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It had been too long since Blue had last attended school. Maybe a week had passed with their continued absence, the gang activity and freedom with an empty house keeping them from feeling any desire to attend school anymore. Staring up at the imposing gates of Cogworks, Blue felt hesitant to enter the school, even if they had a very good reason for returning. What if things had changed in their class and they had fallen too far behind to catch up? What if they were expelled? Blue had never been one to care all that much about academics, but they could still feel the weight of their parents’ expectations on their shoulders. They had cared so much about Blue’s grades and attendance and behavior, and they knew that with each passing day, they were letting them down more and more.
Today would be different. Today had to be different. The shreds of the note weighed heavily in their pocket, a constant reminder of why they were there. Tightening their grip on their backpack straps and taking one last gulp of freedom, Blue stepped beyond the gates and onto Cogworks’ property.
It turned out that nothing had changed. Cogworks’ halls were still wild with activity in the early morning, the students in Homeroom Sapphire were still huddled together in their same cliques, and Artemisia Calico was in her usual seat next to the window, staring out at the morning mist. When Blue had entered the classroom, Ms. Kaggath had given them a knowing look that they had no intention of deciphering, but she hadn’t tried to talk to them or lecture them about their unexcused absences, and they were going to take that as a win. It felt both strangely off-putting and like a weight lifted from their shoulders to see just how much Cogworks was still Cogworks even without them there. Nobody needed them and their absence from the halls would forever go unnoticed and unswayed, but at the same time, it was moralizing to know that if they ever did want to go back to school, all of the same sights and smells would be there waiting for them. They could still have their old life back if they needed it.
Blue ignored the stares from their classmates and the surprised grins from their friends and made a beeline straight for Artemisia. They could catch up with their buddies later, but for now there were far more important matters at hand. Blue considered Artemisia to be as much of a friend as the rowdy crew of troublemakers they ran with, but their relationship showed itself in a more quiet companionship than the raucous chatter that surrounded the room. They would sit together at lunch and enjoy a moment of peace together or sit under one of the great oak trees that surrounded the school grounds after class to work on their assignments before they had to make their separate journeys home. The two of them were from such different worlds–the height of luxury and the uppermost class of Voxthain nobility versus a broken home carved out of the side of the caverns of Asterath–and yet they always seemed to get along like two interconnected pieces of the puzzle that was Voxthain and Asterath. Sometimes, when Blue felt all poetic about it all, they viewed their relationship with Artemisia as a continuation of the relationship between the sister cities themselves. So different and so irrevocably torn apart, and yet their jagged edges still fit back together.
The desk adjacent to Artemisia did not belong to Blue, but they claimed it anyway, scootching it right up next to Artemisia’s and making their presence known to her. “Hey, it’s been a bit.” Blue felt awkward, just starting back up as if no time had passed, but in that moment with Artemisia, it felt like they had just spoken yesterday. And besides, there was too much on Blue’s mind for pleasantries. They pulled the crumpled scraps and scattered them across Artemisia’s desk without any regard for her belongings that were already sitting there. “I found this in my parents’ room. I haven’t put it all together but those initials there. AC. That’s a Calico, isn’t it?”
Rummaging around in the scraps, Blue found the one with the distinct swirling crest of the Calico family. From their friendship with Artemisia, Blue knew that several Calicos had the AC initials, so it wasn’t too farfetched to believe the letter was from one of her relatives. Blue desperately searched Artemisia’s eyes for signs of recognition.
❝ 𝓐𝓻𝓽𝓮𝓶𝓲𝓼𝓲𝓪 𝓒𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓬𝓸 ❞
⠀⠀⠀⠀Artemisia almost jumped when the desk next to her shifted, a grating sound against the floor. Turning from staring out the window, where the cold mist breathtakingly curled around the edges of leafy green trees in the courtyard, her heart rate slowed down only when her blue eyes took in the person next to her and her mind caught up with who she was seeing.
