The moonlight glinted off a knife in his hand, its edge dripping blood. I tore my eyes away. There were three, maybe four of the monsters arrayed in a semicircle around us. I had no way of knowing how many others there might be still concealed by the darkness, or how many Oren had already killed.
One of the shadow people dove for him with a scream of rage, knocking him back against me. I could smell the sweat and the blood, hear the creature’s snarls as it snapped at his throat. Oren’s knife flashed, and the creature shrieked again, falling away.
Oren and the monsters were blurs of shadow and light, ducking and weaving. I could see the knife most clearly, its edge scattering the moonlight and blinding my straining eyes.
I saw more bodies hit the ground, but I could not see whose they were. Two left. Still fighting.
The last monster leapt at Oren, dodging the low sweep of his knife and wrapping its arms around his throat.
I started to struggle out of the shack to help him.
Oren needed no assistance. With a grunt he threw the monster down. As it struggled to its knees, Oren darted behind it and yanked its chin up with his free hand. He shifted his grip on the knife, flipping the blade the other way around.
For an instant everything was outlined by the moonlight, the entire scene edged in silver. The pulsing throat of the monster, lined with dark gray veins. Its hands desperately trying to claw free of Oren’s grasp. Its feral eyes knowing what was coming. Oren’s face, transformed by ferocity, the blue eyes wild and animal.
With a smooth, graceful sweep, Oren drew the blade across the creature’s throat, sending a cascade of dark blood down its filthy chest. He let the body fall, where it lay gurgling for a few seconds before going still.
Oren came at me, holding out one bloody hand palm up in reassurance, saying something gently in a low voice. I threw myself back against the rubble filling the shack.
“Don’t touch me!” I cried, the words tearing from my throat.
He stood there, his bloodstained body tense and edged in silver light, panting and gazing at me. Then he turned away, crouching by each of the fallen bodies. I could hear the sounds the knife made as he dispatched the ones who still lived.
He cleaned his hands in the dirt, bathing them in dust and then wiping them on his pants, doing the same with the blade of the knife before tucking it carefully into his boot. He made a point of checking each of the bodies, but whether he found anything in their tattered pockets, I couldn’t say. I kept my eyes turned resolutely upward at the square of night I could see through the door of the shack.
For once, the starry sky held no horror for me.
Oren moved past me, limping. The air was ripe with the tang of sweat and blood and fierceness. “We can’t stay here,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s go.”
• • •
He led me on up the mountain, moving slowly. He didn’t try to touch me again, though I struggled on the slope, my shaking legs failing to hold me upright and the bitten arm throbbing with every step.
Though the walk felt interminable, I don’t think we traveled more than an hour before Oren called a halt. He made no fire, but merely sat me down in the hollow of a rock that offered some shelter from the wind. “Get some sleep,” he advised. “I’ll keep watch.”
I hadn’t spoken since my outburst, and my throat—hoarse from fear and running—closed more tightly with every passing moment. I huddled up, drawing in all my limbs tightly to my body. I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I felt as though I would never sleep again.
We were out of the direct moonlight now, but I could still see his shape from where I lay. He faced away from me, keeping an eye on the slope that led up to my hiding place. I imagined his impassive face, the piercing eyes.
Hadn’t I wanted the ferocity?
In that moment of victory, transformed by violence, the color leeched from him by the dark and the moon, he could have been a brother to the monsters that attacked me. That image hung before my eyes as I watched him, sitting still and silent now.
A monster who brought me flowers.
I didn’t remember closing my eyes, only watching him endlessly through the night. Nevertheless, I woke in the morning to find I’d rolled over in the night, hiding my eyes in the crook of my elbow.
Oren was nowhere to be seen. I knew now that that never meant he was gone. Nevertheless, I eased my shirt down over one shoulder so that I could inspect the place where I’d been bitten.
