I expected Marco to complain, to show his distaste at being given this task—it was his way, the show of petulance that kept him aloof. Instead he went silently, his expression stony, his muscles tense. I could sense power gathered all around him, at the ready, and I was reminded abruptly of what Wesley said—that he was the strongest Renewable they had. They were using their best to keep watch on me.
He walked me back to my room in silence. I strained to listen as we walked away, but I could hear nothing from the War Room. Marco had mistrusted me—or at least doubted my abilities—from the very beginning, but I wasn’t reading any smug satisfaction at having been proven right. He walked just ahead of me, jaw clenched.
When we reached my room, he waited outside as I took the last few steps into the tiny space. I expected him to slam the door in my face, but instead he stood there silently for a long moment, his hand on the doorframe, white-knuckled.
Finally, he said shortly, “I volunteered for that mission, you know.”
I nodded. Wesley had told me.
“Do you know why?”
“No,” I whispered. “Why?”
He sucked in a lungful of air through his nose, bracing. “Because I wanted to believe you. I wanted you to be right, even though most of me was sure you weren’t.” His voice was tight and strained. “You were the girl in the journal. You were supposed to—you were supposed to be our salvation.” I couldn’t speak, the force of his emotion and his disappointment cutting me like a blade.
He struggled with himself for a long moment and then said, quietly, “At least with Prometheus, we know who our enemy is.” He grasped the door handle, stepping back. “I don’t know what you are.”
CHAPTER 20
For hours, there was nothing. No word from Wesley or anyone else from the War Room, no food brought. I still hadn’t seen Oren or Olivia since coming back from the mission, and even Marco failed to return. I examined the lock as best I could by feel, with my second sight. It was solid iron, and for anyone else it’d be impossible to magic. I had no idea if they knew I could, but either way it made no difference. It’d take a lot more magic than what I had now for me to do anything at all to the iron lock.
Though I’d felt fine in my room just hours before, knowing it was now a prison cell made my skin itch, my mind shudder. I’d been locked up now more times than I could easily count, and I was tired of letting it happen. I wasn’t meek little Lark Ainsley anymore, the child who was content to wait for Kris to slip her a key in the Institute. Too much had happened since then for me to let them keep me here.
I ran my hands over the door. The lock might have been iron, but the rest of the door was some sort of copper alloy. The door—and more importantly, the hinges—were as susceptible to magic as anything else. If I wrenched the hinges free, the rest of the door would give way.
I could get out on my own, if I had to. If they decided I was too dangerous to have fighting alongside them, then I could fight my way through them.
I was resting my forehead against the door, exploring its structure with my mind and searching for invisible stress fractures in the metal, when something in the air beyond it shifted. The shadow in me recognized it before my thoughts did. The darkness was getting stronger. It recognized its own kind.
Oren.
The lock clanked open and the door swung inward. Oren looked as exhausted as I felt, but his head lifted a little as he saw me. He stepped inside and let the door thud closed after him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice rough. His eyes raked over me, taking in the bandage visible at the collar of my shirt. I must’ve looked pretty ragged, because his face tightened.
“For now.”
“You didn’t tell them about me.” It wasn’t a question, though his voice sounded uncertain.
I smiled a little, sinking down on the edge of my bed. “No point in us both being locked up.”
He leaned against the wall in front of me, stepping finally into the light so I could get a good look at him. There were a number of new bruises visible on his arm below his sleeve, and on his jaw—and a cut on his cheekbone where a blow had split the skin.
“What happened to you?” I breathed, my heart tightening.
He blinked, then lifted a hand to his face as though he’d forgotten about his injuries. “Oh. Olivia happened.”
Olivia did this? To Oren?
“I thought you said she couldn’t take you,” I said slowly.
“She’s—upset.” He glanced away from me, eyes flicking from the wall behind me to the door. “She and Nina are close.” There was something soft, painful, in his voice. Her pain was hurting him. Oren cared for her.
There was no end to the damage I’d done in that one, fleeting moment. A tiny part of me almost wished I’d just let the shadows overrun us all. I swallowed down the sick feeling in my stomach. “She’s taking it out on the wrong person.”
Oren shook his head. “She just needed an outlet. She met Nina when her brother was taken by Prometheus—Nina was the one who helped her through it.”
I remembered the quiet warmth in Nina’s touch, and understood. “I wish I could talk to her. Apologize, somehow. But I doubt they’d let me out of here.”
“That’s actually why I came,” Oren said, gaze finding mine again. I was struck anew with how much he’d changed since we’d been in Lethe. It was like the animal side of him had been . . . not tamed, exactly. Harnessed. He was still strength and confidence and sharp intelligence, but he was in control of himself. He didn’t jump anymore at sudden noises or tense whenever anyone new walked into the room.
Distracted, I almost missed what he said next.
“They’re going ahead with the mission.”
My breath caught and my hands curled around the edge of the mattress, my muscles suddenly going tense. “My mission?”
He nodded. “They asked me what I thought, since I’d be the one facing a death sentence if something goes wrong—for the Eagle’s murder. I told them it was a good plan.”
I listened in silence, caught between the way my heart swelled at Oren’s confidence and the way my own uncertainty flared, knowing that lives would be at stake because of me. Again.
“I think Wesley argued for it, too. And Dorian told them what you did for the Iron Wood. At any rate, they’re going to go through with it, but they’re all going to be armed with these.”
He pulled something small and round out of his pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it and felt an odd tug at the everpresent web of magic in the air. It looked like a crude iron sphere with no distinguishing characteristics. I glanced up at Oren dubiously.
“Parker rigged them up using the Eagles’ talons. You throw them at the ground, and if it’s enough of an impact, they go off like an explosion. But instead they banish all the inorganic magic within a certain radius.”
I recognized Parker’s turn of phrase and knew Oren was repeating him word for word. Another time, I would’ve smiled to hear him using words like inorganic and radius. Instead, I asked, “So what’s the point of them?”
“Parker’s theory is that you’re like a machine, and that the magic in you is like the magic in the machines. Stolen, not generated. The idea is that these won’t have any effect on a real Renewable. But they’ll knock out any machines in the area. And—”
I breathed out slowly. “And they’ll take me out, too.”
Oren nodded. “I’m supposed to be carrying that one. But I think you should have it, for tomorrow.”