Free City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era) by Rhiannon Paille Page A

extinguishers, sprayed off the charcoal Fable. “You can’t do this Cray! You can’t kill me and keep me locked up forever! Bullshit about the Nuclear Expeditions! Bullshit about everything. You want to shut me up so the people don’t believe in me anymore! You want to erase the past, you bastard.” I flung all of my force onto the chains, loosening them minutely. It was enough. My bones shifted, my hand slid through the thick metal shackle. I focused, pulling my other hand free. Cray crossed the room faster than me, threw the door open and shut it behind him. I heard the lock snick.
    I rammed my hands against the door, pushed as hard as I could. I glanced at the bolts that kept the door on its hinges. My fingers worried away at the cracks between the metal, desperately trying to pull the pins out.
    The Arena was silent. It was like nobody was in the stands. I glanced at the window for a second, the smoke clearing, the fake Fable a black skeleton. I gagged on my own tongue and kicked the door begging it to open. I didn’t care anymore if she was a clone or a great granddaughter or a volunteer. All I cared about was getting into the Arena before all hell broke loose.
    It was too late.
    Colin Cray stepped into the Arena, his gait steady as he assessed the corpse. The other founding families crowded the edges of the Arena, most notably, Connie Chung, ancestor of the late Michelle Chung. I forgot how many generations.
    Connie looked broken.
    I felt broken, and I wasn’t even the one in the Arena.
    Colin tilted his face to the sun. “Fable the Immortal . . . is dead!”
    The crowds booed. I pounded the metal grate covering the window. He wasn’t going to do this to me. It was enough that his family considered me a menace to society. They thought it was unfair. I was immortal, they weren’t. Therefore, I should be locked up, kept in a lead box forty stories under their fair city. I should be punished because of the fortune I had founded. I screamed at the top of my lungs hoping that someone – anyone was in the hallway. They had no idea. The Crays had no idea what it meant to live forever. It meant watching everyone you knew die. It meant being unable to eat, unable to sleep. It meant watching the same sun rise in the same sky, in the same city, day after day after day. I was exhausted. I was bored. The only interesting thing I had to look forward to was this day, Temperance Day, when they’d lovingly try to kill me. Hattie made a game of it, coming up with different themes, surprising me with new attractions at the last second.
    I loved everything about Temperance Day.
    The crowd was stunned. Nobody spoke as Colin Cray crouched over the body and plucked fake Fable’s hand from the sand. He touched her with his bare hand, gross. He let go, her limp limb falling to the ground like a dead weight. Whoever she had been, that Fable was dead.
    I turned to the door, crouching, working on the pins. The door swung open before I had a chance to remove the first pin. My fingers got caught, bending them backwards, snapping the bones. I winced, feeling nothing as the door swung back. I pulled my hand out and stood.
    “Mom?” Jonathan Cray asked, scanning the room. His eyes fell on me. He froze. “Fable?”
    I licked my lips, an inside joke rolling across my tongue. “Will the real Fable please stand up?” I brushed past Jonathan, his mouth hanging open, questions in his eyes as my pop culture reference abated his intelligence. I popped my joints on the way down the hall. This was going to be fun. The people were going to castrate him.
    “Fable!” Jonathan called after me.
    I quickened my pace, my combat boots calmly clicking along the stone. I reached the grates and pulled them open effortlessly. Hattie Alexander was on her knees, her eyes puffy from crying. She looked up when she heard me, her eyes wide.
    “Fable?” Her voice was a squeaky whisper as I stepped into the chamber and pulled the gate closed behind me. I