The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) Read online

  I see my sister’s face in most of my dreams, her long brown hair loose and tangled, so far from her usual neat chignon that it hurts my heart even in sleep. Last night she stood watching me from a white cliff so high above the beach I found myself on, the wind whipping her hair around her face. Impossibly, I could see the sadness in her eyes despite the precipice between us. The peculiar sharpness of dreams picked out the familiar green of her eyes, her high cheekbones, the olive tone of her skin.

  It hurts to remember.

  Bennet has become an indistinct shape in my mind, but in my sleep she’s as bright and lovely as she ever was. I miss my sister so much. I want her back.

  I have discovered a new family here in the future, in Honour and Dalmar and Priya and the Guardians, but it isn’t the same. It isn’t enough.

  I want to go back. I hadn’t realised until this moment of solitude but I desperately want to go back. As much as I love the people in my new life … it’s not enough to keep me here. If I find a way, I’m going home.

  “Branwell.”

  The whisper is almost drowned out by the rain but I hear it. Looking up, I don’t know who I expect to see. Honour, maybe. I‘m jolted at the sight of Horatia, tall and thin in sleek jeans and a navy blue pea coat. Wet black hair clings to her face, accentuating the apples of her cheeks, and water drips down her straight nose to splatter the ground at her feet.

  I stumble to my feet. “What is it? What has happened?” Horatia wouldn’t seek me out for anything short of an emergency. Despite the time we’ve spent in each other’s presence, I do not think she’d come to me for simple company. Something bad has happened. Fear is waking up a trembling in my hands.

  “Honour,” she says, and the ground has dropped beneath me. I have tripped into hell itself. I cover my mouth with the back of my hand, willing this sudden nausea to pass.

  “Where is he?” My voice emerges as something strangled. “Do you know where he is?”

  She nods, her dark eyes tracking the emotions on my face.

  “Take me to him.”

  Horatia and I scurry through corridors rich in ancient grandeur. High stone arches overhead are made bright silver by the churning sky outside, light blazing through tall, vaulted windows. At any other time, I might have stopped to admire the building, to trace the delicate lacework of engravings in the bricks, but there is only one thing on my mind in this moment.

  Honour.

  He’s in this old city hall somewhere, locked underground in a cell I can only imagine as rank, damp, and despicable. Adrenaline and fear force me faster but my body is incapable. I trip on an imperfection in the stone, a lance of pain shooting up my ankle. I let out a curse word I’ve not spoken before, heart pounding. I’m suddenly afraid this tiny delay will be the difference between finding Honour alive or dead.

  I can’t know what’s wrong, what’s happened to him—Horatia explained succinctly, before we pushed through the high double doors of the city hall, that she knew her brother was hurt and needed help, and that Dalmar threatened the Manchester council until he discovered Honour was being held in these cells. For what reason, nobody knows. And we don’t know how serious it is, whether he is only imprisoned or has but seconds left to live.

  Tears stinging my eyes, I pull myself back to my feet.

  Horatia touches my shoulder. “Okay?” she asks in that quiet way of speaking she has, as if she daren’t speak louder than a whisper or the demons of grief will return to drag her to darker depths.

  I give her a stiff nod. “I’ll be fine when we find him.”

  We set off running again, and I try to push my pace even more, my leather satchel slapping the backs of my legs with every movement. By the time we reach the end of the hallway where a group of Manchester strangers has collected, I’m out of breath. Pain spreads across my ribs.

  “You can’t go down there.” This comes from a balding man in camouflage trousers. He points the barrel of a gun at Horatia and me. “Nobody else is allowed down. Dagné’s orders.”

  My eyes burn a path of hatred. I remember this man, Dagné’s body guard, her main soldier. He drew my attention when we first arrived in Manchester. He reminds me of a bald eagle, sharp and predatory. Marc, that is his name. I stored it away in my mind because there is something so casual about his hold on a weapon that makes my stomach uneasy.

