A Lonely Magic (16 page)

She was never going to eat in this room again.

Fen stopped her restless movements and took a deep breath.

“How can I get clothes?” Her dress was disheveled, salt-stained, crumpled and smelly. She didn’t want to put it on. She could wash it in the tub, of course, but a wet dress was barely better than the sheet she was currently wearing.

“Nanomite-infused materials are inclined to stay in fixed states,” the library voice said. “The nanomites comprising a table, for example, may readily move into a different material structure while maintaining their shape, or as readily become a chair composed of the original material, but they are unlikely to easily accommodate to the flexibility of cloth. And non-nanomite-infused materials do not change, of course.”

“English,” Fen snapped.

“Try the sheet,” the voice said. “Probabilities suggest it was once a tablecloth brought into the room by Gaelith Del Mar.”

Fen pulled the sheet away from her and shook it out. Standing naked in the room, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

Clothes.

Clothes that will fit me.

Clothes that will fit in.

She opened her eyes. She was holding a tunic like the one Gaelith had worn, only in green with attractive green embroidery around the collar and sheer sleeves. A pair of soft trousers in a deeper green had dropped to the floor.

She exhaled.

And then she scrambled into the clothes as quickly as she could.

Her heart was racing as she scraped her hands through her wet hair.

What the hell did she think she was going to do?

Out, out, out
, was the answer her heartbeat gave her.

“Can they trace me through you?” she asked her voice.

“Trace you?”

“Know where I am. Find me because of our connection.”

“That should not be possible, no.”

Okay, one worry down.

Folding her hands in front of her, Fen stared at the wall that Gaelith had turned into a window. It had turned back into a wall while she slept. Had Gaelith transformed it back for privacy? Were there guards patrolling the park on the other side of the wall? But Fen couldn’t worry about that. Not yet.

“Window,” she said.

Obligingly, the wall transformed. Fen stepped closer and looked out. Under the twilight sky, an expanse of ground cover led to what looked like forest, with trees and shrubs lit by hanging globes of light. Beyond the trees, she thought she could make out a stone wall. No one seemed to be moving within her range of sight.

Fen licked her lips. She placed her hand on the window.
Door
, she thought. Under her fingers she felt the wall shift and shiver. But no door formed.

She closed her eyes. “Door,” she whispered. The shiver this time was more like a quake, the wall rocking under her fingertips, but when she opened her eyes, the wall was still a window.

Fen put her hands on her hips.

No way was she going to put up with that bullshit from a wall.

She pressed both hands against the wall, full-force, her entire weight such as it was, leaning into the wall, and demanded, “Door.”

The wall rippled. It melted, shaped, reshaped, melted again and reshaped again, but when it finally stopped moving, it was still a window.

Fen could almost see the nanomites quivering.

She stepped back and folded her arms across her chest, contemplating the window. She almost had it. She could see she almost had it.

She needed something else.

A little boost.

A little extra oomph.

Turning back to the bed, she scrambled in the pockets of her dress until she found her crystal.

Hand open, she looked at it.

It was just a rock. A blue rock.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked her librarian.

“It appears to be a smoothed piece of kyanite.”

“Kyanite?” Fen froze. She’d never heard that word before.

“A typically blue silicate mineral, commonly found in aluminium-rich metamorphic pegmatites or sedimentary rock.”

Fen breathed again.

Right.

Kaio’s name had nothing to do with her rock.

Of course not.

Kyanite.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Let’s see how this works.”

She closed her fingers around her crystal.

Door
, she thought as softly as she could.

Pop.

The wall was gone. A sliding glass door, already open, stood in its place.

“Apparently my previous response omitted relevant information,” the library voice murmured.

“Oh, yeah? What was that?” Fen slipped the crystal into the pocket of her pants and glanced over her shoulder, eyes scanning the room. Did she want anything? Her bikini, the dress, a jar of random nanomite-infused bath salts?

“In the hands of a crystal speaker, kyanite is an amplifier.”

“An amplifier?” Fen paused, questions flooding her mind. There was so much she wanted to ask. But any second, guards might appear. Curiosity would have to wait.

She stepped out through the door and put her hand on the glass, not touching her crystal.
Wall
, she breathed, imagining the surface as it had been when she first saw it. The wall leaped back into place.

Fen bit back a laugh. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was euphoria from her success, but she couldn’t help picturing the nanomites as a clutch of gossiping gremlins, saying, “OMG, that was insane,” and “Can you believe what she made us do?” and, “I know! Did you ever?!” and other expressions of nanomite shock.

Thank you
, she thought at the wall. It could have been her imagination, but it felt as if the wall gave a purr of pleasure under her hand.

What next?

Head for the exterior wall, of course.

But not at a run.

This place was no prison yard. Maybe her cell was part of a government building, like a holding cell at a courthouse, rather than a top-security facility. That being so, most of the people who might catch sight of her probably weren’t guards. If she looked as if she belonged, as if she were strolling through the park on her lunch break, the casual onlooker might think nothing of it.

Did elves take lunch breaks?

“An amplifier magnifies a signal,” the library voice said in her head as Fen forced herself to walk calmly toward the tree line. “Crystal speakers utilize silicate minerals to enhance their ability to manipulate nanomites.”

“So I’ve got a magic rock?” Fen muttered, hoping no one could see her talking to herself. Of course, if someone spotted her, she was screwed anyway. Unfamiliar place, unknown rules—this little jailbreak could end as quickly as it started with one observant glance from an upper-story window.

