Venus City 1

by Tabitha Vale

  “I can't—”

  “Tell me,” she hissed, leaning in so that her cheek brushed his. He fell back against a fence, his thick lashes skimming delicately across her skin. “I need to know. I'm already aware there's something going on.” She was gripping the front of his shirt. “Tell me! Why'd that horrid Channing man released me from that jail? Who is he?”

  Asher gazed at her helplessly. She could see the fight in his expression, see how he was debating with himself. If his eyes weren't sealed off in that magenta coat, she might be able to see the way the broken ice splinters in his gaze would smolder into a blue fog as he caved. Because he did cave. She witnessed it. It might’ve been because he felt it fair for her to know, or because he liked her. Either way, Braya could see it plain in his handsome features.

  “All right,” he sighed, not making any effort to remove her from him. “Channing...he's Page's father.”

  ~Chapter 15: The White Graveyard~

  Aside from the fact that Channing was Page's father, Braya couldn't force Asher to reveal anything more on the topic that night. She had declared that the next time she saw Page she would force him to tell her everything about his father. Why was he in Venus City? What connections did he have with Mother Ophelia, Leraphone, and her own mother, Charlotte? What power did he have to clear her charges and release her from prison in the matter of minutes? And most importantly, what was his connection with the Locers? Were they working separately, or was he a secret member—no, maybe their leader after all? Braya was itching to have these questions answered. Things had become too complicated, too dangerous for her to simply sit back and ignore what she knew.

  Braya had intended on rushing back to the chapel that very night in order to interrogate Page, but Asher had issued her an order. An order to go back to the manor and sleep soundly, get some rest. And not to go searching for Page.

  Braya knew she would get her chance to speak to Page, despite Asher's order. She was impatient to resume their de-hazing because Asher always brought Page with him. This time wouldn't be an exception, would it?

  It was Thursday, which meant the wedding was approaching at an alarming rate. Her Sisters wanted to spend the day with her—though she had an inkling Maydessa would rather she didn't join them and Emma couldn't care either way—celebrating their soon-to-be-lost single-ship, but Braya emphatically declined. She could imagine it, strolling around the quaint little shops in Heart District, chatting about their wedding dresses... Braya's mind would implode on itself.

  Instead of lingering around the manor, Braya decided to visit her mother. She knew somewhere deep down that it wasn't a good idea, that her mother might even resort to physically removing her from the property, but Braya was beyond caring. She was antsy over the events of last night and if she didn't do something to keep her mind occupied...well, she didn't want to finish that thought.

  Braya took the Rail. She could have ran, could have spent all her energy in physical exertion so as to force her mind into a numbed and exhausted state, so much as to render herself incapable of chasing circles with her thought process. Because that's all she could do with the little scraps of information she had. Nothing fit, nothing made sense, and nothing gave way to answers.

  But she didn't run. Didn't want to appear mussed and sweaty when she arrived. It was important to uphold an air of refinement, even if her reason to visit was the sole opposite of that ideal. Her mother had bred her to live and breathe and expect delicacy and class in whatever she endeavored, and Braya intended to employ it in her last desperate attempt to regain her mother's favor. Even if there was no symmetry in what Braya wished to explain, even if her words were crisscrossed with uneven, jagged lines, she would force herself to appear dignified when she talked to her mother today. It was her only hope. That, and Channing.

  She couldn't tell anyone about the master-slave link or the Locers, but that was because they didn't exist to anyone else. They were fabrications, ghosts. Not Channing. He was real. Mother had seen him, and if she could warn her, tell her that he was not a Venusian, tell her he was up to no good, it might be enough to open an investigation on him. And, if she were extremely lucky, perhaps it would lead to the capture of the rest of the Locers. It was her last shred of hope. Her wedding was so close and she was nowhere closer to success in turning in the Locers. Channing was her last link to them. It had to work in her favor. It had to.

  The house looked just as it normally did from the outside. To anyone else, nothing of the family's current turmoil was evident in the appearance of their home. For some reason the sight of it, the same as ever amidst all the strife and drama lately, made her unutterably sad. How had things changed so fast?

  Braya approached the door, inhaled deeply, and knocked. It took her a while, but when Harmony finally answered the door, her eyes widened. It wasn't hard to see that she'd been stretched beyond her limits in the last couple weeks. Lines that hadn't previously been there now creased her face, dark bags circled beneath her bloodshot eyes, and the color of her skin was an unflattering pale gray.

  “Miss!” She cried. “No, you mustn't be here,” she said urgently. “Please, just go.”

  “Harmony, just let me talk to Mother real quick,” Braya implored.

  “No, it's out of the question,” Harmony said forcefully, shaking her head. “Please, go, before she—”

  Harmony tried to close to door on Braya, but she placed a firm hand against it and slid her foot into the doorjamb.

  “Harmony, dear,” a honey, sweet voice trickled down through the foyer. “Why are you being so impolite? Who is it at the door?”

  “No one of consequence, Miss,” Harmony replied, straining to shut the door on Braya.

  Braya decided this might be her only chance. She moved closer to the door so that her voice could carry through the foyer, and called out, “Mother! Please, come down here for a moment! I have something very important to tell you. I promise you'll want to know this.”

