Lark Ascending (3 page)

A sick dread twisted in my stomach. I knew where he was heading with this. “What do you mean?”

His arm shifted until he could wrap his fingers around my hand, cradling it between both of his. His touch was warm and solid, no trace of darkness in it. “I found you.”

•  •  •

Later, when Kris had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep, Oren finally moved from where he'd been sitting. Night was coming fast, and the dusk brought with it the scent of night-blooming flowers. The temperature was dropping, a sobering reminder that winter was not far gone, and a late frost could still rise up without warning.

Nix had returned earlier, confused to find us gone from where it had left us before in the clearing. The little machine had been thrilled to discover his creator there, sharing none of my confusion and suspicion. Nix was now dozing beside Kris's head, an oddly moving double portrait.

I lifted a finger to my lips, warning Oren not to disturb them.

“Do you trust this man?” Oren spoke quietly, crossing over to my side of the fire and staring down at Kris where he slept.

I looked up at him from where I sat, arms wrapped around my knees. “No,” I said with a sigh. “But I do believe him about this.”

Oren sat down next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Despite the fire crackling in front of us and the way our inner shadows stirred, I was grateful for his warmth. “He seems to care a great deal about you.”

My throat tightened a little. “We have a complicated relationship,” I replied, trying to keep my voice light, dry. “He's the one responsible for tricking me into fleeing my city, finding the Iron Wood. He's the reason for all of this.”

Oren didn't reply immediately. I knew he wasn't thrilled at the idea of someone joining our little twosome, especially not someone I knew. But I couldn't leave Kris, not in the shape he was in. Finally, Oren shrugged, shoulder shifting against mine. “Then I suppose I owe this man a debt of gratitude for sending you to me.”

I laughed, turning my head to stifle it against Oren's shirt. “Is your head okay?”

“I've had worse.”

“That's not an answer.”

Oren just shrugged again. I detected a note of irritation in the movement, and abruptly I realized that it wasn't all jealousy prompting Oren's surlier-than-usual attitude. Oren was embarrassed that Kris—desperate, half-starved, city-boy Kris—had gotten the jump on him and knocked him flat with only a dead tree branch for a weapon.

“What will you do now?” Oren asked when I didn't speak again.

I knew what he meant, and hesitated. Lifting my eyes, I gazed through the trees. We'd gotten our first glimpse of the Wall this morning when we scaled a crumbling ruin for a vantage point. If we'd kept going today, we would've reached the edge of it by nightfall. There was nothing to see now, but even so, I imagined I could sense it there, waiting for me.

“This doesn't change anything,” I said finally. “I still intend to go back. Maybe even more, now. All those people. If the Wall fails for good, they'll be easy targets for the shadows. And those who don't die immediately will falter in the void and become shadows themselves eventually.”

“And you can stop it?”

“Maybe not. But I can try. And you heard what Kris said—it's chaos. They need someone to lead them.” As soon as the words were out, I grimaced. “Or maybe I shouldn't go after all.”

Oren caught the expression and leaned away so he could see my face better. “You
are
a leader, Lark. I told you once I'd follow you anywhere, and I meant it. And it's not just because I need you to stay human.”

“You're biased,” I told him, flashing him a smile that was usually guaranteed to distract him.

“I mean it.” His voice was low, serious. “You saved me. You saved the Iron Wood. You saved your brother, you saved the resistance fighters there, you saved all of Lethe. Why is it so hard to accept the truth of it?”

I pulled my gaze away, sick. “I couldn't save Tansy.”

Oren wrapped his arms around me. “You can't always save everyone. But you try, and that's what makes you what you are.”

“A monster?”

“A hero.”

I laughed, but it was an uneasy sound. I was powerful, that much was undeniable. And Kris had said they fought in my name, after learning the truth about what had happened to me at the Institute. Maybe they didn't need me to be a hero. Maybe they just needed
me
, someone to rally behind.

