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  And now here they were.

  Wes shook his head. “Yeah, that’s what they say, but it happened so fast, you know? And it’s just a theory. The world ended and that’s what everyone knows; no one cares about the reasons anymore, no one cares how the end of the world began.”

  “So?”

  Wes guessed his friend wasn’t in the mood to ponder the universe, but he kept pressing. “Don’t you wonder? Don’t you want to know?”

  “No. Staying alive and staying warm sort of gets in the way of a lot of ‘wonder.’”

  Wes looked from Shakes to Farouk, who only shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I just drive the car.”

  Wes didn’t respond, knowing Shakes was impossible to talk to when his mood was this bleak, and Farouk couldn’t care less about the world beyond New Vegas.

  “Remember what Liannan told us,” Shakes said finally. “She said it was happening in her world, too, everything breaking down. Magic was supposed to return to this world, but something is, I don’t know, blocking it.”

  “And she unblocked it for you?” Farouk winked into the rearview mirror. Wes glared at him.

  “Her people sent her out so she could find the source of the corruption.” Shakes shrugged. “Maybe that’s where she is now.”

  “So she just up and left?” Farouk looked skeptical.

  Wes thought about it. Anything was possible. Maybe Shakes was right. Maybe Liannan had decided it was time to pursue her quest again and had taken off before Shakes could talk her into staying with him.

  But there was no more time to wonder about it anymore, because Farouk whistled from the front seat. “Heads up, kids, we’re here.” Over the rise, a collection of domes looking like bubbles over water glinted in the failing sunlight. Salt Lake was the last liquid lake in North America, as the toxic salt in its depths naturally lowered the freezing temperature of the water, and El Dorado’s developers also kept the lake pumped full of antifreeze to keep it liquid.

  Why fill a poisoned lake with more poison? Wes didn’t get it, but the developers were quite proud of their achievement. Brochures touted its rarity. Live above the water, away from the snow! Live the old life, pretend the ice never came! The developers christened it El Dorado, after the mythic lost city of gold, and had given their domes a golden tint, but to the consternation of its wealthy inhabitants, most people called it Soda Pop City, after the lake waters that bubbled and fizzed softly underneath the domes.

  As they approached the bridge that led to the first dome, Farouk shifted in his seat. “We’re on the manifest, right? You guys can’t hide in the trunk this time. They’ll comb this limo with a laser. Dorado security don’t mess around; they’ll fire if we don’t have the creds. This place is locked up tighter than your mama’s ass.”

  “Leave my mother out of it,” said Wes, bemused. “Your ride’s legit, what are you worried about, man? It’s no problem, we have it handled—right, Shakes?” He nudged his friend.

  Shakes shrugged. “Don’t know, boss, you took care of the bribes and logs, right?”

  Wes nodded. “Smooth as this limo’s cheap plastic doors. I got our suits in my bag. We’ll be on the manifest. It cost us, but we should have no problem at the checkpoint.” It sounded good, and for a minute, Wes almost believed it himself.

  Farouk seemed satisfied with the answer and didn’t ask further questions; nor did Shakes. They trusted him, which made Wes feel even worse. He hated lying to his guys. It was the one thing he had sworn never to do, but in truth, he hadn’t had the watts to pay the required bribes. He was counting on the limo providing enough cover to get them through the door, where he could sweet-talk his way in like he always did. He was hoping the guards would cut Farouk some slack since he ran this route nearly every day.

  Those were a whole lot of ifs.

  It was a long shot, but Eliza would be gone if he’d spent another month working the races, trying to earn enough for the bribes. If he’d waited, most likely she’d already have been sold to the temple, to the High Priestess who, it was rumored, fed on blood of the marked, sucking all the life force out of them for her own immortality. And if Eliza was dead on top of all of this—leaving Nat, losing Roark, Brendon, and Liannan—there would be nothing left for him.

  Wes had to trust his fate to chance, and hope his luck wouldn’t fail him. And then that he wouldn’t fail everyone else.

  Chapter 9

  LEAVING THE FOREST BEHIND, NAT stepped toward the cliffs that led into the clouds where the white city began. There were stairs carved into the rock leading upward. Where is everybody? she wondered. There was nobody on the stairs. This was the capital of Vallonis and yet she and Faix were the only two people at its entrance.

  There are other ways into the city, but everyone must come through this entrance the first time he or she approaches Apis, Faix sent, as if he were merely a piece of her mind that contained knowledge she did not yet have access to. You will travel this route only once.

  They started to climb. A soft breeze blew. Birds fluttered in the great void beneath the city. The blue- and red-winged creatures looked familiar, like the birds that came to her on the black ocean when she was alone with Wes in a cargo container on the slave ship.

  She climbed, eyes downcast, focusing on the steps, careful not to trip or lose her balance. She had no thought but not to fall, and even her telepathic conversation with Faix ceased. After what felt like a long and arduous hike, she felt the air getting colder, and when she looked up, she saw that they were nearing the top and that the city was coming into view. The stairs terminated in a great promontory, a stone outcropping that extended outward from the cliff to the gates of the city.

  Nat walked right up to the edge and stopped. There was a gap of about ten feet between the cliff and the doorway to the city. It was too far to leap across.

