Lark Ascending

by Meagan Spooner

  “Fascinating.” Kris seemed to realize then that we were standing in the middle of the street, and he reached out to nudge me in toward one of the buildings. We were approaching the garrisoned section of the city, and we ducked down an alleyway to stay out of the line of sight from the Institute’s gates.

  “What you call shadow—it’s not really accurate.” Kris spoke earnestly. “Well, unless magic is a sort of light. Basically, what made Oren a monster is not just the lack of magic, but anti magic. A void, a vacuum that nature longs to fill. No matter how much magic he’s given, the void inside him consumes it and seeks more. It shouldn’t be possible for Eve to have done anything to change that.”

  “And yet,” I said dryly.

  Kris sighed. “I wish I could study him.” He glanced at me, a sheepish expression creeping over his face. “You can take the boy out of the Institute, but you can’t take the Institute out of the boy.

  “For once I’m with you,” I admitted. “I don’t understand it. And I haven’t been able to talk to him today. I think he’s so shaken he can’t deal. He thought he would be like that forever, and suddenly everything’s different.”

  “And it was Eve who did it.”

  I sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it, she helped him. And I can’t see any reason for her to have done that except to help him. Help me. Maybe all of my confusion about her is just a reaction to the way she feels.”

  “Feels?”

  “I can feel what the Institute did to her. We’re linked somehow.”

  Kris opened his mouth to reply, but a faint sound at the edge of my hearing made me lean forward and press my hand against his mouth. He went still, watching me. The sound grew louder, and I tilted my head, trying to tell what direction it was coming from.

  A buzzing, whirring, humming knot of shifting, mechanically-twisted magic heading this way. Pixies.

  CHAPTER 16

  I pulled my hand away from Kris’s mouth and held a finger against my lips. He nodded, and I pulled him down into a crouch against the alley wall. I remembered what Eve had done in the memory we shared, and I reached for that reserve of stolen magic inside myself. I pulled it over Kris and myself, imagining the cold, smooth surface of iron surrounding us, encasing us in a cocoon. The pixies had no eyes, only receptors for magic, sensitive enough to see even non-Renewables. But if I could shield us with the image of iron, maybe they’d pass us by. I couldn’t afford to waste my power in a fight, not this far away from my goal.

  My fingers were still wrapped around Kris’s hand, and though I could have let go, I didn’t. He had no power to give me, but the warmth of his touch steadied me, reminded me why I was doing this. I smoothed together the edges of my shield, focusing as I remembered Eve doing in my dream. There were gaps here and there, edges where my concentration failed. I hoped it would be enough.

  Kris heard it now too. I felt his eyes swing over toward me, felt his hand grow clammy in mine. If anyone knew what these new, deadly pixies were capable of, it was the man who’d helped design them. I put thoughts of Kris aside and focused on my shield.

  The swarm buzzed up the alley, rounding the corner in a rush. For a heart-stopping moment I thought they’d seen through my shield and were zooming straight toward us. But then the leaders of the swarm screamed on by. There were several dozen at least, and the sound of nearly a hundred wings all buzzing in unison was deafening. The wind stirred at my hair as they passed, and I held my breath, eyes watering.

  How did Eve do this? Holding onto the shield was like trying to hold water in my hands. The more I tried to adjust, to keep it together, the more it fell apart and slipped through my grasp. Each pixie that buzzed past my face shattered my calm a little more. I blocked it all out, digging my fingers into my own thigh in an attempt to let the sensation ground me.

  It seemed to last an eternity—it was Kris’s voice that finally shattered the shield. He was shouting my name, and when I opened my eyes I found him inches away, shaking me by the shoulders. His face was white, and for a moment I though one of the pixies had gotten through and was attacking. I stumbled back, bracing my shoulder blades against the wall, staring wildly around for the source of Kris’s alarm.

  “Stop—Lark, stop! It’s over, they’re gone!”

