She still kept her secret of starfire, though it was becoming more difficult by the week to ignore. Ever since letting it rage loose four years ago, the urge to let her magic burn through her kept rising. The clawing need to use the aether for magic or science was something Caris routinely warred with lately. With a quiet sigh, she pulled away from her father and adjusted her grip on the folio containing her degree.
“Shall we head to the restaurant?” Meleri asked.
The duchess had kindly reserved a private room at one of the most well-known and expensive restaurants along the Promenade for the celebratory meal. Caris had eaten there several times before with the Auclairs. She was greatly looking forward to the flambéed fruit desserts.
“I think that’s a fantastic idea,” Nathaniel said, smiling at Caris.
She returned the smile and didn’t hesitate to take his arm when he offered it to her. They’d become friends after that initial, awkward meeting in Professor Arquette’s lecture several years back. Nathaniel was kind and funny and smart, always polite, and never falsely interested in her mechanical designs.
Caris’ stomach swooped a little every time she saw Nathaniel these days, something she hadn’t experienced growing up in Cosian. Her school-aged friends always seemed to have crushes, gossiping about the latest boy or girl who’d caught their eye, and yearning to be courted. Caris hadn’t understood that desire, not until it had oh so slowly unfurled in her own heart through the last few years of getting to know Nathaniel.
She cared for him deeply, perhaps even loved him, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell him. Caris worried about putting him in danger because of her association with the Clockwork Brigade, and at some point, she needed to return to Cosian. He hadn’t officially asked permission to court her yet, but that hadn’t stopped him from calling on her. Caris never declined his request because he hadn’t ever demanded anything from her that she wasn’t willing to give.
“When you’re ready, I will be here,” he’d always said within earshot of her chaperones.
And here he was, present at one of her milestones, something Caris appreciated more than she could say.
Getting through the crowd of families and graduates was easier with the escort that arrived at the bottom of the spiral staircase to see them off campus. The two men who worked for the Auclair bloodline carved them a way out through the press of people.
“Would you like me to carry that for you?” Nathaniel asked.
Caris tightened her grip on the folio and shook her head. “Thank you, but I have it.”
The motor carriages that had chauffeured them all to the school for the ceremony were parked in the lot beneath the shade of a tree. The drivers opened the doors of the vehicles as they approached, the party splitting up. Caris followed Nathaniel to his motor carriage, with her mother acting as a chaperone.
The drive to the Serpentine River and the winding Promenade took a little longer than usual because of the crowd. Caris spent that time chatting with her mother and Nathaniel. She didn’t mind the delay—right up until the warning sirens went off in their section of the city. The sound was a piercing, haunting noise that reverberated through the air.
The warning was only issued for tornadoes or revenants, and the sky above was clear and blue. Then a static-edged voice came through the speakers attached to the siren posts, cutting through the siren.
“Revenants in the Serpentine River, north of Hollows Bridge. All citizens to clear the area and shelter in place. All wardens within the city limits to lend aid.”
Caris froze, staring wide-eyed at her mother, who sat between her and Nathaniel in the back seat. “Mother?”
The Promenade, with its winding pathway through grassy parklets dotted with trees, was to their right. People who had been out for a leisurely stroll along the Serpentine River panicked, spilling into the street around their vehicles. The reason for their terror came climbing over the side of the river, waterlogged flesh bloated around bone, the dead come in search of the living.
Nathaniel leaned forward, barking out an order. “Drive.”
“I can’t!” the driver exclaimed. “I’ll hit someone if I do!”
People streamed past their motor carriage as they ran from the walking dead. Several women had fainted and were being carried away from the danger by men, but the lack of speed was costly. The revenants on the Promenade weren’t newly risen. The spores must have had time to sink into the dead and get control of the bodies.
These revenants moved with a speed that, while not as quick as a living person, was still quick enough to be a threat. Caris watched in horror as one of the revenants swiped at the gown of an unconscious woman being carried away from the Promenade in front of their vehicle. The skeletal fingers snagged on the bright blue fabric, and the man who’d tried to save his companion gave her up to the dead. He ran, and the revenant wasted no time in tearing through the woman’s clothes for her skin below and the organs beneath that. The sound the woman made when she was eviscerated was something Caris would hear in her nightmares.
Nathaniel hit their driver on the shoulder with his fist. “Bloody hell, justdrive! We can’t stay here.”
The driver slammed his foot on the gas pedal, face pale in the rearview mirror. Caris jerked forward against the lap belt, losing her grip on her folio. It tumbled to the floor, but she didn’t try to retrieve it.
The warning sirens hadn’t stopped, the noise ringing in Caris’ ears as the motor carriage swerved around the revenant and its victim, only to slam into another revenant. The force of the blow split the revenant in half, with the motor carriage’s wheels rolling over the lower half of the revenant’s body while its upper slammed onto the hood locked over the engine.
Portia screamed, hands going to her hip for a pistol she wasn’t carrying. Nathaniel shouted at the driver, who sat frozen behind the steering wheel. The man didn’t react in time, and it cost him his life.
The half of the revenant lying on the motor carriage’s hood dragged itself forward and slammed its rotting arm through the thin glass of the front windshield. Glass shattered as the grasping hand missing a finger gripped the driver’s face. The horrible, rotten stench of the dead filtered into the motor carriage, and Caris gagged.
“Get out!” Nathaniel shouted.
“It’s not safe outside,” Portia protested.
“It’s not safe inhere.”
