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

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СКАЧАТЬ used to say the Dead City is a day’s hike north-east,’ I signed. ‘We should be there by dusk, and most of the journey will be forested.’

      Eli nodded. ‘It’ll be the farthest east we’ve ever been,’ he responded, frowning, ‘and the closest to the Lifedomes – without actually going inside.’

      I nodded.

      ‘Although that’s not your plan is it?’ he added.

      I grabbed his arm, and pushed him into the thicker bushes. The last thing I needed was Max guessing at my real intentions. It was only when the bushes opened out into a small scrub clearing, that I looked up into Eli’s guarded face, and felt a surge of guilt. The distance between us was hurting him. I’d been so wrapped up in my own frustration, I wasn’t doing anything to make it any better for my clever twin. My complex, insightful, sensitive twin who’d guessed Max’s feelings long before I had. And lately his closed nature and preferred solitary lifestyle had prompted a few more questions in my head.

      I sat down on a banyan root, as Eli stooped beside the knotted tree, tightening a trouser binding. Seconds later, I felt a handful of leaves and grass being pushed down the neck of my tunic. Stifling laughter, I shook the foliage from my forest tunic and elbowed him affectionately.

      ‘I know Grandpa entrusted you directly with the Book’s safekeeping,’ he signed, taking a seat beside me, ‘but I know he wouldn’t want you to go back in there, not for anything or anyone.’

      I frowned, feeling the lighter mood dissipate swiftly.

      ‘I also know Octavia wanted the cipher Thomas drew out on the treehouse floor. And that you figured out how the cipher worked … But you never shared anything else?’

      He paused to run his fingers through his sandy-brown hair.

      ‘No wonder you and August had a thing,’ he signed, eyeballing me carefully. ‘You’re the same – neither of you trust anyone.’

      I suppressed a retort. I’d never discussed my feelings with Eli, and his insight felt unusually cynical.

      ‘So what else aren’t you telling me? Does Max know more?’ he added.

      I shook my head emphatically, knowing how much it had cost Eli to let Max come between us over the past few months, to relinquish some of our special twin bond.

      He seemed momentarily satisfied.

      ‘Don’t you think Grandpa would want me to help you? That he’d want you to share the burden, especially now that he’s gone?’

      A slow dread started creeping through my bones, as the promise I’d made Grandpa echoed inside my head. I’d given my word I wouldn’t tell another soul about Thomas’s research hidden within the Book of Arafel until the day I died. I’d already compromised that secret by trading information about the cipher’s existence with Aelia and August in return for their knowledge of Roman symbology. And now both Eli and Max knew about the cipher on the treehouse floor. But the fact that the Book of Arafel actually contained Thomas’s research notes was still a secret – well, it was until Aelia stole the Book.

      I glanced down at my interlocked fingers, recalling the yellowed pages of nonsense lettering and interconnecting circles that always looked so like the scribbling of an imaginative child to me. The knowledge that it coded one of the best-kept secrets of the modern world; and that mythological creatures had actually existed, back in the aeons of time, had seemed so fantastical – but not any more. Since Pantheon, nothing surprised me.

      And then there was that one particular faded pencil drawing, buried within Thomas’s notes. Its charcoaled lines had first spun out of the dust clouds in the Flavium when I thought all was lost. It was the moment I’d realized Thomas’s notes concealed a clue about an ancient burial ground for the unique creatures that had once walked the earth, information Cassius would probably trade his entire Roman battalion to own.

      I squeezed Eli’s hand.

      ‘Isn’t the fact that Aelia has stolen the story of Arafel’s emergence from the dust clouds enough?’ I whispered.

      I could tell by the slight lowering of his eyelids that I’d failed. I looked down at my leather-soled feet, knowing my loyalty to a promise was dividing us. Pulling us apart. Was it always going to be like this now?

      A rustle of branches and raucous cawing saved the moment.

      ‘Friskers?’ Eli signed before rising to his feet and striding off in the direction of the call. Seconds later, the dense greenery parted and he re-emerged with the tip of an oversized hook beak just visible over his head. I smiled, despite myself.

      The griffin always made me stare. Standing around two and a half metres high, its powerful lion forepaws were around the size of my mother’s cooking pot, while its blood-red eyes and vibrant gold plumage were brighter than any exotic bird of prey. But it was its hard, calcified beak, filled with a double set of serrated canines that magnetized me.

      They were sharp enough to shred a human arm in seconds, but that was before Eli discovered griffins were living in a world of silence. He’d saved us all from the brink of death by using rudimentary sign language to communicate with the modified beasts and now, this particular creature could understand and respond freely.

      Though it still skulked around like a moody, domestic cat.

      ‘If you were less conspicuous, we could have taken you with us!’ Eli signed to Friskers affectionately. ‘But I’ll tell you the same thing I told my beautiful, wilful Jas. If I’m not back in three days’ time, feel free to come and rescue me.’

      He soothed the beast’s burnished neck feathers, which were gleaming in the morning sun, as it lifted its angular head to proclaim its loyalty. A couple of capuchins chimed in, and the griffin eyed the foliage with fresh interest. There was no doubt it had taken to forest life with ease.

      ‘It’s OK,’ Eli added with a smile. ‘I don’t really expect either of you to play the hero, not a lot for a handsome griffin to do in a city of dust.’

      He dug around in his pocket for a couple of sweet hazelnuts. A natural carnivore, the griffin also seemed to have a taste for herbivore treats, and Eli made sure its diet was well supplemented.

      ‘Sun’s up, it’s time we got going!’ Max interrupted.

      He disappeared as abruptly as he’d appeared, back in the direction of our small breakfast camp. Eli threw me a look that cut through every defence like an invisible Diasord.

      ‘Boyfriend got the hump?’ he signed, raising an eyebrow.

      I flushed and stood up. ‘You know it’s not like that!’ I scowled.

      Right now, I’d never been less sure of what we were, only that I’d made a promise that was haunting me.

      ***

       ‘We believe in natural order, respect for our place in the forest, and taking only what we need to survive.’

      Grandpa’s principles rang in my ears as we hiked through the unknown forest in an easterly direction, and I wondered what he would say if he could see us now. Hunting in this area of the outside forest had always been strictly prohibited; it was too close to the СКАЧАТЬ