by Marissa Burt
Maya stood staring at her for several heartbeats. Wren wondered what the Outsiders did to punish liars and Magicians, or if they even cared to hear both sides of the story. She thought of what she had seen over the past days, the brutal punishments she had witnessed in the practice yard, and the way everything was a life-or-death decision for these people. She did knew there wouldn’t be any room for compromise.
Wren heard the unmistakable sound of feathers ruffling over where she’d left the fish, and her heart leaped. She willed Coeur to stay away. Fly, she thought, as though the falcon were telepathic. Maya didn’t seem to notice, and Wren hoped the bird would have sense enough to return to the city. The sounds stilled.
“We don’t help Magicians. Or Alchemists. No compromise.” Maya clenched her jaw. “What I should do is call the leaders together and hold a judgment against you right now.” She stared at Wren in silence for what felt like a long time, before jutting her chin forward as if coming to some kind of internal decision. “But I have a better idea.” She grabbed Wren’s elbow. “Come with me.”
SEVENTEEN
Dickory dickory dare,
The girl walked through the air.
The horrible sound
Soon brought her down,
Dickory dickory dare.
Maya didn’t take Wren back to the camp. Instead she led her through the farmland and to a side of the island Wren hadn’t yet seen. The path soon gave way to rugged terrain that Maya easily navigated. The vegetation had overtaken what might have once been terraces. Now, the ground had collapsed in on itself, leaving a slew of precarious tunnels and caverns. Maya hardly slowed. She had obviously been this way before. And more than once. “Faster, girl” was the only thing she said whenever Wren stumbled over a particularly cumbersome boulder. “The night wanes.”
Wren laughed weakly at that. She was still sore from the days of training sessions, and the thought of another sleepless night tripled her exhaustion. She scrabbled over a rock that rested precariously against another, trying to catch her breath. Maya wasn’t even winded. Wren didn’t think the woman was leading her to her death, but that was only because she knew that if Maya wanted to kill her, she’d have done it already.
Maya disappeared into the tunnel in front of her, and Wren plunged after. As suddenly as they had started, they had arrived at the last place Wren had expected to find on the Outsiders’ island.
“A laboratory?” she said, scanning the hidden room. Wren wasn’t familiar enough with the technology of Nod to know if these were new or old machines, but their weathered faces and the makeshift way some of them had been patched together led her to believe the latter. “I thought you despised everything having to do with Nod. I thought the Outsiders never compromised.”
“We don’t.” Maya’s face twisted. “And I do despise everything to do with Nod.” She reached over and began flipping gears, sending the machines whirring to life. The cool glow of gas burst into flame next to Wren, and she jumped aside to keep her shirt from getting singed. “But I despise Boggen’s evil use of stardust even more.”
Wren moved around the room. She didn’t recognize most of the equipment, but the different devices seemed to be connected by corkscrew wiring to a wide shallow bowl in the center. Indeed, Maya was directing most of her attention that way. She took a gauge and inserted it into the steaming liquid in the bowl, peering at the meter and scribbling a temperature in a leather-bound book.
“What does all of this have to do with Boggen’s experiments?” Wren asked. Her unease about Maya’s intentions was overcome by her desire to help.
Maya peered at her over the edge of the book, but she didn’t stop scribbling. “You know about Boggen’s plans?”
“I know the stardust is tainted.” Wren looked up from the map she had been studying. “And that Boggen is conducting human experiments to try to minimize the damage.”
“Oh, yes, his ‘research.’” Maya’s lips curved into a hard smile. “Well, he won’t be able to continue that without any stardust.” She glanced up at Wren again, a glint in her blue eyes. “I’ve been draining the wells.”
“You?” Wren stared at the woman. “The Outsiders are the ones taking the stardust?”
“Not taking it.” Maya looked horrified. “Destroying it.” She put her pencil in the book to mark her place and folded the cover closed, giving Wren her full attention. “I have made it my mission to stop Boggen’s drilling. Call it a”—she squinted up at the ceiling as though looking for the right word—“personal passion of mine.” She crossed the room and riffled through the maps spread over the table in front of Wren. “We’ve now found six of the seven wells.” She pulled out a detailed map with several Xs across the surface. “But not the last. Or Boggen’s stronghold.”
Maya ran a finger over the map. “We’re at a disadvantage, you see, because for every search party sent out, the Outsiders don’t only have to hunt for the secret wells; we also have to contend with surprise ambushes by the animachines. And now you’ve come.” She was eyeing Wren unsettlingly.
“Me?” Wren echoed. “I think there must be some misunderstanding. I don’t know anything about Boggen’s wells, and I haven’t the first idea how to destroy stardust.” Wren didn’t add that she wasn’t exactly sure she would destroy stardust even if she could.
“You are a Weather Changer, are you not?” Maya was back to shuffling around in the stack of papers.
In the second Wren took to deliberate, she realized that lying would do her no good. At least if Maya thought she was useful, she might not go all Outsider discipline on her.
“I am,” Wren said. “But how did you know?”
“Does it matter?” Maya knelt down and began rooting through a cupboard. “A Weather Changer is precisely what I need.”
