I don’t even get to scream as the rocks fall down on us. Everything blacks out for a few seconds. I lie, unconscious from the hits, and there is darkness around me.

  It feels like I blinked for a second. When I come back to my senses my first reaction is to…

  “Nebula? Nebula, are you fine?!” I move the debris off myself and start digging for her. I find her under the rubble, coughing from the dust. My heart is relieved at knowing she’s fine.

  “I’m alright,” she says, her voice strained. She smiles at me. “If it had to be that way, then it would’ve been.”

  Oh I can’t stand their talks of the fate. I’ve already made that clear.

  “Let that go, will you?” I grab her hands. I check for cuts and bruises. None are found. “You can’t just live your life thinking that everything that happens has some will or purpose… what if both of us had…?”

  “Well, we didn’t, did we?” She stands up and removes the rest of the rubble from both of us.

  There is yelling from below. I peek down. “What happened?” I yell to the chaotic mass on the lower levels.

  Nobody can hear me. I seek my house with the look - it’s shielded by others and in upper levels. They should be fine. My brother and mother are home.

  Shit.

  Where is Sierra?

  Panic immediately settles in my chest and I pull Nebula as my voice rises with panic. “Can you fly?”

  “Yes-“

  “Quick. Quick, hurry. Sierra? Sierra?!” I lunge down, flying above the chaotic ant-like crowd that is running and screaming names of their loved ones. Nebula follows me, frowning, looking around her.

  Then I spot her. My sister standing and giving out water and bandages. She is studying to be a nurse, after all, something quite sought out in this awful grave where injuries are a daily occurence. Who has wits and guts for it, he applies. Our mother wasn’t satisfied - nurses are always on the call, but Sierra demanded and stood her ground until she got her way.

  I land down and pull her into a tight hug. My heart has still not calmed down, it’s beating thousand beats per minute.

  “Let me go!” she squeals and flaps her wings.

  “Absolutely not. What were you- what happened? Are you fine?” I immediately grab her face and start checking for wounds. “Are you hurt? How many fingers do you see?” She’s a bit dusty but I can’t find any blood.

  “There was an explosion in the mines,” she explains. She sounds oddly calm, actually, like this didn’t shake her in the slightest. “There are five dead.”

  “Who? Anyone we know?”

  “No, thankfully. There are about twenty-five injured, few of them lethally. We are still counting the victims.” Now it’s her turn to check me for any wounds. “Are you feeling dizzy? Shaken?”

  “No, me and Nebula are fine. How did the explosion-?”

  “Gas. Someone lit a match.”

  “Hasn’t it been enough?!” We turn our heads as we hear desperate screams. A mother is cradling her son’s arm, the only thing left after the explosion. The sight is so gruesome I have to look away and swallow the contents of my lunch again.

  “Until when will our young sprites be dying for your selfish goals?! For profit and gemstones?!” She is yelling and you can hear anger and sorrow in each word she utters. “Were your earnings worthy five lives?!” She drops the arm and stands on her feet.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Foremen look at her, worried, and exchange looks.

  More and more fae stop crying and panicking and turn their heads to them.

  Then the first stone flies.

  Then the second one.

  Then, there is a whole rain of stones - rain I have never seen in my life, ordinary or not - of them falling onto the foremen, like divine punishment.

  I look at my fellow fey. I see fire in their eyes. Same fire that just lit the mines.

  Stones fly, the angry crowd throwing them. A fearful gasp gets stuck in my throat as I pull Sierra to the side.

  “We have to run,” I whisper and grab Nebula’s hand as well. Two most precious people to me there are.

  “You go ahead and run,” Sierra doesn’t even look at me, “my place is here.”

  She picks up a stone and throws it.

  The foremen fly back, clearly shaken. They growl and look at each other, then at all of us.

