CHAPTER I
The Observatory
We stand in a ray of starlight taking turns at the eyepiece. The sky is bursting with stars—blue binaries, crimson giants, silver dwarfs—every kind you can imagine. Flix keeps trying to count them. He zips up through the dome’s rectangular opening and returns minutes later covered in frost.
“My lady!” He pipes as he alights on my shoulder. “It’s shivery out there! I can’t fly fast enough. Look! My wingtips are icy!” He buzzes them in my face to show me.
“You’re terribly brave,” I say, my breath turning to vapor. “These mountains are so high. It’s a wonder you can fly at all. What did you find?”
“Stars!” he cries. “Oodles of stars! Too many for counting—but I tried anyway!” He makes a joke in his own language, squeaks with laughter, then shoots off to examine something shiny.
I check over my formulas, using the methods Veda taught me. She’s an astronomer I met during my travels to distant worlds. She introduced me to the invisible realm of numbers—physics she calls it—the magic behind the stars and planets. She might have made a disciple out of me if math hadn’t kept getting in the way.
Flix flits about while I work, playing with the spectrometer and putting his entire face into the eyepiece. “Rainbows in everything.” His voice is soft. “Do you think tonight’s the night?”
“I hope so. Look through my lens. Do you see a bright cloud to the left of that star field?”
He takes a peek. “The one shaped like an evil eye? All red and scary?”
“Exactly. It’s a halo nebula—made of gas, dust and star-stuff.”
“Space farts!” Flix cries.
I feel myself grin. “Sort of. Anyway, the object I’m tracking is passing through that dark region. It should be visible in a few hours. I have to be ready.”
“More waiting?” he groans. “But we’ve been at this all night—and the night before! Teeny gods, Ava! You’ve been at this for as long as I’ve known you . . . always looking up, never sleeping. What’s so special about this Oberon guy, anyway? Do you love him more than me?”
“He’s my friend, Flix. I love him differently—as much in this moment as the day he went away. And he’s up there somewhere.”
Flix crosses his arms. “You must miss him terribly. To go through all this . . . the cold, the forever dark. You even learned to math!”
“Not very well,” I say, keeping my other thoughts private.
Flix shrugs, his indignation passing like a scent in the wind. “Forgive me, lady,” he says, then zips off to play amid the dome’s steely bones. He sings to himself as he goes, dropping stardust on everything and causing small mischief. It’s a wonder the Keepers allow him in their Observatory at all.
Eventually he wears himself out and spirals back down. He lands in the pouch of my hood, singing faintly, then immediately passes out. My heart melts at the sound of his soft snoring.
“Goodnight little adventurer,” I say, making small adjustments to the console. I nudge a silver dial, increasing my view of the heavens. Starlight fills the silent space, and I get the impression that I, along with the entire Observatory, am being pulled into the sky.
I tweak the focus, making sure the equatorial guider is compensating for the rotation of the planet—the slowest of any world I’ve visited—so slow that the stars barely change. I fine-tune the lens clusters until everything is perfect. An hour passes in watchful silence, then another.
It should emerge any second. I wipe the finderscope with my sleeve, then peek through the eyepiece, fingers trembling slightly.
There! The rogue planet appears like a predatory bird streaking down through ragged clouds. I’ve been tracking it for weeks now—so fast and dark, like it hoards all the light it touches. Dense by planet standards, it’s not attached to any star. I flick a lever, switching optics. But no matter which wavelengths I isolate, the planet appears shrouded, secretive.
What are you hiding? My finger hovers over a final lever, the soul-seeker, designed by the Keepers to locate habitable worlds. I tune it carefully, then take a deep breath and switch it on.
My heart does a somersault. The planet is blazing with light—with anima—a mysterious force that appears anywhere there is life. You can find traces of anima in flowers or small animals. Trees stand like pillars of green and gold. Humans are even more beautiful with their flaming hearts and sapphire eyes. No two are alike.
But this planet conceals something else entirely—a blinding source of anima, bright as a continent, but highly concentrated. I’ve never seen this much light on a rogue before.
I jot a few numbers and scratch my head in wonder. The spectral composition, if my math is right, speaks of a single being. One entity with all that soul-fire.
It could be him, I tell myself. It probably isn’t . . . but it could be.
The soul-seeker powers down, its crystals depleted. I cashed in all my favors—calculations, observations, maintenance work—for just a few hours in this dome. After weeks of preparation, I’m finally ready. I give my hood a shake. “Flix! Hold on to your pointy shoes! This is it.”
I feel Flix wiggling around in my hood. He yawns and pops out to lean against my ear.
“Get ready,” I tell him. “This next part will be dangerous.”
“Danger is my secret identity,” he says, the air shimmering as silvery armor appears on his tiny frame. His ornate helmet bears the sigil of his legion, a flaming star. He raises the polished visor, watching me with inquisitive violet eyes.
