Page 135 of The Art of Exiley

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I don’t have the codes for the City Hall station, so I have to take the “fun route.” Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder without an escort. I get particularly stalled trying to open the subway car doors at the abandoned station. After two failures and a momentary fear that I’ll be taking this subway line back and forth all night, I instead open the door connecting the train cars—the door that is covered in signs warning not to do just that—and I ride between cars. It’s terrifying, very loud, and definitely involves rats. Do not recommend. As the train shrieks through the City Hall station, I hold my breath and somehow manage not to die or piss my pants while making the jump.

When I arrive at the Atlas platform, it’s abandoned, and the air locks are indeed open.

I sit on the edge of the track, my legs dangling. Then I scootch down till my toes touch the metal below. It’s a tube, no flat surface to stand on.

I unzip my snowboard bag, plop down my hoverboard—which engages with the magnetic levitation of the track—and I hop on and glide toward the air lock.

An endless tunnel of shining metal stretches ahead of me. There arelow-lit lamps set into the ceiling, and the light reflects off the polished surface, giving the whole space an eerie glow.

Let’s do this.

The maglev is much stronger than I’m used to from the hoverjoust pit, and I shoot forward so unexpectedly fast that I fall. Hard. My ankle twists with a sickening crunch. No time for pain. I pulse Ha’i down my leg to soothe the injury as I limp after my board and clamber back onto it.

This is good. I’m going to be able to go even faster than I thought. But realistically, I don’t think even I’ll be able to stay on my board at the speed I need to sustain to intercept Kor. I wish I had a binding to strap into like on my snowboard.

I take inventory of everything I have with me, but I don’t have any rope or anything to help secure myself to the board.

Find anything you can use. That’s what Rafe would say.

Think.

I’m already sweating. I push the flyaways out of my face, and my hand catches on the vine that Sal wove into my braid. Yes.

I unwind the vine, grasp it in my hands, and take a deep breath.

Please grow,I request.

The vine lengthens and winds around my arms.

Yes!Stronger. Thicker.

Soon I have a thick vine twice the length of my body. I use it to lash my feet to my board.

And then Igo.

I bend my knees to find my center of gravity, and I’m a bullet. I lose sense of what is up and down. I’m just a girl being sucked through a straw.

Which, apparently, is not a sustainable existence for all that long.

I’ve lost track of time and distance, and I’m utterly exhausted from doing nothing but standing. I slow to no faster than a walk and take the time tosnack on Sal’s trail mix. As I crunch on peanuts and pumpkin seeds, I hold back tears. How am I supposed to do this? It’s dark, and I’m alone and tired. I ache all over. My calf muscles are killing me from involuntarily clenching them the whole way. I wish I could sit.

And then I have the most bizarre idea… that just might work.

I slow to a complete stop. Which is terrifying in the echoing tunnel somewhere deep under the Atlantic Ocean. I refuse to think about what could happen if the train were reactivated.

I retrieve another pumpkin seed from the bag and use my spoon to pry off the seed shell, then cup my hands in shiin around the inner seed. I am an Alchemist Sire, and I’ve learned how to do this. I know I can do this.There.I can feel a tiny thread of Ha’i still inside.

Please, grow.

And it does. I conduct until the plant is too big for me to hold, then put it down on my board and keep pulsing Ha’i into it. Soon there’s a beautiful pumpkin just the right size to sit on, with a thick vine growing up between my legs, long and strong enough to strap myself to the pumpkin and the pumpkin to the board.

And that’s how I continue my journey. On a pumpkin throne with a vine seat belt, trying to breathe easy as I gust through the tunnel, losing track of what could be minutes or hours.

I talk to myself. I sing. I yell at the top of my lungs.

I am a shooting star, a meteorite, an avalanche.

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