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  A public announcement system blared: ALL RESIDENTS TO THE EASTERN EXIT. ALL OTHER EXITS CLOSED DUE TO SMOKE CONTAINMENT.

  Shakes coughed into his hand. “We’ve got to get out of here before they shut the doors.”

  Wes nodded, as the panic around him grew and the screaming grew louder.

  EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS TEN MINUTES.

  El Dorado was going to cut off this dome to save the others lest the smoke and fire jump to the next enclosure, consigning everyone who didn’t make it out to their deaths. Meanwhile, the marked prisoners were everywhere, bending street lamps, causing explosions, creating havoc. Wes wanted to help them—hell, he wanted to join them—but he needed to find Eliza first.

  Wes wanted to feel sympathy for the frightened people running through the streets, towels held to their mouths, fear in their eyes. He wanted to pity them, their homes aflame, but he could not ignore their richly tailored clothes, the fabric shiny and gaudy, their restored vintage cars now blackened by smoke. The residents of El Dorado were the lucky ones. They had literally walled themselves off from the End, living a life that hadn’t existed for over a hundred years. It was warm inside, and flowers grew in boxes and grass. The air was moist. The domes were trapped in a time capsule, and their citizens lived in a fantasy. Maybe it was good for the citizens of El Dorado to smell the smoke, to shiver from the cold wind that was starting to blow through the broken glass, to feel fear for a change.

  Wes had known fear his entire life. He had lived with fear, with cold, and with hunger, so maybe it was time the people of El Dorado learned how the other half lived.

  You’re full of ice. You had the watts, you’d live here, too. Wouldn’t you? A girl about his age ran past him, blood dripping from her head; she was crying, holding a young boy close to her side. No one deserves this, no matter how they live.

  “Boss?” Shakes and Farouk were up ahead and confused to find their leader behind them. “You dreaming, man?”

  He had been dreaming, just as he had been when he was racing at the New Vegas speedway. He found himself doing it more and more since he’d left Nat, since the black ocean and all that happened on those dark waters. When he dreamt, it was as if he could see into another world.

  “Sorry.” Wes ran to join them and took the point position, leading them past rows of polished sports cars toward the hospital doors. Gunfire thundered in the dome, the sound amplified by the hard surface of the gold hemisphere. Soldiers roamed the streets, taking up defensive positions, helping people out of their buildings, guiding them toward the last remaining exit.

  EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS NINE MINUTES.

  “Look. They found the limo.” Farouk pointed to the alleyway where they had parked. Shots rang out and peppered the limo’s plastic doors and its tires deflated.

  Freeze it, that was our only way out of here.

  The security officer appeared, the one from the guard post; he was the one who had shot at the car. He lifted a pair of high-tech binoculars and spotted Wes and his team.

  “HALT!” he ordered, dropping the lenses and picking up his automatic.

  “RUN!” Wes yelled, and the boys ran.

  “We’ll draw him off,” Shakes said. “Head for the hospital. We’ve got your back. Find Eliza, we’ll meet you back at the alley in five—if not, we’ll see you at the way station tonight. We know the drill.”

  Wes nodded his thanks and waved as he parted ways with his friends. He watched them scramble between a line of parked cars, shooting over the guard’s head, drawing his fire away from Wes and forcing him to find his own cover.

  The gunfire stopped; the way was clear. Wes bolted for the hospital entry, dashing between the open doors, through the smoke and fire, and into the hospital, calling his sister’s name.

  Chapter 13

  WHEN NAT OPENED HER EYES, SHE WAS standing at the edge of the forest again, and Faix was with her. The gleaming white city in the clouds was gone. “What happened?” she asked. “I made the bridge—I saw it, I felt it—and then . . .”

  “You fell,” Faix said, looking deeply troubled. “That was not supposed to happen. It’s why I brought you here after I caught you.”

