Lark Ascending

by Meagan Spooner

  Eve’s thoughts pulled out abruptly. “Like a parasite.”

  “Listen to me.” I turned toward her, bracing myself for the madness in her eyes, the fear and hatred and despair that threatened to pull me through the thin veil between our minds and down into the dark with her. “You asked me once what my alternative was. That until I had a solution, yours was the best one. This is that solution, Eve. No one has to die.”

  “And the magic, where does it go? Here? With them?” Eve glanced at the half dome in the floor, lips curling.

  “With all of us,” I replied firmly. “We’ll use it to care for this city, and for Lethe, where the other Renewables are.”

  “This Machine,” she whispered, her eyes still on the dome. “I wonder what would happen if we were to use it against them?”

  My pulse quickened. “No, Eve,” I said sharply. “It’d kill these people, if you tried to harvest them instead of the Renewables. It’s impossible, anyway.”

  Eve glanced up, her eyes meeting mine. “They are children, playing with things they’ll never understand. Not the way we do, you and I. They say to magic iron is impossible.”

  I tried to gather my thoughts to respond, to find some other way of reaching her. Before I could find it, movement behind her caught my eye. I had only an instant to register the red-clad form of Gloriette lunging for Eve’s back, her hand upraised and clutching a bloodied shard of glass from the shattered tendrils.

  “No!” I shrieked.

  Eve lifted a hand, and Gloriette hung suspended, frozen as though the air had grown thick around her. Eve’s gaze still held mine, as an instant later Gloriette shot backwards to slam into the railing on the far side of the platform, something cracking with sick heaviness on impact. I could see her gasping, still frozen, as though whatever Eve had done to the air had made it impossible for her to breathe.

  From all around us the shards of glass lifted, coalescing back into the shapes they’d once held. Ghosts of the wires that had held Eve for all those years, a memory of the torment that turned her into this.

  “Don’t,” I whispered. “Eve, don’t—Eve, listen to me, look at me—!”

  Eve smiled; and then all at once the shards shot down and in, driving into Gloriette’s body. She twitched, the wires shivering as her flesh quivered; her eyes bulged, staring into the darkness. Then she was still.

  I tore my eyes from Gloriette’s corpse and stared at Eve, gasping for air. She met my eyes, and for an instant everything was still. The muffled screams of the architects, Dorian’s shout of disbelief, Oren’s snarl of fear as he started to head for me, even the frantic whirring of Nix’s gears; it all faded away.

  It was always already over, sister. I won the moment I told you to run, an eternity ago. I won when I told you to follow the birds, and you listened, and you turned your back on this place to flee. Let me do this for you, let me bear the burden. My sister, my child. You were always a frightened little girl. And you always will be.

  “Not anymore,” I whispered aloud.

  At the same instant both Eve and I lunged for the crystal dome at the center of the platform. It came alive as we touched it, reacting to the power as though it hadn’t lain dormant for over a century. Eve’s magic was an onslaught of heat and light, rushing over me, overwhelming me; she was pushing toward annihilation, to destroy anyone without the power reserves of the Renewables.

  I clapped my other hand to the dome, my voice tearing from my throat as the power burned through me. My shadow howled within me, snarling, pacing, ravenous. It thrashed against the restraints that held it at bay, screaming to be set free. All this time I’d spent building walls, pulling away from it, burying it deep unless I had no choice—the barriers faltered, like rusted bars caging an enraged beast. It wanted out.

  And I let it come.

  It erupted with a scream I felt in my bones, a scream I must have uttered, for I heard the others’ answering calls of alarm and helplessness. At last I let every instinct but the shadow fall away, heart singing at this single moment, this instant in which I was finally, finally whole. The darkness in me lashed at Eve’s magic, absorbing it and turning it back upon her, reveling in the gluttony of unlimited power.

  Though my eyes fixed on the dome, burning in the light, I could see, sense, taste everything around us. I felt the heat of Eve’s body as it burned, I felt the metal grid below us groaning as it buckled and shook.

