by Natasha Ngan
Cambridge’s child.
‘If I’d stopped those women from throwing you overboard,’ explained Cambridge, ‘the Council would have seen how deeply I care for you, and it could have made you a target. I couldn’t do that to you. Can you forgive me?’
Just as Akhezo opened his mouth to reply, screams and shouts erupted from the central cavern, and Pigeon members jumped to their feet, rushing towards the doorway.
‘This is it!’ shouted Cambridge, leaping up. ‘The explosion! The skylung! Come on, my young friend!’ He started across the hall and was soon swallowed by the crowd.
Neve was sitting up blearily, startled out of her sleep. Akhezo grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.
‘It’s happening, Neve!’ he cried.
It took them twenty minutes to find an opening in the face of the Limpets where they could actually see out, as many of the slum-dwellers had gathered to watch the skylung burn. Akhezo caught flashes of yellow out of the corners of his eyes as they ran. Each flash sent his heart racing faster. After climbing to the Limpets’ top tier, they finally found an unoccupied stretch of ledge and clambered out onto it, staring at the view that had opened in front of them with wide eyes.
A huge circle of fire glowed against the dark, light-spotted backdrop of the inner city. The factories of the Industrial District blocked the lower parts of the skylung from view, but Akhezo still felt as though he could see the whole circle, a fiery ring burning in the deepening evening light.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Neve whispered, taking one of his hands. She was trembling.
‘I’m gonna find that Council member. There’s something he owes me.’
‘What do you mean, there’s something he owes you?’
Akhezo grinned, turning to her. ‘After you left, I went after him. I didn’t tell you ’cause I wanted it to be a surprise, but I got money from him. We’re gonna be rich.’
She just blinked. The light of the flames danced in her eyes.
‘Money, Neve,’ he repeated. ‘For tuning off the birthchips. I thought we could give the money to Cambridge, as a present. With the skylung gone, I think he’ll really appreciate it. And I was gonna set aside a little for you, too,’ he added, his voice softening. ‘Thought you could get something nice for yourself …’
Neve leaned forward suddenly and kissed Akhezo’s cheek. ‘Thank you.’
‘So we’ll go?’ He grinned, squeezing her hand. ‘Tomorrow? I was meant to meet him tonight but the skylung’s destroyed now. We’ll have to find him in the Council District.’
She bit her lip. ‘That place has always scared me.’
‘You should get used to it,’ Akhezo said, his smile widening. ‘After all, once the Pigeons’ final flight is over, it’s gonna be ours.’
27
Shadows in the Forest
Night had fallen by the time Silver arrived back at the river. The moon – full, gorged, gloating – sat high in the sky, and a fog stirred, curling across the ground like smoke. Butterfly saw the beam of her torch slicing through the darkness as she came, reflecting off the gleaming skin of the river she was following up to the place where he sat beneath the willow.
It had been hours since she’d left. The anger had fallen away from Butterfly, somewhere up there in the air as he’d moved over the green fields and forests. His whole body had burned with pain, each new beat of his wings sending a fresh burst of fire through him, and he’d flown until his body was screaming in agony. Maybe that had been what had saved him from the anger. As the pain had filled him, it had pushed away the rage. After all, there was only so much feeling one body could hold.
He watched Silver approach, feeling ashamed at the things he’d said to her. The truth was he didn’t blame her for his mother and sister’s death; he blamed himself. For being one of the Council’s puppets for so long, for not thinking of the danger they could bring by staying in Yasir’s village. And, although he had little space in his heart for anger now that the grief was back, like a tight fist in his chest, there was a part of him that blamed Cobe, too.
Cobe was not only Butterfly’s Elite senior; he was his friend. How could Cobe have known about his family being alive for so many years and not tell him? Yes, Butterfly had only been six then. But he’d still have wanted to know. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to leave Neo-Babel, but he’d at least have known better than to continue to serve the very people who’d tried to kill his family.
‘Did you find anything?’ Butterfly asked when Silver was closer.
She shook her head. Her eyes were clouded with darkness, and he could see the weight of searching through the dead village dragging her body down. When she reached where he sat in the curve of the willow’s roots, she collapsed to the ground, her teeth chattering.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Did you not want to make a fire or something?’
Butterfly stiffened at the word fire. Images flashed through his mind; his mother and sister’s house, wreathed in smoke, Silver’s ponytail swinging as she ran towards the soldiers through flickering, fiery shadows. He could almost taste the burnt air on his lips.
She pushed herself up quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can make one if you want?’
‘No, I’m all right.’ Silver was watching him carefully, as though he might lash out at her again at any second. She gestured at the space next to him. ‘Can I?’
Butterfly nodded, moving over so there was more space in the nest of roots beside him. Silver slipped off her backpack and sat down. At first, her body was stiff, careful not to touch his, but after a few minutes she leant into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
It killed Butterfly to feel her against him. Her heat, her smell, her small, female frame; it killed him that she was here, and his mother and sister weren’t. He wanted to scream. He wanted to push her off him. To get as far away from her as possible. Instead, he took a deep breath and lifted an arm to lie across Silver’s shoulders.
