The Severed Tower (52 page)

Ravan smiled. “It’s still better odds than you had two weeks ago, and you won’t get near that good again. Besides, we had a deal, you and I.” Her stare drifted downward, to the half-finished image on his wrist.

“I break deals all the time,” Holt said half seriously.

She looked back up at him with her sapphire eyes. “No, you don’t.”

A shuffling outside the door broke their attention. Mira stood in the hall. The sight of her, watching him and Ravan, caused a twinge of unease.

“Sorry,” Mira said. “I can come back…”

“That’s okay, Red. I’m done,” Ravan replied. She looked back at Holt as she turned and stepped into the hall. “Think about it.”

Holt watched her disappear, waited until the sound of her footsteps faded, and then looked at Mira. She wore her feelings much more on her sleeve than Ravan did. “Hi,” he said.

Mira smiled a little. “What was that about?”

Holt turned and stepped back into the room. “The usual. Old debts.”

“She wants you to go back with her?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Is that what you want?”

“Not particularly, I like my head where it is.”

“But she thinks you can fix things. With the Menagerie. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

“There’s no fixing anything with Tiberius.” He reached the end of his room, near the window overlooking the strange, twisted streets, all of it eerily contrasted by the bright sunshine. Those two things didn’t belong with each other. Like a lot of things in his life, now that he thought about it.

Mira stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. In spite of everything, the silence between them was still thick. Holt hated it. The apprehension that existed whenever they were close now, but it was what it was.

“Where’s Zoey?” he asked.

“At the burial. No one except her and the White Helix were allowed, but I watched from a roof. After they were done … she started cleansing them.”

“From the Tone?”

Mira nodded. “All of them, one at a time. There were thousands, Holt, waiting their turn, and more are still coming in. I just wish I knew what we’re supposed to do
now.
”

“I don’t have the first idea,” Holt admitted. “I guess we just keep following Zoey’s lead.” Holt hesitated, looking at Mira. She was unkempt but still beautiful. Her hair had grown even longer now, stretching past the back of her shoulders. He liked her with longer hair, he decided. “I wanted to tell you I … don’t want it to be weird between us. We don’t have to try to be what we were. Or … almost were. You know what I mean. But we shouldn’t go our separate ways. Not now. Zoey needs us—maybe more than ever—and we need her.”

Mira just stood there silently. He hadn’t expected anything else, really. After all, what was there to say? She didn’t owe him anything, not anymore. God, he was tired. “Look, I need to close my eyes, and I’m sure—”

“You believed in me,” she interrupted him softly.

Holt blinked. “What?”

“When no one else did,” Mira continued, staring at him. “I would have quit without you. It’s what got me through the Vortex. It’s what’s gotten me through everything that came before, I just never saw it.”

Holt stared back, unsure what to say or think. All the same, he felt his heart beating faster. He watched her move to him, slowly reach down and take his left hand, running her fingers across the unfinished tattoo there.

“This used to be something that bothered me,” she said, “but it doesn’t now. Now it’s proof you really are who I thought you were, and I don’t think you should cover it up anymore.”

The words had more impact on him than he expected. Slowly, Holt ran his fingers through hers. He half-expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.

“You asked me something and I never answered,” Mira said, looking up from their hands and back into his eyes. “You asked if what happened at the dam meant something. If it mattered to me like it did to you. I should have answered, but I was … scared then. I’m not anymore. It
did
matter, Holt. It meant more than something. It meant
everything,
and it still does.”

Something about the way her voice gently broke at those last words pulled Holt forward like a magnet, his exhaustion forgotten. He wrapped his arms around Mira and pulled her to him, and their lips found and moved over one another. It was a release more intense than any he had ever known, and he could feel in the way Mira desperately clung against him that it was just as intense for her.

She gasped as he lifted her up and off the floor, their mouths and hands roaming wildly, carrying her to his cot and laying her on top of it, the heat from their bodies melding together and slowly intensifying until the world melted away and there was nothing left but them.

