Lark Ascending by Meagan Spooner

Author:Meagan Spooner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Carolrhoda LAB

CHAPTER 17

I picked my way through the streets carefully. Though there was no one living here anymore, I occasionally stumbled across a patrol of pixies or Enforcers on their way to a more troubled—and more populated—part of the city. I was ready for them and could always duck inside a building or down an alley, but it meant I had to pay attention. I couldn’t let my thoughts wander, either to Oren and his arms around me and his pale eyes on mine, or to Kris and what might be happening to him at this moment inside the Institute’s marble halls.

I scanned the streets with second sight now and then, but so far I could sense nothing. Certainly not the concentration of magic that would tell of a closely guarded food warehouse, or even a stockpile of war machines, my secondary goal. I kept walking around the perimeter of the Institute, watching for a change in the currents of magic, anything to signify a greater-than-usual tangle of the Resource. I was nearly at the northern gate—I should have found something by now, according to Caesar’s intelligence.

I stopped when the northern gate came into view. There was nowhere to hide beyond this point, and I’d be easily visible from the gatehouse. I must have missed something.

I’d just turned back to begin retracing my steps when something flashed at the edges of my senses. I found myself turning blindly toward the east, searching for the source even though there was nothing to be seen except the expanse of granite wall surrounding the Institute. It had felt familiar, almost like…

Then came a blast of magic that knocked me to the ground, blinding me. The earth trembled, and a moment later the sound rushed after it. A physical explosion as well as a magical one. In an instant, I knew what it was. Eve. I could feel her magic in it, the too-bright, too-harsh glare of her hyperactive power. She was unstable, Kris had said.

I took off back the way I’d come. When I rounded the corner I could see smoke rising in the distance, an ugly blue-black plume that hit the Wall overhead and pooled there, spreading like oil on water. It was nowhere near the rebel base. It was right up against the eastern perimeter of the Institute. So close, in fact, that it might even look like an attack.

My heart stopped. Kris. They’ll think we’ve attacked them. And now they’ll have a hostage.

I broke into a sprint, heading for the gates of the Institute as fast as I could. I had to get there before they took the price of this attack out on Kris. He was so sure they were his family, that no matter what they’d accept him back. But I didn’t share his certainty. I knew Gloriette. I knew her heart, through my memories and Eve’s.

The gates were swinging open as I arrived. I half expected to see an army of Enforcers marching out to go investigate the explosion.

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