I take a few deep breaths, hoping to calm my rattling heart. I’ve never tried to chase down an object this small and swift. The slightest mistake could leave me stranded in the vacuum of space. A scary thought. Can I fade back in time?
I place one hand over my nimbus bracelet, thirteen beads on a cord of braided light. I crafted the nimbus—or halo as I sometimes call it—from the pulsar shard, the last relic of my homeworld. When I travel, I keep it hidden in the sleeves of my pilgrim’s robes. As I uncover it, each bead seems to hum in response to the stars, silver sparks dancing, tickling my wrist. I center myself, breathing in the light. Then I leap.
And I miss.
I pass into an endless void, somewhere between galaxies where few stars wander. As I scour the black expanse in panic, the planet is nowhere to be seen. “Where are you?” My lips form the soundless question. If I could just see it, I could fade down to the surface and finally discover the source of that anima.
I’ve heard horror stories about the vacuum of space—exploding lungs, boiling eyes, space mummies. . . . Those few travelers who survive, do so by fading back the same instant they arrive, before serious harm can befall them. Some stay a few seconds and live, but none recommend it.
Each time I venture into space I’m afraid something terrible will happen. And each time . . . nothing. The cold doesn’t bother me. My lungs feel fine, empty. My eyes are misty with strange vapors, but I’m safe out here. It makes sense, I guess. I was born of the stars. Their light is in me.
I feel Flix clinging to my hair. He’s formed a shimmery bubble to protect himself. Secret magic, he calls it. Of all the space fae I’ve met in my travels, he is the bravest.
I search the starless wilderness more carefully this time. How could I lose an entire planet? I adjust my eyes to absorb more light than usual, stretching my perception. Something catches my attention and I fade toward it, crossing an impossible distance with a single step. Only a comet. I fade twice more, chasing ghosts. Nothing.
I failed. Again. Oberon . . . forgive me.
Flix bobs in front of me, his little blue face pinched in concentration, the bubble shield distorting his features. He waves his hands impatiently.
“Okay,” I say, but no sound comes out. “I’ll take us back.”
I gather Flix gently into my hand and focus my will. The halo thrums around my wrist, each bead glowing faintly, though one flares brighter than the others, a lapis crystal taken from the mountain peaks near the Observatory. Soon its light is all-consuming, painful even, and I shut my eyes. When I open them we are back in the Observatory.
“That place was so creepy!” Flix cries. “Let’s do it again!”
I slump against the humming telescope, breathing hard. “I missed, Flix. I missed by a lot.”
“Don’t cry, Ava,” he whispers. “We can try again. Let’s try again.”
“Not tonight. I’m tired, and I’ll only miss worse. I wish Veda were here. She could tell me where I went wrong, help me start over.”
He flits over and lands on my shoulder. “There, there,” he says, brushing my cheek with his wingtip.
I raise the halo to examine it. As I feared, the light inside is diminished, the beads shimmering faintly. When I first tapped its power three years ago, I thought the source was limitless. But I was wrong. As I journeyed deeper into the heavens night after night, its light began to fade.
If the light goes out before I find Oberon . . . I try not to think about it. I tuck the bracelet away and sit huddled in the cold, feeling a flood of hopelessness. Frost forms on everything, hardening to ice. If I’m not careful I’ll never get the roof closed.
“I dream of him every night,” I say softly. “Silly dreams. Some are real, taken from memories. Others are just fancy. I dream of the night we parted. He told me not to chase after him . . . that where he was going not even I could follow. He promised to return. I promised to wait. But here I am, desperate, lonely. I’m sorry, Flix. It just feels so hopeless sometimes . . . like I’m wasting myself on a lost dream.”
Flix listens patiently. “It’s worth it, Ava. Your eyes say so.”
“Do they?” I smile, just barely.
He nods. “I can see you love him, your Oberon. That explains the crazy things you do, like chasing after him for years even when he told you not to. You’re kind of like his space-stalker.”
I laugh helplessly, wiping the frost from my lashes, the frozen tears from my skin. I struggle to my feet. That’s when Flix gives a hiss of alarm and vanishes with a pop.
“Missed the bullseye, did you?”
I whirl to face the rasping voice. The door to the observation dome swings slowly shut, soundless on oiled hinges. A figure stands in the shadows, a red-hot cigarette smoking steadily in his mouth. My stomach gives a lurch. Why does he have to be such a sneak?
“Hello Cain. What are you doing here?”
“Just visiting a friend.” He flashes a crooked grin, his teeth badly stained.
“Spying, you mean.”
“Now, now. No need to be petulant,” he says. “I’m here to inform you that my offer stands. Let me tutor you, Ava. That priestess of yours is great with numbers, but world-stepping is more than numbers, as you well know. It takes flair, daring, a will of adamant. I could teach you a thing or two about this universe and its ghosts. You get your planet. And I get my favor.”