  I gasped, sucking in the first full breath I’d taken since I’d heard the pixies. I let my body sag, hitting the ground with a thump as my knees gave way. “They didn’t see us?”

  “No.” Kris was still pale, staring at me with some agitation. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, blinking. “Why?”

  “You’ve been crouching there like that for fifteen minutes. You couldn’t hear me—I thought you were having some kind of fit.”

  I looked up, but I couldn’t see enough of the Wall between the buildings to tell where the sun disc was on its track. I took another shaky breath. “I had to block everything out. I’m not used to that kind of magic.”

  “What did you do?”

  I hesitated. How could I explain that Eve and I had been inside each other’s minds? “I was copying something I saw a Renewable do once,” I said slowly. “A sort of shield to hide us from their sensors.”

  Kris’s eyes lit as his concern started to ebb. “You mean you can use magic to hide from them? We thought their sensors were—” His gaze drifted past me, thoughtful and distant.

  “Hey. Kris.” My tone brought his eyes back to my face. “You’re on our side now, remember? Us being able to hide from the pixies is a good thing.”

  “I know,” said Kris, lips twitching. “But it’d be fun to try to fix that.”

  I ran a hand through my hair, getting slowly to my feet. My body felt shaky from all the adrenaline coursing through my system, but I could stand. Despite the effort it had taken, the shield hadn’t cost as much magic as I’d thought it would. Eve was efficient, that much was certain. At least, she had been when she was an ordinary Renewable, infiltrating the city.

  We were close enough to the barricades now that we snuck inside one of the buildings on its border and crossed that way, prying up the boards covering the windows. The city was split into districts by the undercurrent of hostilities. Most of the city still functioned as normal, patrolled by the Enforcers, but sections of it were controlled—more or less—by the rebels. The section immediately around the Institute, however, was controlled entirely by the architects. Anyone caught inside the barricades without a direct order from an architect would be assumed a rebel and prosecuted as a traitor.

  When I asked Kris what had happened to the people living in those sectors, those with more power and influence in the city, he just shrugged.

  “They’re still here,” he replied, carefully levering the boards back into place over the window we’d snuck through. “But everyone’s closely watched. We’ll have to stay out of sight.”

  But as it turned out, there was no need for stealth. When we emerged from the building again, on the Institute side of the barricades, the streets were empty. No people, no children, not even a lonely carriage driver pedaling back from his last fare. Not even the ruins above Lethe had been this still; there, at least, people in the buildings would peer down at Tansy and me.

  “What’s happened here?” I whispered. Despite the lack of people, I felt compelled to lower my voice.

  Kris was troubled and trying not to show it. A crease above the bridge of his nose betrayed him. “I don’t know,” he murmured back. “This—this isn’t right.”

  I slowed my steps. “Should we turn around?” Our plans were risky enough as it was, without adding whatever was going on here.

  Kris shook his head. “Whatever’s happening here will keep happening if we don’t put a stop to it.”

  “Then we keep going.”

  The silence of the streets as we made our way toward the main gate of the Institute was oppressive. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as my ears strained for a sound, any sound. I was glad for Kris’s company, even though we walk
ed without speaking—just hearing another set of footsteps was a comfort. Still, all too soon we would part, and he’d enter the Institute and I’d go on alone to scout for the food stores.

  I missed Nix’s metallic little body pressed against my neck, the hum of its tiny clockwork mechanisms and its occasional sarcastic remarks. I missed Tansy, with a pang that made my heart ache. I missed Oren.

  Kris slowed to a halt at the corner of a building. When I leaned forward to peer around it, I saw the massive front gate of the walled Institute compound looming just ahead. Somehow, in my memory, the gate was smaller. The whole complex was smaller. I remembered what was underneath it as massive, many times larger than what was visible above. But now, looking at it again, I remembered how dwarfed I’d felt walking through those doors, even before I knew what fate awaited me there.

