wrong.”
Adjutant let the lever slide back into place, and I felt the ambient magic sliding back into place with it. The Orenmonster dropped to the floor of his cell, sides heaving. “Lord, allow me to remove this girl from your presence. Please, she’s infected your—”
“She’s done
Adjutant gazed at Basil. Beyond him I could see Oren, himself again, but too dazed and injured by his shadow self’s attempts to escape to do more than lie there, gasping.
“You’ve lost your way, Lord,” Adjutant said softly, his hand falling on the robes laid over the chair. “Lost sight of the utopia we’re creating here.”
“You’re the one who’s lost his way,” Basil replied, fists clenched. I could see tears standing in his eyes and realized that this was costing him as much as it had cost me to stand up to him.
His oldest—his only—friend.
“I wish you could understand the pain and the sorrow that I feel.” Adjutant’s voice was soft, sad. “To lose you this way. You were my mentor, my friend, my savior. My beacon. My god.”
Basil stood silently, opening and closing his fists, unable to speak.
“But the people must have direction.” Adjutant’s wide, staring eyes fixed on the wall above us. He reached for the robes on the chair, picking them up slowly, caressing them like something precious and beautiful. “If their god falters, then a new one must rise and take his place.”
I stared, drawn in by the insanity in his gaze, the way his eyes were fixed on something none of the rest of us could see—some vision of the twisted paradise he sought.
“Prometheus is dead.” Adjutant slowly swung the robes up and settled them over his shoulders. “Long live Prometheus.”
And then he reached out for Tansy again, thrusting his hand out toward Basil. A beam of violent purple light shot forth, hitting my brother square in the chest and throwing him back against the far wall with the force of the blast.
“NO!” The word tore from my throat as I lunged for him, but it was too late. The beam stopped, but crackling energy pinned Basil against the wall, several feet off the ground. He struggled, but the magic containing him was so thick I couldn’t even sense him behind it.
Adjutant turned to me. I threw up a barrier a millisecond before he turned the same blast on me. The force of it drove me backward until I hit the handrail of the catwalk, and I braced myself against it, throwing everything I had into my shield.
Oren was pressed against the glass, staring, his eyes anguished. Basil was still pinned, unable to speak or move. Adjutant laughed, shoving his other arm deeper into Tansy’s aura of magic.
“No wonder he didn’t share this with me,” he said, his wild grin only a flash of white teeth behind the violet beam spilling off my shield. “It’s glorious. Dare I say it, divine. I’d hoard it for myself as well.”
I had no strength to answer, every fiber of my being thrown into the shields. I didn’t have enough to do anything but block his attack—no way to enact a countermeasure. And I wasn’t going to last much longer.
And then Nix zoomed out of nowhere, its mechanisms screaming bloody murder. It flew directly at Adjutant, stinger extended. Adjutant swept it aside with a flick of his head, and Nix went tumbling through the air, disoriented. Righting itself, Nix hovered for a moment, indecisive. Then, so fast I couldn’t track it through the tears of pain and effort streaming from my eyes, it flew over to the bank of machines in front of Oren’s cell. It started throwing itself at every button it could find, frantic.
Adjutant laughed again, turning his gaze back on me. “I see you found your way past our reprogramming. Shame, I was hoping we’d be able to use that device. I’ll see to it that it’s destroyed as soon as we’re done here.”
He didn’t seem to be tiring at all—in fact, he seemed stronger and more insane with every passing second, his very skin alive with magic, crackling. But behind him a series of red lights began to flash.
A dull pounding grabbed my attention and dragged it back to Nix. Oren was banging on the glass—Nix heard and looked up. Oren gestured frantically, miming, pointing toward some particular dial or button that I couldn’t see. Nix launched itself straight down, slamming into the button—and the door of Oren’s cage slid open.
Adjutant turned, leveling his arm this time at Oren. Without the force of the beam on my shields I stumbled forward and fell, crying out a ragged warning. But Oren was fast—as fast as Olivia. Faster. He dodged easily, sprinting around to the other side of the circle. Nix went the other way. There were too many targets—Adjutant roared frustration. I started to gather my own power, ready to end this once and for all.
And then he looked at me, teeth bared, his eyes burning violet and gold, magic leaking from his ears and nose and dribbling out of his mouth like flames. “I will not let you destroy paradise,” he said in a voice that was no longer his own, hissing and crackling with power.
In one surge he jerked the remaining magic from the harvester—and it exploded, throwing us all outward. My head struck the wall and I slumped to the ground, dazed. I dragged myself up by the handrail, dizzy and nauseous. I looked up in time to see Tansy thrown from the column as it vanished, her body striking the wall and landing on the catwalk three stories up.
Adjutant was stirring feebly, smoke and steam rising from his body as he pulled himself up. I ignored him, sprinting for the nearest staircase. Nix, flight path wobbly and slow as it repaired itself at the same time, cut past me, headed straight for Tansy.
My muscles and lungs burned as though my struggle against Adjutant’s magic had been a physical one, but I ignored them. I just had to get to her—give her enough power to keep her heart beating. Repay the gift she’d given me—give her magic back.
I reached the top of the second flight of stairs and ricocheted off the wall as I lurched forward. I threw myself down beside her, ignoring the pain as the metal catwalk stripped several layers of skin from my knees. I pressed both hands to her body, willing my magic to go forth.
Tansy was still moving—her eyes turned toward me as I touched her. But I could see she was empty, that there was nothing left inside her. She was as black and hollow as the man I’d killed in the square. She was bleeding from a number of abrasions from striking the wall, but the blood was seeping gently, slowly. Her heart wasn’t beating.
“No, nonono—Tansy, stay with me. Look at me. It’s Lark, I’m here, you’re going to be fine.” I shoved harder, trying to force my magic into the black chasm of her heart.
Her staring gaze fixed on mine. For just a moment, it seemed as though she recognized me—her eyes widened. Her lips moved—they twitched into the tiniest smile as she gazed at my face.
Then she died.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There was just Tansy’s face, her eyes gazing up at me, gazing through me, blood still seeping sluggishly from the gashes on her arms, on her cheek. There was no longer a black emptiness inside her—there wasn’t anything. There was no hole where her life used to be because everything that made her Tansy was gone. The thing I was touching, cradling, was a husk and nothing more.
Breath returned to me with a jerk, as violently as if I’d had the wind knocked out of me. It sobbed in and out of me as I got shakily to my feet, staggering to the handrail and looking down.
Adjutant stood there, looking up at me. Burns covered his body in patches, his once-handsome face distorted in a snarl. Sections of his hair were gone, the rest of it sticking out in patches. The robes of Prometheus were charred and sootstained, unrecognizable. But he still wore Basil’s device—and despite the explosion, it was intact.
His eyes on me, he reached out and threw his hand against the banks of machines. Tiny explosions and sparks jumped up everywhere, landing on his skin, on his clothes, but he didn’t even flinch. Painfully he dragged
