Shadowlark (28 page)

There are worse ways to recover from bone-shattering injuries than in a warm room, attended by an entire horde of resistance fighters who think you’re a hero. I got so much attention I had to start forcing people to leave me alone just so that I could get some sleep. Olivia came to see me, and while her face was solemn and tired, I knew now that she didn’t blame me for what happened to Nina, who’d been showing signs of regaining consciousness. Maybe the budding friendship was gone, but at least she didn’t hate me.

There was still fear among the rebels—I was pretty sure none of them would ever fully trust me again. I was, in their eyes, something uncontrollable and dangerous. But I’d faced Prometheus and won. They were free. And every one of them wanted to come and see the girl who’d made it happen. Even when I got everyone else to leave, Nix stayed, perched on the bedframe, watching over me, criticizing me for staying in bed, chastising me when I tried to sit up.

But the healers among the rebels knew what they were doing. The healing sessions were agonizingly painful as they encouraged the bones of my arm, broken in two places, to knit together. But after only a few days I could get up on my own, move around, go to the bathroom by myself. This was of particular relief to Olivia, who was on Lark-can’t-take-careof-herself duty. As she put it, “If I never have to stand there awkwardly while someone pees again, I’ll die a happy girl.”

With Prometheus “dead” and CeePo under Wesley’s interim command, the resistance fighters in deep undercover had come out of the woodwork. Only those of us who’d fought Adjutant knew the truth about what had happened there, about who Basil was. Wesley and the others had decided it would be best if the city knew only that Prometheus had gone mad with power and died. There was no identifying Adjutant’s body—it was little more than ash and bone, only the scorched copper emblem of a flame to say that he’d been wearing Prometheus’s robes.

Eventually I was able to come out of my room for good, learning to dress myself one-handed, operate doors with my left hand. The splints made moving awkward, but they kept my arm still, which the healers said was critical to my recovery if I wanted to ever have full use of my arm again. The idea of being one-handed like this forever was enough to make me listen.

Four days after the battle for Lethe, as it was coming to be known, the ache in my arm woke me from a nap and sent me restlessly down the corridor. The rest of my injuries had all but healed, the gashes and scrapes treated with bandages and, in a few places, stitches. My splint itched, but I ignored it, channeling the restlessness into movement.

I was looking for Wesley and the others in the War Room, but when I got there, I found only Basil, sitting alone. He’d visited me during my recovery, but only for short periods. And never to speak about anything real—about what he’d done as Prometheus, about what he’d do next, about the bond between us and whether it could be repaired.

I hovered in the doorway, watching him. He was flipping the pages of the journal—his journal. His brow was furrowed, gaze distant. Every so often he’d shift his hand, tracing his fingertips over the lines of a drawing.

When I stepped inside, he spoke without lifting his head. “I really did it all for you,” he said softly. “I wanted a place we could be safe.”

“I believe you,” I said, making my way to one of the chairs so I could sit and rest my splinted arm on the tabletop.

“When you look at it a day at a time, you don’t see what’s happening. One day you siphon power away from a prisoner wanted for murder, because they’ll be banished anyway. Then it’s only those people convicted of treason.” He turned a page of the journal, eyes falling on the last page, the one with my face on it. “Then it’s anyone who opposes you.”

My splint itched, but my heart ached more, and I leaned forward. “It’s done now.”

“And so is Lethe.” He closed the journal with a slam, lifting his head and looking at me. His eyes grew even sadder— even four days after the battle, I knew I looked half a step away from death, covered in scratches and bruises. “Everyone’s celebrating out there because Prometheus is gone and the Renewables are free, but it’s only because they don’t realize yet what it means for Lethe. Without the magic from the Renewables, it’s over.”

“You’ll find a way,” I told him firmly. “You’re brilliant. You’ve always been brilliant. If anyone can save Lethe, it’s you.”

He shook his head, expression grim. “No, we’re leaving. You and me, as soon as you’re well enough to travel. It’s over here. It was over the moment I knew I couldn’t hurt you even to save Prometheus. Adjutant was right, I can’t make those kinds of decisions. I never could.”