‘I found Yasir,’ Silver ventured after a few minutes of silence. The tone of her voice made it clear that she hadn’t found him alive. ‘I … I didn’t see Leanor and Emeli, though.’
‘I sent them away,’ said Butterfly.
But he hadn’t really. They were right here with him, curled in his heart, where he’d never let go of them.
The next morning, Silver jerked awake, startled and delirious, gripped by the fever of a nightmare. Pulling herself up from where she had slumped down the willow’s trunk, she looked round for Butterfly.
He was sitting on the riverbank with his back to her. Soft morning light lit the curve of his shoulders, his messy brown hair. She watched him, the echo of her nightmare still shivering in the air before her. But it wasn’t a nightmare; it was a memory. And she knew that unlike a nightmare, it would never leave her, no matter how many times she woke and opened her eyes, praying to the gods it was gone. Silver couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for Butterfly, who’d lost his family a second time. It made her think of her own parents. Were they alive still, or had something awful happened to them, too?
She shook her head. It was too painful to think about. Brushing down her clothes, she got up and walked over to Butterfly.
He turned as he heard her approach. ‘I need a wash,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘Change out of these clothes.’
Silver gestured at the willow tree. Its leaves hung across the river, blocking the view upstream. ‘We could wash on either side in the river?’ she suggested.
Butterfly nodded. ‘I’ll go on the other side.’
‘All right. See you in ten minutes.’
Once he was gone, Silver took off her filthy clothes and waded into the river. The cold water clenched around her body, making her gasp, but she pushed on, moving deeper. It was so peaceful here in the private little strip of river; birds singing as their tiny shadows flitted across the sky, the smell of grass and
fresh water and sunshine warming the ground. Blossom and midges dancing like dust in the slating sunlight. As she cleaned herself, Silver tried to focus on these things. They helped her hold back the memories of yesterday, the fire and burning and gunshots and bodies, blackened and broken.
Don’t think about it, she told herself, chanting it almost like a prayer as she washed the dirt off her skin and out of her hair. Don’t think about it. Just don’t think about it.
When she was clean, she left the river and dried herself with the blanket from her backpack, then dressed in her Elite uniform. ‘Are you done?’ she called round the willow.
Butterfly didn’t reply.
After calling once more and still not getting a reply, Silver edged round the tree. The upstream part of the river came into view. She could see the wide silver path of the river as it reached up into distant forested hills, and there, waist-deep in the water just beyond the willow’s rustling curtain –
A completely naked Butterfly.
Silver felt herself blush furiously. All at once, the memory of their kiss in the forest yesterday came back to her so strongly she could feel the heat of Butterfly’s hands cupping her face. The soft pressure of his lips on hers. The hunger she’d felt stirring deep inside her, both for Butterfly and the word he’d whispered the night before behind a closed door; love. A small, beautiful world that had come into her life so unexpectedly. She wondered how it was possible to be around someone all your life, and then wake up one day and see them with completely new eyes. Or had the feelings always been there, buried away inside their hearts until they’d been ready to face them?
Silver’s eyes were tethered to Butterfly’s body. He was facing away from her. Water-slicked skin stretched gently over tight muscles, broad across his shoulders and back before sloping down to narrow, perfect hips. His wings were folded against his back as they always were when he wasn’t using them. They too glistened with droplets of water. As her eyes trailed slowly down his body they caught on the curve of his buttocks, half hidden by the water that lapped against him. For some reason, the sight made Silver feel like crying.
She shook her head. Forcing herself to pull her eyes away from Butterfly’s body, she strode along the bank to where his backpack lay in a pile with his clothes. ‘I’m not looking,’ she announced loudly. She pulled out the blanket from his backpack and held it out in his direction. ‘Here.’
When he didn’t answer, Silver looked round. Butterfly hadn’t moved, and now she could see his face, she saw that his eyes were glassy and hollow. They stared straight ahead at nothing. The emptiness in them made her heart ache.
She walked to the edge of the water. ‘You’ve been in long enough.’
Butterfly turned, finally registering her. He looked down quickly at his body.
‘Yes, you’re naked,’ she said matter-of-factly. She held out the blanket and waved it. ‘That’s what this is for.’
Cupping a hand between his legs, Butterfly climbed out of the water.
Silver handed him the blanket. ‘Dry yourself, then put your clean clothes on. I’ll wash the other ones for you.’
They spent the rest of the morning like this; Silver giving Butterfly directions to look after himself and him obeying silently. She hated this wordless, blank-faced grief. Her own grief and terror at what had happened yesterday – and what she herself had done – was waiting to take her in its grip. But as long as Butterfly was like this, she couldn’t let her own feelings take over. She owed him more than that.
An hour later, they were ready to leave. Silver wasn’t sure how to broach the question. Did Butterfly want to go back to Neo-Babel perhaps, or did he want to stay by the willow forever? Going to find her parents was probably the last thing he wanted to do, but she had to ask. Yesterday’s events had made her all the more desperate to find her parents, and she felt an anxious twist in the pit of her stomach every time she thought of them.
