Lark Ascending Read Online Free PDF Page B

waited for me to gather my thoughts. He never pushed, always sure I’d speak when I was ready. The product of having lived so many years alone, I guessed. But as the seconds dragged on and the weight of everything I couldn’t quite say aloud pressed in, Oren finally took a slow, thoughtful breath. “I’m going to do a quick circuit,” he said. “Make sure nothing’s waiting for us out there.”
    I swallowed hard, locating my voice. “Be careful,” I whispered. When I turned he was already gone, swallowed by the ruins.
    I retraced my steps back toward the building where we’d spent the night until I could grab my pack. Kris and Nix were playing some kind of game that my eyes struggled to follow. Kris was passing a ration chit back and forth between his hands, hiding it, using misdirection. Nix was far better at tracking the chit’s movement than I was, but even the pixie was fooled now and then.
    â€œYou’re getting sloppy,” Kris accused the machine, laughing.
    â€œThe mechanism that allows me to see was of your design,” Nix retorted with a furious buzz, swarming over to Kris’s fist to pry it open and search for the chit inside.
    â€œWho would’ve guessed you’d end up so stuffy,” muttered Kris before looking up and catching me watching them. “All clear?”
    â€œOren’s checking.” I watched as Nix seized the ration chit and Kris’s hand went flat, allowing the pixie to examine the chit, turning it over and over in its little legs, clicking in triumph. “What’re you doing?”
    â€œAn old calibration exercise,” Kris said, letting his hand fall as Nix buzzed off, bobbing and weaving under the extra weight of the coin as if drunk. “PX—er, Nix, I guess—was the first pixie model to have eyes. Or, rather, sensors able to pick up the visible light spectrum, instead of just magic.”
    I knew that the other pixies I’d seen were blind except for their magic sensors, but I hadn’t realized Nix was the only pixie to be able to see. “And you invented that?” I asked curiously, watching as Nix dropped onto a log and crouched over the coin like a feral animal guarding a kill.
    â€œI had help,” Kris replied, but the pride in his voice betrayed him. He flashed me a smile, and for the strangest instant I was back in the Institute, blushing because he’d seen me single-handedly eat an entire watermelon. “But mostly, yeah.”
    I caught Nix’s eye and gave a little jerk of my chin. For an instant I thought it might rebel, but after giving the ration chit a definitive kick with one of its legs, Nix abandoned it and darted over to my shoulder, sliding in against my neck under my hair. I couldn’t have admitted it aloud, but the familiar metal weight of its body against my neck was a comfort. Watching it play—or calibrate—with Kris made my stomach twist with unexpected jealousy.
    â€œHow’d you learn to do that?” I asked Kris, settling my pack over my shoulders carefully so as not to dislodge Nix.
    â€œInvent eyes?” Kris’s own store of supplies was nearly gone, but we’d transferred some of our gear over so he could share the load.
    â€œAll of it.” I could hear the complex symphony of Nix’s mechanisms whirring away below my ear and knew it was listening to me. “Most of the time Nix seems more like magic than machine.”
    â€œThat’s because I am quite extraordinary,” Nix said drily, thrumming its wings against my neck.
    â€œHush,” I muttered.
    I could feel Kris’s eyes on me, but when I glanced over he’d dropped his gaze to the broken path we were following. “I was born an architect,” he said simply. “It’s in my blood.”
    I thought of his soft hands, the clinical neatness of his clothes when I knew him in the Institute, the flawless attention to every detail.