My Hand and My Heart

1

As she slipped out the door and carefully closed it behind her, Nime shivered in the chilly damp of midnight. The air was heavy and salty from sea spray. She breathed it in and blinked away drowsiness. If she wanted to uphold her wisp-tag win-streak, she’d need to be alert.

She flexed her fingers and stretched her arms as she hurried down the gently swaying walkway toward the Academy. Her muscles were a little tight after physical training earlier, but that was fine. A game of wisp-tag with her friends was never as strenuous as Nime’s PT. Sess could hold his own against Nime, but he wasn’t competitive. Rem was too afraid of getting caught to pay attention and only came for Miel, anyway. Miel was crafty but slow. And Chi only cared about having fun. It was hardly challenging for Nime to win against them.

Haven was quiet, only the ever-present hum of the generator and the whipping wind disturbing that quiet. As she made her way through the Residential area, the gentle slap of waves against the sides of the settlement faded. The Academy was near the center, bordering the square along with Botanics, Maintenance, and the Clinic. This late, even Botanics was dark.

Nime’s friends waited for her in front of the Academy doors. She sped up to a jog. Of course they had waited for her instead of breaking in themselves.

We’ve been standing here forever, Rem said. He rubbed his arms and shivered. He’d tucked his chin into the high collar of his sweater and his hands into the sleeves. Sometimes he reminded Nime so much of Navi. Her little sister always preferred extra-long sweater sleeves so she could keep her hands warm. It’s freezing. No one else shivered, but then Rem and Nime, cousins, shared the same thin frame, and the wind coming off of the Endless Sea was sharp as always.

I showed you how to circumvent the scanner, Nime said. Handing her lamp off to Sess, Nime knelt on the lite-crete walkway, cold and damp. This tablet scanner was normally off—what need would the Academy and library have to be locked?—but the archivists, in an attempt to keep students from doing exactly what Nime and her friends were doing, had blacklisted all tablets registered to students after hours. You could have gone in already. Nime pulled out her multitool and switched it to a flat head screwdriver. Rem scowled at her while she pried the cover off of the scanner and reset it. When it came back online, they would have about a second to open the door without having to use their tablets.

I’m not a delinquent, unlike some people. Rem looked away and pressed his lips into a thin line.

Chi snorted. And yet here you are, breaking into the Academy at midnight, she said. Nime watched the lights in the scanner’s circuitry. When they blinked off for a second and then on again, she grabbed the door with one hand and slid it open. Her other hand slapped the cover back on, and she waved her friends through.

I’m not breaking into anything. Rem crossed his arms and stomped through the door into the entrance hall. It was pitch black inside, but Nime’s lamp showed enough of the room that Rem wouldn’t trip over anything, at least within a few feet of the door.

Miel followed and raised his eyebrows at Nime while addressing Rem. Of course not, he said. You’re simply existing in the same place while other people break in, and then going inside with them. Totally different. Rem turned around, jabbing a finger in Miel’s face.

I’m only here because you all don’t know how to keep out of trouble without me, and for some reason, I don’t like it when my idiot friends get stuck doing service for breaking the rules, leaving me with no one to hang out with. Rem huffed and turned back around. Miel looked over his shoulder at Chi and made a face. They giggled. Sess followed them quietly, and Nime came last, letting the door close behind her.

By day, the Academy entrance hall was full of people, teachers and students alike, studying or relaxing between classes around the scattered tables. Branching off the room were hallways leading to classrooms and offices, with more on the upper floor. By night it was eerily silent. Or it would have been eerie, maybe, to Navi, easily scared as she was. Nime had snuck in so many times it was almost routine. She stepped around her friends and led the way across the room to the stairwell and elevators, unpowered like the rest of the building.

Do you want to complain all night, or do you want to play? Nime asked. Sometimes they played wisp-tag in the classrooms, but this time, her friends followed her down the stairs to the library. The library and archives were what Haven had been built for: to protect books, art, and data from the flooding that had turned Aht Carina into the Endless Sea. The database, saved mostly in the rows and rows of memory banks in the storage beneath Haven, held the aggregation of almost every piece of knowledge and culture from before the Fall.

Nime turned right at the landing and stepped into the first level of the library. B1 housed the common and durable books made in the century or so before the Fall, along with post-Fall literature. The most important pieces, the most delicate manuscripts and art, were further down. A few feet away from the stairwell, Nime stopped at a wide table and set her bag on a chair before placing her lamp in a groove on the surface. The others crowded around the table and dumped their bags on it.

