The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  “You’d better be,” I said, and turned and ran.

  Chapter 20 — Tarik

  I waited until Hayli’s crow had taken to the sky, then got carefully to my feet. A bit of loose stone knocked free of the roof, plummeting away through emptiness to ricochet off the cobblestones much too far below. My stomach twisted, my nerves cringing, sending a cold sweat down my back. I could see the policeman watching me anxiously, one hand shielding his eyes as he waited to see what I would do.

  The wind snagged in my waistcoat and sleeves with biting cold, drawing tears to my eyes.

  I remembered. I remembered the belfry, standing with my arms open to the night. The lightning blinding me, the wind in my hair. But I couldn’t remember why anymore. Two years ago when I’d stood in the belfry arch, I’d just come to recognize—for the first time, really—the lie that was my life. But I hadn’t learned just how much of a lie it all was. I hadn’t become the thing hated by everyone I once loved, the one thing I’d been taught to fear. I hadn’t betrayed anyone. And I hadn’t been the reason a man lay dead in the street.

  A sick ache tugged at my heart. Now I’d done all those things, and I didn’t even know why. And yet…it had barely begun.

  I wondered, with some kind of morbid curiosity—if I fell, would it be Shade’s body that they found? Would they ever know it was me? Would they tag my finger with a number and turn me to ash with all the other unknowns? Would the police gossip about the Istian mage they’d burned, and would that be how Zagger heard of my death?

  The policeman down below wasn’t shouting at me anymore. A few other people gathered near him, staring up at me through eyes shielded like his. From the corner of my eye I saw the crow wheeling about, scolding me, drifting closer and closer.

  And suddenly all I could think of was Hayli watching me, and all I could wonder is if she would remember. I tipped my head to stare down at the policeman, then, drawing a deep breath, I touched my fingers to my temple and took one step back, then another. Once I’d lost sight of the copper, I closed my eyes and Cloaked, and waited till the man’s shouts faded, and the crow circled away, and the clouds rolled in.

  * * * *

  Later that night, I stood in an empty railyard under a sky torn by lightning. The rain held off, but the wind whipped across the tracks in a frenzy, warmer than usual and thick with moisture. Thunderstorms were strange at this time of year, but I rather appreciated the near-constant flashes of light, which spooked the shadows from around the abandoned train cars and the dark wall of the station.

  For a few minutes I paced back and forth, hands in my pockets, while I peered all around in the spotty darkness for my supposed contacts. So far, Kor had proven correct. No one had shown up to meet me. I had a good glimpse at the whole railyard, and I couldn’t see anyone anywhere besides a ragged man stooped over a tiny fire in a tin can, back near the embankment. Kantian would be here somewhere, but he was staying out of sight for now.

  When the eleven o’ train blared into the station, I turned and headed home. Home, I thought, and shuddered. Never. But at least the darkness in my thoughts and the ache in my heart had faded to a dull memory, muted by the needs of the moment.

  Kantian was waiting for me inside the factory gate, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. As soon as he saw me, he straightened up.

  “Well? How’d it go?”

  I put on my best half-innocent, half-annoyed expression and shook my head. “Your friends didn’t show. I’m sure I was at the right spot, but no one was there.”

  Kantian nodded, rubbing his chin. “Damn. All right. Good work anyhow. I’ll send Derrin out to jostle them and find out why they didn’t show.”

  Sure you will, I thought.

  “Anything else I can do?” I asked.

  He studied me a few minutes, his thumb still worrying the edge of his jaw. “Walk with me a minute,” he said.

  I wondered why we had to walk anywhere, until I noticed Link, Vim, and Red hovering near the factory wall, up to no good from the looks of it. If I knew Coins, he was probably hanging around somewhere in the enclosure too, waiting for people to slip up and spill secrets in front of him. I’d already heard more gossip about the Hole rats from him than I ever cared to know.

  Kantian strolled toward the low wall, hands behind his back. I followed, watching the bare branches of the moon-silver trees shaking and shivering in the wind.

