Page 92 of Ashes of Gold
“Bati?” I whisper. “You in here?”
Digits scroll across glass screens, running calculations or programs or something. I lean in and a percentage bar at the bottom is three-fourths full. Nothing about this place feels Ghizoni to me.
“Rue… I don’t think…” Bri pulls out a long arrow from under a bed of wires.
I touch the end of it, and it erupts in flames. “Ouch!”
She drops it and it clangs to the ground.
“The fire arrows…”
Is this… could this be…?
DONEflashes on a glass screen and a start button pulses. I bite my lip and, despite my better judgment, tap the start button. Orange light shoots like rays from the computer and a hologram of the Chancellor’s face appears.
I gasp as Bri rushes over.
“You call this your best work?” Angry lines pucker around his scowled lips. “Phiz and his team can do better work than this. If you want what’s been promised, you need to deliver. If Phiz gets back to me before I hear from you, Roz, the job is his. Lucky for you, he’s been hard to reach.” He huffs, leaning back in his chair. “The girl’s evaded all our traps and her cuffs arestilllatched on tight. Those cuffs can’t be removed forcibly. Trust me; I’ve tried.”
I shut my eyes, trying to remember that exactly happening, but there’s nothing there.
“We’ve got to get her tousethat magic, so we can absorb it.”
I knew I was right about that.
“Make me something that’ll do the trick, dammit.” He slaps his desk, then rubs his chin, a faraway look in his eyes. “I have one other iron in the fire that I don’t think has gone detected, in case you all prove to be imbeciles. But I expect a better answer fromyouby morning! Get me a way to sift the magic from those cuffs or, so help me, I’ll wipe this whole island and start fresh. Did it once, I’ll do it again.”
The video cuts out.
“Wipe the island? The hell does that mean?” Julius asks, startlingus both. “Sorry, I was birdcalling and y’all ain’t hear me, so I came up in here. It was a rat though. False alarm.”
“This is a Loyalist lab, which means their headquarters isn’t far,” Bri says.“You can stumble down the wrong corridor and find who knows what.”Grag’s warning bristles.
“And it sounds like the Chancellor expects someone will get that message and soon. We need to get out of here.”
Bri shoves a few more plants into her bag, and we rush out the hole we came through.
“What did he mean, ‘Wipe the island’?” Julius asks as he shoves himself through. “He said he’s done it before?”
He reaches for me and pulls me through. The tunnel air is musty and humid compared to the chilly lab space. “The Chancellor takes an elixir to keep his cells performing youthfully. He’s over a hundred, but his fitness levels are like a twenty-year-old’s,” Bri says. “All the Patrol on the island take the same elixir, though they do die at a relatively early age, so I imagine the potency isn’t the same.” She taps her lip.
“So, he very well could outlive everyone here and just start again?”
“But this didn’t sound like outliving. He saidwipe.”
My father’s face appears in my memory like a summoned ghost.
“He’s talking about the Sickness.”
Jue’s brows meet.
“The Sickness is what killed my people before the Central District or any of this ever existed,” I say, my chest a knot. “I don’t know how; my father never knew the ins of outs of the how either. But he suspected the Chancellor was behind the Sickness. It cut the tribe size down by half in less than a month. No one in the village,despite being the only ones with magic, could figure out the cause of it.” I gulp down the lump in my throat. “Then the Chancellor just showed up. Rode in like a white knight saying he’d unearthed his own magic.”
I add air quotes to that part because he stole whatever magic he claimed to have.
“He said he could save them. He stayed in the village for days doing spells, mixing concoctions, but the Elders smelled him for the evil he was. Nothing worked, of course, because he really wanted them to die. He was only playing savior. My people were polite to him so as not to clue him in to their suspicions. But when he left, they fled. My people ran for their lives.” I sniffle.
Julius works his hand into mine and I let him.
