Jules, Pepper and Wanders were waiting where we had left them. Wanders was stalking back and forth, and Pepper and Jules were skipping rocks across the river, competing to see who could make their stone go the furthest.
I called out to Pepper as we drew close. “I need to talk to Jules alone.”
Her black eyes lit up with curiosity. “I’m the one who captured him!”
“I know. And thank you. But I need you to go now.”
She shrugged, picked up another stone, and sent it flying over the water. Behind her, Wanders rolled onto the ground and lifted his head to the breeze, as if he had nothing better to do other than lounge there for the day.
I had no time for this. “I’m serious, Pepper.” In my head, I added. This is Tribe business, and I’ll tell Jaz what the Saur Tribe needs to know about it later.
Her shoulders sagged. “All right, all right, I’ll go.”
She and Wanders strolled away, moving at a speed that was slow enough to be annoying but not quite slow enough for me to hurry them up. Pepper kept glancing back, her small face full of woe, while Wanders let his long neck dip to the ground. I ignored their antics, waiting until they were too far to overhear. Then I shifted my attention to Jules.
He spoke before I could. “You seem a bit upset, darling. Shocked by what Ember really is? Didn’t you ever notice there was something wrong with her?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her!”
“She’s a machine.”
“She’s my best friend. And she saved you.”
“Yeah. And I’m grateful. That’s why I brought the message.” He scratched his jaw. “Would’ve been useful to have her about too, in case Terence ever came after me, only she had other plans.”
Connor cast a quick glance at my face, and spoke to Jules in a tone that was much calmer than anything I would’ve been able to manage. “Do you have any idea where she is?”
“’Fraid not. Terence has places everywhere.” His gaze drifted to the Firstwood. “So when are you going to ask me to join your Tribe?”
“I’m not!”
“You’re going to have to, if you want to find out what I know about Terence.”
He wants to trade information for a place in the Tribe? I spluttered, so angry I couldn’t even form words. Jules grinned that irritating crooked smile that Ember inexplicably found so attractive. “Come on, wolfgirl. I need a new place to hide out, and it’s not as if you’re very picky about who you let in. I mean, if machines can join–”
My fist seemed to fly out of its own volition, straight into his face. He staggered backwards, tripped over his pack, and fell. I shook out my aching hand, enjoying the sight of him sprawled on the grass. That had hurt, but it had been worth it.
“If you really want to beat him up,” Connor murmured, “I could do it much more efficiently.”
He was joking, sort-of. I played along. “True, but it would take a while. Maybe we should get the saurs to bite pieces off him until he starts talking.”
“There’s no need for that!” Jules said hastily. He climbed to his feet, studying me with an intent expression. “You really don’t care, do you? That she’s synthetic?”
“Of course I don’t–” Then I stopped. He’d said “synthetic”, not “machine”. And he suddenly looked and sounded different, in a way that was hard to define. Less arrogant, maybe? Definitely less annoying.
Realisation dawned.
“You bastard,” I breathed. “You were testing me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Obviously. Not as quick off the mark as Red, are you? I had to know if you’d want her back, even after you found out about her.”
“Of course I want her back!”
“Glad to hear it,” he drawled. “Because I know where she is.”
“Where?”
“Spinifex City.”
I’d never been there. I formed a picture in my head anyway, a vague image of a white-walled city rising up from the desert sands. I know where she is. I know where she is … I was so happy I could have danced.
“Are you absolutely certain?” Connor demanded.
“Yep.”
We both eyed him sceptically. He sighed. “Since I last saw Ember, I’ve worn a dozen bodies, conned my way into and out of a bunch of different places, and talked to a whole lot of people who never knew who they were really talking to. I’m certain.”
“I hope you were careful!” I said. “You might have warned them someone was coming for her.”
“I’m not a fool.”
He wasn’t either, and this was the kind of thing he was good at. He’d spied for – and on – Terence for years. “Do you know exactly where in Spinifex City?”
“Terence has a house, which is probably where she is. I can find out for sure once we arrive. I’ve got a contact there.”
Connor frowned. “It doesn’t seem like you need our help, Jules. Why didn’t you go after Ember yourself instead of coming here?”
“Because she’d send me away.” He nodded at me. “It’s you she’s trying to protect, darling. You and your Tribe. I can’t convince her that staying with Terence is a bad idea. You can, though.”
He was right that I was probably the only one who could get Ember to come home. Except … Connor and I exchanged glances. To reach Ember, we were going to have to rely on Jules to a worrying degree. I raised my eyebrows in a silent question. He gave me a half-shrug, as if to say, you’re the one who’s good with people. What do you think?
I stared at Jules, trying to put my impressions of him together with Ember’s. Trying to see into his heart. “Why should we believe you really want to help her? You don’t seem to care about anyone or anything, other than yourself.”
“I don’t.” He laughed at my obvious surprise. “Expected a different answer, huh? I am who I am, wolfgirl. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about your Tribe, and I certainly don’t care about your cause. But Ember helped me, and I owe her.”
Not good enough. I stepped closer, fixing him with a challenging stare. “I’m not sure you care about obligations, either. You’re going to have to give me a better answer than that, Jules.”
