Aeralis (11 page)

“Lia.” Gabe covered my hand with his. “We’ll find him.”

I nodded. I thought of Adam and our stormy parting, and part of me burned with rage. Another part of me curled up in misery and wanted comfort.

Irritated at my conflicted feelings, I gulped my drink. The liquid burned going down. I pushed the mug away and dropped my head in my hands. “There just isn’t much time.”

“I’ll ask some of the people here,” Gabe said, and rose from his place.

He crossed the room, tapping on shoulders and whispering in ears. Most of the diners shrugged their shoulders or shook their heads. A few were more belligerent.

“Get off,” one man yelled, swinging his fist at Gabe. “I came here for a little relaxation. Don’t bother me.”

Gabe retreated to our table. He gave me a shaky smile. “Some of these people are less than friendly at the end of the day,” he said.

“So I see.”

Someone dropped into the chair opposite us. A man with dark eyes and darker hair. His skin was chiseled with wrinkles, and they folded around his eyes as he squinted at Gabe.

“You’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he said.

“We’re looking for someone.”

“I see. Well, around here, we don’t like people asking too many questions. It stirs up trouble, and trouble brings soldiers. We don’t like the soldiers. See?”

“We understand,” I said. “We were just going actually.” I stood, and Gabe followed suit.

“Wait,” the man said, leaning forward. “You look familiar.” He clapped a hand on Gabe’s shoulder and pushed him back into his seat. “Why do you look so familiar?”

I froze. Gabe didn’t say anything. We stared at the man, and he stared at us.

“I just can’t place it,” he muttered.

“A lot of people say that,” Gabe said. He looked at me.

I jerked my head toward the door, and he nodded. He bolted from his chair, and we both ran.

“Hey!” the man shouted. He jumped up and started after us, snagging Gabe’s sleeve, and Gabe turned and punched him. The man went down in a clatter of chairs and a string of curses.

We reached the outside and went left, running into the mist. We didn’t stop until we’d put three blocks between the tavern and us.

“Do you think he recognized you?” I asked when I had my breath back.

Gabe shook his head. “No. He’ll forget it tomorrow.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Gabe didn’t answer that. “Let’s go home. It’s late. We’ll meet Ferris in the morning and see what he’s dug up on your friend Borde.”

~

The next morning, we slipped through the misty streets to Ferris’s door. I knocked with shaking fingers and waited, my stomach a riot of nerves, until the sound of footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. The knob turned, and Ferris poked his head out and tipped it to one side, listening to us breathe and inhaling the air around us.

“Gabe,” he said after a pause. “And your friend again?”

“The same,” Gabe said. “Do you have any information for us?”

Ferris leaned against the doorframe and tapped his finger against the button on his sleeve. “I found a name,” he said. “Meridus Falcon, he’s calling himself now.”

“We heard that name yesterday,” I said. “It isn’t the right man.”

“Oh,” Ferris said. “But it is. According to my contacts, an older man with a scarred face came with a companion into the city recently. He originally gave his name as Borde, then seemed to reconsider that and told a few people to contact him by the name of Falcon. You have your man, I think. He’s using an alias.”

“Falcon,” I repeated. “So he’s here.”

“He’s here,” Ferris assured me.

“But you don’t know where?”

“After that, he completely vanished. Might have gone into one of the nicer districts. I don’t have contacts there.”

Gabe paid him, and we left. My mind reeled as I absorbed this new information. Borde was using another name—Falcon. And not even Ferris knew where he was now.

“Who else can we talk to? Who else might know Borde’s whereabouts?”

Gabe shook his head.

Despair filled me like water flooding my lungs. Jonn was going to die, Ivy was going to die, and I was going to be here when it happened, trapped in a city of fog and light, unable to find the man I needed to save them. In my mind’s eye, I saw them, both sick, him lying under a quilt, his bones thin and brittle as sticks beneath his skin, his eyes open and bloodshot, his mouth a gash in his gaunt face as he gasped for his last lungful of air. Her sunk down on her knees beside him, sick but not as sick, not yet, holding out till the last for Jonn’s sake. Waiting for me. Hoping in vain.

