Under the Never Sky (26 page)

“She didn’t know about the work her mother does, Perry. You saw her. She was just as stunned as you.”

Perry sat up and rubbed his tired eyes. His muscles were stiff and sore from sleeping on cement. “What do you want, Roar?” he asked.

“I’m delivering a message. Aria said to come down if you want to see Talon.”

Aria and Marron were in the common room when he and Roar got there.

She rose from the couch when she saw him. Purple shadows darkened the skin beneath her eyes. Perry couldn’t help but breathe in deeply, searching the room for her temper. He found it. The hurt she felt. A deep, raw thing. Anger and shame at being an Outsider. At being a Savage, like him.

“This is working now,” she said, holding out her Smarteye. “I tried it but I couldn’t get into the Realms
.
My signature didn’t work. They’ve blocked me.”

Perry’s knees almost buckled. That was it. He’d lost his chance to find Talon. Then why had they brought him down here? Confused, he turned to Roar and found him fighting a smile.

“I can’t,” Aria said, “but you might be able to, Perry.”

“Me?”

“Yes. They’ve only blocked me. The Eye still works. I can’t go in. But you might be able to.”

Marron nodded. “The device reads a signature in two ways. DNA and brain pattern recognition. Aria’s signature was denied right away. But with you, I can try to create some static, some noise in the authentication process. We ran some tests overnight. I think we could steal some time before you’re identified as an unauthorized user. It could work.”

It made no sense to him. All he heard was the last bit.
It could work.

“My mother’s file had the security codes to her research,” Aria said. “If Talon’s there, we might be able to find him.”

Perry swallowed hard. “I can find Talon?”

“We can try.”

“When?”

Marron raised his eyebrows. “Now.”

Perry headed to the elevator, suddenly weightless on his legs, until Marron held his hand up. “Wait, Peregrine. It’s better if we do this up here.”

Perry froze. He’d forgotten about what he did downstairs. Shamed, he had to force himself to hold Marron’s gaze. “I can’t fix it. But I’ll find a way to pay you back.”

Marron didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he tipped his head. “No need to, Peregrine. One day I think I’ll be glad you owe me a favor.”

Perry nodded, accepting the agreement, and strode to one of the display cases on the rear wall. He pretended to observe a painting of a lone boat moored on a gray beach as he tried to collect himself. He’d made more than a few promises lately.
I’ll find Talon. I’ll get Aria home.
What had he done but bring a tribe of cannibals to Marron’s door and then break a valuable piece of equipment? How could Marron have faith in him?

Behind him, Aria and Marron talked about the problems of presenting him with the task of gliding through something he wasn’t even sure he understood. Perry had begun to sweat. It rolled down his spine, along his ribs.

“You all right, Perry?” Roar said.

“Hand hurts,” he said, lifting his arm. It wasn’t entirely a lie. They all looked at him, then at the dirty cast like they’d forgotten about it. Perry couldn’t blame them. If it didn’t hurt so badly, he’d probably have forgotten about it too.

Within a few minutes, Rose arrived and pulled Aria aside, speaking with her quietly. Rose handed Aria a metal case and left.

Aria sat next to Perry on one of the couches. He watched her cut through the cast on his left hand, her fingers trembling slightly. He drew in her temper. She was just as scared as he was about what they’d find in the Realms. And he knew Roar was right. She hadn’t known anything. Not the truth about herself, or about her mother’s work.

Perry remembered what she’d said in her room.

We could miss them together.

She’d been right. It had been easier with her. Perry placed his right hand on hers.

“Are you all right?” he whispered. It wasn’t what he wanted to know. Of course she wasn’t all right. What he wanted to know was if the
together
part still mattered to her. Because even though he was confused and sorry and angry, it still mattered to him.

She looked up and nodded, and he knew she agreed. Whatever else came, they’d face it together.

His hand looked more like a hand. The swelling had gone down. The blisters had flattened. The patches that looked wrinkled and dark worried him most, but he could move his fingers and that was all he’d hoped for. He sneezed at the caustic scent of the gel Aria spread over the charred skin, and then he sweat even more at the cool burn that seeped deep into his knuckles. It was a strange thing, sitting on a silk couch and sweating in place. Not something he liked.

