Black the Tides Read online

  “I’m not mad. I just think I’d have done a better job if I were the one walking around.”

  “You’d have got us killed in the first week.”

  “Like you did so much better. ‘Ooh, I’m so obsessed with corpses, look at me all angsty and conflicted.’”

  “It was a confusing time! And you weren’t exactly helping.”

  “I helped plenty. Without me, you’d never have held on to your sanity. You’d either be a mindless drone, or Mara-chow.”

  “I almost was because of you!”

  “Whatever.”

  I pick up my pace as if I can outrun her. It’s chilly and damp down here without a roomful of sweating bodies warming the place up. The air smells sour. I’m worried Ange will smell Freedom on my clothes, until I remember there’ll be no hiding it from her anyway. Not when I show up with Lily’s dad in tow.

  “You’re gonna be in trouble,” Cadence singsongs.

  My feet hurt. I shouldn’t stomp, but rage helps keep me warm and moving. All those lives lost to the Mara, both in these halls and in all the floors layered above them . . .

  The girl in my nightmares—Suzannah Bell—wasn’t the first Mara-taken I’ve ever seen, but she was the first I’ve encountered in the dreamscape. I met her there after she’d died, which shouldn’t have been possible. Maybe that’s why I keep reliving her final moments. Or maybe it’s that she was so young—at least, the dream-version of her was.

  Just the thought of kids getting hurt makes me choke up like nothing else. I had to fight not to cry in front of Lily when she asked me to save her dad. Which I will do—

  “We’ll do,” Cadence says.

  —Just as soon as we can. And then, after we save him, we’ll save everyone else.

  Despite the dank atmosphere, it feels so good having a plan. Tonight, after a quick-and-easy rescue mission to retrieve Lily’s dad, will be step one: chase the Mara from Freedom once and for all. Step two: clear them out of Refuge. Step three: save the rest of the city.

  “You know they won’t just wait nicely for you to come end them, right? They can go through walls.”

  “We have to start somewhere.” Plus, apparently there are other monsters outside. Turns out, the Mara aren’t the only thing that haunts this city.

  “Just saying, your strategy sucks.”

  “You want to go back, have a little planning session with Ash and Ange?” I can practically hear Cadence pouting. “Didn’t think so. So maybe keep that snark to yourself.”

  GETTING TO THE EXITS isn’t the hard part. I used to be a surveillance technician. I’ve seen the maps.

  But I’ve never actually gone outside, not unless you count that time I climbed up to Refuge’s roof. Or the time I got sucked into the dreamscape and walked the desperate streets living the miserable life of one of those clinging to life outside through her own eyes. I’m more than a little curious to see what it feels like to experience the rest of the city in my own skin, especially now that I know how to protect myself.

  However, despite all the dreary hours I spent as a drone in Refuge staring at floor plans on a screen, I get turned around more than once. Turns out, when you’re just one of the little dots running around a maze, it’s harder to keep the shape of the whole thing fixed in your mind. And easier to forget all those tiny signals represent real people. In this case, Refuge Force, patrolling the exits.

  The tromp of their boots emerges so gradually from the distant murmur of wind swirling through fog, the surf lapping at the shoreless rubble, the far-off cries of circling seabirds, that I nearly stumble out of a side corridor into the enforcers’ path. As it is, one of the two uniformed agents of Refuge falters, his blank goggle-and-mask-covered face swivelling in my direction.

  My breath catches. I glue myself to the wall, pulse roaring, and hope to disappear into the shadows.

  The second enforcer continues on for several paces, passing safely beyond the opening. I hear him grumble, words muffled behind the filter of his mask. The first raises a hand, still peering in my direction, and waves the other on. When he turns to catch up to his partner, the light catches the ID printed across his back: 09-Hayne-05.

  I swallow a gasp. Haynfyv. He’s back on duty so soon? I nearly sacrificed him in my quest to take out Serovate. Keeping him in one piece hadn’t been my main priority at the time, but I must’ve done a better job protecting him from harm than I’d realized . . .

