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

  I straighten my orange tunic and knock quietly on a neatly disguised doorway. Even though I know it’s there, it is still mesmerising to watch the portion of red stone fold back and reveal a long, brightly lit corridor.

  A warm smile curving russet skin greets me, hands reaching out to enfold me into the building. The doorway slides back into place.

  “Did you find it?” asks Garima Dhawan. She’s eager, her black-rimmed eyes wide with excitement.

  “I said I would and I have,” I reply testily. I may be of a different time but I’m not incompetent. I’m tired of the people here assuming I’m helpless.

  “Show me it!”

  Rolling my eyes at her impatience, I remove the package from a hidden fold in my tunic and unwrap the embroidered fabric to reveal a sealed vial. The liquid inside glimmers gold and blue depending on how it catches the light. I hold it up for Garima to inspect and she claps her hands together, delighted, the light glinting off the painted gold tips of her nails and the abundant rings on her fingers.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you.” She tows me along the hallway. “I wasn’t sure what to expect from you because—because you’re from the past.”

  “And I am tired of that defining me,” I sigh. “I’m also a person. Why is it so impossible to overlook my origin and appreciate who I am?”

  Garima raises a thick eyebrow at me, her endless, dark eyes twinkling with amusement. “At least I don’t gawp at you.”

  “I’m grateful for that.” I smile at my newfound friend and she smiles back wickedly. She huffs a tell-tale laugh before darting away, her feet pounding against white tiles as she runs away from me. I release an unladylike word Garima taught me and chase after her. She swiped the vial right out of my hands.

  I go straight to Vast’s study, knowing Garima will have taken the vial to the Guardians’ leader. As I suspected, Garima is leaning against Vast’s desk, panting as she watches Vast hold the liquid up to the light. In the blue hue of the office his ink-black hair is highlighted the exact shade of the sky over Brighton beach, and the vial shines silver-green and red. How could this thing have changed colour? It was gold a second ago, out in the daylight. I think I’m imagining it at first but Vast changes the colour of the lights above us and the liquid transforms with them, not simply tinted the colour of each bulb but altering entirely. Under yellow light it becomes pink and lilac, under green it is orange.

  I take an involuntary step closer. “What is it?”

  Vast looks at me with all the patience of an eighty year old gentleman, despite being no more than forty, so very young for his position. The bird tattooed on his neck, white ink on mahogany skin, shines like a star in this dimness. “A miracle,” he says in English and offers no further explanation.

  “I was the person to retrieve it. I carried it all the way across the city, from the fringes to this building. You told me the task was dangerous, that to be caught in possession of it would be fatal, but I did it anyway. Don’t you think I deserve to know what it is?”

  His mouth quirks up at the corners, gaze sweeping the room as his attention drifts away. By the time his eyes have returned to me, I see a decision. “Okay,” he concedes, “but you must not tell one person.”

  “I won’t.” I close the door to his study and lean against it, my palms flat against the engraved wood.

  “It is the beginnings of redemption.” Wonderful. Yet more vague answers. “The basis of a cure.”

  “A cure?”

  My focus is drawn to Garima, who is positively beaming, her fingers bunching up the fabric of her sari and her bare toes wiggling on the waxed floor. “Tell her,” she urges the old man.

  “This is a cure for the diseases that run rampant in our City and in the rest of the world. You have brought us hope in a test tube. Salvation in its rawest form. The Miracle.”

  Despite the hope in his voice, the words fill me with something unfamiliar—expectance, apprehension, and the inevitability of doom.

  When it’s clear Vast is finished with us, Garima squeezes my shoulder and leads me away. The corridor to my room is as cold as my mood, frosty air pumped through holes in the ceiling, but Garima doesn’t seem to mind the chill. She dances from one side of the hallway to the other, spinning every few metres, the embroidered white fabric of her skirt belling around her. She fills the bland hallways with bursts of vibrancy, her laughter a much needed cure for the quiet.

