by L. J. Hatton
“Penelope! I’ve been going out of my head.”
“Xerxes!” I blew straight past Birch to Xerxes’ corner, but his basket was empty.
“Is that blood?” Birch was inspecting the door. My hand had left a red stain from pushing it open.
“Xerxes!”
My golem wasn’t on the couch, or under it when I got down on my stomach to check. New fears branched off my existing terror. Had someone snuck in to take Xerxes while I was in Nye’s office?
And how was I supposed to tell Winnie that her brother was dead?
“Did someone hurt you?” Birch asked.
I turned on a lamp, and left it spotted with evidence of Greyor’s murder. Birch stared at my bloody dress.
“Penelope, stop!” Birch grabbed me by the shoulders. “Whose blood is this?”
“A dead man’s.”
“Did you—”
“Greyor.” I raised my arms to push him off. “Arcineaux murdered him right in front of me. He’s insane. I’m not staying here. I have a way out and I’m taking it!”
Something was bumping behind my wardrobe.
“You aren’t making any sense,” Birch said.
“It’s this place that doesn’t make sense. You act like this is normal.”
“Do you think Greyor was the first person Arsenic has killed? He won’t even be the last.”
The bumping grew louder and more insistent. Xerxes’ head poked out between the wardrobe and the wall. His wings had lodged while he was exploring, and now he was stuck. I dragged the wardrobe away from the wall.
“He’s the last one I’ll watch die,” I said.
Memories of my first so-called conversation with Warden Nye came back to me, along with his words about how it felt to take another life. There was no feeling in the world that matched the bleak uselessness of being unable to stop death. I wouldn’t watch the life fade from Evie’s eyes or Jermay’s, even Birch’s.
“Stay close,” I told Xerxes, and touched the metal coil around my throat. “I’ve got Bijou, and I know where the others are. We’re getting out of here, even if it gets us killed.”
There was no carefully formed plan at work. I’d simply come to the point that I couldn’t abide any more of the madness that was the Center’s everyday operation. I was running on instinct; fortunately for me, that was the root of my power.
The last thing the ceiling camera caught before its light went dark was me snapping my fingers to sever its circuits.
“Come with us,” I said to Birch. He shrank away, eyes darting side to side.
“I can’t . . . I mean, we—”
I took his face between my hands and held him still.
“You said you stayed to wait for me. I’m leaving—come with us. Xerxes can get us to the ground.”
“The outer doors are on the docking level. There are at least forty men down there.”
“Just get me into the room where they’re keeping Klok.”
“But—”
“Trust me. You don’t have to be a prisoner anymore.”
I moved to the door and held out my hand, waiting for him to take it.
“If you didn’t need me to reach your friend, would you still want me to come?” he asked.
“I’m not leaving you behind,” I said.
Birch glanced up at the dead light, then down to Xerxes, who had his ears up and nose out, searching for trouble. He brought his eyes back to me, and slowly took my hand.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 40
We’d reached another dreadfully perfect moment where there were no close calls and no near misses. Every hall was empty, as though the men who should have been occupying them had been drawn away. It should have felt too convenient, but I accepted the easy road at face value; there was no time to waste worrying that I was wrong.
The area where Klok was being held was still dark. His body was no longer leaned against a floor cabinet, but laid out on the table. Instruments sat on a tray beside him, saws and solder, but also things that looked as though they’d come from a surgeon’s stand.
“Klok, are you awake?”
A soft light shined in his palm. The rat-tat of his screen was the most beautiful sound in the world when he answered me with a glowing blue: “Fully functional. I was worried about Penn.”
“Penn was worried about you.” I hugged him as well as I could manage.
He sat up and another message blipped across the screen.
“He is Penn’s friend?”
Birch had followed me.
“He’s going to help us get out of here,” I said.
“Where are the hummers?” Birch asked.
Even inside the vent, he’d been able to see them before. Not a single one protruded from Klok’s body any longer. Instead, a layer of armor covered his entire torso, bearing the same markings as a hummer’s exoskeleton. He’d made it impossible for the technicians to dissect him like Nye wanted.
“You were protecting yourself,” I said.
“I think they lost interest.”
“No one’s been back?”
“Moved me, then left.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“A lot of noise. Something is wrong.”
“There you are!”
Klok had a pronounced gift for understatement, and something was definitely wrong. Our escape was over before it began; Iva had caught us.
“It’s not her fault.” Birch put himself in front of me. “It was me. Please don’t report us.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” she chirped, entering the room. “Quickly, dears, no time for feet-dragging. Warden Nye is quite insistent on our making haste. The stabilization system is beyond even my scope for repair.”
Klok’s display tapped out: “That is not your mother.”
“I know,” I said.
“Ghosts do not exist.”
“She’s not a ghost, Klok.” She was something much more dangerous.
“Oh dear.” Iva’s attention settled on the drying blood, which had turned my moss-green dress nearly black in patches. “The warden warned me you might be in an awful state, but I never imagined it was this bad. I do wish I had something for you to change into. There isn’t even time for repairs.”
