Everything hurts. I work and I work and of course I work. And it's hard and it's stressful and it's frantic and it's dizzying. Going and going and going.

And I miss them. I miss my kids, my best friends' kids. And I'm absolutely terrified for them. I don't want them to meet the same fate I met. I can do nothing to shield them from their fate. Our lives are in the hands of the Towerpeople.

I'm wiping down a counter at a dizzying pace. I'm making sure I don't miss any spots, leave any streaks.

And I'm so worried about them, I feel so helpless. I hope they can at least keep themselves alive. Or maybe that's not what I hope.

Because as terrible as this is, all this never ending constantly degrading work, I remember how much more terrible it feels when you're a child, all alone, and you're doing this same work. Children need adults that love and care for them, that they have a connection with. They need the adults that raised them. Our children need us.

I sigh as I leave the table sparkling and polished and shining. And I move to the next table. There are so many. I hate them all. Why do the Towerpeople need so much? I start wiping.

I can't forget my childhood. How much it hurt, how much it burned. I can't forget how I saw such similar pain burning in the eyes and the faces and the words and the histories of my other friends.

I remember how much adult work isn't meant for children, how much this much labour of this type isn't meant for anyone.

I wonder if I'll be able to see any of the children at church. Pavlin's quiet voice that holds such precious words. The way Mafalia loves every speck of nature she can find. The way Andronicha holds a grace about her that even the most degrading of work cannot lessen. The way Levi looks up at the sky. Probably not. Most children are sold to different cities. To different worlds.

And I'm wiping down windows now. The cold glass needs to be kept clear and pristine like crystal because they accept nothing less than perfection.

And I remember how much it hurt to never be accepted, never be seen, never be really seen as a person, by the only people who were around, who were old enough, to be your guardians.

They're children, just children, just little baby children. Them being slaves doesn't do anything to still the fact that they're children.

I'm bending low to sweep the floors. I'm running out of time. I'm always running out of time.

I thought foolishly that I was done feeling the worst of my grief. I was done feeling the unimaginably dark, unbelievably vast all-consuming cavernousness of cold, poisonous hurt. But it turns out that I wasn't. How cruel fate is. How much I hate it.

And at the end of the day I feel an aching, aching emptiness in my chest, in my stomach, in my throat.

And I remember that all of the dear, young, incredibly fragile children have been torn not only from their parents and aunts but also from their siblings. And I can't I just can't.

And I miss my kids so much. I don't think I can live without their brightness in my life.

My dreams are restless that night.

——

It's dark. Damp. Muggy. Humid. Too warm, even though it's night time. I can't sleep. Grief and stifling heat and sadness and hopelessness grind me awake. I hate feeling hopeless. I'm often hopeless. But never this much. But deep in the darkness surrounded by these four stone walls I feel as if I am enveloped by death itself.

I'm not the only restless one. Katapa also can't sleep. She lies beside me, head lifted. It is just the two of us gazing at each other's faces in the darkness. The dark of her eyes. The subtle curve of her cheek. The way her black hair looks somehow darker than black in this lack of light.

She is a picture of grief. A mother weeping for her children. I imagine so am I.

We look at each other, just look at each other in the darkness. So much unsaid between us. The air between us is thick with all we have no idea how to verbalize and no idea how to rationalize. We are in a grave, buried under the earth. We are in an underworld, overflowing with hurt. Her eyes mirror my own. And in them I can see sorrow deeper than the universe. I do not know how one woman can even hold so much sorrow.

She brushes a strand of hair away from my forehead with her gentle fingers. She puts her hand on my cheek and I hold onto it. There's something holy about the way she holds me. About the way I hold her. I wish I could say it lifts the pain but it doesn't. It simply makes us better able to see it. To understand it.

I wish ... I wish my kids were free. Not just that. I wish all the kids were free. All of them are actually our kids. All the children who have to live beneath the heel of the Towerpeople deserve freedom. The ones ripped from their families deserve freedom. The ones who still have their families but still have to toil away in factories and fields anyways deserve freedom. The kids do and the young adults do and the adults do and everyone deserves freedom. Our people grieve. They toil. And suffer. They are held in chains. Crushed under unbearable weight. Dehumanized under the lash of the Towerpeople. Made to live lives worse than death.

