by TS Ward
It was difficult to protect Sceptres like them from the world.
“Thank god for drunk fight night,” Fitz continued to mutter.
The streets were empty except for those in the deep sleep of moonshine. With my hood pulled up and the darkness around us we made it two blocks away from the wild gardens without running into any problems, even as the sounds of a rowdy crowd that cheered on a fight echoed off the old glass and concrete and steel of the city’s corpse.
Percy raced around the room with his arms held out like wings. He made airplane noises as he ran.
“You say that now, just wait until the morning,” Jack told his uncle. He waited for Percy to get close to him before he grabbed the giggling boy and stopped his game. “It’s time for bed, kiddo. Airplanes need sleep too.”
“No!” He shouted and wriggled away to race across the store. “I’m not tired!”
“I think you are,” Jack sighed.
“Well, I’m not,” the kid argued.
He stuck his tongue out and wagged his hands on either side of his face. He seemed happier tonight, despite being upset by the arguments all around him. He was the reason why I didn’t respond to Fitz when we got here—we had it handled until you screwed it all up, princess.
Arden never said a word about a daughter, but when I dreamed of Percy in the sweet grass meadow telling me stories about what he did with his Tiger friend and his Rabbit friend, I told her. Whenever I had the chance, I secretly whispered into the shadow of my dark room about him and his friends, and when we talked, she thanked me for it. Especially on the days when she was a shell of herself.
Those dreams kept me sane. They kept her sane, too, and I didn’t know.
Comfort wrapped my heart in warmth to know that I helped her, even in a small way. But tears pricked my eyes and guilt pooled like unravelled yarn in my stomach and I wished I could apologize to her.
I wished I could give her the chance to see her daughter and her father the way that I was seeing Percy again—even if it was just a reoccurring dream, it was again.
Percy ran circles around Jack, dared him to catch him.
Arden didn’t get that. She didn’t get this.
It should have been her here, not me. I should have protected her. I shouldn’t have gotten her involved but I was selfish and I needed help but—for what? I couldn’t remember why. I couldn’t remember why she died.
She would have been the Pluto that lived, and there wouldn’t have been any use for the others. She would have gotten to be a mom to her kid and Percy wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It should be her.
But it wasn’t. It was me. I was here.
So do good by her.
I pushed off from the wall and came to rest on my knees just as Percy came around again. I held my hands out to him.
“Come here, little bear,” I whispered to him, and he started to. He started to move to me as a yawn pulled at his mouth, but Jack caught him just before he reached me.
“Don’t,” he snapped at me.
I recoiled at the words.
The sting of them against my cheeks brought out a blush under the saltwater tears that threatened already. Don’t touch him, because I was a monster who hurt him and brought him down to this dangerous place where the buildings creaked with age and the weight of a desert above, where the inhabitants held drunken fights for fun.
Don’t touch him. Don’t go near him.
I pushed myself up to my feet and slipped out of the dark store while they weren’t looking, into the even darker entrance hall of this ancient, looted mall.
Above, broken skylights let in the dull light from a clouded sky of black gray. There were no stars, and there was no moonlight, but the sound of distant thunder rumbled.
I was sure that James made it back with his sample of Percy’s blood, that my father’s anger took the form of a thunderous storm and mine took the form of the lightning that followed.
The day he told me Pilot was my brother, he was proud. I hated him for it, but now he would at least know the shame for wanting another child desperately enough to find another woman when his wife was still alive and still wore the ring he gave her.
My heart ached for Roam, up above the city and waiting for Pucks to make it back, where she could watch the clouds broil in the distance.
I settled onto the hard surface of a bench and crossed my legs underneath me, pulled my jacket sleeves over my hands to keep out the cold of night below a desert. It was cold, cold enough for my breath to form clouds.
“I’m sorry,” Jack’s voice was next to me, and I flinched at the suddenness of it.
The floor was coated in sand from the broken skylights above. It muffled any footsteps. He stepped around the bench and sat down next to me, missing his jacket again.
I pushed myself farther away, slid down the bench and pulled in my elbows—to give him room, so I didn’t hurt him, too.
“I didn’t mean to say that like I did,” he said, quiet in the emptiness of this hollow place. “I meant, I just… trying to get my siblings to sleep was hectic. If anyone else paid them any attention, that was it, they’d be awake for hours and cranky in the morning and… I’m sorry, that’s all.”
I nodded and wiped my sleeves under my eyes. I smiled softly at the thought of him trying to corral a bunch of kids like Percy.
I bit my tongue, closed my eyes, and whispered, “I don’t really remember him, you know. I dreamed him and he made everything better and I needed him to make this better, I needed him…”
“I’m sorry, Sparky, I wasn’t trying to get in the way of that.” He stretched an arm across the back of the bench, his head tilted as he looked at me. “Really, I feel terrible. It’s been a long fight to get here and I’m tired and stressed and terrified for what happens next.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I whispered. “I get it.”
“I want to. I want to make it up to you. Please. You needed Percy and I got in the way of that and I want to help. Let me, Sparky, I uh… I could use it as much as you.” He breathed out unsteadily, and I watched his thumb twist the gold band around his finger.