Standard rules? Sess asked. He stood quite still next to Chi, who bounced on her toes in impatience. Standard wisp-tag—the game students of the rebellious variety had been playing since Haven was built—was simple. Each player got a lamp, broken just enough that the bioluminescent bacteria inside could slowly leak out, and hid somewhere dark. The goal was to find and tag the other players with the wisps and be the last person standing.

Too easy, Nime said. How about we only count fatal touches?

Anything that would kill a person? Rem said. Fine, maybe I’ll win this time, since nobody pays attention when I talk about anything medical. Nime smiled.

I call Rem for my team, Miel said, grabbing Rem’s arm. Rem elbowed him away to get some space.

Free for all, Nime said. Miel dropped his arm and pouted, but Nime knew he wasn’t going to give up that easily. If Miel wanted to team up, he would, regardless of the rules. Boundaries are… looking around, Nime hesitated. How about from the stairs to the seaward wall, excluding the private study rooms and bathrooms? The others nodded.

Digging through her bag, Nime pulled out a small wisp-lamp with faint, branching fractures that had been sealed to stop leaks. She carefully pried the sealant off of the crack and handed the lamp to Sess. He pressed his fingers against the thick, glowing liquid now seeping from it. Nime did the same to four more lamps, passing them off to Chi, Rem, and Miel, and keeping one for herself. Her lamp leaked its sticky, sweet-smelling liquid into the palm of her hand. The five of them now glowed faintly with green-blue wisp-light.

Anything else? Chi asked, practically vibrating with anticipation.

No. Nime gripped her lamp tighter and stood up on the balls of her feet. Ready? One minute to hide, starting now.

* * *

I’m in a city in my head where the lights never go out. The city is familiar; I’ve imagined it so many times that I can name the streets I see below me, dark lines between glittering steel and glass buildings. They tower over those streets, stretching into the sky like trees. Skyways trace between them through the air. There are so many people here, more than Haven, more than I’ve ever seen in real life. This, I imagine, is what it was like before the Fall.

I’m alone at the top of one of those towering buildings, a wide window framing the city below like a painting. The room I’m in reminds me of the luxury of pre-Fall royalty. Everything is gold and white and beautiful.

Once, I told Athis-nin, my counselor, about this room at the top of this tower. I told him about how I could never seem to leave, even if I wanted to. He thought it was my mind’s representation of my loneliness, and that I couldn’t leave because I fear rejection.

I’m not sure he’s right, because how would that explain the people who come and speak to me, who call me by a different name than Navi? I didn’t tell Athis-nin about them, because it seems a little silly to tell him that these people assure me of how important I am. Mostly it’s the priestesses: they tell me again and again that I can do great things, that my shaping will save the world. I’m not sure what shaping means, but it has something to do with creative Potential. No one in Haven can use Potential, which people used to call magic. According to the priestesses, that’s why I can’t leave; my shaping and I are too important. That seems silliest of all, but for some reason, I always believe them.

And then every time I come back to reality, I feel smaller than ever because it’s not true. When I blink and see the Endless Sea instead of an endless city, the belief in my own importance fades away, and I feel stupid for ever thinking I could change the world.

Now, there’s someone else in the room with me, not a priestess or a politician. It’s not anyone who’s ever been here before. I can barely see them; they stand just beyond the light, and something obscures their face. I take a step closer. It feels right that they’re here, like the room was missing something vital, and now that this person is here—I step closer again, light glints off of something metallic—I’m finally comfortable. They look up, and long, smooth black hair slides away from their face and—

A click brings me back into my bedroom. I open my eyes, and my heart pounds against my chest. That was new. And then I scramble out of bed, my foot landing in yesterday’s leftover ink. I wipe it off on my other leg. I forgot I left that there. On go some socks. I wiggle my toes. They were starting to get cold. I grab my shoes in one hand and a wisp lamp in the other. Hurry, Navi, I think. Nime will be long gone at this rate.

And I’m right; I can barely see the bioluminescence of her lamp bobbing along the walkways. My chest starts to hurt as I run to catch up. Prime peeks out of the clouds enough to show me the edges of buildings and walkways, and even Secondary and Tertiary show themselves to give me more light. It makes the darkness less scary, but there are things other than the darkness that scare me.

