by Amy Ewing
The hardest part would be the timing. Sera would be lowered down on the swing, the shackles unlocked. Boris would push her out over the pond, and Errol had to jump at just the right moment to catch hold of her and climb onto her back. Sera would then have to make it to the balcony, and she didn’t know how heavy he would be. There was simply no way to test this beforehand. Getting to the ceiling didn’t worry her at all; in fact, she was eager to be climbing again. She wanted to feel like herself, to remember who she was. She was Sera Lighthaven and she was not meant to be chained.
But for now she had to wait, and she had already been waiting for a full day and night since she last saw Leo. She hoped he would return before the performance tomorrow. Time was running out.
At least Francis had been around during rehearsal, with a reassuring smile and whispered words of encouragement, reminding her there were others on her side. She wished she could thank him properly. He was the first person besides Agnes who had shown her kindness on this planet.
The boom of the door closing startled her out of her thoughts. Her heart leaped as she caught a glimpse of Leo’s face, but he was not alone; his father was with him. Cold fury curled in Sera’s stomach like a fist. There were two others as well, a man in a fedora and tweed jacket with a pen and notebook in hand and another, lumpier man carrying a box with a lens on it.
“In the name of the One True God,” the fedora man said, gazing around in awe. “What have you done to the place, Xavier?”
“I told you this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Leo’s father said. “The Arboreal has been producing at a rate that has shocked even my Pelagan scientist. He claims there are several new species of flower up there. Tell him, Leo.”
Leo seemed startled at being addressed. “Er, yes, well, that one will bite you if you get too close—Dragon’s Tooth, that’s what Kiernan calls it. And those change color depending on the time of day. We call those Sunrise Sunset.”
The man didn’t seem interested in flowers. “It’s been said you’re working very closely with this Pelagan . . . ah . . .” He searched through his notes. “Ezra Kiernan. Been quite a while since you attached yourself to a Pelagan, hasn’t it, Xavier?”
“He is necessary to the needs of my new venture, Rudolph. I am not attached to anyone.” Every word Leo’s father spoke was dripping with disdain. “But in order to procure these creatures, I needed men on the ground, men who knew the country and what to look for. Ezra was sufficient for those purposes.”
“There’s a rumor that he’s from Culin—”
“Next question,” Xavier said, and his tone left no room for debate.
Sera did not think she had ever seen someone so rigid and unyielding. The man with the fedora moved to a new subject as they approached the pond.
“This is where we keep the mertag,” Xavier said. “He will clean our lakes and rivers, replenish the Gulf of Windsor, and make our waters rich again. With his help we will not have to rely so heavily on Pelagan imports.”
The man paused in his writing to peer into the water. “I don’t see anything.”
“He’s shy,” Xavier said dryly. “Leo, if you will.”
Leo did not seem happy as he walked up the steps to the stage. He went behind the curtain, but before he disappeared he shot Sera an apologetic look.
There was a creaking sound, like when Francis would unveil the glass ceiling, and a net came down, splitting open like a mouth and dropping into the pond. Seconds later, the net came up with Errol caught in its jaws. Colors flashed over his skin and across his fins and tail, brilliant zips of scarlet and teal and gold.
“Release me!” he cried.
“Let him go!” Sera shouted, forgetting for a moment that she should not speak, that it would only draw attention to herself. They could not understand her and would not heed her even if they could.
“Was that the girl?” the man in the fedora asked eagerly, trying to make her out through the garden. The man with the box had set it up on a tripod and the lens was trained on Errol. There was a flash and a puff of smoke.
“Put him back, Leo,” Xavier called, and Errol was slowly lowered back into the pond. The three men climbed the steps to the stage, and the man with the box focused it on Boris and her flowers. There were more flashes and puffs of smoke.
“The Arboreal may not look like much,” Leo’s father was saying. “But when he was first planted here only a little over a month ago, this was all bare earth. And now look at him.”
Leo skulked back onto the stage to join them as Xavier explained how he was planning to exploit the poor tree.