I noticed it once before, and I noticed the white handle of a knife stuck into his belt. Staples of Jack Talon, the way that my father’s champagne and gold watch were staples of him.
A frown crossed over me, and then words spilled from my mouth that I hadn’t planned on saying. “I have a brother. My mother never knew—doesn’t know. His mother, Lourdes, she was the one in the Mirror Hall. He claims to know the future, which is bullshit, but I mean… he hasn’t been wrong yet. My father relies on him for everything, including all of this. I have no doubt about that. But there’s no telling what the endgame is or which side he’s leaning toward.”
Jack was quiet.
He looked at me with his cheek caught between his teeth. He sat so still that it took a blink to tell me time hadn’t frozen around me.
The cold air made a cloud of his words. “That’s a lot to hold onto, Sparky.”
I shrugged and changed the subject. “Why do you call me that?”
“Because it’s you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t even know me.”
He shifted and sat straight backed against the bench, folded his arms over his chest, and set his gaze on the blanket of sand under our feet.
He spoke softly. “What do you call Percy? Because that, you don’t call anyone else anything other than their name, but you call him little bear. I’ve heard you say it a few times, and it’s something that’s between you and him and no one else, so why do you call him that?”
I folded my hands together and looked at him, at the dim light cast over his brow and cheekbones and the sharp edge of his nose and how it fell further across him when he tilted his head back and looked up at the skylights.
My throat closed; a fist wrapped around the words to hold them back. I spat them out, thin and stretched. “I care about him.”
“Well, there’s your answer,” the soldier nodd
ed. He looked at me and smiled. “I do know you, Soren. A whole lot more than you think. I care about you, and I care about Percy, too, and I want to keep both of you safe. But the two of you make it really difficult.”
“What the hell could make you care about me?”
The idea seemed illogical, considering what he was surrounded by. There was hardly a soul other than that kid who would admit to something like that.
“That’s a good question,” he laughed, but he didn’t answer. “How about some sleep?”
He started to stand but I shot out a hand and grabbed his.
He stopped halfway up. His pulse jumped in his wrist against my touch and I forgot what I was about to say to him—his heart raced harder than his face showed, and I let go immediately. I couldn’t tell if he was afraid of me or just… embarrassed. Maybe because I asked him about the nickname, or that he said he cared.
“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t remember. Tell me.”
He smiled again and offered his hand back. “I’ve known people with memory loss before. Everyone always says it’s best to let them remember. To avoid things feeling fake. Planted, they say. Fitz can tell you that. Come get some rest, Sparky.”
16
The echoed sound of gravel and glass crunching jolted me from sleep.
I laid still on the borrowed mat and listened with baited breath. A shifting breeze came from the floor above and that sound again, distant and gone in a split second.
I rolled up to a kneel and steadied my breathing.
Silence met my ears, heavy in the early morning air with the soft blue light that spilled in from above the hall. I listened. Searched the shadows through the dusty window.
The static in my bones searched for life.
The electric lantern lights outside the building were faint, and there wasn’t much else other than a few basic wires that snaked through the closest streets—but above, high above, a faint blue static map glowed.
I turned away from the windows and the sound and looked to the others across the room. Jack was lying propped up on a rolled sleeping bag against the wall, that white knife visible at his hip, Percy nestled against him. The two of them slept soundly and deeply, and Fitz slept like a rock off to the side.
It would have set my heart at ease if it weren’t for the noise and the static.
I crawled over to them with my breath still held and watched the rise and fall of his chest closely. The way his hand rested on Percy’s back and his cheek against his curls.
I worked the blade carefully from him.
The handle was carved from pale bone, a fox head with tiny red jewels for eyes. It was sharp and curved to a point, a pretty knife, something that looked expensive, something that he kept close to him at all times. I felt guilty for weaning it from its leather sheath, but I was unarmed and unsure of my Sceptre blood’s ability to defend.
Above us was the familiar steady current of circuitry.
Weapons never settled well in my palms. The thought of using one churned my stomach and made my hands shake, but the thought of James coming for this kid—I wouldn’t let him. I wouldn’t let him hurt anyone, and knives were quiet enough to keep the secret.
Leaving the room was the hardest part. The floor crunched and groaned, but the soldiers and my little bear didn’t stir.
Two Lumen stood above me on one of the balcony walkways. A shadow leaned up against the balustrade between them with his hands clasped together and one knee pressed to the glass, his white-toothed grin cast across a pale face that held a nightmarish glow.
I remembered him grinning like that, in the dark room, illuminated by the fluorescent light at the center of the ceiling. The light then was blue, too, but he wasn’t.
He was a white-hot iron brand glowing orange around the edges.
He gestured to the stairs and called down to me. “Come up.”
I pressed a finger to my lips and looked back into the room where the others slept so soundly.
I didn’t want them to wake up and see that he was here, so close and unobserved by the rebels. I didn’t want Percy to know that the scary man he dreamed about was real. I didn’t want Tiger to hear.
