Shadowlark

by Meagan Spooner

  With a weary groan, Oren straightened and turned so he could look at me again. He tilted his head back, looking up at the ceiling. “You’re the only thing that keeps me human,” he said after a silence. “But if I woke tomorrow completely cured and whole, I would still follow you anywhere.”

  My throat closed. I couldn’t look at Oren, couldn’t listen to his voice, without my mind replaying the night we parted. The sweet softness of his mouth cut by the metallic tang of blood, the wave of longing mixed with revulsion. The hopelessness in his eyes when I told him not to touch me. His bitterness now as I kept him at arm’s length, too confused to know what to do with him.

  He was so careful not to come near, to stay away as I’d demanded that night—and yet now he stepped forward and lightly brushed the back of my hand with his knuckles. Just enough so that I could feel the electric sizzle of power passing from me to him, pulled away by the dark void of shadow inside him.

  “Sometimes we can’t help the things we do.”

  Every impulse in my body wanted to turn toward him, to slide my hand into his and let our fingers wind together. To smell grass and wind all around me, a light in the deep, dank darkness of this prison. Instead I just stood there, remembering the taste of shadow, waiting for something I knew wasn’t coming.

  I cleared my throat and sucked in a ragged breath. “I’m not going to just sit here and wait to die.”

  Oren stepped back, letting me move around him and head for the door of the cage. I crouched by the lock, running my hand over it, but I knew I didn’t have enough magic left to open it. When I’d freed Oren from his cage in the Iron Wood, I’d been surrounded by Renewables, and though I hadn’t known it then, I’d been able to draw on them all to bend the laws of magic and iron and open the lock with my mind.

  Here there was only me. And I couldn’t magic iron on my own.

  My eyes fell on Tansy’s pack. It was still lying where the man had dropped it, well out of arm’s reach even when I lay down on my stomach and stretched my arm as far as I could through the bars. Even Oren’s long arms wouldn’t be able to reach it.

  There may not have been Renewables around, but that pack was full of machines. And inside them, somewhere, were tiny hearts full of the magic that powered their clockwork mechanisms.

  I closed my eyes, trying to reach past the muffling field cast by the iron bars between me and the pack. I tapped into the tiny, dwindling reserve of energy inside myself and concentrated on my arm, still stretched out past the bars. All I needed was a tiny nudge. A spark. One little touch to get one of the copper spheres to roll my way.

  I felt the power spark and pop inside me, my head spinning, but I forced myself to keep reaching, keep trying to nudge one of the machines my way. I opened my eyes a fraction, squinting through the haze of golden sparks and threads.

  The bag moved, bulging as something inside it shifted. I groaned, head dropping as the magic flowed from my outstretched fingertips.

  Something rolled out of the mouth of the pack, and I dropped like a leaden weight, collapsing down onto the stone. I’d thought magic under ordinary circumstances was tiring— working through so much iron was like trying to run uphill wearing a coat lined with rocks.

  Blearily, I lifted my head, forcing my dazzled eyes to focus. One of the spheres had rolled toward me, but when I reached out, my hand still fell short. My heart sank.

  A tiny whir of clockwork jolted me out of my daze. A panel separated itself from the smooth surface of the sphere, followed by another, a slow unfolding with a groaning protest of gears, like muscles gone stiff from the cold. A tiny flash of sapphire within the depths of the sphere winked back at me.

  “Are they gone?”

  I gasped, lightheaded and dizzy from the magic, and unwilling to trust my own eyes. “Nix?” I breathed, staring.

  Oren came to my side as I spoke, and together we watched as the sphere painstakingly unfolded itself. It had none of the ease of the courier pigeon the man had shown Tansy—I could tell this form was difficult for the shape-shifting pixie. Nix stopped halfway back to bee-form, gears stirring feebly as it lay on the stone floor. I imagined it panting and sweating, trying to catch its breath.

  I reached out my hand as far as it would go, and the pixie crawled onto my palm. “How—I thought maybe you’d escaped when we were taken. Did you double back inside the building?”