⠀⠀⠀⠀“Blue?” Her one word came out with disbelief in her voice, before she took a deep breath and placed her hands on her desk, where her papers had already been arranged nicely before her, stacked and ready to be handed in. The corner of them had delicate flowers inked in blues, pinks, and purples, while pens of the matching colors sat by her elbow. Concern wrinkled the pale lines of Artemisia’s forehead as she glanced at her friend, one of her hands going up to tug at the end of her curled blonde hair.
⠀⠀⠀⠀“Yes, it–” Pressing her lips together and anxiously tucking her curls behind her ear, Artemisia more fully faced them, turning in her seat so her back was to the window that ordinarily sat to her left. “Where have you been, are you alright? You can’t just…please don’t disappear like that and come back without any explanation. I was worried.” Artemisia knew very well sometimes that people would give her and Blue stares in the hallway–one rogue Asterath citizen with a penchant for trouble, and a quieter, intelligent girl from one of Voxthain’s most wealthy families. And while at first the stares and looks had made Artemisia’s skin crawl, having her want to dive under a desk and stay there, Blue was worth her keeping her chin lifted, because she genuinely had no care where her friends were from so long as they were good people. And Blue may be a bit rough around the edges, but Artemisia would not trade their friendship for anything. She had gotten used to looks, anyway; she was not quite one of her father’s legitimate children, after all.
⠀⠀⠀⠀“Are you sleeping? Eating?” She added quietly, a cool breeze drifting through the cracked-open window and ruffling the thin edges of Artemisia’s long, pleated skirt of the lightest cornflower. “I–what?” Lips parting, Artemisia frowned when Blue scattered pieces of rumpled paper on her desk. “Slow down, what are you talking about?” A frown tugging at her lips, she gently took some of the papers and smoothed them out.
⠀⠀⠀⠀Sure enough, bits and pieces of a scrawled letter sat before her, and at the very bottom, one of the pieces read “AC” as the signature. “I mean…” Artemisia picked it up, then reached for another paper and scanned the writing. “It’s not my father’s handwriting,” she replied, before setting both down and glanced over at the last one Blue held.
⠀⠀⠀⠀There, in unmistakable clarity, sat the crimson griffin, proud and bold, edged in gold she knew all too well. “I don’t–yes, that’s…our crest. And if this was all one letter, then…” Artemisia plucked the piece with the crest gently from their hand and added it to the pile with the others. “Then AC has to have been a Calico. Not my mother, or my father, but plenty of other people in our lineage had A names.” Alianna, Alex, Aiden, herself. Her grandfather was Adrien, she believed, her grandmother Abigail. Licking her lips, Artemisia’s intellectual mind began to work, wheels turning as the sounds of the classroom began to fade into the background.
⠀⠀⠀⠀She started to read bits and pieces of the letter, working to try and match up words that seemed to go side by side, though it was probably going to take longer to put together than they had the time for right now. “My grandfather was an A. So was my grandmother. I–you said you found this in your parents’ room?” She asked, looking up with a furrowed brow at Blue. “Why would you parents have had a letter from…someone in my family? I don’t recognize the writing, but…I don’t know, I could see if I could figure it out? Or…should we read it? Maybe you should read it.” She knew something had happened with Blue’s parents. They’d vanished, or left, and they didn’t know why or what had happened with them. “Are you still searching? Is that how you found this?”
It always tickled Blue just how jumpy Artemisia was. She had no reason to be afraid of anything in their classroom so early in the morning, and yet she always jumped out of her skin at Blue’s approach. At first they had been a little concerned for Artemisia’s heart, but now they just saw it as another one of her many charming personality quirks. Another one of those quirks was the way she tucked her blonde hair behind her ear as if that would keep her curls from swinging into her face. Blue had really missed her, almost enough to feel bad for leaving in the first place.
