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

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СКАЧАТЬ smiled again, her teeth just visible, and I could tell her nerves were frayed.

      ‘Eat,’ I urged, pushing her refilled bowl back towards her.

      Jas stirred from her comatose position beside Rajid, and my gaze shot back to the trapdoor, though I knew exactly what had made her beautiful flocked ears perk up. Jas was the most intuitive watch-cat in the world. Whenever Eli took an early hunting shift in the outside forest, she waited for his return intently, and always seemed to know when he was back on Arafel soil. I strained my ears and, sure enough, a few moments later detected a scuffle at the bottom of our tree.

      Mum was up in a breath, flying across the floor towards the trapdoor, to let down our woven willow ladder. Seconds later, an earth-streaked hand pushed aside the rough netting we hooked over the exit, and a mop of sandy-brown hair appeared.

      I drew a breath as his grey-blue eyes followed, his expression quickly changing as he acknowledged the newcomers. He vaulted through the trapdoor like a forest cat, and Jas stretched out her sleek hunting body in response, bypassing Rajid as though he’d never existed. She padded up to Eli, purring like a queen bee in the height of summer, as he bent to reassure her, a bundle of cloth cradled beneath his arm.

      He held the small wrap out to Jas, who sniffed with her usual casual interest, before he let a tiny, doleful little owl peep out of the top. A murmur of interest whispered around the room as he straightened, placing the newcomer inside one of the egg-shaped woven baskets suspended from the ceiling. We were very used to our treehouse being an impromptu animal hospital, and immediately Mum started warming some thinned milk.

      ‘Orphaned?’ I signed.

      ‘Yes, and this little guy was the last in his nest,’ Eli signed swiftly before walking across to Aelia and giving her an affectionate hug.

      None of us missed the question in his eyes. The entry tunnel into the village was a long-kept secret, and revealing it was punishable by expulsion. Clearly, he hadn’t been to the animal infirmary on his way back.

      ‘She and Rajid caught the overnight haga to Arafel,’ Max interjected, a gleam in his eye.

      There was a ripple of laughter as Eli held his hand out to Rajid. He gripped it with respect. There was something in Eli’s unflustered air that calmed even the hormone-fuelled bucks at rucking time, and as Rajid inclined his head respectfully, I noticed the Cerberus climbing his neck doing the same.

      ‘Haga?’ Eli signed incredulously. ‘Where on earth is this intrepid bird? And how did they know how to find us?’ he added to me directly.

      I raised my eyes at Max. Only Eli would ask after a bird before enquiring about Aelia’s daring journey.

      I signed quickly, bringing him up to date, as he gently removed the little owl from its basket cocoon and pipetted thinned, warm milk into its open beak. Watching him sustain such a tiny fragment of life as though it were the last helped to calm my jumbled thoughts.

      ‘So, where are the group that escaped now? How many Prolets made it out?’ Max asked in a low voice.

      I was still signing, but my ears pricked up. Max was always the underdog champion – no matter the stakes. He wouldn’t leave a rabbit alone to face a fox. But this rabbit could be anywhere, and I was still reeling with the news that Cassius was still alive. There could be no crueller fox.

      ‘Prolet Levels Thirteen and Fourteen emptied overnight. So, a party of around sixty is unaccounted for,’ Rajid offered, sauntering back to join Aelia by the fire.

      ‘Livia spared no time in offering her services to help flush them out, should they fail to return within three days,’ she added with a grimace.

      ‘And she doesn’t mean round up.’

      My stomach twisted like one of Max’s trap knots. At last Aelia’s urgency was clearer. But Arafel was already in the region of three hundred heads. How could it support another sixty? And wouldn’t a rescue mission just bring Cassius directly here to Arafel?

       ‘Care for the seed, and it will care for you.’

      I had no idea where Grandpa’s whisper came from. It was just there, hanging in the oaken breeze, as though he was beside me now.

      I straightened my shoulders and cleared my throat. I had to think like Grandpa.

      ‘It’s a matter for Art and the Council,’ I said decisively and quickly, ‘but I don’t think we have any choice.’

      I was conscious of all eyes in the room swinging my way, including my mother’s.

      ‘Grandpa taught us to value life above everything else. All life. We can’t sit here in our safe idyll of a valley, while others scour the Dead City sewers searching for us!’

      ‘Talia, think!’ My mother looked ashen as she rose to her feet, the beans she was shelling spilling onto the wooden floor.

      ‘We just about manage to feed everyone as it is. We can’t support sixty extra mouths through the winter months. What if bringing them here also brings that … that monster to our home? And how do we know she wasn’t followed?’

      Mum pointed towards Aelia, her face twisted with fear. My chest contracted. Mum had been through enough, but how could I justify putting her above the needs of sixty desperate Insiders?

      Jas whined above the chatter of a capuchin in a nearby tree. My little apricot monkey ran through my head, and I bit my lip, tasting the tiny trickle of salty blood. Freedom always came at a cost, which was what made it so precious.

      ‘We take it to Art,’ I repeated grittily, watching Mum close her eyes as though I’d just committed us all to certain death.

      ***

      A chevrotain was grazing by the yew and I approached slowly, trying not to startle it. They were shy animals and this one had to be a little confused to be out at late afternoon. Grandpa used to call them mouse deer, or deer bewitched by the fairy folk; either way they were unusual enough to be considered good fortune in Arafel.

      I allowed myself a small smile as I crouched silently, watching it. I could do with some good fortune just now. It had been an hour since the discussion in the treehouse, and I’d stepped out for some fresh air before seeing Art. The Council members took their shifts in the fields like everyone else, which meant all Council matters were dealt with after working hours. It was a tradition that protected our primary resource: food.

      But as I extended my hand, I sensed it. A threatening presence. I was on my feet and spinning in a heartbeat, arm raised high to deflect the incoming missile. There was sharp pain as it found a target, the fleshy underside of my arm. I winced. The stone would have killed the mouse deer outright, but the nervous creature was already gone, the bushes rustling their relief.

      ‘In Arafel, the mouse deer is considered sacred,’ I challenged the lurking shadows.

      ‘In Isca Prolet, the mouse deer would feed a family for a week,’ came the acerbic response.

      ‘Last time I checked you were staying in Arafel, at our invitation!’ I retorted.

      Rajid sidled into view, an indecipherable look on his swarthy face. He seemed taller and leaner in the open air, and for the first time I noticed a large white-handled СКАЧАТЬ