  “Are you here for Rivano?” Kantian asked, his words almost swallowed in a long rumble of thunder.

  “Not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Why are you in Brinmark?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  He slanted me a curious glance, one brow lifted. “Not too talkative, are you? I can respect that.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Speak your mind, kid,” he said.

  “Alby Durb is dead,” I said, turning and fixing him with a cold look. “Maybe I provided the name, but someone on your crew sent him to the chill. Everyone says Rivano wants to unite the poor, but somehow I think it’s you who wants that. You want a war. So how does it help you to make an enemy of a force like the Bricks?”

  He studied me a few moments, interest flickering in his eyes. “Shrewd, kid. That’s what you are. Let’s say—for the sake of argument—that you’re right. I heard about your madness, going up to Vanek Meed and throwing a wrench in my gears. I guess, technically, it’s you who made them our enemies. So when the buyers come down on the Bricks, what do you say we should do?”

  I lifted my chin, grinning at him through the shadows. “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to take the fight to Joren…and convince him to back off.”

  Kantian’s brows shot up. “You know who Joren is?”

  “I know all I kinds of things.” I paused for effect, then added, “So I’ll make sure the Bricks know it was me who saved them.”

  “You…on behalf of us,” Kantian said, but I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

  I shrugged. “Why not. If you get Rivano to see me…”

  “Do you think I’ve got any say in that? Rivano’s boss around here, not me. I can tell him to meet you till I’m blue, but if he doesn’t trust you, it won’t matter a jot.” He shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

  I met his gaze evenly. “What is it Rivano wants?”

  Kantian straightened up and shifted his attention to the trees crowding beyond the enclosure wall. For a few long moments he said nothing, but we stood side by side listening to the wind and the thunder and the distant pulse of a train.

  “We both want the same thing,” he said finally.

  But… I thought, waiting for him to say it, but he never did. And he didn’t say another word to explain what he meant, either. I sighed and thrummed my fingers against the top of the rough wall.

  “And you think it’s what I want, too,” I said.

  “I know it is,” Kantian said. “If you’re true-blooded Istian, then of course it’s what you want.”

  War.

  I turned and walked away.

  PART III: FALL

  Chapter 1 — Hayli

  “Hayli, I want you to come with me.”

  I glanced up from my plate of porridge, blinking at Derrin in confusion. It was still so early, and I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink that night after…after what had almost happened to Shade.

  “Where we ganna?” I mumbled.

  “Rivano wants to see us.”

  A lump of porridge caught in my throat. I swallowed and swallowed again, and carefully pushed back my plate. “What, now?”

  “Yes. Come on, finish up.”

  I stared at the sticky mash on the plate, my stomach churning a bit. “I think I’m finished,” I said.

  I scooted off the bench and fell in step behind him. Rivano was waiting for us out on the west-side porch, looking strangely out of time with his long hair and full-sleeved shirt. He faced the chicken-wire park, arms braced on the wall.

  Without even turning a
round he said, “Derrin, Hayli. Come.”

  I pulled myself up onto the wall, because I felt far too small and vulnerable standing beside the two of them.

  “Master,” Derrin said. “You wanted to see us?”

  Rivano met his gaze in silence, then turned to me and said, “Hayli, has the crow seen anything you want to report? Derrin said she spoke to him?”

  I nodded. “I think I saw the place I got nabbed off to. At least, she saw that devil-eyed man who was there in that room. She followed him to this big brick building on the palace grounds. Half of it wasn’t guarded hardly at all, but the other side had guards and guns and barricades. That’s where the man ganned to.”

  “The Science Ministry,” Rivano said, jaw tightening. “I was afraid of that.” He fixed me with a hard stare. “Do you feel all right, Hayli? Did they do anything to you?”

  “Not that I know,” I said, anxious suddenly. “I dan’ feel any different.”

  For a long moment he studied me, like he expected me to sprout another head any minute.