  She looked around and saw fields of flowers growing around the skeletal remains of broken cars, and broken, burnt trees standing next to healthy ones. They were at the border, where Blue land turned into gray.

  “Do you see it?” asked Faix. “Two worlds, overlapping each other, one dead and one alive?”

  Or one dying, and the other coming into being, Nat thought.

  “Exactly,” he said, nodding.

  “What does it have to do with falling from the bridge to Apis?” she asked.

  But Faix smiled inscrutably again, and instead of answering, he walked over to stand between two gray oak trees, one withered, the other lush with life. Here.

  She stood next to him.

  The air was dead in one spot and alive in the other, electric. One part it was numb and destroyed, and the other was alive, vibrant, exultant. Nat stood in the middle, excited and alarmed.

  Can you feel it?

  Yes.

  “When you fell, I believed at first that you had lost your hold on the ether, but then I realized that I saw the bridge as well, and it is the ether that failed you. It has happened before, but not at this intensity.”

  “The ether failed? But I don’t understand . . .”

  He nodded solemnly. “Your world is dying,” he said, “and the Blue is returning, or so we had thought.” He gestured from the muddy forest floor to a wall of light, glimmering and magnificent. Faix whispered an incantation underneath his breath and a vision appeared in the light, that of a dark and infinite sky. “To understand its failure, you must understand the history of Vallonis.”

  In the beginning was the word.

  And the word was made flesh.

  A world was born from a bright light. Mountains rose from the oceans, rivers snaked through barren valleys, a dark land was covered with green vegetation. Brilliant white castles appeared on the horizon, villages full of every kind of creature, from smallmen to sylphs, centaurs, and flying horses.

  This is Atlantis. The first iteration of the binding spell, the one that would cover the world with magic. In Atlantis, the worlds of science and magic existed peacefully together.

  Nat watched as the shining white city was swallowed by the ocean.

  But the spell was weak, and the magic failed.

  Next, a green island glittered in the middle of a lake.

  This is Avalon. The second iteration. The second attempt to unite the world of magic with the gray lands.

  A young girl with fiery red hair stood on the shore and stared out at Nat before the island disappeared into the mist.

  Then the image showed her and Faix’s reflection as they stood in the forest. This is the third age of Vallonis, or the Blue, as it is known in your world. The third iteration, the third attempt to bring magic back into the world.

  Faix cleared his throat and the vision faded. He turned to Nat. “The spell has been cast several times now, and every time it does not hold. Atlantis disappeared into the depths. Avalon survives, but is closed to the world around it. And as for the Blue . . .” Faix shook his head. “When the third spell was cast, the ice came with it. The cold was born on the same day. The spell that was supposed to transform this world is also destroying it. The magic turned against itself.”

  “It’s broken,” she said quietly, thinking of the corruption, of the sickness that had turned the marked people into thrillers, living corpses, their magic rotting them from the inside.

  A spell that was meant to heal the world, to bring magic and wonder back into existence, had brought death and destruction instead.

  “The very nothingness from which everything is made has been tainted,” said Faix. �
��Some believe that when the spell was cast, it was broken because the earth was too full of poison, that the oceans were too polluted, that the very foundation of life had already begun to crumble.”

  She stared at the lush green trees of the forest and past that, into the countryside, covered in gray ice, at the world where the stars couldn’t penetrate the veil, where the sun was just a memory.

  “So there’s no hope then?” she said, gazing into iridescent eyes. “No refuge for the marked?”

  “Are you asking if there is a way to escape the rot and the ice? Since Vallonis itself is corrupted?”

  “Yeah.” Nat had fought for Vallonis, she had bled and her drakon was broken, for the dream of a place that did not even exist.

  “The spell can be recast, the damage undone,” Faix said. “Vallonis can rise again.”

  “How?”

