“I’ve been in here enough times,”Adena replies in silence. “Trust me.”
Now she steps closer to the Ghost. She moves with confidence, but I can see the slight stiffness in her shoulders, the nearly imperceptible tremor in her hands. She reaches the beast, then holds out the syringe toward the bones of its spine that jut out. We remain still, not daring to breathe as she approaches it. Beside me, Red’s emotions stir slightly, and through our link, I sense a rising tension in him that almost feels like anticipation. Like hewantsto see this Ghost approach him.
Adena hesitates for a second—then injects the syringe deep into its spine and pulls a vial of blood from it as fast as she can.
The creature whirls. It moves so fast that at first I think it will catch Adena in its jaws.
Its eyes are still milky white like every Ghost I’ve ever seen, its teeth still long and bloody around its ruined mouth. But its scream is hoarse and liquid, like its throat has almost completely rotted away. I notice that one of its eyes is missing, and it only has two or three claws per hand.
That doesn’t stop it from lunging at Adena. Hate burns cold in its eyes.
Adena spins smoothly away, slicing back with her dagger as she goes. It cuts a long ribbon into the creature’s upper arm—a piece of flesh comes away from its body at the action. This Ghost is falling apart.
I realize that she’s trying to lead it toward Red. Jeran whips out one blade and spins forward, cutting the Ghost hard enough on its other arm to force it to turn. It bares its overgrown teeth at him, then lunges again. Like water, Adena moves out of its way and cuts it once more, bringing it closer to Red. The two of them work together in a seamless pattern of movement, goading the Ghost toward one, then the other, then finally close enough to where I’m poised with Red for it to sense his presence.
I tense. Somehow, in this darkness, I don’t remember that Red is the one beside me. Instead it’s Corian, still bent on one knee on the forestfloor, paying his respects to the Ghost he had just killed, unaware that this will be one of his final moments. My blades are in my hands before I can think, and I take a step toward Red, baring the steel before me as if his life might depend on it. The logic in me struggles against the tide of my memories.
Hold back. This is not the forest. He is not Corian.
Beside me, Red stills. For an instant, I’m afraid he’ll transform right here in the cell. Or, worse, he won’t—and the Ghost’s chains will break and it’ll sink its teeth into him.
The Ghost reaches Red—its chains pulled taut, its arms stretched tight behind it—and it screams in frustration. At first, it doesn’t seem to treat him any differently from how it treats us. But when its milky eyes meet his, it halts. Its teeth are still bared, and it still glares at him with an inhuman curtain of fury—but instead of lunging, it continues to stare, tilting its head at him in confusion. A low growl rumbles at the base of its ruined throat.
To my horror, I can tell that Red has a strange kinship with this Ghost. I sense the surge of emotions from him—that he and this creature were both birthed from the same place, created from the same nightmare. Then I realize that this is how Red feels—there is an understanding that sparks between them, and whatever that is, it keeps the Ghost from attacking him.
The Ghost snaps out of its hesitation. It gnashes its teeth at Red, then turns away from him and shifts its attention toward me.
I’m ready for it. I yank out one of my knives and stab it into the Ghost’s arm before it can lunge at me. The creature screams. Unlike with Red, it looks at me with familiar hatred, then shifts to attack again.
Suddenly it shrieks, slapping at its neck as if a bug has stung it. Behind it, Adena pulls another syringe away from its neck and steps back.
It takes less than a second. The Ghost blinks twice and sways on itsfeet, then backs up a few steps. The snarl in its throat morphs into some kind of whine. Those eyes flutter again. It tries to focus on Adena, its teeth still gnashing, but then it collapses to its knees. Its muscles flex as it struggles to stay awake, but it’s no use.
I look on as it goes limp and splays unconscious across the stone floor.
Adena’s forehead gleams with sweat. “It didn’t attack you,” she signs, nodding once at Red.
“It’s as if it knew you,” Jeran adds, materializing out of the darkness to join us.
Red stands his ground.It isn’t trained to attack me, he tells me through our link. His voice in my mind sounds hoarse and exhausted, weighed down with unspoken grief.
I repeat Red’s words to Adena and Jeran, signing with my hands.
We step out of the Ghost’s cell, and Adena carefully locks each layer of the cell’s doors behind us. Only when we’re completely out and standing back in the dungeon’s corridors do I let my shoulders loosen.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years of studying Ghosts,” Adena exclaims, trying to keep her voice down and squeaking in the process. “The way it reacted to you? It didn’t even try to attack.” There’s a bright light in her eyes as she holds up the vial of blood she’d taken from the Ghost.
Jeran has a glint in his eyes too. “We are going to figure out what the Federation tried to do to Red,” he says. “And we are going to figure it out soon, before they can take us down.”
“Whatdowe do now, though?” I sign, my eyes going from the vial of blood in Adena’s hand to the dark silhouette of Red’s figure.
Adena takes a deep breath. “Now you’re going to help us get around the scrapyards in the Outer City. Because I need some good magnesium.”
16
“I just need enough of the metal to test Red’s blood against that Ghost’s,” Adena tells us as we head out of the Inner City gates and into the muddy paths of the shanties. “Magnesium metal doesn’t do much when dropped in water. But when mixed with Ghost blood, it froths and turns pale. Ghost blood is wild. The result is a sample where the froth trails let us see the movement of the blood inside the mixture.”
Around us, people cast Red nervous glances. Even without his fearsome wings, he looks taller and stronger than most here.