My pulse quickened, and I fought to keep my voice even. “Basil, you can’t leave. This is your city. These are your people now.”

“But they don’t know that,” he snapped, fierce. Desperate. Afraid. Where was my brave, confident big brother? “They’ll figure out that I was Prometheus, sooner or later. They’ll all figure it out. But until then I’m just Basil Ainsley, and I don’t owe anyone anything. You and I can go. We can find some other place, some safer place.”

For a moment it was easy to imagine. Me and my big brother, on the road, striking out for territories unknown. We could leave all this uncertainty behind, all the guilt. I’d never see Nina or Olivia again, Basil wouldn’t have to watch the long, painful recoveries of the Renewables kept captive in CeePo.

I closed my eyes. “You chose to make Lethe what it is,” I said slowly. “That was the hard decision you made. You just didn’t know, at the time, how hard it’d turn out to be. Believe me, Basil. I know what it feels like to run away. And you can’t do it, not now. You’re not going to find a safer place out there.”

He dropped his head into his hands, fingers tangling through his thick hair. His face was worn, so much older than I remembered. Even though it had been years, in my mind’s eye Basil was always still a child, still the age he was when he left the city. But the man sitting across from me was barely more than a stranger.

“Lethe is doomed,” he murmured. “You’re saying that you and I have to go down with it?”

“Maybe it’s not doomed.” My mind hunted for a path out of the mess, some way of solving this problem without more bloodshed and torture. Basil was always the problem solver, not me. I sucked in a deep breath. “Talk to Dorian.”

“I saw he was here.” Basil lifted his head, watching me. “You think he’ll have ideas?”

“There are a hundred Renewables in the Iron Wood, at least.” I spoke slowly, turning it over in my mind. “The city— our city, the architects—know where they are. They need a safe place. You need Renewables to keep this place safe. Maybe there’s common ground there.”

Basil sat up, brow furrowed. He didn’t reply right away, but I could see him working it over in his thoughts, the same cautious excitement spreading over his features that he always had when designing a new fantastic machine in his sketchbook at home. “With that many, we wouldn’t need full-time donors. They could go in shifts. Donating a little magic at a time. It would be hard—but not unbearable. They could volunteer.”

I leaned back, grimacing as the movement triggered a new ache in my arm. Breaking it had been the easy part. This slow healing, clawing myself back bit by bit to fighting form—this was the hard part.

Basil’s eyes flicked up, meeting mine. “And you say I’m the brilliant one.”

I shook my head. “You spend enough time trying to outrun this darkness, you get better at finding alternatives.”

Basil reached across the table for my good hand, cupping it in his. “I’m glad you’re here, Lark. I can stay if you’re with me. Maybe you’re what I needed all along.”

I fell silent. A few weeks ago all I’d wanted was to have my big brother hold my hand and tell me I could spend the rest of my life at his side. Now, though . . . now it was different.

“I can’t stay,” I whispered.

“What?” His hand tightened. “No. No, don’t even joke about that.”

“Something isn’t right. Everything they told us in the city, about the wars, about how the world came to be what it is; it doesn’t make sense.”

“What could that possibly matter to you now?”

“Everyone here—they believed the Renewables caused the world to be what it was, because that was convenient for you. If they feared the Renewables, then it’d be harder for them to hide. Easier for you to find and use them.” I ran the fingers of my good hand through my hair, wishing I could straighten out my thoughts so easily. “Back home, we believed it was from a war, because it helped keep us in line, all working to run the city.”

Basil shook his head. “And to find the truth you’re willing to go back to a place where they torture children to power their lights?”

I thought of Oren and his secret, and of how we’d both wished we could unlearn it. The truth was never comfortable or easy. “The architects know something that no one else does. And if they know how this cursed world came to be, maybe they know how to heal it. At the very least, I have to know.”

“But why you?” Basil’s voice was fierce. “You’ve done enough. Stay with me, rebuild this place. Why does it have to be you that goes?”