  She turned to look at Faix, who had been walking behind her, but he wasn’t there—and when she looked across, he was standing at the doorway, underneath the stone archway, his bright hair almost as white as the city stone.

  “How did you do that?” Nat frowned. She was fairly certain she didn’t want to know the answer, whatever it was.

  “Simple. Just walk across.”

  “Yeah, right.” She looked at the great chasm below. She had once leapt from a hospital window, falling many stories without injury. She had flown on the drakon’s back, had soared at greater heights than these. She was not afraid of heights, but something about the gap made her hesitate.

  “Walk across the bridge, Nat,” said Faix. “Every pupil of mine has succeeded in doing so.”

  “But I’ll fall. There’s nothing there.”

  “It only looks like there is nothing,” he said. “You must walk on the ether, must command it to hold you upright. One cannot simply enter the city; the city must admit you. To prove you are worthy of Apis, you must step upon the ether and cross the void.”

  “A leap of faith.”

  Faix nodded. “So it appears.”

  “But if I fall, I’ll die.”

  “You will not fall if you believe you can cross.” He stared at her for a moment and tapped his chin. “There is a story from your world, a tale of a king who conquered a land and wished to know its people. He wanted to understand their customs, what they would and would not do. He asked about their burial practices. He asked what sum he must pay to induce his new subjects to eat the bodies of their dead. No sum, the people said. Their dead were burned. They could not imagine consuming the flesh of their mothers and fathers. This same king asked the opposite question of the barbarian tribesmen that lived outside the kingdom. How much must I pay you to burn your dead? No sum, the barbarians said. In their culture, they consumed the flesh of their dead. To burn the flesh of their loved ones was inconceivable.”

  Nat saw the images Faix was sending her, of two ancient peoples and their revulsion for each
other’s death rites. The dead that were burned and the dead that were eaten.

  “Do you understand? The two cultures, the ‘civilized’ people and the so-called ‘barbarians,’ understood their world in completely different ways. You and I suffer a similar misunderstanding. In the gray lands, your people see the material world, the things you touch, the possessions you collect. But in Vallonis, we see the ether, the void. We do not build cars and ships, guns and planes. We build music and theory, ideas and visions, all crafted from the ether. To enter Vallonis, you must believe that the ether, the void, the nothingness, that which you cannot see, is as real as a table or a chair. Trust in your power, Nat, and enter Vallonis.” He held out his hand. “Take your place as a member of the Queen’s Council, a citizen of the White City.”

  But instead of stepping forward, Nat took a step back, fear and doubt on her face. “I can’t. I’m not one of you. Where I come from, nothing is nothing. I’ll fall.”

  “You will not. You must shape the ether into a walkway. Imagine it into being and it will be as sturdy as the stone steps that you stand on. Trust me. Learn to live in Vallonis.”

  “Do you eat your dead here?” she asked. “Who is the civilized man and who is the barbarian—the one who takes the leap or the one who does not?”

  Faix stared at her, unblinking. No one has ever asked me that, young Nat. You have the mind of a drakonrydder. Within and without.

  “That’s not an answer,” Nat said, crossing her arms.

  Faix sighed. “From our perspective, yours is the cruder sensibility. A world that only trusts in what can be seen feels very vulgar to us.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Nat raised an eyebrow.

  “I understand that from your point of view, a world that prizes what is unseen might seem primitive and backward, like the people in your world who believe in nonsense such as astrology. I hope to show you that our world is rich in intellect and history, that there is reason and logic in our ‘magic.’”

  Nat looked down at the gap again. Wind whistled across her face. At this particular moment, she wished to be anywhere else in the world. Even under the world, she thought, with my drakon.

  That would be safer for me than this.

  But here she was.

  She looked up at Faix. “If I were to try—and I’m not saying I am—how would I start? A little help, here?”

  “Picture the water that fills the glass, instead of the glass that holds the water. See the shape of nothingness, feel the presence of the void.”

  Nat shook her head. She didn’t understand. She didn’t know how. Her power was unpredictable, uncontrollable. She looked across to the open doorway where Faix stood. There was light beyond, and people, the sounds of a market, the chatter of a crowd, laughter. She had come so far from that living room in Ashes, from her first trip into Garbage Country and her stay at MacArthur.

  She had flown upon the back of the drakon, but this simple step, this leap of faith, was an even greater hurdle. Faix had taught countless pupils like her, and each one had been able to accomplish this step.

  So what am I so afraid of?

  The air? The gap? Falling? Oblivion?

  She stared across the void, trying to sort out the chaos in her mind.

  No. She did not fear the air or the gap. The risk of falling from the sky, of sudden death, those possibilities were with her always. Those were familiar fears, almost comforting ones. At least, consistent.

  What is it, then?

  She stared across the void until she knew the answer.

  She feared Vallonis itself, feared that she was not worthy to join a world she had spent her whole life searching for. She was anxious about finally meeting the great Queen Nineveh. She was afraid of disappointing her.

  What if the city did not allow her admittance? What if she was left outside forever?

  What if her search had been meaningless, after all?