Wren felt a flicker of unease. Should she tell Maya she wasn’t always able to work the magic? Or would that make her no longer useful? “I’m only an apprentice Alchemist,” she began.
“It would be better if you talked less,” Maya said dismissively. “I have little love for the Alchemists,” she said, enunciating the word with stinging precision. “But they are the lesser of two evils. Perhaps”—she looked up at Wren again, calculatingly—“perhaps you will prove useful even after you help me find the wells.”
Wren instinctively took a step back. The glint in Maya’s eyes looked positively malevolent. Still. She had to do something. “No,” Wren said in a quiet voice, and Maya’s eyes widened.
“No?”
“First, you agree to help me. Then I’ll help you.”
Bargaining with Maya wasn’t easy, and Wren’s shoulders were knotted from the stiff posture she had held while going back and forth with the woman. But in the end, it had been worth it. At least she hoped so. She was going to help Maya. “I’ll do what you ask,” she had said. “And then you will help me free my friends.” Wren was taking the risk that Maya might go back on her word, and the edge in Maya’s gaze still made her nervous, but she had given it her best shot. Hopefully, the rest of the Outsiders would come through. She shook her head. She should be focusing. She would need all her attention to get the stardust to work, and bartering or no bartering, Maya wouldn’t help her unless she found the well. The older woman stood on the other side of the steaming bowl, checking the temperature and pressure gauges one last time.
“It’s ready,” she said. “Are you?”
Wren gave her a tense nod. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.
Maya moved to a hidden niche in the rock and took out a carved wooden box before returning to stand next to Wren. Wren couldn’t make out the design etched into the metallic inset on the lid. Maya swept her fingers reverently over the pattern before opening the lid to reveal a faded velvet lining filled to the brim with glittering jewels. Maya ran her knobby fingers through them, sifting and pawing until she found the ones she was looking for. First, a silver gem cut into a diamond. Then a golden pear-shaped one. A glistening green orb. And finally
a clear oblong streaked with yellow.
“What are those?” Wren asked.
Wren’s words seemed to snap Maya out of her reverie. “We’re not here for a lesson, girl,” she said. “But to find a well. Ready yourself.”
Wren wondered what exactly Maya was expecting her to do. The bowl in front of them was heating up as though it could sense that something was about to happen. The liquid bubbled and boiled, sending up clouds of steam that rolled over Maya’s hands and turned the hair around Wren’s forehead into damp curls. Maya pinched the green stone between two fingers, mumbling something under her breath as she held it above the scalding liquid. It was then that Wren saw what she hadn’t noticed before. The jewels weren’t jewels at all. She took an instinctive step back.
“Are those—”
“Eyes?” Maya asked, tossing the first glittering green eye into the liquid. “How else to see his wells?”
The potion hissed and bubbled even higher once the eye disappeared. Little pink clouds of mist arced above the surface like a fleet of invisible dolphins. Wren felt hard rock behind her and realized she had been steadily backing away from the cauldron. Was this some kind of dark magic?
Maya had thrown in the other eyes now, and rainbow arcs of green and orange and gold leaped higher, reaching almost to the ceiling of the cavern.
“Girl!” Maya shouted, noticing for the first time that Wren wasn’t beside her. She darted lizardlike across the room and grabbed Wren’s elbow, her piercing blue gaze pinning Wren in place.
“Frightened, girl?” She set her mouth in a thin line. “You should be. We all should be wary of the magic.”
Wren swallowed the squeak that started to come out of her mouth. “I won’t do dark magic,” she managed. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“Dark magic?” Maya’s face looked like a thundercloud. “You think I would ask you to do dark magic?” She yanked Wren forward, and Wren winced. Surely a bruise was forming on her elbow by now, the way the woman liked to haul her around by it. “They’re not real eyes, foolish girl.” She hauled Wren over to the water, which had settled down to a more moderate simmer, the colors congealing to make blobs of solid greens and blues and browns separated by the pearly pink liquid, which was reminiscent of the water in the moat around the island.
“They are gemstones taken from different regions surrounding Nod,” Maya explained. “I think these four most likely”—she tapped the map—“but we’ll only know for sure once you work your rhyme.” She let go of Wren’s elbow and turned to look at Wren, her face contorted in a painful expression. Wren watched her, perplexed, until she realized that Maya was trying to smile at her.
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” Maya said. “We can tell the others you found the well, but we must not tell them about the stardust.” She worked hard for another smile. “This lab was one of Malcolm’s from the early days. He was adept at playing the stardust. I only know it is here because of my respect for him.”
Wren realized what Maya meant. “The others don’t know,” she breathed. “About what you’re doing.” She thought of how Auspex had scorned stardust use, how the others used the word stardust as a curse. “All this business about no compromise.” She stared at Maya. “And here you are making the biggest one of all.”
The smile vanished from Maya’s face and the familiar hard-as-nails, no-nonsense expression was back in place. “You will not tell anyone.” She set her jaw, as though she was fighting a war within herself. “Evil must be stopped.” She shook her head. “I’m only using the magic to fight the magic. Sometimes one must compromise.” She gave Wren an expectant look. “Well? Get out the accursed stardust. We have work to do.”