My heart pounded against my chest.
Every step up the stairs made my skin burn, every step closer to him was painful, but every second I had him in my sights was a second he wasn’t near Percy.
“Soren, it’s been a minute,” he murmured. He held his arms out to me. “Don’t you think? It feels like you’ve been out in this godforsaken place for so long already.”
It was a long walk to him, but I stepped stiffly into his too-warm, too-strong hug, and I stayed still. I didn’t hug him back.
He had this strange smell on him that I didn’t recognize, something sharp and overpowering, and he took too long to step back and let me breathe. He only stayed a half step from being pressed right up against me.
“We tested the kid’s blood, in case you didn’t notice.”
His white-gray eyes slid away from mine, traveled down my cheek, danced along the edge of my jaw to my mouth. He reminded me of a snake, with a tongue that flicked out over his lips.
“Just to make sure. But I’m sure you know already. The real question is what can he do? I bet Astra would love to find out.”
Holding his gaze was like staring into the sun; it did me no favours.
James trailed a finger down my jaw, tilted my chin up. His thumb pressed against my lip until he found clenched teeth underneath.
He purred a laugh as he leaned his forehead on mine. “Asa was pissed, mind you. Kicked us all out, locked himself in his tower, brooded like someone made his breakfast with piss. Classic stuff. Did you hear the thunder all the way down here?”
Redbird couldn’t be far, if that thunder was him.
I cleared my throat and tried to sound normal. “Why are you here? Why am I still here?”
His eyes caught fire—or maybe it was the sunlight that suddenly cut through the dust in the air from above, trapped inside pale irises like prisms and cast out in orange flame.
He snaked his hand around the back of my head, fingers snagged on knots and curls, his mouth still curled into a smile even as he leaned close and crushed hot lips against my cold ones.
I pulled back against his hand, lifted my hands between us to push him back, turned my head.
I shuddered, but I held steady even though my voice gave it away. “James. Answer the goddamn question. Is this—are you taking them, right now? Is that why you’re here?”
“You taste like peaches,” he murmured and licked his lips. “You’ve been in the garden?”
“Is that still happening? Are you still taking the targets?” I pushed harder, stumbled back from his grasp. My blood started to boil. “Has the plan changed, James? He was surprised by Percy, wasn’t he? So has the plan changed?”
He shrugged and leaned up against the glass banister, one hand wrapped around the polished rail. His knuckles turned white under his hardened grip and the railing started to glow a faint red.
“It’s strange, Soren. The peaches I brought you, you never ate them, but that Talon soldier plucks one from the same tree in the same garden and suddenly it’s a forbidden fruit and you’re breaking all the rules. How did it taste?”
I faltered, a sharp breath caught in my throat.
It seemed strange to have so many different kinds of trees heavy with ripe fruit, to have so many different crops growing out of season in box beds, but the peach was sweet and dripped with rich nectar.
“Don’t look so surprised. Some of these people will do anything for a little food and clean water and news of their children. Even if it’s a clear lie. But here’s the thing, Soren. That fruit tastes sweeter if it’s forbidden and it will be even sweeter when you’re wearing this. Don’t feel too tempted.” His hand searched in his pocket until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out into the open, into the freshly fallen sunlight that somehow felt cold despite the chill it
chased out of the shadows. “Isn’t it pretty? It was my mother’s. She was always fond of gold and rubies.”
The blood in me vanished; my face lost all colour and my heart stopped beating and I felt so cold. My bones were filled with ice crystals instead of marrow. My lungs forced out a cloud of frost, and my hands shook like leaves in the rain.
I was rattled and collapsing inwardly.
“What do you mean, their children?”
“You’re going to marry me,” he told me.
I shook my head. The single word crawled up my throat on a breath. “No.”
“Soren.” He stepped forward, his voice insistent as he spoke fast and soft—although his soft still grated.
His soft was still hands that grabbed me around the arms in a too tight and burning grasp, fingers that dug into tense muscles until I was certain they found bone. He never did learn what softness was.
“You are going to marry me. I brought you a dozen peaches, I brought you more warmth than a jacket, I brought you out of that dark room a hundred times and gave you a soft and warm bed, I brought you back to life, I can give you better children to love than that boy—just imagine it. You, the Empress, the Genesis, and your Emperor to protect you. We can have everything. Everything we ever wanted. And our children—”
“Stop, stop it, James!”
I brought my hands up and forced them down over his forearms, broke his grip, put fast distance between us.
His future was feigned softness and an Empire forged in fire. It was not kind. It was not gentle. It was a cruel beast with smoke in its lungs.
He leapt forward again and reached for me, but I dodged his hands. He moved closer, and the Lumen over his shoulder stood and stared, motionless, unconcerned about me.
They should have been. They should have been programmed to it, but they stood and stared elsewhere even as he backed me into a bench half buried in a small sand drift.
I tripped over the end of it but he caught me by the arm, shoved me sideways as I grabbed his wrist, forced me to the ground against the dusty glass. He knelt over my legs and pinned me there as I grunted against the sharp pain of his weight.