Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  “‘No mixing,’” Noa murmured. “‘Power only with permission.’”

  Judah glanced at Callum; even Noa could see the fear behind his eyes. “If Darius destroyed the families and basically enlisted into Color-segregated ranks … where is the Resistance?”

  The muscle in Callum’s jaw flickered. “I don’t know.”

  Judah closed off, turned to study the embankment.

  “Well, the good news is I know where we are.” He half-walked, half-climbed up the bank to a spot in the outer wall. Noa would never have noticed it among the green and brown camouflage of colors—but there was the faintest tracing of a circle. Judah pulled and pried at the edges of the circle, grunting.

  “What’s wrong?” Callum called up after a minute. Judah ignored him, continuing to strain, and finally gave up.

  “He actually sealed this entrance off,” he scowled back in disbelief. “Unbelievable.”

  “Aren’t there others?” Noa asked.

  “Sure! Inside the city. The heavily populated, highly hostile city.”

  Noa’s stomach twisted. “Aren’t there any others outside?”

  Judah sighed, squinted into the distance. “The next one’s far, we won’t get there before dark, and if one wall entrance is sealed…”

  “They all probably are,” Noa murmured.

  She turned to Callum, startled to find him grinning.

  “Oh crap, he’s demented again,” Judah muttered.

  Callum actually laughed. He held up his hands. “Not demented, just gifted. I don’t see any of those alarm tubes here, do you?”

  • • •

  The Tunnels were labyrinthine and uniform, a maze of dark-gray walls, echoing drips and reverberating sameness. Even though Callum had sealed the entrance behind them as easily as an engineer welding a sewer cap shut, the same eerie lavender-gray twilight permeated down through the ceiling, as if carried through the stone-pressed roots. The walls appeared rough and many-textured, made of wound organic matter—but when Noa touched one, it was cool as ice, and just as smooth.

  They had walked only a little way, made a few turns, before Noa was sure they were lost. Every step took not only her body, but her mind into deep tangles of confusion—she suddenly felt as if she’d been wandering there forever and would never emerge anywhere else again.

  But Judah led on strongly, never hesitating to choose a turn, to select one of the ever-branching paths. While Noa’s and even Callum’s feet sometimes slipped unsteadily in the thin water pooling at their feet, Judah never made a sound. The underground was a place he knew, mapped like whorls in fingerprints inside his mind. The muscles in his back became Noa’s guiding currents, shifting gracefully, fluidly, as he led the way into the dark.

  “Who built the Tunnels?” Noa asked after endless steps in silent sameness. She found the Tunnels strangely beautiful, even as they overwhelmed and frightened. She had barely whispered, but her words echoed in sneaking shapes and tones, like a hundred creatures hissing in the shadows.

  Callum straightened a little beside her, walked with greater ease. “No one knows. Most believe it was one of the early Fae rulers, before Gwydion, who built the Tunnels. Most likely as a hiding place for leaders, and a way to navigate and control the city in secret.”

  Ahead of them, Judah snorted; Noa could picture the glitter in his eye. “Too bad most Fae, including the leaders, are way too stupid to find their own feet down here. Idiots.”

  Callum looked at Judah’s back, piqued. “It’s not so easy.”

  Judah shrugged, but Noa saw the smirk in the nuance of his shoulders.

  Callum ignored Judah, continued: “Because they are so unnavigable, Gwydion actually tried to get rid of them, but he couldn’t, because he couldn’t track and map them all. Darius tried too, and failed.”

  “Something they would have agreed on,” Noa mused, earning a chuckle from Callum. She remembered the night he’d told her about Gwydion, the Fae leader before Darius—it was the night Callum had confided in Noa about himself and Aurora. He’d explained how Gwydion, as leader, had magically erased all knowledge of the Clear Fae’s dangerous gift to Channel magic—even from the Clear Fae themselves. And how, as a result, Darius—and others of his Colorline—had grown up bullied and tormented for being ‘powerless.’ When Darius had become Otec and discovered the truth, he’d vowed to undo all that Gwydion had done. And he had—he’d reawakened the Clear gift, and then turned Clears loose for their revenge.