While she chattered, I knelt to stroke Xerxes’ head, letting my fingers stray down his neck until I was able to reach the switch that would turn him from a toy into the creature that had made grown men flee from the Caravan tents. Klok nudged Birch backward, a warning that the room was about to get cramped.
“Darling, whatever is wrong with your kitten?”
Xerxes had been expanding, though slower than usual, which I expected from the age of the circuit I’d used to patch him. But now, he was stuck. He’d grow an inch, then shrink two, then bigger, then smaller. He cried out with a pained yelp.
“No . . .” I fought with his access panel, but it kept changing size along with him and wouldn’t open. “Don’t you do this to me, Xerxes. Don’t you dare let me down, too. You have to hold. You have to—”
With one piercing screech and a chaotic fluttering of wings, Xerxes fell over, landing stiff on his side, legs twitching like an animal in the final moments of life. That piece of my father’s soul flared in Xerxes’ glass eyes, then faded away like smoke around a dimming bulb. His beak opened and stuck.
He was dead, and the last thing I wanted to feel was the lifeless touch of my mock-mother trying to wrap me in her arms.
“Oh darling, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
Klok tapped Iva on the shoulder, grimacing.
“Penn does not require a hug. She requires a control circuit to make her golem better.”
“Is that all?” Iva asked.
She pushed back to her feet, releasing me so she could cross the room to the bins that held the technicians’ equipment and tools. I sat on the floor, with Xerxes half in my lap and my head on Birch’s shoulder. He’d crouched beside me, and watched, stunned, as she foraged through the bins.
“What’s she doing?” Birch asked.
“I don’t know.”
I thought I knew, but the thing I thought made no sense. Warden Nye’s right-hand robot wouldn’t be searching out new circuitry to restore Xerxes. She wouldn’t be taking pieces from destroyed golems, and she wouldn’t be bringing them back to me with a less phony smile on her face. Yet, that’s exactly what Iva was doing.
“You made an awful lot of fuss for something as simple as a control circuit. Won’t this one work?”
She handed me the unit that had once given life to Scorpius, and while I saw to installing it in Xerxes, Klok searched out what remained of the things the warden had stolen from us. Winnie’s tail was still intact, though I doubted she’d want any part of her costume once the rebreather was removed.
“Find another circuit for Bijou,” I called, coaxing the dragon down off my shoulders.
Birch appeared beside me with several in his hands.
“Will one of these do?” he asked. “They look the same as that one.”
“Perfect,” I said. I snapped one into Bijou. His wings flared out, shimmering with the layer of jeweled color on their undersides. Xerxes whirred back to life, and he was on his feet, as well.
One of the dismembered unicorn heads twitched on its shelf, then was suddenly knocked aside by the friendly creeper light that had served as my companion when I was in the greenhouse. It blinked nervously, almost timidly, if such a thing was possible for a machine, and joined us on the floor. It still couldn’t talk, but I understood it well enough. It wanted to come with us.
“Such a marvel,” Iva said, grinning at the creeper. “You really are your father’s daughter. They can tell, you know. They recognize your voice.”
“She’s not acting right,” Birch whispered.
The artificial quality had faded from her demeanor, along with the pallor from her cheeks; her movements were no longer stiff. When Iva spoke, it wasn’t to warn me to watch how I behaved around the warden. She’d changed as drastically as the golems that fought for The Show to their deaths, and that couldn’t be coincidence.
“Iva, for what purpose were you created?” I asked.
I stood directly in front of her, met her eyes, and was astounded to see the clouded glass had given way to something warm and deep. They held the dark warmth of strong coffee, intelligent and wary.
“I am the physical interpretation of Iva Roma,” she said. “Wife of Magnus and mother to Nieva, Nimue, Anise, Vesper, Penelope, and my poor lost boy.”
“For what purpose were you sent to Warden Nye? Because you were defective?”
“I am not defective. I was sent ahead of my daughter, in the event that she was acquired by Warden Nye. My primary function is to protect. Penelope Roma is in danger, therefore the primary function overrides the secondary functions implemented by the warden.”
My father had sent her to help me, in case he wasn’t able to.
“Never doubt that one of your father’s creations will do exactly what it was designed to,” Iva said.
The plan I’d not bothered to make before solidified in my mind. The snares and thorns blocking our escape shriveled and died as a new path opened up—one wide enough for many to share.
“Iva, do you have access to the prison level?”
CHAPTER 41
We walked briskly, with Iva in the lead and Klok at the back, carrying a satchel filled with one creeper light and a restless Xerxes and Bijou. Birch was in the middle with me. Klok had taken a technician’s coat to hide his clothes, but no one would have noticed if we’d gone straight out the main doors and headed for a ship. The hall was pure anarchy.
Men were sprinting toward other areas of the facility. A row of round windows set into the wall showed fleeing personnel rushing to fill the few small vessels still moored to the outer rim. An explosion nearly threw us to the floor.
