Cory chewed on his lower lip, glancing toward Justin as he wavered.
“We’ll be fine,” she said in exasperation, drawing his attention away from Justin by catching his arm and pulling him toward the next row of stalls, tents, and blankets. “We’ll hop on the ley barge, get off in Shadow, see the subtower get lit—it’s practically being raised in the middle of Shadow’s ley station—and then climb back onto the barge and head home. No one in Shadow will even know we’re there.” And hopefully no one in Eld would find out where they’d gone.
Whatever resistance Cory still had left vanished. Keeping Justin in sight, Kara and Cory snaked through the press of people in the market, then passed into the less dense side streets of Eld, where they trotted through the narrow alleys and back gardens until they reached the stone steps that led up to the open doors of the ley station and entered the huge mezzanine beyond. All three of them stood stunned beneath the arching pillars carved like tree trunks and the interlaced branches etched into the ceiling, but the awe didn’t last. They crossed the smooth marble floor to the tunnels leading down to the ley lines and barges below, Kara handing over three chits as they passed down into the platforms.
“Where do we go?” Cory asked.
They were huddled, backs to one wall, people moving back and forth before them in a riot of activity. Kara licked her lips in uncertainty, but before she could answer a piercing whistle cut through the room and made her jump. A moment later a ley barge pulled up alongside the platform where they stood and a man in a gray uniform trimmed with weathered gold shouted, “Mainline—Leeds, Light, Shadow, and Reach!”
“That one,” Kara said, then pushed forward as those waiting on the platform made for the doors.
But Justin suddenly shouted, “Wait!”
Both Cory and Kara turned; Cory spoke first. “What’s wrong, Justin? You’ve been acting weirder than usual all day.”
“That man,” Justin said. He shifted nervously, not looking at either of them, but at the surge of people around them. He stepped closer, his voice dropping. “He’s back. He’s been following us since the market. Following me.”
Kara shared an annoyed glance with Cory. “Where is he now, Justin?”
Justin pointed with certainty. “Right there, leaning in that doorwa—”
Justin’s eyes went wide.
“Let me guess,” Cory said, his voice dry. “He’s no longer there.”
“Oh, no,” Justin said, and Kara felt a tendril of fear slipping beneath her irritation at the raw panic in those two words. Justin inched closer toward them. “No, no, no.” He sucked in a noisy breath. “Where’d he go?”
Now Cory rolled his eyes. “Come on, Justin. He’s not there. And we need to catch this barge if we want to see the subtower!”
“Cory’s right,” Kara said, her words harsher than she’d intended. But most of the people had already disembarked and others were filing onto the barge. Only a few remained on the platform. “We need to go. The doors are going to close!”
Cory grabbed Justin’s shoulder and pushed him toward the barge, Kara sprinting out ahead of them. The doors nicked Justin and he stumbled into Cory and Kara with a wild cry. The barge was crowded, none of them able to move far from the door, but then it lurched into motion and Kara felt her entire body humming—from the anticipation of seeing the subtower lit and the stream of ley beneath them.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Cory said under his breath.
Kara shot him a warning glare—there were too many adults around—but couldn’t keep a grin from breaking out as she steadied herself against the wall.
The barge stopped in Leeds, people shoving their way to the door to exit, others piling on. Cory and Kara were pushed to one side, Justin to the other, and Kara’s heart leaped as she lost sight of him. But as the barge began moving again, Justin squeezed closer, taking advantage of his shorter size. At the stop in Light, more people exited than entered and Kara felt she could breathe again, the air not so close and tight. Cory broke out into animated conversation about nothing, not expecting a response, and her own excitement built as the barge headed toward Shadow.
Cory was still talking when they spilled out onto the platform at their stop, his hands waving in punctuation. They trotted toward the tunnels leading up to the mezzanine, Kara in the lead, when she suddenly realized that Cory had fallen silent.
