Lark Ascending (15 page)

He set his spoon down and lifted his head, finally looking at me again. “Lark, how much do you remember from your time there?”

I felt my throat constrict. It would be easier to pretend I'd forgotten. That my mind had simply erased all memory of what had been done to me. Most days I pretended anyway, pushing it far away, as though it had happened to someone else. But it wasn't true.

“I remember everything.”

Kris swallowed, his gaze hollow. “The nuances are difficult to explain, but in essence what we did was fill you with magic, more than your system could handle, over and over again until you had enough to last you through the wilderness to reach the Iron Wood. But I think—I think there may have been side effects.”

My heart lurched. He knew. He knew about the shadow inside me, that I was a monster no different from Oren, only more deadly, more perfect in the way I hunted and fed. I forced my voice to calm. “What do you mean?”

“The way you absorbed the magic from all of us and from the machines while you were defending the Iron Wood.” Kris was watching me carefully. “I think that by dosing you repeatedly, we made your body begin to crave magic, become receptive to it. I think we
made
you what you are, able to absorb magic from things. Have you done it since then?”

Images flashed before my eyes. Putting an end to Tomas's pain outside the Iron Wood. Draining Tansy as we fell from the window in the ruins. Nina's comatose face, unmoving, unchanging, after I had drained her to the point of death. “Yes,” I whispered.

Kris nodded. “Well, I think that we made Eve what she is, too.”

I blinked away the sting in my eyes, forcing myself to focus. “How?”

“The exact opposite of what we did to you. We took her magic again and again, forcing her to regenerate far more often and more quickly than any Renewable normally would. My theory is that her system compensated by producing magic at an alarming rate, and that now she can no longer control it. I think it seeks out voids and tries to fill them.

“Voids,” I echoed blankly.

Kris nodded. “We've all been harvested. I think what she does is ooze magic into those around her, for a time. Perhaps that was what was so comforting to the people during the pixie attack.”

I thought of the blank, mindless adoration with which the crowd had regarded her. “It wasn't just comfort. It was euphoria.”

Kris grimaced, nodding again. “Sometimes it would hit the architects like that too,” he told me. “Magic can have that effect, on people who are starved for it.”

I stared at him, recalling all too easily the mind-numbing agony of being pumped full of magic in their Machine.

“In small doses,” Kris added, seeing my face.

I wanted to ask him about Oren, and Eve's promise that she could cure him. But doing so would require that I reveal Oren's secret, and as much as I had come to believe Kris really was my ally, I wasn't sure I trusted him to be Oren's, too. So instead I said, “Is there any chance Eve's power, giving people magic, could ever be permanent? If there was, say, a void—would she be able to heal it?”

Kris watched me, his expression solemn and thoughtful. He didn't answer right away, and for a heart-stopping moment I thought he'd guessed why I was asking. But when he did speak, his words surprised me. “I wouldn't go near her if I were you, Lark. You and she are opposite forces, and as any architect knows, opposites attract—but often with disastrous consequences. I don't know what would happen if she tried to use her powers to heal yours.”

My mind raced. True, Oren and I were different. But we carried the same darkness inside, the same void longing to be filled with magic. But Kris had only confirmed my fears about what Eve had offered Oren. Even if she could cure him, it'd be by destroying the shadow—and who knew how much of the Oren I'd come to love would go with it?

“Tell me something, Kris.” There was something still nagging at me about what he'd revealed. “If draining Eve just made her stronger and stronger, why send me in search of the Iron Wood? I'd assumed the Renewable was faltering, losing power.”

Though I couldn't be certain in the general gloom inhabiting the Hub, I thought I saw something flicker through Kris's expression. Fear? Guilt? “Her power wasn't why we were so desperate to find another source for the Resource.”

But before he could continue, a shadow fell over me and a gruff voice said, “Get up, we've got to talk.” Caesar stood there, backlit and looming.

