Shadowlark (19 page)

Frantic, I bent my head, forcing Nina’s mouth open so I could press my lips to hers and force a lungful of air into her. Her chest rose, then fell as I pulled away. I tried again, and again—then felt across her chest for her breast bone, thumping at it the way I’d seen Wesley restart the Eagle’s heart.

We’re just machines.
Parker’s voice came over the sounds of battle.
Machines that run on magic.
And machines sometimes needed a jump-start.

I kept at it, some part of my mind realizing that the sounds of battle were waning—there were no more howls, fewer shouts. I could hear the wet, horrible sounds of blades entering flesh, but I recognized them as knives—not claws, not teeth. The tide had turned, the hiding Renewables had made the difference.

But I couldn’t spare the time to see, growing lightheaded and dizzy as I kept blowing oxygen into Nina’s lungs, willing them to remember how to work.

Please, no. I didn’t choose this. I’m never choosing this again.

Dimly I realized that the others were standing around me, watching.

“I saw what she did.” It was Marco’s voice, hushed and terrified. But that wasn’t right—the shadows had been beaten. There was no reason for him to be afraid now. “I saw her—I saw her tear the life out of Nina.”

“No.” That was Parker. “It can’t—it’s impossible. She’d have to be . . . she’d have to be empty inside.”

She’d have to be no more than a shadow herself.

I gasped for a full breath, the air sobbing in and out of me as I thumped my hand down on Nina’s chest again.

This time her body jerked. Her lungs expanded in a rush—on their own—and I half-fell back, staring, uncomprehending. At some point her eyes had rolled up into her head, and now her eyelids were mostly lowered, flickering lightly. She was unconscious—but she was alive.

I groaned, crawling back away from her until I could collapse, my arms shaking, my face pressed into the freezing snow. I felt hands reach down to pull me up, gentle. A voice I didn’t know said something in my ear—only I did know it. It wasn’t Marco’s, it wasn’t Parker’s. It was farther away than that. A more distant memory.

I struggled to focus, letting the hands prop me up as a face swam into focus in front of mine.

“It is you,” the voice whispered. I saw brown eyes gazing into mine, and for a wild moment my brain tried to make the face become Basil’s, and my eyesight warred with memory.

But it wasn’t Basil—the eyes were brown, yes, but lighter than Basil’s, and he was older than Basil would be now, and his hair a different color. Nevertheless, I knew him.

“Dorian?” I gasped.

The leader of the Iron Wood cupped my face in his hands. “We found you,” he whispered, hope and joy on his haggard, bloodstained features. “We’re saved. Finally.”

“We’ve been following your trail for weeks.” Dorian leaned against the wall, his face looking worn and drawn in the flickering torchlight. “For a while we were following—” He broke off, guilt flashing in his eyes.

“You were following messages from Tansy,” I finished for him.

Dorian cleared his throat. “Yes. But the messages stopped abruptly, and we were afraid that you’d either discovered she was sending them and had left her behind, or that something had happened to the both of you. Where is Tansy?”

My eyes fell. “She’s gone. Captured. Probably powering Prometheus’s machines as we speak.” I swallowed, sick to my stomach.

“I see.” There was pain, genuine pain, in Dorian’s voice. “Lark, I’m sorry for how this has happened.”

I turned away from him, unable to look at him any longer. Instead my eyes fell on Nina’s motionless form, half-propped up on Marco’s lap. She was still breathing but showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Parker was with them—they kept their distance from the Renewables from the Iron Wood. They kept their distance from me. While I watched, Parker glanced up. His eyes met mine, and in them there was no sign of the gentle affection, the warm assurance I’d come to value so much from him. There was nothing of my father there. There was mistrust, and fear, and betrayal—the hurt was so tangible that my throat closed and I sank down to the ground, averting my gaze from him as well.

We had to get Nina back to the resistance hideout, to healers who might be able to help her. This pause was only to light enough torches for everyone, to wrap up our injured, to get ready to make the trek through the tunnels, going the long way back to the other side of the city. There would be no cutting through the open city undetected this time—not bloody and carrying an unconscious body. Not with a dozen Renewables who’d never had to learn to shield themselves from detection.

As Marco and Parker picked up Nina’s unconscious body and led the way, Dorian fell into step beside me. I wanted nothing more than for him to leave, to let me think, to make sense of what was happening. My two worlds, my two havens, colliding—the Iron Wood and the rebel fighters of Lethe.

But he spoke, scrambling my thoughts. “Don’t you want to know why we had Tansy follow you?”

“I know why,” I spat back. “Because you wanted to make sure you knew where I was, in case you ever wanted to use me as a weapon again.”

“That’s not—” He paused, ducking under a low, protruding stone. “That’s not entirely true. Yes, we wanted to know where you are. But only because the barrier you created, the one that kept us safe from the machines and the soldiers your city sent—it’s failing.”

Torn between Kris’s demands that I join with the architects of the Institute again, help to plunder the Iron Wood’s power in exchange for my freedom, and Dorian’s plans to use me as a weapon to destroy my city’s forces, I’d chosen a third option—I’d created a barrier preventing anyone from destroying anyone else. I knew what would happen if that barrier fell. The architects, led by Gloriette herself, would help themselves to the Renewables in the Iron Wood, enslaving them to power their machines.

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.”

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.”

“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 Marco, 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.