Shadowlark s-2

by Meagan Spooner

  “I’d like to stay.”

  I heard Olivia’s breath catch—her surprise was almost as tangible as my own. Until I’d spoken the words, I hadn’t known what I wanted.

  “My brother died for this,” I continue. “I don’t know anywhere near as much about engineering or magic as he does, but if there’s anything I can do, anything I can read in his journal that you can’t, I’ll do it.”

  Olivia’s fingers closed around mine, squeezing tight.

  “Good,” she said. “Because we’ve got nothing else.”

  CHAPTER 14

  In the morning, I discovered that someone had left a fresh set of clothes on the chest for me. It was so like the moment when I discovered the architects had left me clothes at the Institute that I hesitated. Olivia’s words came back to me: You’re not a captive here. Somehow, by the artificial light of day, they seemed less reassuring. Still, I couldn’t turn down clothes that didn’t smell like weeks of travel, so I changed gingerly. I poked my head into the room next door, but Oren was gone. His room looked untouched, all his clothes tucked away, the bed neatly made. It seemed his fastidiousness in erasing his campsites in the wild extended to sleeping in civilization, too.

  I followed the distant sounds of conversation until I wound up in what had once been a building. The place was half-crushed by the weight of the newer buildings constructed on top, but someone had shored up the walls with metal beams. A motley assortment of mismatched tables and chairs occupied the floor space, the seats about half-full of resistance members. A door to one side was propped open, allowing the smells of something spicy and sweet to float through.

  I’d located breakfast. And to judge from the sudden wave of hunger that swept through me, it was just in time. I scanned the room and saw Oren sitting across from Parker, the man who’d recognized me from the journal.

  “Wesley’s our highest operative,” Parker was saying to Oren as I moved across the join them. “But even he hasn’t seen all of CeePo.”

  Oren looked up as I approached and slid down to make room for me on the bench beside him. That was all the greeting I got, though, because he turned his attention back to his bowl, which contained some sort of porridge.

  “Good morning, Miss Ainsley,” said Parker. He had a quiet, kind voice. He reminded me, oddly, of my father. I swallowed the pang of homesickness and sat.

  “Lark,” I corrected him. “Please. The only people who call me Miss Ainsley want something.”

  He smiled, rueful. “Well, if what Vee tells us is true, you’re well aware that we want something from you.” He raised his gaze a moment, signaling to someone behind me who brought me a bowl of the porridge.

  I lifted a spoonful, giving it a cautious sniff. Some kind of grain, sweetened and spiced with something I’d never smelled before.

  “If your cause was good enough for my brother, then it is for me too,” I replied, lowering the spoon again.

  Parker took a deep breath, looking relieved. “Then Vee was right. You are staying.”

  “At least for now.” I tried a bite of the porridge, pleasantly surprised to find that the spicy smell made it taste strangely fragrant, the sweetener counteracting the slight bitterness of the spice. “What were you saying about CeePo?”

  Parker glanced at Oren. “Your friend was asking about the complex, and I was explaining that we don’t actually know too much about it. Prometheus is careful. No one except him gets full access everywhere. Wesley—you met him yesterday—is one of the deployment officers and has free rein in the Eagles’ dormitories, training facilities, and so forth. But he’s not allowed, for example, into the records room, or into the machine workshops. And whatever else is down there.”

  “Down?” The building covered a large area, but it had only looked two or three stories tall at the most.

  “The building goes on down, underground. We don’t know how far. Which is why we don’t know how much there is that we don’t know about.”

  I glanced at Oren, who was staring at the remains of his porridge, moving clumps of it around with his spoon. I took another bite of my breakfast, willing my stomach to register that I was feeding it and stop grumbling. It had been long enough since I’d stolen the Eagle’s magic that I was beginning to feel another type of hunger altogether. I could see, scattered here and there throughout the meal room, glints and glimmers of shielded Renewables.

  I dropped my gaze and ignored the fact that I could still feel them, like little flames radiating heat.