He stared back at me for a second. Then his gaze flicked away from mine, and the mocking edge faded from his expression, leaving behind a vulnerability that was weirdly familiar. It took me a moment to realise where I’d seen it before – or rather, where Ember had. Run away with me, Red.
Jules answered, in a voice so soft I barely heard it, “She’s the only person in the world who ever thought I was any better than I am.”
Good answer. And a good reason for him to help Ember, as well. I of all people understood how powerful it was to see a better version of yourself reflected in someone else’s gaze. I don’t think he was joking when he asked you to run, Em. Only she hadn’t known it. Deep down, I wasn’t sure Ember truly believed anyone could care about her. I was going to have to do something about that when I got her back.
I glanced from Jules to Connor and grinned. “Let’s go to Spinifex City.”
THE CITY
The next few days were a blur of preparations. I left most of the details of organising the trip to Connor, while I – well, talked. First to Georgie and Daniel, explaining what I’d discovered and putting them in charge of the Tribe while I was gone. Then to Jaz, explaining it all again. He promised the saurs would keep up their patrols and make sure no one was caught unawares by anything to do with the Adjustment. After that I tried to contact Grandpa, only he still wouldn’t come out. So my last conversation was with the wolves. Pack Leader was unimpressed that I’d stopped off to say goodbye. He obviously thought it was a waste of time when I had a Pack member missing. It was a bittersweet reminder that I was now a girl who was part-wolf, rather than the other way around. Wolves weren’t sentimental. Humans were.
Spinifex City lay in the desert on the far side of the Firstwood. Connor, Jules and I hiked part of the way, then took to the skies once we neared the homelands of the saber
s who populated the edge of the forest. The big cats were aggressive and insanely territorial; it would have been next to impossible to walk through their lands without being eaten.
I wasn’t prepared for what was beyond the western side of the Firstwood. I’d imagined sand, and little else. I was wrong. There was sand – bright red sand – but there was so much more. The desert was a place of contrast and colour. Yellow spinifex grass, bleached white by the sun. Taffa vines, trailing their bulging purple pods and lime-green leaves across the earth. Chunky formations of orangey-brown rock. Tall pines and the strange bottle-like shapes of grey boab trees. And everywhere, thin streams of water that pulsed through the landscape like veins. It was beautiful, even though it wasn’t my forest.
By the time we finally neared Spinifex City, ten days had passed. There was a high composite wall surrounding it, the same as all the other cities, only the one here was stained red by the desert dust that seemed to get into everything. The closer we got to the wall the more nervous I felt. We’ll be fine. We look as if we belong. The three of us were wearing clothes of mixed colours and carrying heavy backpacks, befitting our supposed identities as traders. I had a Citizenship tattoo on my wrist as well, inked there by Connor using leftover dye we’d found in Ember’s lab.
I rubbed anxiously at my wrist.
“Will you quit fretting?” Jules said. “I told you, no one will check the tattoo properly. Not when you’re with me.” He waved at the distant wall. “This is my city!”
“You’re originally from Gull City,” Connor pointed out.
“Spinifex City isn’t only a place. It’s a way of life.”
I rolled my eyes. Then I frowned, staring at Jules. The journey here seemed to have taken a lot out of him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I told you before, I’m fine. Just not used to so much walking.” He nodded at the city. “We’re getting close. I’d better change.”
“Don’t do it out here! We’re probably still too far away for anyone to spot anything strange, but …”
“Worry a lot, don’t you?”
I gave him a flat stare, and he threw up his hands. “All right, I’ll hide.” He disappeared behind a large rock formation at the side of the road. Moments later, a stranger emerged. A round man with a trim dark beard, wearing pants of Gull-City-blue and a shirt of Cloud-City-white. He walked up to us with a springing step, managing to bounce along even with the pack strapped to his back. He really is good at what he does. It wasn’t just that his body changed; all his mannerisms did too.
“Meet Diego!” Jules announced in a deep musical voice. “The real version lives in Cloud City. Trades in fish and potatoes. I like to think I’m giving him the life he wishes he had.”
“He’s an actual person?”
“I can only Impersonate actual people.”
“And Diego will help to get us past the gate guards?” Connor asked.
“Of course.” He began moving along the road again. “When I’m Diego, I am a taffa trader.”
Taffa was what Spinifex City was famous for. It was a sweet, spicy drink brewed out of beans harvested from the pods growing on taffa vines.
“I don’t see how being a taffa trader particularly helps us,” I said.
“Are you kidding? People will do anything for taffa in Spinifex City.”
It was a popular drink. So much so, in fact, that all the governments of the world included a small supply of beans in everyone’s weekly nutrition allocation. “I’ve never understood why people are so keen on it.”
Jules’s jaw dropped. “You’ve never …” He shook his head. “Don’t say that out loud again. Taffa is important in this city.”
I dredged up what I’d learned about Spinifex City in school. “I get that it’s their main export–”
“It’s got nothing to do with exports. It’s the dreams.”
“What dreams?”
It was Connor who answered. “Taffa is supposed to occasionally cause very vivid dreams.”
“I’ve never heard that!”