Haven is terrifying at night, with the wind sneaking between walls and the spray of salty water from waves hitting the edges of the floats. Without other people to distract me, the Endless Sea seems so impossibly huge and Haven, floating on it, so tiny. I swallow and run faster, and my legs burn. I should have just asked Nime if I could go with her.

But if I asked her for help, then she’d have asked why I need to go to the library at midnight and I… I take a deep breath and hold it for a second. When I let it out, there’s still a lump in my throat. It’s probably for the best if Nime doesn’t find out that Aeri, my classmate, dared me to meet her and her friends in the sculpture gallery.

I want to turn back. But I also want to be brave, like the me from my dreams. Like Nime.

And anyway, I’m already close enough to watch Nime open the Academy doors and walk in. She does it casually, kneeling for a minute in front of the scanner and then standing and rolling her shoulders. She holds the door open as four people I didn’t see before step out of the shadow of the building. My breath catches.

And then releases. It’s just her friends. Even our cousin Remy, who normally yells at Nime for breaking the rules, is there, and he looks annoyed. I run to catch the door before it closes fully, escaping the dim green light of Prime. I press my hands over my mouth to keep from breathing too loudly and look around, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. The entrance hall is filled with shadows too deep to see through.

I am not afraid, not even when I hear footsteps moving away from me, echoing against the lite-crete floor. My eyes sting with the threat of tears, my stomach twists, but I tell myself I’m not afraid. The footsteps tap rapidly down the stairs now, so I breathe and walk forward. It’s so dark, I feel like I’m walking into nothing. I brush past a chair and grab it, like it’s the only other thing in the world.

When I can’t hear their footsteps anymore, I pull out my wisp-lamp and rub my hands over it. The wisps must be colder than I thought because it takes a while for them to fully wake up. But there’s enough light to see by, so I head for the stairwell near the back of the entrance hall. The world turns a ghostly blueish-green from my lamp. I wish wisp-light was on the warmer end of the spectrum. As it is, it casts a haunted glow over everything I pass, like the light below sea level, blue and wavy and distorted.

What floor are Nime and her friends going to? Hopefully not down into the archive. I lean over the railing by the stairs. I can’t see anything, not even a hint of light. It’s like they disappeared, like they sank into the sea with nothing to mark where they were. I take a step down.

This isn’t so bad. Even in this odd lighting, the Academy is familiar. My heart slows and my shoulders relax as I descend, and I realize no one knows I’m here.

A series of rapid, slapping thumps make me freeze on the last step before B1. I don’t blink or even breathe. The lights move around through the shelves; I cover mine with my sweater.

Once I stop moving, I can hear more running footsteps. It must be Nime. I recognize her voice, along with Chi’s laughter. I step down fully onto the floor. I never thought to wonder what Nime and her friends do when they sneak into the Academy.

Nime runs past the stairwell, weaving between tables. She doesn’t see me, but she does see Sess, I think, farther ahead of her. I step up close to the archway separating the stairwell from B1 to see better. Yeah, that’s Sess. None of Nime’s other friends are that tall. He disappears behind a shelf, and Nime chases after him, holding a lamp out in front of her. She disappears too.

Chi comes out from between two rows and sits down at one of the tables by the stairs. She’s glowing? Wisp-light is smeared all across the top of her chest and stomach and down one side. There’s even a couple of splotches on her neck and face. She’s laughing and craning her head to see what Nime and Sess are doing. I can hear a scuffle, and Chi kneels on the chair to get a better view. She cheers at whatever she sees, and then covers her mouth and laughs. Soon, Sess comes into view and plops into a chair. He’s covered in wisps, too. They’re in his hair and dripping down the back of his neck into his collar. He smiles at Chi and rubs at the stains before leaning his elbows on the table. She stands on the chair, using his shoulder for balance. Sess says something to her, and Chi hops back down into her seat.

I can hear Remy and Miel somewhere, too. A larger light moves down a row to my right, and there they are. Only their hands, the ones holding their lamps, glow. Chi and Sess turn to look at them. Chi scoots forward, until she’s on the very edge of her seat, and grips it with her wisp-speckled fingers. Miel winks at her, and Remy elbows him. Sess rests his head on his hand.