  I glanced at Kris, crouched beside me. “You don’t have to go,” I whispered. “I can still be the one to—”

  Kris tilted his head, just enough so that I could see his crooked, charming smile, and I fell silent. Even now it made my heart lurch a little, remembering when we’d first met. I’d thought of him as the only one there who really saw me; who treated me like a person. Even though it was all an act, then, seeing that smile now made me realize how much I’d come to rely on him. On his humor, his faith. On his friendship.

  “This is my home,” Kris said softly. “I have to go back. I have to try to find middle ground with my people. I know you understand.”

  “Me? Why would I?”

  “Because you came back too. To your home.”

  I chewed at my lip. “Just be careful. Don’t promise them anything, just say that we want to talk. Find out if they’re even willing, that’s enough for a first step. Then get out of there.”

  Kris nodded, and if it annoyed him hearing me list the same instructions for the fortieth time, he didn’t show it.

  “And Kris—” I hesitated. I was probably the best bargaining chip the resistance had, knowing how badly the Institute wanted to replicate what had been done to me. But we had to have something in reserve, something with which to shock them in negotiations. “Don’t tell them I’m in the city again.”

  Kris nodded again, and reached out to take my hand. “I’ll be fine. They’re my family. Even if they’re being unreasonable right now, they’re not going to hurt me.” He gave my hand a squeeze.

  His touch ought to feel like Oren’s, now that Oren was cured. But there were subtle differences even without the startling lack of magic. His hand was softer, warmer. And more expectant. He touched me like he was waiting for something. Or hoping for something.

  I gave his hand a tiny squeeze in return, then carefully slipped my fingers from his. “Stay safe,” I said by way of farewell.

  Kris straightened, pulling his shoulders back and lifting his head. Suddenly he was an architect again, even without the red coat and ornamental compass around his neck. Every inch of him screamed authority and power. He strode around the corner as though he owned it and made his way toward the gates.

  I should have kept moving so that I’d have plenty of daylight if I couldn’t find the stores right away. But I had to know if they were going to take Kris prisoner or let him walk in unmolested. So I remained still, watching.

  A trio of Enforcers came running out of the gatehouse as Kris approached, weapons in their hands. That was new. The Enforcers had always carried batons before, but never any kind of projectile weapon. But these were unmistakable, the way they pointed them at Kris. They reminded me of the magical talons that the Eagles carried in Lethe, but there was no telling what these might do. But Kris stood his ground, lifting his hands to show that he was unarmed.

  They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, and too far for me to have any hope of reading their lips. But I could see their body language as hostility gave way to confusion and uncertainty. Two of the Enforcers remained guarding Kris while the third went into the gatehouse again. After a time, the gate opened and a pair of architects in red coats appeared on the steps. They, too, exchanged words with Kris and then waited. After a long, heart-pounding moment, one more person appeared on the steps. And this one I recognized instantly.

  She looked the same as she had the last time I’d seen her, when she was smiling her cold smile down at me and telling me there was no cure for what they’d done to me, and that I—along with the Iron Wood I was protecting—was doomed. Gloriette’s black hair was cropped short around her face, with no effort to soften it. Despite her round, fleshy form, she was all hard lines and malice. My throat constricted as I watched her approach Kris.

  I was struck by how much older she was than she’d been in Eve’s memory. I hadn’t ever thought about how old Eve was or how long she’d been in the Institute. I’d thought it was no more than a year before I met her there. But when she’d met Gloriette, Gloriette had been at least twenty years younger than she was now. My stomach roiled unhappily. I couldn’t begin to imagine twenty years of agony and torture, physical and mental.

  It’s a miracle she isn’t insane.

  I thought of her empty, white eyes and suddenly wasn’t so sure.

  Gloriette finally lifted a hand, gesturing to the Enforcers to stand down, and I let out my breath in a long sigh of relief. The other two architects accompanied Kris, leading him up the steps and through the big copper doors adorning the front of the main building.

  Gloriette remained behind, scanning the ghost town laid out before her. I was too far out from behind my corner, but I couldn’t risk withdrawing now, or she might see the movement. I watched her, certain at any moment that her cold, narrow eyes would fix on mine, that she’d smile that slow, saccharine smile of triumph.

