Lark Ascending (28 page)

My eyes flew open as I started, remembering the rebel woman's so-called suicide with a guilty pang. I'd nearly forgotten about her. “Did you find anything?”

“No evidence of a spy,”
Nix replied.
“I thought it wise to check, to prevent it happening to someone more important.”

“Everyone's important, Nix,” I interrupted, my tone sharp. Nix sounded like Eve. “But it's good we don't have a mole amongst us.”

But the pixie merely hummed indifference, its legs busy plucking sweaty strands of hair away from my neck with distaste.
“I do not believe she drowned, however.”

I pulled myself upright onto my knees, still trying to catch my breath. “What do you mean?”

“Her body was torn to shreds. And not by the currents and the stones, as they assumed.”

My heart shriveled, stomach turning over with dread. “Torn apart like—like by a shadow?”

Nix was quiet, body tucked close against my throat, cold metal warming to my own temperature.
“How long was that other one missing after you spent the night at the reservoir?”

I shook my head, swallowing hard. “It wasn't Oren,” I hissed. “It couldn't have been. He was fighting it—I saw him fighting it.”

Before Nix could answer, someone came skidding around the corner, carrying a lantern. It was Basil, and his face fell as he saw me on the ground. “Lark! Are you—”

“Fine,” I interrupted, getting wearily to my feet and trying to ignore the ache in my bruised tailbone. “I was trying to follow Eve, but she's gone.”

“Gone? She left the city?”

“I don't think so,” I answered slowly, head tipping back even though there was nothing to see overhead but empty darkness. “I think I would've felt it if she used enough magic to punch through iron. But I've always been able to sense her before.”

“Let's get back,” Basil said. “You scared everyone to death, sprinting out of there like that. Better show them you haven't lost your mind. From what you've said, I don't think they could deal with losing both Eve
and
you in the same night.”

•  •  •

Kris was awake by the time Basil and I made it back to the lobby of our building. When I walked in, he was asking agitated questions of Dorian, voice raised.

“And what, it's a coincidence that she took off when
you
showed up?” Kris stabbed a finger angrily into Dorian's chest, and I remembered abruptly that they'd met—that Kris had lived in the Iron Wood for some time before he was uncovered as a spy for the Institute.

“Stop!” I interrupted as Dorian opened his mouth to respond. “She didn't know Dorian was here. He had nothing to do with it.”

Kris whirled, mouth falling open for a split second before he recovered. “I wasn't talking about Eve,” he muttered, moving toward me. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. I was trying to follow Eve.” My gaze swept the lobby; all the survivors we'd led out of the tunnels were awake now, clustered around the edges of the room. Their numbers greatly reduced after scattering in the wake of the Institute's attack, they didn't seem so much fighters as refugees. There was something hauntingly familiar about the droop in their shoulders, the emptiness of their eyes.

I shivered and turned back to Kris. “We shouldn't talk here. You, you, and you—come with me.” I tilted my head at Dorian and Basil, summoning them and Kris to follow me back upstairs to the apartment I'd once called home.

I waited for them to precede me, focusing on the comforting weight of Nix on my shoulder once more. I let my eyes drift back to the refugees, watching us go, and an image flashed into my mind.

I realized where I'd seen that look before. What felt like years ago, standing by the shore of the summer lake, a shadow woman searching for her lost child had looked at me like that. Empty and hopeless, one step away from darkness.

I shut the door on the lobby and followed the others upstairs.

•  •  •

“We should make a list of the places she could hide.” Dorian was intent, hunched over the makeshift map of the city Kris and Basil had sketched out in chalk on the floor of the apartment.

“That's the problem,” Kris said, impatient. “She shouldn't be able to hide from Lark. They're linked. Lark can feel her anywhere.”

I glanced at Basil, who was standing by the window. He'd been quiet since we entered the apartment, which he was seeing for the first time since he'd left the city so many years ago. Looted and trashed by rebels searching for supplies, it bore little resemblance to the place where we grew up. I didn't have to warn him not to look outside; any twitch in the curtains might alert pixies or Enforcers to our position. I'd already put us all at risk during my headlong flight in pursuit of Eve; if I'd run into an enemy patrol, we could all have been on our way to the Institute's machines.