Remy and Miel creep forward, along the line of shelves. They stop when Rem holds his hand up and listens. I try to listen, too. I don’t hear anything, but I do see Nime crouching at the end of a row on my left. Well, I see her lamp and her head. The rest of her seems to blend in with the shadow of the shelf. She moves almost imperceptibly slowly. It doesn’t seem like anyone else sees her.

I look back at Nime, but she’s gone. I blink. She was right there, moving like a barnacle. Where did she go? And then I see a tiny flash of light that doesn’t belong to Remy or Miel, and there she is, on top of the shelves. They definitely don’t see her, not until she jumps down behind them and slides her wisp-covered hands along both of their necks before they can react. Chi cheers again, and this time she doesn’t cover her mouth. Remy shushes her and scowls all the way to the table. Miel says something, and Nime responds by wrapping her hands around his neck again, but they both laugh.

When Nime walks over to the table, she’s smiling and lifting her chin. The light on her hands is starting to fade.

So that’s 1 win, 4 tags for me already tonight, she says, leaning an elbow on Sess’ shoulder. You guys need to work a little harder, or I’ll beat my own record.

How are you always able to sneak up on me? Remy asks. He crosses his arms. We need to give you bells or something. But congratulations anyway.

Maybe you would’ve heard me if you and Miel hadn’t teamed up. By the way, that’s a unique tactic in a free-for-all, Nime says with a sarcastic smile.

She didn’t sneak up on me, Chi says. She laughs again. Or Sess. You should have seen it, Rem. It was like a teeny-tiny, little biter swimming after a, a whale or something, the way she was chasing him. Chi laughs so hard she can’t talk, and Nime sighs.

Not sneaky at all, Sess says, and it makes Chi laugh even harder. Nime pokes Sess’ cheek and tries not to smile. The corners of her mouth turn down, and she would look stern if I didn’t know she was about to laugh. She and Remy look a lot alike when they suppress a smile. I try out the expression. Would I look the same?

Teaming up to defeat a more formidable opponent is a perfectly acceptable strategy, Miel says, simultaneously serious and silly. He flutters his eyes and loops an arm around Remy’s neck. Nyrem and I are simply intelligent enough to realize that neither of us can beat you on our own. After all, you, great Nime— Chi snorts —are a celestial being of amazing capabilities who— Nime rolls her eyes —is so far above our own level—

Miel. Remy draws out the second syllable. Miel stops and turns to face him. He looks like he’s about to start talking again, but Remy beats him to it. Shut up. Miel pouts. Remy covers his mouth, but I hear a laugh.

The five of them make an interesting picture, with the wisps on their skin starting to fade but still illuminating them in the surrounding darkness. I would love to paint it, if only there were a pigment to mimic the glow of wisps right where it meets their skin. It’s white in the middle, but translucent blue on the edges. And where the wisps have died there are shiny smears that reflect a small amount of light.

Let’s start another round, Nime says, and I jump a little. I need to meet Aeri and the others still. Looking back at Nime one more time, I hug the lamp to my stomach and keep going down the stairs. The sound and light fade the farther down I go.

* * *

As Chi got ready to give the signal for another round of wisp-tag, Nime bounced on her toes in excitement. The thrill of winning had her heart racing and her energy spiking. She barely blinked as Chi counted down to one.

And Nime was off, counting the seconds in her head. She followed the glow of a lamp, unsure of who it belonged to. Technically, this was an unfair way to play; players weren’t supposed to follow others during the one-minute hiding period, but Nime was impatient. Moving quietly, she closed the distance between herself and the person ahead of her as the minute came to an end.

Tensing her legs, Nime rubbed at the crack in her lamp. Her hand came away gooey and glowing. Time was up, but she’d give whoever this was a few seconds to make sure there’d be no argument about cheating.

And then she struck, sprinting toward the person, not caring about silence anymore. She recognized Rem a moment before she pressed her wet hand into his back, just below his left shoulder blade. Her momentum pushed him a little bit, but Nime stopped herself from crashing into him.

Rem turned around and looked at her. He crossed his arms.

Seriously? he said. The game just started. I haven’t had a chance to play yet! Nime shrugged. Rem shook his head but started heading back, lifting his chin and raising his voice. I’m out! There was a surprised noise from somewhere nearby, and Nime turned her head toward it. Rem clicked his tongue at that. Truly, Ni, you’re like a robot. Then he turned a corner and disappeared into the darkness.

