They wrenched at my hands. The slat was snatched out of my fingers. They squeezed down on my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything.
But at least I’d tried.
* * *
THEY DRAGGED ME into a courtroom that looked nothing like a courtroom. Waterfalls chattered and shushed in the corners. Ferns and orchids twined across the limestone walls.
So how did I know it was a courtroom and not an underground botanical garden sprouted by someone with serious heat lamps? My biggest clue was the curved, monolithic table and the five angry Shades sitting at it. My second clue was the doom that hung in the air. And the third?
That was when a young woman—the woman who had shoved me on my first day in the Sanctuary, who was sitting at the center of the table like she was the one in charge—said, “Who will speak for Darcy Jones before she meets the Council’s judgment?”
“I will,” I said. I took a deep breath to calm my hammering heart.
“You can’t,” said one of the five seated Shades, an elderly woman whose hair was still jet black. “It’s not allowed. You must remain silent.”
“She doesn’t even know our laws,” I heard someone mutter in the crowd of Shades behind me.
“Well?” The young woman smirked, templing her small hands. “Will anyone speak for her?”
No one answered.
Not at first. Then I heard the whisper of feet shifting behind me. Light feet. Graceful ones.
“I will,” said Orion.
His voice did little to dull my fear. Sure, he’d promised to speak in my defense, but that was before the “Your World/My World” argument.
“Orion.” The scarred woman who had interviewed me leaned forward, placing her hands on the table where she sat. “You can’t be serious. Not after what she’s done.”
“And what has she done?” said Orion. “She fought for her freedom. Don’t tell me, Meridian, that you wouldn’t have done the same.”
Meridian’s face tightened, but into a pleased kind of frown.
“No.” The young woman slapped the table. “Meridian would never have acted like that. Never. No cage can bind a Shade. But that’s because a Shade will ghost her way free. She won’t crash and blunder through our Sanctuary in a shameful display of humanity.”
“She fights well,” said a stocky man to her left. “She’s fast, too fast for me to ghost out of her way. I have the marks to prove it.” He raised a bare arm, which bore a welter from my bed slat.
I held my breath. It was a good thing that I had hit him?
“Your injuries cannot be part of her defense!” The young woman cinched her tiny hands together.
“Why not?” Orion faced her. “Zephyr, the Society can’t rely wholly on its ability to ghost. We must also know how to fight. We need warriors. We always have. Darcy struck out against us, true, but what choice did she have? We should have offered her our protection and help, as our law demands. Darcy never should have been imprisoned to begin with.”
“No one questions that Darcy Jones is a Shade,” said the elderly woman. “But—” She glanced at Zephyr, who said, “She claims she was raised by humans, yet who knows what she hasn’t told us? How are we to believe anything she says? She’s a security risk. At the very least, she needs to be imprisoned indefinitely.”
“I have to agree with Zephyr on this matter,” said a serious-eyed man seated at the edge of the table. “We live in dangerous times. If what Darcy says is true, I pity her, but we cannot trust someone who knows so little of our ways.”
“You won’t even give her the chance to learn!” said Orion.
“Her escape attempt speaks for itself. She may be a Shade, but she acts like a human.”
“Which is why you must believe she is telling the truth about her past,” Orion insisted. “A Shade who can ghost and manifest would never go through such an elaborate, physical effort to escape. She would simply vanish. Instead, Darcy risked everything to break free the only way she knew how. This proves she has been honest with us and is worthy of our trust.”
Not too long ago, I could have strangled Orion. Now his passion made me cringe. I was a liar. I wasn’t even a good one, and still he believed me.
“You’re blinded, Orion.” The man sighed. “I’d like to know by what.”
“By admiration.” Orion’s eyes flashed to mine. “She cheated the IBI. If the IBI thinks they can contain us, they will think of Darcy Jones and think again. Yes, she has been raised as a human, and yes, the damage done is immeasurable. But all the more reason that she needs our help to reclaim her identity as a Shade.”
“Impossible,” said Zephyr.
“You know what your problem is?” That was my mouth, moving. Those were my words. It took a little while for my brain to catch up and realize that I was about to piss everyone off. “You’re afraid of humans.”
A collective gasp sucked all the air out of the room.
“You know what you’ve got here?” I jabbed a thumb into my chest. “A golden opportunity.” My guilt about lying evaporated in the face of my sudden insanity. What was I doing? “I don’t know much about this world, but I know that there’s a war between humans and Shades.”
“That’s not what I would call it,” said the man I’d hit.
“You will be silent!” Zephyr hissed at me. She glanced at the man. “You, too, Loam.”
He bristled.
Was it possible that I was winning at least one of the Council to my side? I plunged ahead. “I know a lot about humans. I could help you.”
Shades turned toward one another, and the chamber murmured with whispers. I wondered if my parents could be here, in this very room. If they were, they didn’t seem eager to claim me. Not that I’d expect them to be. Not that the thought of them being here, and saying nothing, hurt.
Not at all.
“We are excellent spies,” said Meridian. “We observe humans daily. There isn’t much you could tell us about their ways that we don’t already know. Besides, you grew up in another world. Humans are different there.”