  “I hid in that antechamber where they keep their suits,” the pixie said. “They never even noticed. When they went out to search the area where you were found, they saw the other one’s bag and the machines inside. I flew in when they weren’t looking.” With an obvious effort it finished its transformation back into its favorite bee form and then cast its crystal-blue eyes over the cell. “Where is that other one?”

  “Gone.” I tried to keep the anger out of my voice, but even I could hear the way it quivered.

  The multifaceted sapphires swung toward me. “So she turned on you. Correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe someone tried to warn you about that.”

  I closed my eyes. Already part of me regretted what I’d said to Tansy as they dragged her away. I’d probably never see her again. “Not now, Nix. Please.”

  The pixie shook itself and turned, its little legs like dull needles against my palm as it scanned our surroundings. “I see this one is still with us, though,” it said flatly, watching Oren unblinkingly.

  “The feeling is mutual,” Oren muttered, turning away and shoving a hand through his hair.

  “I couldn’t see or hear anything all balled up like that.” Nix lifted off of my hand for a few seconds, testing its wings now that it wasn’t stuck imitating one of the dormant courier pigeons. “This does not appear to be the optimal place to recover and regroup, however. Why are we wasting time in here?”

  “We’re locked in,” I said, trying to remember that I was glad to see Nix. Even if it was infuriating beyond all belief.

  “That ought to be no problem for you.”

  “Too much iron,” I replied. “Not enough magic. I was trying to reach the pack, thinking I could steal some from the machines in there.” My breath caught. “Nix—can you fly out there and nudge them closer? If I can just get my hands on one, I think I could do it.”

  “I can do better.”

  Nix launched itself off my hand and buzzed out through the bars to land on the outside of the lock. Spidery little legs unfolded out of its body, the way they did when it was damaged and needed repairing. This time, however, they went skittering over the surface of the lock, darting inside, exploring, thorough. Nix’s round head disappeared inside the lock as well, and for a while the only sounds were the clicking of its spindly legs and the gears that made them move.

  But then came a solid thunk. My heart leaped into my throat.

  Nix backed out of the lock, half-stuck, tripping into the air. It staggered a bit, struggling to fly while managing far too many legs—but it finally succeeded in folding the extra legs away and zipped back to land on my shoulder.

  Hand shaking, I reached out to touch the door.

  It swung open.

  • • •

  The tunnels under the city were a maze as complex as the sewer system in my own city—but I hadn’t learned this system as a child at my brother’s side, didn’t know where each turning led. It was like being inside my dream again, only I didn’t know where to go, and I couldn’t feel my brother leading me through.

  The place was lit at random intervals by tiny shards of magic contained in glass spheres, connected by glass filaments as finely crafted as any I’d seen in the Institute back home. The advanced craftsmanship was more than a little out of place in a sewer underneath the ruins of a cursed city.

  Oren was sweating despite the chill. I knew he was suppressing the panic of being underground by sheer force of will—I couldn’t ask him to try and help me find our way out. He had been semiconscious at best when we were brought to the cell anyway. Nix had been even more blind and deaf. I’d been
struck temporarily senseless by the presence of so much iron. The only one who would’ve had any chance of retracing our steps was Tansy—and she was gone.

  Even in the quiet of my own thoughts, the word made me feel sick. Gone.

  I kept my hand in my pocket, fingers wrapped around my brother’s paper bird, as if somehow through it I could summon his competence and confidence. I chose paths at random, listening for the sounds of wind or the smell of fresh air, but instead the air grew more still, more quiet. I sensed we were moving downward, not upward, and the further we went, the warmer the air grew.

  Despite my uncertainty, despite the fact that we were utterly lost, I felt myself breathing easier and standing straighter with every step. I was growing used to the iron supports in the stone around us. I’d stopped long enough to absorb some magic from the machines in Tansy’s pack, and I felt the power shimmering inside me like sunlight, intangible but no less real.

