Skylark
Page 30
The words were like knives—this was the only place I’d felt at home in years. But I’d nearly killed everyone in the village.
Tansy didn’t argue. She only hid her burned hands in her sleeves and looked away. “Where will you go?”
“North, I think,” I whispered. “Can you ask—will Dorian give them enough energy to get home?” I gestured to the architects. “They’re not bad, not all of them. Most of them are just trying to do what they can to save their people.”
I thought of Kris. I thought I could see, some distance away, a familiar head of wavy brown hair.
“I don’t think Dorian would condemn them to die,” said Tansy. “Even them. If nothing else we can’t afford this many new shadow people to contend with.”
I fell silent, closing my eyes. The smell of apple blossoms had made its way over to us, newly living trees quivering in the morning breeze. I remembered Dorian’s plea—you could destroy them all—and the desperation behind it.
“I could come with you.”
I opened my eyes again. Tansy wasn’t looking at me but rather back at her home, at the newly created barrier surrounding it. The villagers were beginning to pick themselves up, get shakily to their feet, explore the new wall protecting them from the outside.
More than anything I wanted to say yes. She knew the wilderness, how to stay alive, how to find food and fight off the shadows. More than that, she was my friend. I’d done this for her as much as anything. But she had magic. Even now I could feel it stirring in her, and as if what I’d done had awakened something within me, I hungered for it. The desire to touch her as I had Tomas flickered inside me, and I turned away.
“I’ll miss you, Tansy.”
I half-expected her to hug me again, or take my hand. But in the end she just moved silently away. After a few moments I turned to watch her step through the new barrier, which let her pass without resistance to help her fellow scouts get to their feet.
I slipped my hand into my pocket, where my brother’s paper bird and core of magic nestled next to Oren’s lighter. I shaded my eyes against the sun and looked to the east, my eyes automatically finding the pass through which Oren and I had come. Somewhere up there was the summer lake, and beyond it, a world of ancient bees and flowers and hungry trees and ghosts. There was no telling what the lands to the north held, except for a boy who would follow me until he died—or until he turned and killed me. And perhaps, a man I used to call brother.
A sudden loneliness swept over me as I picked my way through the rubble of the machines, weaving through the bodies beginning to stir. I had faced the wild beyond the edge of the world I had known but I hadn’t done it alone. Now, it seemed I had never heard such quiet.
A tiny clank caught my ear and my heart gave a sick lurch. There was a machine still functioning—and somewhere nearby. I sought for some scrap of power with which to destroy it, but there was nothing—I was so spent I couldn’t find the other sight that had shown me what to do.
There was another clank, a rattle, and then a sudden hum as whatever it was whirred to life. Something bright dashed in front of my eyes, reflecting the sun and blinding me momentarily.
“Took you long enough,” said a familiar voice. A weight settled onto my shoulder. “Planning to leave me decommissioned forever, I guess?”
“Nix!” I felt like the tiny weight might be enough to knock me over. “How—how? How are you here? How are you alive?”
“Kris had me in his carriage. As for the second question: They designed me to exist out here,” said the pixie, rustling its wings in my ear. “It appears I’m unusually well shielded against having my power drained away. Besides, you power me.”
“But I have nothing left! My power is all gone, I have nothing for you to steal.”
“That is interesting,” it said, sounding significantly unalarmed. “Perhaps you have something left after all. Perhaps it’s not the energy about you, but something else entirely.”
“That’s impossible,” I breathed, though something in my chest had clenched and thrummed to the idea. If it was me, and not what the Institute had given me, that was powering Nix . . . I thought of Oren, and that last fierce moment in which he looked at me before he disappeared into the shadows.
“Lark,” said the pixie, in its flat and tinny voice, “who are you even talking to? I’m a machine with a sense of self-preservation who’s decided to ignore programming and wander off on a—on a lark. Don’t talk to me about impossible.”
I laughed, and Nix responded by launching itself from my shoulder and turning midair into a copper bird, singing songs it had learned from the birds in the apple orchard, and swooping in aerial displays.
North, I thought, inhaling. There was a tang in the air, a sharpness that stung my nose. Winter was coming. I was heading for a world of ice and snow and bitter cold, but at least I wasn’t alone.
We left the field of metallic corpses behind and walked on across the valley, beneath the vast and terrible beauty of the dawn.
acknowledgments
I once heard a writer say that acknowledgments were annoying and pointless because at the end of the day, a book is made only by the writer, sitting alone in a room, typing at the keyboard. My heart goes out to that person, because I never could have made this book alone—and I never would have wanted to. The journey’s involved more people than I can count, and I am grateful for every single one of them.
There’s no one deserving of more thanks than my amazing agent, Josh Adams. I have no words, except these: there is no one on the planet I’d rather have fighting for me and my books. So to Josh, Tracey, and Quinlan: my gratitude is endless. Thank you as well to all the international agents, scouts, and publishers that have helped bring this story to so many countries.
Andrew Karre, my editor, is insanely clever and insightful, and showed me things about my book that I didn’t even know were there. It would not be what it is without him. And so many thanks go to Sammy Yuen for designing this beautiful cover. I can’t thank everyone at Carolrhoda and Lerner enough for their faith in this book.
I could not have done any of this without my family. My parents, Clint and Sandra Spooner, started buying me books before I was born and have never showed the slightest doubt that I could do anything I wanted. Thank you as well to my other family, the Miskes, who have been cheering for me my whole life. And to my big sister, Josie: thank you so much for introducing me to fantasy when I was too young to resist. It was the best kind of brainwashing.
Jeanne Cavelos, director of the Odyssey Writing Workshop: You told me I could do this, and I listened. I learned so much at Odyssey, and so much of it from my fellow classmates, a brilliant, creative, beautiful group of people. Corry, I miss you especially—and the dentist/ice skating rink too.
To my family down under, I will be forever grateful. Marilyn and Philip Kaufman adopted me while I was in Australia, writing this book. My friends there have cheered me every step of the way—Michelle, Ailie, Flic, Ian—I miss them all every day. And most of all, Brendan: thank you for letting me live in your house before you’d ever met me, for doing ridiculous things to make me laugh, and for reading on the train.
I’ve had so many friends chip in with support, advice, enthusiasm, and faith: Sarah, Ellen, Caitlin, Kim, Frazier, Sophie, Thara, Josh B., Kacey, Kat, Wynn, Lindsay, and everyone who has ever said, “I can’t wait to read your book.”
Finally, I want to thank all the teachers who, over the years, have shaped me into who I am today. In particular, Ellen Andrews, who didn’t care that her class of sixth graders was too old for story time and whose reading of The Golden Compass changed my life; Betty Stegall, who read my first (and utterly atrocious) attempt at a novel and somehow saw within it something to nurture; and Barbara Nelson, whose lessons about The Odyssey cemented my love of myths and fairy tales forever, and whose friendship now I treasure.
And to the creative writing professor who gave me a B minus because I wouldn’t “leave out the magi
c and the ridiculous creatures,” I say this: thank you.
Never underestimate my desire to prove silly people wrong.
meagan spooner
Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting and spent several years living in Australia. She’s traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galápagos, and there’s a bit of every journey in the stories she writes.
She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there’s no telling how long she’ll stay there.
You can visit her online at http:// www.meaganspooner.com.
Table of Contents
Skylark
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part II
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part III
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
acknowledgments
meagan spooner
Table of Contents
Skylark
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part II
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part III
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
acknowledgments
meagan spooner