  “Well, I guess it’s not hard to see why they’d agree on that. Neither Gwydion nor Darius liked the idea of an all-access underground system they couldn’t control,” Callum replied.

  “Why didn’t they just use some Blues to, I don’t know, blow it all up?”

  “They tried,” Judah said, turning over his shoulder, unable not to gloat a little. “But the Tunnels are way too complicated. They could never get to them all, and no Blue could visualize them properly. That’s why they are a perfect hideout.”

  He stopped in front of them, smug as a cat, and put his hand on the left-side wall, feeling carefully. Slowly, he found and began to pry back a single root with his dexterous fingers. Then he beckoned Noa and Callum forward: Behind the root was a small, hollowed-out compartment, its sides uneven, as if it had been carefully made by hand.

  “Hilo and I made these all over the Tunnels. Little hiding places, where we left each other things.” He reached into the hole, felt around, and pulled out a smooth, round stone, then smiled a smile Noa had never seen on him before. Not a smirk, but something earnest. The smile of a boy.

  “What is it?” Noa whispered.

  Judah’s fist closed around the stone, and he looked away. “A worry stone,” he mumbled, “for me to hold if something happened and she wasn’t down here.” He pushed the stone back in, closed the wall with the root. “We also hid food and stuff, different supplies. Maybe some of it is still down here.”

  “We don’t need it. My power, remember?” Callum said, putting a genial hand on Judah’s shoulder. “Your big brother can be useful!”

  Judah tensed. “Well, we know Hilo would have liked that better, right?”

  “How do you know where the little hiding places are?” Noa asked, running her hand over the now-smooth wall, trying to feel what Judah had felt.

  Judah shrugged. “Same way I know where everything is down here. I just see it.” He started walking again, briskly, leaving Callum and Noa stumbling to catch up.

  • • •

  A tense half hour later, Judah stopped abruptly, nearly causing Callum and Noa to run into him. He had stopped at a T-shaped lane, studying the dead end in front of them. Noa wondered if he was deciding which side to turn to, but then he walked straight toward the dead-end wall, stretched to his toes, and reached to feel as high as he could. After a moment, his fingers pressed into some hidden groove, then he bent his body like a C and pulled backward with all his might.

  A faint vertical crack became visible in the wall above Judah’s head, then turned toward him. Judah lunged back, and the heavy, hidden door shifted ever-so-slightly open.

  “Let me help you,” Callum said, joining him.

  “Don’t change the door!” Judah snapped. “We need it to close again!”

  “I just meant I’d help you pull,” Callum told him, reaching up to the top of the door. “Ready?”

  Together they pulled backward, bodies like sails taut in the wind. The heavy slab budged. Callum let go, panting with his hands on his knees. Pitch darkness beckoned beyond the door.

  “Come on,” Judah mumbled, breathing hard himself but striding in.

  Noa hesitated. “I’ll be right behind you,” Callum assured her.

  Noa swallowed and nodded, turning sideways to squeeze inside the hidden room. Total blackness made her stumble. Judah caught her before she fell. She inhaled sharply when she felt
his face close to hers, his breath near her cheek, even as she couldn’t see him.

  “You okay?” he murmured.

  She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”

  Callum was squeezing in behind her, and Noa felt Judah take back his hands and move away.

  “How do I close this?” Callum asked, suddenly right beside her.

  “Hold on a sec,” Judah replied. Noa heard him move away from them, deeper into the darkness. Slowly, a little orange glow grew like candlelight from Judah’s hands, lighting up the corner of the room where he was standing. It expanded and twinkled, then rose above them and spread out like stars, illuminating the whole cave from its low, uneven ceiling.

  Noa gasped in wonder at the little constellations.

  Judah’s eyes seemed to twinkle in their light. “Stellabugs,” he said. “Hilo and I raised a colony in here. You just give them warmth from your hands, and they light up…. Light source for the non–Blue powered.”

  “They’re beautiful,” Noa said. “Like fireflies, kind of.”

