been trying to figure out why.
I kicked the blankets away from my legs, trying to keep cool, and started to read.
Prometheus was a figure in the stories from a culture I’d never heard of, an ancient race called the Hellenes. It seemed that in their time, Renewables were considered to be divine, descended from a pantheon of gods and goddesses that lived on high and dabbled in mortal affairs for their own amusement. Prometheus predated this all, part of a group called the Titans, from whom the Hellenes’ gods were descended.
According to the Hellenes, the time before Renewables was lost in a terrible darkness. Men were cold, hungry, and—I swallowed, sick to my stomach—cannibalistic. Mankind knew no better because there was no fire in their lives. There was a footnote there, but most of it was worn away at the bottom of the page. Something about literal versus figurative translation, but beyond that I couldn’t read.
Prometheus saw mankind struggling and destroying one another and felt sorry for them. And so he stole the fire of the gods and delivered it to them. And after that, mankind was enlightened and could lead normal lives. The phrase “fire of the gods” had been underlined, but there were no notes to explain why. I reread the passage, searching for some kind of clue as to why the city’s leader would choose this figure as his namesake. From the description, it sounded as though fire was a metaphor for magic. Without it, men became savage shadows. But this city was here long before Prometheus came to power, according to Olivia and Parker. So it wasn’t as though he had saved them from being shadows, or created this haven in the midst of the darkness outside.
I turned the page to see a gruesome woodcut depiction of a man—Prometheus, according to the caption— sprawled on a rock, having his stomach torn apart by a bird of prey. The same bird, I realized, that figured on the badges of the officers. Eagles.
I kept reading and found out that the gods were infuriated by Prometheus’s intervention. They punished him by chaining him to a rock for all eternity and sending a giant eagle to peck out his liver every day. And every night he’d regrow it, so he could suffer the same torture the next day.
I shuddered, shutting the book with a dull thud. What kind of man would ever want to model himself on that? And why name his personal police force after the creature that tortured his namesake?
Part of me just wanted to flee, get out of this city while I still could, but an even larger part of me wanted to unravel the mystery of it, take it apart, see what made it all tick.
On a whim, I opened the book again. There was an index in the back listing all the entries alphabetically. I slid my finger down the columns until I found the one I’d been looking for:
I flipped back to the right page. It was a story about a girl named Persephone in the Underworld, but I wasn’t interested in her. I scanned the sentences until the word popped up.
I pushed the books away, head spinning. Had my brother found something in these stories that I’d missed? They were about a mythological figure, not the real man in power. If only Basil were here to explain. Trying to retrace his steps was like trying to assemble a puzzle where most of the pieces are missing.
If only Basil were here.
Sleep was impossible. Though I knew that my door wasn’t locked, that I could leave whenever I wanted, it felt so much like my room in the Institute that my eyes wouldn’t stay closed. I found myself longing for the outside, for fresh air and the open sky. Here the air was too warm, too humid. Too close. I’d become used to tracking the sun, to letting nature dictate when I woke and when I slept. Here I just flipped a switch, and the world changed from day to night.
For another thing, I couldn’t stop thinking about Basil and Prometheus and what had transpired between them.
There wasn’t much in my tiny room, just a chest for clothes I didn’t own and the box containing Basil’s belongings. I half-expected to open the clothes chest and find sets of tunics and trousers made for children, like in the Institute. I could feel the weight of expectation bearing down on me like the low ceiling—these people weren’t all that different from the architects. They needed me for their plans.
Eventually I gave up, throwing back my blankets, which were clammy with perspiration. I pulled my shoes on and pushed open my door as carefully as I could, every creak and cry of the hinges sounding like an alarm in my ears. They hadn’t told me I had to stay in my room, but creeping down the empty corridor, I still felt like an intruder.
I hadn’t had enough time to make a mental map of the place. From what the others had said, the spaces in the walls existed everywhere, throughout the city. Around it, beneath it, inside it. But I could at least explore my immediate surroundings, so long as I kept track of how to get back.
There were dim lights spaced at intervals along the corridor, just barely enough to see by. Creating a false night, I supposed. I traced the wall with my fingertips as I walked, listening to the dull echoes of my own footsteps.
I saw a brighter light in the distance. When I got closer, I realized that it was a light from someone’s room, shining through their open door. I hesitated, remembering what Parker had said about giving the rebels a chance to get used to Lark Ainsley being a flesh-and-blood girl. Moving as silently as I could, I crept up to the wedge of light. Stopping at its edge, I peered inside.
Olivia was sitting on an overturned packing crate, unwrapping her hands. The skin beneath the tape was red, irritated, but otherwise undamaged. I could see her in profile, her head bowed, the light from her lamp catching in her golden hair. She gave no sign that she saw me, focused on her task.
When she’d pulled off all the tape, she flexed her hands, grimacing a little. I’d never thought about the fact that it might hurt the puncher as much as the punched—and Olivia was hardly a large person. A little taller than me, but nowhere near as big as the man she’d decked earlier with one blow.
“Can’t sleep?” Olivia’s voice made me jump. She turned her head a little, looking at me out of the corner of one eye with a faint smile.
I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks beginning to burn. “I’m sorry. I was exploring. I didn’t mean to —”
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand and got to her feet. Massaging her knuckles, she turned toward me. “What’s the matter?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It wasn’t that I didn’t know, but the opposite: there were so many things the matter that I didn’t know where to start. But none of these things make their way out of my mouth. Instead, I muttered, “I’m not used to there being no nighttime.”
Olivia blinked at me, surprised. “Is that all? You must have arrived in the morning, Lethe time.”
“Lethe time?”
“As opposed to the time Above, in the ruins outside. When it’s day here, it’s night there. Here, I’ll show you.”
“I don’t mean to keep you up,” I protested. It’d been hours since the halls had gone quiet, and everyone else—I’d assumed—had gone to sleep.
She shook her head, lips curving in something a little sadder than a smile. “It’s okay. I don’t sleep too well these days, anyway. I’m not used to sleeping alone.”
Olivia had mentioned losing a brother, but she hadn’t mentioned losing anyone else. A husband? It was hard to tell how old she was, but she didn’t seem that much older than me. Maybe her boyfriend? But she was already past me, leading the way down the corridor. If she didn’t want to volunteer, I wasn’t going to ask.
I soon lost track of all the turns, but Olivia moved with absolute certainty. She knew this place like the back of her hand. She’d called herself a lifer—I tried to imagine spending all my time inside the walls, always living on the edges of the real city.
This was how Basil had lived, before he vanished. Before he challenged Prometheus and lost, or before Prometheus found him. I tried to imagine his presence here, the way I always could in the sewer tunnels at home, but I couldn’t.
Eventually Olivia and I reached the end of a particular narrow tunnel that terminated in a metal door. She