  “You, at least, we can register with CeePo,” Parker continued, looking at Oren. “And we can get that done today. You’re not a Renewable, so there’s no risk that they’ll catch you. If you’re a registered citizen, you’ll have a lot more freedom of movement. And be a lot more useful to us.”

  Oren set his spoon down. “Registered?” His expression was wary.

  “You have to be registered before you can do business here or get a job. If you’ve got any special skills, aptitudes for science or organization, you might even be able to work in the CeePo complex.”

  I stared at Parker, uncertain whether to be horrified or amused. The idea of Oren working behind a desk in the government building, or doing scientific experiments, was absolutely ludicrous. But then, Parker know where Oren had come from.

  I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Oren. But instead of snarling his disgust at the small-minded pettiness of city life, he just sat there, face set in a thoughtful scowl, hand clenched around the spoon. Like he was actually considering it.

  A commotion outside the mess hall saved me from having to speak. Raised voices caused heads to turn all across the room. Suddenly, a man in a familiar blue waistcoat burst into the mess hall, trailed by a couple of rebels I didn’t recognize.

  “You two!” Wesley, sporting the most magnificent black eye I’d ever seen, jabbed a finger at me and Oren. “Come with me. Parker, you too.”

  Parker was on his feet before Wesley had finished turning and walking out. It took me a moment to scramble to my feet without getting tangled up in the bench. Wesley didn’t sound angry so much as agitated.

  With Oren following silently half a step behind me, I headed after Parker and Wesley. We ended up in the War Room again, and though I’m not sure I could have found it on my own, the corridors were already starting to look more familiar. I was good at finding my way underground.

  Thank you, Basil, I thought as I slipped inside the room, skirting the large table that dominated it.

  Parker and Wesley were there, along with a few other people I didn’t know but recognized from yesterday, when I first arrived. Wesley paced to the far end of the room, lifting a hand to rub it over his balding scalp.

  “Who blew their cover?” Parker’s voice was quiet, but full of dread. “Spider? Hawk? Oh—not Nina?”

  Wesley shook his head. “No, they’re fine. Nina’s fine.” His eyes swiveled toward us, flicking between Oren and me. “Did you figure out if it was true?”

  Parker’s gaze followed Wesley’s. “It’s her,” he confirmed. “Lark. The girl in the journal. But she says it’s her brother’s journal, not hers.”

  Wesley grimaced, still watching me, his gaze troubled. A sick feeling began to rise in my throat, though I couldn’t have explained what it was. Just some instinct telling me something was wrong.

  “And that one?” He turned to Oren.

  “He’s normal. Name’s Oren, we were going to take him through registration today.”

  Wesley straightened, resting his hands on the back of a chair. “No, you’re not.”

  Parker frowned. “But—”

  “The Eagle, the one this kid pummeled, didn’t make it. Just died this morning, a little before lights-on.”

  It was like a blow to the stomach. I glanced at Oren, who was staring fixedly at the far wall. It was only once Parker replied, saying something I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears, that he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  I knew why. That man w
as still alive after Oren was done with him. He’d had a broken nose and probably other, more significant injuries, but he wasn’t in danger of dying from them. But then I tore the life force from him to shield myself and Oren from his partner. I’d ripped the life out of him, and I’d seen the gaping hole in his soul where that magic should have been.

  Oren hadn’t killed that man—I had.

  “. . . with a warrant out on his head,” Wesley was saying. “They’ve got a picture of him. Don’t know how, one of the spy-wings, maybe.”

  Parker turned away to pace, unconsciously echoing Wesley. “Okay. Okay, we can handle it. We’ve dealt with manhunts before. We put Renewables on every door to put up illusions, keep Oren inside at all times. Cut back on our missions, lay low. They didn’t get a picture of Lark, so we can still use her. Use the time to study the journal. She can look for anything useful, any blueprints or insights we missed, any way to decode his maps . . .”

