Empire of Bones (15 page)

Antigone jerked awake and looked around the cabin. She’d been dreaming about planes. But it wasn’t all dreams. Jet engines were roaring.

“Cy?” She hopped off her bunk, winced at the sting of her bare feet on the floor, and slapped at her brother’s bed. Blankets.

Outside, Antigone tiptoe-jogged toward the lake. Two
shapes and a wheelchair were side by side in the moonlight, watching the plane as it crawled away across the water.

Diana. The Captain. Llewellyn.

“Hey,” Antigone said, and Diana looked back. Even in the moonlight, Antigone could see the sadness and worry on Diana’s face. Her arms were crossed tight.

“Where’s Cy?” Antigone asked.

Diana nodded at the jet. She began to bite a nail, noticed, and jerked her hand back down. “He’s with Rupe,” she said. “They’re going to Ashtown.”

Antigone opened her mouth and then shut it. She shook her head. Cy was … 
no
. He couldn’t be. He hadn’t said anything. Why? Ashtown? Was there anywhere less safe for Cyrus right now? She should be worried. She should be mad. She was both. But there was something deeper, too. She was … 
hurt
.

Antigone dropped into a crouch and hugged her knees. The plane was accelerating. A small hint of warmth brushed against her face. A breeze kissed her with the scent of fuel and flame.

“I don’t understand,” Antigone said. “Why didn’t he wake me up?”

The plane was only two blinking wingtips now, rising in the air, banking left, climbing above the black shadow of a mountain. Antigone felt like someone was standing on her stomach. Tears were a real danger. She pressed
her mouth against her arm. Diana sat on the ground beside her.

“Cyrus didn’t know what was going on,” Diana said. “But Rupert needs someone with him. Jeb isn’t exactly available, and he wouldn’t take me.”

“Why not?” Antigone asked. “You’ve done a ton more than Cyrus.”

“He had to leave another pilot behind,” Diana said. “We’re leaving early.”

The Captain cleared his throat loudly. “The lad was nay wisdom’s choice.”

“Shut your hole, pirate,” Llewellyn said. “The boy’s as ready as he can be. And you were no choice at all, Captain, not if Rupe wanted one who’d obey an order.”

The Captain sniffed and turned to face the man in the wheelchair. Placing one hand on his sword hilt, he bowed dramatically. “Insults unprovoked become not a man of gentleness. If not for thine age and thine lameness—”

Llewellyn snorted. “Oh, go put on your lace collar and cry in your hankie. Rupert told you and that Nolan not to let the big six-fingered oaf out of your sight, and yet here you are.” Llewellyn wheeled his chair backward, and then turned it around, bouncing his way back toward the cabins. “Let the lonely girls cry and go do your job!”

“He’s right, John,” Diana said. “It’s bad enough having Gil around with Rupert gone.”

The Captain bowed stiffly, fluffed his woolly beard, and then strolled away in silence.

“Llew and the Cap were stuck here for a while before we came,” Diana said. “Pretty sick of each other.”

Antigone nodded, but she didn’t care about that. She wanted to kick her brother.

Diana didn’t need to be told. “Rupe was in a hurry. If Cy had said goodbye, how much time would Rupert have wasted telling you that you couldn’t come?” Antigone didn’t answer. “You would still be sitting right where you are now, but you’d be even madder.”

Antigone exhaled slowly. She knew it was true, but it didn’t make being left behind any more fun. And Ashtown? There was still plenty for her to worry about.

“Llewellyn was wrong,” Antigone said suddenly. “About taking orders. If Rupe wanted someone who would obey, Cyrus was the last person in the world he should have taken. Dennis Gilly would have been better, even with his concussion.”

Diana smiled. “Cy’s not as stubborn as you think.”

Antigone looked at the girl next to her. She cocked her head and blinked.

“What?” Diana asked. “What’s the look for?”

“Cyrus? Cyrus Lawrence Smith? Not stubborn?” Antigone raised her eyebrows. “I mean, you’ve been around him, yes?”