‘Shall we go now?’ She asked hesitantly. ‘I have the directions to a settlement. Yasir thought my … he thought it might be good for us to look there, though he warned me it might be an anti-birthchip resistance. If we follow the river we should go straight to it.’
To her surprise, Butterfly nodded. His piercing blue eyes met hers, and for a brief second she thought he was going to smile or laugh or cry or scream or something. But then they slid away, as blank as ever.
‘All right, then,’ whispered Silver, pushing back the tears that had sprung to her eyes.
They walked in silence for hours. They kept moving, putting as much distance as possible between them and the destroyed village, but Silver could still feel the darkness at her back, threatening to swallow her whole. After a while, the open countryside turned into dense forest, the riverbank steepening into cliff edge pocketed with boulders and straggling tree roots. Sharp lines of sunlight cut through the trees. Silver had been able to ignore the dark thoughts that tugged at her while they had been walking out in the open, but here in the eerie forest-world, it was harder for her to ignore them.
They haunted her, those faceless ghosts of the Neo-Babel soldiers she had killed. In the shadows of the forest, she could feel them walking beside her. Soundless creatures, silent echoes of the men they had been. Between the columns of tree trunks they moved, but when she turned her head to look there was nothing there; just a ripple in the air, a sigh in the darkness. Her eyes focusing again and again on nothing.
Thin trickles of light were filtering through the twists and knots of leaves above, dappling the forest into a sun-speckled landscape. When Silver had woken from the nightmare that morning, she’d thought the day would be better. She’d thought the sunlight would chase away the ghosts of the night, push the darkness away. But daylight played tricks of its own. Skitters of sunshine glanced off the metallic skins of the soldiers. Sparkling beads of dew nestled in the curved palms of leaves flashed out of the shadows like hungry eyes.
While Silver was haunted by those she had killed, Butterfly was haunted by those he had lost.
For the most part, his mind was empty. A desolate space where grief coiled like a snake in the night. Thinking rustled it, made it stir and hiss expectantly, so he tried not to think at all. But as he walked, his mother and sister danced out of reach in the forest’s shadows. They called to him from behind the twisted web of vegetation, their faces flickering like static each time he moved his eyes.
‘Butterfly,’ they whispered. ‘We’re here, come join us! We escaped the fire and the soldiers. Come see!’
When the grief was strong he followed their voices, drifting from the path by the river Silver was following ahead, but then the grief would spring back and slam into him so hard he knew he was delirious and he remembered how cold their bodies were and he understood that they were dead, dead.
‘Take this.’
It was the first thing Butterfly had said to Silver since leaving the river that morning. They’d been walking through the forest for over two hours. She was so used to walking in silence that she almost didn’t realise he had spoken.
She turned. Butterfly was holding out his backpack, his wings spread behind him.
‘Take it?’ she asked, walking back down the slope. ‘Why?’
He didn’t meet her eyes. ‘I need to fly,’ he said, handing her the backpack.
Panic gripped Silver then. She was terrified of being alone, in this forest with its ghosts and shadows. But she swallowed, reminding herself that it was the least she could do to let Butterfly go.
‘Do you want me to wait here for you?’ she asked, swinging his backpack over one shoulder.
‘No. I’ll be able to find you. Just follow the river, right? Anyway, I might be able to see the settlement from the air. What should I be looking out for?’
‘Yasir said it’s in the ruins of a city abandoned after the Great Fall.’
Butterfly nodded. ‘I’ll keep an eye out,’ he said, and before Silver could reply, he flew up into the forest canopy, sending down a show
er of leaves as he broke out into the sunlit world above.
She continued alone along the cliff-side path. As the hours slipped by, she told herself Butterfly would be back soon. When she stopped for lunch, she was so sure he’d arrive any minute that she even brought out some food for him. But he didn’t come. Left alone with her thoughts, Silver finally felt the full force of what she’d done at the village yesterday. All day she’d been afraid of thinking about it. Now, her feelings burst inside her, rushing through her like the river far down to her right. What surprised her was that it wasn’t how she’d expected to feel.
Ember had killed once. Some birthchip hacker smuggler had escaped after a raid on their hideout, and he’d been too far for her to scan his birthchip or use a stungun. Ember had probably wanted to kill him anyway. She didn’t have to aim for his head. Silver still remembered how eager Ember had been as she’d recounted the story. It was that same glow in her eyes she’d seen that day in the storage room as Ember pressed a knife to her neck.
That’s why Silver had thought she’d be different. She didn’t think she was anything like Ember. She had always thought killing someone would be a huge, awful weight you could never throw off. That it would knot your insides with guilt until you couldn’t feel anything else. But as she walked alone through the forest, remembering searching the village yesterday for survivors, she was filled with the same rage that had caused her to pick up the gun and shoot the Neo-Babel soldiers in the first place.
Silver had found Yasir’s body laid over two other bodies, as though he had been trying to save them from the bullets. The thought of it made her want to scream. Anger; that’s all she felt. There was no guilt, no shame. No, she thought. The problem is I didn’t kill enough of them. And as she walked, her rage rolling off her in waves into the forest, the ghosts of the soldiers crept away into the shadows, giving up on haunting this wild-eyed girl who clutched her hands into fists at her sides.