I clenched my jaw, hardening my heart against the image of the Renewables there cowering behind a faltering shield. “That’s not my problem.”
“We need your help,” he pleaded. “They keep sending scouts every few days to test the barrier. The second it falls, the Iron Wood will be lost. You have to do what you did again—you have to find a way to get rid of your city’s people permanently.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I replied, my voice tight.
“Your people are getting desperate.” Dorian reached for my arm, dragging me back as the others went on ahead. “The Renewable they have in your city isn’t going to last much longer. It’s a miracle she’s lasted as long as she has.”
My footsteps ground to a halt. The air felt thick, hard to breathe. Hard to think. “How do you know how long she’s been there?” I whispered.
He gazed back at me, haggard features twitching.
I felt cold, far colder than I’d been while standing in the snow outside. “Gloriette, when she was after me—she told me that they’d captured the Renewable they have powering the city. She claimed someone had sent her to spy on the city, and that justified the way the architects treated her.”
Grief aged Dorian’s features, his eyes closing, the corners of his mouth drawing in. “Would anything justify what they’ve done to her?”
I could still see the image of the Renewable’s face, her silent, eternal scream, the way her white eyes stared as though seeking something, anything, that looked like salvation.
Dorian ran a hand over his features as though he could wipe his grief away. I wondered if he knew the woman who now lived in agony in the bowels of the Institute. I wondered if he’d sent her. “Your city,” he said slowly, “is the only one that survived. The Iron Wood, we came there later, after the world burned and the magic twisted it. This place—you saw what the city above looked like. That’s what the rest of the world looks like now. Only your city survived. Only they had a barrier up.”
“I don’t—”
“They had to know it was coming, Lark.” He let go of my arm. “They were ready for the cataclysm before it ever happened. These are the people after us. I can’t protect my people from them without you.”
My head spun with exhaustion—I just wanted to curl up in the muck coating the floor of the tunnel and let Dorian, and Nina, and Wesley and everyone just drift on past.
“I have to do this first.” My voice was hoarse, tired. “The resistance movement here will keep you safe for now, especially if you’re willing to help them.”
“But—”
“Maybe if you help them,” I said firmly, “they might be able to help you. They need more Renewables to help fight Prometheus. Talk to me after we’ve gotten rid of him, Dorian. I’m not doing anything for you until then.”
• • •
I barely had enough energy to see Nina, still unconscious, safely into the rebels’ crude infirmary and under the care of their healers. News of her condition spread quickly, and as I limped back out of the room, I heard a voice scream her name, sobbing. The voice was familiar, but in its rawness I couldn’t tell who it was. I didn’t want to know—I was the reason Nina was half-dead, and I couldn’t face it, not now. Wesley took charge of the new Renewables, and after a quick nod at me— good job, his eyes said—he left me to stagger down to my room.
I thought of Oren and knew he’d be at my side as soon as he heard that I was back. Olivia or no, he still cared about my fate. Still, the moment I hit the mattress in my quarters, I was asleep.
• • •
When I woke I had no way of telling how much time had passed, except that I was clear-headed enough to sit up and actually notice my surroundings. I’d slept for hours, at least. And there was no sign of Oren—I was alone, and if he’d come while I slept, he hadn’t woken me.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my muscles stiff and aching. My shoulder throbbed where I’d been bitten, and when I pulled the edge of my shirt away, I saw that it had been bandaged neatly while I slept. I moved it experimentally and found that the injury wasn’t that bad. It ached, but the healers here knew what they were doing. Out on my own, a wound like the one I’d received in the fight would’ve taken weeks to get better.
Someone had left a plate of food for me on top of the clothes chest at the foot of my bed. Thanking whoever had the foresight to know I wouldn’t be up to facing the entirety of the resistance fighters and the emissaries from the Iron Wood, I ate sitting cross-legged on my bed. I was still exhausted, in that bone-deep, head-aching way that always followed overtaxing myself with magic. But recovering here, where there was magic in the air, was much quicker than recovering out in the vacuum outside.
The recovery was only superficial, though. I wouldn’t be able to recharge my magic unless I could harvest it from someone.
Then, with a rush, it came back to me—Nina. Parker and Marco had seen me siphon away her magic. They knew what I was, or at least what I was capable of. And by now they could’ve already told everyone.
I had to find Wesley and figure out a way to minimize the damage—some lie that would convince the resistance that I wasn’t dangerous. Either that, or some way for me to get out of here before it was too late. I already knew how these people felt about shadows—how would they feel about me? Whatever I was.
I lurched off the bed and reached for the door latch. I stumbled when it failed to give, my momentum carrying me forward and into the door, where I had expected it to open.
Blankly, I gave the latch another shake. Nothing. My heart froze. The door was locked from the outside.
• • •
Though I couldn’t be sure without any way to keep track, it felt like several hours before the clank of the lock alerted me to the presence of someone outside. I scrambled to my feet as the door swung open. It was Wesley.
My protests died on my lips when I saw his face. He looked grim and weary. “Come with me,” he said shortly. “The others want to talk to you.”