“Look at the bright side,” I said, heaving a sigh and leaning my head on Oren's shoulder. “Originally, it was just going to be you, me, and Nix against the entire city. Now we've at least got half the city with us against the Institute.”

“I have enough trouble working with the bug,” muttered Oren. “I don't think I'm ready for half a city's worth of questionable allies.”

The next day, we reached the edge of the Wall by the time the sun began to dip below the treeline. Though Kris could keep up, he wasn't the quietest of traveling companions, and more than once I had to stop Oren from unleashing a lecture like those he used to give me when we first started traveling together.

A night of uninterrupted sleep and food and water had done wonders for Kris. His gaze was still haunted, still changed, but his shivering had ceased, and when I handed him his share of our evening meal he smiled at me. In it I could see the ghost of the boy who'd smiled at me my first night in the Institute, the one who'd teased me about devouring all the watermelon and made me blush. Relief, tangible and warm, swept through me. The old Kris was still in there.

Our camp was in a part of the city that had, until recently, been inside the Wall. There were no trees growing up out of the roofs, no vines overtaking the crumbling mortar. Instead it was just silent, eerie, a sobering reminder of what would be should the Wall fail entirely.

As Oren set up camp in the ground floor of what used to be an apartment building, I went outside. Nix flitted along beside me, leaving Kris behind to get in Oren's way. I stifled the brief flare of unease at leaving the two alone together and slipped down an alleyway.

The Wall spread before me, a vast iron expanse that, even now, stole my breath away. On the inside, the Wall was crackling energy—pure magic. It took no special skill to leave the city, but returning was supposed to be impossible. Even with magic, the outside of the Wall was as impenetrable as iron. Only those too broken to fit within the perfectly oiled clockwork of the city ever left. Adjustment, it was called. As if a human life was nothing more than a bent cog: disposable.

Even now, part of me wanted to flee. Inside were the remains of the Institute and the people who'd created the monstrous shadow in my heart. Inside was Gloriette, whose voice in my memory made my skin crawl and my mind shrink with terror. Inside was a group of people depending on me to lead them, counting on me, as though I had any right to lead anyone.

I lifted both hands, pressing my palms to the vast surface. I expected a tingle of power, some sign that there was anything on the other side of this iron barrier, but I felt nothing except the cool, slick metal under my hands.

The curve of the metal distorted my reflection grotesquely, and I was struck by a vivid wave of déjà vu. It wasn't so very long ago that I had stood here, heart pounding, taking my first steps beyond the Wall after leaving the city. Less than a year had passed since then, and yet my own reflection was unrecognizable to me.

A tinny clang jolted me out of my thoughts, and I lifted my head to see Nix buzzing against the Wall. Its spindly legs scrabbled against the metal, trying to find purchase against the slope. Eventually it landed on my shoulder, mechanisms whirring frantically with the effort it had expended.

“What an unpleasant blight on the landscape.”

“Aesthetics, Nix?” I asked, tilting my head back to see the Wall stretching up toward the sky and away. “Did Kris program that into you?”

“I am perfectly capable of determining the aesthetic value of an object on my own, based on a number of parameters including relative size and proportion, balance of color, approximate field of—”

“It doesn't have to be pretty,” I murmured. “It just has to keep everyone safe.”

“How will you get inside?”

“My brother gave me a key.”

Nix slid forward onto my collarbone and hooked one of its needlelike legs into the chain around my neck. Like someone hauling a rope through a pulley, it drew the chain up until the little vial at the end of it emerged from under my jacket.

“It does not look much like a key.”

I curled my fingers around the vial Basil had given me. “I know. Maybe it amplifies magic. Maybe it makes iron more susceptible to it—I don't know. Maybe it doesn't even work anymore. Basil was supposed to come straight back when the Institute sent him out. That was years ago.”

“And if it doesn't work?”

“Then I'll force my way in,” I said grimly. “I can magic iron. It's not pleasant, but I can do it.”

