Step by step they traveled, until an enormous sapphire tree loomed up ahead. She wondered how old it was.
Ross jolted to a stop. Jennie shifted her grip, slipping her arm around Ross’s. Mia switched hands and slid her other arm around his back. He was trembling, and she could feel every knob along his spine. She resisted the impulse to hug him to her—to stop everything—to keep him safe, to be safe, but it was too late for that. She gritted her teeth and kept her arm in place for support, mentally counting heartbeats, wondering how far she would get before her last. And if she would ever know the final number.
A glittering blue branch bent toward him.
Terror thrilled through Mia. She felt Jennie trying to tug Ross backward. Mia shifted, ready to move, but Ross dug his heels in. Mia couldn’t stop a whimper from escaping her lips as a single gemlike twig bent down, closer and closer until it caressed his face. Mia ducked. Ross shuddered, but held his ground. The razor edges of the twig drew two lines of blood from forehead to jaw.
Tears slipped down Mia’s face as she thought of all the kisses she would miss. They both would miss. All three of them would miss. Or maybe he and Jennie had done more than kissing and why not because Jennie was beautiful and smart and experienced and she was only weird little Mia who’d gotten older but never grown up, just like Mr. Preston had said . . .
Ross took a step. And another. Fifty-six, fifty-seven heartbeats . . . they were still alive. Four steps, sixty-five heartbeats, and they’d passed the great sapphire tree. Maybe they would live?
Twice more Ross stopped, his chin lifted, his eyes wide but focused on nothing, like blind Alma Preciado. He wore the same intent listening expression as Alma, though Mia heard nothing but a whispering breeze, and now and then a faint sweet tinkle that made her skin crawl.
Was he listening to the trees? Talking to them? Negotiating with them?
If they lived, she would stop dithering. That was a promise. She was not going to die without ever having sex! With Ross. She didn’t want to have sex with anyone else. But how could she actually make that happen?
One inner voice counted steps as another babbled, half excited and half in panic. Did Ross want to have sex with her? Sometimes she thought yes, sometimes no. What if he’d thought about it, but then looked around her cottage, and . . . should she move the engine off her bed? Would that be too obvious a hint? And if she did, where would she put that lovely, lovely engine, that might become the heart of an actual tractor, if she lived to build it?
Step, step, past trees more colorful and varied: bloodstone, garnet, aquamarine, jade; silver, gold, bronze, steel. Even the black trees were metallic like iron, not shiny like obsidian.
A sharp chime overhead made Mia jump.
If we live, I’ll tell Ross we should have sex!
Ross didn’t waver.
Jennie moved with him, her sword upraised. Mia scrambled to follow. It was such a relief to have Jennie with them. She did everything better than Mia. She was experienced. Mia hadn’t asked about her and Ross because she didn’t want to know. But if one of them already knew what to do, wouldn’t that be better than two people who had no idea? Other than to get the engine off the bed . . .
Yes, think of good things. Like exploring a treasure trove of ancient machines with her best friend and boyfriend. That would have been the fulfillment of her wildest dreams, except that before Ross had come to Las Anclas, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to put a boyfriend into her daydreams. It just went to show that even Mia could dream too small. She had to be the luckiest girl in the world. Maybe she’d find a flying carriage!
Light flashed from beyond the trees. Ross didn’t pause, but continued straight into a grove of twisted bronze and golden trees. When it looked as if he’d smack his head into a branch, Jennie cupped her palm over his head and pushed it down. Ross bent, but walked on. The view ahead broke into threads of emerald light. As they got closer, the strands resolved into brilliant vines that draped over the trees, creating a solid-seeming wall of green.
Mia reached to shove aside the nearest fall of vines, then snatched her hand back with a yelp. Several cuts beaded up with blood. The leaves had been hard and sharp as knives.
“I have leather gloves in my pack,” Jennie whispered, her breath warm at Mia’s ear.
Mia stretched out her arm behind Ross to extract the gloves, one for her and one for Jennie. Then Jennie used her sword to part the vines. They slithered down the edge with a scraping noise, striking purple and gold sparks. Mia pulled more vines away, creating a doorway.
