The Disappearance of Ember Crow (16 page)

I pushed at the door, which swung open onto utter darkness. Jules went in and suddenly there was light. He’d switched on three portable solar lamps, and the soft glow they cast showed a narrow folding bed, two chairs, and a small camp stove in the corner. The rest of the space was taken up with piles of things – clothes, jars of food, cups and plates, blankets, and an array of containers holding who knew what else. I collapsed into one of the chairs and motioned to the other. “Sit down and I’ll deal with that toxin.”

He shook his head. “You look worn out, Red. Maybe you should get some more sleep first.”

“We have to do this now. I don’t know how long the antidote Terence gave you will last.”

He sat, and I leaned over to take his hand in mine. The truth was, I probably
was
too tired to attempt this, but I wasn’t willing to leave Jules at risk for one second longer than I had to.

I called upon the nanomites that lived within my body. They responded, waking from an inert state into a buzzing swarm, eager for instructions. Signals bounced back and forth between us as I explained what they had to do. The mites chattered among themselves, deciding how many of them were required. Most returned to a dormant state, while the chosen few waited, quivering with impatience to begin their task. I sent them forth and they flowed into Jules, charging after the toxin.

“It’s done.” I let him go and sat back. It was becoming extraordinarily difficult to keep my eyes open.

Jules stood, grasping hold of my shoulders and peering into my face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I’d pushed myself beyond my limits and desperately needed sleep, but it had been worth it.
I saved you. I did
. “I do not yield you to Terence,” I whispered. “Not body nor soul.”

I had just enough energy left to smile before sleep carried me away.

Awareness returned by degrees, a slow and pleasant drift into wakefulness. I was lying on a bed, my head cushioned on a pillow. Jules was sitting opposite me, slouched in a chair. He was sleeping; I must have been out for a while.

I yawned and sat up. The bed creaked, the sound loud in the small space, and Jules jerked awake.

“Hi,” I said.

He leaped out of his chair. “Are you all right? What can I do? How can I help?”

I eyed him in bemusement. “I don’t need any help.”

“You’ve been asleep for five days!”

Five days? I’d underestimated how long it would take me to recover. “I must have needed more rest than I thought.”

“I couldn’t
wake
you, Red.” His voice was shaking. “I thought you were dead. Your version of dead, I mean. I thought – helping me, with the toxin – had somehow killed you.”

I couldn’t quite stifle a laugh. He glared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but there’s no way removing the toxin could have killed me. I simply needed to rest, and now I don’t.”

Except I did, a little, which was rather strange. I shouldn’t have woken until I was completely recharged. Then I felt it; a faint tugging at the periphery of my senses.

I was being warned.

My gut churned in fear. “Jules, remember how I told you that I can do things my brothers and sisters can’t? One of them is being able to tell when a member of my family is nearby. Someone’s coming this way.”

“Terence?
Where? How close is he?”

“I don’t know! Let me concentrate for a moment.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, perching on the edge and closing my eyes as I tuned in to the feeling. Whoever was approaching was on the road that led to the city, and still some distance away. It probably was Terence, but I had no way of determining that for certain.

I opened my eyes again. Jules was watching me, tense and poised for flight. “I don’t know who it is, but they’re half a day from here.”

He relaxed, dropping back into the chair. “We’ve got time to get out. I’ve got places we can go. Unless you have somewhere in mind?”

He didn’t understand. There was no reason why he should, of course, because I hadn’t explained yet. I reached into the neck of my shirt, drawing out the river stone that I’d carried all the way from the Firstwood. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“This is hardly the time for a chat, darling–”

“It’s important. Listen,
please.”
I held out the stone. “I can put memories into things, and I’m going to put some into this. They’re for Ash. I mean, Ashala Wolf, leader of–”

“I know who she is. You’re saying you want to go to the Firstwood?”

“No, I want you to. With the stone that has the memories in it. Because I’m going to Terence.”

He spluttered. “You are not!”

“I have to. Terence wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to find me if he didn’t want me for something particular, and I need to know what it is. I’m worried about what he’s planning.”

