Skylark Read online

  By the time I emerged from the alley, I felt a bit better. Now I could see that the sun disc hung low in the west, just past the four-o’clock tick mark on its track. The Institute was on the eastern edge of the city, and since I knew I couldn’t leave on its east side—and go through the Wall—I went west.

  The lane ended in another doorway. With no other choice, I pushed through it, slipping down the hallway beyond. My head throbbed in time with the buzzing lights overhead, and my mind slipped into a waking doze. Again I had the strange sense that I was being led.

  Too late, I recognized my surroundings. My concussed mind hadn’t grasped that I was walking down a spiral. I had been led down this path once before. I froze, and then spun around to retrace my steps, and found instead a door I didn’t remember coming through. I shoved it open and staggered inside. The blinding column blazed in the room’s center. Filaments of glass traced outward, stretching toward the spherical walls and disappearing into them. Crystals lined the edges of the walls, storing the magic emanating from the creature.

  Gripping the railings in each hand, I made my way toward the being in the center column. Her face was still split by that silent agony, and she gave no sign or expression that she was aware of me.

  The vacant suffering in her gaze made me stare. She was naked, the features of her body easily visible. I had balked at the idea of undressing in a dark room, alone. Now this was my future, hanging suspended and laid bare for all to see. The violence of her existence hit me like a blow. She was tense with agony, skin twitching now and then as the glass filaments plugged into her skin pulsed.

  I shivered and forced my eyes toward her face. Her hair and her vacant eyes were as white as her skin. Each eyelash glowed white-hot, searing against the darkness around her. Her pale lips were cracked and caked with a substance like blood drained of its color. Her skin was strangely mottled, tiny specks that blocked out the light shining from her every pore.

  She had freckles. We didn’t get freckles in the city, with no sunlight to cause them. Suddenly she stopped being “the creature” and became a person, a woman, once a girl not unlike me. And she was from beyond the Wall.

  In that moment I realized that I had no more strength. Nauseous, dizzy, exhausted beyond the point where my mind could function, I collapsed, slumping against the railing.

  And this was my future. Hours of trying to escape, and I walked right back to the chamber that would be my tomb.

  “Lark.” It was scarcely a whisper, but in the eerie cavern, silent but for the hum of magic and machinery, it was electrifying. My head jerked up.

  The woman’s eyes had not moved, still gazing out into the middle distance, fixed on blackness. But as I watched, her lips moved, shaped the single syllable of my name again.

  Something moved near her waist. A filament withdrew, shining in the glow of raw magic, and moved toward me. I scrambled back as far as the railings on the opposite side of the walkway would let me.

  “Lark,” came the whisper again. The movement of her lips cracked the skin, causing a fresh flow of grayish-brown blood. The glass wire twisted once, twice. Beckoning.

  “No.” Speaking took more energy than I thought I had left. “I won’t. I won’t.”

  The tendril of glass curved low, moving slowly, as a person might approach a frightened child.

  The woman groaned, as if making a massive effort. Then: “Trust.”

  I stared at her, and at once I saw that what I had taken for agony in her gaze was desperation. She could only speak to me as she had before when we were connected—she to her cage, I to the Machine. Networked through the web of glass that was the Institute’s heart.

  The wire beckoned again, and the woman’s body shuddered, sending the glass filaments dancing and shimmering in the glow from her skin. I forced myself away from the railing. I pushed back the sleeve of my tunic, and held out my shaking arm.

  The wire twitched once and then plunged into my wrist. I felt nothing at first, staring as the filament slid under my skin, forming a transparent bulge surrounded by the blue of my veins.

  There was a moment of silence as the woman’s eyes closed, her chest falling as she exhaled a soundless sigh.

  My arm exploded into fire. I screamed and screamed and saw the harsh metal catwalk surging up to meet me as I fell.

  I thrashed and kicked, my skin burning and every hair stiff. I screamed for her to let me die.