  “Hm,” he said finally. “We’ll need to try to get you back onto the palace grounds. The crow will remember how to get to the Ministry. Perhaps she can get inside through a window…” I must have got some kind of terror-eyed look because he smiled and said gently, “Only if you are up for it.”

  “She might be,” I said, because the crow always seemed so fearless.

  “Perhaps we should try to get Shade in with you,” he said. “Did you see him at all when you were in the city?”

  I closed my eyes. I hadn’t even told Derrin this, but I thought I’d seen Shade, long before I found him on the Station roof. But it was impossible, because in the patchy corners of that crow memory, I could see the stark lines of the palace. I tried to focus, but something in my head kept tucking the images away every time I tried to drag them out.

  “I think I can remember some things,” I said, clasping and unclasping my hands. “But I think I saw too much.” I tapped my head. “It’s cluttered up here and I can’t sort it.”

  “Any details at all?” Derrin asked, frowning a bit.

  “I thought I saw him,” I whispered. “But I dan’ remember what he was doing.”

  Talking to a bald man. At the palace. No. Not at the palace. That’s not what happened at all. I saw Shade, and then I went to the palace after. Yes, that’s right, because that bald man was talking to the scientist, not to Shade.

  “What do you make of Shade?” Rivano asked me, interrupting my frantic thinking. “Do you trust him?”

  “Trust—” I started, and stared at him, startled. “I dan’ na. I doubt he trusts me.”

  “He doesn’t trust any of us,” Derrin said. “Which makes it hard for us to trust him. Every time I ask him to do anything, he always tells me he isn’t here for any of us.”

  “I think—” Rivano began, but at just that moment someone opened the stairwell door behind us.

  I perked up, half-expecting Shade to come striding out. But when the figure came into the daylight, I flinched and shuddered. It was Scorch, erupting from the Hole like a volcano. He stormed across the porch to Rivano and gave him a slight bow. Scorch wasn’t much older than Derrin, but the way one side of his face was stretched in a pale scar, he looked almost ancient. And his eyes burned like he carried some kind of fire inside him. I imagined it was eating him up, the way flames chew away at kindling.

  “Master, he asked me,” Scorch said. He flicked a cold glance at me. “Tell her to go. This doesn’t concern her.”

  Rivano gave him a reproachful look, but he only said, “Hayli, you may go. See what else you can discover about Shade, so I can decide if I will meet him.”

  I glanced at Derrin, but neither Rivano nor Scorch seemed too keen on dismissing him. I’d wanted to escape since I’d come onto the porch, but now that I was being dismissed I felt strangely reluctant to go. When Derrin nodded at me, though, I slipped off the wall and headed back to the Hole.

  I hesitated as the door settled behind me, then gave up and pressed my ear against the cold steel.

  “You know he’s trying to use you,” Scorch was saying, voice low.

  “That’s what he believes,” Rivano said. “Do as he asks. We’ll bring it around in the end.”

  That had a sound like finality, so I scrammed down the steps before Scorch could open the door and find me there. I didn’t stop till I’d got to the front door, where I froze at the top of the steps. Shade crouched against the wall to my left, but all I could see was how he’d crouched just like that on the Station roof, that darkness in his eyes pushing him to the edge. Always pushing him…still pushing him to the edge. I shuddered and slipped clear of the Hole, and Shifted before he could see me.

  I sit in an ancient beech tree under the storm-torn twilight, watching the children playing in the enclosure. Hayli refuses to Shift back; she has given me the entire day to explore the world. I think I understand why. She saw Shade through my eyes, standing on the rooftop like he meant to fly, and the image of it still has her terrified.

  I can see Shade now from where I perch. He is smiling, but I can feel the weight of his sadness—and something like loneliness—even from my spot so high above. He talks with the little wide-eyed boy Bugs, swinging his arms and moving about like a dancer. I cannot hear his words, so I drift to a lower branch.

  “Keep your hands up,” he says, taking Bugs’s hands and holding them up by his face.

