Oren looked mildly surprised, his tone suggesting I should have guessed his answer. “It saved your life.”
CHAPTER 16
“This is absurd. She’s been here less than a week—why are we even listening to her?” Marco, the young man who had doubted me when I first arrived, slammed his hand down on the table in the War Room. “She’s going to get herself and her friend grabbed, and she’ll blow Wesley’s cover to boot. If she wants to throw her life away, that’s her business. But we need Wesley.”
I held my breath and hoped Oren would restrain himself. But I couldn’t spare him a glance, couldn’t afford to show signs of uncertainty or weakness. I was just a sixteen year-old girl facing down a room full of people older, smarter, and savvier than I was.
I expected Parker to defend me in his quiet way, remind Marco that I was the girl in the journal, the sister of the only boy who’d ever gotten close to Prometheus. But instead he was silent, expression troubled behind his beard. My heart started to sink even as my thoughts kicked into overdrive, trying to think of some new way to explain the idea, some way to convince them it was the right thing to do.
Instead, to my surprise, it was Wesley who spoke.
“I believe we ought to consider her proposal,” he said slowly. “She may not have been here long, but she and this young man survived alone in the wilderness for weeks. This one faced down a horde of Empty Ones with only a knife, and Lark turned away an entire army of machines.”
Parker spoke up, his expression still conflicted. “But the journal,” he protested. “We need her.”
“And this is what she’s gotten from it. That’s what you wanted, right? Some new information only she could decode? Parker, do you really think we can afford to ignore the strongest weapon we’ve found since the journal was discovered because we don’t have the guts to go through with anything?”
My mouth was dry, as though it had been stuffed with cotton. Being described as a weapon made me feel sick, lightheaded. But Wesley was the only one speaking out in favor of my plan, and I couldn’t afford to correct him. Besides, we needed him. I could hardly believe what I was hearing—if we failed, he stood the most to lose.
Wesley’s statement had silenced the room. The rest of them hadn’t heard more than the vaguest details about my escape from my city and what had happened at the Iron Wood. I’d only told Wesley because he demanded the full account to better understand my abilities. That I’d faced down an army and won was news to them. Even Marco went quiet, glancing at me and then dropping his gaze.
I cleared my throat, the sound harsh in the silence. “If it doesn’t work, you’re under no obligation to respond. If we can’t reach Prometheus, if Oren and I get caught, then we won’t expect you to come in after us. Wesley’s reputation will remain intact because he’ll have been the one who brought us in.”
“And what do you expect to do if you come face-to-face with Prometheus?” That was Parker, his expression still troubled.
I glanced at Wesley, who was inspecting the sleeve of his fantastical coat and plucking off bits of imaginary lint. Only he knew the real answer to that question: if there were no other options, then I would kill Prometheus.
Out loud I said only, “That’s where Oren comes into play. If you can neutralize his Eagles, according to Wesley, Prometheus’s protections are entirely magical. Oren will be armed, and the Eagles will have to contend with him and me together. Prometheus may be able to stop a Renewable like me from getting past his shields, but he won’t have anything to stop an iron knife. We can threaten him with that, force him to step down.”
Marco was breathing quickly through his nose. “He’ll have half a dozen Eagles at least around him at all times,” he said flatly. “You really think your pet savage can take on that many guards at once?”
I waited for Oren to explode, but instead he merely shifted his weight, hands in his pockets. “Would you like to try me and see?”
Marco swallowed, gaze shifting from Oren to Wesley, who shrugged as if to say,
“Look,” he said finally, looking down at the table, “there’s a difference between being able to take me out and being able to take out all the Eagles plus Prometheus at once.”
“I can handle myself,” Oren said quietly.
“Then why do you need to go at all, Lark?” Parker asked, his eyes on me. “There’s still so much to learn from the journal, so much you could help us with.”
“I’m not my brother,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know machines the way he does. I’ve told you all I can. But I have to go. If they lock Oren up, he’ll need me to get him out. They won’t know I’m a Renewable, and they won’t necessarily take precautions.”
I avoided holding my breath just barely. This was the important part—they had to believe I could pass for normal the way Oren was. It didn’t matter that I had no intention of hiding that I had magic once I was inside the CeePo compound.
“They’ll figure it out quickly enough,” protested Parker. “All they’d need to do was use iron to disrupt your shields, your concentration, and—”
“Enough,” said Wesley, cutting through the rest of Parker’s words. “Lark, we’ve heard your plan, and unless you have anything you’d like to add . . . ?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. I knew he suspected that I was keeping something back. He’d spent enough time with me over the past few days to know that I didn’t always volunteer important information without being prompted. But if they knew I intended to go in blazing with my stolen magic like the worst-trained Renewable on the planet, they’d never allow it.
I shook my head.
Wesley waited half a breath longer, then nodded. “Then if you and Oren will leave us for a while, we’ll discuss this. Why don’t you go get something to eat?” he added. “Build up your reserves.”
He knew as well as I did that food no longer had any effect on my magic. When I needed power, I stole it. But no one else knew that, so I nodded, and Oren and I hurried out.
We headed for the mess hall and found it mostly empty. There were a few people there finishing off their breakfasts, and a few more cleaning tables, but we were able to secure a corner of the room for ourselves.
I picked at the peeling paint on the table we’d chosen, grimacing when it splintered and jabbed me under my fingernail.
“It’ll work,” Oren said, watching me.
I flicked the bit of paint away. “I know. But the question is, do they know that?”
“They all seem to listen to Wesley.”
That wasn’t necessarily a comfort. “I wish I knew why he’s behind this.”
Oren put his elbows on the table and hunched forward. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
I hesitated. Oren knew what I could do—he’d seen me open the lock on his cage, for one, and he was there when I’d killed the Eagle in the square. But we’d never really talked about it. He didn’t talk much about his inner demons, and he didn’t ask about mine.
“He’s the only one here who knows I’m . . . not really what the rest of them think I am.” Though the other people in the room were out of earshot, habit lowered my voice.
“So?” Oren asked bluntly. “That should make him more willing to give it a shot, not less.”
“What? Why?”
His mouth twitched in the barest hint of a smile, his blue eyes holding mine. “If I was headed into the viper’s den, I’d want someone with me who could rip the life out of my enemies.”
I felt my muscles tensing, and I looked away, sick.
“Lark, it’s not—this power of yours. It’s not evil.” He reached forward and took my hand, shocking me into looking back at him. But instead of curling his fingers around mine, he turned it palm-up, toward the ceiling.
“It’s a tool. See your hand, here?” He carefully curled each of my fingers over until my hand was a fist. “It
