The Midnight Strider (The Chronomancer Chronicles Book 2)

by Reilyn J. Hardy

  “Who are you talking to?” Artemis asked, appearing from the darkness. Nadia jumped from the startle and stumbled backward, falling against the broken tile.

  “Myself!” she snapped, wincing at the cut in her hand. She pressed against her palm near the gash, and blood gushed from it. “It helps calm my nerves if there’s noise rather than silence.”

  Artemis took a step back, disappearing into the shadows.

  Nadia tightened her fist and picked herself up off of the ground and took a shaking step forward. “Arthur?”

  But there was no answer.

  She took another step forward, and a thud came from the darkness. Her foot knocked against something.

  It was a leg.

  Nadia leapt back, hands cupping over her mouth until she realized it was Artemis, passed out on the ground in front of her. She dropped down to her knees, his hands were still bleeding. Nadia unwrapped her headscarf and used her teeth to tear the material. She wrapped each of his hands, and knotted the cloth tightly to secure them in place.

  “Arthur? Can you hear me?” She tapped his cheek with her hand. “Hey, wake up. You can’t just lead me in here and then leave me in this creepy house by myself.” Nadia sat back on her feet, running her hands through her dark hair. She grabbed hold of his arm, resting her fingers against his wrist. “Please,” she said softly, her voice is shaky, staggering as it got softer in volume. “I don’t have anyone else.”

  Artemis’s body began to tremble and he coughed. His cheek tore open and blood spilled from his mouth. Nadia’s eyes widened while the side of his shirt soaked with the thick, crimson liquid.

  “Oh no, oh no, no. Artemis! Stop it! Don’t you dare die on me.” She pressed her hand up against his side and closed her eyes. Red lines began to form on her hands; glowing, her palm started to smoke. The lines traveled up the length of her arm, and slowly disappeared into her skin. She opened her eyes, but the wounds remained.

  “Please, Artemis.” Her voice just barely escaped her lips as his slowed, shallow breaths came to a complete stop.

  Nadia backed away from him, tripping over herself as she collapsed onto the ground, burying her face into the bend of her elbow. She wiped her bloodied palm against the broken, tiled floor and took sharp, huffy breaths. Nadia struggled to breathe, only causing her sob to worsen.

  She backed away from him further, her face was damp from tears and her eyes were growing puffy. She shook her head as she backed right up against a few cabinets. Nadia stared at Artemis’s lifeless body, before forcing herself to turn away.

  Chapter SEVEN

  cursed or not

  I sit up from the floor and wipe my mouth. There’s blood on my fingers. Nadia’s backing away from me, horrified.

  I wipe my hand on my shirt.

  “No, nope. You were dead — I saw you and you were dead —” she shakes her head, unable to look at me. I was dead? Sitting there, I don’t bother to take a look around. I can’t take my eyes off of her.

  I clench my fists again.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?” she snaps as she spins around to face me. “What did I do now?”

  My hand feels across the ground for something sharp. I grab a piece of the broken tile and get to my feet, clutching it tightly in my hand. I jab it close to her neck, pressing the tip of it against her skin, just above her collarbone.

  “Why did you make me see my brother? Who gave you the right?”

  I notice her face is wet and flushed. Her eyes are red and her headscarf — is torn in two — wrapped around my hands. Still, I keep the tile in place.

  “I — I don’t know — what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything.” She closes her eyes, and inhales deeply. Nadia shakes her head. “You won’t.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Why? Because I’m cursed?” I ask.

  “No,” she says.

  “What do you know.”

  “You hesitated.”

  I let her go. She rubs her throat.

  “You spared me — you destroyed all those ghouls but not me. I don’t know why since you clearly don’t want me around.”

  “How did we get here?” I ask, looking around.

  Did she say I destroyed the ghouls?

  “Where exactly is here?” she asks, but I ignore her till she answers my question. “You just — you headed here after you obliterated the ghouls. Your eyes they —”

  “Were white?”

  She doesn’t take her eyes off of me as she scrunches her eyebrows together. “They turned black. And your neck…”

  I frown. “What about my neck?”

  “A black dot formed near one of the spirals.”

  I touch the back of my neck.

  ‘This will end with the two of you.’

  I quickly pull my hand back down.

  “What does the bear mean?” she asks. “It’s like you saw that and completely lost it.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m sorry.” She starts wiping her face with the back of her hands. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  I know I’m the one that should be apologizing, not her, and yet I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  “We’re in Zoirin’s house,” I say, and pick the bear off of the ground. Its fur is now covered in my blood. “This belonged to her. She was a little girl I used to take care of when I lived here — and as you can see,” I continue, while turning in a circle, examining the remains of her house. “I did a really ba — bad job.”

  She frowns. “You blame —” Nadia shakes her head. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened here, Arthur.”

  I can’t help but laugh at the fact that she still insists on calling me Arthur. Laughing feels strange, so I stop. I don’t remember the last time I laughed before this.

