Shadowlark

seen them up close, seen their white eyes, heard their unearthly screams. A small amount of light came in through the window, and I saw a droplet of sweat roll down her temple, silvery with moonlight.

Sweat. Water.

I yanked off my pack and used it to knock out the rest of the glass on the bottom of the window frame before slipping it back on. I grabbed at Tansy’s hand, jerking her toward the window. The alley, three floors down, looked a long way away.

She resisted. “Are you insane?” Her voice shook. “We’ll break our legs. We’ll break our necks. I don’t—I don’t want to die that way—”

“Do you want to die that way?” I gasped back, thrusting an arm out toward the oncoming shadow monsters. “Trust me.”

“I can’t—” She twisted away from the window, pressing herself into the corner, eyes rolling toward the shadows as they raced toward us. Only a few seconds now before they reached us.

“Tansy.” I jerked her arm, turning her toward me. “Trust me.”

She stared at me, and then before my eyes the frightened girl turned back into the scout that had so awed me when we first met. She straightened and reached for my hand, her sweaty palm pressing against mine.

We took a few steps and then leaped out into empty space.

I glimpsed her for an instant, the silver moonlight and the golden energy of her power mingling in my vision. I closed my eyes, opening myself and letting the hunger wash over me, and did what I’d wanted to do from the first moment Tansy had caught up to me.

As her power surged into me I turned my face towards the ground racing toward us. I wrenched at the spot inside me where the magic pooled, and with a blinding flash, the alley went white-gold.

We struck something invisible and yielding and bounced off before landing on the cracked ground below— bruised, but whole.

I lay dazed, my head spinning and vision sparking. The rush of warmth and life that enveloped me had wiped away the terror of the last few minutes. I’d saved myself this way once before, in my own city, but that was before I’d gained the second sight. I’d never seen what it looked like to do this magic before. I floated, light- headed and giddy, for what felt like hours, watching the sparks wheel and dance overhead.

It wasn’t until Tansy moaned beside me that I came back to myself and realized only seconds had passed. My ear throbbed where the shadow girl had bit me, my neck sticky with blood. Though I could feel the remnants of Tansy’s magic still sparking inside me, I already wanted more. But she was starting to shake, and when I reached out to touch her shoulder she rolled away from me, curling up into a fetal position. She had nothing left to give me.

I heard a wretched howl and looked up, the golden light vanishing instantly. One of the shadows—I couldn’t even tell which one—was climbing out the window. It came skittering down the wall, leading the way for the other three. Their fingers found purchase on the tiniest of cracks in the brickwork, sliding down the surface as if it weren’t a vertical wall.

“Tansy! Come on, we’ve got to move.”

I leaped to my feet, buoyed by my pilfered magic, and dragged her with me. She gave a confused cry, but after a few moments she got her feet working again and managed to stumble with me toward the mouth of the alley. We were both looking back over our shoulders at the shadows as they reached the ground when a guttural sound stopped us dead.

A fifth shadow stood before us in the mouth of the alley, framed in the moonlight. I could only see its white eyes glittering, fixed on us, burning with hunger.

Tansy and I lurched back and to the side until our backs hit the brick wall of the building. The fifth shadow advanced on us, its harsh breathing labored and thick with wanting.

The shadow family caught up, the largest stepping up to corner us. Brandon, I tried to remind myself, my brain clinging desperately to the knowledge that just an hour ago these had been people, kind and decent, and oblivious to what they really were.

The other three members of the family sent up a low, sighing wail, and I turned my face away, willing my stolen magic to change them back before one of them pounced on me or Tansy.

The Brandon-shadow growled low, the sound building—I knew he was about to snarl and leap.

When it came, I shoved back against the wall, instinct trying to find a way to escape.

But where I’d expected pain and blood and the crunch of my own bones, I heard only an answering snarl of rage.

I opened my eyes. The Brandon-shadow had leaped not for me, but for the fifth shadow. They were no more than a tangle of teeth and muscle and sinew, feral screams. Blood splashed onto the pavement, inky-black in the moonlight. The Brandon-shadow broke away with a cry of pain.

No longer silhouetted, the fifth shadow was easier to see.

I stopped breathing. No. It can’t be him. My mind refused to believe what my eyes were telling me.

The other shadows jumped on him, the children and mother together, and my eyes blurred with tears of shock and confusion and focus as I tried to concentrate. Tansy slumped to the ground, overwhelmed, still shaking violently from the aftereffects of being harvested.

The knife was still in my hand. My fingers tightened around it, but the fight was moving so quickly I couldn’t track who was where, only that it was still going, that the fifth shadow was still fighting. One of the smaller shadows was flung free, stumbling against the opposite wall of the alley.

The Brandon-shadow barked a short command, wordless and wild, and the remaining two shadows broke away and backed up, limping and snarling their rage. After a few more wails and whimpers, the family turned and loped away, vanishing down the other end of the alley.

The fifth shadow turned toward us, its breathing harsh and irregular. I heard Tansy gasping for breath at my side, trying to rise despite the way her legs and arms shook. I put a hand on her shoulder, my own fingers trembling.

Though she could not have understood, Tansy slumped back, too weary to try again.

I summoned every ounce of courage and stepped forward. The shadow snarled a warning, half-fury, half- anticipation. The hunger in its voice was unmistakable.

I swallowed, licked my lips.

“Oren?”

He didn’t react, his white eyes fixed on my face, his teeth bared and bloody from the wounds he’d inflicted and received. His hands clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his legs quivering as he stood there, struggling with himself. He twitched forward only to jerk back, the tendons standing out on his forearms, in his neck.

I started to lift my hand and too late remembered that it was the one holding the knife.

The shadow leaped forward, raging, grasping at my shirt and jerking me in close so that I felt the heat of his breath, smelled the grass and the wind and the metallic tang of blood. He growled a low, desperate, drawn-out sound.

The growl turned to a gasping groan, the breath shuddering in and out of him. He stumbled forward, his body heavy against me. Suddenly the hand twisted in the fabric of my shirt wasn’t holding me close—it was holding him up, and my knees sagged with his weight.

He coughed and reached out with his other hand for me, trying to keep himself from falling. He lifted his eyes, anguished—for the briefest instant I saw them flicker from white to palest blue.

Then his grip failed and he dropped like a stone, unconscious before he hit the ground.

CHAPTER 5

He looked exactly as he had the day he left. I’d memorized every contour and feature of his face in that moment when he’d looked back over his shoulder at me. I traced them now, my fingertips shaking. His skin was