Every inch of me hurt. My legs weakened, and I crumpled into a crouch beside the fountain and braced myself against the stones, trying to breathe.

Gabe dropped down beside me and reached for my hand. I let him take my fingers. His skin was warm against mine.

“I know another man,” he said after a long silence. “It’s a gamble, but he might know something. But...” He paused. “It’s a risk. He lives near the palace, in one of the wealthier neighborhoods. If I’m recognized...”

Our eyes met. I felt my soul pouring out of mine, pleading with him even as I wrestled with the risk.

Gabe sighed, the sound scraping past his lips.

“Come on,” he said.

~

Brittle vines trailed down the sides of the buildings in this part of the city, and ancient trees snaked their roots over walls of stone and transparent roofs with vegetation inside—greenhouses like the one back in the Frost. Steam powered the coaches, and the men and women who strolled by on foot wore black silk and velvet. Feathered and veiled hats hid their eyes.

One man passing us made eye contact. The haunted fear in his face rocked me, and I stopped in the middle of the street. Gabe grabbed my arm and pulled me forward onto the sidewalk, hustling me away quickly before the man could look again. I shook off the spell that had gripped me as we slipped through a gate and stopped before a house with curving stone walls topped with pointed iron spikes.

Gabe’s expression was a mixture of wonder and unease, as if he’d stepped into an unsettling dream. “I haven’t seen these walls since before my arrest,” he murmured.

He led me down a path and through a grove of drooping trees. We passed through a hedge and into a courtyard of raked gravel. Dried leaves skittered past us, swirling in a sudden wind. We skirted the house and headed deeper into the surrounding gardens. Dried vines drooped from the trees and brushed the top of my head. The air smelled like wet dirt and dead plants. Thunder growled in the distance, a whisper of another coming storm.

“Here.” Gabe pointed toward a flight of stairs leading along the back of the house, descending into a concealed area beneath the garden. I followed him down the steps and into a place that resembled a cave. Coils of wire and glass vials lined the walls. A great broken clock lay on its side on a table.

“Gabriel?”

A shadow stirred in the corner by a table, and a man with white hair moved into the light, squinting at us.

“Gabriel,” he repeated. “Is that you?”

“Dr. Terrade,” Gabe said, and his voice came out quick and breathless. “I don’t have time to explain.”

“We thought you were dead,” the white-haired man said. His eyes shifted to my face. He wore an expression of curiousness and suspicion.

“It’s a long story,” Gabe said. “But I need your help, and there’s no time to explain. Have you ever met or heard of a man who calls himself Meridus Falcon?”

My chest tightened as the old man tipped his head to the side and thought about it.

“Meridus Falcon,” he mused. “For some reason, that seems familiar, but I can’t recall anything specific.”

“It’s important,” I said firmly. “Think harder.”

Terrade swiveled his neck to get a better look at me. His eyes blinked, turtle-like. “And who are you?”

“Lila,” Gabe answered for me, using the name I’d taken after I’d traveled through the gate to the old time before the Frost. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“Lila,” Terrade repeated. He gave me a searching look as if he were tasting the name on his tongue and finding it unfamiliar to his palate. He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribbled something on it. “Any friend of Gabriel’s is a friend of mine.” His own words distracted him, and he gazed into space, murmuring them under his breath. He blinked. “Excuse me. What were we discussing?”

“Meridus Falcon,” Gabe reminded him.

“Ah, yes.” Terrade ambled across the room to a row of cluttered shelves. Muttering to himself again, he began to pull books and bits of paper from them and lay the pieces in neat rows across a worktable. One of the papers fluttered to the ground and lay there, forgotten amid his flurry of activity.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“He writes everything down,” Gabe said. “Records and observations, names, dates. He pours through the papers, he keeps his own journals—he’s obsessive. He keeps his finger on the pulse of the city. It’s a hobby, a quirk. I don’t know why he does it, but he’s been doing it all my life.”

“You knew him before?”

Gabe nodded. His lips tightened in a way that suggested he didn’t want to talk about it, not now.

I wondered who this man had been to him, what they’d shared.