“What’s wrong, Cory? Finally run out of breath?” she asked as she turned . . . only to find Cory twenty paces behind her, stock still, his eyes wide in horror. Something hard filled Kara’s throat, wiping the smile from her face. She swallowed the sensation down and ran back to Cory’s side. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop—?”
But then she realized and a pit opened up in her stomach, her legs going weak. She reached out for Cory, eyes scanning the tunnel behind them, what little of the platform she could see beyond.
“Where’s Justin?” she asked, and her voice sounded hollow to her, removed and far away.
“He was right behind me,” Cory said, voice cracking. “I know he got off the barge.”
“Then where is he?” Kara snapped. She began moving down the tunnel, her pace increasing until she burst out onto the platform and spun, trying to search in all directions at once. The barge was gone. Almost everyone had departed, the platform empty except for a few stragglers, two men in station uniforms who looked bored, and a man asleep on one of the many benches against the walls to one side. Kara turned around twice, the pit in her stomach widening, then locked gazes with Cory.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” Cory said.
“He has to be here,” Kara said flatly, anger seething up from deep down. “Look down to the right, I’ll look left.”
Cory nodded and headed right. Kara moved left, jogging, scanning behind the few columns and searching the benches. But she knew even before she reached the edge of the platform that she wouldn’t find him. As she turned back, she found it harder and harder to breathe. At the far end of the platform, Cory shrugged.
“He has to be here,” she whispered to herself as they closed. Except she knew that wasn’t true. Justin had warned them time and again, since that first time when he’d told them of the man watching him outside of the school. When Justin hadn’t been able to point the man out, she’d decided Justin was being . . . well, Justin. Odd. Weird.
But now, all of his warnings echoed in her head, including earlier at the Eld station. She heard the terror in his voice when he realized the man had vanished and it clawed at her chest.
“He’s not down there,” Cory said as they met before the tunnel.
“Not on my side either.”
Cory’s eyes were filled with panic, with the same hollow fear and knowing Kara felt churning inside herself.
“You don’t think it was . . . that man he’s always talking about?” Cory asked. “Do you?”
Kara scowled, even though that’s exactly what she thought. “He must have passed us somehow. He’s probably up in the mezzanine.”
Cory looked doubtful but followed her up the tunnel and out into the mezzanine, a less artful and much dirtier version of the one in Eld. The high windows were yellowed with dust, the stone columns gritty with blackened edges, the stone flags of the floor cracked. They searched the mezzanine for twenty minutes, Kara becoming increasingly frantic, until Cory caught her wrist and said, “The station guards are starting to notice.”
She glanced toward the two guards in gray uniforms conferring with each other near the mezzanine’s entrance. One of them motioned toward Kara, then they both turned, their faces lined with suspicion.
“We should tell them.”
Kara spun. “We can’t! They wouldn’t believe us. And we aren’t supposed to be here anyway.” Her throat closed up and she had to swallow twice to continue. “They probably think we’re pickpockets . . . or worse.” She su
ddenly felt the taint of Shadow weighing down on her—all of the rumors, her father’s warnings about leaving Eld. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
“What are we going to do?” Cory demanded. His fingers dug into her skin. “We can’t just leave him.”
Kara glanced around again, noticed one of the station guards heading toward them. She grabbed Cory’s hand and dragged him back toward the tunnel. “He must have gotten back on the barge, headed back to Eld. He’s probably already home.”
She didn’t believe it, knew Cory didn’t either. They used two of the ley tickets and boarded the barge when it arrived in silence, Kara casting one last longing, hopeful glance down Shadow’s platform. But she saw nothing and the doors closed.
When they disembarked in Eld, they searched the platform and mezzanine, but found nothing.
Kara stood outside the ley station’s doors, staring at the wide steps, Cory beside her. Her eyes burned with tears now, and her nose felt clogged and thick.
“We need to tell our parents about Justin,” she muttered, voice weak.
Cory fidgeted beside her. “Maybe he’ll be at school tomorrow. Maybe we should wait and see?”
“Maybe,” she said. But she didn’t believe it. Why would Justin go without saying anything?
