Shadowlark by Meagan Spooner Page A

eyes.
    “Nevertheless.” Steeling myself, I reached out to touch his hand. Despite the insulation all around us I felt a tiny tingle, a buzz where our skin touched. I jerked my hand away and cradled it against my chest.
    He looked up, meeting my gaze for the first time as I tried to swallow my fear, my disgust. His eyes sharpened a little, blue even in the dim light. He was searching my face for something, his own expression haunted—but whether he found what he was looking for or not, he pulled away, turning his back, using the bars to drag himself to his feet.
    I shouldn’t have touched him. He was a monster—a cannibal. How many people had he killed in his short lifetime? Tansy was right, I should have left him there in that alley. The current that flowed between us was only magic—nothing more. Maybe if I thought it often enough, it would be true. He was a monster.
    And yet, he saved us.
    I wanted to curl up there on the floor, pull away from the bars as far as I could, and hoard what little magic I had left from what I’d stolen from Tansy.
    “They didn’t take my pack away,” I said. “But we’d better try to keep it hidden in case it was a mistake. And I’ve got my knife—maybe we can pick the lock.”
    Tansy glanced at me dully. “Just use your magic to do it.” The emphasis was bitter. As if hearing it, and regretting it, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.
    I understood the bitterness. I could still feel the whitehot agony as the Institute’s machines drained my own magic, replacing it with something false and twisted. How could she ever look at me as anyone other than the person who’d done that to her? I swallowed, trying to ignore the surge of guilt. If I hadn’t taken her magic and broken our fall, we would’ve died. I wasn’t sure we were much better off now, but at least we hadn’t been eaten. Yet. And she’d recover. She was a Renewable. In time, her magic would return.
    “I don’t think I can use magic,” I said finally. “There’s so much iron here—I feel like I can barely breathe.”
    I searched in my pack, hoping to see a telltale flash of copper, but there was nothing. Nix wasn’t there. I hoped that it had escaped unseen, that it was outside somewhere. The thought of the pixie trapped in these tunnels made me feel sick.
    “Tansy, eat the rest of the apples,” I said, fishing the last couple of fruits from the Iron Wood out of the bottom of my bag. They were bruised and a little shriveled, and no doubt mealy-tasting, but still edible. “You need it most. It’ll help you recover.”
    She took them dubiously but began to eat anyway. I crossed over to the door, ignoring the way my skin crawled at the proximity of the iron. Despite crouching to get a better look at it, I couldn’t see anything no matter how hard I pressed my face against the bars. I explored it by feel, my arm pressed awkwardly through the bars and wrist twisted back so I could get at the lock. The point of the knife wasn’t quite long enough and narrow enough to reach inside, but I tried anyway, wriggling it around inside the keyhole, hoping to hear the telltale click of tumblers.
    After a while, Tansy finished the apples and came to my side, dropping to one knee to ostensibly look at the lock with me. But I could tell she had something to say, the tension radiating from her. I braced myself and kept my attention on what I was doing.
    “I’m—sorry,” she said eventually, surprising me.
    I lowered the knife and withdrew my arms, letting my hands rest on my thighs. They ached from the awkward angle, showing bands of red where my skin had been pressing so hard against the bars.
    “You saved our lives. I can’t—I shouldn’t resent you for that.”
    I tried a smile, though it didn’t feel quite right. “It’s okay. It’s awful. Believe me, I know.”
    Tansy smiled back, the expression coming more easily to her, though she looked as tired as I felt.
    “Can you rest?”