I leaned forward, pressing my cheek against the cold iron. Experimentally, I let a little tendril of magic snake out, ignoring the way it tried to recoil from the iron. In his never- ending lessons during my time in Lethe, Wesley had taught me that brute force was almost never the solution when it came to doing something with magic. But I was never very good at finesse, and when it came to magicking iron, nothing but force was going to get me inside.

With my senses trained so carefully, I felt rather than heard Kris approach from behind me. He said nothing, but my concentration was already shattered. Instead I let my magic seek him out, learning the shape of him by feel this time. There was something different about him, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. When I'd left my home city, I had so little control over my abilities that I never could have explored someone's soul this way. But compared to the citizens of Lethe, there was something about him that made me uneasy.

Before I could push any further, the taste of copper flooded my mouth, my every hair standing on end. A ripple ran through the metal surface where my cheek rested. It was barely more than a flicker, but it was all the warning I got before the world exploded.

Magic blasted through me in a wave, electrifying every nerve and muscle. For an instant, I could see buildings and streets stretching away in front of me, the world inside the Wall. I could hear screaming as if from a long way away as pain seared through my body. I was flung backward away from the Wall, striking the ground hard.

For a moment I wondered if Kris had somehow gotten his hands on a weapon. But the charge had come from the Wall itself—Kris was trying to help me.

He'd thrown himself down on his knees and was sliding a hand under my shoulders and picking me up, cradling me on his lap. His mouth was moving, asking me questions, but I couldn't hear him over the ringing in my ears. It felt as though every hair were standing on end, like fire had coursed through my body and left only singed nerve endings behind.

Through a thick, muffling haze, I heard shouting, running footsteps from our campsite. Kris was shoved aside so hard he fell over, and Oren's face appeared above mine.

I dragged myself half upright and pulled away from them both. “I'm okay,” I croaked, my voice wavering. “Calm down.” Nix flew at me and huddled in the hollow of my throat.

“What the hell was that?” Oren spat the question at Kris, who was picking himself up off the ground and staring back at Oren with naked contempt.

“The Wall's unstable, I told you.” Kris's eyes slid back to mine. “I had no idea the anomalies were affecting the outside too, or I would've warned you.”

“Anomalies?”

Kris nodded. “Ripples that run through the Wall. They were our first warning that something was wrong with it, that the Renewable was finally failing. At first they only happened once every couple of weeks, but they've been coming more often now.”

“That can't be good.” I closed my eyes, fighting the adrenaline coursing through my body. “We've got to get inside, and fast. We'll camp here tonight, and in the morning—”

Oren held up a hand, his head lifted. I knew that tense, distant look on his face well, and fell silent, waiting, heart pounding.

Kris glanced between us, brow furrowed. “In the morning, what? What's going—”

“Hush!” I hissed. To his credit, he listened, going still.

I couldn't hear whatever it was that Oren had sensed, but his senses were sharper than mine. There was no in-between state with him; either he was the shadow or he was human, but even as a human he had better senses than anyone I'd ever met. They were all that stood between him and messy death, no matter what form he was in.

Finally, Oren's whisper knifed through the quiet. “Shadows. Five, maybe six. Too many to fight.”

“Coming here?” I staggered to my feet, trying desperately to ignore the way my muscles were spasming in the aftermath of the blast.

Oren's eyes flicked toward my face. “They must've heard your scream.”

“Can you get us inside now, tonight?” Kris's voice was low, nervous. I could almost feel his fear; my own wasn't much easier to deal with.

I shook my head, shivering. “I can barely stand.”

“We've got to run.” Oren made for the shelter and packed up our supplies as quickly and as silently as possible.

Kris, for once, made himself useful, damping the fire and drowning the embers with armfuls of dirt. I wondered if he'd encountered any shadow people on his way to and from the Iron Wood. His face was white, though; if he hadn't encountered them himself, then he had certainly heard stories.

Oren tossed me my pack and then slung his over his shoulders. Kris had his own supplies, though his bag was tellingly light. He hadn't counted on finding the Iron Wood empty, and he'd had nowhere to restock before trying to make it back to the city.