  Wesley nodded as Parker and the other people around the table made plans. Though the atmosphere was tense, it wasn’t panicked—this had clearly happened before. As the discussion grew more intense, Wesley’s gaze drifted.

  Toward me.

  I realized he was watching me again, the grey eyes piercing. When he saw me looking back at him, those eyes narrowed. Thoughtful, calculating.

  My heart began to beat harder as I realized—he knew. He knew Oren hadn’t killed the Eagle. I didn’t know how, but I knew it as certain as I knew my own name. Which meant that he knew what I was—and what I could do. Though I could see nothing in his gaze beyond cool, thoughtful speculation, my mind conjured up the image of the Eagle, of his still body, of the ragged remnants of the magic that kept his heart beating.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I whispered, bile rising swiftly in my throat. I whirled for the door, pressing my hand to my mouth, and sprinted away. Anywhere but here. Anywhere that didn’t have Wesley’s knowing eyes forcing me face-to-face with what I’d done.

  I’d consumed the man’s life. I was no better than a shadow—I was worse. They were hungry, mindlessly desperate because they could never truly consume what they sought, what they needed. They were imperfect monsters. But not me. Because I didn’t just eat his flesh, tear him apart.

  I devoured his soul.

  * * *

  I knelt, shivering, on the washroom floor. I tried not to look as the water carried away the mess I’d made, unable to find a bathroom, forced to vomit over a rusty drain in the floor. From the muddy boots and tools and buckets strewn about, I’d guessed this was a room to clean gear worn in tunnels that weren’t as tidy as the ones housing the resistance. At least I hadn’t stumbled into someone’s bedroom.

  The sound of the water covered up the harshness of my breathing as I tried to calm myself, tried to find reason and logic amidst my panic. I had thought I’d escaped the Institute, outlasted whatever they’d done to me. But the girl I had been wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t someone who’d do what I had just done.

  The Institute had carved away every last scrap of magic I had and filled the cavity with their synthetic power. Enough to get me to the Iron Wood, lead Nix to a magic-rich haven ripe for the taking. But not enough to keep on living. They’d told me I’d die, but what did they know? Only two people had ever survived the process. Me—and Basil. And he vanished before ever reaching the Iron Wood.

  A normal person, left alone in the magicless void outside, would slowly have their life, their soul, drained away. Until they became a shadow, permanently, forever. Magic would turn them back temporarily, cover up the madness of the empty pit inside them. But only for a little while. It wasn’t real.

  Maybe I hadn’t escaped after all. Perhaps I was nothing more than a shadow, given the semblance of humanity by the magic the Institute had installed inside me.

  Self-defense. Killing that man was self-defense. Just as it had been self-defense when I killed the shadow child attacking Oren, back on the ridge by the summer lake. And Tomas’s death—I’d killed him, but it was a mercy. I’d only ended his pain.

  All explainable. Not my fault.

  Except I enjoyed it.

  I closed my eyes, shuddering. Even now I could feel the

  remnants of that man’s magic, warm and fluttering inside me like bottled sunlight. There was so little of it left—the part of me that didn’t care about anything else just wanted more.“Feeling better now?”

  I jumped, stumbling over a bucket and ending up in a sort of crouch. It was Wesley, standing just inside the doorway, hands folded across the expanse of his waistcoat. The green and brown eyelike pattern was muted in the low light, shining here and there.

  He saw me looking and grinned. “Peacock feathers,” he explained with pride. “They’re a type of colorful chicken. Some farm off to the west raises them, and traders bring the feathers through once in a while. Coat costs more than some people make in a year.”

  I swallowed. My mouth tasted sour, my throat so raw it burned. “Why wear it?” I croaked.

  “It’s expected. Prometheus pays his lackeys well.”

  Prometheus again. I wondered what would happen if I just walked up to Central Processing and said, Here I am. I’m a monster. Lock me up. Maybe they’d experiment on me, like the Institute. Maybe they’d just toss me up to work on the farms like the shadows Above. Maybe at least I’d find out what happened to my brother.

