Toxic Heart (25 page)

If I weren’t worried about falling, I’d smack him. “So basically what you’re saying is that you have no idea whether this will work,” I say. “There may be a loophole down there, but if there is there’s no saying it won’t (a)
not
let me out of here or (b) let me out of here but dump me, say, right into my parents’ apartment?”

“I don’t think it will let you out into your parents’ apartment.” Jarek cracks a smile. “That would be pretty dumb of whoever made it.”

“Is it safe?”

I can feel Jarek shrug. “Probably not. But is that going to stop you?”

Good point. I have no idea where this loophole will take me, but if it was meant to safeguard the mystics, then I’ll have to trust that, wherever I end up, it won’t be
too
dangerous.

“Are you coming with me?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll soften the blow when everyone realizes you’re gone. I can’t hold ’em off for long, but I’ll try to buy you some extra time.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

I remove the wig, stuffing it back inside the bag, but leave the cap on my head. I take out the goggles and snap them on.

Jarek gives my hand a squeeze. “Don’t think too hard or you’ll chicken out.”

“I’m not a chicken,” I say.

“Then jump,” he says.

So I do.

I step off the landing and plunge into the water below. It’s surprisingly warm, like bathwater. Swimming downward, I see
the loophole immediately, a perfect circle of blazing green mystic energy in the murk. I kick out my legs, splashing water behind me and reaching, reaching—

Until I break the surface, gasping for air.

I toss back my head; my face is hit by rays of sunlight and the familiar, overwhelming heat.

Opening my eyes, I look around: I am in the middle of a canal in the Depths.

“Look!” says a young girl sitting on a gondola with her mother. “Someone is swimming!”

I tread water, spitting out a mouthful of brown.

“Get out of there!” a gondolier hollers at me from a few feet away. I glance to the side; a cluster of gondoliers are standing up in their boats shouting at me and waving their arms, cigarette smoke curling in tiny spirals. “What are you doing, girlie?”

This canal runs along a fairly busy street; people are hustling to and fro. The buildings, though covered with dirt, seem mostly intact. Where am I?

A few feet down, two children are sitting with their feet dangling into the water, next to a narrow stone bridge. I swim toward them, moving out of the way of whizzing gondoliers and water taxis.

“Why are you all wet?” the little boy asks me as I approach the canal’s edge.

“Silly,” the girl sitting next to him says to me. She’s missing her front baby teeth, and both she and the boy are wearing dirty clothes—ripped shirts, pants with holes and stains. Their faces are
smudged, and they have the same chocolate-brown eyes. “We’re not allowed to swim in the canals. Everybody knows that.”

“Mind helping me?” I say.

They nod excitedly. I grab the edge of the canal and hoist myself up, and the children help pull me onto the cobblestone street.

I lie there for a second, catching my breath. The boy and the girl stand over me, staring down. Their heads block the sun, and for a second I feel cool. I close my eyes.

“Are you dead?” the little boy asks.

“Of course she’s not dead,” the girl says. “I can see her breathing.”

“Doesn’t seem like she’s breathing to me,” the boy says. “Not one bit.”

I open my eyes and the boy screams.

“I’m alive,” I say, pushing myself into a seated position. “Don’t you worry about me.”

The girl pats the boy on his shoulder. “He gets scared easily.”

“Do not!” the boy shouts.

They’re cute. For a second, they remind me of Kyle and me when we were younger. “Thank you for your help,” I say to them. I remove the wig from my bag—it’s wet but not soaked. I take off my goggles, then place the wig over the cap that’s still covering my scalp.

“Wow,” the little girl says. “I like your fake hair.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Do you mind telling me where I am?”

“West Side,” the girl says. “Just south of Houston Street.”

“Thanks,” I say, surprised at how far downtown this loophole dropped me. “You two take care of yourselves, you hear?”

They nod again, and I stand, wiping my hands on Ryah’s pants. The way the sun is beating down, I should be dry in no time.

I walk away from the canal and the gondoliers, who are still staring at me. I check to make sure the reliquary and the coins are still in my bag—they are—and toss the goggles in as well. Inside my sneakers, water squishes between my toes. Thankfully, no one on the street seems to notice a wet, uber-blond girl strolling over the broken pavement.

I take a few quick turns to distance myself from the scene and spot another canal not too far away. I make my way toward it. It’s time to begin my search for someone who can help me track down Davida’s heart.

I hurry west along the hot streets of SoHo.

A few gondolas churn the water as they pass. I see a row of brownstones that look like they’ve been covered with black paint—actually layers and layers of accumulated dirt. A few of the windows have shutters, which might be charming if the paint weren’t peeling and the wooden slats broken.

Besides the brownstones, there are various mystic-enhanced buildings throughout the area. Some were built from scratch by mystics, while others have shiny modern additions of Damascus steel on top of older buildings. In those cases, though the steel has survived the bombings intact, the lower stories haven’t, leaving transcendent Aeries skyscrapers resting on poles that seem far too thin to support their weight.

I crane my neck and stare into the sky: I can see the faint outline of the bridges that crisscross the Aeries, glistening in the sun like silvery spiderwebs. I wonder if anyone up there comprehends the fragility of the structures they inhabit; it would be easy for the rebels to break the reinforcements, causing thousands of buildings to plummet.

But how many Aeries dwellers have ever set foot in the Depths? This is a class of people who’ve been raised to think that buildings crashing into the water below is cause for celebration: Plummet Parties. They never think about the devastation left in the Depths—the dirt and debris and falling metal.

The destruction of the past month has been different, though. Has the war
really
affected people in the Aeries? Are they less enthusiastic about my family and the Fosters? And if they are, how can I help them understand that mystics and the humans who live in the Depths must be granted equal rights? Would people like Kiki and Bennie ever see that?

