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  ‘What about the Grotto?’

  ‘It was risky for her to come to the meet. If the Ripers had caught up with us … but knowing Eve, she had an escape planned. We would’ve run interference for her anyway.’

  Retra’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’

  Kero shrugged. ‘We don’t agree with what Eve’s doing, but we don’t want the Ripers to get her either.’

  ‘But the Ripers are supposed to be our Guardians.’ She wanted Kero to agree but he didn’t.

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s not that simple,’ said Kero. He pushed open the double doors into the club and the music slammed into them.

  Kero and Krista-belle headed straight onto the dance floor. Rollo tried to entice Suki out there with him, jumping up and down in front of her, pulling faces. She laughed and glanced at Retra.

  ‘Dance with him,’ Retra reassured her. ‘I’m going to look around.’

  Suki gave her a wicked grin. ‘Don’t go beating up on any Ripers. And don’t go home without us.’

  Home. A strange way to think of Vank. Still, she nodded before she moved off.

  Dividing her attention between the murals of sleek black birds on the wall and the faces of the dancers, Retra walked around the edge of the dance floor. The eye of each bird glittered as though lit from behind, making Retra’s skin prickle.

  Periodically a spotlight danced over the birds, creating a ripple effect as it passed across their wings. Retra was grateful she hadn’t taken the pod earlier. The effect of the lighting and the pod together would’ve made the birds seem creepily alive.

  At the other end of the room she discovered a dais with a small drinks station. An uther stood behind it, pouring cups of fizzy orange drink from a large brass urn. Retra grabbed the back of a vacant seat and dragged it away from the tables, to the edge of the dais. The view of the dance floor was better here and it was cooler.

  She found the Leaguers were hard to pick out from the other dancers with no bandanas or bat-wing capes or spikes to identify them. Eve was clever not to have her members stand out. And Rollo had said only her close guards wore the hard leather tunics. Was it possible that Joel was one of them? Or had hope played with her imagination?

  And then she saw him.

  Only a few steps away from her. Moving between the dancers with quick purpose.

  Joel!

  She slipped off the chair and under the railing, and ran after her brother, breaking through the black lace cobweb that connected two girls, knocking into another couple.

  Just as she reached him, though, the club’s lights extinguished and the music stopped.

  She reached out desperately, blindly in the dark. Screams rose from the club goers; delighted and scared at once.

  No!

  Then the glitter balls in the ceiling reignited and light dots glanced off arms and cheeks. Her hands touched her brother’s shirt and she pulled him close. ‘Joel,’ she breathed. ‘Joel, it’s me.’

  He stared down into her face with disbelief. ‘Ret?’

  His hair had grown long, straggling, and a light beard covered his jaw line. His brown eyes were the same though; alive and sharp.

  ‘I came to find you. I couldn’t bear it there any more without you,’ she said.

  He pulled her into a fierce hug and she could feel his heart hammering against her face. He smelt so familiar that her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘What about Mother and Father?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him again. ‘Mother was heartbroken when you left. So was I. But Father … he made it … terrible … especially after probation.’

  ‘They watched you?’

  She shuddered in his arms. ‘Yes. They sent a warden to live with us.’

  Joel gripped her tighter. ‘Ret, I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t stay …’

  ‘I understand. Really I do.’ Now she’d found him, the past began to evaporate.

  Then an urgent voice intruded on their reunion. ‘Joel! She’ll be here soon …’

  A tall, broad girl with a blunt face wrenched her brother’s arm from her shoulder. The girl wore a leather vest and pants. Silver daggers hung from chains attached to her belt. Her expression was impatient. Dark Eve.

  ‘We have to go,’ she said.

  ‘No!’ Retra hung on.

  Joel stared down into her face. Tears glinted in his eyes. ‘You mustn’t be seen with me, Ret. I can’t explain but you must keep away. I wish you hadn’t come but there’s no going back now you’re here. Stay at Vank when you can – with Charlonge. Tell her I said she should take care of you. She is … was … a friend. Don’t try to find me again. Understand? DON’T TRY AND FIND ME!’