  There was a long stretch of silence, and then an irritated release of breath. Braya could hear her mother descending the staircase. A moment later, Harmony was forcefully removed from her spot guarding the door and her mother's large shape filled the space.

  “You!” She said through clenched teeth. “Did I not make it clear that you were never to return to this residence?”

  Braya bowed her head. “Yes, and I'm very sorry for disturbing you, Mother, but I had to tell you this. Last time we were here, that man...Channing. I saw him entering when we were leaving. I found something out about him that I think you should know.”

  “I don't wish to hear anything you have to say,” her mother's bulgy eyes flared up in annoyance.

  Braya swallowed hard, and forced herself to continue despite the pang in her chest. “He's not a Venusian, Mother. He's a foreigner! He's—” She tried to explain that he was part of a secret combat group, but all she could do was choke over the words. “Mother...” she cleared her throat. “Don't trust him. Report him!”

  Her mother was staring down her nose at Braya, the look of condescension in her expression almost making it hard for Braya to keep eye-contact. She was smirking, and realization dawned on Braya like a bucket of ice water over her head.

  “You already knew!” She accused.

  Her mother's response was a sneer. “Of course I knew. Do you really think you know more about what's going on than I do? You lived in your own little fantasy, thinking everything was as it appeared, that everyone was who they say they are. This world is not what you thought it was, foolish girl.”

  Braya's eyes watered. “What are you talking about? How did you know that? Aren't you going to do anything about it? He-he could be dangerous!”

  “The only dangerous one is you,” her mother replied harshly. “Naivety is the crux of all that's wrong in this world, and you're living proof of it. Now get off my doorstep before someone sees you.”

  She attempted to shove the door closed, but Braya pressed her weight into it, muste
red all of her strength to keep it open, if only by a crack. Her mother pushed at her arms, pinched her, tried to wrestle her off the door, but Braya clung tightly, gritting her teeth.

  “No! I can't leave yet,” Braya ground out. “Why-why,” she gasped. “Why are you doing this, Mother? After all you taught me about how worthless men were, why are you socializing with one? Mother—”

  “I'm not your mother,” she said derisively. “Stop calling me that. I've told you you've shamed this family! Address me by my proper name. Charlotte.” She continued to swat at Braya, trying to get her off her door. “Get off my property, crazy girl.”

  Charlotte's nails sunk into Braya's arms, and with a little cry of pain, Braya stumbled back. The door slammed and Braya tripped over the steps, her head colliding with the ground—and then she passed out.

  ****

  Braya awoke to the feeling of something running through her hair. It was pleasant, and it made her not want to open her eyes. But she quickly became aware of how much her back hurt, and how chilling the air was.

  She cracked an eye open. It took her a few moments to collect her bearings, but she soon realized she was sprawled out in someone's yard. It wasn't her mother's yard… Their house was across the street—had someone deposited her here? She let out a scoff—of course, her mother wouldn't want the neighbors to see an unconscious girl at her doorstep.

  Braya's head was propped up on something. There were hands still raking through her hair, and Braya glanced up to see Asher staring down at her, a look of so-far-gone concern and tenderness evident in his face that Braya's heart skipped a beat. And she felt a swell of…well, she was glad to see him.

  Asher's crystalline gaze melted a little, and she presumed he'd finally noticed she was awake. He removed his hands from her hair and helped her sit up from where her head had been resting in his lap. It still hurt a little after being knocked out—she had a fleeting worry she'd get brain damage soon from being violently rendered unconscious so many times—but she felt well enough to move around. And certainly well enough to de-haze. Well enough to confront Page.

  A thought occurred to her. “How did you find me here?”

  He regarded her carefully. “It was the link. I could...sense your trouble. Just like last night when it led me to the jail, it led me here today.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Braya wanted to comment on it, remark on how convenient that dumb little bond seemed to be for him. Instead, she said offhandedly, “Are we going to de-haze?”

  “No,” he answered, standing, “We're doing something else tonight. Ness needs our assistance.”

  Braya scowled. “Ness? What could he possibly need us for? We haven't even finished the Moon District last night—”

  “Gained an appreciation for our work now, have you?” He cast her a sideways smirk as he began walking down the hill, hands in his pocket, nonchalant as ever, no trace of his previous concern anywhere in his posture.

  “No! It's just—it's suspicious,” she proclaimed.

  “I thought everything about us was suspicious.”

  “That's giving you too much credit,” she grumbled, falling into pace with him. They were walking in the direction of the Rail station. “I just mean that he's never needed our assistance before, so why can't he have one of the other Locers help him?”

  “Everyone else is busy,” Asher hedged. “I told you we all have our jobs we do...well, for tonight things are getting mixed around. Circumstances are changing a little.”

  “Busy with what?”

  Asher refused to say more about it.

  ****

  He surprised her by taking a different route on the Rail. Usually they rode it to the Heart District and got off at the stop that she'd chased the twins to those few weeks ago, but she figured they must be meeting Ness wherever it was they had to do...whatever it was. Asher was scant on the details.

