The Tree

  “We did it,” Daya said quietly.

  “No, you didn’t.” They turned to find Matthias stirring and sitting up from where they had laid him in a relatively debris-free area. He reached over and grasped Erik’s hand as the other man began to wake as well. “It is not destroyed or even hurt. It is only biding its time.”

  “Matthias, we were there. We destroyed its anchor.” Elana made sure she did not look at her girlfriend as she said this.

  Matthias looked up at her. “You may very well have done, but it either has another or it doesn’t matter as much here.”

  She looked at Daya, who was giving Matthias a suspicious and disbelieving look.

  Matthias threw his free hand into the air. “Trust me! The Huntress is the head of my bloodline. I know when a hunt has gone awry. It gathers under us all and we need to get the hell out of here before it comes back.”

  Tassi spoke up from where she was supporting her exhausted partner with her shoulder. “Where is the crike?”

  Elana looked around and realized that their transport was gone, and with it anyone who knew the area.

  Daya nodded and looked around at the rest of them.

  “Where’s Tae?” Daya asked.

  The way that everyone looked away except for Erik; the way Erik’s face broke as he looked at them and refused to look away; the way tears began to slip down his cheeks, making trails in the dust that covered them from the destruction of the two buildings, told her all she needed to know.

  “No,” Elana whispered, but Daya said nothing, her stone form slipping away to reveal the flesh-and-blood woman who was close to breaking.

  Finally, Erik looked away, and Elana was glad, because the blank sadness in his eyes was too much to take along with her own sharp grief.

  There was a rumble behind them.

  “We need to get going, now,” Matthias said quietly from where he still sat on the ground, and pushed himself to his feet. Even though he wobbled, he stayed standing.

  They had only staggered a few feet, no direction in mind but away, when a large crack echoed through the air, and Elana turned to see the darkness exploding from the ground behind them and rising high into the sky.

  This was no pool of darkness, no puddle of nothing coming for them. It was also no tower of darkness devouring a building. This was a wave, an unending tsunami of nothing raising up to meet them. It seemed to pause and slowly Elana felt it, this darkness’s cold disregard. It knew they were here. It knew what they were here for. Elana did not know how she knew, but she did. Even as she opened her mouth to suggest a fast retreat, it came toward them, cresting like a wave too far above their heads, and then crashing down.

  Elliot ran for her and she rushed to touch his hand.

  MATTHIAS

  Matthias held Erik up. The younger man had been blank and staring since they lost Tae. Daniel had not helped with the sad and quiet, “I told you not to come,” before he simply disappeared as the darkness expanded.

  At the last moment, as the darkness crashed down at them, Elana and Elliot had joined bodies and powers, taking on their merged form. Matthias still felt awe whenever he saw them do so. As far as he knew it was a power unique to them. They had held out their four hands and formed a barrier against the darkness. It had allowed them to run and get some distance.

  Once they’d had breathing room Matthias had tracked their way back to the Ruling Courts. They walked unmolested, except for some strange looks from others moving through the street, dirty and injured. Most were too invested in their own pain and loss to pay much attention to the oddly dressed people in their midst.

  The flood of people thinned the closer they got to the Ruling Courts. No one was running to the Courts, which said enough about how the people felt about those “ruling” them.

  Matthias had not seen Daniel since the battle, and he wondered where he might be. They entered the courtyard of the Ruling Courts to deafening silence. Even the sound of movement was cut off as they moved toward the tower. Most of them were bloodied with ripped clothing. Matthias was aware that they were being watched and that most of those watching were not friendly. He moved steadily, refusing to give any more signs of weakness. They had almost reached the tower when Razel emerged from the pulsing pink tower. She looked around the courtyard until she spotted them and hurried over.

  ‘“I heard what happened. Are you all alright?” She asked.

  Matthias felt Erik tense under his arm and squeezed as tightly as he dared trying to communicate calmness and support and most of all patience. Erik slowly released the tension but would not look in Razel’s direction.

  “No, we are not.” Elana’s voice was flat and dead.

  No one else spoke as they entered Chayyliel’s Hive and made their way to their rooms and no one told Razel to stop accompanying them. As they reached the corridor Matthias began to escort Erik to his room when the man stopped and would not be moved. Mathias remembered that Tae and Erik had been sharing a room and shifted direction, escorting the young man easily to the room he had shared with Elliot.

  “Thank you,” Erik whispered. His first words since he had screamed at Tae’s loss. The skin of his face was drawn and tightened with pain at the corners of his mouth and eyes. “Bring her.”

  Matthias did not have to ask who he meant. He gestured for all of them to follow him without looking over his shoulder. “Bring Razel.”

  He settled Erik in one of the seats and only then did he turn and see everyone inside the room including Razel. It was quiet for a long moment and then Erik looked up at them. Razel flinched away from his gaze.

  “Elliot.”

  The man nodded and the silence enveloped them in seconds. Razel looked around in curiosity but no fear showed in her eyes.

  “You will tell us the truth of what is going on.” Erik’s voice was quiet but it still filled the space.

