The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (39 page)

We embark a shining
silver lift that will whisk us to the bottom of these twenty one
floors and back to the real world. My stomach lurched when we
ascended so I brace my hands against a railing, preparing for the
same weightless, suspended feeling. Just as the doors are about to
close an aging man wedges his walking stick between them. He pries
the lift open, manoeuvres his body inside, and presses a button on
the control panel. His beady eyes are trained on me, a foxhound
tracking its prey.

The doors hang
open.

“Don’t forget about
helping us,” he croaks. “The engineering team will show you the
device when you come back.”

I nod, avoiding making
eye contact by staring at my reflexion in the mirrored doors. My
face looks narrower, my eyes framed with darkness, but I’d rather
look myself in the eye than court the director’s attention.
Something about the man makes me feel as if my stomach has flipped
inside out, a new level to my discomfort.

“I haven’t forgotten,”
I say to my reflection.

Satisfied, the
director depresses another button. He exits the elevator
quickly—there’s nothing wrong with the way he walks; the cane is a
show of status. The lift finally closes. With a hiss of air and
antibacterial gases, we descend. They did the same thing with the
gases when we entered the building, a woman droning on about
decontamination and offending me in the process. Of course they
would want to protect their laboratories—I would want the same—but
it seemed to come from a place that assumed Plymouth’s locals were
above us. That because we were from a Forgotten Town, we were
lower. I’ve heard whispers of those words around us ever since we
arrived.

I suppose I finally
know what it is like to be of a lower status. If I’d been suffering
this derision and condescension my entire life I’m sure I’d be a
shell of the person I am now. I’d have been reduced to nothing
because that is what it feels like to have someone look at you as
if you’re dirt—with their narrow eyed stares on me, I feel like I’m
nothing.

I couldn’t have been a
servant in the time of Victoria’s reign—I wouldn’t have survived
every insult and glare and hit that evidenced a lower status. I’m
lucky I was born into wealthy family and didn’t have to work. I owe
so much to our staff, to them caring for the important things so we
didn’t have to. I reconsider the way I was at home, whether I have
acted condescendingly to our extended family, whether I have looked
at them as if they are lesser than me. I don’t think I have. I hope
I haven’t.

When
I get back,
if
I
get back, I have a lot of apologising to do.

“Something wrong?”
Samantha is contemplating me, winding a ringlet of golden hair
around a finger. “Is it the tech? It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? For
you?”

I shrug, because it
answers her question as best I can. I’m not sure if it’s the lab or
the town or this whole world. I know what is at the core of my
worries. It’s equal parts being out of place and worrying about
Honour. I don’t know what is happening to him, or what is causing
his hallucinations.

For all my bracing
myself, I slam into the wall when the lift stops cruelly. Ice cold
air floods the small space as the doors snap back and release us. I
might love the laboratories in this building but I hate that
lift.

I gulp huge lungfuls
of air when we’re outside.

“Can you do it?”
Samantha asks, scanning the grey buildings, grey sky, grey pavement
that greet us. The washed out colour is a small comfort, calling me
to the dirty silver streets of home.

“Do what?” I ask.

Samantha pulls a hat
over her hair, the indigo felt striking against the porcelain of
her face. “The cloaking device.”

“Oh. I think so, yes.
It may take time, though. How long are we here for?”

“Not long. Up here.”
She takes me by the arm down a lonely street and into a busier
thoroughfare. “A few days max’.”

“That’s not long at
all. I’m not sure I’ll be able to, in that case.”

“You’ll have to work
on the cloak instead of your bracelet.” She sounds apologetic,
though I can’t tell if it’s genuine. “I know it’s important to you
but if we don’t have a way to hide our crafts, we’ll be shot from
the sky. Again.”

“I
know.” I barely hold back a frustrated sigh. I’m finally given the
equipment to understand my father’s device and I have to put it on
hold.
How very awful of you,
world.