  I saw, with painful clarity, Oren leap forward, only to have Kris grab at his arm and haul him back roughly; Oren twisted and slammed him back into the railing, snarling.

  “Interrupt them and you could kill Lark!” I heard Kris scream.

  “I have to help her,” Oren snarled, lips curled.

  “She doesn’t need your help!” Kris’s breath came in sharp gasps, panting.

  “Lark’s sided with the architects,” gasped Dorian, his voice hoarse. “We have to stop her.”

  “Are you insane?” Basil broke in, fury erupting in a roar.

  “The Renewables have been the keepers of this power for generations,” replied Dorian, striding past Basil and heading for the central dome. “Who are you to say you’re—”

  “It belongs in the hands of the people!” Kris strode up and shoved Dorian back against the railing. “Not people like you. We’ll rebuild this city, make it what it should’ve been, a sanctuary for—”

  “For monsters like them?” Dorian, still half supported on Caesar’s shoulder, spat in the direction of the few surviving architects, still huddled on the far end of the platform.

  I let out a tiny moan, the black fire running through my veins turning their voices into a dim roar in the background. I could smell burning flesh; even though I couldn’t feel it, my palms were charring against the heat of the glass beneath them. I looked down and saw tendrils of black shadow snaking down my arms from beneath my sleeves, running through my veins like ink.

  I could no longer tell one man from the other; I felt one strike another, knocking him to the ground; I felt one make a run at the platform only to be dragged back by a grasping hand. I felt their fear and their helplessness and their rage and their greed.

  “I have to destroy it,” I whispered.

  “Destroy what?”

  Nix. Nix was still with me, tucked away between my collar and the hollow of my throat, clinging to me, whispering to me, encouraging me. It didn’t care which side won. It wanted only to be with me. I felt its warmth, the purr of its mechanisms, the tiny hum of power at its heart. I felt a tiny thread of strength wind its way through me, renewing me, pushing back against Eve.

  “Listen to them,” I gasped. “Even if I beat her, even if I can take the power from the Renewables and return it to the world, it won’t matter. This power, it will always corrupt, it will always destroy… this magic will always shatter the world.”

  “Destroy magic, and they will all be like Oren.”

  “Able to control their own destinies. No dependence upon magic. No dependence on machines. Light and dark together.”

  Nix was silent for a long moment, then crawled out of my collar and onto my shoulder, braced against the winds rising from the dome beneath my hands, beneath Eve’s hands.

  “We’re opposites,” I panted between gasps for breath. “Eve and I. Kris said to touch each other would be catastrophic—I can feel it. Dark and light meeting, that’ll be the end. I just need to—”

  I tried to push harder, to throw Eve off-balance long enough to reach out for her, but her strength was exactly equal to my own. My shadow could only use as much power as she spent; and no matter how much magic she exuded, my shadow matched it. We’d be locked in a stalemate for eternity.

  “I will help you.” The quiet dignity of Nix’s artificial voice stabbed deep into my heart, and for an instant I didn’t know why.

  Then my heart froze.

  “Nix—wait, no. No. Without magic, you’ll die.”

  “I am a machine. I cannot die.”

  I gasped for air
, faltering. Eve sensed it and unleashed an onslaught that drove me to my knees. The searing pain in my hands penetrated my numbness, burning down to the bone, an agony I could no longer ignore.

  “Nix—NO. I can’t lose you. I’ll find another way. Just—stay with me.”

  Nix leaned close, bumping its head against the line of my jaw, the vibration of its mechanisms carrying through the bone to sing a soft, sweet note directly inside my mind. Then it flew up until I could see it, hovering in front of me and watching me with its lidless, unblinking blue eyes.

  A ripple went through its outer shell, and then it began to fold and change in midair, shifting shapes the way it used to, taking joy in flight in every form. Its body lengthened, its winds elongated and reshaped; its head softened and antennae smoothed and dipped, merging. Before my eyes, Nix became a tiny bird.

  A lark.

  “Nix,” I whispered.