Marron came over as Aria rewrapped his hand with a soft bandage. He moved to put the Smarteye on him and then handed it to Aria. “Perhaps you can do it.”

First Rose. Now Marron. Perry could no longer deny that it was common knowledge. Aria was the safest path to him. He wondered what he had done that sent that message so loudly. Wondered how after a lifetime of scenting others’ feelings, he could be so poor at shielding his own.

Aria took the device. “We’re going to do the biotech first—just applying the device. You’ll feel pressure, like it’s sucking up your skin. But it lets up and then the inner membrane will soften. You’ll be able to blink again when that happens.”

Perry nodded stiffly. “Right. Pressure. Can’t be that bad.”

Could it?

He held his breath as Aria brought the clear patch to his left eye, digging his fingers into the soft arm of the couch as he struggled to keep from blinking.

“You can close your eyes. It might help,” Aria said. He did and saw a shimmer of stars telling him he was about to pass out.

“Peregrine.” Aria placed her hand on his forearm. “It’s all right.”

He focused on her cool touch. Imagined her delicate, pale fingers. When the pressure came, he sucked in a breath through his teeth. The force reminded him of an undertow. How it felt bearable at first, but then came stronger and stronger until you feared being carried off. On the edge of pain, it let up suddenly, leaving him panting.

Perry opened his eyes, blinked a few times. It felt similar to walking with one shoe. Feeling and movement on one side. On the other, a heavy sense of protection. He could see clearly through the eyepiece, but he noticed differences. Colors were too bright. The depth of things seemed off. He shook his head, clenching his teeth at the added weight on his face. “Now what?”

“A moment, a moment.” Marron fuddled with the palette as Roar watched over his shoulder.

“We’ll go to a forested Realm first,” Aria told him. “There won’t be anyone else there and it’ll give you a few seconds to adjust. We can’t have you calling attention to yourself once you’re in the CGB’s research Realms, and we’ll have to move fast. While you’re getting used to fractioning, Marron will check to see if the link with Bliss is back. He’ll do all the navigating for you. Everything you see, we’ll see on the wallscreen.”

Ten different questions popped into his mind. He forgot them all when Aria smiled and said, “You look handsome.”

“What?” He couldn’t think about a comment like that now.

“Ready, Peregrine?” Marron said.

“Yes,” he answered, though everything in his body said
No.

A hot sting ran up his spine and over his scalp, ending with a burst in the back of his nose. On his right, he saw the common room. Aria staring at him with concern. Roar close over her shoulder, bracing the back of the couch. Marron saying, “Easy, Peregrine,” over and over. On his left a wooded evergreen forest appeared. The scent of pine burned deep into his nostrils. The images blurred and flashed before his eyes. Perry looked one way and the other, but he couldn’t make anything stick. Dizziness came hard and fast.

Aria squeezed his hand. “Calm down, Perry.”

“What’s going on? What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing. Just try to relax.”

The images shook before his eyes. Trees. Aria’s hand grasping his. Pine branches swaying. Roar leaping over the couch to stand in front of him. Nothing was still. Everything moved.

“Take this thing off. Take it off!”

He pulled at the Smarteye, forgetting to use his good hand. He couldn’t get it off. Pain burst across the back of his burnt hand, but it was nothing compared to the daggers that stabbed deep into his skull. Saliva coursed into his mouth in a warm rush. He shot to his feet and darted to the bathroom. Or thought he had, because he was dodging trees as well as walls, and poorly at that. He ran smack into something hard, shoulders and head connecting with a solid thud. Roar caught him as he fell back. They exploded into the bathroom together, Roar holding him upright, for Perry no longer trusted his balance.

He felt cold beneath his hands. Porcelain. No more trees.

“I’ve got it.”

He was alone with the toilet now and that was how he stayed for a good long while.

When it was over, he pulled his shirt off and draped it over his head. It hung heavy and damp with his sweat. He still felt dizzy and queasy, like he was coming off the worst seasickness he could imagine. How long had he lasted in the Realms? Three seconds? Four? How would he find Talon?