  While I’m thinking quickly, desperate for a way to persuade Marc to let us pass, Horatia darts forward like a viper. She takes the man completely off guard, dropping him with a quick series of moves—a kick to the ankle, an elbow to his stomach, a knee to his groin. She clutches my hand before the others can retaliate, using their surprise to get us away.

  She guides me into a dark alcove and down the stone steps hidden by it.

  “Where did you learn that?” I ask, stunned.

  Horatia turns her head, showing me her smile—bright and pained. “Marrin taught me.”

  We lapse into silence as I pick my way carefully down the concave steps. Eventually I ask her the question that followed me all the way across town. “Why did you come for me?”

  I trip on the edge of a step but catch my balance. I wish I had the Illuminum—one of my father’s creations—to light our way. The scent of damp keeps the darkness company, setting my every nerve on edge. This is no place for any person, alive or dead. Before the thought of Honour dead can fester, Horatia speaks.

  “You matter to my brother,” she says. “And I think he matters to you.”

  “He does,” I agree. “Very much.”

  The steps become even narrower the further we go. It physically pains me to slow my steps but if I fall and knock myself unconscious, I’ll be no good to anybody.

  The space at the bottom smells of rot and moss, vomit and something bitter I can’t place. I taste them all as I suck in a needy breath of air. It’s too dark to see more than a few feet in front of me, but I’m glad of it. I don’t want to see a single thing but Honour Frie, alive and safe. People are supposed to die in comfortable beds when they’re old and have twenty children. Not when they’re fifteen and full of so much unrealised potential, so much light and good and vitality.

  I won’t let him die down here. I can’t let him die down here.

  I can’t let Honour die at all. And that’s what hurts me the most—I have no hand in whether Honour dies or survives. I don’t even know what ails him. But I need him to live.

  “Here.” Horatia grasps my hand and leads me into pure darkness.

  “How can you see?” I ask, throat swollen.

  “I just can.”

  I’m guided down a short corridor, to a shallow cell with rusted bars and a flickering yellow light. Three guards—two scrawny young men no older than myself and an Asian woman in her twenties I’ve seen around this town—attempt to block our entrance. Horatia jabs her fist into the ribs of one boy and the jaw of another. The woman steps aside, her mouth shifting into the slightest smile.

  I don’t have time to be awed by Horatia’s efficiency because this sickly light gives me enough illumination to see Dalmar and Timofei inside the cell, crouched beside a black lump on the floor.

  I shove through the cell door and drop beside my friend, searching his face for signs of life. With trembling fingers I touch his side, biting down on a sob of relief at the feverish warmth, the sweat soaking his cotton shirt. If he’s warm, he’s alive.

  “Is he going to die?”

  “I think so.” Dalmar’s words are no more than a breath. I daren’t take my eyes off Honour but I know I’d find Dalmar grief stricken if I did.

  “What happened?” Fear surfaces as anger, my voice hard and sharp as flint. I don’t mean to snap. I don’t apologise either. “Who did this?”

  “Guards at the town edge,” Timofei seethes. “They swear they didn’t do anything but I don’t believe a word of it. I think they did something to—”

  He cuts himself off so abruptly that I tear my eyes from Honour. “Finish your sentence.”


  Timofei shares a look with Dalmar, anger tinged with regret. “I think they accidentally triggered the vaccine I gave him back in the base.”

  “But you said—you said there wouldn’t be warning signs. You said he’d just drop dead.”

  “And he did. He has minutes, Branwell, at most.”

  “God.”

  “There’s no God here,” Timofei mutters, but I don’t hear anything after that. Sounds merge into one cacophonous buzz, pierced only by the heavy echoes of my heart beating my grief and disbelief and unacceptance. Honour cannot die.

  He can’t.

  I need him.

  I need him. It’s with that realisation that I spring into action. I’ve lost my father, my sister, and—many years ago—my mother and brother. I refuse to let anyone else slip into the claws of death. If Honour is going to die and Timofei thinks it’s because of the vaccine, the disease in his system, I have absolutely nothing to lose.