“And now,” he said, once the fedora man had finished jotting down notes on Boris, “the grand finale.”
They skirted around the garden to where Sera was crouched in the crate.
“Leo,” his father said, with an almost lazy nod toward her. Leo was taking something out of his pocket, his other hand clenched into a fist. His jaw was so tight Sera thought he might break his teeth. He crouched by her and whispered, “I’m so sorry. But please give me your arm.”
This is the last time I will let anyone take my blood from me, she thought as she reached her arm out through the slats. Xavier could not be allowed to suspect anything. Leo was not as gifted at using the needle as Kiernan had been, and she winced as it pierced her skin. He did not take very much, but it still made her feel woozy afterward. When he stood, Xavier once more had a knife in his hand.
“Now,” he said to the men, “watch carefully and get the camera ready.”
He ran the knife easily across Leo’s hand. It seemed to Sera that he derived pleasure from this demonstration, his eyes glowing with a feverish light. Leo himself made no sound or movement. When his father applied a few drops of Sera’s blood to the wound, his skin healed over and the red line across his palm disappeared. The man’s box was clicking and puffing away. The fedora man gaped as if incapable of shutting his mouth.
“What . . . how . . . my god, Xavier. My god. It’s incredible. A medical miracle.”
“Yes, she is certainly the jewel of this whole endeavor,” he agreed. “And she is not Pelagan,” he added, as if that was the most important distinction. “She was found right here in Kaolin, by my son.”
“It’s impossible,” the man said, reaching out to touch Leo’s hand. She saw him twitch as if wanting to jerk away, but he stopped himself.
“It is not,” Xavier said, “as you have just witnessed with your own eyes.” He clapped his hands together. “That should do it, I think. Come, I’ll show you the paintings I had commissioned for the foyer on our way out. Graham Willowby originals.”
“I thought Willowby retired,” the fedora man said.
“I was very persuasive.”
The man with the box chortled. Leo hung back.
“I’m just going to water Boris a bit, Father. Some of these flowers are looking like they might wilt.” He was a convincing liar, Sera had to admit.
His father frowned. “Very well. Meet us in the lobby.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll only be a minute.”
He made a show of going off to fetch the watering can, and by the time he had returned with it, the other three men had left the theater.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, dropping the can and kneeling by the crate. “I didn’t want to, but I had to. If my father suspected—”
“I understand,” Sera said.
“We only have a minute—”
“I know.” She proceeded to tell him the idea she and Boris and Errol had come up with. Leo’s eyes grew wider and wider until she could see the whites all around them. When she finished speaking, he sat back, expelling his breath in a huff.
“You’re saying there are hundreds of sprites . . . under there?” he asked, pointing to the Arboreal’s roots.
Sera nodded. “Boris, could you show this human male one of your sprites, please?”
Leo looked even more surprised at what must have been a whooshing, wind-like sound coming f
rom deep in Sera’s chest. A tiny, glowing, blade-thin sprite popped up from the earth, sparks shooting out from her crown as she rose a few feet in the air and performed several twirls for Leo’s benefit.
“Gah!” He scrambled backward and Sera laughed.
“She won’t hurt you,” she said.
“Right.” He looked a little embarrassed at his own reaction, but Sera felt a surge of hope that the sprites would indeed be a successful distraction. If Leo was reacting like this to only one of them, imagine what hundreds could be capable of.
“They’re quite friendly, actually. Very sweet. They like to dance.”
The sprite floated her way over to Leo, spinning and twirling. She landed on his knee and gave a deep bow. Then she hopped down and scampered back to Boris, blowing some sparks Sera’s way in farewell before vanishing into the dirt.
“Wow,” Leo said. “Yes, I think they should be fairly diverting.”
“Leo!” his father called, and he jumped to his feet like he’d been electrocuted.
