Phoenix (Black City #2) 8

“Ash, let him go before someone calls the guards,” I say through the screen.

He releases his hand, and Elijah rubs his bruised throat.

I button up my shirt, then rummage around in my pants pocket for my heart medication. I pop one of the white pills, washing it down with water, and then check my reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. I curl my lip up at the sight. I look awful with no makeup on. How do guys look so good without it? Even my eyes look all dull and yellow . . . yellow?

I lean closer to the mirror. The white of my left eye does seem a little yellow, especially at the corner, like it did on the night of my birthday. There’s definitely something wrong with it. Have I caught an infection or something? That’s all I need. I sigh and leave the toilet, deliberately kicking Elijah’s leg as I sit down. This gets a wry smile from Ash.

“You feeling better?” he asks.

“Much,” I say.

“Well, we’d better get comfortable. We’re going to be here for a few days,” Ash sighs.

Over the next six hours Elijah and I entertain ourselves with stories and games, trying to stave off our boredom and anxiety, while Ash reads his mother’s diary, hoping to find some clues about the tavern in the photograph, since it’s our only clue to finding the Ora and Elijah’s mother. Time seems to drag, and every hour feels like three, so I’m disappointed when I check my watch and discover it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. I sigh, and lean against Ash, who is still reading the journal.

“Find anything interesting?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’ve scanned the journal for any mention of the Ora, Thrace, Mirror City or Yolanda, and they’re not mentioned anywhere.” He puts the diary down. “Most of the entries are about my mom’s life in her late teens and early twenties. It’s interesting, but not very useful, I’m afraid.”

I study the photograph he’s using as a bookmark. It’s a picture of five Darklings, taken in a forest glen with a mountain in the background.

“Is that your mother’s family?” I ask.

He nods, passing the photograph to me.

“That’s my mom, grandparents and Lucinda,” he says, pointing everyone out.

“Who’s this man in the background?” I say.

“I don’t know,” he replies.

I flip the image over and notice the writing scrawled on the back. “Forest of Shadows, Amber Hills? Where’s that?”

He shrugs. “I haven’t had a chance to look it up on a map yet.”

“Can I see the other photo, of the tavern?” I say.

Ash passes it to me, and I study the picture of the four girls in the tavern in Thrace. Elijah leans over so he can look too, enveloping me in his warm, spicy scent. I trace my finger over the picture, trying to reveal its secrets, but there’s not much to go on. It’s just a normal tavern, with a wooden bar, shelves packed with bottles of Shine, and a long mirror on the back wall.

Something catches my eye in the mirror. I bring the photo closer to my face, inspecting it closely. Could it be . . . yes! I let out a squeak of delight, drawing the attention of the black-haired girl nearby. She studies me for a moment before facing the other way again.

“What is it?” Ash asks in a low voice.

I point to the mirror.

Ash arches a brow. “Yeah . . . it’s a mirror. So?”

“Look at the reflection, silly,” I say, gesturing toward a rectangular object reflected in its glassy surface. “It’s a tariff board, advertising room rates. And I’m betting that writing at the top of the board is the name of the place.”

Elijah beams at me. We take it in turns studying the picture, trying to work out what the reflected writing on the tariff board says.

“I don’t recognize the language,” I whisper, so the other passengers can’t hear us.

“It’s Thracian, the local language they use in the Provinces,” Elijah explains in equally hushed tones. “This might be luma or luna?” He points to the second word.

“I think the first word is la and the last one estrella . . . ?” I say. “It’s hard to read when it’s all backward.”

“La Luna Estrella? What does it mean?” Ash asks.

“My Thracian is a little rusty, but I think it translates as ‘the Moon Star,’” Elijah replies.

Ash grabs his mother’s diary and flips through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for.

“I saw this earlier,” he says, passing it to me.

I read the passage out loud, but keep my voice low. “Dear diary . . .