  I tip the contents of my satchel onto the floor, wincing at the riotous clash of metal and glass and mirror on stone. I grip the Cure in white knuckles.

  “What are you doing?” Dalmar eyes the syringe-gun in my hand with suspicion.

  “The only thing I can think to do.” I plunge the needle into Honour’s arm, pulling the Cure’s trigger. I don’t have time to sterilize it but I’ll take my chances and Honour’s for him. An infection can’t hurt if he’s already dead.

  I watch Honour obsessively as I slowly release the trigger, the steel barrel becoming heavier as it removes the disease. Through a window of glass, I watch the Cure fill with a green-white substance that may or may not be responsible for killing Honour. He’s still breathing, barely, his breaths few and far between and horribly shallow when they come. His face is ashen, the skin around his eyes much darker than the rest of him.

  It’s too late. He’s already dead.

  I pull the Cure from Honour’s arm and slam my thumb on a brass button, discharging the virus into the corner, far from us. The times I’ve used the Cure before, it has only taken two full syringes to clean the blood. But will it be the same for Honour, this close to death? I just act, using the Cure to pull more of the disease from Honour and praying—begging—that it works. The green substance only fills half the syringe before it turns to blood, red and ordinary.

  I remove the needle.

  And I wait.

  Dalmar is watching me with a questioning gaze I don’t have answers for, and Timofei looks as if he’s connected the dots and worked out what I’ve done. What I think I’ve done. Horatia has come to stand behind me, her hand on my shoulder strong and steady.

  In the minutes we sit there, watching Honour’s unmoving form for signs of resuscitation, it’s Horatia who gives me strength. She keeps me sitting there instead of running out of this prison, through the heavy city hall doors, and fleeing this town entirely.

  A gasp escapes Honour.

  My voice is a strangled creature. “Honour? Please say you can hear me.”

  He coughs and I burst out crying. Horatia’s hand presses soothing circles into my shoulder, reminding me so painfully of Bennet.

  Through a wavering veil, I watch Timofei check Honour. He reels back a moment later. “He’s better,” he says. Seconds pass before he says to Dalmar, “I think we could move him now.”

  “We’ll take him to the Station.”

  I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands. “I’m coming with you.”

  Dalmar gives me a look, as if it’s ludicrous to think I’d be left behind. “Of course.”

  Timofei manoeuvres Honour into his arms. A voice says, “You can’t take him out. It’s against the rules.”

  I start, spinning around. Of course. The guards. I’d forgotten.

  Dalmar stands swiftly, the veins at his neck straining and his jaw set—warning signs the guard overlooks. Horatia grabs one of my makeshift weapons from the floor—a piece of glass attached to an old tool handle with tape and string. She stands ready beside Dalmar, her chin tipped up, expression daring. Dalmar, I notice, has drawn a rusted dagger. I join them, wielding the Cure still half-filled with the deadly toxin it sucked from Honour’s blood. The three of us must look exceptionally pitiful but the guard takes a step back, as if we are a hellish sight with our amateur weapons. It is our expressions, I think, the looks in our eyes.

  In this moment, with death a hair’s breadth away, we are fearsome and fearless. We have beaten death, so what are these feeble guards to us? Absolutely nothing is the clear answer, and they know it too. All three of them edge away, the two boys running back along the hallway. The woman scrutinises Honour with glassy eyes but doesn’t stop us as we push past.

  “Move,” Dalmar says. “They’ll bring others.”

  “So what?” There’s a crooked, savage grin playing about Horatia’s mouth. I’m inclined to agree with her. What in this world could possibly stop us now?

  I glance at Honour held in Timofei’s arms, still unconscious but with colour returning to his skin. I know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would do anything for him. I say, “Let them come,” and I mean it. I would face down Gods and demons to protect Honour. What are men compared to them? Men are nothing.

  ***

  Miya

  12:03. 23.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

  The dark haired soldier who was fixated on Honour when we first came in approaches me while I’m wandering the town. “Can I talk to you?” she asks.

  I watch her from the corner of my eye. “About what?”