“Ah,” Terrade said, holding up a scrap of paper in triumph. “Meridus Falcon.”

“What does it say?” I demanded. My heart began to pound with nervous anticipation. Sweat broke across my palms.

Terrade squinted at the writing. “He was...oh dear.”

“What? What is it?”

The doctor lifted his head. “According to this record, a Meridus Falcon was arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason several weeks ago.” He held out a piece of paper to Gabe.

Arrested. Treason. My stomach twisted into a hard ball of horror. I opened my mouth to speak.

That was when the soldiers kicked down the door.

TWELVE

GABE THREW HIMSELF toward Dr. Terrade’s table of parchments and papers as the soldiers entered the room, weapons drawn. Terrade let out a shriek as one of the soldiers struck him. He crumpled into a heap on the floor, and they hauled him up. Another seized Gabe and yanked him around, and I saw he’d somehow managed to splatter ink all over his face and shirt, concealing his identity. The soldier made a sound of disgust as ink got all over his hands and the front of his uniform.

Rough hands twisted my arms behind my back and forced me toward the door.

“Lia!” Gabe shouted.

I couldn’t do anything. I bit my lip to keep from screaming as they forced me outside. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

We were captured.

It would all be over soon.

The soldiers marched us forward across the garden, toward the front of the house. There were three of them, all grim-faced and gray-clad. Their guns glittered in the pale light.

Something fluttered out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head in time to see a man in a black coat smash one of the soldiers in the face with a tree limb. Gabe kneed one of the other soldiers, and the man crumpled at the unexpected attack. I drove my elbow into the throat of the soldier behind me.

“Go!” shouted the man in the black coat, and I realized it was Adam.

I struggled. One of the soldiers smashed the butt of his gun into my face, and everything went black.

~

Pain laced every breath I took. My head throbbed. I licked my lips and tasted blood.

“Lia? Are you all right?”

Gabe’s frantic whisper came somewhere from my left. My hands slid over smooth leather as I pushed myself upright. “Well. I’m alive.”

The ground lurched beneath us. We were in a carriage. I opened my eyes, squinting against the light. Everything was too bright, too blurry. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Not long,” Gabe said. “A few minutes. Are you all right?”

“Yes, that nasty cut above your eye looks painful,” another voice interjected. “It’s rather marred what looks you had. Pity. And you’re going to have a terrific bruise tomorrow.”

Korr
.

I touched the side of my face with two fingers, probing the injured flesh gently as I squinted at the other occupants of the carriage. I could just make out the nobleman. “Where are we?” I demanded.

“My steamcoach,” he said in a clipped tone.

My vision finally adjusted, and I could see them all.

Korr crossed his legs and scowled at the velvet ceiling of the steamcoach. Gabe slumped between his brother and Dr. Terrade’s still form. His face was still splotched with ink. And beside me...

Adam.

“You,” I said.

Adam turned his body away from me and set his face toward the window. His fingers moved restlessly over the edge of his cloak, and he scanned my face again. He didn’t speak.

“How did you find us?” Gabe asked finally.

Korr pursed his lips as if choosing just the right words. “Luckily, Brewer has been following Weaver. Who knows what could have happened otherwise?”

“Following me?” I demanded.

A muscle in Adam’s jaw flexed. “You said you wanted out of the Thorns, and as a Thorns agent I couldn’t stop you from making that choice. But I wasn’t about to let you wander around Astralux alone without someone keeping an eye on you. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“How dare you follow me without my permission?” I snapped. “How did you even—?” I glared at Gabe. “Did you know about this?”

He said nothing, but his forehead wrinkled and his eyes shifted guiltily.

“How do you think he found you?” Adam asked, still not looking at me.

“So you told Gabe where I was? That’s how he found me at the Plaza of Horses?”

“Never mind that.” Korr leaned forward as the steamcoach rattled over a pothole. “The point is that you’ve both been exceptionally stupid. Without our intervention, Gabriel would have been identified, and nobody can know he’s alive. Not to mention the fact that you both would have been executed, perhaps tortured beforehand, and I’m sure I don’t need to convince you of the unpleasantness of that.”