  My wild gaze fell upon my arm as I tried to tear the glass wire from it, but the slightest touch multiplied the pain. I stared at it for some time in anguish and terror before I realized what I was seeing.

  Both times I had seen this creature of light, the glass wires had been carrying that energy away from her body, sucking it free, draining her. But as I watched, the light came into me through the filament, in fitful starts and stops. The memory of her assistance while I was in the Machine came crashing back, and I yanked my mind away from my body’s pain.

  I knew my body was lying crumpled on the catwalk, but that knowledge didn’t lessen the wave of bliss that washed over me at the sudden cessation of pain. I had only time to gasp for air before a wall of light, sound, and feeling collided with me.

  With her magic came her memory. Bright flashes of meaning, inextricable from my own thoughts, and yet incomprehensible parts of an incomplete whole. I felt the edges of her insanity crowding in upon me.

  There was a city, somewhere beyond our Wall. No, not a city. I could see something like buildings, but not—massive and delicate and strange. There were people living in them, around them. People I had never seen before, each one alive and humming with power. Adults who had magic.

  You must find them, said a voice that had become familiar to me over the past weeks.

  Who? I was struggling to breathe the thick air.

  The others, she said. The others like us.

  Where can I go? There’s nothing beyond the Wall.

  Find the Iron Wood. You will know now where to go. Follow the birds.

  The images were hazy now, nothing more than a strangely muddled memory, viewed from behind warped glass.

  And you? Will you come?

  They will come for me when it is time.

  I could feel the agony rushing back at me, and I tried to force it away. Anything was better than returning to that tortured body lying in a heap on the corrugated metal walkway.

  Please! I don’t even know where to go!

  Go south, she said. Across the river. Then follow the birds.

  And then the wire was whipping out of my arm. As it retracted, it flailed up and struck my head with a flash, and she glowed so brilliantly that I felt that my eyes must be burning, blinded. Then it was all gone.

  Chapter 10

  When I came to I was outside, and the sun disc was dipping below the lip of the buildings. I had no recollection of how I’d come to be there. The last thing I remembered was the Renewable, her gift of power, her instructions.

  The world was washed in the lavender glow of sunset, the Wall shimmering over and around me. For a tiny, quiet moment I forgot everything and gazed at the violet sky.

  Then I heard a siren in the distance, and the moment fled. I got to my feet, staggering at first but growing more steady. I shoved back the sleeve of my tunic and saw delicate silver lines tracing across my skin. As I watched it began to fade. The only mark that remained was a shiny pink dot of a scar below my wrist.

  My head throbbed, but I could no longer feel the dreadful slow trickle of blood dripping through my hair. When I lifted my hand to the spot, the hair there crackled and fell away. I thought of the burning glass wire catching me as it whistled away into the dark. She must have cauterized the wound.

  I was in a part of the city that I didn’t recognize. The buildings were better preserved here. Tall brick row houses lined each side of the street. Each had a crisp white door, as impassible as stone. I wasn’t going to find anyone here among the richest quarter who would help me, not looking as I did no
w.

  Glancing up the street I saw a cluster of carriage drivers standing around, chatting. They were tossing stones at a manhole cover.

  I saw my reflection in the gleaming windows of one of the houses. “They’ll never take me,” I croaked to myself.

  Sure enough, the drivers recoiled as I approached. I knew I looked like something from beyond the Wall. I couldn’t blame them for their revulsion. Suddenly a name rose unbidden in my mind. I saw a pair of improbably large ears and red hair.

  “Tamren,” I choked. “I need Tamren.”

  The smallest of the drivers took off as if all the shadow monsters on the planet were after him, vanishing into one of the buildings. The others retreated back to where their carriages were parked, talking together in urgent whispers and sending me frequent, horrified looks.

  The kid was gone for maybe five minutes before he reappeared, dragging a skinny, familiar form behind him. Tamren was chattering away, and for this more than anything I recognized him.

  “—and I was just all, you know, you can’t tell me where to piss, mister, and he was like, oh yes I can, you little—oh, holy mother.” He skidded to a halt.

