“What the hell is going on here?”
A voice boomed across the courtyard, resonant enough that it penetrated even the muffling blanket of magic I held around us.
“Holster your weapon, you idiot!” The voice snapped with fury. “Firing in a crowd like this; you could have hit—”
Holding the shield together was an agony. I hadn’t had the time to absorb the man’s magic properly, and the hungry pit within me was sucking at the shields, trying to digest them. My body was on fire, and I could no longer hear what was going on beyond the screaming of my heartbeat and the frantic echo of Oren’s. But there was no third blast, and after a few interminable moments I gave in, letting the darkness consume everything I’d taken.
It seemed I lay there for hours, but in reality I think only a few seconds passed before a hand touched my shoulder. I gasped for a breath, lifting my head. A new face swam into focus above mine—a middle-aged man, balding, familiar somehow.
He threw himself down at the side of the motionless man, bending over him. I saw him check for breath, his cheek close to the man’s lips. He pressed his mouth to the bloodstained lips, and I saw the uniformed chest rise and fall as the balding man tried to breathe for him. After a few breaths he stopped and thumped the injured man on the chest, over his heart. I’d never seen anything like it before—in my city, when someone stopped breathing, they were just dead.
Finally, he jerked upright. “He’s breathing,” he gasped. I felt my own breath falter with relief. I hadn’t killed him.
The taller officer was staring, mumbling something, his weapon dangling from one hand.
“You call a medic,” the balding man snapped, getting to his feet and then reaching for my wrist to haul me upright. “I’ll take them from here.”
The tall man said something else—I couldn’t hear properly, as though something had exploded right by my ear.
“No, he isn’t dead,” the man in charge said, his tone frosty. “But if you don’t get him to a medic, he will be. And make sure they take a look at the unlucky bastard you just shot.”
The middle-aged man ushered me and Oren along, sending the crowd scattering back away from us with muffled cries and gasps. “Quick now,” he said, his resonant voice pitched low.
I looked up at him, trying to force my eyes to work properly. I knew I’d seen him before. I glanced over my shoulder, at the still form lying within the ring of silent onlookers. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. Our unlikely rescuer had implied that he was still alive, but I knew how quickly and ruthlessly I’d acted.
All I could see, over and over again, was the gaping black hole I’d left there when I ripped the life force from him.
I stumbled, too shattered to keep up the pace this man was demanding from us.
“Not yet. The Eagles will be watching. Keep moving— fall apart later.”
He managed to get us out of the courtyard, but I couldn’t tell where we were headed. When we stopped we were in some kind of alley, a space between two rusting metal buildings. Oren dropped to his knees when the man let him go. Mine buckled, but the man kept hold of me, pushing me against the alley wall to keep me upright.
His face swam into focus, and suddenly I realized how I knew him. He had changed clothes—though he didn’t wear the badge with the bird on it, he was dressed like they were, in charcoal grey and smoldering red-orange. But I recognized him anyway—he was the man from before, the one who’d caught my eye after the boy was taken away as a Renewable. The man in the brilliant blue coat.
“I know what you are,” he said, his face not far from mine. “And we need you.”
CHAPTER 11
The man refused to answer any of my questions, pulling us back out of the alley again and marching us through the square towards the Central Processing building. When I glanced at Oren, he was moving along blank-eyed. The knuckles of his right hand were bleeding, the blood sliding down his fingertips and spattering the ground every time he took a step. He didn’t return my gaze.
There was no sign of Nix. Every time I heard the buzz of wings or the click of a mechanism turning over, my heart leaped. But it was always a courier pigeon on its way to deliver a message, or occasionally one of those bladelike flying machines the officers had worn.
We stumbled up the steps, as if he was leading us into CeePo itself. But then he let go of my arm and nodded to one of the officers standing guard outside the massive copper doors.
“Just taking these prisoners around the back, to interrogation.”
The guard nodded, and then we were moving again, this time following the arc of the building, marching in a giant parabola. When we reached the end of the crescent, however, instead of continuing around behind the building, he pulled us off to the side. We headed behind a huge metal support for a building above, something that must have once been a giant walker leg. There, concealed in the shadows, was a door.
It was barely visible, made of the same rusting metal as the wall, so that it melted into the background. It was only when I learned close that I realized the rust was painted on. It was so skillfully done that it looked three-dimensional, indistinguishable from its surroundings.
Our rescuer leaned against it, spreading his palm against the surface for a few moments. My skin tingled, and I realized I could feel a slight stirring of magic. It was tiny, so deftly and quietly done that I would’ve missed it had I not been standing a few feet away. But this close, it was unmistakable.
A Renewable.
Before I had time to process what that meant, there was a solid clunk somewhere inside the door and the slow, steady clanking of a mechanism turning over inside. Part of the rustpainted exterior slid aside, revealing a long dark slot into which the man inserted his arm, feeling around inside the door.
Then all at once the door swung inward, so abruptly that the balding man staggered. Standing on the other side was a young woman crowned with a wild halo of curly blonde hair. Her eyes went from the man to Oren and his battle scars— and then fell on me, where they stayed, widening. As if I was the shock and not Oren, who was dripping blood and staring all around with fierce, wary eyes.
“You got her,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “Damage?”
“Bystander,” the man replied. “Not one of ours. And they brought down an Eagle, don’t know if he’s going to make it. I’m meant to be taking them to the cells under CeePo.”
She nodded. She had a youthful face and a sweet voice, but something about the way she stood made me think she was older than she appeared. She kept watching me for a few moments, her gaze troubled. Then she turned back toward the man.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Just a second.” The man turned toward us, glancing first at Oren and then turning to me. “Olivia’s going to take you from here on in. Try not to kill anyone, okay? We’re trying to help you.”
“But—I don’t understand.” My head was still spinning, my eyesight sparking with magic. For some reason the man looked as though he was surrounded by pinpoints of gold and violet light, even though a second ago he’d looked completely normal. The aftereffects of the magic I stole and used, I realized. The effect was dizzying, but I held myself upright, refusing to lose control around people I didn’t know.
“We’ll explain later. Just trust us for a little while.”
His face was so earnest, his eyes so piercing, and yet I felt the bottom dropping out of my stomach. How many times had I been asked to trust someone over the past months? I felt my muscles tensing, my mouth going dry. And then a hand touched mine, a tingle of magic thrumming between us.