But when they arrived home, Cory dashing off to his own door with a wide-eyed glance backward, Kara halted. What if Cory was right? Justin hadn’t wanted to go to Shadow in the first place, and Justin had always been different. He could have bolted and run home.
When she pushed open the door, her father turned from his work on a clock and smiled. For a moment, Kara felt the rush of warmth she’d always felt when returning home and finding her father at work, but then her father’s smile faltered.
The wall that had formed between them since they’d visited Ischua at Halliel’s Park returned.
Kara stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“What’s wrong? Where have you been?”
Kara’s breath caught in her throat. “Nowhere. We were . . . we were at the market, playing Thistle Snatch.”
Her father met her gaze and held it. “What happened?” he repeated.
She drew breath to tell him about taking the barge to Shadow, about Justin, but in the end she simply said, “The Dogs showed up. They were harassing one of the hawkers. So we left.”
Her father relaxed, the smile returning. But it still wasn’t like before.
He motioned her forward and hugged her tight, holding her close and then pushing her back to look at her, hands on her upper arms. “You let the Dogs bother you too much. They’re simply doing their job, protecting the Baron—and us. I’m certain they had a good reason to go after the vendor.”
He squeezed her arms, then sighed and rumpled her hair before turning back to the clock. “You should finish your schoolwork.”
Her gaze slid to the gears and other pieces spread out across the black cloth of the table. “I could help,” she said, hope tingeing her voice as guilt seized her chest. Even from where she stood, she could see what needed to be done next.
But her father shook his head. “I’ve got it. Your schoolwork is more important.”
But Kara knew what he truly meant. He hadn’t asked her to help him with the clocks since speaking to Ischua, because after the Wielders came for her, she wouldn’t be working on clocks. Unlike Cory, she wouldn’t be taking over from her father. Or her mother.
Her father leaned over his work, intent on fitting the next piece into position. He’d already forgotten her. She shifted into the kitchen, where vegetables roasted in a low simmer in the heated ley oven, the hearty scent making her stomach growl. She stirred them, the juices in the bottom of the pot already thickening. She cut a slice of bread from the loaf on the sideboard, dipped it in the sauce, and ate it as she settled into one of the kitchen chairs, staring out into the outer room. The bread had no taste, and didn’t help the empty feeling in her stomach. She didn’t realize she was waiting for her father to start humming until she ate the last of the bread and it was still silent; she suddenly realized he hadn’t hummed while working since they’d visited the park.
Everything was changing. The city—with the new tower and the smaller spires spread throughout its districts. Her family—her father drawn into himself, focusing on his clocks; her mother always at work, as if she were avoiding coming home. Her friends—Cory’s anger, Justin’s sudden pervasive fear of a man that Kara had never seen. And herself. In another few weeks, perhaps a few months, she would be part of the mysterious enclave of the Wielders.
She sighed, shoulders hunched. Then she stood, grabbed the leather strap of her schoolbooks, and headed toward her room to work. Maybe tomorrow it would feel different; maybe tomorrow it would feel normal again. Maybe Justin would be back and this entire horrible day would feel like a dream.
But the next day, Justin never appeared at school. No one had seen him since the day before. Even after Kara confessed and her father called in the Dogs, he couldn’t be found. She thought she’d be punished for leaving Eld, for losing Justin. Instead, her father merely looked . . . disappointed.
Kara found that worse.
Later that evening, another one of the spires burst into life, its entire length pulsing with white light at the edge of the Rill District.
Justin woke to darkness, his breath catching in his throat again as he opened his eyes and saw . . . nothing. Panic set in with a rush of blood in his ears, loud because in this room he could hear nothing except his own breathing, his own heartbeat. He gasped, listened to the noise in reassurance, and then pushed himself up off the gritty stone floor into a seated position, back against the stone wall where he’d crouched and slept since the man had put him here. He drew his knees up to his chest, hugged them tight, and fought the tears that threatened to spill out even though he’d vowed not to let them after the first day—if it had been a day; he couldn’t tell in such total darkness—of solid crying.