I finished my bowl of porridge in a hurry—Myrah was right, it wasn't as bad as it sounded—and got to my feet. “Kris too?” I asked, though I kept my voice firm enough that it wasn't really a question.

Caesar glanced down at Kris, then nodded. “We're talking about infiltrating the Institute, he might as well come.” Then he stumped away, clearly expecting us to follow.

A chill trickled down my spine as we followed Caesar. He was considering my plan. Now all I had to do was hope it was a good enough plan to work.

When we reached Caesar's office there was already a small handful of people there. There were a man and a woman about Caesar's age, and very clearly related—same dirty blond hair and gray eyes, same mannerisms when they looked up at the sound of the door opening. There was another man, one I recognized from the group that had brought Eve back with Caesar. And then there was Eve.

I was surprised to see her there; until now she hadn't been present for any of Caesar's strategic meetings. I glanced from her to Caesar, hoping for some hint of what was going on, but his face was expressionless.

“I've filled them in on your idea to return to the Institute,” Caesar told me. “This is Asher and Alice,” and he gestured to the brother and sister, “and this is Tek.” The man who'd helped retrieve Eve nodded at me.

“And?” I asked.

Caesar shook his head. “It won't work. They can't be reasoned with. We can't risk sending anyone in there.”

“But I said that I'd go,” I insisted. “You won't lose any of your people, and given what we stand to gain—”

Kris interrupted. “What plan is this?”

“I want to go back to the Institute and try to reason with them, make some kind of deal. I can show them where the pockets of magic are, buy them a little time if they go to harvest it.”

Kris's eyes swung from me to Caesar. “And you think this is a bad idea?”

Caesar grunted. “A stupid idea. You know the Institute will chew her up and spit her out.”

Kris nodded, and my heart sank. I'd been counting on him to back me. “True. I'm just surprised you care enough to prevent that.”

Caesar didn't even flinch. “Lark's a resource. Weigh up the variables and we need her.”

“I agree.” Kris was carefully not looking at Eve, but I could feel her eyes on me.

“Excuse me,” I interjected, furious at the way they were talking as though I wasn't even there. “But it's my choice. I'm not one of your subjects, Caesar.”

“True,” Caesar agreed. “You can do what you want. You can go throw yourself off a roof if you really want to, though speaking from personal experience, I don't recommend it.” That jab was meant for me, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of flinching. “But if you want to help these people, then we need you as a soldier, not a spy or a diplomat.”

But what if I don't want to be a soldier?

Asher, the blond brother in the back, spoke up. “That still leaves us without a plan to move forward,” he pointed out.

“We do what we'd originally planned to do,” Caesar declared. “We have Eve, and she's agreed to help us power the machines we've salvaged and repaired. That gives us weapons. Not many, but enough for a small, calculated strike.”

“The food stores,” I muttered.

Caesar nodded, his steely gaze swinging back to me. “If we take out the machines guarding it, we can salvage those too. Grow our little army. Guerilla tactics, striking smaller targets, until we have enough for an all-out assault.”

Kris rolled his eyes. “You're never going to have enough for an all-out assault,” he said dryly. “The Institute has weapons you've never even seen before. You can't fight them that way.”

“We've got no other choice,” snapped Tek from the background, scowling at Kris. He was a slender man, tall, with a shaved head, and clearly not a fan of the architect-turned-rebel.

“Is losing Lark as a resource your only reservation about her plan to infiltrate the Institute?” Kris asked, ignoring Tek and watching Caesar.

“Aside from the fact that it's suicide to boot, yes.”

“Then I'll go,” Kris said simply.

My heart stopped. “Kris, no. They must suspect by now that you're with us. They'll kill you.”

Kris shrugged. “Maybe. But I worked there a long time, and I don't think so. You all like to think that the Institute is made up of a bunch of faceless, heartless architects, but the truth is that most of them are just trying to save this city. Some of them are going to want a way out that doesn't involve flattening the lot of you under their machines.”

Some of them.
Meaning not others. “You can't,” I said firmly. “This was my idea—for
me
to go, no one else.”

