Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

roots.
    Tiny figures were suspended in dew-drops of glass that clung to the sides of many of the towers, while others walked through long corridors that hung over the air. Pallets of goods zipped through the air, paying no heed to the fairies floating between the towers or crawling up their sides. As he got closer, he noticed that the towers were pockmarked with small sores, and some of the dew-drops seemed to be melting away.
    At the base, the gaps between towers were obscured with green vegetation fed by springs of free-flowing water, a rarity in the lifeless Other Realms. There was a line of carts trundling out of a large gate; they were stacked high with goods and accompanied by shuffling clots of people. The vehicles overhead were more diverse, ranging from men sitting astride flying horses to castles in the air. But, amongst all the traffic, only Aldram seemed to be moving towards the towers.
    A man jumped off of an observation platform, flying towards Aldram, arm outstretched. He was wearing a guard’s sash. Aldram froze. He wanted to live. But the triumph of finally seeing this place washed out his fears.
    There was a gasp from somewhere behind him. Two figures and various crates, all strapped to stacked panes of fairy-glass, had flown overhead moments before. Now shouts and curses were drifting down as the platform inched backwards.
    When the platform touched down next to the guard, he engaged in a short, spirited conversation with the two men standing on it. The straps sprung off the crates and the men were thrown from the platform by an invisible force. Then the guard, and the plates of glass, drifted back towards the tower, leaving the men sprawled amongst their belongings.
    As Aldram trudged past, one of them called out, “There’s nothing in there for us.”
    He pulled his hood tighter and tried to keep walking, even when he heard footsteps. The man said, “You’d be better off following us to the next city.”
    Aldram turned around and muttered, “I had to come.”
    The man recoiled when he saw Aldram’s wrinkled face. “You’re in deep trouble, my friend. Can the swap-out wait? Our changeling’s gone and gotten angry. Started a ferocious storm out in the Dump. You can’t even see the Recycling Tower for all the dust, much less get there.”
    They just thought he was an old man, coming in for a transference. Aldram said, “This is my only hope.”
    “Then you’d be better off trying to make your way to the Tower yourself. The lords here won’t help you. With supplies shut off, they’ve started to steal the youngest glass for themselves. We put together our place only a few weeks ago. Earlier today, someone came by and ripped half of it away. We were trying to escape with the other half, but you saw how that went. They’re not letting anyone in, and they’re not letting anything valuable out.”
    “Is he coming with us?” the second man said as he paced towards them.
    “No, looks like he spent too long in the Borderlands. Or maybe out in the mortal world. Has to make a swap-out fast.”
    The second man looked at him as if he was already dead. “That’s all over now. The changeling went crazy when Reva was trying to get a new body. He threw human blood all over the Lord and broke out of the bonds that were keeping him trapped there. Then he brought the entire human world crashing down on us. People’ve been whispering about his human army for ages. I bet they’re all out there, waiting for us to disappear.”
    Aldram felt a tingling build up behind his heart, and he struggled to cut off his laughter. “What does it look like from up there? At the very top?”
    “You’ve been in the beyond for too long. We’d get blasted out of the sky if we even started to float up to the palaces,” the first man said.
    “Come, we’d better keep moving. Before they come back and decide that they like the looks of our clothes too,” the second man said. He turned back towards the upended