Black the Tides Page 16

  Ravel scowls.

  “Don’t start.”

  “Just wondering where your knight in shining armour is at. Seems to me he hasn’t been around much.” He gestures expansively, as if inviting me to look for myself.

  Cadence chokes on a retort he won’t be able to hear anyway.

  I concentrate on the bike, checking the power levels and wiping dust from the charging panels to speed their efficiency. I could speed off without him. Let him try to find his own way back—on foot.

  But it’s a silly fantasy, and one I don’t let myself indulge in it for more than a moment. If I didn’t need to use him more than I feared him using me again, we wouldn’t be having this argument.

  Still . . . I give the bike one last wistful pat before returning to reality. “We should get going.”

  “Flame—”

  Nope. Enough of that. “My name is Cole.”

  “That’s just the ID given to you by your oppressors,” he sneers.

  I twist to glare at him, biting off each word. “My name is Cole.”

  His lips thin. “He gets to call you Cady.”

  “My name is Cole. Not ‘flame.’ Not ‘Victoire’ or ‘Cady’ or ‘Cadence.’ Cole. Now, get the pack and get back on the bike.”

  He sulks his way over to the pack but stops with one hand on the straps. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

  “On the bike. Now.”

  As a strategy, “take charge and shut down the whining” may or may not be the most effective way to deal with his manipulation, but it definitely makes me feel better. I shove the charging panels into place, stowing them in the hollows on either side of the frame, and mount up. What remains of the old bridge lists, piles missing, sections cracking or half-submerged. Without a dreamwalker to fend off the river monsters, our best hope of getting across in one piece is to hit it at top speed. But from a standing start, that speed won’t be nearly as fast as I’d like.

  I mentally plot the most promising course through potholes, slick river water, and debris, grit my teeth, and urge the bike forward. Seconds before we hit the bridge it kicks up another notch faster, as if it’s as afraid of what lies beneath as I am.

  I’m halfway up the incline on the other side when I work out why my back feels unusually well ventilated.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Cadence says. “Might as well finish the climb first.”

  I push the bike harder in agreement, just for a heartbeat. Two. Three.

  Then I let gravity pull us to a halt.

  “Don’t want to burn out the engine.” I say it out loud for Cadence, the mountain, and anyone else listening who might mistake my intentions.

  Ravel has no power here. Neither do I. He knew our only chance was to outrun the monsters.

  So there are only two reasons he could have for getting off when he did. And whether the river monsters got him or he chose to bail, I can’t help him.

  Like an idiot, I can’t help looking back all the same.

  “No, really, you go on ahead. I’ll catch up.” Ravel waves from the middle of the bridge and dances back as a huge splash sends water surging toward him.

  Moron.

  Cadence hums agreement.

  I stalk down the side of the mountain, catching up a jagged, loose bit of it to hurl when I reach the bottom. It scrapes past Ravel’s head—just—and smacks into the reaching tentacle. The monster roars in pain, or maybe just irritation, others joining in with screeches that send both Ravel and I to our knees, hands clapped over our ears.

  “Not. Helping.” Ravel’s lips shape the words, but I can’t actually hear past the splashing and howling as river monsters surge into the air and scrabble for purchase on the bridge.

  I stumble back, reaching for more chunks of rock to throw for lack of a better plan. But when I bring my hand back to hurl another stone, there’s a pause in the attack.

  “Are they . . . watching you?” Cadence whispers.

  I hold my breath and wave the stone in a slow arc. What seem to pass for faces tilt to follow. That the monsters have some form of intelligence doesn’t surprise me. That they can show restraint, or fear, does. It makes them seem like . . . something else.

  Not monsters. Creatures. Like the one Grace and I met in the forest.

  What had Susan said about it—that it would only fight back in self-defence? Something about us hurting it first?