“So spy on him. From a
distance
.”

I sighed. “Jules, almost the first thing you said to me was that I was a ‘runaway, rebel, and Tribe member’. You knew I was with the Tribe, which means Terence knows, and don’t try to tell me he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, he said there was no way a group of kids could survive in a forest without help. So what?”

“So if I go back to the Firstwood, he’ll eventually come after me there. I won’t put my friends in danger.”
And by the way, it isn’t me who makes the Tribe possible. It’s Ash
. Only I didn’t tell him that. It was hard to explain how extraordinary Ash was to someone who hadn’t met her, and once they had met her, no explanation was required. “I’ve left Ash some clues – there’s a hidden room, and a poem in my lab. Tell her about them if she hasn’t found them yet. And tell her I put the poem in order, from the most trustworthy of us to the least. And–”

“There’s another way to do this,” he interrupted. “Leave the Tribe.”

“What?”

“Leave ’em! Terence’ll have no reason to go after your pals then.” He grinned his crooked grin. “Run away with me, Red.”

“I don’t have time for jokes, Jules!”

The smile faded. “Don’t think much of me, do you?”

He was serious?
He’s been sitting here for five days, thinking I was dead because I helped him
. He felt a sense of obligation. Except he was asking the impossible. “I can’t run. I can’t take the chance that Terence will hurt the Tribe to draw me out.”

He shook his head. “I thought you were a lot of things, but I never thought you were crazy. Going to Terence is
nuts
.”

Perhaps it was. That didn’t bother me. There were times when protecting the people you loved, the people you were responsible for, required doing something crazy. Ash understood that. All of the Tribe did.

Jules didn’t. He didn’t have a family. I tried to make him see it anyway. “You helped someone escape from Terence once, that woman who died of the poison. You wouldn’t have known where she ran to if you hadn’t helped her. When someone you care about needs help, you take a risk–”

“You think I cared about her?” He let out a bitter laugh. “I wanted to find out if it was possible to escape from Terence. It was an experiment. A test.” He leaned closer and added in a low voice, “You know who I am, Red? I’m the person that lives when everyone else dies. I’m the one that’s okay when everyone else isn’t. And if you were as smart as you like to think, you would be too.”

I have been that person. That’s how I know the gain isn’t worth the price
. “Jules, sometimes there’s not a lot of … of honour, in the things we do to survive. But survival isn’t life. It’s just existence.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Yes, you do
. Only I had no time to argue with him, not when I still had to put memories into the stone. I rose and held out my hands, pulling him to his feet. Then I stood on tiptoes, to brush a kiss against the stubble on his cheek.

“What I’m talking about is that you’re better than the person you have been,” I whispered. But to the nanomites in his body, I whispered something else:
sleep
.

He collapsed. I caught him as he fell, manoeuvering him onto the bed, and stood motionless, staring down at him. I needed to do things: leave instructions for Jules, and write a note for Ash. I couldn’t make myself move yet.

He seemed younger when he was asleep. I could almost glimpse the Jules of long ago, the boy he’d been before he’d met my brother. Or perhaps the person he would have become, if he hadn’t been born into a world that feared abilities.
I grieve for all the lost chances, and all the lost people
.

He couldn’t hear me. I still spoke as if he could. “I saved you from Terence. Now I’m going to send you to Ash, and she’ll save you from yourself.” I reached down to clasp his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin for the last time. “Goodbye, Jules. I will always remember.”

THE DEPARTURE

I waited at the side of the road that led into Fern City, standing beneath an oversized fan palm. It had a thin trunk that soared to a truly ridiculous height before bursting into long stalks, each one capped with a ruffled, circular leaf. Jules and I had passed the palm on the way in, and it was so large that he couldn’t fail to remember it. I’d left him a note in the hide-out, telling him that I would leave the stone here for him to collect.

