Aeralis (9 page)

NINE

ADAM SCANNED THE room and spotted me. He went still, his shoulders tensing, his eyebrows pulling together as he regarded me. “Lia?” he spoke as if to himself only, as if I were a dream conjured in his mind.

I met his eyes without flinching, although a jolt of something electric and frightening shot through me at the intensity in his gaze. “Yes.”

“What are you doing here?” The words were calm, soft, but an undercurrent of something cold lurked in them.

Raven stepped from behind the curtain in the silk shirt, and her lips curved in a slight smile as she saw Adam. “Brewer,” she said, not sounding surprised. “I thought I saw Merrick slipping away through the crowd when we arrived. He must have told you right away.”

Adam and Raven knew each other? Of course they did. She’d been his and Ann’s contact on their way to Astralux.

Adam didn’t answer her. His eyes never left mine as he laid his hat on the table and stripped off his gloves.

“Is it Jonn?” His tone was flat, with no discernible glimmer of emotion in it.

“Jonn’s condition hasn’t changed,” I said.

Raven looked from Adam to me. We continued to ignore her. Adam raised his eyebrows at me and tipped his head. He looked calm, but I saw the tension in his fingers, his neck. His question was clear.

Why had I defied my orders?

“I’m here on a personal mission,” I said.

“Personal mission?” he repeated sharply.

I looked at Raven and back at Adam. “Can we speak somewhere privately?”

Adam indicated a door in the wall, and I followed him into a paneled study lined with diamond pane windows. Pale light slanted through them, illuminating a desk strewn with books and papers.

Adam shut the door and leaned against the desk. “Tell me.”

I went to the window. Where to start?

“There’s a man in the Frost, a man from the old time of the Compound. He kidnapped Ivy and implanted her with some kind of capsule containing the Sickness. He wants a device that Borde is here to find, he said, and he wants me to find it. If I don’t do as he says, she’s going to be infected just like Jonn.”

Adam stared at me as he absorbed this bizarre information without a flicker of expression. “Explain.”

Explaining made me impossibly tired, but I tried. “I have to find Borde. I have to get this device from him to save my sister. Gordon says he knows the cure, and if I bring him this device—”

“Lia,” Adam interrupted. “This is insane. Where is this man now?”

“I don’t know. He gave me a way to contact him once I have the device.”

“We should find him immediately, capture him, and force him to remove the capsule in Ivy’s arm—”

“No! If we do that, he’ll activate the capsule and infect her immediately. There isn’t time to try to come up with some grand plan. I just have to do this, and quickly. Ivy has maybe two weeks before the capsule dissolves on its own.”

“You think it will be so easy, finding Borde?”

“I think I’m not going to stand by and let my sister die!” My voice cracked with emotion, and I paused, collecting myself. “Stone told me about a man they gave shelter to only a few months ago, a man who rambled in his sleep about Weavers and blood and monsters. They called him Scar, because he came to them wounded. Adam, I believe that man was Borde.”

“But how could Borde have even known our location in time in relation to his to be able to calculate his arrival?”

“I don’t know, but he’s here. Gordon followed him. And if I can find him...” I stopped as my throat tightened. “I know it’s a risk,” I continued. “But it’s a risk I’m willing to take. A risk I have to take.”

Adam lowered his head. “You’ve failed to consider one thing,” he said. “Your orders. I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, but the Trio—”

“I didn’t fail to consider my orders.”

He stiffened. “So you’ve deliberately defied them.”

I didn’t reply.

“People’s lives are at stake, Lia. You can’t simply leave your post and throw yourself into a mission like this. You could expose a Thorns operative, draw attention to the Restorationists, get someone killed—”

“If I don’t do something, people will be killed. My family.”

He didn’t reply. His jaw tightened as he turned his head toward the window.

“Everything is falling apart. They burned my family’s farm—”

Adam turned around so sharply that I was startled into silence.

“Who burned what?” His voice was laced with venom.

“Villagers,” I said. “They set fire to it, I presume because we were allowing Ann’s father to live there. Ann’s father fled to Aeralis after it happened. I—”

“Iceliss is utter chaos, and you’ve left Ivy, Jonn, and the rest of them to come here?”