  “In the beginning was the word,” Faix reminded her. “There is a codex, a scroll or a book called the Archimedes Palimpsest which contains the instructions for the binding spell. I have studied its history. The spellcaster, the one who reads from its pages, must hold the power of Vallonis in their very soul. The spell requires a sacrifice in its casting, but it also carries a reward.”

  “A reward?”

  “The caster becomes king—or the queen—of Vallonis.”

  “What’s the price?”

  “The spell demands the greatest sacrifice of its caster. When the spell was cast three times before, each time the magic faltered because the caster failed to provide a sufficient sacrifice. Queen Vallona, first ruler of Atlantis, cut off her hand to bind the spell, but it was not enough. Atlantis sank. Arthur gave up his love and his wife, but the power of Avalon faded. Our queen gave her own son’s life to cast the spell, but still it was not enough. The spell did not hold and so our queen has sought to cast the spell once more.”

  “And did she?”

  Faix shook his head sadly. “No. The corruption froze the book inside the Gray Tower, and the key to unlocking it was stolen from us by one we thought was a friend. Without the key, the binding spell cannot be unmade nor recast.”

  “What happened to this friend?” she asked, remembering his words. You will be betrayed as I have been betrayed.

  “We don’t know. Only that the tower still stands, and the world is still broken.”

  “So find this key, get the book, and fix this broken world? Is that it?” She smiled at her confidence, but she was a drakonrydder; this was what she was meant to do.

  “Yes, but it is not as simple as it sounds. Even if we find the key and its thief, and are able to rescue the book from the tower, there is still no guarantee we can find the source of the corruption to set the spell to rights.” The charm on his necklace glowed.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  He smiled. “It is a pendant that contains a portion of the first tree of Atlantis, preserved from the time before the first Breaking. This necklace has been in my family for thousands of years. There were ten pendants at the start, but now only a few remain. The pendants are used in the recasting of the binding spell. When the last piece of Vallonis is gone, we will no longer have the ability to remake this world.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Faix lifted the pendant from his neck and it hung in the air, a red sphere held by what looked like a tiny gold drakon claw, and inside the sphere Nat could see a silhouette of a tree. A whole universe inside a charm.

  They were silent.

  Nat, Nat, Nat.

  Faix cocked his head. This time, he’d heard it, too.

  It was the same voice she had heard when she first entered the forest, the same voice she’d heard when she stood on the cliff.

  The voice was stronger now, louder, and it hit her like a punch to the head. Someone wanted her attention. Someone was in pain. Someone needed help, someone she knew. The voice was familiar. Over and over she heard it until she had to put her hands over her ears.

  Nat! the voice called, screaming and full of terror. Nat!

  Nat! Don’t let them—! I need you!

  Chapter 14

  THE HOSPITAL LOBBY WAS EMPTY. There was no one at the security desk, no one at admittance, no one at the nurses’ station. The floor was black with ash, the air was filled with smoke, and strobe lights flashed as the fire alarms rang. Wes removed his phone again to check his notes. Eliza was in room 712. He needed a map, some kind of directory, but the computer on the nurses’ desk was dead.

  He burst through steel doors that separated the lobby from the rest of the hospital and immediately plunged into darkness. A bright strobe flashed, lighting the corridor to the stairway, blinding him for a moment before vanishing again. Wes had seen enough to orient himself, and he made for the stairs, groping in the darkness, and the light flashed again, but too late this time as he slammed into a cart filled with sharp instruments. Steel and glass clattered to the floor.

  The hospital was nearly empty, and outside, he could hear the countdown. EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS SEVEN MINUTES.

  When the strobe flashed, he saw the door to the stairway and opened it, just as a boy with a star mark on his cheek and black hair stumbled past him. A doctor in a white coat appeared in the hallway, and when he saw the marked boy, he ran in the opposite direction. Wes kept climbing up, waiting for the light to flash again, and when it did, it revealed the walls were pocked with bullet holes. He passed more doctors, running away, running down.

  “Eliza Wesson! Do you know where Eliza Wesson is?”