  “What good is being a chronomancer and being able to ‘gain insight through time’ if I can’t prevent things like this from happening?”

  “I don’t think it’s about what you can prevent,” she says, rubbing the side of her arm. “It’s what you can change. You weren’t here to prevent this, but you can do something about what’s been done, and you did.”

  “Killing those ghouls won’t bring anyone back,” I say.

  “No, it won’t. But it prevents them from doing it to anymore people like you wanted.” She takes a step toward me, hand still gripping onto the sleeve of her shirt. “You’re a good person. You’re angry, because you’ve been hurt — you’re hurting — but you’re still a good person.” She scratches her finger against her sleeve before reaching out for my hand. “I don’t know what you saw when you were unconscious, but I bet you weren’t worried about yourself.”

  I look at her hand, outstretched toward me, and shaking. Her own palm has a gash in the center. I hope I didn’t do that.

  My eyes went black, I saw my brother. Somehow, I’m connected to him and I don’t know what any of it means.

  I take her hand. “Thank you,” I say.

  She furrows her thin eyebrows. “For what?”

  “Not leaving me here to die.”

  The corner of her mouth lifts into a small smile. She squeezes my hand. “I know things have probably been hard for you, and I don’t blame you for being angry. Be angry. Pain is a reminder that we aren’t invincible, that we can be defeated. But we heal if we give it time, if we’re patient — and we come back stronger.”

  “My best friend calls himself invincible,” I tell her. “Until last year, I thought he was. But I’m starting to get the idea that he didn’t mean it physically.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I think he just knew the pain was temporary, and he’d always bounce back.” I suck on the inside of my cheek, grazing it with my teeth. “I was always a little jealous of his strength — until now, I didn’t r
ealize how strong he really was.”

  “You’re strong too,” she says, swinging our clasped hands. “But individually, we aren’t built to take on the world alone. Where is he now?”

  I shake my head, averting my eyes away from hers. “I don’t know. When I died he — he took off — and he never came back.” I let go of her hand and lean against the cabinets, before sliding down onto the ground. “He just left.”

  Nadia doesn’t hesitate this time, and sits down right beside me. I don’t notice until she tucks a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear that it’s streaked with blue.

  “Everyone breaks sooner or later. Maybe —” she shrugs her shoulders. “Maybe he just didn’t know how to be strong without you. Friendships are so important, Art. Sometimes we never realize how lucky we are to have meaningful ones until we don’t anymore.”

  “You’ve lost someone important?”

  She tilts her head toward me. “This isn’t about me, stop trying to avoid it. You can’t keep everything bottled in, or you’ll break.”

  “I think I already have.”

  “You’ll find a way to pick yourself back up again, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

  “Are you saying we’re friends?” I ask.

  “Well, I’m trying to be!” She laughs a little. “If you’d just let me in.”

  I shake my head. “People are put in danger, because of me. My best friend almost died — many times — because of me.” I shake my head again and scoff. “I don’t blame him for not coming back.”

  Nadia nudges me in the shoulder. “Don’t decide for others what they can and cannot handle.”

  “But I’m —”

  “Some people are worth the risk. Whether they see that for themselves or not.” She looks down at her hand, tracing the veins against her wrist. “I know you care, but there’s something you don’t seem to understand.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You have to care for yourself too, or there won’t be a you to care about anyone else.”

  I don’t know how to take her words.

  “I know you said that life isn’t about being happy, and that it’s about surviving, but how can you expect to survive if you don’t care about yourself? Life happens. We push, and we push. We test our limits — and sometimes it pushes back. You’re stronger than you think, but you’ll never realize that if you don’t give yourself time to recover.” She pulls her legs up, and rests her arms against her knees, lacing her fingers together. “People die everyday, and all we can do is make sure their deaths meant something.”

  “You’re being preachy again,” I say.

  “Is it helping? Even a little?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I can’t promise I’ll suddenly be okay, but I can promise to keep your words in mind. I mean, I hear what you’re telling me, it’s just —”

  “Easier said than done.”

  I nod.

  Nadia starts to lean toward me, then she stops for a second before finally deciding to just rest her head on my shoulder. We both stare at the bear in my hands.

  “She painted my nails black once,” I tell her. “I was so annoyed I was by it. I got teased and — well, I don’t know. I’m sitting here wishing she was here so she could do it again.” Nadia reaches for my hand and examines one of my fingers.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “I’ll paint your nails. We’ll do it to honor her, yeah?” She starts digging through the pockets of her pants. “I know I have nail polish in here somewhere.”

  “In your pants?”

  “I have everything in here.”

  “Like what?” I scoot over and look down at her harem pants. She’s slouching back against the cabinet and her arms have practically disappeared up to her elbows.

  “I lost my lamp so — I sort of had to make adjustments.”

  “So you just keep it all in there?”

  Nadia shrugs. “It’s the only home I’ve got — now where is it.” She must have noticed my expression falter because she quickly shakes her head. “Hey, don’t start feeling sorry for me,” she says. “I’m a survivor.” She nudges my shoulder with her own. “Our struggles are all our own, and no two should be compared.”