“They’ve got even better tech in Bharat,” she adds in an
attempt to placate me. It works, but only because she’s right.
Bharat is a
City
,
more advanced and much wealthier than these remnants of lost towns.
It will probably take me a day in Bharat to understand the
bracelet.

“What’d you think of
their serum, then? Messed up, right?”

“Yes.” The people of
Plymouth, like everywhere else, have a unique approach to survival.
Manchester thought extensive guarding would protect their town.
Leeds stockpiled a vault of weapons (so I found out once they had
been loaded onto the aircraft and I almost had a heart attack at
the idea of sitting amongst explosives.) Birmingham assumed a
humble, simple life would keep them alive. But here in Plymouth the
scientists have been tasked by the ambassadors with ‘empowering’
the people, making them stronger, able to beat any Official who
might come at them.

I’m told it has
worked, that the few stray Officials who wandered past the town
boundaries have been killed easily. But I’d like to see their
optimism in the face of an army like the one that policed the
populace of Forgotten London. I would also like to see them not
genetically modify their people in an attempt to make them stronger
and faster since it hits entirely too close to home with what has
happened to my friend against his will.

Have
you not seen what this has done to Honour Frie?
I wanted to scream in their faces.
Why would you willingly do this to yourselves? It will ruin
them!

I couldn’t shout that,
though. We’re meant to be careful around them—Plymouth has the
technology to put us down quickly and they won’t hesitate to do it,
unlike the people in Manchester. I flash back to the dank cell
where Honour was imprisoned, where he nearly died, where my heart
nearly died with him. If that was Manchester hesitating to put us
down, I’m not going to risk finding out Plymouth’s equivalent.

Thankfully, the serum
only lasts for an hour. Though there are people who inject
themselves continually, whether because of the threat of States or
because they’re addicted, I don’t know. I can’t help but wonder
what the effects of prolonged use of the serum will be. Nothing
like this comes without a price.

We reach the building
where Dalmar is holding his meeting, a white baroque cafe with
vermillion doors and window frames, perched on the corner of a
quiet street. I look up at the building as Samantha marches
straight inside, my eyes sweeping the three stories, the stucco
festoon above the windows, the words Café Rouge picked out in gold.
Such a lovely building for a drab meeting.

I make my way
inside.

The
café is all dark teak and spindly furniture, the ceiling and walls
a pale lemon that reflects light on the group of people sat in the
far corner, papers and communicators sprawled across the tables in
front of them. I take a seat beside a fair haired man with a
serious expression. Dalmar nods at me in a silent
thank you for coming
and
informs the council that we’re just waiting for Hele, Honour, and
Tia before we can get started. This prompts some serious grumbling
from Cell, though he’s quietened a significant degree by Saga’s
heated frown.

Honour bursts through
the doors, rumpled and flustered and beautiful, a dark flush on his
cheeks and sweat on his brow. “Sorry we’re late.” He’s breathing
heavily, clutching a Guardians communicator. “But there’s someone
that wants to talk to you.” He holds the device out to Dalmar.

“Who?” Dalmar takes the communicator from Honour. “And why
haven’t they contacted me on
my
comm?”

“Something about
signals and frequencies and—I didn’t get half of it. They said
they’re from Bharat, Dal.”

Dalmar abruptly loses
his cool—as I’ve heard Honour say. He makes a quick gesture at the
gathered council and disappears through a side door for
privacy.

“Are you sure it was
Bharat, boy?”

“Yeah.” Honour comes
to stand beside me, resting his hands on the chair back. “I’m
sure.”

The Guardians
murmur.

I peer up at Honour.
“Are you alright?”

“Not sure.”

I throw a glance
around the table. Nobody is paying any attention to me. “Want to go
outside?”

He breathes, “Yeah,”
as if escaping the building he’s only been inside for a minute is
an enormous relief.

We end up on a low
wall in front of a church across the road, sat beneath an unlit
street lamp that could have been abducted from my own time. I
inspect the light, curious if it’s powered by gas or electricity,
all the while trying not to crush the white may blossoms under my
legs. The flowers add points of brightness on the grubby brick—I
wouldn’t want to hurt them accidentally.

