Curio (8 page)

“If you think I'm going to let you take my daughter the way you took my son—”

Granddad's voice filled Grey's head.
Run to the shop, Grey. Haimon will help you.

She schooled her face to hide her shock.
What are you talking about?
She tried to direct the question to Granddad but until this moment telepathy had been a Chemist tool, possible only through blood magic. She could no more speak with her mind than she could fly.

Across the small room Father glared into Adante's eyes. The Chemist stood motionless, his hands positioned as if holding an invisible ball in front of his torso.

Run.
Granddad's voice swept her thoughts at the same moment he stepped in front of her.

Adante whirled and a microburst exploded in the living room. Electrified air whooshed by on either side of Granddad's body. Grey shrank inward to avoid the streams of magic. Her grandfather's broad back stiffened. The ruddy skin of his neck paled and turned gray as stone.

Mother screamed.

Now, Grey.
Granddad's voice thundered in her mind.

Grey dashed to the mudroom and wrenched the door open, forcing herself not to look back.

She hurtled into the night, rounding the back of the house and vaulting the fence. Shouts sounded from the open front door. A chug boat loomed at the end of the walkway, a mechanical creature ready to spring into pursuit.

Grey shot past the floating craft. Hot, green exhaust from the turbines swished around her ankles. A deputy hollered, but she ran. She'd reached the street connecting her
neighborhood to Pewter Hill when something snagged her right arm. A force tugged her backward, and she pumped her legs harder. Another yank, this one to her shoulder, nearly pulled her to the ground. Grey staggered then regained her pace. At the top of Pewter, she glanced back.

The hulking craft plunged toward her on a seething fog of green. A spotlight illuminated the knife-thin figure of Adante rising from the front of the ship like a mast. His hair blew about his face, and his hands curled before him. A white-hot force like a ball of lightning barreled into Grey's chest, squeezing out air and knocking her backward. The energy ball skimmed over her face, leaving behind sparks of green that snapped against her hair and clothes.

She gulped a breath and rolled toward the curb on her right. The gravel reopened the scrapes on her hands, and the gash on her leg throbbed. But the alley connecting Pewter to Reinbar was only a few feet from where she'd fallen.

The whirring of the ship's engines filled her ears. Hot air whipped her hair. She dragged herself to her feet and ran for the alley, shouts following. Bricks buckled from the building on her right as a ball of energy missed her and slammed into the wall. A backward glance revealed the black vessel rocketing past the mouth of the alley. It'd take them mere seconds to turn around and follow. Or they might loop around and cut her off at Reinbar.

She sprinted into the darkness of the alley. The thrum of the engines faded. Then grew louder.

It didn't matter. All she could do was run.

CHAPTER

6

G
rey's lungs burned. She searched for the Council craft as she ran, even as the drone of the engine filled her ears and jarred her teeth.

The spotlight caught her just before she reached Reinbar. The ship swooped over the row of shops and bore down on top of her.

Grey flung her arms over her head as the vessel's underbelly neared. Noxious exhaust choked her. Any second they'd crush her. She ducked and caught sight of a flat object just beyond the beam of the light—a ration pallet. Yesterday evening's incident here in this alley replayed in rapid detail.

Grey lunged for the pallet. Thick, green vapor clouded her vision, and the pressure beneath the craft nearly pasted her to the ground, yet she reached until her fingers closed around one of the pallet's slats. She hoisted it off the ground and heaved it up and back. A loud crunch broke the whirring pattern of the engines and shards of wood rained down on Grey, grazing her skin. She dove for the darkness outside of the shuddering ring of the spotlight.

Shouts mingled with the sputtering engines.

Grey pulled her body back into motion. She shot out of the alley onto Reinbar and careened toward the opposite sidewalk. After a near fall, she sprinted the length of
the street. Colfax beckoned, quiet and empty. Behind her a booming thud filled the night. She'd brought down the craft. Yells and curses followed her as she rounded the corner onto Colfax.

Frigid February air walloped her full in the face, stinging exposed skin and penetrating all the way to her bones. She'd never make it. They'd run her down before she got to the store.

How could Haimon help her anyway?

Something flickered in the shop window ahead, making Grey squint into the darkness. The storefront next to Granddad's shimmered green. She slowed her pace, but it was too late. A form materialized on the sidewalk in a column of red and green smoke. She barreled into it, tangling with limbs not her own. With a crack she flew backward over the sidewalk and into a lamppost. The imprint of energy burned her chest.

Adante stepped out of the vapor. An empty potion bottle rolled away from his feet and into the gutter. Scraps of material from one shredded sleeve dangled about his arm, and his hair now clung to his face in matted clumps. He raised his hands in an attack stance, and she braced for the impact.

“That's enough running for tonight, don't you think?” The Chemist's voice sounded breathless despite his casual words.

Grey scrambled up, her back still pressed into the lamppost. The cold surface wouldn't give. In fact, the metal seemed to join with her spine and spread throughout her body. She gulped for breath as the hardening sensation crept beneath her skin.