  “What do you mean?” Razel moved forward and slowly lowered herself into one of the other seats. She met his gaze, and then asked.

  “Where is Tae?”

  Erik blazed back to life, like a fire going from kindling to six-foot flames in a second. He was up and moving through the room. He was in Razel’s face before anyone even thought of trying to stop him. Erik did not touch her but stopped only a foot from her face.

  “Tae is dead and some of that fault is mine. Some of it I will live with forever, but the fact of the matter is that you gave us absolutely no information and I smell something fishy. I will lose no one else, do you hear me? No. One.” Erik practically growled it.

  Razel nodded but also brought her silver arm into the space between them, clacking the fingers together before his face.

  “I understand your pain and your need, but you will not threaten me.”

  Matthias saw Erik’s eyes narrow further before he backed up a little, resting his ass on his heels.

  “I did not threaten you. Your point is taken, in any case. Now, tell us about Holder Mayer and Holder-Apprentice Haydn.”

  Razel straightened and seemed to weigh her options before she started to speak. She told them of a brave young woman who had tried to save her world and gotten nothing but pain in return.

  “I don’t know where she is now, but neither does anyone else in the Courts, if the rumors are correct. Or her sibs or the Antes that fled. So far, everyone seems to believe the rumor of June and Lil having an affair. Krezida is also missing but no one seems concerned with that.”

  “What did you tell Holder Riana about us?” Matthias asked.

  Razel met his gaze without any hesitation, her features blank.

  “Nothing. I did not know anything after all. She asked me but I gave her nothing but inconsequential information. She could not tell the difference.” The contempt in her voice was clear to all of them but the question was whether it was real or feigned. If it was real, would it be enough for her to turn against the Ruling Courts?

  “How loyal are you to her?” Matthias asked.

  “When I h
ad just crossed the threshold to five, I created a mechanique that could clean the foul water in our area in the city. News got to Hypatia and Riana. She came and used her own mechaniques to tear mine apart and kill everyone I had ever known. She took me back to Hypatia and taught me what she knew. I learned to hate early. I also learned to hide my emotions. I learned to do what is necessary.”

  She fell into silence and Matthias looked around at the contemplative looks on all their faces. No one seemed overtly hostile anymore and Elliot looked like he was five seconds from trying to wrap the girl in a bear hug, which would likely get his arm torn off.

  “How do we know that any of this is true?” Matthias asked, leaning down to help Erik stand and move back to his seat. The younger man offered no resistance.

  Riana shrugged at them. “You may ask around for my history. It is a well-known incident. The Ruling Courts do not like anyone killing their subjects but them. As long as they are alive, no matter the condition, there is the chance that they can be used.”

  “There is something else you are not telling us, though. Why does so much death cling to you?” Yonas spoke up for the first time. When Matthias looked over, her eyes and the flesh around them had completely disappeared, revealing large sockets of bleached white of bone.

  Razel showed a small bit of surprise at the pronouncement but her face closed off again.

  “I have not killed,” she said.

  “But you’ve done something far worse. The pain of loss and death of hope clings to you like a second skin,” Yonas stated.

  Razel’s skin had greyed as Yonas kept speaking, but her expression remained the same.

  “What do you do with the people you steal from our world?” Erik asked out of nowhere and everyone’s attention was laser-focused on Razel.

  Razel sported a small wrinkle of confusion between her brows before the expression cleared. Her lips thinned out and almost disappeared completely as she pressed them together.

  “I thought they were criminals; those the Ruling Courts had decided deserved punishment.” She looked down at her hands.

  “Does that make it any better?” Tae muttered.

  Erik shushed him and gestured for the woman to go on.

  “No. I don’t suppose it does.” This was said almost to herself but Erik heard it and noted it.

  “They are changed,” she said.

  “Changed how?” Erik asked.

  Razel swallowed and for the first time Matthias saw her as something less than perfectly composed.

  “I do not know all of it. I am only given pieces. Our main job, Holder Riana and I, is to take the skins—”

  “Skins?” Elana interjected.

  Matthias saw the way she clung to Daya’s hand and wished they did not have to hear about it this way.

  “Yes. We use the recreated or retained thought processes and new mechanique internals to craft a being that looks exactly like the ‘dant on the outside but on the inside is something else. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. But no longer independent, no longer who they were.”

  “Oh god.”

  Matthias could not tell which of them whispered it. It might have been all of them. The abductees who reappeared, the ones who everyone described as “wrong.” This was what was wrong. How many of these—people—were back on Earth, in San Francisco? Did they even know what they were or were they just living their lives until some switch was flipped?

  “That is the most common but occasionally we are asked to do something else. Something special.” The hesitation let them know she did not relish talking about what came next.

  Matthias imagined none of them wanted to know more but Erik bit the bullet and asked.

  “What other things?”

  “Sometimes—” Razel coughed and stopped talking for at least a full minute. They all let the silence stretch on until she was ready. “Sometimes it was the opposite. We took what was inside someone. We took their meat and their soul and themselves and bound them into new bodies. Bodies that were each unique and powerful, built on a base of power, alchemy, and mechanique on a grand scale.”