  “I am a machine,” it echoed, its new wings sweeping the air. “And I am your friend. Always.”

  Then it turned and dove through the air, tucking its wings close to its body to gather speed and dart at Eve’s face. It knocked her off-balance, and for one instant her hands left the dome. Her instincts were lightning-fast, her magic snapping up and beginning to shred Nix’s body, tearing away the copperplate feathers, grinding through its mechanisms.

  I sobbed, tearing my own ruined hands away from the dome. Forcing my failing muscles to move, I threw myself forward at Eve.

  I wrapped my arms around her—and the world tore apart.

  CHAPTER 34

  “How is she?”

  “Still alive.”

  “Can you—can you do anything?”

  “Do what?”

  “Something. Anything.”

  “If I could, I would.”

  “It’s been days. I don’t know how much longer we can hide her here. They’re going to find her.”

  “You won’t let that happen.”

  “Will she ever wake up?”

  “Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “How do we know that what wakes up will even be Lark?”

  • • •

  A lantern shone in the darkness, blurring and wavering as I opened my eyes. I gazed at it, the light washing over me with gentle warmth, mesmerizing. Long moments passed before I understood what I was seeing. The lantern burned with a flame.

  I was lying on a mattress stuffed with something lumpy, in a sagging cot. My body felt hollow and empty, and wrong. The air smelled damp and musty, and like burning oil. I tried to move, but my muscles wouldn’t respond, as though my body was no longer connected to my mind. I tried to scream; I whimpered.

  A face appeared over me. I struggled to focus my eyes, but all I could see was the afterimage of the magic-less lantern, the flame flickering in the invisible air currents.

  “Lark?”

  I knew that voice. “Oren.” I could do little more than breathe the name, but he heard me. Something was wrong with me; something was broken. I struggled for breath, trying to understand.

  A hand touched my face; with his touch came clarity, the ability to blink away the haze in my vision. I saw his eyes first, sunken and intent on mine. They were blue again, his skin clear. The shadow he’d drawn on against Eve’s magic had subsided.

  “The magic,” I gasped, realization striking hot and quick. The shadow inside me was gone; there was no energy, no flow to the world around me. I tried to look around with my second sight and saw only the world as it was, flat and ordinary. “I can’t feel—”

  “Shh,” said Oren, fingers stroking my hair. “It’s okay. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Eve,” I managed, trying to sit up. “Where—”

  Oren grasped my shoulders, but rather than trying to hold me down in the bed, he helped me to lean against the wall at its head, slipping an arm around my waist to keep me from falling. “She’s gone,” he murmured.

  “Gone?” I replied. The sudden movement had caused a ripple of pain to erupt from my hands and scream up my arms. Something was wrong with them. “Dead?”

  Oren shook his head. “We don’t know. Whatever you did nearly destroyed half the Institute; when we found you in the rubble, she was gone. No body, nothing.”

  “Rubble,” I echoed, barely able to do more than speak single words. “Everyone else… ?”

  “All fine,” he said. “The platform dropped, but the walkways stayed where they were. Everyone’s fine.”

  Not everyone.

  “Nix,” I whispered. And then, as though the name had thrown me back into my mind, stripping away the cocoon of numbness, I collapsed forward, weeping. Oren wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. He whispered in my ear, phrases half-formed and wordless murmurs of reassurance. I tried to grab at his shirt, clutch anything I could touch, hold onto, but my hands were wrapped in bandages and to move them was an agony I couldn’t bear. The sobs tore out of me, each a great wrench somewhere deep in my heart.

  After a time, Oren’s arms loosened enough so he could draw back and look at me. He reached up to touch my cheek again, this time touching the tears and smoothing the moisture away. “I think of my parents sometimes,” he said in his low, thoughtful voice. “What they’d think of me now, whether they’d be proud. Whether they’d be frightened. Their bodies are gone, long turned to dust, but their thoughts, good and bad—those are always with me.”

  He reached over toward the lantern, which rested on a packing crate table. Next to it was something that glinted in the light. He lifted it and, with his other hand, sought my heavily bandaged palm to place the object there.