  Sweat traces a cold line down my back. My arm trembles, the stone heavy in my hand. I don’t lower it. But I do risk a glance away, scanning the riverbanks in both directions for signs of human habitation. A town. Even a single house. Some indication that we’d started this fight. Some hint that, like Susan believed, we’d made these monsters.

  But, aside from the bridge itself, I can’t find any noticeably human mark left on this landscape.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Cadence says. “There could be a whole city just around the bend. Or a flood wiped out the houses. Or—”

  I lower the stone. The river monsters—the creatures—had made their presence known when we approached. But they hadn’t actually attacked until I hit first. Had they merely been warning us of their presence? Or had they been lying in wait?

  “Flame?” Ravel follows the stone’s path with as much interest as the creatures, though his attention is understandably split.

  Even when he slides a cautious foot forward, they don’t take their focus off me. I place my makeshift weapon on the ground and ease back, nodding to him.

  “We won’t hurt you,” I say over Cadence’s protests.

  Ravel’s eyes widen, but he creeps another few steps toward me before the creatures seem to notice. They hiss, shifting toward him. I raise both hands to show they’re empty and nod for him to follow suit.

  “Just let him through, and we’ll go away and leave you in peace.” I stand as still as possible and do my best to make my voice slow and soothing.

  It doesn’t come easily; Ravel is the persuasive one. Staying out of it and pretending nothing’s wrong is more my speed. But if I’m going to try to save a whole city, I should probably start practicing heroism sans magic now anyway.

  “Yeah, that and he has our only map,” Cadence says.

  Ravel flinches away from my sudden and, from his point of view, unexpected glare. The creatures turn on him.

  He yells. They screech. I lunge. He puts on a burst of speed, ducking and swerving around snapping jaws and flailing tentacles.

  There’s a tearing crunch, one shark-toothed maw closing from behind, and he goes down with a yell. I jump forward without thinking, hurtling for the bridge to, I can only assume, get eaten alongside this absolute idiot of a not-quite-enemy.

  The monster drags Ravel into the air and shakes him like it’s trying to snap his neck. From this angle—why am I on the bridge what was I thinking I’m gonna die—I can see the monster’s mouthful is mostly backpack.

  There’s a shredding sound and the contents of the pack drop, along with Ravel. The monsters dive in every direction, distracted by the sudden bouncing scatter of colourful hail.

  One piece rolls toward me. But instead of something useful like our map, or even a stray apple, it’s only that stupid knot of wood again. I pick it up anyway in the sudden, eerie silence that falls between bending and rising again.

  They’re all looking at me. Ravel, sopping with monster-drool and half the river. The inhabitants of said river seem suddenly less interested in our scattered provisions than in the one object that happened to make its way to me.

  I extend it hesitantly. Their oil-slick eyes follow, teeth dripping, tentacles curling and uncurling hypnotically. I take one step, two, mincing until my toe nudges Ravel’s knee. I prod, hardly daring to breathe, much less speak, but he seems to get the message. I back away, careful to keep the knot in plain sight as Ravel creeps along beside me.

  And then, impossibly, we’re on solid ground and, a heartbeat later, racing up the side of the mountain to get away from the splashing, roaring danger
at its base.

  We don’t stop until we reach the bike. Ravel collapses at its base, panting. His pant leg is ragged, blood seeping through, and his cheek is raw from that stone that almost-but-not-quite missed him. His back under his tattered shirt looks better than expected, though—the monster really did get mostly the pack. He’s lucky it went for him with its teeth instead of the tentacles. He’s even luckier I stopped and went back for him in the first place.

  I drape myself over the bike and let my heartbeat settle from a full-out gallop to a thudding trot before kicking him in the ribs.

  “Next time you decide to give in to that death wish of yours, give me the map first.”

  Chapter 27: Pursuit

  Between charging inefficiencies, river monster showdowns, and getting lost a half-dozen times already (we tend to realize only when the road dead-ends), I’m pretty sure whatever extra margin we had from pursuit has shrunk to nothing.

