by Megan Curd
Steel Lily
The Periodic Series
Book One
Megan Curd
PRAISE FOR STEEL LILY:
“Steampunk, dystopian, with a twist of paranormal, a dash of romance and a helping of back-stabbing betrayal…oh, and a hot guy with dreads and an attitude. What more can you ask for? Curd has really outdone herself with this intriguing read that will leave you guessing.”
--Kristie Cook, bestselling author of the SOUL SAVERS Series & THE SPACE BETWEEN
“Steel Lily is a rollicking Steampunk adventure with mechanical wonders, heart-stopping danger, and a plucky heroine who more than holds her own with a tortured swoon-worthy hero.”
--Michelle Zink, author of TEMPTATION OF ANGELS
“Spread the word like wild fire—Steel Lily is AH-MAH-ZING…WOW—let me tell you something. I am amazed at the wonder Megan has created. This is magic!”
--Leydy, Once Upon A Twilight
“Steel Lily packs a punch. It is full of adventure and intrigue, and kept me turning pages well into the night. A little bit steam-punk, a little bit dystopia, and entirely its own beautiful thing, this is a novel that will appeal to readers of all ages.”
--Danielle Kulawiak, My Mercurial Musings
“Megan Curd has created a masterpiece that glues readers to the pages from the very beginning, taking them on a whirlwind journey full of adventure, deceit, mystery, mayhem, and of course, a little swoon-worthy romance as well.”
--Shana Benedict, A Book Vacation
Copyright © 2013 by Megan Curd.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design and Photography, L.L.C.
Published by Studio 22 Productions
Content edit by Michelle Zink
Copy edit by Jacob Neff
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may by reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition August 2013
For Amanda and Lana, two women capable of fighting harder than anyone I’ve ever met.
You inspire me. And Lana, Jax is all yours.
STEAM HISSED, BILLOWING from the brushed steel teapot my mother always used. Within seconds, the vapors wrapped around me like wispy tendrils that tickled my arms. The mist left a dewy web that sunk into my tattered suede gloves, creating a miniature constellation of droplets. The other students stopped what they were doing at their own stations and watched as I waved the evidence of my ability away.
Do your best, they’d said.
It’ll help us survive, they’d said.
But what good did it do to survive if you were stuck being exhausted, and your classmates thought you were a freak because of your “gift”?
Professor Evans, my Elemental Concepts professor, clapped her hands together, then shook my shoulders excitedly. Her silver bangles clinked and clanked, and her soprano voice trilled through the air. “Excellent, Avery, excellent! I've never had a student embrace their abilities so quickly! You’ll help our society rebuild what the war took from us. Be proud, be proud! Dome Four needs more students like you, ready to keep our steam rations up.”
I glanced at the rest of the class. Their haughty glares and eye rolls told me they weren’t as impressed.
One of the many perks of being in an advanced class.
“Showoff,” my desk partner, Erin, muttered as she wiped the condensation off her goggles. She flicked the water toward me, and I flinched as it hit my eye.
I frowned. I didn’t want to let the age difference get to me, but it seemed to bother everyone else. Being fifteen in a classroom full of nineteen-year-old, fourth-year Elementalists was like being thrown into a pit of vipers that hadn’t been fed in forever.
“I could help you, you know,” I whispered to the girl as Professor Evans turned back to the chalkboard, where theories of element manipulation were scrawled in her flowing script. “You can do this. I can tutor you if you’d like—”
Erin snorted. “You? Help me? Sorry, I don’t need any contributions from the resident golden child.”
“You’re going to have to test to see if you are capable of contributing to the Dome soon. Do you want to fail with flying colors? I can help you, help you give your family a better life,” I said under my breath. “You fail, and you’ll be in government housing living ration to ration. You pass…they give you a home, food, opportunities. Let me help you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you have that?”
I’d said too much. If the rest of the students knew the government took care of me better than the rest of them, it would make this suck-fest even worse. “Do you want me to help you or not? It’s a simple question.”
Chase, the brown-haired boy in the row ahead, leaned back. He winked at me as he whispered to the girl. “Hey, she tutored me for a couple afternoons, and it really helped.”
He actually listened when I tutored him! Heat warmed my cheeks as I looked down and bit back a smile. Chase was too gorgeous for his own good, and I’d spent most of our time stumbling through explanations and avoiding eye contact. It was a miracle he’d understood anything I’d said.
Erin merely closed her eyes. I shook my head and turned back to my teapot, giving up on helping her.
That’s when I felt it.
Waves of heat rolled over my face, and my eyes watered from the acrid scent of melting metal. My heart sank as I watched the remains of my teapot bubble and hiss. Drops of steel splattered on the table and solidified like permanent teardrops. Everyone fell silent, and the weight of their stares made me feel three feet tall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Erin smirk as I tried to absorb the scene before me. Along with a part of my heart, the only physical reminder of my mother since her disappearance hardened into a contorted steel lump before my eyes.
