spots. There were only six of them. Did that mean the rest of the cells stretching onward were empty?
Basil’s jaw was tight, his eyes cold, shut down. He didn’t look at the cell doors but instead kept his eyes on the endless hallway, standing by the door. “Go look for them,” he said shortly.
Nix launched itself from my shoulder to explore as I walked forward, skin crawling with more than iron now. It was as though I could feel the eyes of the Renewables on me as I passed. No wonder Basil didn’t like to come here—guilt roiled inside me simply for being free while they were captive. What must it be like to come here when you were
I cleared my throat and called softly, “Wesley? Oren?”
For a moment all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart. Then, so rattly and tired that my chest tightened, came Wesley’s voice. “About time,” he called, his voice coming from the end of the row of lights.
I hurried down and peered in through the grating. He was there, waiting for me. His face didn’t show any signs of mistreatment, but I knew the damage would be deeper, harder to see. He smiled at me, though, when my face came into view.
“Does this mean you got him? Got Prometheus?”
I glanced back at my brother, who was still standing just inside the doorway, not looking at us or at anything else.
“We can talk later,” I said finally. “Let’s get you out of here. Which one is Oren’s cell?”
“Which one?” Wesley stuck a hand through the grating, wrapping his fingers around a bar. “Open all of them, get us all out of here.”
I closed my eyes, feeling sick. “I can’t,” I whispered. “For now I can only get you and Oren. Where is he?”
Wesley gazed at me, confusion quickly shifting to wariness in his features. “He’s not here,” he said quietly. “They’re keeping him somewhere else.”
My heart sank. For a moment I just wanted to scream at Wesley for letting Oren out of his sight, at Basil for allowing any of this to happen, at myself for not realizing that they wouldn’t be keeping a seemingly normal person with the Renewables, even if he came with one. Instead I drew in a shaky breath and said, “Basil, open the door.”
“Basil?” Wesley’s eyes grew round. “Your brother—the one—”
But he was interrupted by a mechanical whine and a heavy clunk in his door. I grabbed for the indented handle and pulled, and Wesley stepped out into the hallway. His eyes went past me to Basil, whose hand was still on the heavy switch that controlled the lock.
“The boy who wrote the journal,” Wesley breathed, staring at Basil the way that Adjutant had stared at Prometheus.
Basil’s gaze shifted toward me, but I had no answer either. How to tell Wesley that the journal was written by none other than Prometheus himself, before he came to power? That the one saving him now was the one who’d ordered him captured in the first place? It didn’t matter that Adjutant had taken it upon himself to arrest Wesley—he was acting in Prometheus’s name.
I turned back toward the cells and called tensely, “Tansy? Tansy, are you in here?”
No answer. My heart pounded in the silence, and I walked up the row of cells, trying to feel for her familiar power signature. But aside from Wesley, the golden Renewable glows here were faint, flickering and weak. These people had been drained.
“Is someone there?” The voice was tired, weak—and unfamiliar. I turned to see hands curling around the bars in the door, all that could be seen of the prisoner behind it.
Basil took a step backward, away from the panel of door release switches, swallowing hard. He looked sick, even as he squared his jaw. “Let’s go,” he called softly.
“No.” I planted my feet, gazing at him across the prison block. “We take them all, or I stay here and wait for Adjutant. I’m not leaving without them.”
Basil’s hands curled into fists. “Lark, I can’t have this fight with you, not here. We have to go. We have to just—we have to get out of here.”
“And then what?” I hissed back. “We just run away and find some new place to live? Some new place to turn into your idea of a utopia?”
“I never said this place was perfect!” Basil fired back. “If you hadn’t noticed, the world out there is far from perfect. This is the best we can do. We go, we disappear, we try to live our lives as best we can with what we’ve got. That’s all there is, Lark!”
“Maybe that’s true,” I whispered, my voice echoing in the chamber. I knew Wesley might overhear, might figure it all out—but I didn’t care. “Whether it is or not, I’m not leaving while these people are still enslaved. So you can make your choice.”
My brother stared at me across the gulf of space between us, his muscles tense, his gaze unreadable. He looked sad— sadder than he did the day he left me, volunteering for the Institute’s top secret mission. He looked tired.
And then he turned and flipped every switch on the wall, causing a cascade of metallic thuds all down the corridor as every door swung open.
Half a dozen captive Renewables streamed out into the hallway, exclaiming, murmuring relief. Wesley hurried toward them, recognizing some as members of the resistance who’d been captured. I didn’t care about what he was doing, though—I could only look at my brother. It was like there was a line between us, connecting us again, and even though people crossed through it again and again as they reunited with each other, it stayed unbroken.
I whispered, “What are you going to do?” If Basil was right, then without the Renewables, Lethe would fall.
He was too far away for the sound to carry over the sounds of relief and celebration, but somehow he heard me anyway. “I don’t know,” his lips said back, the words carrying directly to my heart.
“All right,” Wesley said, cutting through the rapidly rising wave of sound from the newly freed Renewables. “We’re not free yet. We’re going to go find Prometheus and end this once and for all—and Lark’s going to need our help.”
My eyes were still on Basil’s. He shook his head slightly— don’t interrupt. If they knew Basil was Prometheus, they’d turn on him right here and now. We’d never find Tansy. And Wesley was right, I was going to be grateful for the help once we reached the harvesting room.
“If any of you are too weak or injured,” Wesley continued, “then raise your hands and we’ll arrange one group to go back. You two, I don’t recognize you—you’re welcome to join us in the walls. We live free of Prometheus’s grip.”
But not a single person raised their hands, not even the man with pale, brittle-looking skin and purple bruises around each eye—the man who had clearly just been harvested.
“Very well,” said Wesley. It was a relief to have him back— to have someone else making the decisions again. I felt wrung out, too many horrors and revelations in one day. “Then we all go.” But then he turned to me —and waited.
I stared back at him, uncomprehending.
“This is your party,” he said, smiling that irritatingly selfassured smile. This time, however, there was a glint of sympathy in his face.
For a long moment I struggled not to beg him to take over, to finish this mission. Take the decisions out of my hands, handle everything. But then Basil stepped up beside me, and I found myself nodding.
“We have to find Tansy. She would’ve been about my age, taller than me, strong—”
“I know the girl you’re talking about,” Wesley interrupted. “She’s gone. She’s not here.”
“What do you mean she’s not here?”
“They took her.” Wesley’s face was thin, drawn. Afraid. There was a faint dull gleam of perspiration on his thinning scalp. “They brought one of the men across the way back, empty, and took her. I think she’s the one they’re draining now.”
I remembered the Renewable in the Institute, the one they held captive in secret, in eternal torment as they drained her power away and let it regrow in a never-ending cycle. I remembered the agony of the Machine as they tore my natural magic away and replaced it with dark, twisted city magic.