  “You mean like that black glass monster I fought on my first night awakened? That was a person twisted and tortured?” Erik looked sick even as he said it.

  “Not just a person. A Blooded,” Matthias whispered. “Think about it. If you can copy the mind and everything it knows? Why keep the . . . meat of some specimens and not others?” When he said meat he grabbed at his own chest squeezed until it hurt. “Because this is where our powers lie, not in how we think or in our skins but in the meat of us. Think of it, a monstrous body with the powers of one of the Blooded on the inside.”

  There was no real evidence, but Matthias felt sure he was right. They knew non-Blooded were abducted more often than Blooded and no Blooded were ever returned. He looked around and could see that others believed him. They were all looking at him, even Tassi and Yonas, with horror written over their faces. The anger rose up in Matthias at that. How dare they look horrified? They had been doing this, subjecting stolen children and others to this. They would have made Melinda into one of these things. He didn’t think Erik had made that connection yet because of the shock. If he did make it they would likely have to stop him from killing Razel.

  “You did this to people?” Erik’s whisper. “You took them and tortured them and twisted them on orders from the one who killed your family?”

  “You would dare to judge me? I do not know how it works in your world, but here the people in power grind those below them to dust slowly everyday and few escape. If, to escape, you must turn on others, what is the other choice?” Razel asked. Her voice filled the space between them but barely rose.

  “You can justify it all you want, but the fact is that you decided your life was worth more than all of the others you were destroying. I’m not ignorant of that thought process. I’ve been victim to it more than once.” Erik’s voice was quiet and held no emotion.

  “The Athenaeum does good. It is a sanctuary and helps those—” Razel started.

  “It’s supposed to, but from what you’ve said, only Lil acted as if she wanted to help others,” Erik interrupted.

  Razel was silent. There was no response she could give.

  “Do you want out?” Erik asked.

  Matthias hoped the answer was yes because they had already shared too much to trust her fully. He dreaded what Erik might do.

  “Out to where?” Razel asked.

  “We will take you with us, if you want,” Erik said.

  Razel was silent for a long moment before replying.

  “Yes. What do you need?”

  “Nothing for now,” Erik answered. “After today’s failu—” His voice cracked and he cleared it twice before he continued. “After today’s failure, we can’t stay much longer. I think we’ve shown that we aren’t going to be of much use against the darkness. Either they’ll send us through or we’ll have to find our own way. Be prepared.”

  “And when I’m called on by Holder Riana to do my duty?”

  “Then I am sure you will do it to the best of your ability. It is only that your main duty is to us now.”

  “I see.”

  Something was communicated between them in their locked gazes, something Matthias did not understand. All at once Razel rose and headed for the door. Tassi and Yonas went to stop her but they hesitated at a shake of the head from Erik and moved out of her way. As soon as the door was shut behind her.

  “Why did you just let her go?” Tassi asked.

  Erik looked at her. “What was the other option available to us?”

  “We don’t know if we can trust her.”

  Erik nodded in agreement. “You’re right, but what can she tell them really? That we are useless against the darkness? I think they saw that. She has no real information on us but we gained much knowledge from her.”

  Tassi stayed silent at that but she did not look much happier.

  “We have to trust her.” Erik sighed
and leaned back in his seat, the back of it molding itself to his preferred angle. Matthias watched him and floundered at what to do. He could see the cracks beneath Erik’s mask; the way that he held himself, as if he might shake apart at any moment.

  “What do you mean by offering her sanctuary on Earth?” This time it was Yonas.

  “She’s already given us good intel. We know what attacked me when I awoke, what attacked my mother and grandmother. We know that they have been planning this for a long time. Which makes me think at least some knew that something like this might happen to their world and were planning ahead. They might even know what this darkness actually is. She will also be a good source of information once we get back.”

  “So that’s it? Were just heading back to wait for all of this to come to us? And what about coming here to help all these people?” Daya asked. Her voice was dry and sarcastic.

  “We tried to help them and we lost. What more can we do? Lose more of our people?” Erik asked, the hurt plain in his voice for them all to hear.

  Matthias could see what was happening. Erik was still young; only eighteen and this was his first command; his first time losing someone under his leadership and one of his first friends in the new world he had been thrust into. Maybe even his first friend in a long while. Now he wanted to give up. Matthias imagined that everyone who had led people into battle had felt the same thing. He saw Daya’s face and knew she could see it too. She had seen this before, and had experienced it herself. She was making the effort to remind Erik of all the reasons this mission mattered more than one life, without saying it out loud.

  Daya took a deep breath. “There’s something we need to tell you.” Matthias watched her grip her girlfriend’s translucent hand even tighter. Daya haltingly told them of what they had found in the building, what the darkness had said to them.

  “We’ve already seen that it can cross over into our world. If we leave now we simply wait to be attacked. How many more lives will we then have on our conscience?” Daya finished.

  “What would you have me do?”