“If I didn’t come, my sister would die!”

“You don’t know what would happen. Gordon could be lying. Ivy might weather the Sickness on her own. With you gone, lives are at risk. Many, many lives.”

My fingers formed fists at my sides as words clotted on my tongue. “You said before that I could withdraw from the Thorns if I wanted to.” I spoke the words softly, but they shouted in the silence.

Adam stilled. “Yes.”

“Well.” I couldn’t breathe. Every muscle in my body screamed with tension. “I want to withdraw.”

He stared at me. “Is that your final decision?” He asked it softly, so softly I barely heard him.

“It is.”

Adam’s fingers tapped his leg. The slightest note of distress touched his voice. “If you do that, you will have to leave this place—it’s a Thorns refuge, and you will not be authorized—”

“Then I’ll leave it.”

“You’ll be alone in the city. It won’t be safe. I won’t be able to make sure you stay safe. I won’t be allowed to.”

“I don’t need you to protect me, Brewer,” I said coldly.

He flinched at my use of his last name. It was like a slap.

I handed over the Thorns brooch that I always carried, the one that had belonged to my parents, and I left.

~

Rain soaked my hair and streamed in rivulets down my coat as I crossed the street, heading deeper into the city. My legs trembled. My heart pounded along with the rain slamming against the sidewalk ahead of me.

I was on my own now.

Pain splintered in my chest, but I pushed it away. I needed to find Gabe. I needed to find the Plaza of Horses.

People hurried past, their coat collars turned up against the wet and their heads down to shield their faces from rain splatter. A steamcoach rushed past, drenching me. I gasped as icy water hit my legs, shocking me with sudden coldness.

Wiping water from my brow, I ducked into a side street. A dangling sign advertised fresh bread above a door in the wall. I opened it and went in.

The shop smelled like cinnamon and flour. Rain pattered against a stained glass window that looked over the street. Green paneled walls were filled with glass cases of flour, sugar, and grain, and baked goods filled a glass display case before a counter. Behind it, a man in a striped apron hefted a bag with a grunt and a puff of flour. He didn’t look up as I approached.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can you give me directions? I’m looking for the Plaza of Horses.”

The man grunted. “It’s a far walk from here. Six blocks straight and take a right. It’s past the river, near the Prison Sector.

“Thank you.”

I was reluctant to leave that warm, sweet-smelling shop, but I had to find Gabe before nightfall. I turned up my coat collar and ventured back out into the deluge.

Darkness was beginning to fall by the time I reached the turn the baker had described. I headed right, crossing the river on a narrow metal bridge that ran parallel to the stone one for wagons. The waves beneath the bridge danced in the wind, pebbled with rain. I walked faster as I stepped off the bridge and into a different area of the city.

The walls here were higher, grayer. Many were topped with snarls of wire. The Prison Sector? I scanned the streets. Fewer pedestrians walked these sidewalks, and those who did moved furtively. At the corner, a pair of soldiers in gray uniforms stood smoking and talking. The light of their cigs glowed in the gloom. They looked at me as I passed; their gazes were lazy and appraising. I pulled my coat tighter and pressed on.

A wall lined with statues rose from the gloom of rain ahead of me. Horses. They were frozen in midstride, their mouths open, their heads tossed back, and their manes flowing. The mist parted around the wall. I saw a gate, and beyond it lay a vast space paved with flagstones.

The Plaza of Horses.

I stepped through the gate and into the square. Water splashed around my ankles as I crossed the expanse. Thunder growled above the city. A streak of lightning split the sky, filling the plaza with white light and throwing the statues into garish relief. Against the wall, a figure in a long dark coat leaned, arms crossed.

Gabe?

I started toward this unknown person, my heart hammering with hope, but when I reached him, he looked at me with blank eyes. His mouth turned down in a snarl, and he stepped away from me and lit a cig.

Not Gabe.

I moved away from him, following the wall topped with horses. Rain dripped down my face and soaked into the place where my collar rubbed against my neck. I stopped and turned a full circle, scanning the plaza. Only a few people were out in this downpour, scuttling for shelter as I watched. The rain fell so hard that fog rose off the ground. Distantly, the rumble of a wagon echoed in the street.

