Free Bone Walker by Angela Korra'ti Page A

away from an actual date. The rest was the memory of the spectral shape that had escaped Elessir leaping quite literally into her, an image I couldn’t banish from behind my eyes no matter what else I tried to think about.
    Christopher frowned. “Reads like something she’d write,” he agreed, but his tone was laced with doubt.
    â€œAnd under any other circumstance I’d buy it. After last night, not so much, but what can we do? I can’t just barge in on her if she’s told me to go away, and we don’t have any evidence…” Several words in I realized I was babbling, but only when Christopher’s hands closed around my shoulders did it strike me as well that I’d started trying to pace along the sidewalk.
    â€œKendis. Breathe, lass. We’ll make it right.”
    When we’d first met I hadn’t heard much of Christopher’s most steadfast voice—not while he was still fighting the idea of becoming a Warder, after sixteen years in hiding from his own heritage. But he had that voice now. His magic rang through it, not because he was a Warder as much as he was just Christopher, staunch and unshakeable. I let his voice and power soak into me, closed my eyes, and tried to calm down.
    â€œShe’s my best friend,” I croaked when I could speak.
    â€œI know. I care about her too.” He took my hands, and at the press of his palms against mine, my own magic sparked up in hope. To that, Christopher squeezed my fingers. “And there’s nothing that says you and I can’t take a little stroll past her apartment. Or that we can’t do a little more than most to make sure it feels okay, yeah?”
    â€œYeah.” Relaxing, I bobbed my head. He made sense. We were out to walk the Wards, after all, and by that argument, a walk past Jude’s apartment complex was Christopher’s
job
. That it was also on the way to the next bus stop we had to reach if we wanted to catch a ride north to the next stretch of the city Wards was just bonus. “Let’s do this thing then.”
    So resolved, we headed off towards the apartment complex where Jude lived, a few blocks and a corner or two away from the bus stop. There wasn’t much to the place, at least viewed from the sidewalk: a blandly earth-toned sign with a name and logo, blandly earth-toned buildings with tiny balconies facing out to the streets, occasional political or environmental posters in the windows. The young maples along the planting strip next to the sidewalk, on the other hand, were a welcome splash of color, unfurling vivid splashes of orange, red, and gold all along the street. Christopher and I slowed our steps beside them, and I made a show of getting out my cell phone and snapping a picture of the trees in their glory.
    Beside me Christopher lingered, his hand loose in mine, just enough contact to let me tap into the wash of magic he sent rolling over the buildings beside us. Through him I could sense the people who lived in this place, and who in that living shone like beacons to the sight of Seattle’s Warder. Many were asleep at this hour on a Sunday morning, though some of the apartments stood empty—possibly because their residents were out at church. Only one of those sparks of life meant anything to me, though, and I knew Christopher had found Jude when I was suddenly keenly aware of her presence, as aware as if she stood before us.
    â€œShe’s in there,” I said, pocketing my phone again and looping my arms around him as a car came by. It slowed and turned into the apartment complex, and so I kissed my man, the best of all possible excuses for why we might dawdle right there and then on this particular sidewalk.
    â€œYeah,” Christopher rasped in reply when he pulled away. His hand came up to trail along the back of my ear, a gentle touch that made my mouth go dry. Not only were my ears pointier than they’d used to be, they were more