Free No Return by Zachary Jernigan Page A

their own, they till sought to hide who they were.
    Pol had been sixteen when she first saw him. Her hearts had leapt against her sternum to see those fists on display. His pride had bewitched her.
    This morning, she kept herself from staring by forcing her gaze outward, over the terracotta roofs of lesser structures. Positioned three-quarters of the way up the purple-bricked Esoteric Arts building, her apartment announced her status to the city. From the balcony one could count the brightly stained sails of His Majesty’s Inland Navy, as well as measure the depths of Lake Ten by the varying hues of its bluegreen water.
    The view bored and somewhat frightened her, but she pretended interest in order to busy her eyes. Eighty-seven years old, acting like a love-starved youth.
    Pol sipped his wine unhurriedly, and Ebn’s eyes drifted to the moon. Bonepale, it sat in the lower quadrant of the quickly brightening sky, unwilling to set for another several hours. Nearly half of the Needle had descended below the horizon. The second largest sphere seemed to rest atop her companion’s head. She squinted, trying for the fifth or sixth time that morning to determine if it spun faster than it had the day before.
    It did not appear so, at least not to the naked eye. A relief. She hated the days when a change was obvious. She hated the flutter of fear in her veins as she greeted the sky every morning.
    Pol set his empty wine glass on the table. “Thank you for that,” he said.
    She smiled. “There is one more thing.” She raised her hand, summoning a servant for the sorbet.
    Pol frowned after his first spoonful. “Is this lemon?”
    “Yes,” Ebn said, cursing mentally. The man could be so finicky.
    He pushed the brass goblet forward with his index clawtip, as if it contained something poisonous.
    She shrugged. “No matter.” She waved the servant forward again.
    Pol reclined in his chair, legs stretched out under the table. The side of his foot brushed Ebn’s ankle briefly. Like a fool, she inched her calf over until their skins touched lightly. He would not notice, she knew. He was the most preoccupied person she had ever met. Also the most private. His life outside the confines of the Royal Sciences Academy was a complete mystery. Had he friends in the city? He did not seem the type. A lover? Despite their years together, he had never discussed intimacies with her.
    He yawned. “I was somewhat disappointed to receive your note yesterday. I was slated for an ascension this morning. Measurements, nothing exciting, but nonetheless... You know the feeling, Ebn. A week without looking down upon the world feels like a week wasted.”
    “Yes, I know the feeling,” she said. Outbound mages were loath to miss even one orbital ascension. There were only so many years in their lives, after all. “My apologies for the interruption of your schedule, but I desire your counsel on something. Recently, the changes in the Needle have caused the telescopists some consternation. We have not—”
    “What is recently?” he interrupted.
    “Several weeks,” she lied automatically. It had in fact been over a year of increasingly erratic changes, but he need not know that. “We have not seen variations of this frequency before, both in the speed and direction of the spheres.”
    “Yes,” he said. “I have heard rumors.”
    She suspected he had. In fact, he probably knew a great deal more than he let on.
    “The fact will be announced to the general academy later today,” she said.
    He smirked and gestured to encompass the campus. “You think they will have an answer to the riddle?”
    She smiled wanly but did not rise to the jibe. “We cannot keep this to ourselves.”
    “Of course we can. We own the telescopes. All information about the Needle is filtered through us. Everything else is myth and foreign hearsay, so easily discounted by the academy. There is no advantage in opening the discussion up. Clearly, the changes reflect a