Alice frowned into the distance, distracted. ‘Bazal . . .’ She trailed away, and her attention drifted back to Jude. ‘What were you saying?’
‘August thinks he’s related to the architect that designed the London sewers.’
‘I can well believe it,’ she said. ‘His mind is a cesspit.’
Jude grinned up at her, and some of the nerves churning up her stomach eased.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
‘Nope.’
‘Good. I’ve come to realize that being ready is overrated. What you need is adrenaline and the ability to think fast and react faster.’
Jude spun one wheel and his chair turned sharply in the opposite direction. He shot down the street, wheels blurred as they turned circles, and the shock of his sudden disappearance almost caused her to call after him. She bit down on her lip to silence herself, put her head down and moved off in the same direction. However, where Jude crossed the road and went straight on, she took a right turn, putting the Abbey Library on the left of her field of vision.
She’d been right about Runners swarming the area. Behind the abbey was the enclosed, cobbled yard that had once surrounded an immense piece of thick glass. The top third of the Summer Tree’s crown had burst through it, smashing the ceiling into glittering fragments. A metal safety barrier now circled the rising tree, manned by Runners wearing weary expressions. Small groups of bystanders gathered nearby, peering over at the branches reaching upwards while the Runners regarded them cautiously.
Somewhere nearby, Jude and the others would be settling into their positions; they might even be watching her now. It was tempting to scour the crowd, seeking out their faces for some silent reassurance, but that might only draw unwanted attention. So instead, Alice slid her gaze away from the busy square. Face set determinedly forward, she trudged along the street just across from their cordon. Just as Crowley had told her to, she found a suitable unused porch twenty metres or so from the corner. It was the entrance to a boarded-up shop: Horrocks’s Horticulturals. She stepped neatly off the pavement and into the shadows. And there she waited.
Alice ran a finger over her bottom molars, testing them for cracks. She’d been grinding her teeth solidly for at least an hour, and either her jawbone or her enamel was going to pay the price. The constant tension had driven harmless flutters from her stomach and replaced them with a tight cramping; it felt like her intestines were being wrung out like a dishcloth. She wasn’t sure she could wait much longer. If she hadn’t been alone, it might have been easier. But this constant waiting in the dark was taking its toll. She wanted to leave the doorway; it was musty and the sharp tang of urine scented the air. Still. She supposed that August had the worst of it. By now, he would be somewhere below her, huddled alone in the sewers. Assuming they’d avoided the Runners, Sasha and Crowley were around the other side of the square, as close to the cordon as they could get without being visible. And Jude wouldn’t be far – he was aiming to get to the opposite side of the square, though with his magnetized ball bearings he could operate blindly in a way Sasha couldn’t.
Alice tugged the neck of her jumper over her nose and breathed in the warm – but cleaner – air. She slouched back against the wall and stared out at the bright pavement, watching footsteps march past. Though her eyes were open, she slipped into a dull trance and was almost dozing when the first bang rocked the square.
Jude! Alice’s spine snapped upright and she bolted out to the pavement. People walking on the streets had paused mid-step; the Runners had turned slowly to stare at each other. But it hadn’t hit home yet. There was a syrupy confusion in the air, but no desperate panic. And again, Jude! Alice braced herself and set off at speed. Don’t run, she reprimanded herself; running would draw attention. She slowed her hurtling canter to a business-like pace, swiftly navigating the road and the bystanders until she was on the outskirts of the square.
She had one foot on the kerb when the second thunderous explosion burst. Alice slammed her hands over her ears, wincing as the sound reverberated around the streets. Then a metallic vibration rang out, followed by a series of thudding booms. The last remnants of the shattered atrium glass broke loose from the ceiling and rained down into the hollow abbey. The leaves of the Summer Tree trembled, the branches creaked . . . and pandemonium struck.
‘Code zero, code zero!’ a Runner screamed in her face.
Alice backed away and circled round again when he raced off, yelling to his colleagues. Navy uniforms shot in all directions. Bystanders rushed towards doorways, shoving each other aside to dash into the safety of the void. And amidst the ruckus, the water pipes that ran under the street ruptured, sending fountains of gushing water rocketing across the cobbles. Well done, August and Sasha ‘Uncontrollable Destruction’ Hamilton.