“Forget about Eve,” I said, breaking into the debate between Kris and Dorian. “Even if we got her back, what could we do? I couldn't stop her from exploding before. It'll only be a matter of time before it happens again, and next time there won't be a Wall to absorb the blow.”

Kris leaned forward, his gaze intent on my face. “Then you're just giving up?”

I wished I could. I wished I'd just stayed in Lethe, or even the Iron Wood. I wished—But I shook my head slowly, taking in a steadying breath. “No. But since we can't stop Eve, our only hope is to stop the Institute before she explodes again. We have to fix this city—we have to fix everything, or all of this will continue until we're dead.”

Basil left the window, returning to the tiny circle of lantern light that was all we could risk. “How? Even you don't have that kind of power, Lark.”

“No,” I agreed. “But I think the answer lies inside the Institute.”

I turned my gaze on Kris, who lifted his head to meet my eyes. His jaw clenched, a muscle in his cheek twitching as Basil and Dorian followed my gaze. “You know?”

I thought of Eve's memory, the one where Gloriette had let slip that it was the Institute who shattered this world all those years ago. I nodded, trying not to let Kris's confirmation hit me like the blow it was. Until now, I could believe Eve's memory was somehow faulty.

“Know what?” demanded Basil, glancing from me and Kris.

“Eve showed me in a memory that the architects have been hiding the truth from us,” I said, looking up from Kris's stricken face. “They're the ones who caused this.”

“This war?”

“No—they're the ones that caused the world to be what it is now. A century ago they decided to end the Renewable Wars by destroying the Renewables themselves. Only, their plan backfired, and it unleashed this hell. They're the ones who destroyed the world.”

Basil sat back on his heels, staring silently at me. I couldn't be sure in the low light, but I thought his face had paled; I knew he was feeling as sick as I was. Despite everything the Institute had done to us, we'd both been raised to believe they were the saviors of this city—not its executioners.

Dorian, on the other hand, leaned forward, eyes glowing in the lantern light. “I knew it,” he hissed. “I was right to send Eve here.”

I stared at him. “You were
right?
” I could barely control my voice, the tremor in it vibrating through my skull. “Right to send a girl to be captured and tortured for years, turned into an insane monster, robbed of her freedom and her soul?”

Dorian swallowed and didn't answer me.

“Kris,” I said, unable to look at Dorian any longer. “Eve told me that the founding architects used a device to shatter the world; that the architects today still have it. Why haven't they just reversed the damage already?”

“We've tried,” Kris replied helplessly. “You have to understand, the architects who did this all died a hundred years ago. We don't have that technology anymore. But even if we did, we don't have access to the kind of power they had back then. All we had was Eve.”

“And that's why they removed her from the power grid,” I finished, glancing at Dorian. “To let her recharge, hoping she'd grown powerful enough to use with this device.”

Kris shook his head. “I told them it would never work. When the original attempt to destroy the Renewables failed, it tore the fabric of the Resource apart. We're not dealing with the same laws of nature anymore; it's impossible.”

Nix thrummed against my neck; it was being quiet during this meeting, but its presence was a comfort. Without Oren, it was the only thing keeping me from feeling utterly alone. I jerked my thoughts away from him with an effort. If I let myself think about him, about where he was, the pain he was in, his struggle to stay human—I'd fall apart.

“Don't talk to me about impossible,” I said, remembering what the pixie had told me once. “The Institute did this. The answers are in there somewhere, and we've got two of the best minds the world has to offer.” I glanced from Kris to Basil and back again.

Kris shifted uncomfortably. “And you want to—what? Walk up and knock on the Institute's gates and say ‘Hey, we'd like to come in and root around in your ancient machinery'? They'd kill us.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “Maybe they're searching as hard as we are for answers. Regardless, I think we have to get inside. We find their records, figure out how they did this—and maybe we can find a way to put an end to it.”

