Shadowlark

The pixie shook itself and turned, its little legs like dull needles against my palm as it scanned our surroundings. “I see this one is still with us, though,” it said flatly, watching Oren unblinkingly.

“The feeling is mutual,” Oren muttered, turning away and shoving a hand through his hair.

“I couldn’t see or hear anything all balled up like that.” Nix lifted off of my hand for a few seconds, testing its wings now that it wasn’t stuck imitating one of the dormant courier pigeons. “This does not appear to be the optimal place to recover and regroup, however. Why are we wasting time in here?”

“We’re locked in,” I said, trying to remember that I was glad to see Nix. Even if it was infuriating beyond all belief.

“That ought to be no problem for you.”

“Too much iron,” I replied. “Not enough magic. I was trying to reach the pack, thinking I could steal some from the machines in there.” My breath caught. “Nix—can you fly out there and nudge them closer? If I can just get my hands on one, I think I could do it.”

“I can do better.”

Nix launched itself off my hand and buzzed out through the bars to land on the outside of the lock. Spidery little legs unfolded out of its body, the way they did when it was damaged and needed repairing. This time, however, they went skittering over the surface of the lock, darting inside, exploring, thorough. Nix’s round head disappeared inside the lock as well, and for a while the only sounds were the clicking of its spindly legs and the gears that made them move.

But then came a solid thunk. My heart leaped into my throat.

Nix backed out of the lock, half-stuck, tripping into the air. It staggered a bit, struggling to fly while managing far too many legs—but it finally succeeded in folding the extra legs away and zipped back to land on my shoulder.

Hand shaking, I reached out to touch the door.

It swung open.

* * *

The tunnels under the city were a maze as complex as the sewer system in my own city—but I hadn’t learned this system as a child at my brother’s side, didn’t know where each turning led. It was like being inside my dream again, only I didn’t know where to go, and I couldn’t feel my brother leading me through.

The place was lit at random intervals by tiny shards of magic contained in glass spheres, connected by glass filaments as finely crafted as any I’d seen in the Institute back home. The advanced craftsmanship was more than a little out of place in a sewer underneath the ruins of a cursed city.

Oren was sweating despite the chill. I knew he was suppressing the panic of being underground by sheer force of will—I couldn’t ask him to try and help me find our way out. He had been semiconscious at best when we were brought to the cell anyway. Nix had been even more blind and deaf. I’d been struck temporarily senseless by the presence of so much iron. The only one who would’ve had any chance of retracing our steps was Tansy—and she was gone.

Even in the quiet of my own thoughts, the word made me feel sick. Gone.

I kept my hand in my pocket, fingers wrapped around my brother’s paper bird, as if somehow through it I could summon his competence and confidence. I chose paths at random, listening for the sounds of wind or the smell of fresh air, but instead the air grew more still, more quiet. I sensed we were moving downward, not upward, and the further we went, the warmer the air grew.

Despite my uncertainty, despite the fact that we were utterly lost, I felt myself breathing easier and standing straighter with every step. I was growing used to the iron supports in the stone around us. I’d stopped long enough to absorb some magic from the machines in Tansy’s pack, and I felt the power shimmering inside me like sunlight, intangible but no less real.

Twice we encountered people coming the opposite direction, but we were able to duck down a side tunnel and avoid being seen. The third time, however, came when we were walking down a long corridor without any branching tunnels. A man and a woman came around the corner unexpectedly, chatting. Oren hissed and I jumped, turning and treading on his feet as I tried to escape backward down a route that didn’t exist. He put his hands on my shoulders, steadying me, as Nix zipped inside the collar of my shirt.

I reached inside me for the bits of power I had left, ready to use it against them if I had to. I’ve been in a prison twice now. I’m not going back.

I took quick, shallow, steadying breaths, every nerve alive, every muscle tensed. I felt Oren’s hands grow rigid on my shoulders as they approached.

They walked straight past us without even looking.

I stared ahead at the spot where they’d been, too shocked to even turn and track their progress away from us, down the corridor we’d come from.

“. . . not like we can tend them ourselves,” the man was saying, voices echoing back to us through the tunnel. “Or grow anything down here.”

“True, but self-sufficiency is the first rule. Prometheus insists on it. How can we justify—” And they turned a corner, voices fading into unintelligible murmuring.

Oren let out a long breath, the air stirring my hair. I shivered, pulling away abruptly. He just shrugged, looking as confused as I felt.

Nix peeked out from my collar. “They don’t recognize you as escaped prisoners,” he noted.

“But surely they know we’re strangers? That we don’t belong here?”

Nix considered this, emerging the rest of the way from my collar and dropping into the air so that he could look us over. “Unless there are so many of them living here that they don’t all know each other.”

We kept walking, silent, shaken. Just how many people could be down here? I wished that I could see the outside, see what time of day it was. Were these people about to turn into ravenous shadows at any moment as well?

It was then that I realized Oren was siphoning less power from me than he had been. What had been a steady stream was now a trickle. Either he was somehow needing less magic to sustain his human form, or—

My eyes caught a glimmer of violet light as we turned a corner, and it hit me. No wonder I’d been feeling better, stronger, brighter. There was magic in the air. Iron all around, still, but it was containing the magic, holding it in. Like the Wall in my home city.

We stopped long enough to share a meal, dividing up the last of the cheese from my pack. It would’ve been a meager meal for one—between the two of us, it barely seemed like anything at all. My ear had stopped bleeding, and I rubbed the dried blood off my neck. I couldn’t do anything about the stain on my shirt, but at least I could minimize how warlike and battered I must look.

When we started moving again, a few more people passed us by, none of them giving us so much as a second glance. This time we knew to act as though we belonged there, but nevertheless my skin prickled. I instinctively reached for my power every time, ready to fight.

It was Oren’s idea to follow the people.

“When you’re hungry and snares aren’t working,” he said, keeping his eyes down, trying not to look at the stone ceiling and walls surrounding us, “you follow animals to find their dens. You can follow a bird back to its nest for the eggs.”

The people had to be going to and from something, he pointed out. There had to be a base somewhere. Storage for supplies or weapons. Places to sleep and eat.

So the next time we heard the sound of footsteps, we went towards them, ending up at a T-junction. As a trio of tunneldwellers approached, we fell into step behind them, trailing enough that they wouldn’t try to talk to us, but close enough that we could see where they were headed.

Eventually we ended up in a hallway that was rectangular instead of the round, squat tunnels we’d been in since the prison cell. At the end of it was a huge iron door. Oren put a hand out, touching my elbow, and we slowed, watching the trio carefully. I knew what he was warning me about—if the base was behind that door, then the people who had captured us could very well be on the other side of it. And they would surely recognize us,