“I do not believe that,” I say.
Elena plants both hands on my thighs, pushing me back. Her clockwork voice echoes sharply in the empty alley, under the thrum of rain.
“I am not your master. I am not your sister. I’m not anything to you.”
I blink, stumbling back. It should destroy me, what she has said. But I only feel pinpricks of rain on my skin. Each needle bite is building into a crescendo of realization.
I will always be alone. I was always alone.
Could the feelings I have for Elena be an illusion? Do they exist in a false world, constructed by a blank, newborn mind? Have I made meaning out of coincidence?
We are nothing to each other.
Elena slowly draws a stiletto.
“Take the anima and go,” she says, threatening.
“Elena—”
Without hesitation, she steps forward and slides the blade into my chest. I catch her slight body in both my hands and lift her and hug her to me. My chest shudders at the bite of steel, but I am breathing in the scent of her hair and perfume, squeezing my eyes closed. For this one second I can pretend things are simple again. Perfect and safe, like when we were in Favorini’s lab, before Elena studied the world, before she— Twisting out of my grasp, she drives the blade deeper. The steel separates my ribs and punctures the bellow of my lungs, my breath dying in my throat. Elena steps back and watches me as I crumple to my knees on rough cobblestones.
Elena grabs the cloth of my jacket and pulls me close to her.
“Go,” she says, her lips an inch from my ear. “Leave me to my studies. Protect the anima of your old master and serve your Word.”
I am mute, the world spinning away from me, and Elena along with it.
“Do your duty.”
In a haze of water and pain, knees soaking wet, shoulders hunched, I wrap my arms tight around my own punctured torso. My voice is stalled, diaphragm contracting as my final breath escapes. The silken bundle lies on the road before me.
“If you return,” says Elena, pulling her hood over her face, “I will kill you.”
The harsh words are spoken in a child’s musical voice. Where once her face seemed impish, now her features are hard and unforgiving. Her soft cheeks are beaded with rain like tears, but her eyes are blank.
It is a mask and I do not truly know the person who hides beneath it.
Perhaps I never did.
With shaking hands I pick up the anima and cradle it to my chest, letting the silk handkerchief fall away. Some mechanism fails inside me and I pitch forward onto my elbows, forehead pressing against cold stone. Now that I am not breathing, the world has become quiet and the steady drumming of rain grown to havoc in my ears.
When I lift my eyes, Elena is walking away.
For an instant, she is a little girl again. Hopping between puddles, her face is lost under the black velvet riding cloak. Her buckled shoes click over cobblestones that dance and shine under the lamplight and stars and falling rain.
I try to call her name, but nothing comes out.
45
LONDON, PRESENT
The teenager stands, defiant, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail and her skin smooth and youthful. A light brush of lipstick covers her lips, features chiseled and sharp, eyes wide and dark and intelligent. She is breathing hard, angry, or maybe afraid.
Hard to believe she isn’t a person.
“Why are you here?” she asks. “I told you never to come back.”
Peter stands silently, watching the girl, face soft, his eyes drinking in her presence. The headmistress is forgotten, leaning against the wall a few feet away. Her Taser lies in the grass. The students have all moved on, ushered away by their teachers, leaving the quad empty, wet blades of grass rustling under a chilly afternoon breeze.
“I honored your wish for two and a half centuries,” says Peter. “Even when I was sure I would die without you. But the end is coming, Elena.”
“It’s been coming for a long time,” she says.
Elena nods at the headmistress. The woman stumbles away across the quad, not looking back. Around the perimeter, I see men in dark suits gathering. Elena slides her gaze across me, eyes lingering on the clutch purse tucked under my arm.
“You found your old master again,” says Elena, talking to Peter. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“Why not?” I ask, stepping forward. “I read your letters to Batuo. You’ve studied Huangdi. You know he can save the avtomat, and I think you know where he is.”
Elena throws a look of disbelief at Peter.
“What happened to protecting the secret?” she asks him.
“Desperate times,” I interrupt. I’ve had enough of being ignored as a mere human. “Tell us where Huangdi’s vessel is located, and we’ll go.”
The girl finally decides to speak to me.
“Do you know what hunts you?” she asks.
“I know her name,” I say. “I know I killed her general. And I know she’s afraid of an avtomat called Huangdi.”
Elena steps closer to me as she speaks, menacing.
“Leizu isn’t like me or Peter or even Talus. The Mother of Worms isn’t good or evil or anything so simple as that. Her anima is a force of nature, like a tidal wave or a flood. She carries a Word of chaos, dusk, autumnal decay. Per ignum, renatus mundi est. Through fire, the world is reborn—”
“Enough,” says Peter, putting a hand between us.
My back is pressed against the door, fingers splayed against the wood. The girl is half the size of Peter and twice as menacing. Standing up, my arm brushes against the iron key still hanging from the lock.
“Get out of here, Peter,” Elena says. “Take your human and pray that you never meet Leizu again.”
Elena’s eyes flick up to the old wooden building. Beneath her anger, I can tell she is frightened and sad. She won’t give us the information we need, but I’ve got a feeling I know where to find it.
Behind my back, I close my fingers around the metal key.
“Elena,” says Peter. “The alternative is extinction—”
In one motion, I snatch the key from the lock and yank the door open. Instantly, the schoolgirl clamps fingers over my forearm. Then Peter is holding her by the shoulders, twisting her away from me. The bracelet on my wrist shatters, a cascade of pearls rattling to the stones.
I dive behind the cracked-open door and slam it shut behind me.
Cranking the lock, I lean my back against rough wood. A stripe of bruises are already starting to cloud the skin of my forearm where the girl gripped me with inhuman strength. I hear arguing outside, and something thumps against the door.
This dim anteroom is like a museum, filled with antique furniture, a golden spittoon, and Chinese silks draped over lacquered Oriental screens. In urgent crab steps, I drag a heavy wooden bench over and wedge it under the locked doorknob.