Wearing the cloak Davida gave me for my birthday last year, I move slowly down the stairs, across the main floor of our apartment, and into the back elevator. I hold my breath as the door closes.
When it opens, I’m in an eerily bright room—the service entrance. The floor is pristine silver save for a black path that leads outside. I tread softly, hoping there aren’t any invisible sensors or hidden cameras. I wait for an alarm to sound, or the security guards to burst in and stop me.
Nobody does.
Outside, I start sweating before I’ve even crossed the narrow bridge that connects our building to its neighbor. I keep to the shadows as I hurry past the light-rail station, its glass roof shining brightly against the black-blue sky. I can’t use the rail. It tracks passengers. Instead, I must take the long way to the East Side to ensure that my father isn’t notified of my whereabouts.
A few blocks down is a Point of Descent. While light-rails operate solely in the Aeries, PODs are like elevators to the Depths. Nobody we know uses PODs, only the Depthshod and the mystics who work in the Aeries. Why would anyone ever want to go down to the canal levels unless they absolutely had to?
But that snobbery is something I can use to my advantage: PODs run an oldware version of fingertouch—slow, outmoded technology that doesn’t interface well with the new software in the Aeries. So it’s less likely anyone will be able to track me.
I place my hand on the scanner and am cleared.
The inside of the POD is much dirtier than I imagined. Fortunately, I don’t have much time to inspect it closely before we descend.
Despite having lived in Manhattan my entire life, I have only been to the Depths once before, on a closely monitored field trip with the Florence Academy. I remember the awful stench, the people with no homes to call their own and no food to fill their bellies. Everything and everyone was dirty and undesirable. We were told that the Depths were full of people who’d murder us for whatever we had in our pockets.
Leaving the POD, I realize that the Depths are exactly how I remember them: sticky-hot, loud, dangerous. Water gently laps at the foundations of the buildings, a constant sound track as I walk along the raised sidewalks. I move past a row of crumbling brownstones and shops, their windows caked with so much grime I can’t even see a hint of my reflection. Everything is darker down here. I don’t know where I’m going, but I try my best to not look suspicious. Swarms of people move past, their faces hidden by mist rising from the warm canal water that fills the streets.
I can practically taste the salt water in the suffocating air. Folks pass me by, chatting in loud voices, oblivious to my presence. There’s something undeniably exciting about it all—being somewhere I’m not supposed to be late at night, seeing real people live their lives without them noticing me.
Blending in feels good.
A hunchbacked woman with frazzled hair approaches me. “Spare a few pennies, miss?” I take out some change and drop it into her creased palm.
It feels odd to have real money. Everything in the Aeries is paid for by finger scan, billed directly to the bank. Luckily, I’ve come prepared, taking a stash of coins I’ve collected over the years.
I come upon a slight hill, where the old street rises out of the waters and is walkable. I step over a black garbage bag onto the pavement, then cross to the water’s edge, where gondoliers sit patiently in their boats, smoking and waiting for customers.
Years ago, the government installed motorized gondolas in the canals. They’re operated by gondoliers; this is how most people get around in the Depths. Once I’m on the East Side, I’ll ascend via POD and then find a way into Thomas’s residence. I may not know his phone number, but the Fosters’ home address is common knowledge.
The only real problem is what to say once I’m there. “Why did you talk about me with Gretchen?” is too accusatory, while “Tell me everything you know about what happened to me” is too … demanding. I have to play this just right.
But if Thomas knows something, and he loves me, why wouldn’t he want to help?
A few girls my own age rush past, laughing and calling out. They wear simple dresses of gray and dirty white and washed-out navy. I can tell by their healthy coloring that they’re not mystics—rather, they’re members of the lower class who live in the Depths. New York City’s poor and downtrodden, a population of millions whose votes my parents have never cared about before and now, thanks to Violet Brooks, are terrified of losing.
“How much?” one asks a gondolier.
“Where ya going?”
“East,” the girl says. “To Park.” The gondolier holds up his hand and flashes all five fingers. The girls hop aboard.