“This is ridiculous,” Iva said. “The Commission won’t tolerate this level of competition between wardens. It sets a bad example.” She shook her head. “Sorry, secondary programming bled through.”
All of this is because Arcineaux didn’t get his way?
Iva pointed to a small ship through one of the breezeway’s windows. “Those evac pods only deploy during catastrophic failure. Each one signals reinforcements from the ground.”
We reached a set of lift doors; the men who bolted out didn’t pay us any mind, other than to shove us out of their way.
Klok set the satchel on the elevator floor, allowing Xerxes and Bijou their freedom. Both golems took a position in front of the doors, ready for their first chance to really move since the fall of The Show. Their impatient growls were drowned by another, stronger explosion.
“What was that?” Birch asked.
Iva cocked her head to the side, listening.
“The primary ramp cables on the outer walkways just detached—unfortunate for anyone crossing them. Auxiliary paths will still allow access to the escape pods, but the regular vessels will be derelict.”
The next explosion shook the entire lift, throwing me and Birch into Iva and Klok.
“And that’s the support cables. We’ll be in a bit of a bind if the pontoon braces go, but that shouldn’t be an issue so long as there’s power.”
Our car stopped at the prison level. Bijou and Xerxes charged off the lift into the empty corridor. The guards had either fled or gone to help defend the Center.
Iva took a key from a chain around her neck and put it in the lock. When she turned it, nothing happened.
“The protocols have isolated the magnets,” she said. “No one can access them.”
“But what about the people inside?” If the Center crashed . . . “I’m not leaving my sisters behind!”
“The wardens fled; they likely took what was theirs,” Birch said.
“Arcineaux’s still here! If he’s here, Anise is, too, and even if she wasn’t, Jermay’s in there with at least a hundred others! Break it open.”
Xerxes and Bijou took the same stance that they had in the lift, only now they were butting the gate with their heads and leaving not so much as a dent.
“Please let this work,” I whispered, and bent to switch the golems to full capacity. Both of them stretched back and out, reaching full size with a clink as their metal bits slid into place. They kept beating against the gate, making it shake.
“It’s not enough,” Birch said.
There was no more room for caution.
“Klok, I need a spark,” I said.
He raised his hand, palm up, with the lantern in it glowing. The glass panel on his hand slid back, revealing the tiny electrical spark that fueled it. Hopefully, it would be enough to create a fire.
“Cross your fingers,” I said.
“Vampires do not exist. They are like ghosts,” Klok reminded me.
“Not that kind of cross, Klok. It’s for good luck.”
“Oh.” He obliged in twisting all of his fingers into a tangle. “Luck does not exist, either. Should I make you a list of things that do not exist?”
“Maybe later. I need to concentrate,” I told him.
I was about to stick my fingers into a live current, but without the anger I’d used to do it the last time.
“I don’t need wings, just a feather,” I whispered. “Feathers are light. Feathers are simple. Feathers—”
I held my breath, and grabbed fire. When I opened my eyes, a sparking blue flame danced in my palm.
There was heat, definitely, but no burn. I blew across my finger
s, causing the flame I’d captured to drift into Bijou’s snout. He reared back, rattled his wings, and sent a jet of liquid fire straight into the gate. Xerxes slashed a wing through the flames, and the weakened metal gave with a groaning crash. We scrambled through the opening.
“Give me two minutes to reach the master release,” Iva said.
She ran across the prison ward faster than humanly possible, leaving us to hope the Center didn’t fall out of the sky while we were waiting for her return.
“Excuse me.” Birch tapped Klok on the shoulder.
Jermay would have laughed at his formality, but I was coming to appreciate the differences between them. Jermay could teach Birch about the outside world; Birch could teach Jermay a few things about patience and focus. They’d be good for each other, if Birch didn’t mulch him into fertilizer on sight.
Klok’s display flashed blue, a prompt for Birch to go ahead and ask his question.
“I was just wondering . . . since you did disable the hummers. Are they similar enough that you could maybe . . . Would it work on these?” Birch held his wrists in the air, showing off the restriction bands.
How had I not thought of that?
“Klok, can you get us out of these?” I asked.
He wrapped Birch’s wrists in his hands. The braided metal wires and glass tubes uncurled from the bands to encase Klok’s palms, leaving only the lantern and screen areas of his hands uncovered.
“You’re keeping them?” I asked.
“Could be useful.”
He absorbed my bands and used them to cover his fingers, so he had complete gloves. The Commission was slowly building their super-soldier, but he was on the opposing side of a war that no one should have been fighting.
“Thank you,” Birch said, rubbing his wrists.
Something changed when Klok took the bands off my wrists. I was more alive than I had been before, as though I was fire made flesh. I could have blinked and batted down the moon.
If this was how it felt to me, I couldn’t imagine the rush going through Birch after being chained so long. He leaned against the railing, blinking rapidly.