  All that was left of Nix was the frame of its body, petrified in the moment of its death; a delicate iron tracery of circuits and feathers. It still wore the form of a bird, though its crystal eyes were iron now, colorless and still. The wings didn’t move, the mechanisms didn’t click. Only its heart had survived: a tiny glass crystal, empty of magic, shimmering gently in the lantern light.

  Oren curled my fingers around the dead pixie. “Nix’s body; it’s just a thing. Its sacrifice and its friendship, nothing can destroy that.”

  I tucked the little metal bird close to my heart.

  “Do you want to see the others?” asked Oren, tucking a strand of tangled, matted hair behind my ear. “Your brothers are here, and I can send for Kris.”

  I kept straining to hear the sound of purring gears, to feel some warmth in the cold metal against my skin. But I lifted my eyes and swallowed. “Help me stand?”

  Oren half carried me out into the adjoining room; my legs were so wobbly I could barely walk. I must have been unconscious for days, though I was afraid to ask. What had happened to my city, my people, in that time?

  Basil and Caesar were together, sitting on packing crates and conversing in low voices. I realized where we were—in the old home of the rebellion, the tunnels under the city that had been converted to living space. When Oren and I appeared in the doorway, both my brothers flew to their feet.

  “You’re awake!” Basil exclaimed, striding toward me and gazing hard at my face.

  Caesar glanced at Oren. “Is she—”

  “Feeling fine, I think” Oren interrupted him before he could finish.

  I glanced from Oren to Caesar, a dim memory returning to me. “I heard you—I heard you talking, while I was sleeping. What did you think had happened to me? Who was I supposed to be?”

  “You,” Oren said fiercely. “You’re you.

  Caesar turned away, shoulders bowed. Basil watched him, then came closer to me so he could take my shoulders and give them a squeeze. “When we found only you, and no sign of Eve, we thought—damn it, if Kris were here, he could explain it.”

  Oren eyed Basil sharply, but when I insisted, he caved enough to add, “Kris had a theory that since you were so connected, your minds, that there was a chance you’d be…”

  “You thought I might be Eve on the inside.” I glanced a
t Caesar’s broad shoulders as he sank back down onto the packing crate, unable to look at me. “Sorry to disappoint you,” I whispered.

  Caesar’s head snapped up, the grief in his gaze turning to anger. “You stupid girl,” he snapped. “I’m not—I’m glad you survived, Lark. You’re my sister. More than ever, you’re a part of me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not—” His voice broke, and he turned away again. “I’m allowed to grieve too.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Caesar.” As I exhaled, the tiniest flicker stirred in the back of my mind. “But—I don’t think Eve’s dead.”

  “What?” Caesar’s voice was rough.

  “I’m not sure, but I can still feel her. We’re still connected. Not in my mind, where the magic was, but—she’s out there, somewhere.”

  A commotion at the door caused all three men to tense, leap to their feet, and step between me and the exit; when it opened to reveal Kris, Caesar grunted and dropped back onto his crate.

  Kris’s eyes fell on me, and for a moment it was like none of this had ever happened, and he smiled at me the way he had when teasing me about eating all the watermelon at the Harvest feast. “You’re awake,” he said softly, still standing with one foot outside and the other on the lip of the door.

  “And I’m myself,” I added wryly, noting the way his shoulders dropped with relief as I spoke.

  “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day,” he replied.

  I had one more question I needed to ask—even if I was pretty sure that the lantern by my bedside had given me my answer. “Did I—what about the magic?”

  “Gone,” said Kris, his smile vanishing. “No trace, no sign it ever existed at all.”

  I glanced at Oren, who nodded confirmation. “A city full of shadows like me,” he said.

  “Not exactly,” corrected Kris. “A city full of people who no longer have magic to separate the light and dark. In time I think we’ll learn to control it, as you have.”

  I sighed, grimacing when the air brought with it the stench of underground decay. “Why are we down here?” I asked. “Why not recover up in an apartment, with real beds?”