I motion for a gondolier, then gingerly navigate the broken pavement. Careful not to fall into the water, I climb into one of the boats and sit. My skin feels like it might boil, it’s so hot; I want to remove my cloak entirely, but I’m too afraid I’ll be recognized and reported.
“Where to, miss?” The gondolier looks young—not much older than me—with a sweet face and messy red hair.
“East,” I say, just like the girl. “Seventy-Seventh and Park.”
He nods and starts up the gondola. There are no oars or paddles, only a tiny electronic wheel. It takes a few moments for us to clear the gondolas ahead, but then we’re moving swiftly along the canals and twisting through the Depths. I peer over the side and watch the murky water. It looks far from refreshing: dirty greenish-brown, with a sour smell that turns my stomach.
Noise carries over the canals as we motor along—laughter, music, yelling that alarms me at first but that I gradually realize is coming from a game between two young boys on the street.
“Kids,” the gondolier says with a chuckle. “Never a quiet moment.”
I can barely hear him over the motorized hum. The gondolier seems nice—young.
We round a corner, and the water-filled canyons between the buildings suddenly open out into a wide expanse of blue-black sky. The Magnificent Block, I remember from that long-ago field trip. This is the area where the registered mystics are forced to live. In truth, the Block is far from magnificent—dark and dreary, with flimsy-looking tenements one on top of another like stacks of playing cards, peeking out from behind a stone enclosure.
Years ago, this place was called Central Park. I’ve seen tons of pictures of when it was lush and green and filled with trees. People would come here from every corner of Manhattan to play and picnic and escape the city. But that was before global warming, before the seas rose and hid the park under thirty feet of dirty water. Before it was designated a reservation for mystics and walled off. The parts that remain above water are spectacularly dingy but pretty much invisible to the rest of the city, thanks to the high stone walls and rusty-looking gates that seal off the area.
The divide is quite clear: mystics inside the Block, everyone else outside.
Once we’re past the Block, the buildings rise again, and after we cross a few more streets, the gondolier pulls up alongside a raised sidewalk. He loops a rope over a post and draws the boat in so that it gently scrapes the walkway.
“Here, miss,” he says. I hand him some coins and he helps me from my seat.
The night air is darker now, save for a soft twilight glow from the numerous mystic spires in the city. I stay to the shadows, where my face will be difficult to see. Those in the Depths hate the Roses and the Fosters. Many of them would love to see me dead.
Here on the Foster side of the city, people use strange sidewalks that were built up over the years into steep banks as the waters rose. But the construction was done by citizens, not the city, and the sidewalks are shabby things that are hard to walk on.
I reach Park Avenue and discover that the POD terminal is actually on the other side of the canal. But a short block away there is a footbridge, easy enough to cross. I look up and see the bright towers: the Foster residence. I’m just about to climb the steps of the bridge when I am cut off by a group of wild teens.
There are four boys—all broad-shouldered and thick, dressed in grays and blacks—and two girls standing off to the side, nearly invisible in the shadows of a crumbling abandoned building. Their faces have a pale, hollowed-out look, all sunken cheeks and waxy skin, as if they haven’t eaten for days.
The faded awning over their heads reads BROWERS. A storefront of some kind, though judging from the spiderwebs of shattered glass that were the shop windows, this store hasn’t been open for years.
The tallest boy, who has rust-colored hair and dull eyes, sneers, “What are ye looking at?” He steps closer, and the other boys close in behind me. The girls just stare.
“You mute?” another boy asks. They all start to laugh. I think again about how people in the Depths would be happy to see me and my family dead, and my hands shake.
“I’d like to pass by, please,” I say, trying to sound polite. I realize immediately that polite is wrong. Polite marks me as someone from the Aeries.
“ ‘Pass by’?” the tall boy repeats in a high-pitched voice. He guffaws. “What are ye here for? Stic?” He pulls out a vial filled with electric green pills. “Good stuff. Promise. Fifty for two.”
