Page 99 of The Song Rising

A leather-clad hand appeared on the wall, making us all flinch. A moment later, Warden came into view, holding something in the crook of one arm.

I let out my breath. He joined us on the other side of the fence.

“Did anyone see you?”

“If they had,” he said, “I presume that we would know of it.”

“And the core?” My breaths still wavered. “Is it there?”

His gaze met mine. “Not the core,” he said, “but there is this.”

He presented me with a scanner-gun, like the ones we had stolen from the factory, but with one, crucial difference: the white stripe. This one was active.

Warden watched my face, as if measuring my reaction. “Perhaps this is best explained at the safe house.”

“You saw something in there,” I conjectured.

“Yes.”

He handed me a holster. I removed my coat for long enough to buckle it on, shuddering when the cold hit my torso. Maria secured the scanner-gun inside it.

“Come on.” My coat was just about bulky enough to hide its shape. “Let’s take a look at this thing.”

The guard was still unconscious when we passed him. Getting out of the district was even easier than it had been to get in, but we broke into a run as soon as we were past the fence. Suddenly, the sheer stupidity and danger of what we had done was catching up with us. We parted ways with the Rephaim and took another tram back to the center of the citadel, disembarking close to Waverley Bridge—one of the two bridges crossing the valley that ran through the middle of Edinburgh, dividing the Old Town from the New Town. Rain drenched us as we returned to Anchor Close.

Eliza was bolt upright on the couch. When she saw us, she let out a low groan of relief.

“There you are.”

Nick leaned down and wrapped an arm around her. “We’re okay.”

“Did you see the depot?”

“Yes. Be glad you didn’t,” Maria said. “Are the Rephs back?”

“Upstairs. They said they were doing a séance.”

Maria cleared the table. “Right,” she said. “Let’s see what a fully activated portable Senshield scanner looks like.”

I carefully set the scanner-gun down. Maria was the first to lay hands on it.

“An activated SL-59,” she said. “Our new worst enemy.”

She dragged a finger along the thread of light. Once she had detached the magazine and scrutinized the bullets, she handled the weapon with practiced ease. Even knowing that it was empty, Eliza tensed when it pointed at her.

“Sorry, sweet,” Maria said. “I just want to know what we’re dealing with. The gun itself still seems unremarkable, so I assume it’s the scope that’s—” She peered through it. “Ah. There.”

She let me look. Through the scope of the SL-59, the world lost all its color. Eliza’s body was surrounded by a faint glow that had to be her aura. Nick, however, was dark.

“May I?”

Warden had appeared in the doorway with Lucida, who always seemed to be just behind him now. Maria shrugged and handed him the scanner-gun, which he examined. I had never seen a Rephaite hold a firearm; the effect was unsettling. After a few moments of silent contemplation, he removed the scope and took a capsule from beneath it, snapping a tress of wire. The white light ebbed, and the gun was just a gun again.

“I found no evidence of a single core inside,” he said, “but these were being added to the guns inside the warehouse.”

He held the capsule out in the palm of his hand. It was silver and almond-shaped, about the size of your average painkiller.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is it an ethereal battery?”

---