  I wish I could find it within me to match her happiness with my own.

  ***

  Yosiah

  21:47. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands.

  For some reason when I imagined sailing past the coastlines of the island, I thought there’d be lights. I saw the towns as lit up, their buildings like embers. I made the stupid mistake of assuming there’d be signs of life, when of course there aren’t because everyone is dead. That death is painfully obvious in the dark swathe of land. I can only see it as a blacker slash against the horizon than the sky and the sea. If it was lit up I might be able to see better but I’m having to use the light of the moon and the distant stars to read by.

  The book is equal parts fascinating and horrifying. Fascinating because it’s about the past, the history of ‘Great Britain’, and horrifying because it is evidence of what we’ve been robbed of. I can’t imagine what would it have been like when they had these things—governments and elections and choices. When the people could decide who was in charge of the country.

  Country.

  That’s a word that is taking a lot of getting used to. I’ve heard it before, when I lived in a barrack and followed orders, saving lives on a battlefield we made for ourselves. But I never knew what it meant. None of us did. All we knew was this was an island, States and Bharat were the Cities, and Forgotten London was a town. But even that’s a lie. They’ve twisted everything.

  I rub at a point of pain in my temple.

  It’d be a lot easier if I could just let things lie, if I didn’t have to know the truth. But I’ve never been like that. I never could just go along with something without knowing the details and now that I have access to information about Great Britain and the rest of the world, I want to know it all. I’ve been reading ever since I got on this boat and found the Guardians’ storage. They don’t know I’ve been taking their books but they have other things to worry about.

  The paperback in my hands is about India, the country Bharat used to be before everything went bad. I wonder how much of this has changed. Do Bharatians still dress the same? Eat the same foods? Are the cities mentioned in this book still standing or have they fallen apart? There’s too much I don’t know, too much an ancient book can’t tell me—but I’ll be able to see it for myself. Bharat is our eventual destination. Soon I’ll be able to answer my own questions.

  It’s exciting and daunting at the same time.

  A hand closes around my shoulder; I let it stay there. I caught Tim’s scent on the wind a couple of minutes ago, a spike of citrus. He’s been stood watching me for minutes. Thinking of what to say, I’d guess. I turn to him with a guarded expression.

  “You alright?” I won’t ask him outright how he’s dealing but he can talk to me if he wants. I think I’ve finally moved past my resentment of what he did to me, of what he made me think. I’d do the same to protect my family if I had any left.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. That’s not true. I have Miya, and her family will become my family in time. Her sister is still suspicious of me, watching me from the corner of her eye every few minutes, but she’s started asking me questions about Miya and the years we’ve been friends. And Thomas is a gentle, trusting child. He never held any wariness about me. But it’s not the same, not really, and I miss my sister.

  Timofei sinks against the railing beside me, his arms hanging over the sea below, his dark head dipped. “It’s a lot of pressure,” he says, “to get everyone to Bharat—especially when our communication is so sketchy. But I’m alright. I’m coping.”

  �
��Sure?” I look for signs that he’s lying but his face doesn’t twitch. He nods, looking my way for a second before his attention returns to the water.

  “I missed you,” he says without warning. “When I was at the base and you didn’t know I was alive. I missed you.”

  “I know.”

  Before I realise what he’s doing, his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on mine, soft and scorching. Tremulous. My heart is gripped by a sudden pain. I wanted this. I really—God, I needed this years ago. But now?

  I stumble away from him, my heart pounding hard against my rib cage. “I can’t,” I force out. My throat feels swollen, thick with tears that I blink back.

  “I know.” His reply is quiet, disappointed, but not surprised. “I just needed to try.”

  Even though it makes no sense, even though I have nothing to feel sorry for, I apologise. Twice. Timofei clasps the back of my head and brings me close, my face to his shoulder. He’s taller than me now, I realise. We used to be the same height. I draw in a breath and steady myself. He still smells the same—deep and sharp and bitter.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says into my hair. “I mean it. Don’t worry. It’s okay.”