Sitting in the utter silence, blind, he thought about the moment the man had grabbed him on the platform in Shadow. He’d searched frantically for the man on the barge, certain he’d followed them, but Justin hadn’t seen him at all, had convinced himself that the man must have missed the barge in Eld and they’d lost him. Still, he’d checked out the platform when they disembarked and hadn’t seen anything.
Until the man had reached out and caught him, drawing him in close to his chest and muttering softly in Justin’s ear, “Do anything and your two friends die.”
Justin had choked on his scream, his terror caught in his chest, fluttering with his heart as the man lifted him and hauled him to one of the benches. They’d sat, the man’s arm wrapped around Justin’s shoulders, utterly still, as Kara and Cory charged back onto the platform and searched. When Justin had whimpered, tears coursing down his face, the terror now a hard knot in his throat that hurt, the man’s arm had tightened painfully and he’d slid a knife from his sleeve. Mouth close to Justin’s ear, so close he could feel the man’s breath puffing against his neck, the man had whispered, “Do you want them to die?”
Justin had shaken his head, drawing in a slow breath as he tried to calm himself. His body had thrummed, but he’d forced himself to remain silent, to remain perfectly still as Kara and Cory vanished back up the tunnel, Kara’s eyes frantic, then returned and boarded the barge back to Eld.
He hadn’t understood why his friends hadn’t seen him, but he knew it had something to do with the man because no one had seen them as the man hauled him upright and walked him to the next barge, the knife still visible. They’d left the barge in Grass—a place Justin had never been, only seen from the rooftops and streets in Eld—and entered a strange orange-red tower, descending into the lower levels, into granite passageways, into darkness and this room.
It had been pitch-black when the man thrust him forward and he’d stum
bled to the floor, scuffing his hands on the rough stone. He’d heard a door close but had remained still, waiting. When he’d been certain he was alone, he’d crawled around the room, felt for the walls, the ceiling, found the rough outline of the wooden door, the pile of fresh-smelling straw in one corner, the chamber pot. Nothing else.
Not certain what to do, he’d retreated to the corner and curled in upon himself on the floor. Eventually, he’d slept.
The first time he woke to darkness, he’d cried out, then silenced himself, afraid they’d hurt Kara and Cory. But that fear hadn’t stopped the choked sobs, the racking tears that suffused his face with heat as he tried to suppress them. He’d cried himself to sleep again.
Now, he pushed the terror down, stifled the fear, although he could feel it ready to bubble up again from his chest. His gasps lessened and the bloodrush in his ears faded. Eyes wide to capture light that wasn’t there, he listened . . . and heard nothing. No sound at all, except himself.
But there was something else.
He concentrated . . . strained . . . and suddenly realized it wasn’t a sound.
It was a smell.
He breathed in deeply, closed his eyes and focused on the scent: something clean, like the soap his mother used to wash their clothes at the river, with a hint of sweat, a prickle of . . . of oil. Not lantern oil, something sharper, harsher. The combination was familiar. He remembered smelling it before, recently. . . .
Justin jerked with recognition, eyes flaring wide, back stiffening even as he cowered back against the wall so hard the rough stone ground into his spine. “You’re here,” he said, the words loud to his ears, like a slap to the face.
Nothing at first, then a low chuckle. “I knew you were ready.”
Justin recognized the voice as that of the man who’d taken him, who’d threatened his friends. The man who smelled like soap and oil. Justin’s nostrils flared and his eyes widened further, but he still couldn’t see him, even though the voice didn’t sound far away. He couldn’t hear him either, not even his breathing. But he could see him in his mind—the rough-looking, angular face, the hard glint in gray-green eyes, the tension in his stance even when he appeared to be leaning against a wall, relaxed, as he watched from across the street or a darkened alcove. He’d dressed like everyone else in Eld, but he hadn’t acted like them. He’d been too still, too focused.
Shattering the Ley Page 10