Skylark (41 page)

I could feel him watching me, though I did not dare lift my head to look at him. I could imagine the hurt there. How many times had I told him he wasn’t a monster? I longed to turn and put my arms around him and tell him I didn’t mean it, but I knew that if I did I would be lying. How could I let hands that had torn people apart touch me?

No. What I wanted was to go back, unlearn what I had learned, make him again just a boy, helping a girl, lost in the wilderness.

Neither of us spoke to fill the silence. In the distance I heard an early bird give a questioning chirp. There was a horrible lightness to the east.

“Go,” I croaked.

“I’ll find you,” he said, turning away from me as if the sight of me was enough to remind him of what he was. He rubbed a hand over his face, leaving it clamped over his mouth so that it muffled his next words. “Even in the dark—” and I knew he did not mean nighttime when he said
dark
—“I can see you. You shine.”

“Please go,” I said. I wanted to change what I had done, let him leave believing things could be different. But I couldn’t take back what I’d said. And dawn was near.

“Monster or human I can’t not follow you. I’ve tried.”

“Oren,” I begged, shaking with the effort of staying put. “Please go.
Please
.”

“If I find you—and if I’m not me—promise me that you’ll kill me, Lark.”

“Oren—”

“Promise me!”

He had never shouted at me, not with such force and such intensity. Once the fierceness of his gaze would have terrified me. Now I only saw the fear behind his own eyes. He was trapped like an animal in a corner. And like an animal, he lashed out.

“I promise,” I whispered. Behind me I heard a faint groan, a response to Oren’s shout. The scouts were waking up. “Now go.”

He turned back around, as I feared and hoped he would. I knew it would be the last time I saw him—certainly the last time I saw him as he was now. He was watching me in the expressionless way that had once driven me so crazy, but now only made me feel as though my bones were slowly turning to water. The hot metal of the blade tucked into my waistband was cooling again, adjusting to my body temperature. I grabbed at the handle and stretched it toward him.

He shook his head. “Keep it. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

Where I’m going, into the dark
. I closed my fingers around the handle of the knife so tightly my hand shook.

“I would have kept you safe,” I whispered.

He smiled, the expression sudden and uncertain and surprised—but he smiled nonetheless. “I know,” he said. He halfturned, reaching out to swing the cage door closed again with a tiny click. And then he hesitated for a long moment, his weight resting against the top of the cage. Then he pushed back from it and walked away, the first glow of dawn only enough to see him until the edge of the houses. After that there was only shadow, and the sounds of the birds waking to the dawn.

Chapter 30

I went back to the house, stumbling in the dark and shaking. I had to get my supplies, gather what I needed to survive on my own. My bird. Oren’s lighter. My pack. And now, of course, a knife.

My hands shook as I began shoving things into the badly frayed fabric that served as my pack. I dropped things, cursed under my breath, bit back sobs. My mind wasn’t working, instead playing back the moment. Oren’s lips; his fingertips curling in my hair; the smell of grass and wind. Over and over, like the record player, like the pocket with the ghosts. I was so shaken that when a hand reached out of the darkness to cover mine I barely jumped. I just stared, breathing hard.

“Take this,” said Tansy, kneeling at my side and pressing something cold and leathery into my hands. I looked down, running my hands over it. A backpack. A proper one.

I looked up. Light from outside barely illuminated her cheeks. My mouth worked, but I could think of no words.

“You’re running, aren’t you?” Despite the words, it wasn’t a question. Tansy took over, transferring food and belongings into the new backpack.

“Tansy,” I croaked. My voice had frozen in the time since Oren had left my side, and I struggled to clear my throat. “I’m not a fighter. It isn’t—”

“I saw what you did, helping the prisoner escape. You have to go, or you’ll be the one in the cage.” She added food to the belongings in the pack, taking what I would not have dared to take. Apples, skins full of water. “You cured him.”

I shook my head, eyes burning. “Not cured. He’ll turn back eventually. I just couldn’t—not after everything. I couldn’t watch him die.”

Tansy was quiet a few moments, adding the last few things to the pack. “You said you’re not a fighter, but you’re wrong. You fight for the people you love.” She cinched the pack shut with a jerk and then lifted her head. I could just make out her expression—sad and a little hurt. But determined.

I realized I was still wearing her coat. I started to pull it off, but she reached forward and put her hands on my shoulders. “Keep it,” she said. “Too small for me anyway.”

Our faces were only a few inches apart, our voices low in the quiet of morning. Her parents still slept.

“Why are you helping me?” I whispered. “I’ve destroyed everything.”

Tansy gazed back at me, her expression strange, unreadable for the first time. “Because I try to fight for the people I love, too. And still, iron bars might have stopped me.” I realized what was in her expression that I hadn’t been able to identify: admiration.

She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around me for a moment. It was awkward, both of us kneeling, the pack between us. But after a few seconds I put my arms around her, too.

“Thank you.”

And then she was gone, pulling back and rising to her feet, immediately on alert, on the prowl. She melted away, vanishing through the door to join the scouts on duty. It was too early for her to relieve anyone, but I knew she didn’t want to see me go. I wish I could have found the words to tell her that I’d fight for her, too, if I could.

But that would have been a lie. If what Dorian said was true, I could have destroyed the incoming army. I just didn’t have the strength.

