never gets where it wants to go,” she says. “It hurts. It isn’t supposed to be like this.”
“No, it isn’t,” he agrees. Then, carefully, he asks, “Do you know how to fix it?”
Her mouth opens. Closes again. Finally, she shakes her head, and says, “It’s too big. I can’t see where the break ends.”
“But it can be fixed.”
This time she nods.
Reed smiles. “Come here, girl.” He holds out his hand.
Her fear is a beacon, a radiant light that almost hurts to behold, but she comes to him obediently enough, folding her fingers around his own. “Where are we going?” she asks.
“To see your maker. I have a task for her.”
He leaves the lab and the girl walks silently by his side, her bare feet making no sound on the tile. She’s a charming little thing, if half-feral—Leigh lacks the simple social graces necessary for childrearing, is too easily distracted by the latest bit of mastery or mayhem to catch her magpie eye. Perhaps it’s time for him to take more of a role in the lives of these minor incarnations. Having the living personification of Order itself walking beside him could be pleasant when she’s older, when her creator has finally come to the end of her usefulness. There’s something pleasant and poetic about the idea of Leigh engineering her own successor.
Yes. This is something to consider.
Leigh is in her own lab, measuring alkahest into a tungsten flask held by a sullen-looking dark-haired boy whose every motion seems to be the precursor to escape. The girl pulls her hand out of Reed’s when she sees her counterpart, drifting across the room to stand quietly beside him, watching the precious, flesh-eating liquid transfer drop by drop from one vessel to another. Reed says nothing. There is a hierarchy to be observed, but alkahest cares little for who is or is not in charge. It will devour the worthy and the unworthy alike.
The only sign that Leigh has noticed his presence is a slight tensing of her shoulders. She finishes the task at hand, setting the container of alkahest gingerly back on the shelf before claiming the flask from the boy.
“Erin, Darren, both of you, run along,” she says. Their names are an imperfect rhyme, ever so slightly out of true, and this, too, is intentional: Chaos could not tolerate perfection. She finally glances at Reed. “I have work to do, and children will just be in the way.”
The girl—Erin—grabs her counterpart’s hand, and they’re off, running from the dangerous adults with every scrap of strength and self-preservation their tiny bodies can contain.
Reed lifts an eyebrow. “Keeping them from me?”
“They’re not mature yet. Erin is useful, but Darren . . . he fights me. I can use him for tasks that could turn fatal, because he’s afraid of leaving her. Anything else, he’ll make a mess.” Leigh sets the flask into its cradle. “Why are you here?”
The matter of the cuckoos is urgent. Still, he has another question. “They’re paired but they’re not linked, correct?”
“They’re distinct embodiments. Order can survive without Chaos. It just won’t be happy.” Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Would the girl mature more quickly if the boy were removed?”
Leigh hesitates before she says, “Perhaps. Why?”
“I want her useful. Sooner rather than later.”
“It will be done. Now. Why are you here?”
“The third set of cuckoos has made contact again.” Reed raises a hand as Leigh opens her mouth to protest. “It’s confirmed. Professor Vernon reported it, and he’s been waiting years for the girl to start manifesting her potential. He wouldn’t sound a false alarm.”
Leigh scowls. “What do you want me to do?”
“Fix it. Before the Congress notices them entangling across a continent, and we lose this pair to meddling old fools who don’t know when to keep their hands to themselves.”
“You’ll have to deal with them sooner or later.”
Cuckoos or Congress, it doesn’t matter: her words apply equally to both. “Yes, I will. But for now, I need you to break the contact. Break it thoroughly enough that they won’t think to try again until we’re ready for them.”
“Can I break them?”
Splitting them apart may do precisely that. It’s a risk Reed is prepared to take. “Only if you must. Start with the Middleton boy. His parents will make sure he toes the line, once they understand what’s at stake. If that doesn’t work, you can go to see the girl.”
“Your will be done,” says Leigh, bowing her head.
“When you get back, I want to discuss—Darren was his name?”