I held back the tears and focused on what I imagined was snow, hoping to cool the mass. I'd never experienced it, but it looked gorgeous from the pictures I’d seen. I focused on that idea, that scene from one of the photos, and watched the red dissipate from the center of my ruined teapot. I quickly broke it off the burner before they adhered together and stuffed it in my bag.
“That's for getting my goggles wet,” Erin said, relentless in her abuse. “I'm going to have to soak them in tonic for the next three classes so they don't rust. And as you can see, I don’t need your help.”
I scowled at her and shook my head tiredly. “Brass goggles can’t rust. They can corrode, but even then you have crappy brass. But you wouldn’t know that, since you spend more time harassing people than listening.”
Her body shook, sending waves of anger through her ruffled black skirt, and her face turned a deep shade of puce. I figured she was trying to think of a comeback, but she looked like a toddler holding her breath after being told no.
Chase chimed in before I could say anything. “That was a really bitchy thing to do, Erin.”
She glared down her too-long nose and gave him a death stare. “I don’t remember anyone asking your opinion, Traditional. You’re here because your parents have sway, not because you’ll be of any use when you graduate.”
Anger licked through me like a wildfire. My f
ist stung as it connected with the cold metal desk between us, the echoing thunk drawing all eyes to me. “If you put any effort into learning your trade, you’d be creating steam already! Why not quit wasting your time making other people miserable and do something productive? Have you not looked outside? Our world is barely hanging on! Do you want to live in this dome for the rest of your life?”
Professor Evans’s heels clicked to a halt in front of our desk. “Girls! We’re on the same team!”
“No, we’re not.” My voice shook as I tried to keep from shouting.
The horn blasted overhead, signaling the end of class. No one moved for a moment, but one by one, chairs began to scrape across the cement floor and students headed for the door. Erin stood with the dignity of a disgraced queen and squared her shoulders, making sure to knock into me as she passed. From the look she flashed me, I was sure she’d just as soon step over my burning body in an alleyway than help me.
So much for trying to help someone, I thought to myself.
I reached inside my bag to feel the still warm metal of the teapot against my fingertips. The scratch of a worn, wooden frame brushed the back of my hand. I pulled out the picture and stared at the faces as they swam before me, the back of my throat burning as I swallowed back unspent tears.
Mom, Dad, and me. Happy.
I closed my eyes, wishing I weren’t alone. No, not alone. I had my best friend, Alice. I just wished I knew why my parents had disappeared. No one had explained a thing that day. I was thrown into an orphanage at the age of seven, left to beg.
I’d hated it, and that’s when Dana, a friend of the family, had tried to take me in as best she could. The government found out about my ability when I was ten, and since then I’d been under their “care,” which meant I didn’t go anywhere without someone knowing, or so they thought.
Today was Alice’s birthday, and I’d be damned if I didn’t sneak out to LaFayette Market and get her a gift before returning home to Wutherford Tower. I swept the traitorous tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand and glanced around the empty room. I weaved through the mess of metal chairs and desks on my way to the door. The next class was across the dome in twenty minutes.
I didn’t want to go. I needed to get to Alice’s, needed to see a friendly face.
The narrow grey hallways reminded me of a prison. The energy-saving lights flickered off and on, far past their replacement date. A water leak in the distance dripped and echoed off the walls, joining with my footsteps. It felt like a death march.
Another class with more vipers.
Another day to donate steam.
Rinse and repeat.
I longed to escape from this place.
I rounded the corner and the bay came into view, overflowing with passengers waiting to board the airbus. Old lights overhead cast everyone in an eerie glow as they moved and swayed like the ocean tide. Overhead, ancient speakers blared warnings and orders in a low, garbled tone.
“Due to a steam shortage, the dome’s oxygen filtration system has been shut off for the day. Please utilize your government-provided oxygen masks while traveling outside.” Half the words were indecipherable, but we’d all heard the instructions enough times to know what we needed to do.
Cogs and gears to the right of the transport bay door hummed as they waited to be activated, and people milled about, trying not to step on one another. I squeezed myself into a corner and searched my bag for my oxygen mask.
The woman beside me was staring my direction, her little boy holding onto her leg. I pulled my jacket tighter and stared at the floor, but she cocked her head to the side to watch me. I knew what question was coming and counted three beats before she posed it. “Are your eyes real?”
I got that question all the time. After a while, I’d started making up unlikely stories to keep it interesting. “No, I was simply bored one afternoon and decided to color one green. It seems that permanent marker really is permanent.”
Both the woman and the little boy’s mouths dropped open. He whipped around to face his mother. “Mommy, can I try that when we get home?”
Before I could reply, the crowd went silent and began to part like the Red Sea, revealing a woman dressed in Polatzi garb. Her black cape rippled behind her as she strode forward, and the hooked beak of her mask glinted in the yellow light. Without a word, she pressed a button on the wall, and a holographic sign flickered above us.