  “Very inventive,” Callum agreed.

  Judah shrugged. “Hilo probably thought of it.” He pointed toward the door, which now they could see. “We smoothed a little handle on the back.” He walked over to show Callum. “We just pull.”

  Together, they pulled the handle, sliding the heavy slab closed. Noa expected to feel claustrophobic, but instead she felt safe and warm under the glowing Stellabugs.

  Judah lazily gestured around the small room with his hands. “It’s not much, but it’s hidden. We can rest here safely. Even if they look for us in the Tunnels, they won’t find us here.”

  Callum nodded. “It’s perfect, Judah. I should have listened to you earlier.”

  Judah turned back to the corner where he’d found the Stellabugs. “I have some grains and stuff here to eat if you want. It’s pretty basic.” He held up what looked like little bowls of nuts and seeds. “Or I guess Callum can transfigure it into a Big Mac or something,” he added with a smirk.

  Noa smiled. “I’m actually pretty curious about Aurora food.”

  Callum and Judah looked at each other and laughed. Noa looked between them. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Callum said. “It’s just, I think you may be disappointed. Fae don’t really need to eat, but when they do, they favor a more … earthy diet.”

  “It tastes like crap,” Judah told her. “Literally.”

  Noa looked at Callum, wondering if they were teasing her, but he just laughed and held up his hands.

  “Scout’s honor. If there was an Aurora saltwater taffy flavor, even you could guess it as you spit it out.” His eyes twinkled, and she felt that little tingle of warmth she loved.

  “Okay, well maybe an apple then?” she said. Callum smiled and went to take some of the mud-food from Judah, transfiguring it in his hands into the round, green fruit.

  “It’s weird,” Noa said as she watched, “I would have thought food here would be crazy-layered with flavor. Since the air is so tangy and the water was all minty.”

  Judah and Callum looked at each other, surprised.

  “What?” She asked.

  Callum handed her the apple. “We just didn’t know if you would sense that stuff. But then again, we’ve never had a mortal in Aurora before.”

  Noa crunched into her apple. “Didn’t you know? In my past life, I was an overachiever.”

  Callum laughed again. Noa grinned, relaxing.

  It would have been even better, though, if Judah had joined in.

  • • •

  After all they had been through, Noa was sure she would never be able to fall asleep, but the miles of sprinting and falling and hiking and Tunnel-ing got the best of her, and within minutes of finishing her apple, she fell asleep. She was out so fast that she didn’t even notice when Callum softened the ground beneath her, wove a blanket from the atoms in the dirt. The last thought she had was of Sasha, Sasha … how when they awakened, they would find a way to get to her….

  Noa blinked, and the sun was shining in her eyes. Not the Aurora sun, so bright it hurt and tinged with lavender, but the pale yellow hug that came from the sun at home. She breathed in, the air was light and clear, cool inside her lungs.

  “Noa, it’s time to pat the dirt.”

  Noa turned toward the familiar voice. Her mother. She and Noa were in the backyard, in the raised vegetable garden, where Hannah was crouched in her wide-brimmed hat and purple-and-white-flowered gardening gloves. The glove fingertips were black with dirt, and there was a smudge across Hannah’s cheek. Hannah’s face was round and bright, curved with sunshine.

  Noa crouched beside her mother in the vegetable patch, rich dirt moist beneath her knees.

  Hannah fondly held the delicate new tomato plant, lowering its roots into the fresh-dug hole.

  “Remember to push out all the air,” Hannah said. Noa lifted her small blue shovel and began to fill in new, moist soil until Hannah nodded there was enough. Then Noa laid the shovel aside and began to pack the dirt with her fingers, bitten nail-nubs sinking into the velvet damp.

  “She would have liked this,” Hannah said, smiling up at the little vine.

  “Who?”

  “Your sister.”

  “Sasha?”

  Hannah cocked her head, confused. “Isla.”

  “Look, it’s starting to blossom.”

  Noa looked up: her dad was speaking, suddenly standing right beside them as if he’d been there all along. He stood tall, collared shirt unwrinkled, crosshatched green and white with a pocket at the chest.

