City of Dust: Completely gripping YA dystopian fiction packed with edge of your seat suspense. Michelle Kenney

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СКАЧАТЬ spiralling out of control, that I needed to rein it in somehow, and say the right thing. But I was too scared and furious to think straight.

      ‘I’m not just a dumb treehouse builder, Tal! I know Octavia wanted the Book, and it wasn’t just because of some old feud between her and Thomas. And I know you’ve avoided telling me, and for the love of Arafel, I’ve not pushed you – though I’ve wanted to. But it seems I’m the only one not in the circle now. Despite everything we’ve shared. Even Aelia places some special value on the Book, and I’m still left guessing, because presumably, I’m just not him – that’s it, isn’t it?! I’m just not him!’

      The words cut the still air between us, like a knife descaling a fish, removing twelve months of armour with just a few short strikes. And I could tell by the look on his face how much it had cost to deliver them, and that he was fighting himself even now. I knew exactly what he needed me to do. And so much of me wanted to throw my arms around him, tell him it was all his imagination, that August meant nothing to me. That I only wanted him. Especially since that night.

      But I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to push back the tidal wave of guilt. Because it was a downright lie. And while suffocating my feelings was one thing, outright denial would be like prising them out at the root.

      The whole damned world is waiting … August’s last words fell through my thoughts like tiny sharp hailstones. If, by the whole world, he meant a daily trajectory of denial and distraction, followed by the slow burn of reality, he just about had it summed up.

      How could he have left Isca Pantheon without looking for Arafel? And for me? Were his memories not slowly eroding his sanity?

      ‘If that’s what you really think, you can keep this!’ I ground out, whipping off the hand-carved treehouse dart tube and throwing it at him. ‘I haven’t got time to stand around listening to a neurotic fairy tale. Someone has to stop Aelia before she leaves Arafel!’

      Spinning around, I flew towards the window. I was flying before Max could answer and I didn’t look back.

      Anger always put the devil into my tree-running, and tonight was no exception. Aelia and Rajid had stolen the village’s most prized possession, something Grandpa had charged me to protect with my life. And now there was a very real chance it could end up in Cassius’s hands.

      Cold fear gripped my stomach as I paused at the end of a thick ash branch. What could they possibly hope to achieve by giving Cassius the final means to decrypt the Voynich? They might buy the escaped Prolets and August time, but Cassius would be able to accurately re-create beasts from myth and legend on an unthinkable scale – beasts that were extinct for a reason.

       ‘Come what may, nature finds a way.’

      It was one of Grandpa’s favourite mottos, but I wasn’t sure the recovering world would ever be ready for that dark day. My feet flew as though they had grown wings. I grasped a low-hanging pepper tree branch, and ignored the way a pair of bush babies cried out as I disturbed the last of their sleep. I had no time to waste, and my frantic thoughts kept pace with my feet.

      Aelia couldn’t physically take the Book through the tunnel, even if she knew where it was located, which meant she either had decided to navigate the North Mountains on foot – suicide, but plausible – or make her way to the animal infirmary and take a certain mythical two-headed haga back to Pantheon. My acorns were on the latter, and that meant there was a very real chance she could be gone before I even reached the infirmary.

      I took my running and leaping as high as I dared into the topmost branches of the trees I knew like the back of my hand, but it was still too long before I dropped down near Eli’s veterinary hut, where we’d left the exhausted two-headed Roman eagle a little earlier.

      With a pounding chest, I pushed through the thick fringe of banana trees, and out into the grazing paddock. It was a communal grassy community space, where hens, pigs and Eli’s injured menagerie roamed during the day. But tonight it was deserted.

      I made my way silently across to one of the dozen oak timber and willow huts that lined the field. They were emergency shelters should a monsoon storm hit our treehouse community, but also served as an indoor space for wet market days, grain storage and my favourite: Arafel story nights.

      Cautiously, I pushed open the grass door to the animal infirmary, and was immediately greeted by a cacophony of sounds and dubious smells. The hut was Eli’s special project when we returned from Pantheon, and together with Max, he’d painstakingly designed it to meet the needs of all kinds of sick and injured animals. I’d often thought it was his way of coping with what had happened; Max and I had turned to each other, while Eli had thrown himself into his work.

      ‘Eli?’ I whispered.

      There was no answer and then I remembered. Eli wasn’t here. He was in the Ring with every other member of Arafel debating the issue of the day, and probably my sudden departure too.

      Holding my breath, I sprinted down towards the end stall he reserved for the larger animals, willing the haga to be there, willing Aelia to have had second thoughts. But when I reached the stall and peered over at the sawdust floor, only a lone golden feather the size of a cedar leaf gleamed back at me.

      I bent down to pick the feather up, as the moon slipped behind a cloud, and for a moment the air thickened with meaning. I inhaled slowly, feeling a shadow creep over my home. Knowing the stark truth. Arafel was standing in the eye of a cold, dark storm, one that was whispering names.

      I lifted the feather to my lips. It was still warm. And when I cast a look out of the small netted window on the back wall, the last of the dusk was receding in to the horizon. It was bleeding the colour of Arafel’s ruby orchids, the deepest shade of their brief exotic season, and staining the sky blood red.

       Chapter 5

      ‘Rye bread?’

      I shook my head at Max, and glanced around our makeshift camp for Eli.

      ‘Seen Friskers?’ he signed as I made my way towards him on the opposite side of the clearing.

      ‘Max said he was here earlier,’ I reassured him, ‘testing the porridge for us before he slunk off. He’s more cat than anything else, I reckon.’

      Eli grinned, clearly more concerned about an AWOL griffin than his own skin.

      I scanned the jungle bushes, already glistening with the day’s heat. We’d left Arafel at dawn with enough provisions for a couple of days. After that we would survive on hunting skills and luck – Outsider basics.

      My mind returned to the previous evening, when I’d discovered the haga was missing. I’d sprinted back to the Ring, but the meeting was already over, and the majority of villagers had voted to reject. And I couldn’t blame them, not really. Protecting Arafel rather than a group of Prolet rebels who could bring the wrath of Pantheon directly on our heads was logical. But, of course, none of them understood the real value of the Book of Arafel, which was why I hadn’t told them about its theft either.

      It had been my idea to go rogue. There was no other choice for me, and Max and Eli were in from the start. Aelia had come to us in desperation. And if we mounted a rescue now, we would win the loyalty of a group of Prolets who knew a covert, underground route back into Pantheon. It was far from perfect, but СКАЧАТЬ