  Is he letting me go out of gratitude? Unlikely. He must not have been able to see me in the shadowy side corridor. There’s no way one of the mayor’s special commissioned enforcers would just let me go, even if we didn’t have a history.

  Which reminds me—I never did figure out what Maryam Ajera wanted with me. Assuming her “summons” wasn’t just another one of the monster-possessed enforcer Serovate’s schemes all along.

  “Does it matter?” Cadence says. “Hurry up—before they come back!”

  Wary, I creep to the rusty double doors as fast and as quietly as my burning feet can carry me and spare no more than one heart-pounding-dry-mouthed-wide-eyed breath before pushing through to the open street.

  Cadence snorts at my awe and laughs all the harder when I immediately choke on the dense, toxic fog that eddies in the wake of the just-closed door.

  The brilliant sunlight that had so astonished me from the rooftop of Refuge barely filters down to this level. I stumble up a dank heap of rubble that might once have been steps and into a shifting, muddy-yellowish landscape.

  I can’t see more than a dozen steps ahead, not for any length of time, though the swirling fog offers fleeting glimpses of dark water and looming walls. I set off in as straight a line as I can manage, suddenly conscious that I’ve stepped beyond the edges of my maps without any idea how to return.

  “Dramatic much? No worries—I’ll get you home safe.” Cadence says, with more condescension than reassurance.

  It’s too late to turn back, anyway. I keep walking, ankles rolling on slimy bits of crumbling concrete and rusted steel, trying not to make more noise than necessary. My clothes grow damp, then drenched, chafing over suddenly sensitive skin. My eyes water. My nose and throat burn.

  How does anyone survive out here? And, more to the point: how long can I?

  “Such a whiner,” Cadence sighs. “Don’t worry princess. I got you. We’ll be in and out in no time—or, more like ‘out and in,’ I guess.”

  I shake my head and blink streaming eyes clear. Maybe I should’ve put a little more thought into this. Lily had made it sound so simple, but to save her dad, first I’ll have to find him. Her directions—head straight until you run out of street, then climb—seem less helpful with every step. Especially as those steps stop clinking and crunching and start squelching and splashing.

  “You do remember the part about the city being flooded, right?” Cadence says. “Relax. I know where we’re going. Tide’s just a little high is all.”

  Reassuring—if something hadn’t just broken the surface of the water in front of me.

  Chapter 3: Stabbity

  “Stab it! Stab! Stab!” Cadence shrieks.

  “With what?” I scramble backwards without taking my eyes off of the thing rising from the waves.

  “Anything! Whatever you’ve got!”

  I claw at my sides as if a blade will magically appear. “Um.”

  Cadence groans. “Seriously? You just thought we could go monster fighting unarmed?”

  The monster in question is a smoky darkness amidst the roiling sick fog, smooth headed, long-necked, and razor fanged. Unless that wasn’t all neck . . .

  I trip, bloody my knee, and dig in to brace myself instead of pushing back up. I need my hands free.

  “Yeah, no, put your hands down. This is the part where you run,” Cadence says.

  “But what about—”

  “Does that look like Mara? Do you see threads, Weaver? Are you armed? Ready for combat? No? So run.”

  I shake my outstretched fingers as if ma
gic will spontaneously crackle to life between them. Nothing happens. Nothing but a hair-raising, ear-bleeding shriek from the creature rearing in front of me.

  I run, clattering over loose debris and splashing through puddles and bouncing off crumbling walls, until my chest burns and I’m hopelessly lost.

  “We’re not lost,” Cadence says. “And you’re fine. Out of shape, sure, but fine.”

  “What was that?” I scrabble higher up a pile of rubble, flinching at every splash. “Why couldn’t I fight it?”

  Cadence does one of her insubstantial shrugs. “Some kind of water monster. You’re not up on your lore enough for naming it to make any difference. Not the kind of thing you fight with threads, not unless you know what you’re doing. Which you don’t. You’d have been better off grabbing one of Ash’s blades before you snuck out. But this is good, actually. We’re almost there. Just keep climbing.”