  He releases me, gives me a look I can’t decipher, and then he’s walking down the deck and away from me.

  I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel.

  I let myself cry.

  ***

  Honour

  15:23. 14.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands.

  The boat staggers into the harbour. The sea elbows us one way, then another. Rain batters the ship, a hundred fists pounding the wall. Most people are out on deck watching as we attempt to come into this northern town but if I go outside I know without a doubt I’ll be sick. At least in our cabin, curled into a ball under the beige cover, I can convince myself the floor isn’t moving. I am home, in our small room in Forgotten London, with my sister beside me. At least one of those things is true. Tia’s hand is small and cool in mine, her long hair brushing my shoulder as she leans over me, worrying.

  The boat jumps suddenly, lurching forward what feels like a full mile. My head slams back onto the pillow. My sister is thrown into the wall. “Tia?” I scrape myself up, crawling to her. I clamp my mouth shut on an unwanted bout of sickness, willing my stomach to settle.

  Horatia touches her head gingerly and then shows me her fingers. No blood. I let a breath I didn’t know I was holding hiss through my nose.

  When I’m sure I won’t throw up, I ask, “Do you feel dizzy? Is everything blurry?”

  She shakes her head twice.

  “Okay.” I rest my forehead on hers, fever hot against soothing cool. “That’s good.”

  The rising sound of shouting voices sifts under the cabin door. I pick out Alba’s, loud and sharp and commanding, but I can’t hear any distinct words.

  “We must have crashed,” I say, getting to my feet. I hold out a hand to help Tia up; she surprises me by taking it. “Let’s see how bad it is.”

  The deck is crawling with people, most moving aimlessly. Alba and other Guardian leaders—who I’ve finally begun to recognise—are weaving among them, calling out instructions, shouting for action or calm or something else I can’t hear over the buzz of apprehension.

  The front of the boat has crumpled. We’ve sailed right into a stone wall that looks as ancient as it is clearly indestructible, and it has wrecked us. We’re probably sinking right now. It’s probably a good thing we’re walking from now on.

  “Everyone okay?” Dalmar edges his way down the path, toward us.

  “Fine,” I say. “Just a bit banged up.”

  He looks me over, then Tia. He takes her chin in his pale hand, turning her head to inspect a cut. “Just a scrape,” he says to himself, then to us: “Okay. Get your things. The walkway’s already been put down and you should be able to get off soon. Honour, how’s your sickness?”

  “Bearable.”

  “Good.” He pats Tia’s face, claps my shoulder, and weaves his way back into the crowd. The crush of Guardians swallows any sight of him.

  I look around for anyone I recognise but everyone is a stranger. Tia’s fingers curl around my hand; she squeezes it just slightly, enough to tell me something I fail to understand. She smiles, patient, and guides me around white leather jackets, sharp elbows, and overstuffed backpacks until we reach her destination. Branwell. The tight hand around my heart releases me. Finally, someone I know.

  “Oh my God, Boy Wonder.” Marie Fitzgerald is as bright, pale, and unnatural as the last time I saw her, when she came to my room to deliver the news that I was a time bomb made by the President. The sarcasm is new, though. “What did we do to deserve this honour?” She elbows Priya, her permanent companion, with a grin. “Honour—get it? ‘Cause his name is Honour.”

  “Very funny, M.”

  Bran separates himself from them, stepping forward with a tired smile. His copper hair is messy and wavy as always, but his skin is a shade closer to white. “You don’t look so well,” he says, echoing my own concerns about him.

  I shrug. “I’ve not been sick yet, so I think I’m doing pretty good.”

  “Small victories,” he says. “And how are you, Horatia? Holding up?”