  “Sierra, listen to me!” I try to tug her hand again. I look at Nebula in fear. Her face is impassive, solemn, pensive. I can’t figure out what she is thinking. She is the Lunarian appointee after all. She is required to report on all of this. A ball of spit gets stuck in my throat. When she meets my gaze, she isn’t Nebula, my friend, she is an official who has to identify the ones who participated in the rebellion. And she just saw Sierra throw stones.

  “Sierra, please!” I grab her shoulder. She just shrugs me off and throws another rock, hitting one of the foremen in her head and splitting the brow open. The Kobold hisses in pain and flies back.

  “Our fae brethren are dying, and you do nothing!” A yell is heard, more stones are thrown. I turn around in panic. Nebula is gone.

  A bit in the distance, on one of the rooftops, I see my brother. His look is distant, like he’s mulling something over. I fear for both of them. And my mother, and myself. We are on high list of suspects, considering our eldest brother’s escape. There is fear brewing inside of me. Nothing good ever comes from stirring the pot!

  I spot Nebula’s radiant wings flying away and I immediately spread mine, to chase after her. I need to know she will not tell on my family. It could be disastrous.

  “Nebula, wait!” I reach my hand towards her. I don’t even notice Michael watching me from the ground, a suspicious frown on his face. “Wait!” I scream again.

  She just turns her head and sighs, shaking her head. “Canary, please.”

  “Please, don’t put Sierra in danger!”

  She stops and spins around, facing me.

  There is something in her eyes I rarely see - when she stops being a fae and becomes a machine, a tool of the Seelie Court and their will.

  “I have a duty to do, as do you. And I will not dish out any punishments. My job is to report objectively and factually.” Her voice is stern and serious. Not a trace of whimsy that attracts me to her like a moth to a flame. The corners of my mouth turn down and I look at her, worried.

  “Please, Sierra is just a child-…”

  “And so she will remain. If the Seelie find nothing wrong with the rebellion, there will be no repercussions. This isn’t my choice to make, Canary, and neither is it yours.”

  With that she turns and flies away. I don’t follow her.

  Instead with a sigh I turn back and fly towards Sierra to try and get her home.

  Michael’s eyes are full of suspicion and fire as he watches me.

  ***

  Eventually, the uprising quiets down, as the foremen, the targets of fury, disappear from the public eye. What’s left is a screaming and crying crowd left to deal with their sorrows after the anger has evaporated.

  I literally picked Sierra up and dragged her home by her arms. Pavel still hasn’t returned. I trust that he is fine. He wouldn’t be that foolish, to actually… do something. No. I know my brother. He is careful and fearful, melancholic and quiet. He is no revolutionary.

  My mother stands at the window, obviously terrified. When I land, holding Sierra who tries to kick and bite like a child, she immediately hugs us both tightly.

  “I’ve already lost one child… oh Canary, I couldn’t-… what if it was you?” Her eyes fill with tears as she sobs and holds me and my sister tight. “Where is Pavel?”

  “On one of the roofs. He’s fine.”

  “There is no way of extinguishing the flame,” Sierra darkly says, squished between me and mom.

  “Sierra!”

  “What, it’s true!” She squeezes herself out of our grasp. “It could’ve been you, Canary!”

  “Well it wasn’t!”

  “How long do you plan on defending them?”

  “The consequences of what you’re doing could get us all in trouble!”

  “Maybe they get us out of it too!”

  “Go to your room!”

  She kicks the table and frowns at me. Oh that look. “You are not my father,” she spits on the floor. “And you will meet the same fate as him if this continues.”

  Those words hurt more than any kind of dagger, any kind of stone, any wound or stab. I stand there, mouth open in shock. She had never said this before.

  Our father lost his life in mines as well. I inherited my talents from him. He was also called Canary. It’s neither of ours real names, but when he died, I had to pick up where he left… in every way. Canary senior, Canary junior. His comrades accepted me as one of theirs, protecting me all the time until I grew up. Many of them are dead now or cannot work anymore, their spines deformed, curved, unable to straighten. The mines are uncomfortable and unkind.

  But they are kinder than death.

  Are they not?