Aria sat beside him. He couldn’t summon the courage to come out from hiding. A glass of water appeared in front of him.

“I felt the same way when I first came to your world.”

“Thank you,” he said, and drained it.

“Are you all right?”

He wasn’t. Perry took her hand and turned his face into her palm, resting his cheek. He breathed in her violet scent, drawing strength from it. Letting it settle the trembling in his muscles. Aria’s thumb ran back and forth over his jaw, making a soft brushing sound over his scruff. There was something dangerous about this. About the power of her scent on him. But he couldn’t think about it. This was what he needed now.

“How’d you like the Realms?” Roar asked.

Perry peered from beneath his shirt. Roar stood at the bathroom door, and he could see Marron out in the hall.

“Not very much. Try again?” he said, though he seriously doubted whether he could manage it.

When he returned to the common room, the lighting had been dimmed. Someone had brought in a fan. The efforts embarrassed him even though he found they did help settle his nerves. Perry tried to explain what he felt.

“You need to try to forget about here,” Aria said. “About this physical space. Turn your focus toward the Smarteye and it’ll start to feel right.”

Perry nodded like that made sense, as she and Marron continued to instruct him. Relax. Try this. Or maybe try that.

Then Roar said, “Per, act like you’re sighting down the length of an arrow.”

He could do that. Shooting an arrow had nothing to do with his stance or his bow or his arms. Not for a decade had he thought about any of those things. He thought only of his target.

They brought up the forest again. The images battled for his attention like before, but Perry imagined aiming at a curled piece of bark that shuddered past. The woods fixed around him, bringing a sudden, shocking stillness. Somehow the others must have known because he heard Marron say,
“Yes.”

The longer he focused on the woods, the more he felt them settling in place. Perry’s body cooled under the current of a soft breeze, but this wasn’t from the fan. This breeze carried a pine scent. Cone pine, though all he saw were spruces. And the odor was too strong. He scented fresh sap, not just the breath of the trees. The air held no traces of human or animal scents, or even the cluster of mushrooms he spotted at the base of a tree.

“The same but different, right?”

He turned, looking for Aria in the woods. “It sounds like you’re in my head.”

“I’m next to you out here. Try to walk, Perry. Take a few more seconds.”

He found that doing so took only the thought of walking. It wasn’t like being in his own skin. He was still dizzy and unsure, but he was moving, one step after the other. He was in the woods now. It should’ve felt like home, but his body held on to the feeling he’d had since he’d come to Marron’s. The same feeling that drove him up to the roof at every chance.

Then he remembered something and knelt quickly. With his good hand, he swept aside the dry pine needles and scooped up a handful of dirt. It was dark and loose and fine. Not the hard-pack earth he usually saw in pine forests. Perry shook his hand, letting the dirt sift through his fingers until a few rocks rested in his palm.

“Do you see?” Aria said softly.

He did. “Our rocks are better.”

Chapter 29
ARIA

O
n the wallscreen, Aria watched through Perry’s eyes as he stood and brushed dirt from his palms like it was real. Like it would stay with him.

Aria met Marron’s gaze. He shook his head, his signal to her that he hadn’t detected a link to Bliss. She wouldn’t find Lumina today. She’d been prepared for that. Aria pushed down the blow of disappointment. They had to find Talon.

“We’re going to take you into the research Realms, Perry. It’s a little strange hopping to another Realm. . . . Just try to stay calm.”

DLS 16 appeared in red lettering on an icon, suspended in front of the woods. She and Marron had spent the night hacking into her mother’s files, organizing everything. She knew Perry couldn’t read, so Marron was controlling Perry’s location through the palette. Perry turned his head, the icon tracking with his movement.

“Here we go, Peregrine,” Marron said.

Perry swore at her side as the image on the wallscreen rearranged itself into a tidy office. A small red couch with neat proportions and square cushions sat opposite the desk. A fat fern rested on a low coffee table. To one side of the office, a glass door gave to a courtyard with boxwood hedges and a fountain at the center. To the other, evenly spaced along the wall, there were four doors: Lab, Conference, Research, Subjects.