Heading in the direction of the noise, Nime came to a break in the shelves where her lamp revealed a few comfortable chairs and a database access point. The access point’s backlit screen gave off its own glow. It looked a little spooky, sitting in the darkness. Navi wouldn’t have liked it. She’d have probably been scared but pretended she wasn’t. Nime smiled. Or maybe Navi would have liked it. There were times when Navi stopped and looked at the strangest things for inspiration. Maybe this would have been one of them.

The person who had been there was gone, but Nime didn’t let herself relax. They could be close. She curled her arm around the lamp, blocking some of its light. As she turned to move on, a speck of light outside her circle caught her eye. She squinted at the drop of wisps on the floor. She’d found her next target.

The question was: who was she following? A trail left behind could have been carelessness, or it could have been left to lure her into an ambush. If Nime was following Chi, it was probably not a trap. Chi didn’t do traps, they weren’t fun enough for her. If it was Sess, he might have not even noticed he was leaving a trail. But Miel…if it was Miel, then this was definitely a trap.

Nime wrapped her sleeves around her lamp and managed to block out most of the light, leaving her with barely enough to keep from smashing into things. But she could see the little trail of wisps along the floor more easily. The droplets were long and splattered, like the person had been running.

She followed the trail regardless of whether it was a trap or not. It wound up and down rows with no apparent destination. Once or twice it almost disappeared, but Nime found it again each time. The trail kept well away from the open areas beyond the shelves, and Nime was losing track of where exactly she was. Had she left the modern fiction section already? Or was she in a different part of the library entirely?

I’m out! Chi yelled from somewhere on the opposite side of the floor. Nime paused. The trail must have belonged to Sess or Miel, then. Nime grit her teeth and kept going. Following was not her style. She’d much rather have been on the offensive than trailing an unknown quarry with no better plan. At least she was catching up with them. The droplets were brighter, fresher now. Bigger, like the person was slowing down. She stepped softly, still concealing her light.

And then the trail ended, and Nime stilled for a second to think. Her neck tingled. Turning, she came face to lamp with Miel. Her arm came up to protect herself as Miel lunged forward. Nime jumped back and tensed her arms and legs. Too bad for him he hadn’t gotten her while she’d been distracted. There were very few ways he could win now.

Miel didn’t let the miss catch him off guard; instead, he lunged again. Nime dodged backward. She couldn’t get past him, but she was faster than him. If she could just get far enough away, she’d be able to regain control of the situation. He kept pressing forward, his hand—glowing with a small puddle of wisps—uncomfortably close to tagging Nime’s head. Nime moved back, looking for an opening to touch him with her own wisps. And then Miel faltered a little, landed a little wobbly on one foot, and Nime took her chance to run. She turned, planning to circle back around, and—

She found a bookshelf directly behind her, blocking her escape. Nime whipped back around. Miel was right in front of her, hand gripping his lamp like he was afraid he might drop it. He smiled.

Aww, come on, Ni, I expected better of you, he said. I was planning on catching Rem or Chi like this, not you. There was an indignant Hey! from the table, probably from Rem. Miel laughed. Nime laughed too, though she eyed his hands and the shelves surrounding them at the same time. Now it made sense. Miel had led her through a convoluted maze, into an aisle in what looked like the medical reference section. An aisle that inconveniently ended at the wall, trapping her. She clenched her fist. Such a stupid mistake.

I should let someone else win sometimes, right? It’s the nice thing to do, Nime said. Miel opened his mouth, his face playful. And then the open mouth turned into a shocked one, and he turned around. Now that his body wasn’t blocking the light, Nime could see Sess standing behind him, lamp in hand. Miel had a splotch of glowing blue in the middle of his back.

What in Moeth’s salty— he said. He looked back at Nime and then at Sess again. I was just about to tag her, how could you? Sess blinked and stepped aside so Miel could get past him. Miel grunted and hit Sess with his shoulder as he passed. Sess rubbed his arm and looked at Nime.

And then she was on him, her glowing hand headed for his chest, neck, head, whichever she could tag first. Sess responded in a split second, blocking her arm and looking for a chance to strike. He was surprisingly quick, Nime knew, from years of sparring with her in PT. She had wanted to learn to fight when she was twelve, and since they’d done everything together, that meant Sess had learned, too.

Now, the need to win burned her up inside. She had to quickly, or their friends would think she hadn’t earned it, that Sess had given it to her. The thought made her chest tight.

Her hand pressed against the