Come on, Alice urged. Evacuate the building. She caught her breath when a troop of Runners poured around the side of the abbey itself, scurrying across the square. Yes!
‘Code zero!’ a uniformed woman shouted over the slow whine of an air-raid siren. ‘Clear the area!’ The cobbled ground rumbled again and panic widened the Runner’s eyes. She dashed across the road, corralling the few Rookery citizens standing around, too slack-jawed for self-preservation.
Alice scrambled to the side wall of the Abbey Library and threw one last glance over her shoulder. No one had noticed Jude’s tiny steel ball bearings rolling across the square towards the Summer Tree’s crown. Alice bit back a grin and darted around the corner.
She hesitated briefly at the entrance to the building. Runners had surged out of this door only moments ago, following Risdon’s instructions to evacuate in the event of the Summer Tree’s growth. But what if some had ignored his orders? Her lips pressed tightly together, she squared her shoulders and hurried through the entrance. It didn’t matter if there were Runners inside; she had one chance to get in and she was going to take it.
When she reached the first set of narrow, winding stairs, she sat on the bottom step and whispered into the gloom.
‘Kuu?’
Her nightjar appeared with a nervous flutter.
‘Bird’s-eye view,’ she murmured.
Her vision jumped and her body staggered. No longer viewing the world from the safety of her own cranium, she observed her physical self from Kuu’s higher vantage point. With one flick of the head in the direction of Alice’s body, the bird arced sideways. Kuu’s tight, controlled flight blurred the roughly hewn walls as she swooped around the corner. Dark corridors led off from the stairwell. Off-limits: they would take her nightjar too far from her body. The shadows receded and the stairs opened into the vast, bright atrium. Kuu held back. Wings flapping, suspended in the air like a spider on a silken string, she darted her head around the stone wall and back again. There were four Runners on the upper floor. The staircase that spiralled around the tree was clear, but they would spot Alice as soon as she approached. She could cloak herself against three, maybe, but four at once would be a struggle – and there could be others on lower floors.
Kuu leaned out into the atrium again, imprinting the scene in Alice’s mind. The Runners were jumpy. A spat had broken out, and one appeared to be threatening to leave while the others demanded he stay.
Shit. If he leaves now, he’ll find me on the stairs.
One of the Runners was absolutely still, holding a boulder in one hand, his jaw clenched. Another was pacing and clicking his fingers anxiously, producing a bloom of fire on his thumb while he snapped at the others. A third was clutching a granite spear and fighting to keep hold of the fourth Runner, who was ready to run. At random intervals, all four swatted at the air with the panic of someone striking out at an attack of wasps.
The nightjar’s head darted upwards. The steel girders holding up the glass ceiling had begun to come apart. A third of them had slipped loose and fallen, smashing onto the courtyard flags below, causing the deafening banging. The Runners had assumed it was because the
growing tree had dislodged them, when in fact it was Jude.
He had sent hundreds of ball bearings rolling towards the shattered glass, and they had attached themselves in magnetized clumps to the girders. Placed just right, with Jude’s will and Crowley’s combustion, the ball bearings had put pressure on the weakest points, ripping them from their bindings. Not all – just a few. Just enough to suggest the tree had damaged them. Just enough to send the Runners scrambling from the abbey. The other girders had been left in position in case some of the Runners disobeyed Risdon’s instructions and stayed behind to protect the tree – like the fractious four who remained.
With a last swoop, Kuu saw the girders now glowing like metal heated in a forge. Stage two. Nearly ready. Crowley and Jude had willed a blazing heat into the ball bearings – and the heat had spread. Alice needed to be in position.
Kuu glided silently back up the stairwell, the cord linking her to Alice glowing brighter as she closed the distance between them. Alice was sitting on the steps, her head leaning against the wall, when Kuu landed on her knee. The bird nudged Alice’s hand with her beak and Alice snapped upright, inhaling sharply as her vision leapt back into her own head. She glanced down at Kuu and gave her a shaky pat before shoving herself up from the steps and hurrying to the stairwell’s exit.