“It only happens in Spinifex City,” Jules said. “Anywhere else, taffa is just a drink. People round here take those dreams very seriously. They think they’re connected to the Balance.”
“How?” I demanded.
“They have strange things in them, stuff that no one’s ever seen before. Things that don’t exist. The theory is, there are all these moments in time floating in the greater Balance, and taffa connects you with them.”
I frowned. “If that’s true, why do the dreams only happen in Spinifex City?”
“That’s easy. The Balance is stronger here than anywhere else.”
“I think you’ll find it’s the same everywhere,” Connor told him.
I nodded agreement. And besides, if it’s stronger anywhere, it’s in the Firstwood.
Jules shrugged. “You two can think what you want. Just don’t go telling people in Spinifex City the Balance is the same everywhere.”
We walked on until we neared the half-open gates. I searched for – and found – the enforcer guards, lurking in the shadow of the arch that formed the entrance. One male, one female, and both more than a little overweight, for guards. Plus … I squinted, not sure I was seeing right. They were lounging, leaning casually back against the archway. Enforcers, at least in my experience, didn’t lounge. I glanced questioningly at Connor, who gave a faint frown in response. He didn’t understand it either. They’re not acting like enforcers. They didn’t even straighten up as we approached.
At least not until they spotted Jules.
“Diego! Haven’t seen you in a while,” the woman called as she waddled over. The man was right behind her, reaching out to shake Jules’s hand.
“Have you got any taffa beans for us?” he asked, running a hopeful gaze over our packs.
“Not right now,” Jules replied regretfully. “I’ll have something for you on my way out. Government allocation no good this week?”
The woman made a face. “We both got blues. We were hoping for reds. Or greens, even.”
I had no idea what that meant, but Jules seemed to understand. “I’ll see what I can do.” He held out his wrist. “Want to check our tatts?”
The man laughed and shook his head. “I think we can trust you, Diego. Go on through.”
“And don’t forget about the taffa!” the woman shouted after us.
I forced myself not to look back as we left the guards behind, unable to believe it had been so easy. Things were obviously different here. Very different. I was still puzzling over it as we stepped through the gates and into another world.
The three of us were on a wide street lined on either side with white walled houses stained red by dust. Each one had small, narrow windows covered with shutters. Ember had once described the place where she’d lived here, so I knew the big windows in Spinifex City houses were on the inside, facing onto internal courtyards. Taffa vines were growing up the sides of the houses and over the roofs, smaller than the ones we’d seen in the desert but still big enough to saturate the air with a cinnamon-like scent. There were a bewildering number of people on the street, mostly dressed in loose robes of Spinifex-City-yellow. And there were an even more bewildering number of cats. The long-legged desert moggies were everywhere, grooming their mottled brown fur, twitching their overly large tufted ears and generally acting as if they owned the place.
The noise of the crowd, the smell of the taffa and the sheer strangeness of it all made me feel unsettled, and I’d already been thrown off-balance by the behaviour of the guards. I edged closer to Connor as we moved into the city. When we were far enough from the gates, I hissed at Jules, “What was that back there? Do the enforcers here always behave that way?”
“Pretty much.”
Connor shook his head in bemusement. “I’d heard they took something of a relaxed attitude in Spinifex City, but I had no idea how relaxed.”
“Well, there’s a saying here,” Jules re
plied. “The only trouble is taffa trouble.”
“The only trouble is taffa trouble?” I repeated, testing out the strange phrase. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That the only thing worth fighting over, or worrying about, is taffa. Nothing else really matters. So they enforce the Citizenship Accords, but they don’t go looking for ways to enforce the Accords, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s – insane. And what was all that stuff you were saying to them about the colours?”
“You really need to learn something about taffa.”
“Why don’t you teach us?” Connor asked, pleasantly but with a suggestion of teeth in his voice.
Jules cast a wary glance at him, and explained, “The beans change colour depending on things like soil and weather conditions, and when the pods are harvested. Different colours have different tastes.”
And the gate guards hadn’t wanted the ones they’d got in their weekly allocation. We got blues, we were hoping for reds … This city was weird.
I watched the houses as we went by, wondering if Ember was in any of them. Probably not. Jules had told us before that Terence’s house was near the city centre. I would’ve loved to charge over to it right this minute, but Em might not even be there. Plus the place would be guarded by minions if she was, and none of us wanted to risk alerting anyone that we were here yet. Hold on, Ember. I’m coming for you. I tried to sense her the way I could Connor – with everything she and I had shared, it seemed as if I should be able to get a vague inkling of where she was. I couldn’t. All I felt was the city looming over me. It made me want to hunch in on myself and duck my head to avoid prying eyes. Don’t be ridiculous. It isn’t alive.
On that thought, I stopped.
Jules was ahead of me and didn’t notice. Connor did, of course. “Ashala? Are you all right?”
“Um. Yeah. Sorry.” I started walking again. “Can you feel that?” I asked him in a low voice. “The air. The … atmosphere. It’s as if the city is, I don’t know, conscious or something.”
He was silent for a long moment, then nodded. “You’re right. It’s like the Firstwood. Only – not like the Firstwood.”
The Disappearance of Ember Crow Page 14