  She could’ve told me I needed a weapon. Not that I knew how to handle one. I’d just assumed dreamweaving worked against everything. And how many different kinds of monsters were there, anyway?

  “Not the time,” Cadence says, rudely. “Climb.”

  This particular pile of rubble turns out to continue up a seemingly endless slope. The fog starts to thin, revealing the mouth of an enormous structure. The jagged surface underfoot evens out into soggy, decayed carpet and pitted concrete.

  I skirt gaping holes, shuddering at the thought of falling into the inky, brine-reeking shadows below. The ceiling is distant, serrated with greyish blocks of wood and oxidized metal. Shards of glass bite into the open space between slim, weathered columns. It’s not a tower—the space is too high, and wide, and long, opening out in unexpected directions. I can’t imagine what it would have been used for in the time before—the scale seems far too large for mere humans.

  I test each footstep; terrified the floor will give way at any moment. But the fog has thinned to a bare throat-scratching mist and the space ahead is increasingly bright and well kept. Light shines through grimy but now largely intact windows. The heavy decay of the city gives way to fresh salt and . . . smoke?

  “Nearly there,” says Cadence. “You should probably let him approach first.”

  “Lily!”

  The shout is mingled terror and fury, and relief so vast it catches at something high in my chest. A figure darts out around a low structure further down the massive corridor and stumbles to a halt, evidently realizing his mistake.

  He’s dark, no taller than I am, and not much broader. His shoulders hunch, arms raised in a defensive posture. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  I throw up my hands, palm outward, and back up quickly. “Lily sent me.”

  It’s not a lie. Not the whole truth, either, but it stops his threatening advance.

  “Lily? Where is she? What’ve you done to her?”

  IT’S EASY TO FORGET about monsters when everything’s going your way.

  Sam—Lily’s dad—turns into my new best friend the moment I introduce myself. Ash had been staying with them while searching for me, as he explains, and Sam’s unabashedly delighted to hear both Ash and his young daughter are safe. And the look on his face when I mentioned Lily’s mom is with them—I wander to the surprisingly good view out the windows to give him a moment, focusing on sparkling sea and distant mountains only barely clouded by fog here at the edge of the barrier, instead of the almost-stranger’s sudden upwelling of emotion.

  There has to be a story there. I’m not about to ask, even if Cadence spends most of the walk home speculating.

  Between Cadence’s startling navigational abilities and Sam’s familiarity with the city streets, we make good time, arriving not long after dark. Nothing bars our way. Not Mara, unidentified water monster, nor Refuge Force. We slip back into the labyrinth below Refuge without a ripple.

  I practically skip through the corridors, eager to make my triumphant return. Several twists and turns in, Sam tugs my sleeve and points. We’re skirting the edge of Freedom and the club is in full swing, bass shaking the floor.

  I shrug and change course. He’ll probably get a kick out of seeing it—and I’m keen to scope out my battleground. The next time I face the Mara will not be like the last. Now that I know how to take the nightmares down, their reign of terror is so very nearly at an end it makes my fingers itch.

  But the first glimpse of Freedom since my momentous battle with the Mara is a little disappointing if I’m honest. The lights seem erratic, the crowd sluggish, the music fuzzy. The shine has worn off—lacking newness, or maybe intoxication. The stunned awe on Sam’s face nudges something inside me, though, with a flicker of that first overwhelming astonishment I felt when I first saw it. I can’t resist pulling him through to the next hall, and the next, laughing at his wonder and, more to the point, glowing at the subtle attention of the crowd.

  It’s different than before. Back then, I was little more than another ornament to accent Ravel’s extravagance. Now, the eyes of the dancers flicker to me and away, startled, grateful, unsure. They know me not as a decorative extension of their leader but as defeater of the Mara, rescuer and hero.

  I don’t fully realize what I’m seeing at first, but after the first few halls, the trend is clear: the styles of Freedom have shifted. The dancers’ styles are mimicking things I wore—the costumes, yes, the gold and white, the feathers and chains, lace and delicate traceries Ravel put me in—but it’s more than that. Their outfits are artfully torn, their feet bare. They toy with colourful cords and delicate chains that hang loose from cuffs and bracelets to trail over their hands—held up more than once in salute. There are mimicries and interpretations of the cloak Ange had given me, too, the one I cast off to fight and beat back the Mara.

