Curio (29 page)
The modified thumped his metallic hand with his porcelain fist. “Seree can't wait.”
Gagnon rested his jagged fingers on Callis's mechanical shoulder. “I know. But we've no chance of rescuing her if the Clang goes down before the Toppers even recognize the threat.”
Callis's eyes tracked with intense precision as they darted between Blaise and Gagnon. “I won't wait longer than a day.”
G
rey heard the footsteps in her dreams. She jerked. The left side of her body ached from contact with the hard floor, but at least the bundle of clothing Blaise had brought cushioned her head. She opened her eyes at the knock on the door. Dim light filtered from the crack beneath the wood panel.
Morning. Would she be traded for Seree today? Maybe Blaise wanted her gone after learning who her father was.
She pushed away from the floor, shook out her wadded pillow, and slipped her arms into the dark blue coat. The sleeves brushed her knuckles, and the length covered her from her shoulders to her calves. She pulled it close and stood in the middle of the room.
The lock clicked, and Blaise walked in, holding two cups. A splotchy indigo bruise covered the top of his bare shoulder and disappeared beneath the vest he still wore.
“Your arm!” Grey jerked toward him and grabbed the mugs.
He chuckled as she set them on the table. “I think I can manage breakfast.” Without goggles, dangling mask, or steam pack, he looked achingly human. But his face froze in a blank mold when he noticed her scrutiny.
Grey's stomach dropped. “They're sending me back?”
He shook his head. “No. Callis has a new plan, but it'll take a day to prepare.” He gestured to the cups. “I want to show you something after you eat.”
She studied his controlled expression. Obviously he didn't feel the pull between them. He hated her now for whatever her father had done. And why wouldn't he? He was stuck here. But she was stuck here too. And the sight of him: The dark, tangled hair. The full curve of his lower lip. The tan skin that gave beneath her fingertips, so unlike porcie flesh.
“Don't hate me.” The words came out before she could stop them.
His restrained expression wavered. He looked away.
“I don't hate you, Grey. When you've been around as long as I have, you learn to control your emotions. Especially anger. It holds off the stone.”
She inched closer to him, one hand propped on the table for support.
“The stone?”
His eyes rested just to the right of her face. “You don't know anything about Defenders, do you?”
“The history books say they carried the First Disease even though they were immune to it. The Chemists think it all started with them.”
“Wrong. The First Disease was a plague, taking some lives but sparing others like any pestilence. It was the Regiansâancient alchemistsâwho used the event to seek power beyond their grasp, and in doing so set in motion the starvation and the struggle between Defenders and Chemists.” The near-black eyes lost a bit of their frost. “I'll show you what it means to be a Defender. That's why I want to take you out today.”
Grey's breath swelled. “Out?”
His mouth quirked up. “Yes, out. Now eat. I have to see Callis before we leave.”
When he left, Grey listened for the lock. When she didn't hear a click, she released a pent-up breath and sat down. One of the cups held water and the other a thick crust of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a mound of berries.
She brought the bread to her mouth and bit. It tasted like paint but she swallowed it down. Even after more than a week without potion, she expected instant pain when the food hit her stomach. Not only did she not suffer, according to Blaise everything she knew about the starvation trait was wrong.
A Defender by blood. She'd heard the truth in Granddad's store, but why had her family never explained? She'd grown up believing Father and Granddad's freedom from the potion was a fluke. After all, her family came from the Old Country like most others in the Foothills Quarter, who all traced the starvation trait back generations.
In Council School, she'd been taught that the people later known as Defenders brought the starvation illness to her ancestors, who only survived because of Chemist intervention. The condition passed from parents to children, and while the Chemists struggled to keep the community alive, the outsiders among them remained strong and immune.
In a harsh bid for justice, the Chemists subjugated the outsiders, turning them into scapegoats for a weak populace and giving them the mocking title of Defender. Any citizen accused of a crime could make arrangements for a Defender to receive his punishment. When it came time for the Defender to pay, he faced a Chemist in a gruesome showdown meant to keep Defenders and citizens in their place. On it went until the rebellion and Defender Cleanse.
There was nothing about strange marks that appeared after a self-sacrificing deed. Nothing about the hardening sensation that spread through her body.
And where did her family fit in? Day after day, her father helped the mountain people, and her grandfather searched for an alternative potion. But when she'd tried to help Whit, both Father and Granddad lost everything.
She pushed the scraps of food away. It was wrong. Wrong that her father paid the price for
her
crime. Wrong that her brother had been taken because he shared his potion with the sick. Wrong that Whit had been striped. It was all her fault.
The surge of power started at her navel, spreading outward like living rock. Grey pushed away from the table and lifted her hands, experiencing the sensation through new eyes. Did this mean she was hardening? Turning to stone like Granddad? She jabbed at the back of her hand with a fingernail. A white splotch accompanied the prick. But the granite-like shell was on the inside. What if it spread to the outside?
She pinched a chunk of her wrist. Did it hurt as much as it should? She snagged a lock of her hair and pulled. Her scalp stung. Tears rimmed her eyes. Maybe the head was last to go?