  The Rail cut through the elegant hills of her own Senna District and the stop that Braya and Asher got off at was another one that had barely any people, just like the one at the field where the chapel was. There was a grassy plain that spread out from beneath the hills, much like a rug sticking out from under a large, hulking piece of furniture, with a few sparse trees dotting the edges of it. Braya realized it was completely hidden by the Senna hills, and none of the wealthy residents wanted to have their home stooped on the steep slants of the back of a hill, so it made it an almost unrivaled spot of secrecy.

  Braya noticed a spiraling tower off in the distance like the one in the field behind Heartland, and she figured they were going to go up to the Petti again.

  The closer they got to the tower, the more Braya could see a large spread of glowing white just at the base of it.

  “What is that?” She asked Asher, squinting in an attempt to make out the object.

  “You'll see,” he replied evasively, the corners of his lips twitching.

  As they drew closer, Braya began to sense that whatever it was, it was massive. Its shape was still hard to discern—it resembled a massive blanket of white strewn over something lumpy.

  It didn't take long for her to realize what it was, but she didn't commit to the thought until they'd reached it and she could confirm with herself that it was indeed a tree. It was the strangest and most unnatural tree she'd ever seen, though. Its trunk wasn't nearly as tall as those in the wedding courtyard in Heartland Manor, but it was thick and coarse, its roots knotted and whorled in their attempt to bury into the ground. The color of the bark was a gleaming light blue, like a color caught between the hue of Leraphone's hair and the shade of Asher's eyes. Its branches were wiry and long, stretching over a great portion of land like a canopy or tent. Its leaves and flower buds were that of a haunting, chilling white, and they draped over the branches like matted hair, nearly low enough to touch. The space below the reach of the tree glowed with the vibrancy of an afternoon sun, and Braya could make out two figures about thirty feet away, bent over and hacking at the ground.

  “What is this?” Braya asked in wonderment. Despite its ethereal appearance, there was something beautiful about it.

  “It's a tree,” Asher smirked. “Though, truthfully, I know little about it. Ness had it planted yesterday, and yes, we used an Ephraim seedling to do it.”

  Braya narrowed her eyes at him. Leraphone had told her that the people outside Venus referred to the fragments of the scattered Sares as seedlings. Never had Asher coined them as such… “Ephraim seedling? How come you've never used that term before? You always used to refer to whatever scraps of magic you lot had as...well, you didn't really call them anything. But I know you didn't use that term.” She stared at him haughtily. “You were in there, weren't you? You were listening in on my conversation with Leraphone!”

  She knew she hadn't been imagining his presence.

  Asher smirked. “And if I was? You'll find I've been many places you weren't ever aware of.”

  She started. What exactly did he mean by that? She knew he sometimes followed her into her classes, but where else had he trailed her? Her room? The bathroom? Her house...?

  A loud squawk interrupted her train of thought. Braya started. Perched above her on the branches of the tree—she hadn't seen them upon her first glance because they blended in so well—were at least a dozen Finchwhites. One of them had gotten too close to the other, and now they were screeching at each other. Braya had never seen one before—they must have been attracted to the magic of the tree. What in the world could the tree mean? She wondered.

  “Hey!” She said indignantly. Asher was already several feet ahead of her, and when she caught up to him she took notice of the two men digging under the tree that she'd glimpsed before. Now she could recognize them. The twins, Junho and Jinho. They were using Moon Tamer batons infused with glowing red orbs as shovels. Her annoyance simmered away in a blink and she asked, “What are they doing here? Is that their job? You said this tree was put here only yesterday.”

  “Keen observation,” Asher co
mplimented her. “They're digging. This isn't their normal job. It's actually this that changed everything around today. Normally they do what we're taking care of tonight with Ness.”

  “Which is?”

  “You'll see.”

  She was beginning to hate that phrase.

  They passed the twins—who, by the depth of and shape of the holes, looked like they were digging graves—and entered the tower's elevator. At the top she was greeted with the same scene from the night she'd raced with the Locers. Gleaming white, circular platforms floating high above the land below them, and the deep vastness of the real night sky suspended formidably above them.

  Ness was standing in the center of the platform, completely still. His helmet cast a shadow across his face, and his eyes were shut. When he heard Braya and Asher approach, they fluttered open, and Braya quickly averted her gaze.

  “You're late.”

  “We made it in time, didn't we?” Asher muttered. “I saw you had both the twins digging. In a hurry, are you? Who did you get to replace them for the delivery?”

  “The only one who has enough leisure time these days,” Ness replied darkly. “All he does is hang around that damn manor all day planning his wedding.”

  Braya could feel Asher tense beside her. “Are you serious? How could you put him on this job and order me to bring her along? She knows him—”

  “Does that matter any longer?” Ness countered. Braya noticed him staring at her, and it unnerved her. “Things are happening soon, very soon. There won't be any more need to hide things, to hide us. It's coming.”

  Braya scowled, not liking the sound of the conversation. “What's coming?” She tugged on Asher's sleeve. “What is he talking about? Is it the war?”

  Asher's jaw was clenched. He didn't answer her, but continued his conversation with Ness, gravely. “So, that's it? That's what this is about? We're finally—you're—”