“I’m alright, Artie, I promise. I’m sorry I left without a word, but I can’t promise it won’t happen again.” There was warmth in their eyes, but a roughness in their voice. Blue deeply valued their friendship with Artemisia, more than any of their other friendships at Cogworks, but they knew in their gut that they didn’t belong there. Artie would be better off without them dragging her down. They were an orphan, abandoned even by their sister, the only family they still had in the world. They were better suited for gang life finding a new family than continuing to scrape by on the scraps Sol left in the fridge. “I’ve been better off than I was before I left.”
It was true. The Night Riders fed them more than Sol ever had, and they had accepted them into their numbers with open arms. Sure, there had been a few conditions and trials, but what did that matter when they finally had people who saw their presence and cared? Part of Blue was itching to tell Artemisia everything that they had seen and done, to pull up their pant leg and show their friend the red and raw scorpion tattoo on their calf. The only thing holding them back was the fear that twisted around in their mind that Artie would never speak to them again if she knew. She saw Blue as a troublemaker and a wild Asterathean soul, but she only saw the sanitized Cogworks-friendly version of that. Blue the Scorpion had a knife tucked down the back of their pants. Blue the Scorpion was a thief and a graffiti artist. Would Artie look at them the same if she knew? The risk wasn’t worth it.
Instead of responding right away, Blue gave Artemisia a moment to work through her process. She was whip-smart, the gears in her mind moving far faster than Blue could even imagine for themself. They’d only been sitting there for a moment, but they already felt antsy and trapped. Shooting up from their chair, Blue paced back and forth behind Artemisia, likely interrupting their thoughts with the brush of their shirt against her chair. Artemisia sifted through the fragments of the note, confirming what Blue had already been thinking.
That was the Calico seal. Eadric Calico, her father, had not written the note. There were many A-named Calicos in her family that could have written the note. Blue felt fairly confident that Artie and her siblings had not written the note–they were all far too young, even Alianna, with the note in that sealed room for so many years. Her two A-named grandparents moved into the prime suspect spot in Blue’s mind. They weren’t sure why either one of them would have an interest in their parents, but who else could have written it? Artemisia had only one aunt that Blue knew of, and she was a Delacroix now, so she couldn’t have done it–and besides, she had an E-name like Artie’s dad. But why would either of her grandparents write to Blue’s parents? Blue supposed they would have to read the note to find out.
“Are your grandparents still alive?” Blue asked as they returned to their chair, avoiding the shredded note with every fiber of their being. They weren’t yet sure if they wanted to know what it said. What if it held the proof Blue needed to write their parents off as deceased? Even after all these years, Blue still hoped that their parents were out there somewhere, fighting desperately to get back to them. “I don’t know why someone from your family would write to them, but we can always ask. Or maybe we can ask your mom first? I don’t know, you know your family. The big nobley Calicos don’t feel like they would be all that helpful.”
There was only so much Blue could say to prolong the inevitable. All conversation topics worn through, they turned their eyes down to the mess of words and paper. They could see some places where the words easily fit together, but it still took them some time to get the note in a legible format. After messing with it for likely far too long, still avoiding actually reading it, Blue removed their hands to look at their masterpiece.
(view spoiler)
The note read:
Emmett, (That was Blue’s dad’s name. So the letter was to him and not someone else.)
You were warned of the consequences you would face if you tried to contact me. Time has not changed anything, Emmett. You were a rot that has long since been cut away, boy, and rot does not get sewn back in.
Vi ac Vis
AC
Blue could feel their panic rising as their eyes traced every word. Their dad had contacted a Calico before? Why? And why was he no longer allowed to? To call him a rot?! It was baffling, obscene, unreal. Their father had been gentle and kind, a man far too good for the children he had raised. There was no man who deserved to be threatened like that any less. Because that was a threat—every single word.
Realization struck Blue like lightning. Someone had killed their parents. They weren’t just disappeared, they weren’t even just dead. They were murdered.
“Please tell me I read that wrong. Please tell me someone in your family didn’t kill my parents.” Blue’s voice was nearly inaudible and broken, sounding more their age than they had allowed themself to act in a long time. “Artie, please let me be wrong.”