Light dazzled them.
“It’s like a rainbow,” Jennie whispered.
Color shimmered and flashed, glittering and coruscating with such intensity that Mia was half-blinded. She couldn’t make sense of anything she saw. The ground was silver, the horizon emerald, and the air a kaleidoscope of brilliant motion.
Then she began to make sense of her surroundings. The moving shapes were butterflies! They filled the air, some smaller than her thumbnails, some large as her cats, swirling and fluttering, their wings intricately patterned.
They stepped through, letting the curtain of vines fall behind them. Fragile objects shattered and popped under her feet. Jewel-like pebbles and broken glass lay scattered across a carpet of silver moss.
Mia’s first find was right there at her feet, an intricately carved little copper box. With an excited squeal, she stooped to pick it up. It stuck to the ground, then came free with a sucking sound. Hundreds of tiny waving legs clung to the underside. She flung it away with a yelp.
Ross started. “What was that?”
He pulled his hand free of hers, shaded his eyes, then clutched at her shoulder for support. “I have to sit down.”
“Not here!” Mia caught him around the ribs. “Everything’s either sharp or has legs!”
Jennie prodded a bare patch of glittering moss with her sword. Nothing wriggled, jumped, or broke. “Try this.”
Ross sank on to it and put his head down between his knees.
Jennie crouched beside him. “Are you all right?”
Mia didn’t catch what Ross muttered in response, but she guessed that it was “Yeah.” He added, more clearly, “I’ll be fine.”
She sat down, close enough that he could lean on her if he wanted to. He was breathing hard and fast, as if he’d run all the way through the forest.
The ancient road continued into the ruins, but it was rippled with large mounds covered in silver moss and delicate flowers with a glassy sheen. Much bigger structures, also coated with moss, lined either side of the road. Some were almost as high as the Las Anclas bell tower, but the jumbled shapes made them hard to identify. Beyond those, a slim white tower rose higher than the tallest tree, gleaming in the sun.
Mia wiped her face on her sleeve. The lack of wind made the air even colder, but she was sweating with exertion and nerves. She could taste static on her tongue. Clicks and whirrs, rustles and chimes sounded all around her, shrill and sharp; some came from the trees and some from the flying insects, but others were unnervingly hard to pinpoint. The air smelled metallic and acrid.
Ross lifted his head, the blood from the sapphire tree cuts already drying on his face. His skin was pale beneath its natural brown, and he pressed his fingers into his temples. He reminded her of the victims of heat exhaustion who flooded the infirmary every summer. Mia fished a bottle of her father’s headache elixir from her backpack and pushed it into Ross’s hand. He drank it without seeming to notice the bitterness. Jennie, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Mia, took the emptied bottle and gave him her canteen.
Ross looked better by the time he returned the canteen to Jennie. He tugged at the silver moss, stretching a few strands out. When he let go, they sprang back into place.
“How can it be so different in here?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anything like any of this.”
“It’s isolated,” Jennie replied. “Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Grandma Wolfe
said that some islands have plants and animals that only exist in that one place, because they kept evolving and mutating right where they were. I guess that’s been going on here for hundreds of years.”
A dragonfly darted between two blue butterflies drifting near Mia. With a flick of indigo wings, one butterfly dropped so that its hair-thin legs brushed the dragonfly. There was an electric spark and a sizzle, and the dragonfly’s wings stilled. Before it could fall, the butterfly’s legs wrapped around it and bore it away.
Ross got to his feet. “Let’s take a look around.”
The vines that had been green within the forest were silver on the city side, creating what looked like an impenetrable wall. Ross took out a stake with a red cloth streamer and pushed it into the earth to mark where they’d come from. The color, which would have leaped out against the desert sands, blended into the rainbow pebbles like camouflage.
Ross shrugged. “I guess we’ll see it when we get near it.”
Mia pointed to the tower. “Let’s go to that! It’s in perfect condition—and look how clean it is. It must be full of cool stuff.”