Stic. Part of me is curious about the pills. I want to see what one looks like up close; maybe it will help revive my memory. But I don’t trust these boys.
“No,” I reply. Screw polite. I need to sound tough. “Now let me by.”
One of the boys moves to the right. In my rush to pass them, the hood of my cloak falls away just as a nearby spire pulsates with energy. The light illuminates my face, and the two girls let out gasps.
“Aria Rose!” one of them says.
“This is so upper,” the other one whispers. “No freaking way.”
“No, you’re mistaken,” I say, pulling my hood back up.
“I’d recognize you anywhere.” She calls to one of the boys. “Darko!”
I hurry up the stairs, but it’s too late: someone rushes up behind me. My cloak is yanked off and the boys surround me.
“Look what we got here,” the little one called Darko says. He nudges the tall one with his elbow, then grins. “Isn’t it past your bedtime, sweetheart? Does Daddy know you’re down below?”
I reach for my cloak, but he tosses it to one of the girls, who squeals and drapes it around her shoulders. “Oh, look at me,” she says to the other one, “I’m Aria Rose. Aren’t I glamorous with all my fancy threads?”
“Let me,” the other girl says, ripping the cloak from her friend. “Ooh la la! I’m Aria Rose. So pretty. So important. Blah blah barf.”
They all laugh. I try to stay cool, but everything inside me is screaming that something awful is about to happen. “Very funny,” I say. “Now will you let me through? I’m late. Someone … People are waiting for me. They’ll come looking for me soon.”
“ ‘People’?” Darko asks, baring his teeth. “Like your fiancé? Do you know what a rat he is? What animals they all are?”
The tall boy grabs my wrist. “Your families are the reason my parents don’t have money. Why we barely have food.” He takes something long and silver from within his shirt. “Ever hurt because you’re so hungry? Know how painful that is?”
I try to whip away, but two of the other boys hold me still. Slowly, the tall boy turns over my arm. He skims the jagged piece of metal over the pink skin that runs from my elbow to my wrist, letting the edge hover over one of my veins. I am trembling now.
“Please,” I say.
He licks his lips with his thick, wet tongue. “Please what?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
He tilts his head, looking almost puzzled. Then he plunges the metal deep into my arm.
I cry out, watching as my blood spills down my arm, pooling red in my palm.
He yanks out the metal and holds it up to the light. My blood is black along its edge. “Oops,” the boy says, laughing. “Must have slipped.”
I close my eyes, willing the pain to stop. I am going to die here. I am going to die for my stupidity.
A rush of wind hits my cheeks.
I open my eyes, and everything before me is different.
The tall boy who shivved me drops to the ground, and the pressure that was on my arms is gone. A ray of green light whizzes by me, nearly two feet long and as narrow as one of my fingertips. The light cleaves the air with a whoosh, and a high-pitched ting fills my ears.
Then I see a second ray of light, identical to the first. It connects forcefully with the neck of one of the other boys, the one with rust-colored eyes, who blows back and falls to the pavement.
This is when I realize that the rays of light are attached to a boy. They must be some sort of mystic energy—which means this is a rebel mystic. Someone who has not registered with the government, who has illegally retained his powers.
The girls back away and turn; I can hear their shoes clobber the pavement as they run. Then I hear the zip of the mystic’s rays, so green they’re nearly blinding. The mystic whips around me, shielding me from Darko, who has picked up the fallen shiv and is waving it aimlessly through the air.
“Fight like a man, not a freak!” Darko yells.
The mystic just laughs and thrusts his arms into the air. The rays channel into the sky, braiding together from each finger into two thicker beams, one from each hand, like swords of light, wider at the base and sharp at the tip. The pulsing color ignites the sky, casting a greenish glow on Darko and the remaining boy and the lifeless audience of buildings around us.
I am spellbound. I nearly forget that my arm is bleeding. The scene is so magnificent that even Darko stops his slashing and looks up.
This is when the mystic strikes.
In an instant, he cuts the beams from the sky to the ground. The sound they make reminds me of when Kyle and I were younger and used to catch fireflies on the roof, cupping them in our hands and holding them up to our ears. The buzzing is so loud it seems to fill the Depths.