  But we have to be close now. How many more mountains could there really be before we hit the coast?

  Still, I can’t stop checking behind us. We’ve stopped waiting for the bike to charge, taking turns pushing it when it runs down, even in the rain. And its not just pursuit from Nine Peaks I have to worry about. My nightmares are catching up.

  The dead of Refuge haunt my sleep and half of my waking hours, too. Cadence and Ravel take turns talking to keep me focused—which would work better if they could actually hear one another. Whatever dreamwalker potential Ravel has, apparently it doesn’t extend to hearing Cadence, and every time he speaks over her just makes her more pissed off.

  “Have you noticed how the trees on the ridge look like people from the corners of your eyes?” Ravel says. “I keep thinking there’s someone watching us.”

  I grunt. My foot sloshes in the mud filling my shoe, while the shoe slips in the mud outside, only in a slightly different direction. There’s mud everywhere, including the insides of everything we’re wearing. It’s been raining for two days, and we won’t be able to recharge the bike until it stops.

  “Still think nature is romantic?” Cadence says, but the snide remark is lost on Ravel, as usual, and I don’t bother repeating it for him.

  I slide and stagger with each step, blisters growing and bursting and growing again. It’s my turn to push, but Ravel leans into the bike from the other side, stabilizing and providing more than his fair share of forward momentum.

  I should be appreciative of his efforts, but the extra effort it takes to keep both the bike and myself upright is something I desperately need to stay focused on the here and now, the only way I can even begin to push back against what gnaws at the edges of my mind.

  “Hey, so listen. We need to talk about how we’re going to—” His voice fades out as the dead rise.

  The day is already dark with rain, but its edges grow even darker, hollowing out until the only things that seem real are the bodies hovering before me.

  Some, I know well. The long dead. The familiar ones I failed to save, glaring and gesticulating and howling in raw, deafening whispers that slip in and out of static.

  This isn’t the dreamscape—I’m almost certain it’s not. It’s not my magic returning, nor the Mara, but the ghosts of my city calling me back. Warning—and urging. And there are more of them every day.

  I’m running out of time. I try not to look when they descend, afraid to see the faces of friends among their numbers, but I know it’s only a matter of time until I will.

  The living world returns gradually, the whispers of the ghostly horde ebbing amidst the rush of icy raindrops, the only warmth in the world the twin points where Ravel grips my shoulders and shakes.

  We’ve been through this enough times by now that I shouldn’t see worry in his eyes, pale yellow like a guttering candle, wavering behind a sheet of rain and the inky fringe plastered against his scalp.

  The mud slurps underfoot as I struggle to find my balance, reluctant to release its hold. I reach down to haul the dropped bike from its grip and Ravel shoulders between us, getting both the bike and me upright and moving forward, if barely.

  “We need to find shelter,” he says, leaning close. Only, I’m the one leaning.

  I shake my head. Somehow, my cheek ends up against his shoulder. I can’t summon the energy to move away. “Nowhere to stop. No time.”

  “Pull it together,” Cadence grumbles, but she’s not the one slogging through the mountains in the rain, and I’m too worn out to argue.

  “Tell me.” My teeth chatter. “You wanted to talk. About something. Before . . .”

  His grip tightens. “It can wait.”

  “Talk.”

  He reaches over to adjust something on the bike. I sway, shivering all the harder in his absence. I hate feeling this pathetic.

  I stumble to the other side of the bike. It holds me up, more than the other way around, but this way is better. Distance is better.

  Ravel’s shoulders stiffen, sending me back to that day not so long ago in a warm, clean-ish room when he raged and raved and took out his fear of rejection on me. He’s been more enemy than ally to me, and yet here we are. Somewhere along the way, I lost all the fear of him I had left, and most of the anger.

  “You know better than to trust him,” Cadence says.

  I agree. But I’m alone in the mountains. And he’s the one here with me. He’s sacrificed and suffered just for a chance to go back and fight.