“The kyanite has no inherent magic. It is simply a tool. A loudspeaker, if you will.”

“Nice.” Fen acknowledged the information with a dip of her head. Walking at this pace was killing her. She felt as if a giant target were painted on her back, as if eyes like laser-beams were pinpointing her already.

And then her brain processed what her librarian was telling her and added in previous experiences. “Wait,” she whispered, feeling her feet start itching with the desire to run. “Other people can hear it, right? When I say something with the crystal?”

“Potentially, yes.”

Fuck.

Never Make It Easy

Fen’s feet stopped listening to her brain. She bolted, running for the trees as fast as she could.

The grass wasn’t grass, she realized, but a weedy flat ground cover. It wanted to tangle her bare feet, to capture her toes, but the sandy soil underneath it was soft and even, easy enough to run on. She was gasping by the time she reached the trees, lungs burning with exertion, but she caught herself on a tree trunk, stepping into its cover.

She looked back at the building. It extended in both directions for the length of a city block, but it didn’t look like any jail or government building she’d ever seen. The walls were colorful, patterned in warm shades of yellow and orange and umber, while the building itself curved, roof and edges and walls, all flowing like waves or plants, like a mini and more fluid version of the Aqua Tower on Columbus Drive. Upper-story balconies had intricate metal railings and flowering plants, reminding her of pictures of New Orleans or Spain.

It was weird as hell. But pretty for all that.

Fen stayed still, taking deep breaths and watching for signs of life. Had anyone seen her? Were they after her already? But when no guards in red tunics raced around the side of the building, she calmed.

It was spooky under the trees, shadowy and dark and still, but the glow of the hanging lights would make it impossible to hide. Anyone searching would find her in minutes.

The tattoo on her leg itched.

She resisted the desire to scratch.

She’d get to the wall… and then what? Look for a door. Or a way over. Maybe she could climb a tree and drop across to the other side.

And then what?

She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat growing so big and knotted that it threatened to break through the skin.

She was screwed.

Okay, so she’d gotten out of her cell.

She started walking again, sticking close to the trees and heading for the wall.

But what was she going to do now? Sure, maybe she could catch a glider but it couldn’t actually take her home. Maybe, if she got way lucky—lucky beyond reason—she could get back to the door that Luke had brought her through.

And then what?

If she managed to get out, she’d be in the middle of the damn ocean and she didn’t know how to swim.

She grabbed the thin trunk of a tree, pressing her fingers and palm on it so hard that the rough bark dug into her skin.

Cut it out
, she told herself ferociously. Rewind. Go back in time. Back to who you were.

This wasn’t real life anymore. This wasn’t her day-to-day—the bookstore with Theresa, the idea of college, the study of geometry. This wasn’t safety.

No, she was back on the streets. But this time she knew the rules. She knew how to play the game.

Live, one minute at a time. Avoid danger. Keep moving.

Find food. Find shelter. Keep moving.

Look for allies. Never trust them. Keep moving.

She could do this. She would do this. Letting go of the tree, she started to move, walking as softly as she could.

When the distant yipping and yelping started, it took Fen a second to identify the sound.

Dogs.

Shit, Atlantis had dogs?

She started to run again, weaving through the trees, crashing through bushes, and cursing the dim light and her lack of shoes.

Water, she needed to find water. She’d run upstream through flowing water and disguise her scent. Get out of the stream at a different spot, preferably on the same bank…

Fen stopped, leaned over, hands on her knees, and drew a deep gasping breath.

She didn’t know where she could find water.

And she couldn’t outrun dogs.

She backtracked a few steps, scuffing the ground, wondering what she could do to confuse them. Run in circles? Hide?

She might as well give up now.

But fuck that.

She wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

Glancing at the trees around her, she looked for one with decent branches. She’d never climbed a tree, not that she could remember, but she’d jumped for the rung of a fire escape ladder often enough when she was still living in squats. How much harder could it be? And if she climbed high enough, maybe she could leap between trees, like Rue in
The Hunger Games
.

The bark was rougher on her hands than the metal of a fire escape. At least it wasn’t cold. The climbing was easier than she’d expected, though, one branch leading to the next, like weird angled stepping stones. When she’d gotten as high as she could go, she looked down.

Ugh.

She closed her eyes and held the trunk tighter. She’d inch out along the branch she was on and reach for a branch of the nearest tree. If she could get far enough out on the branch, she could do it. But her fingers refused to let go of the trunk.

The back of her leg itched ferociously, the feeling spreading up along her thigh. Fen wanted to whimper or cry or scream, but she gritted her teeth and rested her head against the tree trunk. All she needed to do was let go.

She could hold the branch. Wiggle along it.

If she fell, the branches would break her fall. She’d get scraped, but not seriously hurt.

But the part of her that refused to let go of the trunk also refused to listen to her own advice. And the dogs were getting closer. She could hear rustling in the brush. If she moved now, they’d hear her.

Not that it mattered. They’d find her any minute anyway.

“This is stupid.” It was a discontented male voice, close enough that every word was clear.

“Hey, no complaints. Getting out of the guard house makes a nice change.”

Fen blinked in surprise. Those voices sounded modern. American. Normal. She risked a tentative glance down.

A grey wolf sat at the base of the tree, panting up at her, its jaw dropped in a doggie smile. When it saw her looking, it stood, putting its paws against the trunk and gave a single bark.