Diana laughed. “Okay, so he’s stubborn. But not
that
stubborn. Not when he really respects someone.”

Antigone was stunned.

Diana groaned, embarrassed. “People don’t scare him into doing things,” she said. “And they can’t just boss him into doing things.” She waited for agreement, but Antigone wasn’t saying anything. Diana swallowed, then continued. “Not unless he respects them, unless he wants them as a boss. That’s what I meant. You know, he listens to Nolan about fighting but not languages. He listens to Rupe about pretty much anything. Me with flying. Dennis with sailing. You with … with …”

“With nothing,” Antigone said. “I practically have to bite his ankles to make him do something.”

Diana laughed. “Yeah, well, what would you think of a guy who did whatever his sister told him to do?”

Antigone stared at Diana’s moonlit profile. “You like him,” she said. It was hard to keep the accusation out of her voice.

Diana squirmed. “That’s not what I was talking about.”

“Well, you do,” Antigone said. “I mean, you’ve always been super friendly. And helpful. But you’re so much older than he is. I never thought …”

“Antigone,” Diana said, and her voice had gone cold. “I’m not talking about this with you. It’s stupid and
pointless. I’m not talking about this with anyone. Not even myself. I’m not even going to think about it.” She sniffed. “And I’m not that much older.”

“You’ve totally thought about it. You’re thinking about it right now.”

“If you don’t like centipedes, don’t flip rocks,” Diana said. “Don’t take your temperature if you don’t want to be sick.” She paused, scrunching up her face. “If we’re all still alive in four or five years, ask me to think about it then. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

Antigone still stared at the older girl, waiting for her to at least return a glance. But Diana kept her eyes on the moon and the water.

“Do you worry about him?” Antigone asked.

Diana didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Antigone looked around. Diana had been standing on the shore in the middle of the night watching the plane fly away. It was gone, but she was still rooted to the same spot. Of course she was worried.

“More than Jeb?” Antigone asked.

Diana sighed. “Different,” she said.

Once he had set the flight plan, Rupert wasn’t interested in talking. While Cyrus blinked and stared at the instruments, Rupert had unzipped a waterproof bag, tugged out
an old notebook and pencil, and begun flipping pages. He read, he scribbled, he sketched.

Cyrus had questions. He had tried to talk.

“Where are we going?”

The fourth time he asked, Rupert had finally licked the tip of his pencil and grunted.

“Ashtown.”

“Why?”

Rupert had looked up for that one. “To make a vice a virtue.”

Cyrus had asked about Phoenix and Radu Bey and the O of B and Flint. Only Flint had made Rupert look back up from his pages. His eyes had sparkled. Then he smiled and said nothing.

On Cyrus’s fifth attempt to get Rupert to predict the behavior of Phoenix or the transmortals, he had mumbled his answer down into his notebook, his accent thickened by his distractedness.

“Give it a go, bruv. See if you can sort it. Good exercise. You’ve heard and seen enough. Look to the motives and what you know about character. Predict. Tell me when we touch down.”

Nothing else had stirred the big man from his studies and his scratching and his whispered thoughts. Cyrus spent the next two hours staring at the panels in front of him, at the black sky, and then at the faintest hint of a glow in the east. And he thought.

Radu Bey and the
Ordo Draconis
wanted to reassert themselves as untouchably superior to mankind. The O of B was a reminder of centuries of their humiliation. So were the Smiths. They didn’t care about structures or institutions or governments. They wouldn’t want to govern any more than wolves want to govern sheep—that would mean worrying about roads and sewers and building codes. They would want to … Cyrus groped around for a word he had heard Nolan use—
transcend
. Prey. Be served. The transmortals were proud. Pride meant grudges. And living forever meant that grudges could be nursed for centuries into something more rank and sour than any petty mortal resentment.

Cyrus had seen bullies. He’d embarrassed bullies. He knew what came after. A bigger gang. Bigger weapons. Smaller kids surrounded.

Lick dirt
. Or worse.