“They can’t be that different,” I said.
“This isn’t a conversation!” said Zephyr. “This is a trial.”
“But I know the way humans think.”
“Darcy can even pass as one of them,” Orion said.
The crowd muttered again. Something flashed across the elderly woman’s face. The serious-eyed man leaned back in his chair.
“The Society has always been poor at disguising ourselves as humans,” said Orion. “We need to be manifest in order to have a physical effect on the world. Yet how many missions have failed because a Shade ghosted the moment things got dangerous? Darcy’s very inability to ghost could work to our advantage. And she moves like a human. Wigs, makeup, clothes rarely work for us. Not for long. Yet she was able to walk down the street in broad daylight with nothing more to hide her than a coat with a large hood. Any other Shade would have brought attention to herself. She would have been too agile. She would have walked too quickly. Airily. Darcy positively lumbers.”
“I don’t lumber,” I said. Orion looked at me. “I mean, yeah. I’m slow. Total slowpoke. That’s me.”
“So she’s quick when it’s convenient to you”—the elderly woman glanced at Loam—“and slow when it’s convenient to you.” She nodded at Orion.
“I’m a multitalented girl,” I said.
“Enough.” Zephyr stood. “The Council has heard what it needs—more than it needs—to judge the fate of Darcy Jones.”
“Agreed,” said Meridian.
The five Council members vanished.
They were gone for a long time. How long, I couldn’t say, but my feet began to prickle from standing and my body swayed. Many Shades watched and waited, their faces lit with an intensity that could have been for or against me. Others ghosted away for lengths of time and then reappeared for a few seconds, like people who don’t really care about a football game on TV but occasionally stick their heads i
n the living room to check the score. Some Shades never showed their faces, not once during the trial. I could see several shadows against the courtroom walls cast by people who weren’t there.
It was eerie. To be constantly scrutinized by invisible eyes. To have someone burst into being inches in front of my face. Sometimes a host of Shades disappeared at once like a flock of birds taking flight. I couldn’t help flinching. I was startled every time. There was no way I could get used to this, even if I wasn’t waiting for my fate to be decided.
I tried to catch Orion’s eye. He stared straight ahead.
When the Council manifested around the table, Orion glanced at me. He knew, as well as I did, what they had decided. We could tell even before Zephyr opened her mouth. We could tell because of the way she looked at me.
Like she wanted to eat me alive.
“Darcy Jones is free to claim her rights as a Shade,” she said, “and to call the Sanctuary her home. She may come and go as she pleases.” Her next words were carved out with very precise diction. “She is truly one of us.”
Orion gave me a half smile, triumphant but also cocky, like he had never doubted this outcome. But I’d seen the tension on his face and wondered if some hidden part of him, the one that had accused me of ignorance, was uncertain whether it was a good thing that we’d won.
I smiled back at him. I pretended I wasn’t someone who would betray him.
I’d betray anyone in that room—the IBI, too, if I wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted, exactly. Not yet. But I was going to find out, starting with finding Conn and snatching that photograph right out of his thieving hands.
23
“This is something I have to do on my own,” I told Orion.
“It’s dangerous to explore the city by yourself.”
It was several days after my trial. Orion and I stood at the top of a long flight of stairs, just below a hatch that, above the earth over our heads, was covered by a gravestone.
“I’m not afraid,” I said.
Orion’s expression softened.
I’d suspected those words might work some magic on him.
“I understand,” Orion said, and pushed open the hatch. Snow showered down onto us, biting at my skin, sneaking under my collar. I yelped.
“Brr!” Orion shook snow from his hair.
“Freezing,” I agreed. “But you don’t have to feel the cold. Ghost, if you want.”
“No. There are certain advantages to having a body.”
For a second, I could feel it: the chill of delight. Snow tingled on my cheeks. Then I realized that Orion’s black eyes were too bright. “Without lips,” he said, “how could I say goodbye to you?”
I took a step back. Buttoned my coat. Reached for the edge of the opening above me, ready to hoist myself into the predawn sky. “Goodbye.”
His face dimmed, yet he lifted his fingers to my neck and fastened the last button on my collar. “Goodbye. Be back by nightfall?”
I nodded stiffly, then pulled myself up, kicking a snowdrift down onto Orion’s head.
He spluttered. “You’ll pay for that.”
I looked down at him, unsure if he was joking. He reached for the hatch. “By the way,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
The gravestone shut.
For a moment I simply stood in Graceland Cemetery, surrounded by pearly gray light and lacy black trees. Then I walked away.
It should have been easy to thank Orion, but I never had, not once since he’d defended me at the trial. Not when he gave me a tour of the Sanctuary. Not when he showed me how to access the earth’s surface.
I owed Orion. I would have to be very careful around him.
But not today.
It was a Tuesday morning, two weeks since Conn and I were supposed to meet. I had the foolish hope that maybe Conn would show up at the meeting point: 3:23 p.m., at the corner of Michigan and Van Buren. That’s what I’d do, if I were him. I’d go there every Tuesday, same time, same place. So that’s what he should do, if he was smart.