Despair threatened to close my throat. What was I going to do? I needed to find that statue of the stallion, but how long would I have to wait before Gabe came to check for a message?

The flutter of fabric snagged my attention, and I turned in time to see a man disappearing around the edge of the gate. For a moment, my heart leaped. Adam? It had looked like him, but whoever it was, he or she was gone.

A hand touched my shoulder, and I spun. Arms enfolded me before I could see the face of the person before me. I stiffened in surprise.

“Lia,” a voice breathed in my ear, and I relaxed as I recognized that voice and remembered the shape of the arms and chest that accompanied it.

Gabe
.

TEN

“GABE?” MY VOICE came out small with hope.

“What are you doing here?” He pulled back and studied my face. “I mean, it’s good to see you. But what...?” His eyes scanned mine. “Are you all right?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. Rain splattered against my cheeks and made me blink. “But I’ve been better.”

“Let’s get out of here and get you someplace dry and warm, with something hot to drink.”

That sounded wonderful. I nodded.

He let his hand slide down my arm to clasp my hand. “This way.”

We crossed the plaza together, heading for one of the corners instead of the gate I’d come through. I opened my mouth to ask if he planned to walk straight through the wall, but then we were ducking through a break in the stones I hadn’t noticed before. The roar of rain was muffled, replaced by dripping and splashing as water streamed down the walls of the alley around us. Gabe released my hand, because it was too narrow for us to walk side by side. I followed him up a flight of narrow stairs and through a maze of tunnels.

“Where are we?” My voice whispered around us in a faint echo.

“On the edge of the Prison Sector,” Gabe explained over his shoulder. “It’s full of old factories that have been converted into living spaces by the, er, less fortunate. These tunnels lead practically everywhere in this sector, and the soldiers never venture into them. They’re a death trap if you’re the wrong person. We use them to cross this portion of the city without detection.”

Our feet rang on the stone steps as we climbed higher. Stained walls fell away to reveal rooftops. In the distance, the towers of the city looked like a cluster of needles. Below, I saw prison wagons crawling past in the streets. Horses strung with chains shook their manes in the rain, spraying water. A man shouted at a dog tugging on his pant leg. On the corner of the street, two soldiers smoked and did nothing.

Gabe stopped beside a crumbled section of wall that opened into a courtyard with a patch of gray open sky above it. Rain poured down again, obscuring most of the details of the space. Gabe guided me over the remnants of a wall and down a flight of steps.

“Where are we?” I asked over the cascade of rain.

“This is where I live.”

The rain began to lessen, slowing to a drizzle. I looked around. Barrels lined one of the walls, and a canvas awning extended from one of the others, providing a little shelter. Gabe headed for the awning, and I followed him.

Part of the wall beneath the awning had been hollowed out, making a cave-like space. It was filled with straw, with bedrolls and blankets shoved into the corners away from the rain. A fire burned in a metal pot on a stone ledge high above the straw, and a kettle dangled over it on a chain. A young man with thick black hair and a patch over one eye sat in the corner, reading a book. He looked up as we entered.

“This is Cathan,” Gabe said, gesturing at him. “He’s a member of the resistance, and a friend. Cat, this is Lia.”

Cat’s eyebrows lifted. “Lia...as in Weaver?”

“You’ve heard of me?” I said, surprised.

“Ah, yes,” Cat said, his visible eye shifting to Gabe. His mouth curved up in a faint smirk. “He likes to talk about you.”

“Cat!” Gabe’s neck turned red, and he gave me a sheepish smile before glaring at his friend, who shrugged. He rose and went out, leaving us alone.

I was too tired and emotionally exhausted to ponder what that meant.

Gabe saw my expression and steered me toward one of the bedrolls. “Rest,” he said, motioning for me to sit. “Let me have that coat. I’ll hang it up to dry.”

I peeled off the soaking fabric and handed it to him. My legs folded, and I sank down onto the straw. Gabe slung my coat and his over a rope stretched across the opening of the room. He retrieved a kettle from the fire and poured steaming liquid into a chipped mug. I accepted it gratefully when he returned.