  “Hi,” I said, leaning against a fire hydrant. I hoped it looked as though I was merely doing it to be casual, and not that it was necessary to prevent my falling over.

  “. . . Miss Lark?” He gaped at me.

  “I need you to take me home,” I managed.

  The other drivers were all staring at Tamren. He continued to stare at me, but abruptly straightened, aware of their scrutiny. “Of course, miss,” he said, as if I were any well-paying customer. “This way.”

  He took my arm. The gesture was gentlemanly, but the way I leaned against him was certainly not ladylike. He said nothing, for once remaining blessedly silent.

  “I don’t have anything to pay you with,” I said awkwardly.

  “Nah,” he said, unchaining his bike from the rack. “You’re paying me in street cred. The other drivers are too chicken to drive someone looks as bad as you do now. I’ll be king for a month with this story.”

  Tamren didn’t speak as we pulled away, his muscles straining as he built up some momentum. It wasn’t until we were out of sight of the other drivers and had crested a slight hill that he slowed to a halt and turned to stare at me. “Miss Lark, what happened to you?”

  For a tiny, overwhelming moment I wanted to pour out to him what had been done to me. I longed for sympathy. I wanted him to be horrified, wanted him to comfort me. And I knew he would. But what would telling him accomplish? Better leave him out of it. Better keep him safe.

  “Just take me home,” I whispered. I felt hollow, scooped clean.

  “But I need to take you to the hospital—all that blood—”

  “Tamren, if I tell you anything, you’ll get in trouble for it. You might get in trouble just for giving me a ride.” Why had I said that? There was no way I could walk so far as my building. I wasn’t even entirely certain where I was.

  Tamren’s ears were turning a furious shade of dark pink. “Miss Lark, if someone’s hurt you, you tell me and I’ll whoop them.”

  I laughed. “Just take me home, Tamren. That’s all I need. Please.” I gave him my address.

  Tamren spluttered and protested but in the end he gave in. When we arrived it took some serious convincing to prevent him from accompanying me up all the stairs to our apartment, but eventually I was able to start the long climb to my apartment, alone.

  As my feet hit the familiar solidity of the steps, I realized I had no plan. I had nowhere to go. Even if I could hide from their pixies, my tiny stash of food wouldn’t last long. Still, something made me long for home.

  It took all my strength to climb the steps. I collapsed against our door—which turned out to be ajar. I fell inward. Looking up, I saw Caesar’s face.

  “Lark?” He sounded uncertain.

  “C,” I gasped. “Please. Please, I need your help.”

  This was pure desperation. Caesar was a Regulator. His entire function within the city was to ensure that it ran smoothly. And what would make it run more smoothly than apprehending a Renewable capable of sustaining the city for a few more generations? His talkie device hung quiet at his belt; with it he could summon an army of pixies here in seconds.

  But he was my brother. Suddenly I was telling him everything.

  At some point in my story Caesar guided me into the living room, to the couch that served as my bed. I noticed that it was still made up for me. Whatever the Institute had told them, it wasn’t that I was dead.

  When I finished speaking it was more due to my voice failing than because I had reached the end of my story. “Please don’t call them, C,” I begged him. “Please don’t report me. They won’t even make an Adjustment; I’ll just vanish again. You have to believe me, I haven’t done anything wrong. Please—” My voice gave out.

  Caesar leaned toward me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Of course I’m not going to report you,” he said, hoarsely. His gesture was awkward—I’m not sure he had ever hugged me—but the touch was so welcome that it brought a fresh flood of tears as I turned into his shoulder.

  He held me for a while and then very gently disentangled my arms from around his neck. “I’m going to get you a glass of water,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

  I nodded, wiping the tears from my face.

  “Get changed into some real clothes,” he said.

  I shrugged out of my backpack and tore off my bloodstained tunic and pants, and slid into my only other clothes. Then I snuggled down against the arm of the couch and fell into a stupor. For a brief moment I was safe again. I was in my brother’s hands now.

