the lock as best I could by feel, with my second sight. It was solid iron, and for anyone else it’d be impossible to magic. I had no idea if they knew I could, but either way it made no difference. It’d take a lot more magic than what I had now for me to do anything at all to the iron lock.
Though I’d felt fine in my room just hours before, knowing it was now a prison cell made my skin itch, my mind shudder. I’d been locked up now more times than I could easily count, and I was tired of letting it happen. I wasn’t meek little Lark Ainsley anymore, the child who was content to wait for Kris to slip her a key in the Institute. Too much had happened since then for me to let them keep me here.
I ran my hands over the door. The lock might have been iron, but the rest of the door was some sort of copper alloy. The door—and more importantly, the hinges—were as susceptible to magic as anything else. If I wrenched the hinges free, the rest of the door would give way.
I could get out on my own, if I had to. If they decided I was too dangerous to have fighting alongside them, then I could fight my way through them.
I was resting my forehead against the door, exploring its structure with my mind and searching for invisible stress fractures in the metal, when something in the air beyond it shifted. The shadow in me recognized it before my thoughts did. The darkness was getting stronger. It recognized its own kind.
The lock clanked open and the door swung inward. Oren looked as exhausted as I felt, but his head lifted a little as he saw me. He stepped inside and let the door thud closed after him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice rough. His eyes raked over me, taking in the bandage visible at the collar of my shirt. I must’ve looked pretty ragged, because his face tightened.
“For now.”
“You didn’t tell them about me.” It wasn’t a question, though his voice sounded uncertain.
I smiled a little, sinking down on the edge of my bed. “No point in us both being locked up.”
He leaned against the wall in front of me, stepping finally into the light so I could get a good look at him. There were a number of new bruises visible on his arm below his sleeve, and on his jaw—and a cut on his cheekbone where a blow had split the skin.
“What happened to you?” I breathed, my heart tightening.
He blinked, then lifted a hand to his face as though he’d forgotten about his injuries. “Oh. Olivia happened.”
“I thought you said she couldn’t take you,” I said slowly.
“She’s—upset.” He glanced away from me, eyes flicking from the wall behind me to the door. “She and Nina are close.” There was something soft, painful, in his voice. Her pain was hurting him. Oren cared for her.
There was no end to the damage I’d done in that one, fleeting moment. A tiny part of me almost wished I’d just let the shadows overrun us all. I swallowed down the sick feeling in my stomach. “She’s taking it out on the wrong person.”
Oren shook his head. “She just needed an outlet. She met Nina when her brother was taken by Prometheus—Nina was the one who helped her through it.”
I remembered the quiet warmth in Nina’s touch, and understood. “I wish I could talk to her. Apologize, somehow. But I doubt they’d let me out of here.”
“That’s actually why I came,” Oren said, gaze finding mine again. I was struck anew with how much he’d changed since we’d been in Lethe. It was like the animal side of him had been . . . not tamed, exactly. Harnessed. He was still strength and confidence and sharp intelligence, but he was in control of himself. He didn’t jump anymore at sudden noises or tense whenever anyone new walked into the room.
Distracted, I almost missed what he said next.
“They’re going ahead with the mission.”
My breath caught and my hands curled around the edge of the mattress, my muscles suddenly going tense. “My mission?”
He nodded. “They asked me what I thought, since I’d be the one facing a death sentence if something goes wrong—for the Eagle’s murder. I told them it was a good plan.”
I listened in silence, caught between the way my heart swelled at Oren’s confidence and the way my own uncertainty flared, knowing that lives would be at stake because of me. Again.
“I think Wesley argued for it, too. And Dorian told them what you did for the Iron Wood. At any rate, they’re going to go through with it, but they’re all going to be armed with these.”
He pulled something small and round out of his pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it and felt an odd tug at the everpresent web of magic in the air. It looked like a crude iron sphere with no distinguishing characteristics. I glanced up at Oren dubiously.
“Parker rigged them up using the Eagles’ talons. You throw them at the ground, and if it’s enough of an impact, they go off like an explosion. But instead they banish all the inorganic magic within a certain radius.”
I recognized Parker’s turn of phrase and knew Oren was repeating him word for word. Another time, I would’ve smiled to hear him using words like
“Parker’s theory is that you’re like a machine, and that the magic in you is like the magic in the machines. Stolen, not generated. The idea is that these won’t have any effect on a real Renewable. But they’ll knock out any machines in the area. And—”
I breathed out slowly. “And they’ll take me out, too.”
Oren nodded. “I’m supposed to be carrying that one. But I think you should have it, for tomorrow.”
It wasn’t much use to him—he was safe from me. The shadow in me didn’t want anything from him. There was no hunger to steal what little magic he had inside, keeping him human. But why give it to me? When I started to ask the question aloud, he just pushed away from the wall and folded my fingers gently around the sphere, holding my hands between his.
“If there was a way to switch me off when the darkness comes,” he said softly, “I’d never go anywhere without it.”
His face was close, his eyes meeting mine. For the first time, I realized that it wasn’t about hating him the way I hated myself, for being what we were. For the first time, I realized that Oren understood me. He was the only one in the world who could. He was giving me a way to take myself out, rather than let the hunger take over again.
Oren let go of me and stepped back, shoving his hands into his pockets. “So, you’ll get your chance to face Prometheus. And if Tansy and Nix are in there, you’ll get your chance to find them, too.”
I took a deep breath, feeling dizzy.
“But—here’s the thing. They’re going tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I burst out, staring. “So soon?”
Oren shrugged. “They didn’t tell me why, but I suspect it’s to do with you. The less time you’re here, the less opportunity there is for you to . . .”
He trailed off, but I knew what he meant. “Less opportunity for me to hurt someone.”
Oren grimaced. “They don’t know you, Lark.”
I shook my head. “No. The problem is they
Oren was silent for a long moment, gazing at me with those pale, unreadable eyes. I knew was he was thinking about, knew with utter certainty that at any moment he’d give me another speech about strength and power and only being a weapon when I choose to be. Just as surely, I knew I couldn’t stand to hear it, not now. Not while Nina still lay unconscious, while Tansy might be being tortured at that very moment, while Olivia was pounding the life out of anyone who came near.
So instead I stood abruptly. “Is that all?”
Oren opened his mouth, but stopped, hesitating.
“Try to get some sleep,” he suggested, his voice rough. Then he turned his back, and was gone.
I let myself sink back down with a creak of the mattress. I knew I should do as he said—that I should do as I was ordered by the Renewables here. But I was buzzing with nerves, and with energy, and I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. There was a good chance I wasn’t coming back from the mission tomorrow. I paced the confines of my