  He kissed her head then suddenly pushed her into a group of dancers. Thinking Retra had thrown herself to them, the dancers spun her from person to person. By the time she broke free and ran to the edge of the dance floor, Joel had vanished.

  The aching loneliness that had been with her since the day her brother had left Grave rose up in an intolerable wave. She crouched on the floor, unable to move or speak. Her chest hurt as if she’d been stabbed.

  Around her the crowd began to move, knees brushing against her shoulders, knocking her balance. She felt someone tugging her arm.

  ‘Retra, come with us, something’s happening outside!’ Suki and Rollo were next to her for an instant but then they got swallowed up by the movement of bodies.

  Eventually, Retra stood and drifted with the flow, not even sure what she was doing. She found herself in a short corridor that opened into a doorway as wide as a station platform. Not the front of the club, but the back.

  ‘Retra!’ shouted Suki. She stood, wedged between Rollo and a tall, thin boy with blackened teeth and a mass of gold rings in his ears. ‘Here.’ She lifted her elbows and shoved until the boy stepped back out of the way, leaving a gap.

  The surge of people behind Retra buffeted her forward and Suki grabbed her hand, pulling her to her side.

  ‘Lucky you came then or I wouldn’t have seen you. Look!’

  In front of them a glowing path curved out into the night. A short distance along the path a group of young people huddled together, encircled by another group brandishing crude weapons in their hands. The scene jolted Retra from her trance. For a moment she feared the outer group would turn and attack the unarmed ones. ‘What are they doing? Are they going to hurt them?’

  ‘It’s the Cursed League. They’re protecting them. Wait. Watch!’ Suki quivered with excitement and tension.

  The tallest of the weapon carriers wielded a blunt, heavy instrument in the shape of a cross. She was thickset, brawny even, wearing chest armour. Glinting knives hung from the waist of her pants.

  ‘Dark Eve has the cross!’ shouted someone behind them.

  ‘The cross from the Illi altar,’ said someone else. ‘She stole it.’

  Another surge of spectators forced them to spill forward from the safety of the club doorway onto the beginning of the path.

  Retra and Suki clung to each other and Rollo, watching as something glistening and terrible reached from the darkness to slash at Dark Eve. She swung the cross in a wide, powerful blow, bludgeoning the claws. Retra couldn’t tell what it was, only that it moved with unnatural speed. Then something else attacked Dark Eve’s other side, wrapping around her wrist and pulling her towards the edge of the path, towards darkness. She bent her knees and leaned back, wrestling to pull the creature into the halo of the light.

  As the tussle went on, Dark Eve’s strength began to prevail. The creature squealed and writhed: exposed to the light, it appeared as a mass of claws and limbs that had no real body or face.

  A figure with a heavy chain sprang to Dark Eve’s aid. With fierce slashes the figure beat at the creature until it let go.

  ‘It’s Clash!’ shouted a voice. The crowd cheered.

  Retra saw only her brother, bare-chested but with leather cuffs around his forearms. She wanted to run out to him but other things had sprouted from the dark, sinister thin
gs that sent the air putrid with stink and wracked it with a high-pitched whine. Around Retra, people cupped their hands over their ears or their noses.

  ‘Why do they call him that? Clash?’ Retra asked the thin boy behind her.

  ‘Because of the sound his sword makes.’ He pushed past her. ‘I’ll help you, Dark Eve!’ he shouted.

  The crowd cheered again and the thin boy danced about in front of them and bowed. They applauded his bravado as he sprinted off along the path.

  But a few steps from the circle of League fighters something tripped him and he rolled to the edge. Instantly claws slashed his arms and stabbed into his feet until he screamed pain. The same claws dragged his spasming body into the dark.

  Clash – Joel – ran to help him, chains windmilling. But in the precious seconds it took him to get there, the boy had gone.

  The crowd fell silent, reality seeping through. Someone had been killed out there, just a little way from where they stood. One of them.

  ‘Mother Gods have mercy,’ whispered Suki. She crossed her forehead.

  Rollo stared, unblinking.

