Shadowlark

amazing things for this city, but it all comes at a price we’re not willing to pay anymore. Just remember this is why we’re doing it. This is why they’re carrying out your plan, even though—” She paused. “Even though everything.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Usually, the Renewables he does this to die not long after. Bran was in the middle—he lasted a few months before he finally gave up.” Olivia was dry-eyed, but the sadness in her voice was overwhelming.

“Olivia,” I said, my voice sounding strange, “what’s the longest any of Prometheus’s Renewables have survived being repeatedly harvested?”

Olivia tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard that there are a few that predate Wesley. And he’s been there for two years now.”

Years. There were Renewables who’d been down there for years. And it’d only been four years since the resistance fighters moved in and found my brother’s journal. There was a chance, however slim, that if Basil was like me, he could’ve leeched power from the other captives and survived Prometheus’s harvest each time.

I’d assumed Basil was dead. But maybe I was wrong.

We sat in silence for a time, each lost in our own separate thoughts. I could feel Olivia’s tension—her easy manner was gone, despite her willingness to talk to me. She had a part to play in tomorrow’s mission, too, just as important as mine. She was going to be the distraction, drawing away Prometheus’s Eagles to give Oren and me a chance to get close to him. Though she was usually so open, it was impossible to read Olivia now. There was still grief and anger there, and part of me wondered, if Oren weren’t going to be there, if she’d let me run in blind, without the distraction, and get caught.

“Make sure you have no regrets,” she murmured, interrupting my increasingly dark thoughts.

“What?”

Her feet had stopped swinging, and she sat motionless, gazing into the middle distance ahead of her. “That’s how you go on these missions time after time. You make sure you have no regrets. Just in case.”

Something in her voice chilled my heart, and I shivered.

She went on. “You talk to the people you care about, and you make sure there’s nothing you wished you’d said.”

For a moment, I thought she was talking about me, about the ruins of our seedling friendship. Then I recognized the quiet desperation in her voice, and I realized.

“Have you spoken to Oren yet?” I whispered.

Olivia hesitated, but then I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye. “We spoke a little after we finished training this afternoon. I told him what I’m telling you now.”

No regrets. I couldn’t argue with Olivia on it, because it made sense. Make sure that you leave things as well as you can, so that you can face what’s coming with a clear head.

“I’m glad he found you,” I said quietly, quickly, as though my mind might interfere and stop me once it realized what I was saying. “He’s had a very lonely life. A terrible one, sometimes. But here, with you—he seems happy. I think my one regret would be leaving him alone, but he won’t be alone. And that’s a good thing.”

Olivia didn’t answer, and when I turned to look at her, she was staring at me, her face unreadable. “You think I love him, don’t you?”

My heart seized for half a beat, and I fought to catch my breath. “No—I mean, maybe. I know he cares for you. You spend so much time together.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a comforting sound. “I promise you, Lark, I don’t have the slightest interest in Oren. Not the way you’re imagining.”

“But—”

“I have somebody,” she said simply, dropping her chin onto her knees. “And I haven’t given up on her yet.”

My thoughts ground to a halt. Her?

Then it all clicked. She and Nina are close, Oren had told me. Nina took care of her when she lost her brother. Suddenly my heart froze altogether. I’d nearly killed the woman she loved. I might well have killed her yet, if she never woke up.

And this was the woman we were trusting to keep the Eagles off our backs—where one wrong move on her part would leave us with Prometheus’s entire army closing in around us.

“What I regret,” she went on, softly, “was not getting to see her before the mission. She’s undercover most of the time, and comes through so rarely. I wish I’d been able to speak to her one more time.”

I looked down to see Olivia gripping the edge of the roof, white-knuckled and tense. I could feel the fury and helplessness in her as if it were magic, visible to my other senses. She didn’t look at me, all the intensity of her gaze dissipating into the mist-filled air over the city.

I began to retreat, knowing there was nothing I could say. But as I got to my feet she spoke again, her voice emerging in a mumble.

“Oren told me once that he hurt you.”

I swallowed, thinking of my torn earlobe, and of Oren’s refusal to believe that he hadn’t done it in his shadow state. “No,” I said. “No, he never has.”

“Then he’s certainly afraid he might. That’s why I’ve been trying to help him. There’s a darkness in him that I don’t understand, but he’s terrified of it. He’s afraid it’ll make him hurt you, the way you hurt Nina.”

Sick with regret, I wished I could reach out to Olivia—but my touch was the last thing she’d want. I had no idea Oren was so afraid of the shadow inside himself down here, when there was more than enough magic to keep him human. But then, wasn’t I terrified of the darkness in me?

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I was never doing it for you,” Olivia said, her voice as dry as ice. “But he is.”

“What?”

“That’s why he works so hard. So he won’t hurt you.”

* * *

I walked back to my room with my thoughts buzzing. About Olivia and her unreadable face. About Nina, the girl she loved, out of touch and in such danger for so long. About Wesley, and how readily he’d agreed to our plan despite the huge personal danger to himself. About Basil, and the tiniest possibility that he could be alive somewhere in Prometheus’s cells, suffering the way I had in the Institute. My thoughts circled around and around, meshing together like delicate, intricate cogs in a machine, always spinning back to one thing.Oren.

I told him what I told you, Olivia had said, as we parted. That he should talk to the people he cares about before tomorrow.

I was so lost in my head that I forgot to check for the guard in the hallway and put up an illusion to let myself back in. It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn’t see the figure leaning against the wall opposite my door. I skidded to a halt, heart pounding.

It was as if I’d summoned him with my thoughts, as though reality had somehow replaced my guard with the one person I actually wanted to see. Oren lifted his head, raising an eyebrow at me. “So much for not wandering around by yourself like I told you.”

“I don’t take orders so well anymore.” I pressed a hand to my ribcage, where it felt like my lungs were seizing with the sudden jolt of adrenaline. “What’re you doing out here?”

“You weren’t very good at taking orders to begin with,” he pointed out. “I told the guard I’d take over for him for a while. You think I can’t sense you in there? And more importantly, when you’re not in there?”

I gaped at him. I knew I could feel him with my magic, could sense the dark pit of the shadow inside him. But I had no idea that the connection went both ways.

“Did you find whatever you were looking for?” he asked, straightening.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe. I have no idea.”

He didn’t ask what I meant, and I didn’t offer an explanation. After a long pause, he broke the silence. “It’s a good plan.” He was repeating himself, his voice low to avoid echoing down the long corridor. “Despite everything that’s happened, they believe in you.”

I took a breath, a knot of tension uncoiling under the pressure and making me blurt, “That’s what scares me.”