Basil was nodding slowly, his gaze distant and thoughtful. “There are sewer tunnels threading the ground beneath this entire city, including the Institute. Maybe we could get inside unnoticed that way.”

I nodded, finding a bit of a smile for that—Basil was the one who showed me those tunnels. And even if we didn't exactly break into the Institute through them, it was doable. “That's how Eve got in, all those years ago when Dorian sent her.”

“Those tunnels were sealed,” protested Kris.” The entrances were blocked off.”

“With what—iron?” Dorian raised his eyebrows, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Because that's no problem for Lark.”

Kris paused, his gaze thoughtful. “True.”

“They might be prepared for resistance fighters to try a break-in,” I said, trying to think through my exhaustion. “They might even be prepared for me. But they're not prepared for Dorian. He's the first Renewable they've seen since Eve.”

“I can serve as a distraction,” said Dorian, reaching out to stab his finger at the Institute's front gates. “Let them throw their machines and their attention at me.”

“And I still know those tunnels better than anyone in this city,” said Basil. “I can get us in undetected.”

“And Kris can lead us to the archives,” I said, lifting my eyes from our map. “There has to be something in there from before the cataclysm. Something that can tell us how to fix this world.”

I looked around the circle, at the faces upturned and lit by the lantern. There was something new there, animation on faces that had been nearly as weary and worn as my own. I felt something flicker in my own chest, a tiny flame. Hope.

The tunnels had always been dark, which made it easier to forget that the world outside had changed irrevocably. This place had become a second home to me when I was younger. To be navigating the tunnels at my brother's side almost made me feel like I was a child again, before any of this had happened.

Almost.

We were stopped at a T intersection, the four of us huddled down against the wall, waiting for Nix to return from scouting. Between Dorian and me, we could handle any pixie attacks if necessary, but there was no telling what we'd find in the Institute. We might need our magic to reverse what the Institute had done. And though I could siphon some power from Dorian, it was all too easy to see Nina's comatose face, with me always.

A distant buzz echoed back to me, and I cast out carefully; just because we were expecting Nix didn't mean a lone pixie sentry couldn't find us instead. But I recognized the particular thrum of power in its center and nodded to the others. A few seconds later, Nix appeared from a corridor up ahead and swooped in to light upon my palm.

“Nothing,”
it reported, its mechanical voice whisper-soft.
“A few sentries several tunnels over, but they don't appear to be coming this way.”

I transferred Nix to my shoulder and led the way forward—keeping my own senses as sharp as I could. My stomach started to growl, and only a few minutes later Kris broke out the few rations we'd brought. I chewed on my stale cracker as we slunk forward.

Nix gave a light hum against my neck, reassurance that it was still not detecting anything ahead of us. I let my mind wander just a little, my thoughts returning—as always—to Eve. I should have known her immediate goal wasn't to flee the city. She claimed that vengeance played no part in her desire to put an end to everyone who wasn't a Renewable, but I'd felt her mind. I'd shared her torment, if only for a fraction of the time she'd lived it. There was a part of me, buried but no less potent, that wanted every last one of them to die. Whether it was coming from me or from the corner of my mind Eve occupied, it didn't matter.

Kris was right. We were linked. And I knew Eve wasn't going anywhere until she'd done what she'd set out to do. I thought of Caesar and the tender way she'd brushed his hair back from his face. He was a “normal,” as Eve had called it—if she succeeded, he'd die too. I hoped she had enough humanity left to spare him until the end.

I paused at the next junction, searching the space around us with my thoughts, then turned right, following Basil's instructions. I'd taken no more than two steps when something black and huge leaped at me, knocking me backward, body rolling over on the concrete floor. The impact drove the breath out of me so completely that I couldn't even scream. My vision dazed, the light from Kris's lantern dancing wildly, I could hear snarls and the crack of someone else hitting the ground; I heard Nix take off from my shoulder with a scream of outrage, ready to defend me.