If he thought I was still alive.
If he thought I hadn’t decided to break my deal with the IBI.
As I said, it was a foolish hope.
My boots crunched on the snow. A sheer layer of ice had frozen over it, and I could feel it hold my weight for a fraction of a second, right before it cracked. And over and over, with every step.
It was strange to be so aware of my weight. Of the quiet miracle of gravity. That I had feet and that they touched the ground. But when I opened the cemetery gate, looked back, and saw my footprints in the snow beneath the pink line of the rising sun, I knew that this was how I wanted to be. Cold and heavy and there. A ghosted Shade wouldn’t have left footprints, but I didn’t want to be a ghost. I wanted to be myself.
The gate clanged shut behind me.
I knew where Michigan and Van Buren was. That part wasn’t hard. It was in the Loop, the heart of downtown Chicago, just south of the Art Institute. At least, in my world.
The tricky part was getting there. I was so far north that I’d have to find some kind of ride. I adjusted my wig, letting the long brown curls trail out from underneath the raised hood of my coat, and slipped on the sunglasses. I headed west.
The streets were quiet. There were no buses. A car whizzed down the street, Indy 500 style, and I was sure I’d hear a police siren, but none came.
I searched for the familiar steel frame of the elevated train. The skies were empty.
No buses. No trains. Only a few cars, as far as I could tell. But there had to be public transportation. I just couldn’t see it.
I spotted a few early morning commuters, stepping outside of low houses so flashy it was hard not to stare. My Chicago was gritty, a city born out of steel, railroads, and meatpacking plants. It’s big and brown and gray. But these homes were painted like gingerbread houses with candy-coated roof tiles. Slick pink window frames. Stained-glass windows. Lily would have loved it.
And then there were the people. Dressed in wraparound coats with fur collars, narrow-waisted jackets, long gloves, canes. Everyone. Even my coat, I realized, subtly fit the fashion.
I figured that one of these people had to be heading toward the L, so I followed a man with stovepipe trousers. He briskly turned the corner and dropped down out of view. The sidewalk seemed to have swallowed him up.
Of course. There must be a traditional subway. One tunneled underground, like most city metros.
I strode toward the spot where the man had plunged downward and saw nothing but a rectangular metal plate in the middle of the sidewalk. I tapped it experimentally with one boot, then stood on it.
And screamed.
It plummeted beneath me, hurtling down like an elevator with cut cables. I looked for walls to hold on to, but there weren’t any and it wouldn’t have mattered if there were, because the plate had locked onto my feet with a force that held me completely rigid. I was frozen in place.
The plate slowed, then hovered above a long, metal box. I stopped yelling, and just in time, too, because the top of the box slid back, revealing several people standing in the box’s bright light. My plate dropped through the opening.
I had been deposited directly into a subway car.
There were no seats. Everyone stood against the walls, chatting and ruffling newspapers. It crossed my mind that maybe I should lean against a wall, too, but I wanted to find the map that every civilized society puts in its subway cars.
The car hurtled sideways, flinging me against a wall. The same force that had held me to the plate now sucked my cheek against the metal side of the car. I tried to move. Couldn’t. I was splayed against the wall in a crazy yoga pose. The other passengers stood calmly, having had the good sense to stand in comfortable positions before getting glued to the walls.
The car glided to a stop. I wobbled, suddenly unstuck. The roof slid open. Someone stepped onto a metal plate in the center of the car. He shot through the roof, which then sealed shut.
The car jumped forward, skewed left, and sang with speed.
After several stops, I still couldn’t see a map and didn’t dare ask for help. Finally, after being zipped around and shaken like a fancy Cuban dancer’s maracas, I realized that either I was going to throw up my breakfast of highly caloric water or I had to get off this mad fun-house ride.
I got off at the next stop. I didn’t care where the train spat me out.
It was somewhere along the river. I studied the skyline, searching for a black skyscraper with broad shoulders: the Sears Tower, the tallest building in Chicago. Seeing it would help me figure out where I was.
It wasn’t there. The skyline bristled with buildings that stretched even higher than the Sears Tower, with shapes I recognized from my sketchbook. Thin, elegant curves. They gleamed in the dawn like ice sculptures.
Since I couldn’t have the Sears Tower, along with a fair number of other perfectly reasonable things, I had to be satisfied with the fact that at least the sun told me I was west of the river. The center of this city seemed to be where my Loop was, even if these new skyscrapers had been designed by some fairy tale architect.
I set out to cross the river when my boot touched a brass disk set into the sidewalk. I jerked my foot back. This disk wasn’t a subway plate, though. It was round, much smaller and brighter, and etched with the symbol of a flame. It didn’t seem to do anything. Then I saw another one in the ground, several feet ahead, and another one just after that. It was a trail.
It didn’t lead exactly where I wanted to go, but it was morning, 3:23 p.m. was still many hours away, and even if I had to see Conn, I dreaded it. I dreaded seeing the fine, awful angles of his face again, and eyes that managed to be so clear even when his mouth was full of tricks and lies.