Alice aligned herself with the edge of the wall, carefully peering out for reassurance that the four upper-floor Runners had remained in place. She glanced up at the scorching steel girders.
The air sizzled. A plume of steam spewed downwards into the atrium. Alice’s pulse raced and her hands shook with anticipation. This was it. The Runners leapt back from the stone banister in shock and confusion as the steam billowed. But it wasn’t enough, Alice realized. Had August and Sasha run out of water?
There was a wet roar and then a gushing waterfall poured through the shattered glass ceiling. Spilling from the square outside, it cascaded over the tree, over the steel girders . . . and as it hit the hot metal, it erupted into a blast of warm vapour. A pillow of steam rolled into the atrium, turning the air grey and impenetrable. The entire space filled with it, fogged and indistinct – perfect for someone who didn’t want to be seen.
Alice leapt to action, dashing out across the floor. She flattened herself against the banister, trying to pierce the haze for some sign of the Runners, now shouting in panic, and the possibility of others below.
Her steps sure and swift, she hurried to the top of the spiral staircase. After a pause to catch her breath, with one hand gripping the banister tightly she ploughed down the stairs.
At the bottom, she stepped carefully over the uneven, root-damaged flagstones. Her feet slid into cracks and sloping pockets between the stones. Now would be a bad time to twist her ankle. She needed to keep open the possibility of a quick escape, because it was likely the Runners had set traps around the tree.
Her thoughts drifted away like steam. She smiled and tipped her head back as the glow from a thousand fireflies danced closer and warmed her face. The swarm hung in the air above, floating like a luminous cloud. Were they one of the Runners’ traps? Alice reached up her hand and they drew closer. She turned her palm over and their sparks left trails of lightning against her skin. These were no threat to her. They had never once hurt her, and they never would. Mielikki’s blood ran through her veins. This tree was hers, and they had no need to defend it against her. She wondered if she had the power to command them – perhaps to chase off any remaining Runners – but dismissed the thought quickly. The fireflies were too savage. She flicked her fingers and they drifted off, a dim glow growing fuzzy in the steam.
Alice moved forward, examining the base of the massive trunk and its roots. She was searching for some sign of a cord, a broken link to the Rookery Stone trailing in the roots. Something ethereal, or ghostly, or—
Her heart leapt against her ribs. Her breath came in dizzying fits and starts. She saw it draping down the back of the Summer Tree, tangled in the leafy branches, so thin it was almost translucent. Alice stumbled towards it, barely believing her eyes. She reached out a trembling finger. Transfixed by the gently pulsing twine, she ignored the flutter of pale wings overhead and the shriek of a bird. Not now, Kuu.
But it wasn’t Kuu.
A white bird, its leg looped to a glowing, incandescent cord, swooped out from the cloud of grey steam. Alice’s arms fell away from the cord, and she stared at it in shock. A nightjar was tied to the tree. The cord didn’t belong to the Summer Tree. It belonged to this bird, lashed to the trunk. A white nightjar. So like her own.
In a daze, she reached out to stroke the bird. Its eyes darted to hers, shining darkly like polished black marbles. The throbbing cord cinched its leg, backlighting its feathers with pulses of dazzling light. Alice stared, entranced. Amidst the brightness, the bird’s dark gaze drew her attention and locked on hers. Around her, the atrium flickered and vanished. Her vision tunnelled and she mentally pitched forward, falling towards the nightjar’s black stare. She sank into its mind, the weight of her presence dispersing memories. Visions shot past her, the echoes of sobs and laughter and screams fading into the darkness. She screwed her eyes shut and inhaled slowly. And when her eyes snapped open, Alice found herself somewhere else entirely: in a memory.
Whose mind was this?
Alice shivered. She was someone else – not Alice – and the room was unbearably hot.
