Page 40

Chapter forty

If Lux could describe Aline’s face when she knocked upon her door, it would perhaps be less than thrilled. Perhaps even hostile. But also, maybe, there lay just a hint of curiosity.

That curiosity grew by a fraction at Lux’s words: “I need your help.”

Unfortunately, it didn’t prevent the door from being slammed in her face.

Lux pounded on its worn surface again. But when another woman answered, she stepped back. A woman with Shaw’s eyes in an age-lined face, its shape an exact replica of her daughter’s.

“Can I help you?”

Lux absorbed the red-rimmed eyes and raw nose. This woman had clearly been crying, and for a long time, too. “I’m here to speak with your daughter, actually.”

“She doesn’t want visitors. And, quite frankly, neither do I.”

Tears pooled once more, and Lux shoved Shaw’s coat into the space between them. “You know he’s missing, I suppose.” The woman’s eyes widened, her mouth slack. “I know where he is.”

Lux sat in a decrepit kitchen at a rickety table as Shaw’s mother listened with rapt attention. Aline, with her back slouched against the chair and her arms crossed, seemed not to listen at all. The space had been meticulously cleaned. Lux couldn’t discern even a speck of dust marring any visible surface.

Shaw’s mother pressed her hands flat against the table only to fold them. She did this again and again until Lux couldn’t take it anymore and pressed her hand atop the one nearest her. It stilled, warm and callused beneath hers, and Lux bit back the urge to withdraw from the contact. She needed the woman to understand. For her and Aline both.

“They seek whatever information they can get from him now, and I don’t believe he’ll give it to them.”

The hand beneath hers went limp in defeat. “No. No, no, no.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, following the grooves left there by hard work and a harder life. “This means…”

She couldn’t force the word.

Death. Lux found most couldn’t speak it.

“It means he’s being tortured at this very enlightening moment, and they’ll kill him when he proves himself no longer useful.” Aline’s eyes were twin daggers as she hurled the words at Lux. “And how did you escape without a scratch? You’re not stronger. You’re not faster. You’re certainly not cleverer than my brother. Tell me .”

Lux wondered if her own eyes had been so hard at such a young age. She reined back her irritation. No, they hadn’t. They had been worse.

“I abandoned him. He told me to; he gave me this.” She swung his bag up and onto the table, packed with all except the journal. “I left him.”

Aline’s eyes couldn’t part with the bag or the jacket beneath it. Her throat bobbed, and Lux looked away from her. She could handle Aline’s anger. Lux wasn’t sure if she could her tears.

She’d told them why he had gone. Why they both had. She told them of the destruction they’d wrought, and even praised Aline’s innovations. She told them of their theories, of the one left in tatters upon discovering the limited supply of lifeblood, and Shaw’s message painted upon the walls, meant to terrorize the mayor in the only way they could.

But in the end, it was this: Lux had abandoned him to his fate. His death. They knew it now, and they would hate her. She didn’t care so long as they offered their help in saving him. So long as Aline had a stash of working prototypes hidden somewhere about their crumbling home.

“What do you need from me?” Aline’s voice was quiet. She didn’t glance up from the rows of lifeblood lined upon the table.

“A distraction. Whatever you can give me.”

Aline’s workroom was much different from Lux’s. For one, it was much smaller. Though, she noticed that only second to the scorch marks, the missing chunks of wood, and the scratches decorating the floor.

“Don’t touch anything.”

Lux rolled her eyes.

“I mean it. Some of this stuff isn’t all that stable. Not yet. Fine, maybe not ever.” Aline pushed aside a stack of metal squares, their edges bent inward, from her worktable, and pulled a chest toward them. “Stand back.”

Lux did as told. She didn’t relish losing her eyebrows. Or her hearing.

Aline opened the latch with a click, searching the depths of the chest. At last, she pulled out a mechanism. It looked similar to the device eliciting the sunbeam, and Lux drew closer, intrigued.

“It has a switch at the body—here—that turns it on. But I haven’t built in much of a delay yet. Whoever flips it will have to run. Fast.”

Lux hadn’t told either of them about her use of Aline’s final creation. Her knowledge of the cottage, Morana’s capture, and the phantom were her secret to bear. For now.

“Understood.” She reached for the device, but Aline backed away, clutching it close to her chest.

“What is your plan, exactly?”

Lux dropped her hand with a huff. “I need to draw the Shield away from the mansion. I need to meet the mayor—alone. I have leverage that I feel can barter Shaw’s release.”

Aline’s gaze was unusually penetrating for a child. “And if you fail?”

She wanted to say she wouldn’t. But she decided on the truth, instead. “Then I will die, my lifeblood drained and drank by the mayor or one of his glowing family members. And you will use every explosive device in this disastrous room, bringing down the entire mansion and most of the surrounding buildings to set your brother free.”

Aline’s mouth twitched. “Good. I like that plan better anyway.” She pushed the device into Lux’s hands. “But, in case you don’t fail and wind up dead…Thanks.”

Lux bit her lip against a smile. “You’re welcome.”