Please don your masks.
Our group moved in unison as we followed the order. My lightweight white mask drew attention as I positioned it in place. Stupid Elite government issue—they had the best of everything. The scent of latex and cleaning solution filled my nostrils as the mask kicked on with a hiss, and the polarized lenses tinted everything in a darker hue. The temperature, date, and my current heart rate scrolled across the right lens, ending with a Thank you for your service to our dome.
Thank you, my foot. Service? More like indentured servitude.
The gears groaned like an overworked mule as they opened the door. A short hallway emerged from behind the rising steel. At the end, a round rusted hatch stood with a massive seal lock. It was emblazoned with red warnings, the paint crusting away from the corroding door. We filed in and waited for the task force woman to push her way to the front.
She punched a crimson button and turned to us, pulling her beaked mask up enough to reveal her rosy lips. “We’ve got a schedule to keep. Let’s go!” She pulled her mask back into place, unlocked the seal, and pushed the door open.
I squinted, trying to adjust to the glare of the red sun reflecting off the dome’s glass and filtering through the thick glass overhead. Heat forced itself upon us in waves, and sweat trickled down my back. Millions of water droplets trickled down the sides, into gutters lining the steel casing in an effort to contain the rust damage.
Ironic that the very steam keeping us alive was slowly eating away the metal protecting us. Ironic that the place that kept us safe from the outside world was also the place my parents had gone missing.
They called this place Dome Four, but it was actually a series of monolithic windows held together by steel beams. The large panes reminded me of a stained glass window I’d once seen in a church. Only these weren’t made of pretty colored glass; the toxic atmosphere outside the dome had colored them a permanent grey, shadowing the world in a dull, overcast aura.
The same way I’ve felt since my parents disappeared.
My chest constricted at the thought. No, no time to think about them today. I’ve got to stay focused.
Stagnant air made the space feel claustrophobic. Rays from the sun’s harsh glare bounced off the rippled glass, and tall, thin shadows slanted across the dome as afternoon gave way to twilight. The scent of rust was thicker than usual; construction crews must have been reinforcing the beams that held the dome aloft.
Droplets of water splashed on my head, and I peered up into the sky. Oxygen purifiers hummed high above, the only things keeping the air clean enough to breathe since World War III decimated our atmosphere.
I stopped short of getting on the hovering airbus and gazed out over the dome. To the west, Wutherford Tower’s lights were bright and steady, a reminder that only the rich and well connected had the means to keep their homes powered around the clock. That left the rest of the population literally in the dark once the sun set. I hated it. The war had polarized everyone into two classes. There were Traditionals: people who were normal by all accounts and expendable, and there were Elites; members of the government, the rich, or Elementalists. Elites were pampered; Traditionals were lucky to survive. I hated being considered Elite.
Buildings with caved-in rooftops and rebar extending from the top stretched out as far as the eye could see…all the way to the condemned housing at the edge of the dome. Beyond that lay a wasteland even worse than the one in this modified fishbowl.
The thought of what might lay beyond the boundaries—surely a desecrated, ruined mess of a world—caused
me to shiver, even in this overbearing humidity. Sweat dripped off my brow and stung my eyes. Impatient travelers pushed into me, spurring me onward. There was no time to daydream of what might be outside our dome.
There was no time to dream of anything.
Dreaming was reserved for those who weren’t struggling to survive, and we lost that luxury long ago.
TEN MINUTES LATER, the airbus jerked to a stop on the tarmac of our destination, and the doors whirred open. We were in the capital, at the only building Traditionals were permitted to visit and my “home”: Wutherford Tower.
Thick plumes of dark smoke billowed out of the dual stacks at the top of the tower, slowly dissipating into the already toxic air. The steel millers must have been hard at work today. I tugged at the straps of my oxygen mask, thankful for it.
Wutherford Tower was an oxymoron at its finest—the highs and lows of society constantly intermingling and colliding with one another. Steel millers and Elites tried their hardest to avoid running into one another, as if the other carried a contagious disease.
Trash dipped and floated in the wind from the hovering airbus, whipping into a frenzy before falling to the ground like crude snow. The smoke stacks loomed over us and blocked out the sun. The sun’s rays split to both sides of the monstrous building, turning the entire structure into a giant shadow. The temperature dropped noticeably in the shade, and I welcomed a break from the relentless heat.
I ducked between people and entered the massive foyer as the warning tone for the next class reverberated off the steel beams inside the tower. The crowd dissipated into one of three hallways available from the loading dock as the bay door shut off the natural light from outside. I put my mask back in my bag and headed for the hallway to the right.
Students bustled between rooms, yelling out directions to one another as they carried cogs and beakers. The aroma of formaldehyde stung my nose as I passed a room full of hissing Bunsen burners. A mangy stray cat darted between people, nearly tripping an older man whose nose was buried in a wrinkled, water-stained paper. Life in Wutherford Tower was loud and busy.