•  •  •

I headed east. Now and then I could still see the beings of light I’d seen while trying to open the lock, as though they were afterimages burned into my retinas. It was as though opening the lock had opened something else, some second sight. I could see the network of power, the energy and the iron muffling it.

All around in the iron trees were the scouts, watching for any sign of intruders. The city’s forces weren’t expected until night fell again, but Dorian wasn’t taking any chances. They were well-trained from the years of defending the Wood from the shadow people.

From Oren.

I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t afford to think of it, not now. I could see the positions of the scouts—each a tangle of white-gold threads, shining in the muffled blackness that was the forest of iron trees.

There—a gap in their network. They were far enough apart that perhaps, if I were careful and quiet, I could slip through unnoticed. Just because Dorian was letting me go didn’t mean the scouts wouldn’t stop me.

I made for the gap, moving silently enough that Oren would have been proud.

My thoughts lurched and I cast the name away. My lips throbbed, and I touched them with my fingertips like a child who has burned her mouth. They would be bruised.
If I live long enough for bruises to form
.

The city would be coming from the east. When I reached the edge of the iron trees I could cut south, and give the oncoming forces a wide berth. I could make for the summer lake, perhaps, or the world of the bees, if I could retrace our path. Perhaps there I could survive long enough to figure out where to go next.

Could I abandon the Wood to its fate? Did I have a choice? I could not believe Dorian really intended for me to destroy the oncoming army. Administrator Gloriette was the last person in the world I ever wanted to see again, but I couldn’t imagine actually killing her. And Kris would be out there somewhere, too.

Oren’s knife lay cold and snug in my pocket, against my leg. I had kept it as a tool for survival—not a weapon for killing, as Oren had used it.

Hadn’t I?

The Institute, wanting me to participate in the destruction of a whole village; the Iron Wood, begging me to slaughter an entire army of my own people; even Oren, demanding that I kill him, and every other shadow person I encountered, because there was no redemption for them. I shifted the straps on my pack and hunched my shoulders against the morning chill, ducking through the forest unseen. Running away.

Like Basil did. Now I knew why he left. But did he sneak away while everyone was asleep?

Besides, the village was well-fortified. The scouts had years of training fighting the shadow people. They knew the city was coming. They were ready. Perhaps they could win.

My mind, so desperate to alleviate my guilt, seized upon the idea, echoing it until I had no choice but to believe it could be true.

I focused upon the second sight, tracking the movements of the scouts by the white-gold trails of power they emanated. I stumbled more than once, but when I tripped over something soft my body automatically shifted its weight to avoid stepping on it, and I fell heavily.

I picked myself off whatever I’d landed on, and my heart stopped as I saw what—who—it was.

Tansy.

I stared, uncomprehending. How long since she’d left the house? She wasn’t even yet to her post. Her face was lax, unresponsive. I shook her, and her head lolled to one side. Why hadn’t I seen her aura of power? Unless—
Oh God, no. Please. Tansy.

I fumbled for her wrist, too panicked to detect a pulse. I leaned close, putting my cheek to her lips. It took several long moments before I realized that there was a slight warmth stirring the hair at my temple. She was breathing. I realized that I hadn’t seen her power because it was a clear, dry day—not wet enough for it to manifest as clearly as it did with the other scouts. Now that I was close enough I could see tiny flickers around the edges of my vision.

I reached again for her pulse, this time at her throat. My fingers encountered the tiniest of holes, now barely more than a red welt against her skin. I’d seen a mark like that before, once. Kris. After he’d been stung by Nix.

I stared at Tansy’s unconscious form, my mind refusing to process what I was seeing. Had Nix returned? But if so, why would it attack my friends?

As I stared, I became aware of the tiniest hints of a sound at the edge of my hearing. The muffling effects of the iron kept the magical hum to a minimum, but I could hear the sound of clockwork, hissing silently through the wood.

Pixies.

One darted into the area, the dim light of dawn glinting off its wings. It looked the same as the ones in the city—lacked Nix’s larger size and eyes—except that, like Nix, it bore a long needle at the end of its abdomen.

I held my breath, cursing that I had no power with which to smash it, but it didn’t notice my presence. It zipped by as I ducked down, covering Tansy’s body with my own.

Of course. They had no eyes—only sensors for magic. Tansy barely had any power and they still detected her. I no longer had any at all.

All across the Wood, my second sight picked out forms that were falling from trees and slumping over where they stood. The silent advance of the pixies was taking out the scouts, one by one.

But it was too soon. The city wasn’t expected until tonight at the earliest. In my mind’s eye I saw the harvester machines plowing through the Wood, destroying the houses, tearing apart the home that had adopted me. Walkers crushing the orchard, brushing aside the wooden bridges and rope ladders like spiderwebs. I carefully dragged Tansy toward the sheltering crook of a tree, praying no one would find her.

They didn’t know pixies here. Nix was the only one they’d seen, and what reason did they have to fear it? They couldn’t know—couldn’t hope to defend themselves.
Unless someone warns them.

The sun was rising to the east. Through the gaps in the iron foliage I could guess that it was cresting the mountains. Somewhere nestled in a pass was the summer lake. I took a long breath, and then turned my back to the sun, and ran back toward the village.