I shot a look at my own combatant, who was drawing himself up to his feet. Her feet. I caught my breath again. Our eyes locked, and the forest melted away until there was only the heated rush of recognition. Then there was a brief stunned silence, before I forged forward to wrap myself fiercely around her slight frame.
‘Ow! You still have a ridiculously strong grip for a girl!’ she complained, detangling herself.
I chuckled, releasing her.
‘Like you can talk, General!’ I shot back, recovering myself.
The grin illuminating Aelia’s elfin face faded a little, and I was suddenly acutely aware of her jaded appearance. Her clothing was even more tattered and stained than I remembered, and she looked tired, deathly tired.
‘Are you hurt? How did you find us? Are we really to believe you somehow made it over the mountains on a haga?’ I fired incredulously.
Everyone knew the North Mountains were precipitous and unforgiving; their dangerous peaks and terrains had always been our protection. That a girl on a mythical bird could navigate her way over them seemed impossible. Yet here Aelia stood. A miracle, and an ominous threat.
Her eyes gleamed with adventure, and a sleepy dragonfly flapped its wings against the inside of my ribcage. I couldn’t imagine how it had taken me so long to work out Aelia was August’s Prolet-born sister. They shared the same shrewd wit, and eyes the colour of an Arafel dawn. And right now, they were more unsettling than I cared to admit.
‘Max! Let Rajid go. He’s got the most awesome Cerberus ink you’ve ever seen!’ she admonished, stepping across to them.
I watched Max relinquish his prize, before catching her up in an affectionate, slightly awkward hug.
‘Hey, Lia, wish you’d said you were popping in. I would have gone all out for a brace of rabbits instead of fresh trout!’ He winked, holding out a conciliatory hand.
The inked man shook his head and jumped to his feet in one agile move, rubbing his neck.
‘And if I’d known you were cooking, I’d have worn my best Prolet dress and booked the sky train instead of an oversized pigeon with no sense of direction!’ she retorted.
They grinned, and not for the first time I acknowledged just how suited they were. In another time and space they would have been perfect for one another.
‘Tal, there’s a lot to say. But probably … not here?’ She frowned, shooting a look at Rajid. ‘And this big pigeon over here needs some attention. It was cold up there. His flight feathers took a little frosting from the northerly winds.’ She ran her hands over the exhausted haga.
I nodded briefly, collecting my wayward thoughts. Aelia was here, and she had to have a burning reason to risk her life over the mountains on the back of a haga.
‘Yes, of course! And Eli will take a look at the … bird. Will it follow? We can take it straight to the animal infirmary.’
Over the past year, Eli’s animal whispering had matured into full-time veterinary care in a purpose-built hut he and Max had built near Arafel’s centre. All the villagers trusted him with their livestock, and he never seemed to be at a loss for a diagnosis or treatment, despite being entirely self-taught.
I shot a look at Max, his grin saying it all.
‘And then I think Max has promised you trout,’ I added.
A golden pheasant peeped among the crickets as we followed the quickest path back through the forest, silenced only by a pair of amorous rainbow lorikeets. Aelia broke off our conversation to better watch their dance against the cornflower sky, unfettered by cavern or dome ceilings. Clearly, the array of wildlife running freely through the trees entranced and bewildered her. And I understood more than she realized.
Completely cut off from the outside world for nearly two hundred years, Arafel was a paradise compared with the brown grit of Isca Prolet. I recalled my own astonishment when Unus and I had emerged out of the tunnels into the Prolet world – Pantheon’s genetic rubbish tip, and Aelia’s natural home. Life there was so engineered, disparate and exploited. It couldn’t in any way compare with life on the outside, which had recovered far faster than anyone had expected.
I stole a glance across at the slight, elfin girl who had been so full of secrets in Pantheon. And now my mind was spinning with more questions, like one of Max’s water wheels, but I kept my lips pressed firmly together until we’d delivered the haga into the wide-eyed keeping of one of Eli’s volunteer helpers. It was only when we’d pulled the willow ladder back up inside our treehouse, that I allowed my curiosity to show. And Aelia’s nerves were as clear as Jas’s objection to the sudden intrusion.
‘Is this the actual cipher? Thomas’s cipher?’ she whispered, crouching to inspect the freshly swept floor of our small living space.
Cursing silently, I nudged Mum’s handmade reed mat over the crude drawing with the heel of my foot. I’d thought so many times about erasing the charcoaled markings Thomas had painstakingly drawn out on our living-room floor, but it had always seemed sacrilegious, especially with Octavia and Cassius gone.
Now, though, my inaction seemed foolish. Although Aelia had proven her real loyalty to the outside, I’d always sensed her scientific weakness for Thomas’s research and Octavia’s obsession with the Voynich Manuscript.
‘Its existence still isn’t well known in the village.’ I smiled apologetically.
It would have been so much easier if Thomas hadn’t recorded the cipher to decode the only known genetic blueprint for mythical creatures.
‘And Art felt it was for the best – to protect the other villagers.’
‘Doesn’t seem entirely open, in such an open society?’ she commented, her eyes narrowed and suspicious.
‘Would have been far better to burn it – for the firewood it is!’
Rajid’s low mutter cut across the small circle, and this was swiftly followed by another round of low growling. I shot a look at Jas’s sleek white body curled up in her bed, her yellow eyes watching our guests unwaveringly. She looked every inch the content treehouse cat, although her beautiful white jowls twitched unusually. I tried to assess her mood briefly, before returning my attention to our guests.
We were sitting in a makeshift circle, around Mum’s clay cooking pot of fresh trout stew. The aroma was making my stomach grumble, and by the looks on their faces, it had been a good while since our guests had eaten too.
Rajid was crouching, warming his hands by our fire. I shot him a careful look. Everything about him was at odds with Arafel. His manner was so cool and indifferent, and the mythical Cerberus snarling up his neck couldn’t brand him more a product of Pantheon, and yet he was here. In our forest home. I followed the purplish line of the ugly, salivating hounds, mesmerized by the reddened tongues hanging from their jowls, and wondered at the artistry that brought their bulbous eyes to life every time he swallowed.
Who would choose such a mark?
‘So, tell us everything,’ I invited, as my mother ladled the steaming food into wooden bowls.
She looked particularly tired and drawn tonight, and I could sense she was anxious. Eli had taken a shift foraging and hadn’t returned yet. And even though hunting in the outside forest was now deemed a lot safer, she never smiled until we were all back in the same room.
‘You mean, why am I here, disturbing your little corner of paradise?’ Aelia responded, her delicate features