  “Your friend.”

  She doesn’t offer anything else, motioning to one of the mangled benches that line the high street. I perch on the edge, putting distance between us. She just watches me. I watch her back, narrow my eyes at the golden bird tattooed on her face.

  “Why are you so interested in Honour?” I ask.

  She gazes at something down the road: two children chasing each other in a circle. “Not him. This is about—I don’t know what he calls himself.” With a fake smile she faces me and says, “The boy you travel with, the one you’re closely bonded to. I think he’s my brother.”

  The bench slams into the back of my knees as I shoot up. Yosiah? What the hell is she talking about? I bite down on the inside of my cheek until blood fills my mouth. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Would you just ask him?” She runs her hands over her hair. I don’t know why—it’s short and straight and not a hair out of place. “Ask him if he has a sister called Kari. Tell him I’m here.”

  I narrow my eyes, defensive. If this woman is Yosiah’s sister, so what? That changes nothing. I don’t know why everything in me is screaming that she’ll ruin my life, that he’ll stay with her instead of me. He wants to stay in Manchester, isn’t that what he said? If she is his sister, that gives him a major reason to stay. I suck in a tight breath and decide I’ve got no choice now. I have to stay in this town. No way am I losing Yosiah.

  “Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll ask.” I almost walk away but if she is his sister, I need to know. So does Siah. If this woman is a liar, I don’t want to get his hopes up. I know he misses his family—it’s clear in the way he watches me with Livy and Tom. I raise my eyes to Kari’s, unflinching. “What’s your brother’s name?”

  Kari’s gaze lingers on my face, trying to read me. A flash of irritation shows she found nothing. “Vian Yosiah Merchant.”

  So he has a sister? I shouldn’t be hurt he didn’t tell me. I never told him about my brother or sister. We keep our pasts hidden for a reason. It’s better if no one knows who we are—or at least it’s better that way for me. The Officials have done shit to me that I want to forget. If everyone knows my real name, maybe States’ll find out too, and then they’ll torture me again. I’m not risking that.

  I’ve been quiet for far too long. Kari has locked onto my emotion. God knows what she saw. I meet her gaze steadily, ignoring the way Yosiah’s amber eyes stare back at me. “What do you want?” I spit. “What do you want f
rom him?”

  She looks away, struggling with pain or anger. “I want my brother to know I’m here. I haven’t seen him in years. The last time I saw him—” She snaps her jaw shut. There are tears in her voice but none on her face. Clearly I’m not the only one who wears masks. “I’ve been looking for him for so long. I was told a group of kids had been smuggled out of the fence and he was among them. Clearly that was a lie. I thought he was dead. If he thinks the same about me, I want him to know I’m alive and I’m here if he wants to find me.”

  “Well.” I give her a stiff nod. How am I supposed to tell Siah the sister he never told me about is alive and demanding to see him? “Congrats, you found him.”

  I walk away from Kari and the way she looks at me like I’m something dangerous and disgusting she doesn’t want to get close to. She thinks I won’t tell Siah what she said. As if I’d keep something this big from him. I’m not that bad a person. Well—maybe I am but not to Siah. Yosiah is the exception to every one of my rules.

  13:18. 23.10.2040. The Free Lands, Manchester.

  I lower myself onto the mattress in the room I share with Yosiah and hand him a half-empty bottle of whiskey I swiped from the food hall.

  “No thanks,” he says automatically, barely even looking up from the book he’s reading.

  “Take it. You’re gonna need it.”

  In an instant he goes from relaxed to alert. “What is it?”

  “Do you have a sister?” I watch him for any sign of a lie. He tenses at the question, looking away, and I know he doesn’t want to talk about this. I know it’s true.

  “I used to,” he says.

  I take a gulp of the alcohol and tell him, “You still do. I met her today. She told me to ask if you had a sister called Kari.”

  Hope and disbelief make him look vulnerable, younger. “You …”

  “Yeah. She’s here with the Manchester people. She said she’d been looking for you.”