  Bugs moves, circling around Shade, keeping his hands where Shade has put them. I can see his face now. I can see the dark patches of blood on his shirt, the shine of a bruise under his eyes.

  Bugs is always getting beat up, Hayli whispers to me. Doesn’t know his own size.

  “First rule of fighting,” Shade says. “Don’t ever let them get a free hit on you. Always make them pay for it.”

  “Can you fight with weapons too?” Bugs asks, shadow-boxing as Shade looks on.

  A knife flashes in Shade’s hand under a sudden glimmer of lightning. He contemplates it, twirling it back and forth in his fingers. “Yes,” he says.

  “What kinds of weapons?”

  “Hands up,” Shade says, tapping the boy’s elbow.

  He hasn’t answered Bugs, and I can see the boy’s frustration. He mimes a punch, then lands one solidly on Shade’s arm.

  “What weapons, Shade?”

  Shade smiles, batting the boy’s arm aside. “A weapon is no more than an extension of yourself. If you can master yourself, you already know more than most folks who pick up a weapon without respecting it.”

  The boy’s eyes widen, then he aims a few phantom strikes at Shade’s stomach. “That dan’ mean you can use a sword, though.”

  Shade doesn’t deny it, but asks instead, “Know what the second rule of fighting is?”

  “No, what?”

  Shade catches Bug’s arm and crouches in front of him. “Don’t fight unless you have to.” He stares at the ground, pondering a moment, then he smiles and says, “Maybe that should be the first rule.”

  “But that dan’ sound very brave, Shade.”

  “Brave? What is brave?” Shade asks, giving him a stern look. “You stay alive, Bugs. That’s what matters. Fight when you have to, but know when it’s smarter to walk away.”

  Bugs turns his head aside, and I think perhaps he mutters something, because Shade takes his other arm and gives him a little shake.

  “You understand?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “All right. Go clean yourself up.”

  He stands up, watching Bugs scamper away, then he puts his hands to his head and turns a circle, his face tipped toward the lightning, the knot of pain on his forehead.

  Go on, Hayli, I say to the girl. Go before he escapes again.

  I walked toward Shade, trying not be too sneaky about it so he wouldn’t think I’d been spying. He caught sight of me before I’d got halfway across the enclosure, and all at once he dropped his hands and shoved them in his poc
kets, scuffing his boot against the pavement. He even got to hanging his head like a scolded skitter, which made me want to smile.

  “Hullo,” he said softly, darting a glance at me under his lashes.

  Stars, what was he so embarrassed about? Of course, I knew what it was. It was what had got me afraid to Shift back…afraid to face him again. In my mind I had that bird’s-eye of him standing at the lip of the roof, grey-faced and wide-eyed. I’d never felt so helpless in all my life.

  “Hullo,” I said, and fiddled with the chain of my broken pocket watch.

  He watched me quietly, like he was trying to figure out if I knew what had him so unwound.

  Before I could stop myself, I closed the distance between us and said, “Shade, what were you thinking? You scared the blazes out of me.”

  He let out all his breath in one little sigh, and turned away. I thought maybe he was trying to get away from me, but a few steps later he glanced at me over his shoulder, saying, “I don’t know.”

  So I followed him, all the way to the wall where he leaned his elbows on the stone and stared out at the trees.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he murmured. “And…and I’m so far from home.”

  I studied him, stunned into silence. Shade was…homesick. I’d almost forgotten how much I’d ached with grief after I’d lost my mum and dad, and I never expected to see that same pain in Shade.

  He chewed his lip, staring intently at nothing, but even that couldn’t hide the gleam of his eyes. A sick pang tugged my heart. I wanted to reach out to him more than anything, but I knew better. I didn’t want to lose him now. So I just settled my arms on the stone beside him, and didn’t say a word.

  “I have to go see the Bricks,” he said. “But stars…I’m so afraid to go. I don’t want to see what I’ve done.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the pain was gone, and he smiled thinly at me. “Will you come with me?”

  “Shade,” I whispered. “Why do you do that to yourself?”