There was very little blood. A perfect half-moon of teeth was imprinted into the skin. Each individual tooth mark was visible, a purple-red indentation against the backdrop of bruises.
If Oren hadn’t come—I remembered waiting for the teeth to tear my flesh away, tear me apart as I’d seen them do before. I began to shake, struggling to push the memory away as I pulled my shirt back into place. If Oren hadn’t come.
A familiar hum cut into the panic threatening to overwhelm me. Familiar, but faltering and inconstant. I looked around for a flash of copper, some movement, any sign of the pixie to confirm what I was hearing.
Something glinted halfway down the slope. I squinted in the morning sun, shading my eyes. A tiny copper form picked its way up the hill, flitting from stone to stone, never spending much time in the air.
It got to within a few yards of me and then dropped, wings fanning sporadically and mechanisms clicking with effort.
“Nix?” I whispered, pushing up to my knees and crawling toward it.
“I tried to find assistance,” it whispered with what seemed to be a phenomenal effort, clockwork grinding. “I was unable—to—”
“I’m okay,” I replied, interrupting. “Assistance found me.” I reached up to touch the little copper bug with my fingertips, but my arm throbbed so suddenly and violently that I let my hand fall.
“What’s wrong with you?” The pixie was in clear distress, half-flopped over in the dust.
“Power,” it sputtered. “Recharging.”
“How are you recharging?” I tried to calm my fluttering heart—was I afraid the machine would die? I swallowed the feeling. “We’re nowhere near an energy pocket.”
“Renewable—source.”
It was as though a bucket of water had been tossed over me. How could I have been so stupid? I had even wondered how the pixie was staying charged despite days spent outside magical barriers. How much worse had this thing made my weakness, my starvation, by siphoning away my power? No wonder it had ridden on my shoulder, tucked itself so close to me.
“Sorry.”
I could leave. Walk away this moment, and without my energy the pixie would die. It clearly didn’t have the strength to follow me.
And yet—it had led me to Oren, as I had asked, even though I hadn’t known what I was asking. It had located kindling, sought out the easiest paths for someone on foot, given me as much information as it could. It had saved my life by fetching Oren before I drowned in the swamp.
I settled onto my knees and stretched out a hand, brushing its body with my fingertips. A tiny, jolting tingle ran down the surface of my skin, not unlike the strange current I felt whenever Oren touched me. The pixie shuddered, wings fluttering and clockwork ceasing to emit that horrible grinding sound.
“Lark?”
“If you ever lie to me again I will crush you,” I scooped the pixie into my cupped hands. “Do you understand?”
“I didn’t lie, I only—”
“Nix!”
“I understand.”
After only a few minutes in my presence, the pixie righted itself and fluttered up to my shoulder, where it sat cheerfully whirring and clicking away, beginning to groom itself as assiduously as ever.
I was about to ask it where it had been looking for help, when Oren reappeared.
He didn’t bother making any of the tiny sounds he’d used to announce his presence in the clearing, merely melted silently out of the shadows behind the curve of the rock. He dropped the thing he was carrying a few feet away from me, a
nd then knelt to start going through it, his profile to me.
My pack.
He loosened the drawstrings and then paused for the briefest of moments before rummaging through the supplies inside.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice still rough with sleep, and tried to clear my throat.
“Taking inventory. Looks like it’s all here.” He tossed out a couple leaf-wrapped packets, oozing red and purple, the telltale signs that the berries had been crushed. “What’s this?” He held up Basil’s bird.
I lurched forward to snatch it from his grasp, heart thudding. “Don’t touch that.” He let it go without protest, eyes narrowed and fixed on my face.
“What is it?” He watched as I cradled it against my chest, over my heart.
“A gift,” I murmured. If only Basil were here now. Maybe this world would make sense if he were here to explain it. “From home.”