Even as it all solidified into certainty, I felt a flicker of fear for what I knew I had to do. “I ran away, Basil.” I swallowed. “I turned my back on our home the way you wanted to turn your back on Lethe. Our people are desperate, more desperate than you or Adjutant or anyone here in Lethe. I was the only hope they had, and I ran away from them.”

He shook his head wordlessly, his eyes on mine.

“I have to go back.”

• • •

I ate a quiet dinner in my room, alone but for Nix’s company. At least this time my isolation was by choice—though the others didn’t quite know what to do with me, they wouldn’t have turned me away. Hero, villain—the lines blurred, and for now I was content to let the line stay blurry. Part of me knew that I ought to go out anyway, enjoy the company. I was never a social person back in my city, but my time alone in the wilderness had proven to me that even I got lonely. I felt almost as though I ought to store it up, like water collecting in a rainstorm, to last me through the drought to come. But I didn’t want a drawn-out farewell.

I had my pack all set out. Basil knew I was leaving, and we’d made our farewells. When he realized he couldn’t change my mind, he settled for telling me that we’d see each other again, when Lethe was safe. When our city was safe, too. There was my paper bird, crumpled, rescued from the depths of CeePo where I’d thrown it in Basil’s face. Oren’s knife in its sheath. Some cheese, some of the rebel-made grain bars that lasted for weeks, a packet of crackers. A water canteen. My running shoes, and my leather jacket with the tear in the shoulder neatly stitched up.

And the newest addition: a little metal flask of a clear, odorless liquid. Basil had given it to me, saying it was the way back through the Wall enclosing my city. When the Institute had sent him out, they did so intending him to come back and report on the location of the Iron Wood—it was Basil’s defection from the plan that made them try again, lying this time, with me. I was never intended to return, but Basil—Basil had a way of getting back inside. When I asked him how he’d managed to keep track of it for all these years, he was quiet, and I realized the answer: he kept it because he’d always intended to come back for me.

“I have to go,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not trying to sacrifice myself or be a hero or something. But they’re dying there, sooner or later. The Renewable they have will die, and then the city will have nothing.”

“But they’re the ones who did this to you.”

“It was only a small group of people who did this to me. Gloriette. The other architects. Kris.” My thoughts tangled as the image of the tousle-haired, handsome architect flashed before my eyes. “And even they were acting because they thought it was the only way to save the city.”

“Trying to talk sense into you is like trying to fly into a headwind.”

I tried to hide my smile. “And you love it. You’re coming, after all, aren’t you?”

Nix made an irritated grinding sound with its wings and then took off, headed for the ventilation shaft it used to go from room to room. I grinned, shaking my head. The little bug might be annoying and full of itself, but it was good company. And it was loyal.

I surveyed my supplies, trying to think if I’d missed anything. The people here would do just fine without me. They had Basil and Dorian, and Wesley too. If I slipped out in the night, there’d be no fuss, no pleas and no demands made.

There was just one problem: Oren.

I’d follow you anywhere,
he’d told me in the Eagles’ prison cell, back before everything had happened here. I didn’t want to force him to put that promise to the test now that he’d found a home. He was different here, and even he had to realize that. He was quieter, calmer. Still just as strong and fierce as ever, but he was in control of himself. He was even in control of his shadow self—if only barely.

I couldn’t ask him to leave, but if I told him I was going, I knew he’d follow. My only other option was to leave without telling him, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that either. It was a betrayal nearly as bad as forcing him to leave this new home.

There was a tap on my door, and I jumped. “Oren?”

“Sorry to disappoint.” It was Wesley, the door opening half a moment later so that he could slip inside. “I noticed you weren’t at dinner and wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. I was standing in front of my bed, which was covered in supplies, but I couldn’t be concealing much. “Just want to be alone tonight.”

Wesley’s eyes raked over everything arrayed on top of the blanket, then fell back on me. “Running away again,” he said quietly, though there was no judgment in his voice. Just a mild comment on what he saw.

“Running back,” I corrected him.

Wesley made a noncommittal sound. I waited for him to speak, to explain why he’d come to find me. Instead he just stood there, watching me, his expression difficult to read.