“Think, Lark,” Kris said gently. “Even if they didn't need you here, I'm still the logical one to go. They know me. I speak their language. I know exactly how close they are to their own destruction, and ours to boot.”

He was right. But it was one thing to sacrifice myself, to be willing to place myself in the hands of my onetime torturers and captors, and another thing entirely to send someone else to the same fate.

Eve, who had been silent up until now, spoke. “If there is anyone who has the right to believe that the Institute is filled with monstrous, unforgiving people, it would be me,” she pointed out. “Yet I believe there is common ground. If this boy thinks he can speak with them, perhaps it's worth exploring.”

Caesar looked at me. I wanted to protest, to scream that this wasn't right, that I was the one who was supposed to go. I shook my head mutely, silently begging him to understand. But before I could come up with a legitimate reason to stop Kris, Caesar made his decision. “Done,” he said, nodding at Kris. It was as much a nod of dismissal as approval. “Go draw up a plan and have it to me by morning. If there's no reason to delay, you'll go tomorrow.”

Kris inclined his head. He turned for the door, eyes lingering on my face for a moment before he slipped through it.

“Lark,” Caesar snapped, frowning at me. “Stay focused. We'll need you to help us figure out where to target our strike. You can see magic—the rest of us can't, except for Eve, who's too easily spotted to go above ground.”

I shook my head. “No strike until Kris is back. If we attack them while he's negotiating a truce, they'll kill him for sure.”

“Of course,” said Caesar. “But we need that plan in place, should Kris fail. Even you must see that it'd be foolish to just hope that everything goes well. We have to be prepared.”

Prepared for Kris to die.
But I had no choice. I nodded.

Caesar gestured to the table, where the others were leaning over a map of the city. “Let's get to work.”

I noticed time passing only when my stomach began to growl. Eve had long since left, begging exhaustion, and so it was only Caesar and his advisors. Caesar sent Asher to fetch us our evening rations, which I noticed were far more meager than the midday rations were. The meal was a silent one, each of us absorbed in thoughts of what lay ahead.

The part I would play was small, but crucial. Because of my second sight, I'd be able to see where the city was spending most of its resources. Kris had confirmed that they used vast amounts of energy to send their harvester machines across the Wall to tend and bring back the food crops, so it stood to reason that the areas with the most power would be near the warehouses. Machine storehouses were the second priority, if I couldn't locate food. With Eve to power them, the more machines we could bring back and reprogram to fight for us, the better our chances of being able to withstand a frontal attack by the Institute.

I longed to protest at every turn in the conversation that none of it would be necessary. Kris's silver tongue and charming smile—not to mention the unassailable logic of his argument, that a war would bring only mutual destruction—would see us through. But I knew Caesar was right. Despite Kris's confidence, the architects had never been entirely predictable. There was no guarantee they'd listen to him.

When our meal was finished, Tek slipped out to return to the Hub to oversee the engineers. His real name was Tecate, but he'd earned his nickname due to his prowess at deciphering the Institute's technology, adapting their machines to suit our purposes. I wished Basil could have met him—they couldn't be more different in temperament, but Basil would have loved to have someone who could understand him when he started talking about components and data storage.

Alice and Asher left soon after Tek, leaving me alone with Caesar. For a long time he didn't speak, surveying the map with furrowed brow. He was so intent I began to wonder if he'd forgotten I was there, and I took the opportunity to watch him more closely. His beard covered most of the scars on his face, at least from a distance. Up close I could see the lines where the tissue was too scarred for hair to grow, and I thought again of the pixies that attacked me. If I'd been a few seconds later in destroying them, would I have had to find some way to cover my scars, too? There were lines around his eyes, even though he was still a young man. He'd been so quick and so certain when he'd agreed to Kris's proposal; he'd grown used to making life-or-death decisions, forced by circumstance to grow old fast.

“Having Eve with us changes things,” he said, startling me. I wondered if he'd felt me staring at him.