Silence stretched for a few long moments. I looked up to see Oren gazing at me. His eyes flashed with fleeting pain or anger. When I blinked, his stare was once again flat and cold. “I see,” he said shortly. He rummaged in the pack until he found the flowers he’d given me. He tossed them on the ground with the ruined berries and then closed the pack, cinching it shut with a jerk.
Before I could protest he got to his feet, boots crushing berries and flowers alike, and dropped the pack at my feet. “Let’s go.” He turned to move out.
I got to my feet, my eyes on the crushed flowers. My brother, I thought to myself. It was a gift from my brother. Surely Oren couldn’t be upset because he thought I’d rather be home in the city? I fell into step behind him, watching him.
It was barely noticeable, but I saw that he was moving more slowly this morning. I remembered his limp from the night before.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. My voice was still hoarse, despite attempts to clear my throat. I had screamed at him so loudly not to touch me that I’d hurt something in my voice.
He moved toward the edge of the bluff to look down the slope, monitoring it. “No.”
“But—”
“We need to move quickly,” he said shortly.
“We?” I felt a surge of something, relief or hope or dread. “I can’t leave you alone for one day,” he replied. I wanted to smile, but there was no humor in his voice. “I thought I could—” But he cut himself off with a shake of his head. “We’re wasting time,” he continued. “The bodies will slow them down a little if more come after us, but not for long.”
“Slow them down?” I stared at him, uncomprehending, incredulous. “Surely they don’t bury their dead?”
Oren turned, glancing at me before beginning to pick his way on up the slope. “They’re scavengers as much as hunters,” he said shortly. “And after last night they’re going to be very, very hungry.”
We made good time up the mountain, as far as I could tell, despite the injuries he was too proud to mention and the throbbing of my arm. I stared at his back as we moved, barely paying attention to where I put my feet. I wanted to tell him that I was grateful he’d come back to save my life, that I’d only been exhausted and half-mad with fear the night before and that nothing had changed between us.
But every time I felt my mouth begin to shape the words, I saw a flash of his face, so transformed in the moonlight, the wildness there as he fought the beasts, the unflinching grace as he drew the blade across its throat. And I kept silent, knowing that if I spoke I’d be lying.
Though the mountains looked steep and unyielding from a distance, up close they were merely long, hard slopes. Even though the river we were following cut a swift and narrow path through them, there was a fair amount of hard climbing. I stumbled and fell regularly as my exhaustion caught up to me. I couldn’t be sure how much of the night I had slept, but it felt as though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours.
As we climbed, a sound began to build at the edge of my hearing. I could sense a pocket nearby, a light tingle at the back of my mind, but the sound was separate from it—something deep and distant and rushing. We were moving toward the sound as we followed the river up the mountain. Now and then, up ahead, I caught a glimpse of the barrier, a violet shimmer in the sunlight.
The climb seemed endless, and I timed my steps to the throbbing of my arm. After a while Oren stopped, and I nearly stepped on his heels before I noticed. He nodded his head, pointing with his chin back the way we’d come.
I squinted in the midday sun, not immediately seeing what he was indicating. As if reading my mind, he stepped closer and pointed over my shoulder, his arm only a few inches from my face. The hair on my neck prickled—I could not tell if it was from fear or something else entirely. He smelled of grass and fresh water and sweat, a surprisingly pleasant combination. I tried to remember what Kris smelled like and could only think of the Institute, clean and sterile, without scent.
Then I saw it—and his closeness was suddenly the last thing on my mind. About halfway down the slope, no more than a quarter of an hour behind us, a pair of shadows darted from rock to rock. They walked one behind the other, not unlike the way Oren and I traveled.
I reached out, unthinking, grasping at a fold of Oren’s shirt. “How much time do we have?”
“Maybe half an hour before they catch up,” he replied. “They’ve been behind us a while now.”
“You knew? Why didn’t you say anything?”
To answer, he grasped my hand, stretching it out, palm up. It was shaking, and I stared at it, clenching my jaw.
“Wouldn’t have made you go any faster. Slowed you down, if anything. We’re almost there; we’ll be fine.”