Wren had to admire the woman’s tenacity, whatever else she thought about her methods. She almost hated to disappoint her. Almost.
“Maybe you won’t have to compromise after all,” Wren said quietly, avoiding the woman’s sharp gaze. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more stardust.” She shrugged. “The last of it was in that pouch you threw away.”
Maya’s eyes widened at this revelation, but only for a moment. She hastily checked the temperature gauge on the potion. “It will be all right,” she said. “Wait here.”
She disappeared the way they had come, but Wren barely had time to wonder where she had gone when the woman was back, a small stoppered jar cupped in one hand.
“Use this instead,” she said, handing it to Wren. “You will have to work the rhyme.”
Wren looked at it dubiously. The jar held a dark liquid that looked nearly black. She swirled the bottle to get a closer look, and tiny pinpricks of neon light blossomed inside it. “What is it?” she breathed, transfixed by the display.
Maya unclenched her jaw. “Starmilk. Preserved from before the plague. Take care, as it’s not very stable.”
Working the starmilk was very different from working the stardust. Maya had only the vaguest idea of what to do, and Wren found herself fumbling through the first rhyme. She poured out several drops of starmilk into her hands, and it clumped there, thick and gluelike. Maya read the rhyme instructions from an ancient-looking book, and the archaic language was hard to follow. Wren traced her fingers through the starmilk. Five vertical lines, crossed by five horizontal. Then again from the opposite direction. Nothing happened the first two times she tried it. Fortunately, Maya seemed to think this had more to do with the cursed magic than any fault of Wren herself, and she hovered over Wren’s shoulder with her painful-looking smile in place. Wren guessed Maya meant to be encouraging.
“Try again,” Maya said. “But this time perhaps you should start the vertical lines from bottom to top.”
Wren humored her. She wondered if Maya would be as encouraging if it turned out that Wren couldn’t help her after all. Wren pushed all thoughts of failure aside when the liquid flared with light, sending a warm pulse of energy across her palm.
This time it was Maya who took several steps back, her face tight with worry as she eyed the magic the Outsiders loathed so much.
“It won’t hurt you,” Wren said, buoyed by the feeling of light and life in her hands. And for once she wasn’t going to use it to hurt anyone, but to help them. How she had missed this! “What next?” she prompted, moving toward the bowl. Following Maya’s instructions, Wren sprinkled the starmilk over the bowl, reciting the words of the rhyme:
All night long my nets I throw
To the stars in the twinkling foam.
Then up from the waves comes the light I know,
to take me where I want to go.
As she did so, the landscape in the bowl shifted. The starmilk hovered above it, pulsing with brightness, and then fell into an unmistakable dome over the orange-hued hill near the western edge of the bowl.
“The Old City,” Maya whispered. “Only Boggen would put a well there.” The starmilk arced out, creating a maplike effect that pinpointed one location. Maya marked this all carefully on her map, muttering curses at Boggen all the while. While she did so, Wren slipped the little glass bottle of starmilk in her pocket. After all, Maya had thrown away the rest of Wren’s stardust. Finally, Maya was done, and she looked up at Wren, a feverish light in her eyes. “Well done. Now we drain it.”
They were back at the Outsider village by dawn. The bright glare of the sun was muffled by the smoke from the morning campfires. Maya, her expression blazing with purpose, strode down the main street of the settlement, clanging an old bell. Whispers and stares followed Maya and Wren as they wound their way past side roads where Outsiders gathered to gawk. Wren wondered whether their speculation matched the reality.
“We’ve located another of Boggen’s wells,” Maya announced when the others had clustered around the village green. “And a crew leaves this morning to deal with it.”
There was a rustle of movement: not the wide-eyed stares Wren had expected, but the purposeful strapping on of weapons, the whispering of good-byes between very young children and their parents.
“No
t all of us will be able to go.” Maya pointed at a few of the fiercest and most scarred Outsiders. “Captains,” she barked. “Choose your crew. We leave in a quarter hour.”
The movement intensified. Some Outsiders were arguing. Others were making ready to fight. None was reconciled to staying behind. Even the younger Outsiders were begging their trainers to take them. Wren sat down on a nearby stump. Maya had seemed distracted by all the preparations. With any luck, she would forget Wren altogether. Wren yawned. Perhaps she could spend the day asleep in the hovel. Then when the Outsiders returned from emptying the well, they could plan the rescue. Every bone in her body felt tired. It was as if the night’s work was only now hitting her. She leaned her back against the side of a nearby hut and let her body relax. Perhaps if she just rested her eyes for a moment.
“Girl!” Maya’s sharp words jolted Wren to attention. She sat up, stifling a groan at the stiffness in her neck. How long had she dozed? The Outsiders had finished their preparations and were standing in a loose semicircle, packs strapped to their backs and weapons at the ready.
“Girl! Where is your gear?”
Wren rubbed her eyes. “Gear?”
But Maya ignored her. She flicked a finger impatiently at a sour-faced boy, pointing toward the weapon house. By the time Wren was on her feet and had gathered her wits, the boy had returned, an extra pack in hand and a hopeful expression on his face.