Free When Copper Suns Fall by Kasonndra Leigh

the floor, bowed my head.
This usually triggered Father’s cue to step in. Instead, he stood
beside Bess, massaging his chin. He was staring out the damaged
window and toward the cemetery in the backyard. After a long
moment, he turned to me.
    “Headache?” he said. I nodded.
    He strolled over to the bed and palmed my
forehead. A gust carrying a sweet, honeysuckle scent flowed into
the room and tipped over a muski glass filled with marbles sitting
on my desk. Balls rolled across the floor, mingling with the glass
fragments.
    After blackouts, things broke around me—a
window here, a door falling off the hinges there. Each time I came
out of one, I’d find myself at any unexpected place, standing over
any broken object. Father and I dealt with these things when life
was about the three of us six years ago. That was before Micah’s
accident, and before he was paired with Bess. Now I hardly ever see
him because he’s always traveling between Boroughs.
    “I won’t have the girls breaking things in my
house, James.” Bess lowered her voice to a whisper, as if I
wouldn’t be able to hear what she said. As they debated the damage,
she inched back toward five marbles scattered on the floor. Her
feet rolled across two clear green ones. Her arms and legs wind
milled just before she thudded to the floor.
    I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight. Father
would taser me if I laughed. He reached out to Bess and stumbled on
two marbles as he tried to pull her up.
    “Mother, why are you down there?” Bess’s
daughter, Audrina the ungifted, drifted into the room. Her black
bob was flat on one side. Her green-eyed glance darted from Bess to
Father and then me. “What did the queen of wannabe normal do this
time?” Her smug face reminded me of the border guard from last
night and his sarcastic expression. Dumb faces.
    “At least I do want to be something.” I was
not in a Princess Audrina mood today.
    “Sure you do, as in wannabe sent to Minders
Camp,” Audrina said.
    “The clock said midnight when you stumbled in
last night.” I used a bluff tactic because, I didn’t know what time
Audrina had come in, or how I managed to break the window. Somebody
needed to shut her up, though. She gave me a nervous face. My plan
worked. Well, maybe not.
    “Is that, right? What did it have to say
about Governor Winthrope’s assistant who came to see you this
morning while you pretended to be sleeping?” Audrina said,
emphasizing the last few words. A rush of anxiety surged into my
chest and inched its way up to my head. Hearing a government
official had stopped by rattled me.
    A strong gust surged into the window and blew
our hair around. The Judges hadn’t wasted any time. They didn’t
even give me the option of attending a trial first. But I knew why.
The government girl, who should know better, was going to be made
into an example.
    “Enough.” Father’s deep voice bellowed over
us like a god. Silence fell over the room. He turned to me. Here,
we go. “Governor Winthrope’s assistant, Yolanda Fuquay, stopped by.
She wanted to discuss your situation. There are a few ways to
minimize the term.”
    Paint me rebellious, but I still had all
kinds of mixed feelings about kids serving terms just because we
braved up and stepped off the white line every so often. “Okay,
what do I have to do?” I said.
    “Those of us in the Tribunal’s graces are not
always immune,” he said.
    “Father, please? You’re stalling. What did
they decide?”
    “Minders Camp,” he said without hesitation.
My heart fluttered. Audrina scoffed. “And in two months, you’ll
participate in Swordfest as the opening act. Defeat the reigning
champion in the costing evaluations on this coming Monday and your
camp term will go from four months to eight weeks.” A silence fell
over the room. Even Bess, who didn’t know the meaning of the word
quiet looked upset.
    It was hard to believe they’d assign a
Historian’s daughter to a double dose of violence.