“What a week! The rally was a huge success, even though the Sentry guards arrested several of the speakers. There were thousands of people outside the city hall at one point, many of whom had traveled hundreds of miles to get there, just like us! It was wonderful being around so many like-minded people. We made some great friends at the boardinghouse where we were staying. Luci was particularly taken with this really obnoxious girl named Landie—”

“Landie?” Elijah interjects, snatching the diary from Natalie.

“Hey!” I say.

“Sorry, it’s just Landie was my mom’s nickname,” he says, studying the diary entry.

“That would’ve been useful to know earlier,” Ash grumbles. “You know, preferably before I’d scanned the entire diary for any reference to Yolanda.”

He glares at Ash. “It didn’t occur to me. No one called her Landie except my dad.”

“What else does it say?” I prompt.

Elijah picks up where I left off: “We talked for hours about politics and how we dreamed of having a fair, democratic government that represented all four races. I have real faith that we’ll learn to peacefully coexist one day, but Kieran thinks I’m being naive. He believes a war between the Sentry and the Darklings is inevitable after everything that happened in Amber Hills.”

“Who’s Kieran?” I ask.

“He’s a Lupine my mom knew growing up,” Ash explains.

Elijah carries on reading from the diary. “Luci and I are heading to Black City, as she heard the civil rights movement is gaining a lot of traction there. We tried to persuade Kieran to join us, but he’s got his heart set on staying at the Moon Star with the landlord’s daughter, Esme, who can’t leave because her father is ill.”

His eyes catch mine at the mention of the Moon Star. “This has got to be where my mom’s gone!”

I pick up the photo. “Do you think the barmaid could be Esme?”

“Yeah, it’s very possible,” Ash replies, taking the diary back from Elijah. “And listen to this . . . I think it’s sweet how in love Kieran and Esme are. They go everywhere together, like they’re joined at the hip. Luci doesn’t get it, but she’s never believed in love at first sight.” He closes the journal. “I think Kieran and Esme are the twins Lucinda was talking about in her letter. It adds up.”

Elijah leans back against the wall, letting out a relieved sigh. “So that’s where my mom went to meet Lucinda. The Moon Star.”

“Hopefully Esme can give us some clues to where they went,” I say.

Ash smiles at me, his eyes glimmering with hope. I’m feeling it too, although I know there’s still a long way to go before we find the Ora. First, we have to get to Thrace without being discovered. I stretch my legs, feeling stiff from sitting on the hard floor for so long. The black-haired girl on the seat nearby gets up and turns to her friend.

“I’m getting some food. You want anything?” she says.

Her friend nods. The girl heads down the aisle.

“You hungry?” Ash says.

I nod and he gets up.

“I’ll have some fish and a glass of milk,” Elijah says. “Oh, and maybe some Kalooma berries, if they have any, but only if they’re ripe. I hate them when they’re green.”

“You’ll get whatever they have,” Ash growls.

“Be careful,” I say.

He squeezes my hand, then heads down the carriage on the hunt for something to eat.

The train rhythmically sways as the world outside the window flashes by. During the course of our train ride, the sky has turned from azure blue to a startling crimson, which can only mean one thing: we’re approaching the Barren Lands. The red skies are a result of the desert sand being whipped up into the air by tornadoes so vast, they can swallow whole towns. A deep canyon cuts through the desert like a bloody slash, stretching on for as far as the eye can see.

Elijah sighs, tugging at his shirt collar. “They could do with opening a few windows. I’m sweating like a pig in these clothes.”

“Delightful,” I say. “The windows are shut to keep the Wraths out.”

Elijah undoes the top few buttons of his shirt, revealing the smooth, tanned skin underneath. Glistening beads of sweat slowly roll down his throat, making the tiny hairs on his flesh shimmer. Inexplicably, my cheeks warm up. I cast my eyes away, but not before he’s caught me looking.

“Like what you see, pretty girl?” he says.