With a concerned glance at Ross, Jennie suggested, “Let’s start with something a bit closer.”
Ross shaded his eyes. “I think these structures by us are fallen buildings.”
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Mia took an eager step, and her foot hit a small oval object. It skidded into a plant with golden leaves and opalescent flowers. A flower fell and shattered like glass, and the object flipped open on a hinge. She grabbed it with her gloved hand, inspected it for legs, then held it out. “Look what I found!”
“I’ve seen those,” Ross said. “Some towns trade for them. You don’t know what they were for, do you?”
“No, but you can use the little wires inside them. First find!” Mia added, “First non-legged find!”
“Remember Princess Pit Mouth,” Jennie warned her. “Make sure anything you put in your pack isn’t alive.”
“I’d be amazed if this reproduced.” Mia popped her find into her pack. One step and she’d already gotten a good artifact. This place was a prospector’s dream—and an engineer’s.
Ross pointed at a mound. “Let’s try that one.”
There were regular rows of square outlines along its side, like windows, but they were overgrown with metallic moss and gemlike nests. With a chitter and a whir of wings, iridescent dragonflies rose up, zipped overhead in a tight spiral, then aimed straight for the sky.
Ross inspected the fallen building. “We’ll have to cut through here.”
They sawed through a mat of moss and shoved aside a tangle of vines, revealing a black crevasse. Ross lit his lantern and held it inside. Glowing white shapes flapped away. The light gleamed off transparent bubbles stuck to the walls and floor. Some were cloudy and dark, filled with mounds of dust. Others held objects, perfectly preserved: another hinged oval like the one Mia had found, a steel fork, and—
“Books!” Jennie exclaimed. “Three of them!”
“Wait.” Ross threw out his arm, stopping her from scrambling inside. “See that crack in the floor?”
It took close examination for Mia to spot a faint, jagged line. “Yeah, I see it.”
“Don’t step over it, or go within a few feet of it. The rest of the place looks okay. But don’t touch the walls, and stand back when you break the bubbles.” Ross tested the floor with his crowbar before he cautiously stepped inside and beckoned the others in.
Jennie went straight for the bubble containing three bound books, grinning like it was Christmas all over again, and tapped it with her sword. It popped into nothingness, like a soap bubble, and the books flew into her outstretched hand. All three had pictures on the cover, of children in odd, bright clothing, and were titled The Homework Club. The volume numbers were five, nine, and twelve.
“Children’s books.” Jennie sheathed her sword and cradled them like babies. “I think. I wonder if the rest of them are here, too.”
Mia’s attention was caught by a wooden rectangle jammed up against the wall . . . not a rectangle. A door. It was a door lying on its side.
Her entire perception of the room shifted. They had come in through a window, and that door should lead to another room. She darted toward it. The door was ajar, and when she peered into the darkness, she saw a glint of metal.
She was about to point it out when Jennie exclaimed, “More books!”
The corner of another book stuck out from a pile of broken furniture.
Ross tilted his head. “Don’t try to pull it out. We’ll have to brace it first.”
As Ross and Jennie extracted tools from their backpacks, Mia held up her lantern to the dark room. The glint of metal resolved itself into a large square of black glass attached to a metal box, with a row of buttons at the bottom. Mia bent down further, until her glasses scraped the door frame. The largest button was marked POWER.
Excitement shivered along every nerve in her body. She put down the lantern and leaned in to peer through the crack. Her left hand rested against the door to steady it. With just that tiny bit of pressure, it pivoted and toppled into her hands. Mia staggered under its weight before she managed to lay it down.
“What are you doing?” Ross called out. He sounded alarmed.
“I was bracing it,” Mia explained hastily, eager to get to the machine. “Ross, there’s a machine that says power!”
She snatched up her lantern, bent low, and stepped through the doorway. White specks were drifting down. She looked up. More flakes of plaster pattered down to her face and sprinkled her glasses.
“RUN!” Ross shouted.
Mia lunged for the machine—the find of a lifetime—but two sets of hands clamped onto her arms, dragged her away, and flung her through the window.
