18

Bree’s good arm crossed her chest and the smirk on her freckled face was the closest thing to the old Bree he’d seen since finding her. “Read it for yourself. I told you. You can’t go in.”

Kai resisted the urge to untie her hair and ruffle it. He missed her curls.

They stood before a tall building carved with intricate geometric patterns. A silent lady shuffled along, hunched over and gazing at the ground. Kai scanned the quiet street. Other than the old lady, they were alone.

All the other buildings Kai had seen so far had been simple, purely functional. This one made up for all their plainness. A carved stone plaque declared the building to be The Temple of Tau in grand letters. The times of worship were carved underneath in tiny writing. Kai poked at it with a stiff finger. “Surely, they open for services. They must.” Kai didn’t know much about church, but it made sense that the building would be opened for the faithful. “How else would one do whatever it is that people do during church?”

Bree’s nose wrinkled, and she shrugged. “That’s what the courtyard is for.”

Kai was not convinced. He mounted the broad stairs to the over-sized double doors. He pushed, shoved, and tried the handle. Nothing budged. Bree leaned on the plaque at the bottom of the stairs, her face expressionless, but I told you so twinkling in her eyes.

Tau, why is it so hard to get to you?

Determined to find a way in, Kai explored the walls alongside the door. He trailed his fingers along each crack, feeling for something that might spring the doors. He’d been on this side of reality often enough to know secret entrances were nothing strange.

Bree stayed at the bottom of the stairs. “Give it up already. You’re not getting in. You’re just as stubborn as you were before.”

Kai heard her, but he moved on to the wall to keep exploring.

“Kai...”

He stuck his hand into a carved recess just at shoulder height and felt around for anything out of the ordinary. This one was smooth. He clucked his teeth, muttering under his breath.

“Kai! They’re coming.”

“Just give me a moment.”

Bree stamped her foot in frustration and ran up the stairs to grab Kai’s arm and yank on it.

“What?” He brushed her off and kept on searching.

“Temple Guards. Trust me. You don’t want them to catch you here.” Any trace of the Bree he knew from before was gone again, swallowed up by this fear-filled, pale creature who couldn’t look him in the eye.

Kai stopped and spun around. “That is the single most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Shocking, I know. Whatever. Please can we leave? I swear I’ll leave without you.” Her hand rested on his arm, and her fingers burnt his skin.

“Fine. Just give me a moment.”

Running footsteps echoed down the street as though a small army headed toward them.

“You’re out of moments. You’re on your own.” Bree took off along the side of the temple, ducking behind the hedge growing along the front of it.

“Hey! You on the stairs. Freeze for scanning.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kai saw a group of soldiers dressed just like the two who’d escorted them to Stone City. The image of Bree’s death date carved into her gravestone flashed in his head and made up his mind. There was no time for him to hang around and chinwag to this bunch. He ran after Bree, leaving the temple and his only link to Tau behind.

~*~

Evazee tried to breathe quietly, but her heart raced. Shasta stood with his back to her, rubbing his chin and muttering to himself. A girl that looked to be Evazee’s age came in and stood quietly. She bounced on her toes as if the floor were cooking her feet. She must be in a hurry.

A full minute later, Shasta tapped his foot on the floor. The hologram powered down and disappeared. He turned to the girl. “Why are you disturbing me?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s a problem with the Resonance Pools. We’ve tried everything, but we can’t get them right.”

“Have you got samples?”

“All ready for you, sir.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. It would be simpler to do it all myself.”

The girl looked suitably whipped and followed behind him as he left the room. Evazee waited until she couldn’t hear their steps and slipped out of her hiding place. She had to know for sure she wasn’t misinterpreting what she’d seen. Hopefully, she was wrong.

Finding the spot Shasta had tapped his foot was easy. It was a raised bump in the floor. She stamped it hard and waited. The hologram of earth appeared as before, flashing many spots of green. Evazee copied the hand gestures he’d used and zoomed in, working her way to finer detail each time. Finally, she got right down to the OS and recognised it by the giant instruments decorating the outside. Her heart pounded. Zooming in meant glimpsing all the things someone else had seen all along.

She spread her fingers, and the view switched to the inside of the building. As she tapped and slid, the view changed, and she revisited the rooms that had been her prison. There was the lounge where she’d stolen fruit. Someone had watched all of it. She felt stripped, exposed.

The instrument panel across from where she stood beeped and flashed. She checked the passage to make sure no one was about to interrupt her little escapade and tiptoed across to it.

The small, square screen was brightly lit with one word that flashed over and over: COMPROMISED.

She flicked her fingers at the hologram and the panel fell silent as she zoomed out, away from the OS. So, their doorway and darKound relocation had caused some trouble. Picking a random spot, she flicked inwards until she’d homed in on another school, one she’d never heard of before. Writing scrolled up across the panel, numbered lists. Most of it made no sense, but two headings stood out: Converts and Coerced. The school she was looking at was made up of 92% Converts and 8% Coerced. Converts sounded good, but coerced?

“Ah you came. I thought I felt you here earlier.”

Shasta had come back.