I glanced behind me, and this time the two shadow people had vanished behind some outcropping. I could feel them back there, though, a tiny prickle of fear running up and down my spine. “How can you be so calm?”
“We’ll be fine once we reach the falls, and we’re only a few minutes away.” He started picking a path through the rocks again.
The falls?
The jolt of adrenaline from seeing the shadow people behind us made my footing unsteady, and though I would not have said it out loud, I knew Oren had been right to keep it from me that we were being followed.
Steps had been carved into the mountainside, weathered and, in places, worn smooth enough to make climbing difficult. Holes had been drilled at regular intervals up the path. This had once been a place people visited for fun, or for sport, or some reason I couldn’t fathom, and I longed for the handrails that had clearly once lined the way up. My legs shook with strain and fear, although I never caught so much as a glimpse of a shadow again.
Oren, by now, was some distance ahead. He made no attempt to help me up, keeping his gaze ahead, his energy reserved for climbing. Though he moved much more easily than I could, I thought I sensed a hesitance, a deliberation that caught at my attention. He no longer moved with the thoughtless ease he had in the forest.
I crested a ridge, the steps ending at a plateau, and saw the barrier spreading out before me. The dome of it was bisected by the rock so that only the rim was visible. Spreading out across the plateau toward the dome was a lake, so clear that I could see the clouds overhead reflected in its surface. Above the barrier, an incredible cascade of water fell from a peak high above, lost in the mist. Where it met the top of the dome, the water scattered, most falling straight through but a fine mist spraying off in every direction, shimmering over the surface of the barrier. The light danced through it in flashes of color and fleeting rainbows.
The falls. For a moment, I forgot our pursuers.
Oren kept walking around the shore of the lake. I hesitated, and only when he reached the edge of the barrier did he pause and look back at me.
“What’s to stop them from following us in there?” I asked.
“Oh, they’ll follow us,” Oren said.
“What? You said we’d be safe!”
“We will be,” he said. “I can’t quite explain it. It’s—I just know.”
>
“This is not the time for one of your confused—”
“Lark. Do you trust me?”
My breath quickened as I looked at him, the dried blood on his face and hands, the dirty hair, the piercing empty eyes. I saw in my mind’s eye the flash of moonlight off the edge of his wet blade.
“No,” I whispered.
His lips curved, and my heart slammed against my ribcage. “Good.” He slipped through the barrier and its shimmering curtain of water.
Chapter 23
I stayed only moments. Nix thrummed by my ear, insistent as an alarm, reminding me of the shadow creatures not far behind us. Reaching up to shield the machine from the water, I ducked through it.
Warmth enveloped me. Inside, the surface of the water was an unimaginable shade of violet-blue, reflecting the inside of the dome. Surrounding the lake, the plants were in full summer foliage, leafy green ferns and patches of moss spreading everywhere. Where outside the leaves were fading to dull gold and brown, here everything was vibrant and lush.
By the lakeshore, Oren was stripping off his clothes. He pulled his shirt off, moving gingerly. I had a glimpse of bruises blossoming across his shoulders before I looked away.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, staring resolutely in the other direction. “Won’t they be here in a few minutes?”
“It’ll take them a while to get up the nerve to come inside,” Oren said confidently. “They’re afraid of the barriers. It won’t stop them if they know there’s food inside, but it’ll slow them down.”
I heard a splashing behind me, and without thinking I turned to look. I saw only a rapidly expanding circle of ripples where Oren had dived into the water. After a few moments, his head bobbed back up. Treading water, he reached up to scrub at his face, washing the dried blood from it.
“Well?” he said, slicking his hair back away from his face. “It’s the summer lake. Always warm here. Coming?”
The absurdity of it, a boy asking me to swim in a lake with a pair of monsters only minutes away, made me stare at him. Eventually, I managed, “I—don’t know how to swim.”
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