She landed outside in a sprawl, her backpack thumping down on top of her. A body slammed into her, squishing out her breath.
“Ow!”
As Jennie rolled off her, Mia heard things crashing and collapsing. Plaster and dust billowed out from the window.
The three of them sat there, frozen, until the noise stopped. The dust began to settle as Ross got to his feet.
“It’s probably safe to go back in now,” Mia said hopefully.
Both Jennie and Ross swung around. “No!” they said together.
The find of a lifetime, and it had probably been crunched to dust. And Ross and Jennie were looking at Mia like she was out of her mind. “It said power.”
Chapter Seven: Ross
Ross folded his arms tight across his chest, trying to stop himself from shaking, as he watched the dust billowing out the window. They’d come so close to being caught in the collapse. If they hadn’t been crushed to death, they’d have been trapped under tons of concrete, to slowly suffocate or die of thirst.
But we did escape, he reminded himself.
He watched Mia and Jennie, making himself see and believe that they were alive and unhurt, until his pounding heartbeat slowed. Jennie brushed dust from her hair, then smiled down at the books she’d made it out with. Mia glared at the dust clouds, obviously wishing she could go back in.
Nothing bad had happened. They’d had a close call, but that was it. Everything was fine.
Then Ross remembered that he’d left his crowbar and pry bar inside. They’d once belonged to his grandmother, and he’d carried them ever since she’d died. Voske had stolen his pack when Ross had been dragged to Gold Point, but Kerry had retrieved it for him when they’d escaped. And after all that, his precious tools were trapped beneath a pile of furniture in an unstable structure that he didn’t dare go into again.
Now that the dust had settled, his crowbar was temptingly visible. Jennie followed his longing stare.
“Maybe I can free it.” She extended her hand. The crowbar jerked a half-inch, then stuck. A piece of wood fell from the top of the heap, and the building gave a grinding groan. More dust sprinkled gently down. The whole thing was ready to collapse at any second.<
br />
“Sorry about your tools, Ross.” Mia hung her head like a scolded puppy.
“What happened in there?” Ross asked. “Did you say you were bracing it? Bracing what?”
“Well, the door looked a little wobbly, and I remembered what you said about bracing things. So I put my hand on it—gently!—and the whole thing fell on my head.” She peered up at him from beneath her bangs, half-hopeful and half-skittish, as if she wasn’t sure if he’d forgive her or yell at her. “I’ll make you a new crowbar. A better crowbar!”
Despite the loss of his tools, Ross had to laugh. Mia was so sweet and her eyes were so bright and eager, it was impossible to stay mad at her. “I did the same sort of stuff when I started learning to prospect. Next time, just let me check first before you brace anything.”
Mia instantly perked up and pointed to the closest fallen building. “How about that one?”
It took no more than a glance to see how unstable that one was. Ross shook his head. Though it had been true that he, like Mia, had been over-eager when he’d started out, he meant to keep a close eye on her for this prospecting trip and any others in the future. Brilliant as she was, there was something about her that made him think she wasn’t really the prospector type.
Too fearless, he decided at last.
The part of her that loved machines spoke louder than the part that cared about safety. Oh, she was cautious enough in her own cottage . . . but nowhere near as cautious as Ross. She’d admitted that she’d repeatedly burned off her eyebrows. If she saw another ancient machine that said power, he’d better be there to grab her.
“Why don’t we try the white tower? That one that looks intact,” Ross suggested.
“At least I got the books.” Jennie carefully tucked them into her pack.
Now, Jennie would make a good prospector, Ross thought.
It wasn’t surprising. She was good at everything he’d ever seen her do—fighting, teaching, dancing, even sewing. And now prospecting. She’d probably picked up some of the skills training with the Rangers, learning to scrutinize the environment for danger. He wondered how happy she really was at the schoolhouse. When he’d studied there, it had felt huge and crowded. Overwhelming. But for Jennie, it seemed too small. Or maybe it was that she was too big for it. Not physically, but . . .
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