  Noa got to her feet, wiped her hands across her pants. They walked together to the tree with pink blossoms and fire-red maple leaves. He put his hand across her shoulders.

  “Soon we’ll have blintzes,” Christopher told her proudly, fingering a blossom.

  “Where?”

  Noa looked down: Sasha was clinging to her leg, pulling on her with insistent fingers. Her brown eyes were huge, dirt smudged both her cheeks, like paint. She looked intently into Noa’s eyes.

  “From the blossoms, Sash,” Noa told her, pointing at the tree. “The blintzes grow from the blossoms.”

  Sasha huffed, cheeks turning red beneath the brown: “But where?”

  Hannah called out from beside her tomato plant. “Noa, go make your sister macaroni and cheese.”

  • • •

  Noa woke with a start, forehead slick, heart beating fast. Judah and Callum were asleep in separate corners of the hidden room.

  Noa calmed her breathing, reoriented herself to reality. It had been a dream. A dream.

  Since Isla’s death, Noa had gotten used to never dreaming, as if her unconscious mind could no longer bear to face itself. She was out of practice.

  Once the cave looked steady again, Noa closed her eyes once more, determined to keep her mind blank and dreamless. She barely felt her head touch the ground before exhaustion overcame her…

  And Judah laughed.

  He was in the stacks with Noa in their hidden corner of Lamont Library. Or rather, he was with a Noa, but Noa herself was somehow apart, watching the pair of them from outside, like watching a couple in a movie.

  And in this movie, Judah was laughing because he was trying to braid Movie-Noa’s hair, Movie-Noa leaning against his legs. His eyes were focused on her head.

  Noa watched as Movie-Noa turned and smiled, so easy and so bright. She put one hand on her own heart and the other on Judah’s.

  “This won’t change,” Movie-Noa promised him. “This can’t change.”

  Judah stopped laughing, fear glinting in his eyes. “That’s just words.”

  Movie-Noa smiled, stroked his cheek. “I’m a poet, Judah. Words are sacred.”

  Suddenly another boy materialized, tall and regal, with white-gl
oved hands. Movie-Noa stopped stroking Judah’s cheek, looked up into his eyes.

  Callum held up a bag of saltwater taffy, smiling. “It’s time for Review,” he murmured.

  • • •

  Noa gasped herself awake again, this time strangled for breath, her head hot and pounding.

  “Are you okay?” Judah asked, suddenly at her side, though without the Stellabugs she couldn’t see him.

  Noa laid her palms against the cool floor, willing her heart to calm, her mind to focus. It was just another dream. She breathed in and out, tried to push her fingers deep into awakeness. But that dream hadn’t felt like the other dream. It had a different texture, a different shape—

  Noa looked toward where Judah was, hugged her knees against her chest. “I’m okay.”

  Judah scooted closer so she could dimly see the features on his face. He was studying her suspiciously.

  “I think I’ll stay up a little though,” she acknowledged, sitting up.

  Judah settled back against the wall beside her.

  “You don’t have to stay up, too,” she told him, but she felt grateful anyway. She shifted, wiggling to get comfortable against the uneven rock. She could feel Judah’s mouth curl up in amusement.

  “What?” Noa said defensively. “It’s a little uneven.”

  Judah suddenly had her hand, was laying it into one of the wall’s dips, then laying his own beside it. “Handmade.”

  Noa bent close to see what she could already feel; their hands fit the dents exactly.

  “You dug this out?” she whispered.

  “I’m not Blue Fae,” he replied softly.

  “But my hand fits too, and it’s smaller….”

  “Hilo’s handprint.” Judah turned to sit back against the wall, but Noa kept her hand in Hilo’s handprint, touching the fine grooves.

  “It must have taken a long time,” she said softly.

  “Better than being up there,” Judah murmured. “Or so I thought.”

  They sat quietly, but Noa couldn’t help it. The whisper just came out:

  “Hilo helped Callum because she cared about you. She thought it was the right thing and made a mistake. It doesn’t mean everything was a lie.”