can be a weapon. But only when you want it to be. How you choose to use it is up to you.”
The tingle of magic where his hand cupped mine caused an answering tingle that ran down my spine. I swallowed, keeping my eyes on our hands.
“The magic doesn’t give you a weapon,” he said softly. “It gives you choice.” His hands curled around mine, my fist enclosed within both of his.
“Olivia’s taught you more than fighting, hasn’t she?” What was wrong with me? I couldn’t even hide the bitterness in my own voice. I just hoped he didn’t hear it.
With my eyes on our hands, I felt him react more than anything else. His muscles tensed, and then he released my hands. “She doesn’t know the whole truth, but she knows I’ve done things I regret.”
“Would she still tell you all of this if she knew you were a shadow?” I cursed myself as soon as the words left my mouth. I wish I could just
But for once Oren didn’t back away, go silent, close down. He didn’t answer immediately, and when I looked up, he was watching me. Slowly, he leaned across the table and reached out toward my face. His fingers brushed my earlobe where the Molly-shadow had torn it, sending a spark through me. Magic or something else, I couldn’t tell.
“It’s healing,” he said softly.
I had to hunt for my voice. “One of the Renewable kids brought disinfectant for me.”
Oren’s eyes were on my ear, brow lightly furrowed with concentration. “You never gave me a straight answer. Did I do this to you?”
My heart ached. “No. Oren, you didn’t. I promise you.”
He smoothed some of my hair away from my face, his fingers tracing the curve of my ear as he pushed the strands back. “I’ll never know if you’re lying to me,” he murmured, speaking almost as if to himself.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away. His face seemed so sad, the long, fair eyelashes lowered, veiling his blue eyes. My palms, pressed against the tabletop, felt damp, and my words stuck in my throat. When he moved his hand toward my cheek, I couldn’t help but tip my head into his touch.
Just then the mess hall door clanged open. We both jumped, and Oren jerked back with a clatter of the bench he was sitting on. His hand dropped to the table, clenching into a fist, and when I glanced at his face, it was as closed and unreadable as ever.
It was Wesley, come to find us. If he had any comment on the scene he’d interrupted, he didn’t share it. Instead, he glanced at Oren almost dismissively before his gaze landed on me.
“They can’t agree on your plan for CeePo until they know whether your info about the journal is true,” he said. “You’re going to lead an expedition of other Renewables to try to find the surface. If you can do that, then they’ll let you confront Prometheus and finish what your brother started.”
I drew in a shaky breath. I wasn’t sure I could lead anyone, even just myself, to the surface. But I had to trust Basil.
“You’ve got two days including today to get ready,” he said. “Morning of the third day, it’s showtime.”
CHAPTER 17
I expected the two days to drag and leave me itching with impatience. Two days could make all the difference to Tansy or Nix, and part of me chafed at having to wait. But there was so much to do that the time passed in a flurry of preparations. We memorized maps of the known tunnels, studied the latest reports about patrol patterns of Prometheus’s Eagles. We learned the names and functions of all the known machines they used. Oren trained harder than ever with Olivia, while I learned to absorb magic faster, more efficiently, with greater control.
Olivia would stay behind—she wasn’t a Renewable, and if we did find a way to the surface, it’d be dangerous for her in an atmosphere without magic. The outside air would drain away the little magic she did have, and if we got stuck outside, she wouldn’t last more than a day or two without becoming a shadow. Wesley wasn’t coming either. He was considered too valuable to risk losing on what Marco described as a “little girl’s fancy.”
But the worst part was that Oren was staying behind, too. For the others, it was simply because, like Olivia, it was risky for a normal person without magic to spare to be out in the open long. But I knew it was even riskier than that—without the magical atmosphere down here, if my magic ran out up there, Oren, already a shadow inside, would become a monster instantly.
I still saw him as the rest of us trained and planned, usually from across the training ground, where he worked constantly with Olivia. The distance between us felt greater than ever. It seemed one of us was always leaving the other behind.
The plan was for me to set out on my own and meet a handful of Renewables hidden undercover throughout the city. While most of them lived in secret, off the grid, there were a few who were good enough at hiding what they were to live among the citizens. My head ached at the idea of living each day with such deception—hiding my nature from an entire city, every day for the rest of my life, was unthinkable.
Parker would be there, because he had spent the most time studying my brother’s journal. His inclusion went a long way to calming my nerves. His manner was so gentle and reassuring, and he reminded me so strongly of my father. Unfortunately, Marco would be going as well. I protested this choice—in private—to Wesley, but he countered by saying Marco was one of the strongest Renewables he had. He also told me that while Marco had protested this mission, once it was decided upon, he’d been the first one to volunteer.
And then there was Nina, a woman a few years older than me who’d been living undercover her entire life to avoid the fear and hatred of normal people, even before Prometheus had come to power. Despite being the youngest of the three, she’d be the leader of our little mission, at least, when it came to the combat decisions—if it came to that. I’d be making the calls on where we went.
Marco and Parker, who were “lifers” as Olivia called them and therefore not free to roam the city at large, would leave ahead of me, going the long way around through the alleys. They’d go ahead and find Nina, tell her about the mission, and meet me at the far edge of the city, where there was an entrance to the tunnels not far from where they guessed Basil’s map began.
I’d memorized the plan and my route through the city backward and forward, had copied out Basil’s map and memorized that too. By the time we all headed to bed the night before the mission, it seemed as though we’d planned for every potential eventuality. But instead of feeling calmer, I just felt more nervous. For everything we had planned, there had to be a dozen possibilities we couldn’t foresee.
I lay on my bed, the humidity making me lethargic and restless at the same time. The room smelled musty and damp, reminding me unpleasantly of the mildewed tunnels below my home city. My brother’s paper bird sat on the chest at the foot of the bed, side by side with the one he’d made me before he left. When did he make its twin? Did he carry it with him through the wilderness, as I had, or did he make it when he was living here, researching Prometheus?
I reached for the journal he’d left behind, even though I knew its every page, even the nonsense I didn’t understand. It was full of machines and schematics, inventions to use as weapons and as shields, ways to channel magic through clockwork that I’d never even dreamed of. But what it didn’t have was a reason why my brother had chosen this battle.
He’d come here looking for answers about what he was and how to cure what our city had done to him. That much Dorian had told me in the Iron Wood. But when he got here to find that the city had fallen apart, he must have lost hope that anyone here would know enough to help him. And then a man named Prometheus had taken over and made Renewables all but criminals in this city—and people like me and my brother could never hope to live normal lives here. At least not for long.
So why did he stay? Why not pack up and leave, find another city, another chance at survival?
I left the journal on my bed and headed over to the wall my room shared with Oren’s. I pressed my ear to the metal, but I could hear nothing except a distant vibration caused by some machine. I ducked out into the