  Power-hungry he may be, but the truth is he’s nearly as powerless and desperate as I am to save our people right now. And they are our people, if for no other reason than that no one else seems to care to save them.

  But that doesn’t make him trustworthy.

  “Cole,” he says. Not “flame” or “Victoire” or any of the other pet names meant to shove me into the shape of who he wants me to be. “I need to tell you something.”

  “So talk.” It’s less a rush of adrenaline than a trickle. But it pushes back the cold, if only for a few more steps. I shake off exhaustion and focus. “Tell me.”

  “There are things you don’t know,” he says. I growl in frustration, but he hurries on before I can get a more articulate complaint out. “There’s no way you could. I shouldn’t know most of them either. I’m not even sure where to start. But maybe it can help us come up with a better plan, so . . .”

  A plan. What a wonderful, impossible, idea. All our plans keep blowing up in our faces. But, sure, why not come up with a new one?

  “How do you think I found you?” The corner of his mouth lifts in a wry smile. “I didn’t have a decent map. I certainly didn’t trail you and then hide out in the woods for weeks.”

  I don’t bother pointing out there are so many impossibilities to his presence I’d long since given up trying to get answers. None of it makes sense. How did he get out of the city in this first place? Past the Mara, and the water monsters, and the barrier? How did he even know I’d left, never mind where I’d gone?

  The only thing I could guess was he’d somehow heard I’d taken off without realizing how useless I’d become, and stormed down to Under to demand answers, but . . .

  Oh no.

  “Is she okay?”

  He stops pushing for a moment. I stagger as the bike slides out from under me.

  “Who?” he asks, leaning back in to stabilize us.

  “Ange. What did you do to her? If you hurt her—”

  “Why would I—look, like I said, Ange and I have been friends since before you even got to Refuge. She owes me her life a hundred times over. Trust me, she’s fine.”

  “Then how—”

  “I can feel you,” he says. Then he swallows. “That sounded weird. I mean . . . I can, uh, feel . . . Where you are? When I want to? Ever since you arrived in the city?”

  He keeps glancing at me, then away, like a guilty child. But it’s far from the weirdest thing I’ve encountered over the last few months.

  “Do you have any other abilities? Useful ones?”

  Ca
dence snorts. “He wishes.”

  “Um. It’s not an ability, exactly. Not magic, or even something I’ve trained myself to master. It’s more like . . . technology?”

  I’ve had more than enough of that question in his voice. “I’m not mad at you.” At least, not about this.

  He closes his eyes. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t care what you call it. Magical powers. Technology. Purple brain sparks. Just tell me what you can do. Or,”—when he still hesitates—“just start with what you have done.”

  He pushes the bike with renewed energy—hard enough I have to scramble to keep up.

  “You know about the Influence. I can talk to the Mara, sure, but I don’t know if that’s part of it or if . . . Anyway, there’s the way people listen to me, do what I say. And I can find you and, uh, if there were others like you, I’d probably be able to find them, too. It has something to do with the tattoos—they’re not just for show, you know. But it’s more than that, I think. Monsters like the Mara don’t like me, exactly, but they don’t seem to think I’m all that tasty, either. Substances don’t have the same effect on me. And I can pass through barriers.”

  “Barriers like—”

  “Yeah, apparently I can leave the city whenever I want.”

  I’d figured that much out already, given that he had just up and appeared outside Nine Peaks. But the real question, the one that matters so much I’m almost afraid to ask, is: “Can you take others with you?”

  “Dunno. Never tried. Can you?”

  I shrug, but our bare shadow of a plan is starting to coalesce. Ash obviously got me out of the city somehow, but he’s no longer around to help. And if he, or someone like him, could have brought everyone out of the reach of the Mara, I have to assume we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Which means it’s not just a matter of being able to remove people from the city, but convincing them to actually leave.

  “Totally. No big deal,” Cadence mocks. “You’re great at convincing people.”

  “Maybe not, but he is.”