Aetherbound - E.K. Johnston Page 0,67

it.”

Fisher got on the communications channel with Dulcie, who was beside herself by this point, and relayed a short version of what had been decided: Ned’s return was a secret; Pendt’s family was bad news. She was instructed to give them another two hours of lockdown before she let the citizens go back to their usual routines.

Pendt scrolled through Morunt’s files as Fisher and Dulcie talked, with Ned reading over her shoulder.

“Just get on that terminal and find me anything about hearts or breathing rate or, I don’t know, brain atrophy,” she said.

“None of those sound like fun,” he said, moving to start the task.

“Neither does being impregnated and shoved through a wormhole so that the heirs of a dying empire can fulfill their ancestors’ wildest colonial wet dreams,” Pendt said. “Frankly, I think death is preferable, but I don’t want it. I like living.”

“You like Fisher,” Ned said. Pendt did not deny it. “That’s good. I like that you have each other.”

“I’m sorry I’m not, like, normal at being a wife,” Pendt said.

“Normal’s overrated,” Ned said. “And anyway, I’m a rebel, remember? I’m against normal on principle.”

“All right, Dulcie’s going to buy us some time,” Fisher said, coming over to where they were working. “But I want us to be back in the apartment well before the lockdown is over. If someone spots Ned, we’re going to have to answer a lot of questions, and I don’t think we have time for that.”

The three of them scanned datafiles for another hour, adding things to Pendt’s datapad they thought might be helpful. Finally, Fisher declared it was time to leave. They made their way back to the apartment, the colonnade ghostly quiet around them. For the first time, Brannick Station felt more like a battlefield than anything else, and Pendt wasn’t going to stop until she had won back her home.

25.

AFTER THREE DAYS OF reading, Pendt decided she knew more about the human body than she’d ever wanted to.

“This is why I work with plants,” she groused as Ned brought her orange juice and toast. The boys were knocking back cups of stimulant, but Pendt didn’t drink anything stronger than mint tea.

“I am kind of grossed out,” Ned said. “Like, I knew that people died, but I didn’t know there were so many options.”

“There aren’t, really,” Fisher said. “Most traumas result in death by heart attack.”

“I hate you,” Ned said, and pressed his face into a pillow.

“Maybe we’re coming at this backwards,” Pendt said. “We’re focusing on ways to die, but maybe we should be looking at ways to resuscitate me.”

“I don’t want to actually kill you,” Fisher said. “I thought we were just going to get you really, really close.”

“We haven’t found a way to do that yet,” Pendt said. “So maybe it would be easier to just get it over with and focus on bringing me back.”

“Well, it’s not like you’ve died before and can tell us,” Ned said. “I’ve only died for paperwork. Fisher’s never even come close.”

“I did come close,” Pendt said. “When I was little and regrew my fingernail? I almost died. I had spent too many calories, and they had to bring me back. There was time enough for them to debate if they should, and then Dr. Morunt was allowed to start the IV line.”

“How does that help us?” Fisher asked.

“Have you ever used more calories than you have to tap the æther?” Pendt asked. Both boys shook their heads. “Start looking for that in the research. Any kind of mage, but search for people who used up too much magic and fell into a coma as a result.”

Neither of them protested. The new search parameters brought up a bunch of stuff they’d already read, so it took them a while to sift through it again.

“I might have something,” said Pendt after a couple of hours. “This is a theory of what happened when the old Stavenger Empire made the gene-locks. The æther was dying or dead at the time, so they needed every mage they could get their hands on. Most of them died, but some apparently survived.”

She sent the article to their datapads, and they read it as quickly as they could.

“Pendt, this is fringe science at best,” Fisher said. “There are only four sources, and three of them are by the same author.”

“It’s the best thing we have,” Pendt countered.

“Please explain it to me like I’ve recently almost died of void exposure,” Ned requested. Pendt smiled at him. He was