The chapel had been dressed with silks and roses. He watched her. The chancellor. She was smiling and complimenting the beautiful decor, but her lips were stretched just a little too wide and her eyes just a little too glassy. She clearly hated it. He allowed himself an inward smirk. Aviarists were usually good liars; she was clearly the exception to the rule. Still, she was correct. The richly elegant silks were gaudy against the chapel’s simple arches and pillars. The vaulted nave might have been an extravagant focal point, as it was in other chapels, but this one was plain and lacking in grandeur. He greatly admired it. The White Tower chapel’s simple, solid Romanesque architecture was infinitely preferable to the ostentatious baroque of St Paul’s Cathedral. He raised his eyes to examine the triforium gallery, the arches like something gouged from stone. It was beautiful in its simplicity. The silks were a poor attempt to make the space opulent, to change its very character.
He reached out to stroke one of the roses twined around the pillars. The petals dulled and crisped in his hands before falling away, scattering over the stone floor and leaving the flower head bare. Better. Strip everything back to its essence and you are left with the truth.
She stepped out from behind the pillar, her boots crunching the petals, and his back straightened in surprise at being caught off guard.
‘Good evening,’ she said, amusement dancing in her eyes. ‘I’m Chancellor Westergard, and I must inform you that we don’t usually divest the chapel of its decoration until the end of the Council’s annual banquet.’ She glanced over her shoulder in pantomime and leaned in close to whisper loudly, ‘If you vandalize the chapel, you might well be sent to the tower dungeons. Apparently, the chancellor is a real stickler for law and order.’
She winked at him, and he took in her plain dress and cloak. A gleaming, ceremonial chain of office was draped around her shoulders. Amidst the garish costumes of the aristocratic peacocks here, who couldn’t hope to reach her status, she was beautiful in her simplicity. He smiled down at her.
Leda. Alice latched on to the thought. Was this a memory of the night her biological parents had met? Like Reid’s memories of the adoption, Alice was viewing the scene as an actor onstage, not as a member of the audience. The main actor. And then the chapel dissolved like sand in the tide, and a new memory rose up under Alice’s feet.
Pregnant. No. It couldn’t be. It was simply not possible.
He stared at her in horror. He had dreamed of living, but this . . . this was how dying must feel.
‘Listen to me,’ Leda begged, pulling at his limp hands, placing them on her abdomen. ‘T
his is a miracle. You’ve created life. We’ve created life, together.’
He snatched his trembling hands back. She didn’t understand. This baby, this monster, would destroy her. And he had done this. He had ruined her.
‘I’m keeping this baby,’ she whispered. Then, stronger, ‘I’m keeping her. All my life, I’ve weighed up risks and taken chances others haven’t. I’ve given every ounce of my energy to my public office, to fighting for others. And now I’m taking this risk. She’s a miracle and she’ll do miraculous things.’
He was a block of stone and her words chipped away at his edges, fragmenting his body and carving away at the pieces of him. They hadn’t created a life; they had created death. This child would kill her. It would be a hungry, grasping thing. When it was pushed into the world, it would seek out the only source of warmth it could find: Leda’s life. The child would slice her cord the moment it was born. Its first breath would be her last. The shame and grief hollowed him out. He had given Leda a piece of himself that would consume her.
His love had killed her.
She could not keep this child.
The room disintegrated and Alice watched as the determined face of Leda Westergard blurred and washed away. Colours spiralled around Alice, a bright smear, disorienting her. Light-headed, she fought to focus as the space settled. This time it was dark. Leda’s voice was a harsh rasp in the shadows of a doorway.
‘Stay away! I know what you mean to do. You will not kill this child – not to save me!’
He surged closer. ‘Leda, please,’ he whispered. Desperation was burrowing beneath his skin.
She swiped her hand through the air and a clutch of fast-growing weeds burst from the cobblestones and lunged for him, whipping him off his feet. He clattered onto the street, his knees smashing against the stone.
He wouldn’t stop. She must know it. He wouldn’t stop until he’d removed the threat hanging over her life like the sword of Damocles. The child would have to die. Even if Leda hated him for it. He didn’t need her forgiveness. He only needed her to live.
The Rookery Page 36