  But the doctors only shook their heads and ran, fearful and mute. Wes understood their fear; he was afraid, too. The building felt as if it might collapse at any moment. He was running in the darkness; the only light came from the emergency strobes and the occasional ripple of flame. The structure—the walls and floors—was starting to creak. The higher he went in the building, the hotter it got. The floors beneath his feet began to buckle.

  EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS SIX MINUTES.

  Wes ran up the dark stairway until he made it to what he thought was the seventh floor. Eliza was in room 712. He stumbled over a body, then another. A shaft of light illuminated the floor from a hole blown out the side of the building. A bright golden shaft—Wes supposed it was beautiful, but given the circumstances, he didn’t pause to admire it. Eliza’s floor was littered with the bodies of dead prisoners and dead soldiers. He checked every face but didn’t see his sister’s. Outside, the screams of the crowd were fading. The dome was emptying.

  EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS FIVE MINUTES.

  “Eliza!” Wes called, thinking she might hear him if she was still in the hospital. “Eliza!” he called again, but there was no reply.

  He heard footsteps echoing in the stairway, heading up, not down. Soldiers. Crap. He’d given himself away by shouting.

  At the far end of the corridor, Wes saw the same security officer from the guard booth who had chased his team from the entrance to the alley and now the hospital.

  “YOU! STOP!”

  Wes opened the nearest door and crashed into an office, plunging into desks and Nutri coolers and computer screens. Where were Shakes and Farouk? Had they made it out? They knew the drill. They’d give Wes five minutes and that was it. There was no waiting. They should’ve gotten out, hopefully made it to the way station somehow. Too many people had been hurt or lost while trying to help him find Eliza: Liannan, Roark, Brendon, and now Shakes and Farouk. His team. His family.

  The footsteps faded. Wes pushed through a door on the other side and found himself in a different corridor, a long white passage, lined with doors on both sides. He’d found the prison cells.

  The strobe flashed. Wes checked the room numbers. 702. He was close. More flashes. 708. 710. Finally 712.

  Eliza’s room. Wes kicked the door open.

  The strobe flashed in the
hallway, illuminating the room. It was tidy, but empty. He had expected nothing less. All the rooms were empty; everyone was gone. But he had wanted to go inside the hospital on the fleeting chance that she might still be there. The strobe flashed, freezing an image in his mind’s eye. White linens. White robe. A desk covered in paper.

  Heavy footsteps outside, coming closer.

  Wes lifted one of the manila folders on the desk. The strobe flashed. He saw her name typed on the front. A pink rabbit sat on the desk, the fabric faded, the fur worn. He had no memory of the toy. But it had to be from her childhood. He took the rabbit; it was something. If he never found his sister, he would have this one token, he thought as he stuffed the rabbit into his coat pocket. Had she been transported out already? Or was she one of those marked prisoners tearing apart the domed city?

  He was about to leave when the door clicked open and he felt the barrel of a gun pressed against his back. Wes raised his hands, placing his palms on the back of his head and weaving his fingers together. He knew the drill, he knew how to surrender—he had been a soldier once.

  “Turn around, slowly.”

  Wes did as he was told. The light flashed, and he saw the security guard’s gun aimed at his chest.

  “Ryan Wesson?” the guard barked.

  How did they know his name?

  “ARE YOU RYAN WESSON?”

  “Yes! Yes! I surrender. You can put that down.”

  The light flashed again.

  EASTERN EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS TWO MINUTES.

  The guard nodded, reached into his pack, and produced a pair of plasti-cuffs.

  “What’s the point, we’re both dead,” Wes said as the officer snapped the cuffs on his wrists.

  “Don’t worry, icehole, they’ll get us out,” the guard said, pulling out his radio. “I got him. Yeah, he confirmed. Meet us at the front.” He pushed Wes out of the room, to the corridor, toward the hole in the building where a blackbird heli was waiting, hovering.