stepped forward and, with the stone in my hand, chose all the spells I’d memorized, all the ones that would power the horses and their weapons. I felt a glow, a buzz, a thrum as the magic flowed from me and into the horses. And then it was over. I stepped back, feeling drained. The horses’ eyes had begun to flicker.
Cassandra went after me, Olivia third, and Mowse last, powering what seemed like an almost explosive amount of power into the horses. But still, their eyes flickered. We needed Asa’s magic to anchor our magic to the horses.
Asa took a deep breath and stepped forward, juggling the stone from hand to hand. He clapped his hands together over the stone and closed his eyes. I felt a wave of power surge from him, making my ears ring. It rumbled out in a dark blur, wrapping around the horses like fog, and disappearing into them.
Asa sank to his knees and flickered for a moment, as though he’d disappear. But he stayed whole, and when he rose and came back to us, the horses’ eyes glowed so brightly it almost hurt my eyes.
The guards stood back in awe at the monsters they’d be riding. They looked like an apocalyptic cavalry from machine hell, silent and spear-spined, living metal weapons brimming with infernal magic. But they were ours. And looking at them there, so quiet and formidable, I could feel in the very cells of my blood that these were our best chance of winning. Of breaking the Game once and for all.
Lucy Arbor took another bucket of rags to the fire out back and tossed them in. They had been white but were now covered in mud and blood. All day she’d been running back and forth from the hospital to the jail, to the wells for water rations, and back to the hospital, trying to keep her own symptoms at bay. But now, she allowed herself to sit and breathe just for a moment, shakily and carefully, praying she didn’t cough.
“Oh, there you are!” said Nurse Gladys, pushing open the back door of the hospital. “You’d better come back in. We’ve got another one.”
“More Dust Sickness?” Lucy asked. “Because I already got the water. It’s on the back desk.”
Lucy had not told anyone about the spell, that Mother Morevna was behind it, though in every part of her, she ached to do so. It would only cause panic, outrage, and that was the last thing Sal and the girls needed. But seeing the Sick every day, watching herself deteriorate, feeling the sense of doom grow inside her, the seed of anger and injustice had taken root and would grow out of control if she let it. And she couldn’t allow herself to become that angry. Not yet. Not when so many people needed her.
“No,” said Nurse Gladys. “Another one of those marks.”
Lucy nodded. “I’ll be in in a minute.” Coughs racked her body. She bent, double, wheezing, unable to catch her breath. Nurse Gladys ran to her and pounded on her back, shoved a glass of water into her shaking hands and forced her to drink until the coolness of the water drowned the pain.
This will kill me soon, Lucy thought. This is going to rise up in my chest and fill my lungs with mud and I’m going to die. Panic flared inside her and set her heart racing. It seemed that the huge, unbearable darkness of mortality opened before her like a gate and Lucy stood in front of it, waiting to be swallowed whole. And for what? Because the leader of Elysium saw her life as worthy of forfeiting.
“Lucy!” said Nurse Gladys.
Lucy shook herself. “I’m all right,” she said, wiping the bloody mud from her lips. “Give me a minute. I’ll be in in a minute.”
“God bless you, child,” said Nurse Gladys. And she closed the door.
Lucy stared into the fire again, feeling the pain in her chest die down. Lately, there had been seven cases of strange, bloodred bumps appearing on the backs of people’s hands. Probably some new desert malady brought by the changing winds or the dark, groaning sky here in the final days of Elysium, or so was the consensus among the doctors and nurses. They were painless and didn’t seem to cause any harm (Nurse Ada herself had one), but they appeared so quickly and looked so strange that they frightened people. So several times, Lucy had been sent to calm people down,