“The Arboreal may not look like much,” Leo’s father was saying. “But when he was first planted here only a little over a month ago, this was all bare earth. And now look at him.”
Leo skulked back onto the stage to join them as Xavier explained how he was planning to exploit the poor tree.
“And now,” he said, once the fedora man had finished jotting down notes on Boris, “the grand finale.”
They skirted around the garden to where Sera was crouched in the crate.
“Leo,” his father said, with an almost lazy nod toward her. Leo was taking something out of his pocket, his other hand clenched into a fist. His jaw was so tight Sera thought he might break his teeth. He crouched by her and whispered, “I’m so sorry. But please give me your arm.”
This is the last time I will let anyone take my blood from me, she thought as she reached her arm out through the slats. Xavier could not be allowed to suspect anything. Leo was not as gifted at using the needle as Kiernan had been, and she winced as it pierced her skin. He did not take very much, but it still made her feel woozy afterward. When he stood, Xavier once more had a knife in his hand.
“Now,” he said to the men, “watch carefully and get the camera ready.”
He ran the knife easily across Leo’s hand. It seemed to Sera that he derived pleasure from this demonstration, his eyes glowing with a feverish light. Leo himself made no sound or movement. When his father applied a few drops of Sera’s blood to the wound, his skin healed over and the red line across his palm disappeared. The man’s box was clicking and puffing away. The fedora man gaped as if incapable of shutting his mouth.
“What . . . how . . . my god, Xavier. My god. It’s incredible. A medical miracle.”
“Yes, she is certainly the jewel of this whole endeavor,” he agreed. “And she is not Pelagan,” he added, as if that was the most important distinction. “She was found right here in Kaolin, by my son.”
“It’s impossible,” the man said, reaching out to touch Leo’s hand. She saw him twitch as if wanting to jerk away, but he stopped himself.
“It is not,” Xavier said, “as you have just witnessed with your own eyes.” He clapped his hands together. “That should do it, I think. Come, I’ll show you the paintings I had commissioned for the foyer on our way out. Graham Willowby originals.”
“I thought Willowby retired,” the fedora man said.
“I was very persuasive.”
The man with the box chortled. Leo hung back.
“I’m just going to water Boris a bit, Father. Some of these flowers are looking like they might wilt.” He was a convincing liar, Sera had to admit.
His father frowned. “Very well. Meet us in the lobby.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll only be a minute.”
He made a show of going off to fetch the watering can, and by the time he had returned with it, the other three men had left the theater.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, dropping the can and kneeling by the crate. “I didn’t want to, but I had to. If my father suspected—”
“I understand,” Sera said.
“We only have a minute—”
“I know.” She proceeded to tell him the idea she and Boris and Errol had come up with. Leo’s eyes grew wider and wider until she could see the whites all around them. When she finished speaking, he sat back, expelling his breath in a huff.
“You’re saying there are hundreds of sprites . . . under there?” he asked, pointing to the Arboreal’s roots.
Sera nodded. “Boris, could you show this human male one of your sprites, please?”
Leo looked even more surprised at what must have been a whooshing, wind-like sound coming from deep in Sera’s chest. A tiny, glowing, blade-thin sprite popped up from the earth, sparks shooting out from her crown as she rose a few feet in the air and performed several twirls for Leo’s benefit.
“Gah!” He scrambled backward and Sera laughed.
“She won’t hurt you,” she said.
“Right.” He looked a little embarrassed at his own reaction, but Sera felt a surge of hope that the sprites would indeed be a successful distraction. If Leo was reacting like this to only one of them, imagine what hundreds could be capable of.
“They’re quite friendly, actually. Very sweet. They like to dance.”
The sprite floated her way over to Leo, spinning and twirling. She landed on his knee and gave a deep bow. Then she hopped down and scampered back to Boris, blowing some sparks Sera’s way in farewell before vanishing into the dirt.
“Wow,” Leo said. “Yes, I think they should be fairly diverting.”
“Leo!” his father called, and he jumped to his feet like he’d been electrocuted.
“Coming, Father,” he called back. He turned to Sera. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night,” she said. He looked about to say something else, then reconsidered and hurried off the stage and up the aisle, leaving her alone with her friends. She gazed at the circle of glass overhead, the sky as blue as the forget-me-nots she and Leela used to weave into flower crowns.
I’m coming, mothers, she vowed. I’m coming, Leela.
Part Six
The City Above the Sky and Old Port City, Kaolin
37
Leela
LEELA HAD TO WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT EVENING BEFORE she could return to the Moon Gardens, because she could not sneak around during the Night of Song.
The voices of the novices carried over the entire City in rippling waves, their candle flames reflecting off the sunglass-paved paths as they walked, singing all through the night. Leela had always loved the Night of Song, but this year it grated on her nerves. She felt raw and impatient. She needed to see what lay beneath that statue—she felt certain the answers she was seeking were close at hand. She turned the vision she’d had when she touched the moonstone over in her mind, the strange place with the pretty tree and purple-pink flowers. And Sera’s laugh, which had seemed to come from the statue of Aila itself. And the markings she had seen on the cold, smooth obelisk.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone. These stairs. Estelle. Kandra had said that these things were all related somehow. Leela repeated them over and over, as if the connection might suddenly become clear. But she was still puzzling when dawn’s light crept in through her window and the singing faded away. The novices would be sleeping tonight, the temple silent. It was her best chance. She could not afford to wait any longer anyway.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone. These stairs. Estelle.
Sera. The tether. Moonstone . . .
She sat up in bed, her heart pounding. Moonstone was clearly magical, though no one could seem to agree on what exactly its magic was. And no one besides Leela knew that Sera had carried a piece of it with her when she fell. But now the few pieces of moonstone left in the City were sending Leela visions, and laughter, and markings, and revealing secret underground stairs. And the tether had not broken. What if Sera was alive out there somewhere? What if she was trying to communicate to Leela through the moonstone?
She threw back her covers and slipped into a cloudspun dress. She had to speak to Kandra. She had to tell her about the necklace.