  “Oh, for the love of—snap out of it.” Wesley strode forward until he could look down at my face. “So you hurt someone. We’ve all done it. Vee punches me in the face on a regular basis, and she still sleeps at night.”

  I gaped at him.

  “No, I’m not a mind reader. I just recognize the signs.” Wesley smiled, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Your face is pretty expressive, you know.”

  I sucked in a deep breath through my nose. “How come you know what I did? And no one else does?”

  “I was there,” he pointed out. “And I’ve got the sharpest Sight of anyone in the city. You’re not exactly subtle when you’re ripping the magic out of someone. It also helps that what you did should’ve been impossible, so it won’t be the first conclusion people jump to.”

  I was suddenly glad my stomach was already empty.

  “It’s different from what Vee does,” I said, swallowing. “For one thing, you planned it. For another, she didn’t kill you.”

  “But she’s killed others,” he replied, to my surprise. I tried to picture Olivia, all golden hair and smiles, murdering someone the way I had, and couldn’t. Wesley shook his head. “Life is short, Lark. Sometimes we die and sometimes they do. It’d be nice if it didn’t have to happen, but life here is just as brutal as life out there in the wilderness.”

  “And that makes it okay?”

  “No.” Wesley moved toward me, nudging the fallen bucket aside with the toe of his boot. “I’m saying it doesn’t make you special. Whether a man dies because he’s been stabbed with a knife or because he’s had the magic ripped out of him, he’s still dead.”

  “But someone wielding a knife can choose to put it down. They can stop themselves.”

  “Tell me something.” Wesley dropped into a crouch in front of me. “Could you kill me? Here, now?”

  I stared at him. He’s insane. Except that he seemed merely curious, not frightened or even alarmed. He didn’t recoil, but examined me with interest. Cautiously, I let my other senses come out, letting the golden and violet sparks of his shielded magic overlay themselves over my normal vision.

  Slowly, I nodded. “I think so.”

  “Fascinating,” he murmured. “And why don’t you?”

  My mouth fell open. “What? I—because there’s no reason to. I mean, you helped us.”

  “So if you’re not a murderous psychopath on a rampage, why are you so afraid of what you are?”

  “Because—it feels good. When I take someone’s magic. A part of me wants it, all the time.”

  “But you’re controlling yourself.”
>
  I grimaced. “I didn’t exactly control myself out there, with that Eagle.”

  “To be fair,” Wesley pointed out, “they were shooting at you and your boyfriend.”

  My head snapped up as I tried to formulate a protest. Wesley waved a hand. “Whatever. The point is that you didn’t have time to think. You had to operate on instinct, so you did what your instincts told you. Survive, at whatever cost. It’s hardwired into us—doesn’t make us monsters. Even the shadows up there”—and he flicked his gaze toward the ceiling—“are only doing what they’re programmed by nature and magic to do.”

  “But if my instincts are to kill to save myself—”

  “Then you learn to control them.” Wesley straightened and offered me his hand. “And I think I can help you with that. That is,” he added, raising an eyebrow at me, “if you want to stay, and finish what your brother started.”

  Somehow, the simple knowledge that someone else knew my secret, knew my fears about myself, and hadn’t cast me out made it feel as though the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I took his hand, all too aware of the supernatural warmth of it, my traitorous senses telling me he had magic ripe for the taking.

  “Good,” he said, hauling me to my feet. “Now, you’d better put something back in your stomach, because before today’s done, you’re probably going to wish you were dead.”

  CHAPTER 15

  After a shower and a second attempt at breakfast, I felt better. I would’ve thought having someone know my secret would be panic-inducing, but instead, it was just a relief to have it known. Wesley had promised he wouldn’t share the truth of what I was with the others. “For one thing,” he’d said, “I don’t even know what you are, so how can I explain it to them?” But I knew that the instant I became a danger to anyone within the walls, all of that would change.