46.
REPERCUSSIONS

ZOEY STARED AT THE RUINS
below from her perch at the top of the tall building. The White Helix had buried Gideon and now they filled the streets. The brightness of the world, now drenched in sunlight, startled them. The dark oppression of the Strange Lands was normal, and all this light and warmth was unsettling.

She had cleansed all of them—so many, one after the other, that time lost its meaning. She didn’t know how long it took, but she stayed until every White Helix was free of the Tone. Whatever else they felt for her, there was gratitude now, loyalty.

Mira sat next to her, feet dangling over the edge. From her, Zoey sensed old emotions. Ones that had been lost in recent days. Mira’s mind shifted occasionally to images of her and Holt, intertwined and lost, and it made Zoey smile in spite of everything. She hoped they could hold on to that through what was to come.

Zoey told Mira almost everything she had learned in the Tower. Only the details about her final choice, about the bargain she struck with fate, she left out. She would learn that soon enough.

“I still don’t get one thing,” Mira said when Zoey finished. “Why are you so important to the Assembly? Why do they keep chasing you?”

It was a question Zoey had asked herself, the biggest question really, the only one that remained, and she had her theories. In their conversation, the Tower had never
once
mentioned her abilities, how she could control machines or feel the emotions and memories of other people. It confirmed for her that those things didn’t come from the Tower at all.

She remembered the vision the Oracle had shown her, that horrible, black room and the blue-and-white shape that buried itself inside her and the pain that followed. It wasn’t until then that she had first felt the Feelings. The ones that rose whenever she called, and gave her aid.

If
the
Feelings really were what she now suspected, then her path was clear. It was why she had used the Tower to arrange things the way she had. In the back of her mind, she wondered again if she had done the right thing. Would it have been better to die with the Tower, to not cheat destiny? What she had risked by making her choice, she didn’t know yet, but she
did
know what she had gained.

Zoey looked at Mira, felt her emotions for Holt all over again. They were both alive. They could go on and be happy. All it meant was Zoey had to find a way, in whatever was to come, to make sure it stayed that way, and there was only one place she could do that now. She was starting to feel the weight of her choices.

“I haven’t thanked you, you know,” Mira said softly, staring at the world ticking by below, “for saving us.”

Zoey could feel her gratitude. That and something else. Guilt. She realized it came from Mira’s belief that Zoey had done something she could never repay, and she desperately wanted to. Not because she didn’t like owing people, but because Zoey meant so much to her.

Zoey reached out and rested her tiny hand on Mira’s.

Mira’s hand squeezed hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mira.” She meant it. It made everything that was to come that much harder. “I need to share something with you.” Mira looked at her, unsure. “It’s something you’ll need, and you’ll know why when you do.” Her grip on Mira’s hand tightened. “Close your eyes.” Zoey felt Mira’s uncertainty, but she did as Zoey said.

Zoey closed her own eyes, then reached for the Feelings and they responded, rising up from the depths. They saw what she intended, and for the first time since they had been a part of her, she felt dismay from them. Revulsion even, but she didn’t care. It was the price the Feelings would have to pay if they wanted what was to come. And she had a feeling they desperately did.

Golden energy formed and flickered like flames, slowly spreading up Zoey’s and Mira’s arms, leaving a trail of tingling warmth as it moved. She could feel Mira’s trepidation growing.

“It’s okay, Mira,” she assured her. “It’s going to hurt, but only a little.”

Mira’s mind opened to hers. Zoey saw the infinity that it and all minds represented, stretching out in an unending field of memories. She pushed forward into it, wading through thoughts of herself and of Holt and Ben, drifting past memories of her father, finding a very specific part. Zoey reached for that part and wrapped herself around it. Mira shuddered. The pain seared Zoey’s mind the same as hers. She hated hurting Mira, but there was no other choice.

That piece of Mira’s mind unlocked, and when it did Zoey sharpened it, made it stronger, more resilient. It would never be anything like her own abilities, Zoey knew, but it would be enough.