“That’s okay,” I say.
“Is it? You missed, Ava. Mistakes like that would kill an ordinary woman. But you’re something special, aren’t you? Tough as nails, no . . . tough as diamonds! I could use someone like you.”
I frown. “What do you want, Cain?”
“Same thing I always want. You. For my expedition to the stars.”
Cain steps into the half-light. He looks like a clockwork magician, his robes stained with coal smoke and battery acid, lumpy from all the gadgets and deadly devices he keeps hidden underneath. He wears an ill-fitting top hat, very expensive, yet tattered along the brim. The fur of rare animals encircles his neck. Even then, I’m sure he’s freezing.
We met a year ago here at the Observatory, this starlit place where so many of us find ourselves—those who know the ways as they’re called—the shortest paths through the endless silk of space. Everyone who comes here is lost in one way or another, myself included. But Cain is a bit of an outlier, even here. Madman, some call him. Sorcerer. He makes me uneasy with his smooth words and cryptic warnings, the way he’s always scheming behind his shiny goggles that click like spider legs as lenses shift inside.
I think the Keepers only tolerate him because of his contributions for the upkeep of the instruments. He made his fortune building railroads, so he says. He draws his power from a plain black box he keeps belted to his hip. When he fades between worlds there is a scent of hot metal and fire.
“I can’t help you,” I say.
“Can’t or won’t?”
I sigh. Above us a lesser telescope revolves slowly, tracking a distant comet. Shadows and light dance around our feet.
“Do you want me to slice him?” Flix asks, a tiny sword appearing in his hand. I can tell by the way his voice sounds that he’s using magic. He’ll be invisible to anyone but me. I shake my head slightly to calm him.
I hear lenses clicking, then remember to hide my formulas before Cain has a chance to scan them. I make them disappear into my robes.
Cain only laughs. “Still chasing the dark planet, I see. That much essence on a single rock—in a single soul. It boggles the mind. What sort of a creature could burn like that? Someone you know, perhaps?”
I keep my thoughts to myself. Cain maintains a disturbing interest in my life, in my travels. So far I’ve managed to keep my home as well as my quest a secret. If he finds out about Oberon, only Archeälis knows what grief he could cause me.
“Ava, look!” Flix pipes, pointing upwards.
My gaze snaps to the sky, where a luminous star has just appeared. The star lengthens into a streak of white fire, brighter every second.
“God’s wounds,” Cain hisses, staring past me. “It’s coming this way.” His black-lensed goggles flash as he makes calculations. “It’s falling right for us.” He takes a step back, sucking deeply on his cigarette, then blowing it all out in a black cloud. When the smoke clears, he’s gone.
“That guy gives me the creepers,” says Flix, reappearing in a burst of shiny dust. He glances around warily as if to make sure Cain isn’t lurking in a shadow somewhere, then turns to face the sky. “Ava, is that a real falling star? Let’s go home before it lands on our heads!”
Caught in the planet’s gravity, the streak of light begins to descend in a long arc. At that speed it will vaporize almost anything. I can only hope it will miss the Observatory and crash down in the ice caps beyond. I prepare to disappear, but hesitate. It’s slowing down—far more rapidly than logic can explain.
Fascinated, I hurry up a maintenance ladder to the roof’s opening. From the top I look out across the silent Observatory, dozens of silver domes similar to this one, some in clusters, others shining in isolation. Heat strikes me as the object passes over.
“Hark!” Flix squeaks. “There’s something in the heart of the light!”
The white fire surrounding the object intensifies, its trajectory shifting, almost as if it means to avoid disaster. I hold my breath. Just a little more and it will be gone . . . past the peaks and out of sight. In a last effort, the light swerves, but too late. It strikes a high peak, dislodging chunks of ice and stone, then crashes down through one of the outer domes. The sound of the explosion takes several seconds to reach me.
“Lady?” Flix whispers in my ear. “What do we do?”
Without thinking, I fade, crossing the cold distance in an eyeblink, appearing among the hot wreckage even as icy debris rains down. I take a step forward, then leap to the side, avoiding a sizable chunk of scaffolding. I pick my way past shattered instruments, the light of countless fires reflected in the twisted metal.
The master telescope is cleaved in half, molten glass oozing from the tube. And just beyond it, in the heart of a shallow crater is something unexpected—a man in gleaming black armor.
I edge closer, stifling a cry as flaming sparks scatter across my shoulders. More cascade down, but Flix bats them away with his sword.
The figure does not stir as I approach. His eyes are shut, but he’s breathing—barely—as if every movement is an effort. And arrayed on his back, still smoldering, broken in many places, are the ruined shapes of mighty wings.