  Dark shapes emitting piercing cries swooped in over the heads of both the League and those they protected.

  Some of the fighters detached from the outer circle and held their shields high. They thrust upward with their heavy candlesticks and swung their chains at the sky, ready to bat them away.

  Suki’s lips were at Retra’s ear as they gripped each other. ‘The draculins are hunting little bats, but if there’s human blood they’ll go for it too.’

  Retra wanted to leave right then but her mind was numb to anything except the sight of the huddled group. What were they doing out there?

  A down-gust of wind blasted them all and bright lights flooded the path. The wild draculins took fright as an enormous, bloated object, lit by downlights underneath its belly, and towed by leased draculins, descended and hovered above the League.

  A gantry detached from the zeppelin’s cabin, lowering on ropes until it almost reached the ground.

  ‘Aboard,’ roared Dark Eve.

  The group of protected ones scrambled on to it, some slipping on the unsteady platform.

  Then someone behind Retra shouted, ‘Ripers!’

  The crowd broke apart to make way and Retra and Suki were torn from each other’s arms. A Riper brushed past Retra, knocking her to her knees. He paused and lifted her to her feet in one effortless movement.

  She stared up into an exquisite, pale face framed by straight, black silken hair.

  Lenoir!

  Their eyes met in the briefest moment of recognition; his, wild and hungry. She couldn’t breathe, mesmerised by the intensity of his gaze.

  Then more Ripers converged behind him. Modai and Test and others Retra recognised from the re-birthing ceremony.

  Lenoir let her go, the withdrawal of his touch a raw energy bleed.

  His eyes widened in surprise as if he too felt the loss. He started to speak to her but the call went out again, warning the League.

  ‘Ripers!’

  Lenoir turned away, summoning his band, and they ran down the path in a pack.

  The echo-locaters pulled upward and the zeppelin lifted with the platform only partly retracted. The Leaguers abandoned their fight, fleeing from the Ripers along the Lesser Paths. Some of the Ripers pursued them but others stopped and began to retrace their steps.

  Suki and Rollo grabbed Retra. ‘Quick, let’s get out of here.’

  Retra felt the same panic. She didn’t want to be questioned by the Ripers. ‘We should go to Vank.’

  But as the crowd retreated inside, siphoning down the corridor and into the larger dance area, she became parted from them again and had to catch the kar alone.

  Retra didn’t wait for Suki on the Vank platform, but went looking for Charlonge straightaway. She found the Vank supervisor up in the gallery listening to the organ and staring down at the crowd in the cruciform. Charlonge was dressed in her resting lingerie, a pearly satin shift with bunches of black ribbon around the hem and neckline. With one arm she hugged a small parchment book to her chest while she held a small set of binoculars.

  The book took Retra by surprise. In Grave the Council kept books locked in the library. Her mother went to the library once a week to read but the wardens had prohibited her from doing that when they put them on probation.

  ‘Why did you lie to me?’ Retra asked.

  Charlonge started from her seat but, when she realised who had spoken, she fell back as if tired. ‘You should be resting, baby bat.’

  ‘I saw my brother, Joel, tonight. They call him Clash and he runs with Dark Eve.’

  ‘Hush!’ whispered Charlonge. She hastened to the end of the gallery and put the binoculars away into a small hutch, next to several other sets. Then she closed the narrow door and checked carefully to make sure the shadows were empty before she spoke. ‘Do you realise what will happen if they hear this … did y-you speak to him?’

  Retra nodded slowly, absorbing the girl’s nervous, almost excited, expression. ‘Joel said I should stay here. That you would watch out for me. Yet you told me you didn’t know him.’

  Charlonge took Retra’s arm and pulled her closer. ‘Dark Eve is an enemy of Ixion. She breaks the rules.’

  Retra pulled away in rejection of Charlonge’s words. ‘Rules? Ixion is supposed to be free of rules, yet it seems as strict as Grave in its own way and more … more dangerous.’

  Charlonge stared at her for a long moment. Retra saw something change in her eyes, as if a layer peeled away, letting her see further in. ‘You are learning quickly, baby bat,’ the older girl said. ‘But then Joel’s sister would.’