“Coming, Father,” he called back. He turned to Sera. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night,” she said. He looked about to say something else, then reconsidered and hurried off the stage and up the aisle, leaving her alone with her friends. She gazed at the circle of glass overhead, the sky as blue as the forget-me-nots she and Leela used to weave into flower crowns.
I’m coming, mothers, she vowed. I’m coming, Leela.
Part Six
The City Above the Sky and Old Port City, Kaolin
37
Leela
LEELA HAD TO WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT EVENING BEFORE she could return to the Moon Gardens, because she could not sneak around during the Night of Song.
The voices of the novices carried over the entire City in rippling waves, their candle flames reflecting off the sunglass-paved paths as they walked, singing all through the night. Leela had always loved the Night of Song, but this year it grated on her nerves. She felt raw and impatient. She needed to see what lay beneath that statue—she felt certain the answers she was seeking were close at hand. She turned the vision she’d had when she touched the moonstone over in her mind, the strange place with the pretty tree and purple-pink flowers. And Sera’s laugh, which had seemed to come from the statue of Aila itself. And the markings she had seen on the cold, smooth obelisk.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone. These stairs. Estelle. Kandra had said that these things were all related somehow. Leela repeated them over and over, as if the connection might suddenly become clear. But she was still puzzling when dawn’s light crept in through her window and the singing faded away. The novices would be sleeping tonight, the temple silent. It was her best chance. She could not afford to wait any longer anyway.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone. These stairs. Estelle.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone . . .
She sat up in bed, her heart pounding. Moonstone was clearly magical, though no one could seem to agree on what exactly its magic was. And no one besides Leela knew that Sera had carried a piece of it with her when she fell. But now the few pieces of moonstone left in the City were sending Leela visions, and laughter, and markings, and revealing secret underground stairs. And the tether had not broken. What if Sera was alive out there somewhere? What if she was trying to communicate to Leela through the moonstone?
She threw back her covers and slipped into a cloudspun dress. She had to speak to Kandra. She had to tell her about the necklace.
“Breakfast, darling?” her orange mother said, stirring a pot on the stove and yawning. The smell of potatoes and rosemary made Leela’s stomach growl, but she had no time for food.
“I’m just going to wash up in the Estuary, Orange Mother,” she lied. “Save some for me. It smells delicious.”
“I make no promises, your green mother is famished,” she said with a wink. Leela forced a laugh and kissed her on the cheek. She left her dwelling and took a less-traveled route that led her past the Aviary and some of the communal gardens on the outskirts of the City.
She didn’t dare believe her own conclusion, not yet. She couldn’t bear it if she was wrong—it would be like losing Sera all over again. But there was something about moonstone that was beyond what she had been taught, beyond what was remembered in Cerulean society.
When she arrived at Sera’s dwelling, she found it silent. There were no murmurs of conversation, no scent of cooking breakfast, nothing to indicate that anyone was living here. The path to the front door felt impossibly long, but suddenly she was peering into Sera’s sitting room, the familiar couch with its blue upholstery, the framed pressed flowers hanging on the walls. It was as if Sera would come running in from her room at any moment, skid to a stop, and admonish Leela for being late.
“Leela?” Sera’s green mother stood in the hall, a silver hairbrush clutched in her hands. It was Sera’s brush, the one Kandra could not bear to touch.
“Hello,” she said. “I was wondering if I might speak to Kandra for a moment.”
Sera’s green mother started, and Leela realized she had never used Kandra’s true name around her before. No one even knew they were friends.
“She left for the birthing houses at dawn,” the green mother said, her grip tightening around the brush.
“Yes, I . . . I heard she was blessed to have another child.” The words felt wrong as she said them.
“She was.” Her smile was painful to look at, stretching across her face in a thin line. “We are so grateful to the High Priestess for choosing our family. Sera would be . . .”
But her voice trailed off. The silence between them grew thick with sadness, until Leela could take it no longer.
