was less, but I could still feel it tugging at me, making me fight to stay away. Then I felt him draw breath to speak.
“Then I guess that makes two of us.”
The silence stretched out again. Oren was watching the back wall as though he could see anything but shadow there, beyond the pool of light cast by the spherical glow by the door. He looked thinner than the last time I’d seen him. Older, despite it only having been a couple of weeks. I fought the impulse to reach out for him, to feel that telltale tingle that spoke of the flow of magic between us.
“Does it help to talk about it?” I asked, watching him. I’d intended it to sound sympathetic. Instead it sounded hurt.
“No.” Briefly the muscles in his jaw stood out, and he turned his head. For a quick moment, he caught my gaze, searching.
Then it was back to the wall again. I could see the struggle of emotions on his face as clearly as if they were my own. I realized he’d never really lived among people as an adult, had never learned to hide the things he felt and saw. Though he spoke little, he said volumes.
“It’s like an unbearable ache,” he said, softly. “Hunger— except that it’s not something that food can solve. We eat because it’s the only way we know to consume what we really need. It’s incompletion, being severed, half of a whole. It’s needing something you can never get, not completely.”
He closed his eyes, letting his head back to rest on the bars. “And it feels as though if you could only fill that void a little, the tiniest bit, you could come back to yourself. And you’d do anything to feel that way again.”
I barely managed to suppress a shudder. The more he spoke, the more I recognized the things he was saying. The hunger, the need to feel whole—the
“And when you make the kill,” he whispered, “in that instant you know it’ll never be enough. That you have to keep hunting. Keep searching. Keep killing.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look at him. He glanced at me, and I could sense his shame and self-hatred, his fear that I loathed him too. How could I tell him that the revulsion he could see on my face was for myself?
“Lark,” he said softly. “Say something.”
I knew what he wanted me to say. He wanted me to forgive him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t help what he was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the warm light washing over his face, glimmering in his hair, softening the angles of his face. He wanted me to absolve him.
I wished I could turn into that light, let it touch my face too, wash the both of us in its golden glow. Part of me wanted to comfort him as I had the night he was caged in the Iron Wood, distract him from his claustrophobia. But my tongue felt like lead, my throat choked with fear. I just kept staring straight ahead, my eyes on the shadows at the back of our cage. I couldn’t even deal with my own fear; I had no way now of helping him with his.
Eventually he turned away to curl up on his side on the stone and close his eyes. I stayed awake, shivering, hand clenched around the handle of his knife. I wanted to tell him how true his words had rung for me. I wanted to tell him I didn’t despise him.
But I knew he despised what he was, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him hating me too. Perhaps I was no more than a shadow myself. Was that what my city had done to me in their experimental Machine, tearing out my magic and then synthesizing it again? A shadow killer more perfect than any monster in the wilds—they could only destroy and eat and hunt, never truly sated. I could harvest what I needed from someone with a single thought.
I could feel the tiny trickle of power that flowed from me to Oren even without touching him. I knew I was all that was keeping him human, and yet a part of me wished I could sever that connection, hoard the power for myself, hold onto this feeling as long as I could. Because even if I didn’t feel whole, even if I didn’t feel perfect, it was better than the hunger.
Surrounded by stone and iron, we were wrapped in silence. I closed my eyes, trying to think past my horror and revulsion. But it was hard to see the point.
I knew my brother wasn’t here. Our city had done to him what it had done to me, turned him into the same thing I was now—and I was falling apart. Perhaps my brother had made it this far, and perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps he was one of the cursed townsfolk, oblivious, fearful of the dark.
Perhaps he was nothing but a shadow himself.
When Tansy woke again, rousing Oren and me as well, she spent some time trying to get at the lock with the knife. When finally she threw the knife down with a clang, I jumped, heart racing.
She glanced at me apologetically and stooped to pick it up again, offering it back to me. I put it back in my pack. My brother’s paper bird looked at me from among my supplies, but I just shut the pack again, ignoring it.
“Well, seems like we’re going to be here for a while,” Tansy said, flashing me a weak smile. “And I’d rather not be trapped in here with a monster.”
She glanced at Oren, who straightened, eyes flicking from her to me. Before I could protest, Tansy held out a hand to me. “Well?” she said. “Take what you need.”
I stared at her outstretched hand, uncomprehending. “What I need?”
“To keep him human. I know it’s you, your magic, whatever makes you unique. I saw it back in the Iron Wood, and I saw it when you saved us in the alley.”
“He saved us,” I corrected her, still not taking her offered hand.
“Whoever saved who, he’s looking a bit grey around the ears, and I don’t want to wait and find out how long it takes him to turn back.”
Alarmed, I looked over at Oren. I knew it didn’t work like that—you were either shadow or not, no in between— but I couldn’t help but inspect him closely. He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.
“So,” Tansy interrupted my thoughts. “Let’s get this over with. Just—not so much this time?”
I swallowed. In the alley, I’d torn what magic she had in one instant, ruthless and quick. Taking a deep breath, I reached out for her hand. Her palm was sweating—she was nervous. But her hand was steady, and she didn’t pull away.
“Are you sure?” I asked, glancing at her.
She nodded. “It’s necessary. And I trust you.”
I wanted to scream at her that she shouldn’t—that I’d taken more than I needed in the alley, that I could’ve stripped her and left her for dead. That part of me wanted to do that now. But she was right. I didn’t have much left from what I’d taken that first time, and without it, Oren would revert back to his shadow self. And we’d both die.
I closed my eyes, looking with my second sight for the flicker of magic around her. It was weak, almost invisible despite the dampness of this underground cell. A meager meal of apples was not going to help her regenerate much. But even a little would do.
I let down my guard just a fraction, feeling a little warmth slide into my hand from hers. A few hours and I’d forgotten how good it felt. I opened the channel a little wider, taking a slow breath, basking in it. Tansy’s hand felt clammy in mine, but I ignored it, focusing on the magic, the life force. I’d never had the luxury of examining this connection, the intimacy of it, how I could trace it back through our joined hands and up her arm, through her veins and muscles, to her heart, which danced a steady beat through the web of magic inside her. I tugged at a strand of the web and felt Tansy give a strangled gurgle of pain.
I jerked my hand away, gasping, opening my eyes and willing the dark, cold cell to return and banish the lovely warmth of Tansy’s magic.
Dizzy with the aftereffects, my vision blurring and dancing, I tried to sit back up, to find Tansy amid the swirling shadows. She was on her back, breathing hard, but otherwise fine, watching me, massaging her hand and grimacing.
“You okay?” she asked.
A sound rather like a laugh escaped me as I tried to put myself back together. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I feel a bit like I’ve fallen out of a tree, but I’ll live.” Tansy started to struggle up onto her elbows, but Oren