“Nina?” I managed, heart pounding. Wesley paused in the doorway, looking back at me. “She’s alive,” he said finally, making relief sing through me. “But she won’t wake up. Her body’s okay, but it’s like she’s just not in there.”
My relief soured, stomach roiling. “What do the healers say?” “They don’t know.” Wesley stepped aside, making room for me to slip past him into the hall. “They’ve never seen anything quite like it. Their best guess is that she’s in some sort of coma. There could be damage to her brain because she stopped breathing for a while.”
I swallowed as Wesley shut the door again behind me. My feet felt like lead. “Parker and Marco, they’re okay?”
He nodded but didn’t say anything else, turning to lead the way toward the War Room. He didn’t speak again until we were just outside the doors. I could feel Renewables in there— I thought I detected the particular signatures of Parker and Marco, but I was still tired and not completely sure.
“Lark,” said Wesley in a low voice, “it’s time for you to tell the truth now. I can’t lie for you, not when there are witnesses. And if we’re being completely honest, I’m not sure I want to lie for you now.”
“Were you close to Nina?” I whispered.
His expression flickered briefly, but I couldn’t identify the emotion that passed through it. “We’re all close to each other here. This is our family. But that’s not why. You’re dangerous, and it was irresponsible of me to keep that danger from the others. No matter how valuable that power of yours might be.”
I kept my eyes on the door, fighting back when my sight started to blur. I wasn’t going to cry, even faced with losing one of my only allies. This was, after all, what I deserved. Like Oren, I was a monster hiding in plain sight. But unlike him, I never stopped being myself, even when I killed.
“For what it’s worth,” Wesley added, softer still, “I think you may have made the right choice. From what I’ve put together from Parker and Marc
o, and the leader of the group that you rescued, you’d all have died if you hadn’t gotten that door open.”
He reached for the handle of the door, but paused before opening it. “And I think they’ll probably still want to use you, because even more now, you’re the best weapon we’ve got. I’m just not sure they’re ever going to trust you.”
Wesley left me swallowing the lump in my throat and pushed the doors open, leading the way into the War Room. I recognized Dorian and a couple of other Renewables from the Iron Wood there, clustered in a group. Parker and Marco were there too, and both of them snapped their heads up when I entered, their gazes dark and unreadable as they fell on me. The others were no different, watching me with wary suspicion.
As if it could smell their fear, the shadow inside me stirred sluggishly. I could feel it flickering as though scenting the air, tasting each golden beacon of power in the gathered Renewables. I shoved it back down with a shudder, drawing my shoulders back and lifting my chin.
Good, then. If they were afraid, well, they should be. Wesley was right. It was time to stop hiding what I was. “I’m from a city south of here,” I began. “Where there are no Renewables. There isn’t anyone with this ability there, either. I think my brother may have been like me, but he’s gone now. As far as I know, I’m the only one.”
“And what are you?” That was Parker, who hadn’t moved from the back of the room. His shoulder blades pressed back against the wall, as if he half-wished he could retreat further.
“I don’t know,” I replied simply.
I told them about the experiments the architects had run at the Institute and how my brother and I were the only ones to survive the process. How they’d turned us into something that looked, on the surface, like a Renewable, so that we’d be able to survive beyond the Wall. How my brother had made it this far, only to get captured once Prometheus started rounding up Renewables. I told them about the Iron Wood and how it was only when I’d used the last of the power the Institute gave me that I discovered the emptiness inside me and the way it could absorb the power in others.
I didn’t tell them about Oren, though. If I was going to be branded a monster, it made no sense for us to both be outcast. As long as Oren stayed below ground, he was safe, and he’d never become a shadow again. He might as well be able to live free.
“I never wanted to hurt Nina, or anyone else.” My voice was growing hoarse, and I had to clear my throat several times before I could go on. “If you want me to leave, I’ll go. Take the route we found up to the surface and never come back. But not before I find a way into Central Processing to save my friend, and avenge my brother—and get rid of Prometheus. I’ve been tortured the way he tortures Renewables. I’m not letting it happen to anybody else. I’ll go by myself if I have to.”
I fell silent. Under the weight of all their stares, I could feel myself starting to sweat in the warm damp that pervaded Lethe. My muscles were still stiff and sore, and my arm arched. I longed to sit in one of the empty chairs at the edge of the table closest to me, but I knew I couldn’t.
I’d go alone into Central Processing if I had to, but if I wanted any chance of reaching Prometheus before the Eagles overwhelmed me, I was going to need help. I thought of Oren and the way he always stood when hissing orders at me in the wilderness—strong, tall, sure. Competent. I willed the Renewables in the room to see that in me. My plan was a good one, and that I was something new and different didn’t change that. If anything, it gave us the edge we’d need to win.
“Do you have anything else to add?” asked Parker. He sounded tired too. One of his hands was bandaged, but he seemed otherwise unhurt—on the outside, anyway. He was gazing at the table in front of me and not meeting my eyes.
I swallowed. “No.”
“Then Marco will escort you back to your quarters, where you will stay until we’ve made a decision about what to do with you.”