Darko is blasted in the chest. He’s tossed nearly ten feet into the air, his arms and legs moving wildly. Then he falls, and I hear the sickening crack of bones.
The remaining boy has a look of horror on his face. He starts to run, but the mystic strikes him in the back—there’s a thunderous clap when the green beam finds its target, and the boy flops onto the street.
It’s only then that I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I exhale deeply, filling my lungs, and cast my gaze on the mystic, whose rays have retracted and who is standing in the middle of the street with his hands tucked casually in his pockets.
As if he were anyone. As if he were normal.
Rebel mystics are outlaws. They’re dangerous and are to be reported immediately. I know this from a thousand public service announcements I’ve seen all my life. But …
This mystic saved my life.
After a moment, he looks at me and says, “Are you all right?” His voice is deep and smooth as syrup.
I’m shocked by how handsome he is. Clear blue eyes—not as dark as the ocean, but deeper than the sky. Hair that looks touched by the sun, with hints of darker streaks. Thick eyebrows. A straight nose. A square, solid jaw.
“I’m hurt,” I manage to say, suddenly feeling woozy.
“Let me see,” he says. “Hold out your arm.”
He takes my hand in his. A kind of intoxicating warmth spreads through me.
“Hold still.” He touches his fingers to the injury. His hand glows from within, like the inner deep burn of a log pulled from a fire. Its radiance throws everything else into shadow—his bones, his skin, his clothing. For a moment he seems to be made of light.
My skin feels sizzling hot. When he lifts his fingers, I see that the cut has healed. Even the blood is gone.
“I—I—”
He smiles at me. It’s a beautiful, soothing smile.
“You’re welcome,” he says. He brushes some of his hair away from his eyes and wipes sweat from his forehead. Then I hear sirens, and a worried l
ook crosses his face. The bodies strewn on the pavement begin to stir. “We need to get out of here before they wake up. Come with me.” He wraps a strong arm around my waist and pulls me to him.
So I do what any girl would do when a gorgeous boy saves her life in the seedy Depths of Manhattan: I let him take me away.
• IV •
“Large cup. Black.”
The waitress nods at the boy, then looks at me. There are no menus here in this tiny shop. It is the kind of place I might have walked right by—inconspicuous and dark on the outside, the words JAVA RIVER pressed into the awning.
Inside, though, it is full of light and sound. A handful of plush blue booths are filled with all kinds of people. Mostly families, but there are a few solos eating pastries and drinking coffee. The walls are a creamy color, covered with framed photographs of mountain ranges.
“The same,” I say. The waitress—a blob of a girl with curly black hair and a pierced nostril—nods and ambles away.
I give my attention back to the mystic boy who saved me. “Thank you,” I say. “For … carrying me.”
His face is blank, which makes me feel like an idiot. I haven’t been carried by anyone since I was a baby. Certainly not a boy my own age. And certainly not a mystic.
But when he took me in his arms and led me away from that terrible scene, I had no fight left in me. I simply closed my eyes, rested my head on his shoulder, and relaxed. It felt good to be able to trust someone—if only for the length of a few city avenues.
The mystic is still expressionless. His hood is up, covering his hair, making him look like he’s trying to travel incognito. He’s not perfect. I can see this now. His nose is slightly crooked, as though he was in a fight and never had a doctor set it properly; an inch-long scar runs just above his left eyebrow. His cheeks are light with stubble. He is rugged-looking, the exact opposite of Thomas, whose hair is always combed, his skin smooth. This mystic boy is something else entirely.
He has the kind of face that takes you by surprise. Earlier, on the street, I thought it was one thing—handsome in a conventional way, like porcelain or the colored diamonds my mother keeps in the Rose family vault. But now I see it is quite the opposite, a face too hard to be pretty, too mysterious. It is the kind of face that sucks you in, makes you want to surrender all that you know, all that you are, just to capture its attention.
Mystic City Page 4