Wow my thoughts are running free. They're running wild. They're raging like wildfire in dry prairie but they're running wild. In a way they never have before. In the holy vigil Katapa and I hold I find a rage I never knew I had. Find a power I never knew I had.

Katapa's eyes look deep into me, into my very soul like she often does. She's drowning in misery. I am too. Burning noxious chemical oceans of it. But she's with me and we're drowning together, so at least she can hold my hand through it.

I'm angry, angry, angrier than I've ever been before and that's saying an incredible much. I'm angry enough to burn the world down. And I swear on the fire and the water and the earth and the sky that I will find a way to.

There are thousands of us. Millions. Living and dying and toiling and grieving and suffering and hurting and worrying and missing and screaming inside. Millions of us with our necks stuck under their feet. Millions of us who are torn apart inside. Millions of people who are torn from their loved ones.

Katapa's face hovers over mine. Her eyes hold a fearful but also smouldering rage. Not at me but /for me./ Against all the forces that hurt us. Against all the forces that hurt our people. She's angry too.

Give my people what they need and safety and to be seen as people and respect and kindness and compassion and equality and love. Our people deserve so much better.

I'm done being meek, submissive, trying to survive in this world. I'm fucking done.

"Nan?" Her voice is soft and warm but also it flows like tears. It's the first word she's said to me since the children were taken. The first word she's been able to say.

"I'm going to fucking kill them. I don't know how but I am."

"Good for you. I want to help." It's what I expected her to say. I saw the rage in her eyes.

"How though? How the fuck? Do we have any power?"

"Nan the towerpeople are the ones who tell us we don't have power. I know you don't really believe a single word they say, deep within your soul. It's because they're wrong, Nancee. They're wrong about everything about us. And they're wrong about power. We have more power than they know. It's just hidden."

"You're right."

We stare at each other in silence for a while longer. Still awash in our chemical ocean. Still dripping with misery. Still wrenching our hearts out but there are sparks in her eyes and there are sparks in mine too. There are sparks that we are willing to kindle. In her eyes I see oceans rising to swallow cities. I see fires burning to crumble towers. I see death. And I see life. Growing up from burnt ground like seedlings in the spring.

It is madness, whatever we are planning, but everything inside us is already madness. This is the madness that makes sweet love to hope. It is exactly the type of madness I long for.

"Nan, the Fates control everything. They won't let us be happy."

Yes the Fates. They have the ultimate power. They control everything. But I look at the darkened eyes in front of me. Eyes that are darker than any night. Darker than any blackness. And I realize, universe and eternity, us slaves have more power. We have enough power to burn the world down and build it anew.

"Kata you control more than you know."

"You think we can take on the Fates even? Because I'm thinking. If we take on the Fates we'll be free once and for all. Everyone will. And the towerbastards will get their reckoning."

"We can. But how do we get to them?"

"The churches say that They exist in the minds and hearts of believers just as they exist in everything. If you want to get closer to them you have to look in your believing heart." Her words are thick with sarcasm but also thoughtful in tone.

"Those are just metaphors. Or ... are they?"

"Are they? Think. Who upholds this system? Who gives the Fates power? They say that the Fates uphold the system but truly it's the towerpeople acting to keep everyone in their place. The Fates are the manifestation of the hatred and greed in their hearts. The Fates are the manifestation of everything they are. They exist in the hearts of the towerpeople. In the hearts of the believers. And they move and shift and turn the world from there."

"Kata. You're so wise. If we kill the Fates do you think it will kill the system?"

"It will. The Fates are the magical manifestation of the towerpeoples' spirits. If we can kill their spirits the system is all but dead."

Everything is still and silent around us. A weeping, bleeding world tensed in waiting.

"How do we get to the Fates?"

"Nancee do you believe in magic?" Hearing the way her whispered words soar through the silence, I do. Seeing the way the darkness settles over her hair, over her eyelashes, I do. I believe in Katapa. I believe in the slaves. I believe in our magic.

"Kata. I do." My words are soft and solemn.

"We'll use our magic."

As we conspire hushedly in the dark of these stone walls I ... I feel uninhibited. Like I could run and run and never stop running. Like Levi always wanted. Sweet Levi. Sweet all of them. If we kill the Fates we'll free everyone.