  Tia nods, one corner of her mouth lifting up in a smile. Does she like Bran? I’ve never asked her. It’s suddenly important that she does.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Bran steals my attention back with the tone of his voice. It’s soft and warm and familiar, the way he talks to me. I realise I’ve never heard him speak this way to anyone else. “Personally, I can’t wait to be rid of this ship. I’ve never missed solid ground so much in my life.” He laughs a little, breathy and … uncertain? Tia makes him nervous?

  I guess I can understand why, from his point of view. He’s only ever known two sides of my sister—the fierce warrior of Forgotten London and the silent widow of the free lands. Neither version of my sister makes you feel at ease, but at least I know what she used to be like, that she’s caring and selfless to a fault and would walk half a mile just to find you the perfect gift. It helps me bear this Horatia’s silent, unflinching stare. But Bran doesn’t have anything to help him bear it, and I can see he’s wilting.

  I scramble for something to say, but I can’t remember what he last said. I got so caught up in his nerves that they’ve become my own. I ask the most useless, basic question just for something to say. “Are you okay, Bran?” I add, “Is it the sea?”

  “Yes.” I notice the little lines of tension around his eyes and mouth soften as he meets my eyes. “Yes, it’s the sea. I can’t stand it.”

  Tia catches our attention by raising her arm, pointing. People are leaving the boat, the crowd of Guardians lessening as the thick of them leave.

  “Oh thank heavens,” Bran breathes. He turns without a second thought and heads for the exit.

  I tuck my sister’s elbow into mine. We share a relieved glance as we follow Branwell down the emptying deck to the pier.

  Even when I’m on steady ground, I’m still swaying like the boat. I sink onto the asphalt road and put my head between my knees.

  “Here.” Soft hands touch my forehead, pushing back my short, matted hair. I only know it’s Hele because she speaks and Tia doesn’t. She puts a bottle of water in my hand and I begin to gulp it down before she tells me to sip it instead.

  Hele sinks to the ground at my side, her hair a messy knot on top of her head. It must be raining because the pale orange strands are darker, the colour of rust. I wait for her to speak but she just waits. Waits for me to come around. Not pushing or encouraging, just sitting with me.

  As The Guardians unload all of their stuff from the boat, I slowly regain the feeling of being myself. I lean back on my elbows, letting the midday sun warm my face as the rainclouds begin to dry up.

  “I’m never going on one of those things again,” I say and Hele laughs, brushing raindrops from her freckled cheeks.

  �
�Let’s hope you never have to.”

  “We’re just walking from now on, right?” I look at her from the corner of my eye.

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s Dal say?”

  “He says we might be able to borrow an aircraft.”

  “From who? Officials? No one has aircrafts.”

  “Yes.” She chuckles at my expression of disbelief. “From Officials.”

  “And by borrow …”

  “We mean steal.”

  “Right.” I shake my head, closing my eyes to feel the sun on my eyelids. The heat is perfect and I never want it to leave, so of course it fades. The rain returns, jealous of the attention. I guess you can get showers of sun as well as rain. After a while I say, “You realise that’s crazy, right? Stealing an aircraft? And impossible.”

  “For us, maybe. But the Manchester council has made promises.”

  I peel my eyes open, sitting up. “Promises to steal us an aircraft?”

  “Promises I’m not allowed to share.” She presses her palm to my cheek and then climbs to her feet. “I’ve already told you too much.”

  “Why did you?” I push myself off the tarmac, my knees creaking when I stand.

  “Dalmar asked me to.” Hele’s whole face becomes softer when she says his name. I wonder what that’s like, not for the first time. Having someone. Loving someone.

  “Wait,” I say, catching up. “He asked you to?”

  “Yes.” Her purple dress brushes the wet floor as she starts walking, the bottom of it trailing through a puddle; Hele doesn’t care. “He knows you hate surprises, that you’d rather be prepared. He wanted to tell you himself, as soon as he found out, but the Guardian council is so busy with preparations and arrangements that he’s been sucked away. He’s been so busy.”