A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz Page A

prostitution like that. You know that, right? You could pretty much arrest him or have him killed or whatever for being a sexual predator.”
    â€œHe’s younger than me.”
    â€œOh. Well then you have no case, sorry.”
    Beckan rolls her eyes and cranes her neck further over the rope under her chin. In the afternoon sun, the city looks so much different from the last time she was up here, when everything twinkled with an imaginary magic. Now, everything is sharp, real, and almost comical in its smallness. It must be so easy to come into a city, to invade, to kill, when you see how small everything can really be.
    He says, “There’s something inside you, Beckan. I can see it. You have something. A spark.”
    â€œIt’s called glitter.”
    He laughs. “All of you have that. This is just you.”
    â€œI’m the only girl. I know how these things work. It makes me look more special. Process of elimination. You know Scrap used to think he was interested in me? And I used to think I was interested in him? Just because we were the only ones not paired off.”
    Piccolo says, “There are a lot of soldier’s daughters and a lot of cute nurses up here and I’m talking to you. What does that say?”
    She looks away and rolls her eyes and feels so much different from when Scrap kissed her cheek. “That you have a thing for fairies.”
    He laughs. “That’s not what makes you interesting. The fairy thing or the girl thing. They listen to you. And that’s really interesting.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe other ones. Scrap especially.”
    â€œYou
are
a bad spy.”
    â€œNah.”
    â€œScrap’s our leader, no question.”
    â€œThat’s not how it looks from up here.”
    â€œYou’re reaaally far away, Piccolo.”
    â€œThey listen to you. They’re careful with you.”
    â€œI’m crazy. They think I’ll explode. Too much spark.”
    â€œScrap wouldn’t have gone down to the mines just now if you’d told him not to. Or he would have given up on that board game. Or believed you if you said Josha wasn’t having a good day.”
    â€œYou saw that?”
    â€œI was hanging right there,” he says. “
You’re
a bad spy.”
    She flops back and laughs. Her legs slip down a little, her feet dangling in the air, and she feels dangerous and amazing.
    â€œIs Josha okay?” Piccolo says, softly.
    â€œNo.”
    Piccolo is quiet for a minute, then he says, “Anyway, the little one. He was waiting for you to ask why he had to go ho around in the middle of the day, or to tell him where you were going, but you didn’t and he wasn’t about to push you. He tried to cheer you up a little and then he left you alone. You’re in charge.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œAnd Josha doesn’t even come out without you.”
    â€œHe’s not okay.”
    â€œThe loud one. Cricket? He liked you, too,” he says. “The one who used to come up here.”
    â€œThe dead one.”
    â€œSo he counts as dead.”
    â€œIt’s just . . . the easiest way to call it what it is.” And it’s so much easier than saying,
Yes, there have to be parts of Cricket somewhere but we can’t find them
. So much easier than thinking about bones and fingernails calcified in a dead man’s stomach, the digested bits rotting in the stale air of the mines, the thousands and thousands of specks of glitter buried and blown who knows where, but not to Josha, not to any of them.
    (Let’s just call it dead, okay?)
    Piccolo squeezes her hand.
    â€œWe don’t even look for him anymore,” she says.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause . . . it’s a whole city that’s getting more and more cleaned up every day and he’s tiny bits of one fairy. It’s impossible. And because . . .”
    â€œBecause