  So I keep walking long after I meant to turn back, pretending to show off each new aspect of the club to the gawking tourist while basking in some well-earned glory. All this, after one successful battle. Imagine how they’ll look at me when I free them for good. First the Mara, then Refuge, and maybe I can even do something about the sea monsters outside, after, once I’ve made the tower safe for the first time in living memory.

  And then we turn that last corner and he’s waiting for me.

  Ravel, wounds painted over, back taut with pain, eyes dark and hollow and burning.

  “Flame,” he rasps, that liquid voice raw.

  I turn away, tugging Sam along with me.

  This wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t think, didn’t meant to run into him, didn’t want—

  And, between one struggling gasp and the next, they’re here.

  Chapter 4: Ruin

  Cadence yells my name, shocking me out of stasis. I reach for the threads of dreams and get ready to slice me some Mara.

  But my hands flail through empty air without snagging on anything. Strange, in this crowd, where hope and desperation are usually thick as incense, but it’s fine—I can use my own threads.

  The hand I swipe across my chest comes up empty. I try again, scrabbling at the front of my shirt for the moonlight glow of all that I am, and want, and need to be.

  Nothing catches under my fingers but ordinary, useless cloth. I stare at my horrifyingly empty hands and then up at the shadowy forms of the Mara circling.

  “Oh, crap,” says Cadence. “I have no idea—”

  I shoulder in front of Sam as the circle tightens.

  If it were just me, maybe I could run. Maybe. But with Sam here, there’s no choice.

  My first swing seems to blow right through the murky fog of monsters. They flee from my fist—A cheer snags in my throat.

  The shreds of fog swirl and coalesce, forming sneering mouths. The amorphous mass of the Mara darts in, luring me to strike, then pulls back, leaving me teetering off balance, committed to a blow that has no hope of landing.

  A cry rings out behind me. I spin in time to see Sam’s knees crunch into the floor. Three long tears down his back well with blood. I reach for him. A ribbon of pain lashe
s across my side. The Mara lick my blood off one dagger-sharp claw and roll far too many eyes with taunting pleasure.

  “Watch out—” Cadence cries.

  There’s a blur of motion. I know even as I turn I’m too late, too slow, too weak—why am I so weak?—but I strike out at it anyway.

  Better to go down fighting.

  This time, the nightmares form claws, catching my fists. Their grip tightens, slowly, so I have long, excruciating moments to realize just how much more force they have at their disposal.

  The small bones in my hands grind together. The monsters’ claws dig in—first pinpricks, then burning spikes drilling through my flesh. Something snaps.

  The pain is blinding, paralyzing. There’s screaming, not all of it my own. Strange faces, wracked with anguish, flicker behind my eyes. Tormented voices fill the space inside my head, battering at its edges.

  I don’t know what will kill me first—the monsters’ powerful, if ephemeral claws, taking my body apart by inches, or the unseen onslaught.

  And then the voices go silent. The faces fade, and the crushing grip slackens. I stagger in its absence. I can barely see, barely focus through the pain as the diseased fog of the Mara disintegrates—swept into nothingness by silver light.

  Ash seems to fall out of thin air. He collapses to his knees beside me, then slumps to the floor. He rolls over onto his back, panting. “Don’t do that. Ever. Again.”

  “Yeah, way to go, Cole,” Cadence says unfairly. “You just about got us killed.”

  “You just . . . ” I slide to the ground. Ash’s shoulder is warm against my knee. Too warm. Feverish. “W-where did you come from? What happened?”

  His lashes flutter. He goes limp, head lolling. I nudge him, panic rising at touch of his unresponsive weight.

  “Ange is on her way,” Cadence says, seemingly unconcerned. Which makes no sense, so it’s probably an act. Or a distraction technique. “You better come up with a good explanation for this before she gets here.”