“What are you doing?”
Grey turned toward the voice, and Blaise came into focus. A weight shoved down on her, constricting her air. He stepped closer, and she lifted her hands.
“What's the matter, Grey?” His voice carried through the fog.
She trembled, the growing shell under her skin threatening to lock her lungs. “Am I turning to stone? My grandfather . . . he spoke into my head and then he turned into a statue, right there in the parlor. Am I like him?”
Warm fingers closed around hers, guiding her hand down to hang in his. She dropped her other arm to her side and stood, shaking, before Blaise. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.
“Do you feel that?”
She nodded. The heat of his touch melted the rock lining and soaked into her skin, sending warmth curling around her bones.
“It takes hundreds of years and countless battles to turn a Defender to stone. Olan Havardsson, your grandfather, is one of the oldest of our kind. Olan defended in the Old Country, he defended the colony when they came to the new land, and he defended the Mercury settlement. I remember him. Big as a bear.”
The tears escaped and ran down Grey's cheeks, and her voice shook. “He was protecting me. They came to get me and there was a fight. I didn't understand. I didn't know protecting me would make him a statue.”
“It wasn't your fault. And unfortunately, turning to stone is the natural end for a Defender.” Blaise kept her hand trapped in his. “But it takes a long, long time. You're not going to ossify anytime soon.” He ducked his head, his dark eyes searching her face. “Understand?”
She swallowed and avoided the deep brown irises probing hers. “It should have been me. My father, my grandfather, my brother, even Whitâall of them paid for crimes not their own.”
Blaise shrugged, not unkindly. “That's how the Defender system works.”
“It isn't right.”
He let go of her hand and headed for the door. “You want to see true injustice, come with me.”
Blaise led her through a cluttered house to the yard where they'd landed the night before. Hazy daylight wrapped the metal buildings and tall iron fence in a dull woolen blanket.
The tocks whirring about the complex paused in their work to turn flat eyes on them.
“No disguise today?” Grey eyed Blaise's brown duster over the pants and vest he'd been wearing earlier. “What about me? Won't somebody spot us and report to the soldiers?”
“Not here.”
They'd reached the gate, and he unwound a thick chain before swinging it open. He turned to Grey, lids lowered and a firmness about his mouth that told her something unpleasant awaited. He motioned toward the opening.
The instinct to run flared, but Blaise trusted her enough to show her whatever waited beyond the gate. Minutes before, he'd held her hand and talked her out of panic so heavy she thought she'd suffocate. If she bolted, she'd be lost in minutes. And then there was the delicious dancing of the mark on her stomach. It linked her to him somehow, and part of her hated to sever that link.
Grey brushed by Blaise and through the gate. He followed, securing the chain behind him. A dirt road led away from Gagnon's yard. To Grey's right, a forest of scrap metal and junk stretched into the distance. To her left, the fence bordering the machine yard followed the course of the road, breaking off beneath a high cable line that disappeared into a cavern in the ground.
Blaise set off and Grey matched his stride. The muscles in her legs tingled at the chance to stretch and move after the confines of Blueboy's estate. The long coat swirled about her calves, blocking out the chill that hung over Cog Valley.
“Where are we going?”
He didn't answer.
After a few minutes of trudging, the fence gave way. Carts moved along the cable above their heads, disappearing into a low-lying cloud that hung over the black cliff face.
Blaise followed her gaze. “That's called the Shelf. The factory district is up there. All the materials from Lower are sent there for handling.”
Grey turned to the huge crater gaping feet from where they stood. The carts disappeared into it, and brownish vapor floated up in wisps and reeking curls.
“And this is Lower, I assume? How do you get down there?”
He pointed to the edge of the basin near the machine yard. A steep road slanted down from the complex. Wagons pulled by clockwork mules lumbered into the pit, tocks clinging to their sides.
Grey crept closer, craning to see over the side of the hole. “Nettie said there was a lake down there.”
Blaise snatched her arm and held tight. “There's a lake, the pipe system, cinderite warrens, mines, and other things that don't even have names. Creatures that glide through the burrows, snatching tocks and triggering cave-ins.”
A grinding shriek drifted from far beneath, and Grey stepped back. She lifted her chin. “Are we going down?”
Blaise's face cracked into a smile, revealing a row of white teeth. “No, brave one. We're not going down today.” He jerked his head toward the towers of debris. “We're going for a walk in Cog Valley.”
She hid her sigh of relief and trailed after Blaise. Openings between the rubbish stacks dotted the line of the road. He paused by one then moved to another then another, rubbing his chin.
“Did you forget which one it is?” Grey asked.
“No.” He propped a hand on a wall of interlocking junk and gave a mirthless half smile. “I was just trying to decide which one to choose. Why don't you pick one?”
“But I don't know where we're going.”
“We're going inside.” He pushed away from the stack and plunged his hands into the pockets of his duster. “It doesn't really matter which entry we choose. In Cog Valley, all paths lead to misery.”
At his words and demeanor, a fierce protectiveness surged inside. She wanted to wrap him in a tight hug, but instead she faced the nearest gap. “All right. Show me.”