“Forgive me for intruding on your morning,” she said, backing out the door and hurrying down the path. She knew where she must go next, but she would have to find some way to get to Kandra unseen. She would be in serious trouble if she was caught—once a birthing season began, the houses were sacred and only midwives and purple mothers were allowed near them. She crossed the Estuary at the Western Bridge, and the Forest of Dawn loomed up over the nearby dwellings, leaves in every shade of green reaching toward the stars. She picked her way through the trees, grateful that her late-night visits had made these woods as familiar as the paths around her own dwelling.
She stopped when she saw the first house, ducking behind an old oak. Since none of the houses had windows, it was impossible to distinguish who was in which one, or which were empty. She could not see the obelisk from this vantage point. She crept from tree to tree, listening to see if maybe she could hear Kandra’s voice. The obelisk came into view, and a ripple ran through the magic in Leela’s veins, like the moonstone remembered her and was calling out in welcome. She caught sight of Plenna, entering a house at the far end of the semicircle, a pile of blankets in her arms, and quickly hid behind another tree.
“Leela?”
She jumped and whirled around. Kandra was standing there with a bucket of water in her hands.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, moving to join Leela in her hiding spot.
“I had to see you,” she said. “I had to tell you—”
“Tell me what? Oh, Leela, if you are caught here—the High Priestess was visiting only an hour ago!”
“There is something I never told you,” Leela said. “Something I never told anyone.” She paused and took a breath. “Almost a year ago, Sera and I were digging in the banks of the Estuary and I . . . I found a piece of moonstone.”
Kandra gasped. “What?”
“I don’t know where it came from or why it was there. We kept it a secret, me and Sera. We did not want to share it with anyone.” Leela’s face burned with shame.
“There has not been any new moonstone in this City for centuries,” Kandra said, dazed.
“I know. Maybe it was wrong, but Sera and I wanted to keep it as something just between ourselves. We did not think it would hurt anyone. We did not believe moonstone had any s
pecial use at all. I made a pendant out of it, set in the many-pointed star. I put it on a necklace and gave it to Sera before she . . .”
Kandra’s eyes lit up with memory. “The gift you needed to give her privately. I remember. The chain about her neck. She never showed it to us, and there were so many other things to . . .”
Leela swallowed. “Yes. But now, I think they are connected—the moonstone and Sera. The vision I had, and the markings on the obelisk, and . . . and I heard Sera’s voice. Through Aila’s statue. She was laughing. Or crying. Or both. I’m not sure. But I know it was Sera.”
Kandra’s face turned mournful. “I know what you wish to believe, but—”
“There is cold air beneath the statue of Faesa,” Leela said fiercely. “And I bet beneath Aila and Dendra as well. I’m going to the Moon Gardens tonight, and I’m going to find out what’s underneath them. They are all connected, I just can’t see how.”
“No, you mustn’t. It is too dangerous.”
“Kandra?” one of the midwives called. “Where are you?”
“I have to go.” Kandra kissed Leela’s forehead. “Please. Don’t do anything foolish.”
Then she stepped out from behind the tree and called back to the midwife, joining the other purple mothers at the birthing houses.
Leela’s heart was pounding. She waited for several long moments before turning to head back home. But Kandra’s pleas had not dampened her determination one bit—she was going to find out what was below that statue, and she was going to find out tonight.
Every minute felt like an hour, every hour like a day.
Dinner was a cheerful affair for her mothers—one purple mother stopped by while they were having their tea and asked so many questions of Leela’s purple mother that Leela had to excuse herself. She couldn’t stand any more questions when she had enough of her own.
At last the house fell silent and Leela slipped out of her window and hurried to the temple. It was dark, the novices exhausted from the Night of Song as Leela knew they would be. She crept through the Moon Gardens until she reached the statue of Faesa, drenched in moonlight. She knelt and felt the cold air emanating from its base. Then she stood and looked the statue in the eye, wondering if more markings would appear. Nothing happened. She stood there, counting her heartbeats and waiting. A butterfly landed in Faesa’s cupped hands, flashing its magenta wings at her twice. Leela reached out and it flew away, her fingers curling around the smooth stone instead.
