as