The weapon was shoved in my pocket. I would have liked to have sent it to Ash, but Terence would turn the world upside down to find the thing. All I could send to her were my memories, and Jules.
I’m so sorry, Ash, for all the things I never said
. When I’d left the Firstwood I’d thought I might be able to go back and explain in person; I knew now it would be a very long time before I could go home. If I could ever go home.

A crow came flying through the air, landing in the palm above. I looked up, and he examined me out of a single gleaming eye. Then he fluffed out his feathers, and lifted his head to direct a challenging gaze at the world. I understood his message.
We are tough, we crows
. We were indeed. The saurs might be one of the first new species to be born after the Reckoning, but the crows had survived it.
I can cope with Terence. I can cope with anything
. I was a crow now, and Terence didn’t know it. My brother would remember me the way I had been before I’d gone to the Firstwood: fragile and sad.

I lifted my head, exactly as the crow had done, and stared down the road.
I’m not who I was
. I was no longer as susceptible to spiralling into despair, and I could defend myself, and others, if I had to. When Terence had last seen me I’d been incapable of violence, so much so that I couldn’t have shot the girl-minion regardless of what was at stake. I’d known for almost a year now that I’d changed. When Connor had arrived in the Firstwood and we’d thought he was a government agent come to destroy us, I’d been prepared to kill him if we had to. I’d realised then that there were no limits to what I’d do to protect my Tribe.

I lifted the cord off my neck and clasped the river stone in my hand. It would take me some time to give Ash the memories she needed and edit out the ones she didn’t. I concentrated on building a story, sending one memory after another into the rock as the hours ticked past. Finally I was done, except for the very last memory that Ash would need.

The memory of what would happen next.

For a while, nothing did. Then I heard an engine roaring. I stepped back into the greenery, hiding the hand that held the stone among the ferns springing up around the palm. Another few moments, and the car came into sight around a bend. I could tell the precise second the driver caught sight of me. Whoever it was slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt, twisting sideways in the middle of the road.

The door opened and someone came running out. Not Terence. A tall olive-skinned woman with almond-shaped black eyes, dressed in Cloud-City-white.
Delta
.

She tore towards me, long hair flying and arms outspread for a hug. I stiffened and stepped back.

Delta stopped, looking hurt. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

Typical Del. “I got shot with a weapon that
you
designed. No, I’m not glad to see you.”

“Terence said you wouldn’t come otherwise.”

“It doesn’t matter what he said! Since when do we kidnap each other?”

She shrugged and pouted. You’d never know, when she behaved this way, that my sister was a genius. Or perhaps you would; my father had been a genius too, and he’d certainly had his quirks.

“You were supposed to come to Cloud City,” she said, a petulant note in her voice. “What happened?”

Those minions had been taking me to Del
. Things were more complicated than I’d thought, if Terence and Delta were working together so closely. “You mean, why wasn’t I delivered to you in a box?”

Her eyes widened. “They put you in a box?”

“Yes, Del! I didn’t like it much. And I wasn’t as unconscious as they thought.” I chose my words with care, avoiding a direct untruth. “There was a crash. Two of Terence’s servants died. As for that Impersonator …”

I paused, gathering strength for the lie. We’d each been built with a fundamental inability to deceive each other, but I could override the prohibition, provided I was convinced it was necessary to preserve someone’s life. I imagined what Terence would do to Jules if he knew that he was alive and free of the toxin, and spoke with confidence. “I haven’t seen the mimic for days. I expect he’s gone scuttling back to Terence.”

Delta nodded, satisfied. I relaxed, and she said, “I need your help, Ember. With Dad.”

My heart beat faster. Delta couldn’t possibly have discovered the secret I was keeping about Dad. I was almost certain of it. “What kind of help?”

“I don’t think he’s coming back this time,” she said earnestly. “You understand that, don’t you? He’s been gone five years. He’s abandoned you, the same way he did the rest of us.”

I looked away, allowing her to think I was flinching from the truth when really I was hiding my relief. Delta still believed that my father was off on yet another one of his adventures.
Probably thinks he’s sitting on a mountain somewhere, studying some hitherto undiscovered species of plant
. He wasn’t.