As I make my way along the canal, I spot a half-dozen wooden posts sticking out of the water near a rickety-looking dock. Gondolas are crowded around the posts, waiting for passengers. The gondoliers stand in the back of their boats, swaying with the water as they chat and smoke thin cigarettes. A few of the younger ones are splayed out on the dock with their shoes off, dipping their toes into the water for a brief respite from the heat.

I approach them first—they’re most likely to talk to me.

“Hello?” I take one step onto the dock and jump back when a board snaps under my feet.

One of the boys laughs. “Fancy a ride, miss? Where to?”

I tug on the back of my blond wig, making sure it’s secure. Thankfully, no one recognizes me.

“I’ll give you a ride,” an older boy says, cocking his head at me.

“Don’t listen to him,” another gondolier says. This one has a sweet-looking, if dirty, face and sweaty blond hair plastered to his forehead. “I’ll make sure you get where you need to go.” He motions
to a dingy black gondola tied to the dock, its nose rising out of the filthy water. “C’mon.”

I hold up my hand. “Thanks, but I don’t need a ride.” The boys all laugh. “I mean, I don’t need to go anywhere. I need information.”

“Whatcha wanna know?” a little boy asks me. He’s sitting cross-legged on the dock, staring up with saucer-shaped eyes beneath a gray cap.

“Well,” I say, not sure how to phrase my question. “I need to know about tides. And currents.”

The boys look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language.

“You know, how to navigate the waters.”

They glance at each other. The sweaty blond boy steps forward and shoves his hands into his pockets. “So … you
don’t
want a ride?”

I shake my head. “No.”

A few of them curse under their breath, then turn their attention back to the water.

“Sorry, miss,” the blond one says. “But we need to eat. And the only way we eat is if we get paid.”

I have some coins in my pocket, but not enough for all of them—and I need to save some to pay a sailor who can help me track Davida’s heart.

“I understand.” I nod toward the older gondoliers. “Could any of them help me?”

The blond boy rubs his forehead. “Lemme ask my da.”

He tramps down the dock, calling out to his father. The older gondoliers stop their chattering, and one of them pushes forward in his boat, removing his weathered cap.

“This lady has a question for you,” the boy says.

The gondoliers stare at me, no doubt wondering what I’m doing loitering around the docks. I’m certainly not dressed like a lady, with my platinum-blond hair and my super-tight clothes.

The boy’s father sweeps back a mop of gray hair, then puts his cap back on. He takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke toward me. “Well?”

Under my wig, my scalp has begun to sweat. “Do you know how things flow in the canals?”

The man scrunches his nose. “Huh?”

“I’m looking for something,” I say, “that, um … fell into one of the canals. A few weeks ago. Do you know how I would go about finding it?”

The man narrows his eyes at me.

And then he laughs.

“You’re a funny one,” he says, smacking his knee. He turns to a man in the boat adjacent to his. “Ya hear that? She lost something in the canals. Wants to find it!” He laughs so hard that he nearly doubles over.

The other gondolier chuckles. “Good luck, sweets.” Then he smiles at me—he’s missing two front teeth, and his gums are practically black.

I turn away from the sound of their laughter and head farther down the canal. At the first chance, I step onto a stone bridge that arches over the water, taking me to the other side. Its sides are pocked where stones have fallen off, exposing the gray concrete underneath.

Below me, the water doesn’t look as dirty as usual; sunlight has
cast a greenish-blue sheen over everything, and I can see reflections from the surrounding buildings playing off the water’s surface.

On this side of the street, skyscrapers stretch into the Aeries, their bottoms eroding and stained with watermarks. Exposed pipes climb the sides like fat arteries, and rusty grates cover the windows on the lower floors.

A few feet down, another small group of gondoliers is idling, their boats tied to mossy posts. I call to them, waving a hand in the air.

When they look up, I cut to the chase. “Do any of you know how to navigate these waters in search of something I lost in the canals? I have money.” I tap my pocket. “I can pay you once I find what I’m looking for.”

The men don’t laugh at me, but they do shake their heads. “We don’t have time for that sort of game,” one of them says, flicking his wrist at me. “Go on.”

So I do.

I walk until my feet ache and I’m so hot that I would do anything for a mystic cooling patch—or even a spot of shade. But there’s none of that, just crumbling buildings and the relentless sun. There is no shortage of gondoliers, but no one wants to help me. Either they laugh at me or they don’t answer me at all.

I’m not sure which is more frustrating.

By the time I’ve crossed three different canals and covered nearly thirty city blocks, I feel like giving up. I stop at a tiny stand and buy a bottle of water. It’s practically boiling hot, but I drink it anyway.

I adjust my wig and sit at the edge of the nearest canal, letting
my feet hang over the side. The inner wall of the canal is lined with green algae so thick it looks like animal fur.

I blink, trying to hold back tears. I’m never going to find Davida’s heart.

This is when I see him.

A gondolier wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt is steering down the canal. He spots me and slows his boat. I grab the pointed tip as he approaches, helping him line up the gondola along the side of the canal.

“Need a ride?” he asks.

“Actually,” I say, “I need help.”

“Hmm.” The man takes a cigarette out of his front pocket, then strikes a match. “Go on.”

“I lost something in the canals. I need someone to help me find it—to pinpoint where it might have drifted. Someone who has knowledge of the tides and the way the water moves.” I steady my voice, trying to sound confident. “It’s very important. And I can pay.”

The gondolier doesn’t laugh at me. He takes a drag of his cigarette and then another, holding the smoke deep in his chest before exhaling.

Eventually, he drops the cigarette into the water and looks up at me. “Donaldio.”