  Retra quivered. It was not what she’d wanted to hear. She’d wanted comfort – Charlonge to tell her that she had misread the way things seemed.

  A sob caught in her throat, a croaking sound like an old person gasping for breath. It took a moment before she could speak. ‘Joel said that I should stay away from him. Why has he joined the League? If they find him what will happen to him?’

  ‘He will be withdrawn.’ Charlonge’s lips quivered.

  The chill fist of fear that held Retra’s heart captive squeezed tighter. ‘Tell me how you know my brother?’

  Charlonge pressed her eyes with her fingers and sighed. ‘We arrived on the same night – though from different places – and went through the Register together. Then we came to Vank for our first rest cycle. It stayed like that for a time: together at the clubs and the parties. I loved it here. But he was always restless and he didn’t like the Ripers looking over his shoulder. He said they reminded him of Grave and his father, and that the Youth Circle was a waste of time. Then he met Eve – Dark Eve. She filled his mind with ideas.’ Charlonge’s face became angry. ‘She took him … from me.’

  Retra bit her lip. Did Charlonge’s stomach ache when she saw Joel in the way hers did when she saw Markes? ‘Now he’s helping Ruzalia?’

  Charlonge nodded and her flush of anger drained into a look of fear. Her eyes flicked constantly to the balcony door. ‘I was happy here. It was fun. Everything the pamphlets said, everything we whispered about in Lidol Push. But Joel worried about where the over-agers went. He became obsessed with it. He followed the older ones around. It became creepy –’

  ‘My brother is not creepy,’ interrupted Retra hotly.

  ‘Others thought so … They didn’t understand his obsession with finding out what happened when you were withdrawn. Eve encouraged him. I found them … together one night. We had a fight. He didn’t come to Vank again. I don’t know where he rests now.’

  Unreasonably, Retra felt guilty that Joel had let Charlonge down. But Charlonge had not believed in him. Retra had always believed in Joel, and he in her. ‘I want to see him again. Talk to him. Maybe I can convince him to stop.’

  Charlonge’s expression changed again. Hope lit her face. ‘You could do that?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Retra. ‘But I need to talk to
him, alone.’

  Charlonge thought for a few moments before replying. ‘Then search for him again. But in the meantime you must act like everyone else. There is a likeness between you that’s unmistakable; your brown hair and eyes, and the way your expressions are always so serious. After the incident with Brand, the Ripers will be watching you. If they realise that you’re his sister they’ll use you to capture him.’

  ‘Modai already watches me.’

  ‘Modai?’ Charlonge was startled. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. From the start, at the Register, they sensed I was here for different reasons. They tried to trick me into telling them. I’m not sure if my badge is right. They called it a faux –’

  ‘A faux badge!’ Charlonge grabbed Retra’s hand and turned her wrist. The mark was beginning to glow. She stared and bit her lip. Her look scared Retra.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘I should have noticed before, when your friends brought you here. The badge is only temporary. According to Ixion law it can be revoked at any time on the word of the Guardians. You must be very careful, Retra.’

  ‘Or?’

  Charlonge dropped her hand and moved towards the gallery door. ‘Or you’ll be withdrawn early.’ She opened the door and glided out as one practised in the art of vanishing. ‘Now go and rest before you burn out.’

  Retra found the petite nuit rooms running off one end of the gallery. Suki was already lying in one wearing a black satin shift. Rollo was on the next bed in red silky boxers. Both had their eyes open but unfocused, telling Retra that they were deep in petite nuit.

  She found an empty bed on the other side of the room, kicked off her shoes and slipped under the covers, not bothering to change.

  Her drowse was uneasy, filled with whispers and unwanted touches, and arguments with Joel. Demons appeared then vanished to the beat of Markes’s music. She searched for Markes in the dark but could only find Cal. The white-haired girl kept talking to her but Retra couldn’t understand the language she spoke. Then Ripers’ faces crowded in close and she came out of petite nuit with a start. Blinking, she looked around.