  He was making a ton of noise in the kitchen. Dishes clattered and clanked. Now and then he’d mutter to himself, low and unintelligible. When he turned the spigot on the water tank, and I heard it tinkling into the cup, I realized that I desperately needed to use the bathroom. I forced myself up off the couch and down the hall, listening to the comforting sounds of Caesar in the kitchen as I went.

  On my way back, as I passed by the doorway to the kitchen, I could hear Caesar’s stream of murmuring more clearly.

  “. . . think she’ll stay put,” he was saying. “No, I don’t think so.” A pause. “A few minutes?”

  I stopped dead in the doorway. With one hand, Caesar was stacking plates, keeping up a steady clatter of activity. But in his other, he was holding his talkie. It was pulsating the red of a steady connection. I could feel the hum of the Resource from here, throbbing against my temples like a bruise.

  I stood frozen, my mind unwilling to accept what my eyes were seeing. He didn’t notice me at first, continuing to speak into the device.

  “Yeah, she doesn’t know anything. No problem, she’s about half-dead—” He saw me and stopped speaking.

  The moment stretched into an eternity, the pit of my stomach roiling though my mind had yet to understand.

  “Lark,” he said, his voice low, steady. “Just listen—”

  I whirled, grabbed my pack, and sprinted for the door.

  I heard him thumping after me. “Lark!” he shouted. “Get back here! It’s not what you think!”

  I flew down the fire escape, scarcely noticing how the metal grid cut into my battered bare feet.

  His heavy footsteps started clanging down after me. “You need a doctor!” he shouted. “They know what’s best for you, Lark; they were keeping you for a reason—you’re sick—jeez, Lark, slow down!”

  My legs were shaking with effort, but I could hear his footsteps getting closer. I couldn’t afford weakness.

  He was just above me now, one floor up. As I turned a corner, he swung himself over the railing out over empty space, letting his momentum carry him back in. He landed hard on his feet in front of me, between me and the next flight of stairs down. I skidded to a halt.

  I darted to the side, looking down over the railing. Five stories.

  Caesar saw my sideways movement
. “Uh uh,” he said, stretching his hands out so as to make it clear there was no way past him. “Stop it, Lark. Just come back in with me and we’ll have some food, okay? I know you think all that stuff is true, but you’re sick. It isn’t real.” He smiled at me, showing his teeth.

  There was no escaping him. He was twice my size, and, like he’d said into his talkie, I was half-dead. “Do you really believe what they told you?”

  His false smile faded. “Where are you going to go except back?” he asked, shaking his head. “It’s better if you go voluntarily. Don’t make a fuss. Go quietly, smoothly. You have to understand your function in this city.”

  I tried to catch my breath, too angry and too frightened to find words. How could he believe my function should be a lifetime of enslavement?

  He must have read something of my thoughts from my expression. “Let me take you in.”

  “Is this all so you can get your precious promotion?” I spat.

  Caesar shrugged. “We are who we are, little sister,” he said. He came toward me.

  I backed up until I was pressed against the railing behind me. “I’d rather die than live there.” My voice was steady as I stepped up onto the bottom edge of the railing.

  “If you jump here you won’t die.” Caesar rolled his eyes as if I were six years old. “You’ll just break a bunch of bones, and it’ll hurt like hell, and then you’ll end up back there anyway. Might as well make it easy for yourself.”

  My stomach lurched as I realized his words were true. Maybe if I’d run a little more slowly he’d have caught up when I was still high enough. Now I couldn’t even kill myself.

  My despair must have been clear on my face. Caesar nodded. “Good girl,” he said, and without warning, lunged for me.

  I thrust out my arms and felt the sickening, now-familiar lurch, the world spinning. There was an audible crack as my vision went black for an instant, and then I heard a strangled cry. Caesar’s body sailed over the railing and then dropped down, down. I saw his legs kicking feebly until he struck the ground with a wet, meaty smack.

  I had killed my own brother.