I snort. “Oh, please. I’m trying not to vomit.”

“Well, I liked what I saw earlier very much.” His eyes drift down to my breasts.

I kick his leg. “Don’t ever spy on me again.”

He smirks.

The door at the end of the carriage opens, and my heart leaps; it could be a Sentry guard. I relax when the black-haired girl appears, carrying a tray with some stale bread, two rotting apples and a bottle of milk on it. The other kids look at the food hungrily. She catches my eye as she sits down. I’m looking forward to getting off this train and away from that carriage of Sentry guards. There’s a hiss of steam as the train rapidly decelerates, the sudden shift in speed knocking me into Elijah. I push myself away from him, flustered.

“Your hat,” Elijah says through his teeth.

I touch my head and realize my hat has fallen off, revealing my hair. I hurriedly replace it, stuffing my curls back under the rim, but not before the black-haired girl has spotted me. I give her a quick smile. She stares at me for a moment, then smiles back. I relax.

I go over to the window, curious to know why we’ve stopped. We’re at a train station—well, it’s more of a wooden platform with a single ticket office. There’s a bunch of crates on the platform; each has CENTRUM and something that looks like a red butterfly stamped on the side.

Several of the guards, including Neil, get off the train, and while they’re loading up the boxes, one of the men loses his grip and drops a crate. The lid bursts open, and a dozen bottles of a resin-colored liquid crash to the ground, sending glass everywhere. I recognize that liquid—it’s acacia solution. They doused Ash’s cross with it before his execution. This must be where they make it, since acacia wood is prevalent in the Barren Lands.

Once they’re done loading the crates, the train slowly begins to chug away from the platform, passing a tall, hand-painted sign that reads DUSTY HOLLOW. Hanging from it are several decaying Wrath corpses to ward off any others of their kind. I shudder.

During the war, thousands of Darklings were held captive in the nearby concentration camp, where my father used to work. They were experimented on, and deliberately infected with the deadly C18-Virus to test its effects. When the war ended, having become Wraths, they were set loose to fend for themselves. It’s a miracle they’ve survived so long—the disease is very aggressive. But maybe they were given a different strain of the virus than the one used to infect the Darklings in Black City? It’s the only reason I can think of for why they’ve lived this long.

The carriage door opens again, and this time Ash appears, carrying a tray. There’s something bumpy under his jacket. Children ravenously look at the tray of food as Ash walks down the aisle. He hands one particularly skinny boy some bread, and it strikes me how much the boy looks like the twin-blood Sebastian murdered in front of us a few months ago. I guess that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Ash either.

Ash sits down and passes me a piece of stale bread and an apple. Elijah holds out his hand and gets handed a bottle of milk.

“Where’s the food?” he says.

“That’s all they had left. I saw some mice in the other carriage. You could always eat those,” Ash replies.

Elijah glances over at the boy, who is greedily eating the bread Ash gave him. His saber teeth extend, and I quickly tear my bread in two and pass the larger half to Elijah. His saber teeth retract.

“No need to say thank you,” I mutter.

“Thanks,” he replies through a mouthful of bread.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I ask Ash.

He shuts his eyes. “They don’t serve what I need.”

It’s going to be days before we get to Thrace. Ash will be starving by then without any blood.

“You can drink from me,” I whisper.

“No. I don’t want to drug you with Haze,” he replies.

“I could try siphoning some off—”

“With what?” he says.

He has a point; it’s not like we have any equipment to safely drain my blood.

“Don’t worry. If I get hungry, I can always eat Elijah,” Ash teases.

Elijah hisses at him.

I lean against Ash, and my head bumps against something solid under his jacket.

“Oww,” I say, rubbing my head. “What’s that?”

He pulls out a portable digital screen from under his coat. “I swiped it from the guards’ carriage. No one will miss it. They’ve got loads of them in there,” he says. “I want to know what’s going on with the rebellion.”