Then Zoey pulled back and out. The golden energy faded. The Feelings receded into the dark, and Mira and Zoey both opened their eyes.

“What … what was
that?
” Mira stared at her.

Zoey squeezed her hand one last time, then pulled it away. “Now you’re ready, Mira.”

“Zoey, what did you just
do?
”

“Can you feel them yet? They’re close now.”

A new emotion formed within Mira. It started small but grew fast, fueled by instinct. Mira was starting to guess the truth. That Zoey had set something in motion, something horrible, and it was quickly approaching …

“Zoey … what did you—”

In the distance, a series of rapid-fire pops and bangs echoed through the air. Mira turned to look, but Zoey didn’t need to. The silver walkers were firing to the south, outside the ruins, flinging streams of plasma bolts into the air.

“I’m sorry, Mira,” Zoey said. “I … made a deal, kind of. A trade. It was the only way to make things right.”

Mira’s eyes widened. Just visible to the south was a flight of Assembly ships, two dozen maybe, and these were not silver or green-and-orange. They were
blue-and-white,
and streaming toward them.

Zoey could feel the fear from Mira then. Not just fear of those ships—but fear because she could
feel
them. Just as Zoey did. The sensations bleeding off them. Horrible feelings of victory and elation, of long roads finally traversed.

“Zoey, what have you done?” Her voice was horrified. The roar of engines filled the sky now. The White Helix stirred nervously below. “Tell me what you did so we can
stop
it!”

Zoey shook her head sadly. “We can’t, Mira. Not this time.”

Plasma cannons flashed above them, and flames blossomed on the ground and out the sides of buildings as the blue-and-white ships advanced. The White Helix below flipped and dodged. Crystal spear points streaked into the air, a few punching through the ships in bursts of colored flame, but it wouldn’t be enough. Things were set now.

“Pet the Max for me, okay?” Zoey asked Mira. She was almost out of time. “Scratch behind his ears, he likes that the best.”

“Zoey!” Mira moved for her—and then they were both blown in separate directions as explosions rocked the roof. Zoey hit and rolled and stared up at the ships, their engines drowning out everything.

From one of them came a flash. Zoey flinched.

There was a violent crunching as the Vulture’s claw slammed down around her. She had just enough time to look through the blades at Mira, vainly struggling to get to her feet, to reach the little girl, to stop this from happening, but it was too late.

“Good-bye, Mira,” Zoey whispered.

Then she screamed as the claw yanked her up into the sky and the flight of airships powered away, leaving Bismarck and Mira and Holt and Max and everyone and everything behind.

Scion,
the chilling projections came. Zoey shut her eyes tightly.
You are home.

47.
CITADEL

MIRA LUNGED OUT THE DOOR
and into the street. Her head was still dazed and foggy, and it wasn’t from the attack. What had Zoey
done
to her? She had
felt
those ships approach. It had been like sharp, cutting whispers in her mind, but without language, just sensation. It felt like she had heard them
thinking
 …

Mira shoved through the crowd, ignoring the flames and the yells of pain and shock. The gunships were gone, but they had left their mark. A burning building collapsed nearby. White Helix carried injured friends to hurriedly erected aid stations. The Menagerie were trying to lift a crumpled, warped sedan off where it had trapped someone.

“Mira!” Holt shouted, and she spotted him pushing through the crowd. Max was with him, staring with anxiety at all the chaos. They met next to a bent station wagon, and she could see the look of worry on Holt’s face. “Where’s Zoey?”

The question hit her like a hammer. She hadn’t let herself think about it, had only concentrated on the immediate. Focusing, grabbing her things, getting down to the street, putting one foot in front of the other.

Now she saw it all over again. Zoey’s last words. The explosion that divided them. The sight of her being ripped away, her screams. Zoey had been there one second, then gone the next. It had all happened so fast.

But that was no excuse. It was
her
fault.

Holt took a surprised step back as Mira swung her pack and shattered what was left of the car’s rear window. Everyone nearby stopped what they were doing and stared.

It only made her feel worse.