  “Are you always so preachy?” I say and smile.

  She smiles too. “Only when I have to be.”

  Nadia eventually found her rather broad collection of nail polish and carefully painted each of my nails black with a light and delicate hand. She was very quick, and also stern with me not to make any sudden movements that would ruin her handy work.

  When they dried, I stuff the bear into my pocket and help her to her feet. Staying in Zoirin’s house isn’t where I want to spend the night, and I lead Nadia through the destroyed town and back to my own home, which is just like all the rest.

  I am slightly relieved by that, that my house hadn’t gotten any special treatment. Maybe they still hadn’t been aware that’s where I was hiding, but then I wondered why Newacre had been a target. Could it really have been at random? Was it really just an unfortunate happening?

  All of Weylan’s melting pots are turned over, candles are broken and scattered along the dirty ground. It seemed like such a long time ago that I was cutting candles outside of the front door when Jace showed me the newspaper clipping of David, even though it had only been a year since it happened, a little less than, actually.

  Nadia’s tired, so I make my bed in my room for her, with the cleanest sheets I can find, and set myself up on the couch, tossing a few broken boards out of the way. I dust the cushions off with my palm, careful to make sure a splinter doesn’t get caught in my skin.

  This wasn’t how I wanted to return to Newacre, and until I was standing back in my own home, or at least what was left of it, I didn’t realize how much I missed how things were. Especially now that I knew it would never go back to that. I’d have no more carefree nights, sitting with Weylan and Jace around the fire, when my biggest worry was accidentally setting fire to my marshmallow. We’d never spend another vernal equinox in the Woodlands, that were torched and now nothing but a smoking skeleton of what it once was.

  I lie back against the couch, tucking my arm beneath my head and close my hand into a fist. My hands are still wrapped in pieces of Nadia’s scarf. I haven’t removed them, and I kind of don’t want to. I look at my other hand, and I can see the marks in my flesh, the scars Jace gave me when he tried to get me to release my hold on his neck.

  I tighten that fist too.

  “I hope you’re okay,” I whisper.

  I close my eyes, for no longer than two seconds, and when I open them again, the vision in my left eye begins to blur. I see faces again, many faces I don’t recognize. There’s also a young girl, who keeps looking at me like I’m going to slip through her fingers.

  I sit up suddenly, trying to blink away their faces. I rub my eyes, like it’s sand I’m trying to get out. Am I seeing what he sees? I lie back down, staring at the face who seems to be staring at me, only not exactly.

  I can see traces of Jace in her features — and I wonder for a second if he found his family.

  She starts to fade, and I’m staring clearly at the broken ceiling above me. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t collapse down on me by morning. Jace could have found his family. I frown, shaking my head. Can I really blame him for not coming back?

  Shifting on the couch, I turn on my side. As much as I try to focus in on this new possibility, I can’t stop thinking about my brother, and what I watched the Reaper do to him. I think I’m scared to fall asleep again. Scared to be that vulnerable, to my subconscious that I can’t even control. Scared to see my brother at Drarkodon’s mercy, and there’s not a thing I can do to stop it.

  My thoughts are too loud for sleep.

  I sit back up and go to ch
eck on Nadia. She’s fast asleep, burying her face into my pillow. Soundless and seemingly peaceful. “I’m sorry,” I say in a whisper, still standing in the broken doorframe. My doorknob is nowhere to be found in this ruin.

  I climb back through the hallway and into the living room, where I recall standing at the front door when I was a kid, as I considered leaving Weylan not long after he brought me here. Not long after saving me.

  When I realized I was causing him sleepless nights, putting strain on him, because I couldn’t get a hold of myself. It was the same day I met Jace. When I saw him at the edge of the forest while I made my way to the bridge, fully convinced I wasn’t wanted.

  I lie back down on the couch and tuck my arm behind my head again, and I stare at what’s left of the ceiling. I can see the night sky through the broken roof, though not as well anymore; not with the new pollution clouding the air.

  My thoughts cross to Nannu, and I cover my face with my other hand. Squeezing my eyelids tightly shut, I try to prevent myself from crying. She’s dead, and still I didn’t know how to cope with the sacrifice. Regardless of what Nadia said, I didn’t feel worth the risk at all. There is nothing that will ever convince me that my life was in anyway more important than hers.

  The tears still come, in spite of my efforts.

  Chapter EIGHT

  specter

  The next morning, there’s pressure against my chest and when I open my eyes, two large brown ones stare right back at me. “What the —”

  “SORRY!” he shouts. He vanishes, right before my eyes. He completely disappears. I sit up. He begins to manifest at the other side of the room, his arms are held up in surrender and he stares at me with the same wide eyes. He has goggles sitting on his head, which pushes his messy, shaggy black hair in all sorts of directions. “This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to meet the chronomancer,” he says, reaching behind him to scratch the back of his neck. He lets out an awkward, nervous laugh. His voice sounds familiar.