"I don't know much about what the Fates are. But there are things I know. I've told you. And I know. But they're definitely creatures that thrive on worship, thrive on belief. They have the power they have because people venerate them. I think they can be reached by reaching into the minds of the believers."

"But we're not really believers, we're only forced to be. This means that there is no way they live in our minds, as much as their terrible shadows reach out to us. We definitely need to go into the mind of a towerperson. I'm thinking Niamus. I really hate him."

"Well how the fuck are we gonna do that?"

"If we stand up to him to his face that would be a death sentence."

"So? If we succeed it's not like he can actually kill us."

"We wouldn't get close enough to carry out whatever ritual we'd need to do."

"If we could get to his sleeping chambers."

"With what key?"

"What if we poison him? Like not poison-poison, just something that makes him pass out at an inopportune moment."

"Oooh you might be into something."

"So you know my mother was a herbalist." More sadness enters her voice somehow as she says this, something I didn't think possible. She deeply misses the mother she was dragged away from.

"Yes. She was. Wherever she is she still loves you. Wherever she is she's looking out for you."

"Yeah. I fucking miss her so bad. But I'm glad she got to teach me some of her knowledge. It's a pretty basic concoction, a sleeping mixture. I can't get the plants here though. I'll have to ask someone who has access to the outside."

"We could ask one of the people who work in the fields. I'm sure no-one would think we were using it on the masters."

"Yeah it makes sense to have trouble sleeping after our loss. It's quite sour though I'll have to mix it in with spiced lemonade or something."

"Thank you."

"Should we wake the others?"

"Let's tell them tomorrow, I think."

———-

I am exhausted and that makes work all the worse. I know if I don't work properly I'll get my food rations cut in half and universe that would hurt.

The hurt of missing my children, of worrying for them, doesn't go away. If anything the second day is worse. It breaks me inside to think of how my children must be breaking all alone in front of unfamiliar towerpeople. But still I have something that I didn't have yesterday.

Anger and newly-kindled hope light their own kind of fire within me. Something I can get energy from. And I appreciate it. I don't think any of my people have felt this before. Except for all the rebellious heroes of stories who tried to stand up to the masters. Unlike them we will win. None of them had what we have. Which is each other. Togetherness. And a parent's protectiveness.

But the hope doesn't take away the grief. It doesn't take away the fact that I know sweet tiny Mafalia is out somewhere being terrified and and being yelled at or maybe even beaten and wanting her mother.

It doesn't change the fact that Levi is out there somewhere and people are looking at him like he is a fucking insect or something and he isn't able to run to one of us at the end of the day and be consoled.

It doesn't change the fact that Pavlin doesn't know where their brother and sisters are, doesn't know when they'll see them again. Doesn't know what fate awaits their siblings or parents or anyone they know.

It doesn't change the fact that Andronicha's fire might be going out. The fire that I thought nothing could extinguish. The steel-hearted, brilliant fire that kept our own fires burning through the long nights.

It still doesn't stop hurting.

It still doesn't change the fact that we all are the dirt beneath the shoes of the ones who are just so fucking high up. Fuck.

——-

Night. I collapse like a ghost onto the floor. I'm so dead-tired. Yet I still have to find strength. I still have to find strength from somewhere.

"My whole life is misery," Lilith exclaims with a cutting edge in her voice. So she is angry too. Good.

"Guys my boo and I have a plan. We're going to kill the Fates."

Anderei and Lilith are staring at us with wide eyes.

"We have to try. They are the ones who made this whole stupid system allegedly they're the ones we need to get rid of in order to stop it."

They continue looking bewildered but are clearly at least somewhat enticed by this plan.

"Look inside you," Katapa starts with her ever-smooth voice, "the rage, the love. The adoration, the bravery. The latent power. We can fucking do this, I know it." Wow that was inspiring. Lilith and Anderei think for a while.

"I agree. We can do this. We have to. It's our shot at freedom." Lilith sounds determined. Sure of herself.

"It's everyone's shot. At something more." Anderei sounds almost dreamy. Good.

We tell them the plan we have so far. All that we talked about the previous night. Then Kata and I go to sleep, leaving them to mull things over further if they so wish.