“Your father will be executed for ration dealing. Your grandfather is now a permanent statue in your home, and you . . . you are ripe for an exsanguinator, Grey Haward.
Such Chemia I'll achieve with your blood.” He vibrated with anticipation.

The strength in Grey's veins receded and she fought to control her voice. “I broke the law. It was my ration. Not my father's.”

Adante's jade-tinted features darkened in the mix of light and shadow from the streetlamp. “I believe you.” He inched closer, hands still curled in front of his narrow midsection.

Grey sidestepped the lamppost, but the ring of distant footsteps drew her up.

“But what can I do?” His voice almost soothed. “Your father has confessed.”

Behind the Chemist a steel-colored head emerged from the Hawards' shop. Grey shouted to cover Haimon's approach. “Of course he confessed. To save me.”

Adante stiffened and flexed his fingers. “Then Steinar is guilty of lying to authorities, a crime punishable—”

“
Not
by death.” Desperation cracked Grey's voice. She swallowed the rising panic.

Adante's shoulders whipped back and his nostrils flared. His fingers angled outward, toward her, and electricity zinged in the air. “Don't tell me the law, child.”

Grey refused to close her eyes. She stared at the Chemist, waiting for the blast.

But his tall frame went rigid. He toppled backward, landing like a plank of wood on the sidewalk in front of Haward's Mercantile.

Haimon stood with his glinting, metallic eyes fixed on Grey. He pocketed some sort of device that resembled a deputy's clotter. “Come. He won't be out for long.”

Grey stepped over the Chemist's immobile form and ducked through the shop door Haimon held open. “How did you know?”

“Olan had me wait.” Haimon hurried deeper into the store with Grey following. He stepped behind the line of display cases at the back of the room and stopped next to the unused curio cabinet. “Your grandfather believes you're special, Grey.”

He stared down at the cabinet's murky surface then held his hand palm up toward her. “Give me your hand.”

Grey shook off a shiver and glanced to the front door. What did it matter now if Haimon touched her? She placed her hand in his. The gaunt man flipped it over in his own scarred hand and studied her palm. He let out a sigh.

“Ah, there's a relief. Blood.” He held her hand up for her to inspect.

Drops welled in the open scratches. She met Haimon's eyes.

He offered an apologetic smile. “I didn't want to have to cut you.”

Haimon jerked her forward. Caught off guard, Grey stumbled against the cabinet. He pressed the heel of her hand onto the keyhole of the curio case. “Blood is the way in and the key to get out. Fist, hand, and cup. Remember.”

“What?” The cool metal grew warm and slick, and a tug registered deep in her hand as if the lock sucked on her skin.

She struggled to focus on Haimon's face. What had he said to her? A door swished open somewhere nearby and yet far away. His face whipped away from hers, blurring into the shadows of the shop.

The pull of the curio case traveled up her arm. Was her blood draining or did the emptying sensation swirling through her have something to do with the Chemist attack she'd faced?

Haimon drew near, his expression distorted as though she looked at him through a peephole. His beady eyes jumped into hers. “Find him and bring him back.”

What?

“Find him and bring him back, Grey.”

Haimon disappeared. Grey lost all contact with her body for a moment. Sensation returned like the current of a rushing river. She tumbled down, her bones and skin lost amongst the fluid force. The pressure built in her ears and pushed at the back of her eyeballs. Rose-colored fog filled her vision.

Then, nothing.

A shape plummeted through the fog hanging over Curio City. Blaise jerked midflight, dipping into a lower airstream before regaining altitude. He shook his head and scanned the mist-shrouded horizon. He hadn't really just seen something fall out of the sky, had he?

He disengaged the fins on his boots and let his legs drop beneath him so that he hovered above the roofs of Blue Willow Heights. Pushing his goggles up to his forehead, he inspected the gables and steep pitches. Nothing unusual. No cries of alarm rang out. The quiet neighborhood in the fashionable part of town was all dark windows and orange streetlights. A few carriages bumped along the bordering streets—porcies returning from the evening's entertainment.

Blaise ascended a few feet, an eye on the approaching vehicles. Humid air coated his skin despite the constant whoosh of the canvas wings. The fog clouded his eyes, and he dragged his shirtsleeve over his face, blinking hard to clear his vision. Still nothing out of the ordinary.

He pulled the bellow cord at his side and the pack on his back hummed with building steam. The wings beat harder, and he engaged the steering fins on his boots. Angling back into a horizontal position, he readied himself for flight.

The hair on his arms and the back of his neck rose. A twang of excitement passed through his core. He paused before turning in the direction of Sir Hinderoot's home. He
had
seen an object fall into Curio. Certainty built with every second. Nothing had fallen out of the strange, fog-laden sky over Curio for one hundred years. Not since
he'd
tumbled, bleeding and terrified, into a world where one home replicated into twenty or thirty, streets and gardens sprang into existence, and people—the strangest people—went from motionless figures to walking, talking beings.

Sir Hinderoot's tune-up would have to wait. Anticipation coiled in Blaise's gut, and a tug drew him toward the falling object's trajectory. He fitted his goggles over his eyes and took off in the direction of the newest curiosity in Curio City.