Radu Bey and his treaty-free transmortals wouldn’t be hiding. They’d be looking for a chance to dominate, to thump their chests and remind the world of their nastiness, to make powerful people helpless, to make humans grovel. As for the O of B, they had only freed the transmortals to avoid a fight. But that would just make it worse. Needing to be freed at all? That would sting their pride. And there were still the Burials.…

Radu Bey wouldn’t be happy until Ashtown had been crushed and pounded into dust, until every member was
dead or on their knees, until the Burials were open. It was only a question of when he felt strong enough, of when his gang was big enough, of when he could find the Order alone and weak in an alley.

So … anytime, then.

But Phoenix was a different animal, making different animals. He would be hiding, designing, breeding. He would wait until the O of B was rubble. That was why he had killed transmortals and stirred them up against the Order. He might even wait until the nations of men were on their knees, licking dirt. Then he and his New Men would emerge. He would be the lion tamer, the one who held the tooth, the one to save mankind from the old destroying gods. Phoenix the Savior.

Phoenix would want to rule. He wanted to rule everything down to the cellular designs and shapes and senses of his people. Radu was power. Phoenix was control. Wherever he was, he would be preparing to tame the transmortals, to collar tornadoes, to make the beasts his own.

What did the O of B want? Not Bellamy Cook, the stooge Brendan working for Phoenix, but the regular people? They wanted the same thing all regular people did. They wanted it all to go away. They wanted the storm to pass without touching them. But when it did touch them, when it touched the ones they loved, when they were finally ready to stand and fight, it would be too late.

Cyrus could still remember the pit he’d felt in his stomach years ago in California, riding home in the first week of school. From the bus, he’d seen a small kid surrounded by bigger boys. And then they’d driven away.

He hadn’t eaten that night. He hadn’t done his homework. His father had taken him down to the cliff and they’d thrown rocks in the sea. What he had seen exploded out of him in a broken story. The boy, the bullies, he didn’t even know them. Why did he care so much? Why did it make him feel sick?

They had talked. Cyrus couldn’t remember everything, he’d only been in the third grade, but he remembered two things his father had said. “When everyone waits for someone else to do something, evil will always triumph. One bully defeats ten people when he uses fear. Ten bullies terrify one hundred people. Believe it or not, ten can frighten ten thousand.”

Cyrus had asked him what he was supposed to do when the bullies were bigger than he was, when there were more of them. His father had smiled.

“It doesn’t matter how big the bully is. What matters is if you’re bigger than the one being bullied.”

Cyrus’s mom had walked to the cliff behind them, carrying two bowls of ice cream. She’d heard the last part and looked worried.

The next day, Cyrus had gone home with tissues wadded up his nose and a purple lip the size of a leopard slug.
Antigone had seen the whole thing and was appalled. At dinner, he’d let her tell the story.

Cyrus had eaten well.

It was the same thing now, just bigger and a lot more dangerous. Knowing what Radu would do didn’t mean that they could stop him. It just meant they had to try. And they had to be ready to die.

“Cy!” Rupert slapped his shoulder. “Dozing off, mate? Lucky we’re not in a car.”

Cyrus blinked and shook his head. “No. I’m awake. Just thinking. Like you told me to.”

Rupert grinned. “Well, I’m sure you have it sorted, then. You can tell me our next move shortly. Right now I need you to get to the tail door. There’s a harness and a headset. Clip in and put it on.”

Cyrus scrambled out of the cockpit, happy to stretch his legs and leave his thoughts alone. He pushed back between the empty seats and then let himself through a small door into the tail storage.

Flint was tied up on the floor.

Cyrus stumbled over him and grabbed at the walls, barely keeping his feet.

Flint’s mouth was open and he was snoring. He was in a harness with a parachute on his back. A nylon strap ran up from Flint’s pull cord and was clipped onto a rail on the ceiling. There was a note pinned to his chest.

Dearest Bellamy
,

He told us everything. Brace yourself. Cheers
,