I expected Marco to complain, to show his distaste at being given this task—it was his way, the show of petulance that kept him aloof. Instead he went silently, his expression stony, his muscles tense. I could sense power gathered all around him, at the ready, and I was reminded abruptly of what Wesley said—that he was the strongest Renewable they had. They were using their best to keep watch on me.
He walked me back to my room in silence. I strained to listen as we walked away, but I could hear nothing from the War Room. Marco had mistrusted me—or at least doubted my abilities—from the very beginning, but I wasn’t reading any smug satisfaction at having been proven right. He walked just ahead of me, jaw clenched.
When we reached my room, he waited outside as I took the last few steps into the tiny space. I expected him to slam the door in my face, but instead he stood there silently for a long moment, his hand on the doorframe, white-knuckled.
Finally, he said shortly, “I volunteered for that mission, you know.”
I nodded. Wesley had told me.
“Do you know why?”
“No,” I whispered. “Why?”
He sucked in a lungful of air through his nose, bracing. “Because I wanted to believe you. I wanted you to be right, even though most of me was sure you weren’t.” His voice was tight and strained. “You were the girl in the journal. You were supposed to—you were supposed to be our salvation.” I couldn’t speak, the force of his emotion and his disappointment cutting me like a blade.
He struggled with himself for a long moment and then said, quietly, “At least with Prometheus, we know who our enemy is.” He grasped the door handle, stepping back. “I don’t know what you are.”
CHAPTER 20
For hours, there was nothing. No word from Wesley or anyone else from the War Room, no food brought. I still hadn’t seen Oren or Olivia since coming back from the mission, and even Marco failed to return. I examined the lock as best I could by feel, with my second sight. It was solid iron, and for anyone else it’d be impossible to magic. I had no idea if they knew I could, but either way it made no difference. It’d take a lot more magic than what I had now for me to do anything at all to the iron lock.
Though I’d felt fine in my room just hours before, knowing it was now a prison cell made my skin itch, my mind shudder. I’d been locked up now more times than I could easily count, and I was tired of letting it happen. I wasn’t meek little Lark Ainsley anymore, the child who was content to wait for Kris to slip her a key in the Institute. Too much had happened since then for me to let them keep me here.
I ran my hands over the door. The lock might have been iron, but the rest of the door was some sort of copper alloy. The door—and more importantly, the hinges—were as susceptible to magic as anything else. If I wrenched the hinges free, the rest of the door would give way.
I could get out on my own, if I had to. If they decided I was too dangerous to have fighting alongside them, then I could fight my way through them.
I was resting my forehead against the door, exploring its structure with my mind and searching for invisible stress fractures in the metal, when something in the air beyond it shifted. The shadow in me recognized it before my thoughts did. The darkness was getting stronger. It recognized its own kind.
Oren.
The lock clanked open and the door swung inward. Oren looked as exhausted as I felt, but his head lifted a little as he saw me. He stepped inside and let the door thud closed after him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice rough. His eyes raked over me, taking in the bandage visible at the collar of my shirt. I must’ve looked pretty ragged, because his face tightened.
“For now.”
“You didn’t tell them about me.” It wasn’t a question, though his voice sounded uncertain.
I smiled a little, sinking down on the edge of my bed. “No point in us both being locked up.”
He leaned against the wall in front of me, stepping finally into the light so I could get a good look at him. There were a number of new bruises visible on his arm below his sleeve, and
on his jaw—and a cut on his cheekbone where a blow had split the skin.
“What happened to you?” I breathed, my heart tightening.
He blinked, then lifted a hand to his face as though he’d forgotten about his injuries. “Oh. Olivia happened.”
Olivia did this? To Oren?
“I thought you said she couldn’t take you,” I said slowly.
“She’s—upset.” He glanced away from me, eyes flicking from the wall behind me to the door. “She and Nina are close.” There was something soft, painful, in his voice. Her pain was hurting him. Oren cared for her.
There was no end to the damage I’d done in that one, fleeting moment. A tiny part of me almost wished I’d just let the shadows overrun us all. I swallowed down the sick feeling in my stomach. “She’s taking it out on the wrong person.”
Oren shook his head. “She just needed an outlet. She met Nina when her brother was taken by Prometheus—Nina was the one who helped her through it.”
I remembered the quiet warmth in Nina’s touch, and understood. “I wish I could talk to her. Apologize, somehow. But I doubt they’d let me out of here.”
“That’s actually why I came,” Oren said, gaze finding mine again. I was struck anew with how much he’d changed since we’d been in Lethe. It was like the animal side of him had been . . . not tamed, exactly. Harnessed. He was still strength and confidence and sharp intelligence, but he was in control of himself. He didn’t jump anymore at sudden noises or tense whenever anyone new walked into the room.
Distracted, I almost missed what he said next.
“They’re going ahead with the mission.”
My breath caught and my hands curled around the edge of the mattress, my muscles suddenly going tense. “My mission?”
He nodded. “They asked me what I thought, since I’d be the one facing a death sentence if something goes wrong—for the Eagle’s murder. I told them it was a good plan.”
Shadowlark Page 19