  Nat looked at the void, tried to will the ether into some shape—a bridge, or a wooden plank—but nothing happened. She tried again. And again. And again. Sweat glistened on her brow. Her legs felt heavy, her fingers tingled, then became numb, her eyes twitched. She tried again. Nothing happened. Long minutes passed. Faix reached out to her mind but she pushed him away, silenced him. She had to do this on her own.

  She had to clear her thoughts, to take control, but her head throbbed with resentment and confusion. With dark memories of her past, and an aching sadness at parting from Wes. With endless anxiety, even guilt, about her drakon.

  I am made of shadow and unsettled darkness.

  There is nothing so steady as a bridge inside of me.

  Nat looked across the gap at the warm light, the people, the city beyond, everything so close and yet so very far away. The beautiful queen she had never met, but only glimpsed in Faix’s memories and thoughts. She belonged in Apis, she only had to believe it to make it true, but she couldn’t.

  The fear was too great.

  Chapter 10

  IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE WHITE limousine, Wes had changed into a cheap black suit with fake heat buttons; Shakes wore a similar getup. He tossed Shakes a pair of mirrored sunglasses like his own and peered anxiously at the narrow one-laned bridges as the gold domes loomed in the windshield. The pair of bridges extended from the mainland to the domes and back, like a pair of tendrils floating above the water. They were the only way into and out of the floating city of El Dorado.

  Shakes turned to him. “You all right, boss? You’re pale.”

  Wes grunted. “It’s cold. What do you want?”

  Shakes studied him. “Screw you ‘it’s cold.’ Like I don’t see your face every day you freeze your ass off back home. You paid the data hacks, right? Manifests are good? What, you think we might’ve been ripped off?”

  Wes could never keep anything from Shakes. His friend knew something was up. “Maybe,” he finally admitted. Maybe we’ll get out of this alive, or maybe we won’t, because maybe we’re not on any manifest and maybe I haven’t paid anyone off.

  “Maybe, huh.” Shakes sighed, knowing that Wes’s “maybe” meant he hadn’t been able to bribe anyone and they were headed toward disaster. “And maybe you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

  “I find that hard to believe, after all this time.” Wes raised a finger to his lips. He didn’t want to have this conversation with Farouk, not yet. He glanced up front. “Slow it down, Farouk. Let’s not look too eager.”

  Farouk hit the brakes and the limo skidded to a stop.

  Wes grabbed the side of the car. “Easy, man, try not to look scared, either. Take it slow. Cool. You’ve done this a hundred times, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, no sweat,” Farouk said, picking up the speed, trying to drive as normally as possible. “A hundred times before I was dumb enough to bring you two iceholes.” He shook his dreadlocks at them.

  Snow blew in waves across the lake, sending ripples drifting toward the causeway’s concrete pillars. Red bubbles rose to the lake’s surface, gathering and popping. Wes thought the gurgling water looked like his stomach felt: anxious and boiling.

  “Like I said, a little slower,” he said, trying to postpone the inevitable as much as he could, but the limo was already at the dome’s entryway, right at the golden arch.

  “Like I said, make up your mind already,” Farouk groused.

  The shiny half loop of gold-plated steel glistened, its surface newly polished. Guards flanked the arch in front of the checkpoint, weapons raised, robo-hounds held back by leashes. El Dorado was a paradise for those who could pay to get inside—Vallonis for the wealthy. The people of El Dorado didn’t suffer from military raids or eat processed glop; here in the domed cities, they could pretend the apocalypse had never happened. Who wouldn’t want that?

  “Boss,” Shakes said, nudging him. “Boss.”

  “A minute,�
� Wes said, trying to figure out what he would say once the guards asked for his ID and told Farouk they weren’t on the manifest.

  “You need to look at this,” Shakes said, pointing to the tip of the dome.

  A plume of black smoke drifted from the far side of the golden hemisphere. Cracks appeared across the face of its glass shield.

  “Damn. What is that?” Wes fumbled for his field binoculars. “Looks like they’re venting smoke.” Enclosures needed an exhaust system; otherwise a simple fire could clog the dome with smoke and threaten the lives of everyone inside.

  Wes lowered the binoculars.

  They were next at the guardhouse. One of the soldiers raised his weapon; the robo-dogs howled. The limo slowed to a stop. A security officer wearing a crisp white shirt, red tie, and blue blazer with a gold dome embroidered on the pocket stepped out of the booth, radio in hand and dark glasses on his face as he approached the front window.

  “Hey, man, where’s Rolf?” Farouk asked, handing over his ID.

  The security guard tipped his hat, gestured back toward the booth. His radio buzzed and he put the receiver in his ear, nodding as he listened.

  “Passengers?” he asked.

  “Casino bosses from the Loss. They should be on the manifest,” Farouk said, offering the fake IDs Wes had given him earlier.

  The guard nodded and studied the IDs, radioing in their names.

  Wes looked from the guard to the dome and back to Farouk. Smoke continued to pour out of the vent, creating black clouds around the dome. More guards appeared, surrounding the limo, listening to headsets, hands pressed to their earpieces.

  Something was happening. Someone screamed, and the guards whipped around, watching smoke billow out of the entryway.