“I just feel like
nothing I do is ever gonna matter,” Honour sighs. I now see that
his relief came from being able to talk to me, not from going
outside. “Whatever I do, I’m always gonna be cursed with this …
this mess. Even if I do something amazing like save the world or
cure the Strains or—or run a church.” He looks up at the
weatherworn building behind us with a sad attempt at a smirk. “I’ll
always have this hanging over me. I’ll always be the carrier, the
boy who was made into a weapon. I don’t see the point in anything
when I’ll always be what I am, not what I do.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, well you have
to say that.”

“Do I?” I wait for him
to look at me. “Do I really have to say that?”

He looks at his feet,
scuffs them against the pavement. “I guess you don’t.”

“There will always be
people who see you that way.” I tip my head back to look at the
sky. Overcast, I notice with disappointment. Plymouth is nothing
but bleak days and torrential downpour. I’ve discovered a new hate
for the seaside. “Someone will always think you are dangerous, or
can’t be trusted, but you cannot listen to those people or think
like them. If you think only of yourself as a villain that is what
you’ll become.” I lower my gaze from the sky. “But you can’t be
only darkness, Honour. I know you. You have so much love—for your
family, for your friends. I think you should let a little of that
light into your own heart. The horror you’ve witnessed … there has
to be some goodness to balance that. I think the world owes it to
you.”

I’m looking Honour
directly in the eye so I see the gradual change in him, though I
can’t interpret it. He dips his face towards mine and I wait for
him to speak, but he doesn’t. Beneath the dark shadow of the
lamppost, with the scent of sweet flowers wrapping around us,
Honour kisses me. It’s quick and feverish, as soft as the petals
that brush my fingers as I lean back, Honour’s body following the
movement.

He jerks away a moment
later, sliding a safe distance away. “Sorry,” he says. “That was …
impulsive. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Crushing
disappointment weighs heavy on my heart but it’s accompanied by the
slightest bit of relief—relief that I don’t have to acknowledge
this energy between Honour and I because it was nothing but a
spontaneous mistake.

“That’s alright,” I
say, standing. I don’t get the chance to tell Honour not to dwell
on it because Dalmar comes sprinting out of Café Rouge shouting my
name. He dashes across the thin ribbon of a road and grips my
shoulders hard enough to send pain along my neurons. “What is
it?”

My heart rate hasn’t
slowed from the gallop it took to when Honour kissed me. It
exacerbates my rapid panic.

“That signal from
Bharat,” Dalmar pants, “was our first contact in months.”

“And? What’s that to
do with me?”

“They have a new
Guardian. In the rebellion centre of New Delhi.”

“I
don’t see—” But Dalmar cuts me off before I can finish, anything I
might have thought or said or
been
dispersing at the words that rush from
Dalmar.

“She’s calling herself
Bennet Ravel. It’s your sister, Branwell, we’ve found her.”

***

Miya

02:10. 07.11.2040. The
Free Lands, Southlands, Plymouth.

Yosiah is trying to
sneak out without waking me. It might even have worked if I hadn’t
been awake for the past three hours trying furiously not to think
about my dead mother. I don’t follow Siah because he clearly needs
time to himself. Instead I open the window and sit on the balcony
outside our room, pulling my knees to my chest.

I’m bonier than I was
in Forgotten London. I thought it was because I wasn’t eating
properly, at first—which is stupid, since I’m eating better now
than I ever was—but I think it’s all the walking we’re doing. Or
the stress. I’m slowly wearing my body down to nothing.

I hear the front door
open below and shrink back against the railing, not wanting Siah to
see me as he walks past. But he doesn’t. His footsteps stop
somewhere below the window, where the tiny yard is. A girl’s voice
has me bolting upright, grateful that being barefoot means I’m
silent.

Yosiah is sneaking out
to meet someone?

“Mel?”