  Twice we encountered people coming the opposite direction, but we were able to duck down a side tunnel and avoid being seen. The third time, however, came when we were walking down a long corridor without any branching tunnels. A man and a woman came around the corner unexpectedly, chatting. Oren hissed and I jumped, turning and treading on his feet as I tried to escape backward down a route that didn’t exist. He put his hands on my shoulders, steadying me, as Nix zipped inside the collar of my shirt.

  I reached inside me for the bits of power I had left, ready to use it against them if I had to. I’ve been in a prison twice now. I’m not going back.

  I took quick, shallow, steadying breaths, every nerve alive, every muscle tensed. I felt Oren’s hands grow rigid on my shoulders as they approached.

  They walked straight past us without even looking.

  I stared ahead at the spot where they’d been, too shocked to even turn and track their progress away from us, down the corridor we’d come from.

  “. . . not like we can tend them ourselves,” the man was saying, voices echoing back to us through the tunnel. “Or grow anything down here.”

  “True, but self-sufficiency is the first rule. Prometheus insists on it. How can we justify—” And they turned a corner, voices fading into unintelligible murmuring.

  Oren let out a long breath, the air stirring my hair. I shivered, pulling away abruptly. He just shrugged, looking as confused as I felt.

  Nix peeked out from my collar. “They don’t recognize you as escaped prisoners,” he noted.

  “But surely they know we’re strangers? That we don’t belong here?”

  Nix considered this, emerging the rest of the way from my collar and dropping into the air so that he could look us over. “Unless there are so many of them living here that they don’t all know each other.”

  We kept walking, silent, shaken. Just how many people could be down here? I wished that I could see the outside, see what time of day it was. Were these people about to turn into ravenous shadows at any moment as well?

  It was then that I realized Oren was siphoning less power from me than he had been. What had been a steady stream was now a trickle. Either he was somehow needing less magic to sustain his human form, or—

  My eyes caught a glimmer of violet light as we turned a corner, and it hit me. No wonder I’d been feeling better, stronger, brighter. There was magic in the air. Iron all around, still, but it was containing the magic, holding it in. Like the Wall in my home city.

  We stopped long enough to share a meal, dividing up the last of the cheese from my pack. It would’ve been a meager meal for one—between the two of us, it barely seemed like anything at all. My ear had stopped bleeding, and I rubbed the dried blood off my neck. I couldn’t do anything about the stain on my shirt, but at least I could minimize how warlike and battered I must look.

  When we started moving again, a few more people passed us by, none of them giving us so much as a second glance. This time we knew to act as though we belonged there, but nevertheless my skin prickled. I instinctively reached for my power every time, ready to fight.

  It was Oren’s idea to follow the people.

  “When you’re hungry and snares aren’t working,” he said, keeping his eyes down, trying not to look at the stone ceiling and walls surrounding us, “you follow animals to find their dens. You can follow a bird back to its nest for the eggs.”

  The people had to be going to and from something, he pointed out. There had to be a base somewhere. Storage for supplies or weapons. Places to sleep and eat.

  So the next time we heard the sound of footsteps, we went towards them, ending up at a T-junction. As a trio of tunneldwellers approached, we fell into step behind them, trailing enough that they wouldn’t try to talk to us, but close enough that we could see where they were headed.

  Eventually we ended up in a hallway that was rectangular instead of the round, squat tunnels we’d been in since the prison cell. At the end of it was a huge iron door. Oren put a hand out, touching my elbow, and we slowed, watching the trio carefully. I knew what he was warning me about—if the base was behind that door, then the people who had captured us could very well be on the other side of it. And they would surely recognize us, even if the others didn’t.

  One of the tunnel-dwellers, a man with thick salt-andpepper stubble spreading across his jaw, reached out for a leverlike handle and hauled back on it. The doors slid open to either side, vanishing into the walls. Inside was a grate, which he slid open as well. He and the other two stepped into what appeared to be an empty room and turned around as one. It looked hauntingly familiar. The man who’d opened the doors reached out as if to close them and then spotted Oren and me.

