The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson Page A

from the verde, the poorest part of our city, and their clothes recall the slavery of our ancestors. Their clothes, their dance, Enki’s presence speak more eloquently than words: What does this distant Queen know of the verde? What has she done for it? The hypocrisy of Palmares Três dances on that stage, and though it shocks me, I can’t help but want to join them.
    Gil and I look at each other. Barefoot wakas are laughing and dancing.
    “Shall we?” Gil says.
    I nod, grip his hand, and we leap over the chairs to reach the aisle. The wakas onstage welcome us inside, and before we know it there are a dozen more, then the entire theater has filled with us dancing and clapping like it’s carnival already, and all the grandes just stare and cluck their tongues.
    And that’s when I realize it.
    From one artist to another , he said.
    Enki is an artist — just like me.

    I wear my hunting outfit, though I suppose regular clothes would do, because it feels like armor and I need every advantage I have to make it through this night.
    I’ve decided on a project for the Queen’s Award.
    It turns out that all I needed was the right partner.
    I go to Tier Ten, where only the Queen and the highest-ranking Aunties have their apartments. More like palaces, really, and so high up in the pyramid that the city regulates the oxygen content in the air. The pod takes me up but balks when I want to open the door.
    A face I recognize, but can’t quite place, hovers on the pod’s tiny holo.
    “Yaha?” she says. “What do you need so late?”
    “Oh,” I say, and it doesn’t take much to induce a blush. “I’m so sorry. It’s just …”
    “Who are you?” says the woman. Her bobbing head gets larger — she’s leaning in to look at me.
    “Ah, I’m so sorry!” I say, sounding like a moron and grateful for it. “It’s just that I’m so desperate to see Enki, so I took my stepmother’s flash….”
    She sighs. “You’re Yaha’s stepdaughter? I’m afraid the summer king isn’t taking visitors, dear.”
    “Oh, but can’t you just ask him! Tell him I’d do anything —”
    “I can pass a message, June, but it’s not my place to interrupt the summer king for this sort of … well.”
    My smile feels as if it lights my face. This will work. “Oh, thank you! Tell him I’d like to see him, like one artist to another. Is that okay?”
    The woman smiles. “It’s lovely, dear. I hope you get what you want. Now, I’m telling your pod to take you back home, all right?”
    I nod and her image flicks out. I’m very still on the ride home.
    All I can do now is wait.

    The ping the next day is anonymous, and has only two words: spiderweb midnight .
    I don’t tell Gil. I’m not sure why, except if Enki refuses me, at least only the two of us will know I failed. And besides, Gil might make the same assumption as the Tier Ten gatekeeper. This isn’t about sex. This isn’t a love story. I’m not doing this so a king can choose me and make me special.
    I’m doing this so two artists can create work together that they could never imagine alone.
    So I’m on my own again, pod-hopping in my hunting outfit until I make it to the verde. It’s even harder from there. I find one of the horizontal transport tunnels, the kind that delivers goods straight to the industrial heart of the city. There’s no way to hop a pod through these. The only vehicles allowed to go through are used by the engineers, and they shut down except for emergencies at the end of the workday.
    So I have to crawl.
    As I’m creeping along the ceiling (the only place in these old tunnels safe from electrocution), I wonder how Enki will manage to get there. He’s from the verde, so perhaps he knows the ways the gangs use. I’ve heard rumors of easier walking paths, but I don’t know them. If everyone had to use nanohooks in the transport tunnels, trips to the heart would be pretty much limited to spoiled Tier Eight kids with access to technology of