Evazee had been so engrossed in what she’d been reading, she hadn’t noticed. She wanted to run, but there was no point now. She recognised his voice as the voice in her head. He appeared to be clothed in the same stuff the walls were covered in, though how one made a coat from star-encrusted black marble was beyond Evazee. His silver hair hung long down his back, but his eyes drew her attention. Pale as dove eggs, they fixed on her. She felt stripped.

Evazee shot her hand behind her back and coughed. If he’d been a split second later, he’d have caught her redhanded. “Why did you call me here?”

“You recognized my voice. That’s good.” Shasta sauntered across the room, a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

There was an agelessness to his face that intrigued Evazee. Between the dome of sky overhead, the sound of running water, and the deep timbre of his voice, Evazee began to feel a little tipsy. The closer he came, the more the feeling grew. By the time he stood a foot away, she felt quite dizzy. She’d never been drunk before, but this must be what it felt like. Delicious lethargy bubbled through her veins making her limbs heavy and her head light.

Shasta tilted his head, his eyes fixed on her face. “You’re not like the others here. There is something about you that I like. I want to show you something.” In a smooth move, he slipped behind her and placed his hands on the console, wedging her between the keypad and himself. “I see my map caught your interest.”

His breath was cool on her neck, and he smelled of sandalwood. She shivered but couldn’t find the strength to pull away from him. Her muscles ignored her. “What is this thing used for?”

He flicked his finger across the dial in the middle and hologram Earth spun. He tapped the screen and it stopped spinning. A bright dot glowed and pulsed. The man pointed at it. “That is where we are now.”

Evazee shrugged. A small part of her screamed, waving fists as alarms, but the rest of her felt warm and lazy. “So what? What can you do with it?”

Shasta snorted back a laugh. “Oh, nothing really. It’s all just decorative. Here to make the room pretty. Like your hair, so pretty.” His fingers ran through her long hair, twirling the ends. Evazee shivered, though not from cold.

“Why are there buttons?”

The man moved away, his gaze focussed on her as he circled. “To show you different things. Go on, push one.”

Evazee’s curiosity piqued, and she did as the man said. The hologram split down the middle and the top layer peeled back to reveal a network of tunnels that criss-crossed the entire planet in every direction. “What is this? What am I looking at?”

“Oh, my darling, this? This is my favourite part. Some call it the spirit cuttings. I think of them more like quick tunnels. It’s all connected.”

“Did you make them?”

“Would you be impressed if I said yes?”

A trap. She dodged it with a question. “What are they for?”

“I can be anywhere, anytime. Isn’t it perfect?”

Stars danced in her eyes, and she had to lean on the control panel to stop herself from falling.

~*~

Bree had changed in many ways, but the one thing she’d managed to hang onto was her run-away-fast-in-a-crisis speed. Kai pushed hard to keep up with her and put as much ground as possible between himself and the temple guards.

Even that concept messed with his brain. Since when did Tau need guards? The Tau he remembered would fling the gates wide to anyone who chose to come close to him. None of them would be turned away.

Five blocks later, Bree ran into a sunken alcove in a wall, came to a sudden halt, and doubled over, breathing hard. The street was busy with people and noise. Bree glared at him as he came close. “You have to learn to follow the rules. You can’t just run around doing your own thing. This isn’t a game. What’s wrong with you?”

Kai stepped in close to read her eyes. “Do you still paint, Bree? Draw?” She blinked rapidly. He’d hit a nerve.

She frowned at him, anger blossoming on her cheeks. “You’re not listening. Stop causing trouble.”

“The Bree I remember could turn an ugly old shack into a masterpiece with a few strokes of brush. When last did you paint?” He spoke softly as he would to a fallen bird.

“No! Obviously, I don’t. It’s not a good use of one’s time.”

“Show me your hand.”

Bree flinched and pulled away from him. “Leave me alone. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Please, Bree. I’m responsible for whatever happened to you in the desert. I thought it would work, but it didn’t. It’s been eating me alive. I thought I’d killed you.” The words hung in the air between them. Kai turned away, hiding behind his hand.

“Fine. I’ll show you. But I’m warning you, if you say anything...”

“I know. I know. You’ll rip my throat out and feed me my own intestines. Go right ahead.”

“That’s not even what I was going to say. That’s such a stupid thing to say.” Her nose wrinkled, making her freckles kiss.

“Your arm?”

She kept her gaze locked on his and awkwardly pulled back the long sleeve where she hid her hand. “There. My arm. Ta-daa.”

Kai braced himself but nothing could have prepared him. The wounds were no longer raw but patched together roughly. Her hand was a mangled claw, fingers curled and stiff, shredded and useless. “Bree, I’m so—”

“Don’t.” A single word packed with the venom of a broken heart left to fester.

“I can fix this.” Kai reached for the bottle around his neck. A few drops would be all she needed.

“Stop it! Haven’t you done enough?” She didn’t shout. She didn’t have to. Her words were barely a whisper but they rammed into Kai with enough force to take his breath away. Bree pulled her hand back into her sleeve, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and walked away.