  “Well?” he said, one hand on the grate.

  “E-Excuse me?” I stammered.

  “Are you going down?”

  Oren’s hand tightened on my elbow as he took a step back. Suddenly, my memory clicked into place. I knew what this was—I’d been in one before.

  “Yes,” I blurted, reaching out for Oren’s hand and then heading for the box. For the elevator.

  I could hear Oren gasp a quick, anguished breath as we squeezed into the elevator. For someone who didn’t like being underground, this must be torture. I wound my fingers through his, putting my body between him and the elevator’s other occupants. Though my mind recoiled at his touch, knowing what he really was under the veneer of humanity, the rest of me tingled, goose bumps rising along my arms despite the warm air. I turned my head away, not looking at Oren’s face.

  The grate screeched as the man with the stubble slammed it closed behind us. Then he opened the lid of a box that stood on a post in one corner and banged his fist into a round, flat button. The elevator gave a lurch—Oren’s fingers went rigid in mine—and then with a surge of magic that sang through my head, the whole thing went dropping down.

  I was glad it had been so long since the last time I’d eaten a proper meal. My stomach felt like it climbed into my throat, and my feet tingled, desperate to make it known that they were still in contact with the floor.

  I looked up and saw that Oren’s eyes were closed and his face almost serene, far calmer than I’d ever seen him. Only the tightness of his grip and the glint of sweat in the hair at his temples betrayed his terror. Here he was no monster—he was just a boy trying to trust that I knew what I was doing. I leaned against him and felt the tension in his body relax just a fraction.

  For a moment, it was like none of the past few weeks had happened. It was just me and Oren—there was no sickening tang of blood in the air or hunger inside me. The walls between us vanished for a few precious seconds.

  Then the box stopped with a shudder and a screech of protesting gears, and I stepped away. I took a deep, quiet breath. We had to act like we made this trip all the time. I kept an eye on the man with the stubble, watching everything he did in case we needed to get back up the same way we’d come down. All we needed was to figure out the quickest way out of this place.

  The man shut the lid on the box with the
button and then reached for the grate, shoving it aside. I tensed, waiting to see what was on the other side of the outer doors. A base, holding the people who’d captured us; more tunnels, as endless and confusing as the last; even the outdoors. I was so turned around that I couldn’t dismiss that as a possibility, though it was now so warm that I could feel sweat starting to form between my shoulder blades.

  The stubble man jerked at the handle, sending the outer doors sliding open with a rusty screech. He and the others got out, and Oren went stumbling after them, eager to leave the confines of the box. His hand was still clenched around mine, and he tugged me with him. I staggered, trying to catch my feet, eyes on the ground. We were on some sort of ledge overlooking a space so vast I could feel it sucking at me.

  Then I looked up, and stared.

  This was no base—it was a city.

  Metal buildings of every imaginable shape and design grew out of the rock like mushrooms, roofed with rustyred iron and corroded copper green. Some were polished, gleaming turrets and towers. Others were rough and pockmarked by time and abuse, looking no better than debris from the ruined city above. Even here there were signs of the wars, as though people simply grabbed what they could and went underground. The buildings were connected by an insane network of stairs and walkways, cobbled together from pieces of salvage—I saw the leg of a giant mechanical walker stretched between two balconies and bolted into place, and just below us, a roof made out of a series of overlapping gears hammered thin and broad.

  High above, fog shrouded the ceiling where the warm, moist underground air hit the cold stone overhead. Water dripped in a constant but sparse drizzle. The cavern was so large that there was even a breeze, fitful and changeable, stirred by the convection of the hot air below and the cold above. Overall the air was thick and humid, vastly different from the wintry cold outside.

  Above the fog, the ceiling was studded with a series of what looked like the same glass and crystal lights we’d seen in the corridors, but on a far grander scale. They scattered the white-gold light of magic through the fog, which caught it and sent it dancing into a thousand colors that lit the city. It was as though the sky was paved with rainbows.