  But she didn’t. Fingers toying with the sharp point on her architect’s compass, she turned to make her way back up the steps. The gates swung closed behind her, slamming with a bone-rattling, metallic clang, and then all was still again.

  CHAPTER 17

  I picked my way through the streets carefully. Though there was no one living here anymore, I occasionally stumbled across a patrol of pixies or Enforcers on their way to a more troubled—and more populated—part of the city. I was ready for them and could always duck inside a building or down an alley, but it meant I had to pay attention. I couldn’t let my thoughts wander, either to Oren and his arms around me and his pale eyes on mine, or to Kris and what might be happening to him at this moment inside the Institute’s marble halls.

  I scanned the streets with second sight now and then, but so far I could sense nothing. Certainly not the concentration of magic that would tell of a closely guarded food warehouse, or even a stockpile of war machines, my secondary goal. I kept walking around the perimeter of the Institute, watching for a change in the currents of magic, anything to signify a greater-than-usual tangle of the Resource. I was nearly at the northern gate—I should have found something by now, according to Caesar’s intelligence.

  I stopped when the northern gate came into view. There was nowhere to hide beyond this point, and I’d be easily visible from the gatehouse. I must have missed something.

  I’d just turned back to begin retracing my steps when something flashed at the edges of my senses. I found myself turning blindly toward the east, searching for the source even though there was nothing to be seen except the expanse of granite wall surrounding the Institute. It had felt familiar, almost like…

  Then came a blast of magic that knocked me to the ground, blinding me. The earth trembled, and a moment later the sound rushed after it. A physical explosion as well as a magical one. In an instant, I knew what it was. Eve. I could feel her magic in it, the too-bright, too-harsh glare of her hyperactive power. She was unstable, Kris had said.

  I took off back the way I’d come. When I rounded the corner I could see smoke rising in the distance, an ugly blue-black plume that hit the Wall overhead and pooled there, spreading like oil on water. It was nowhere near the rebel base. It was right up against
the eastern perimeter of the Institute. So close, in fact, that it might even look like an attack.

  My heart stopped. Kris. They’ll think we’ve attacked them. And now they’ll have a hostage.

  I broke into a sprint, heading for the gates of the Institute as fast as I could. I had to get there before they took the price of this attack out on Kris. He was so sure they were his family, that no matter what they’d accept him back. But I didn’t share his certainty. I knew Gloriette. I knew her heart, through my memories and Eve’s.

  The gates were swinging open as I arrived. I half expected to see an army of Enforcers marching out to go investigate the explosion. Instead there were only two, and they were dragging something between them. Gloriette walked not five paces behind them, but I had no attention for her right now—my focus was on the thing the Enforcers were carrying. A body.

  At a command from Gloriette they dropped their burden, which rolled down the broad marble steps with a sickening sound until it came to a halt at the bottom. It was Kris. He lay motionless, eyes gazing upward, unblinking. I could sense nothing from him, not even the little magic that kept a person’s heart beating.

  My mind froze. I forgot Gloriette, forgot the Enforcers standing all around. I ran for the steps with an inarticulate cry and threw myself down between them and Kris, ignoring everything but the boy lying motionless on the steps. Let them take me, if they dared.

  I tilted Kris’s head toward me, bending low. I felt no breath stirring against my ear, and my fumbling fingers could find no pulse. There was no sign of what had done this to him, except that there wasn’t a scrap of magic in his body. They’d taken it all, harvested the tiny flicker remaining that kept him alive. Now he was lifeless, a machine with no spark.

  I couldn’t take my eyes from the boy in my arms. The dead boy. My eyes burned, vision blurring helplessly as rage and grief mixed together. My anger made me hyperaware of everything around me, and I felt one of the Enforcers shift, raising one of those weapons they’d been carrying. I snapped a shield into place a split second before he fired, not bothering to look up.