Lightbringer Read Free Page B

time?”
    “Yes, well, times change.” Piotr scratched his chin and glanced up at the brilliant silver sky. The sun shone with fiery white light, basking them in its dim warmth and faded glory, but in the distance thick black clouds churned above the sea. “The weather's looking foul. May we move this elsewhere?”
    Elle rose from her crouch, muscles rippling. Her short, fringed tunic and thigh-high skirt left nothing to the imagination and Piotr politely turned his face away. Noticing his discomfort, Elle smirked. “Fine, ya wet blanket. What's eating you?”
    “A Walker was poking around the mill last night.”
    Elle stilled and her blonde waves, silvery pale and close-cropped, trembled. “It sussed you out.”
    “Yes. And it escaped.” Piotr shoved his hands deep into his pockets and hunched over slightly. “So I was wondering if you'd—”
    “Of course.” Elle turned fluidly, taking Dora's hand in her left hand and Specs' hand in her right. “This way.”
    Once, when they had been on better terms, Elle had confided in Piotr and shared some of her living memories like the jewels they were. She'd been a gymnast once, and rich, spoiled by parents with too much money and not enough time for their wild daughter. Archery, horseback riding, a separate tutor for every fancy. In the Never, these skills made her a handy ally but a terrible enemy. Piotr struggled to keep up as Elle sped through walls and past throngs of living men, their heat momentarily searing but fading the further they traveled. Confidently athletic, Elle raced along, never turning to note his pace behind.
    It was early afternoon when they neared the pier and Elle's home. Unlike the mill, one derelict building among many where few humans bothered wandering, Elle's tribe squatted in an abandoned bookshop just off the main strip of Pier 39, the walls papered with droppings and overrun with nesting rats.
    If he squinted, Piotr could just make out the words “Coming Soon” above the door. The letters were pink with age, however, and the floor inside was littered with the ghostly living shapes of sleeping rats huddled beneath overturned bookshelves and gently decaying easy chairs. Termites chewed the stairs, seagulls cooed in the eaves, and the floor was white and pebbled with decades of dried droppings. The living animal heat was mild however, easy to stand, and Piotr passed the rats with no problem.
    The third floor of the bookstore was empty of furniture but sectioned into offices, the areas claimed by Elle's dozen or so Lost clearly marked with bundles of possessions and sectioned apart with piles of books that reached the warped and splintered ceiling. Elle led them here, leaving the kids to pick spaces of their own while she unstrung her bow and checked the arrows in her quiver.
    Piotr, at a loss for what to do in this room once familiar but now alien, hovered near the door as Tubs explored the cupboard underneath the stairs and Specs unpacked in a relatively clean hollow in a far corner lined with the ghostly original copies of Yeats, Dickenson, and Blake.
    Without pausing from her work, Elle said, “I have to hand it to you, Pete, you've done a good job with those kids. They kept pace pretty well.”
    Piotr crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorway. He was surprised to realize that he was relieved. Elle was a good fighter, and smart. She'd keep his Lost safe. “That wasn't me. I still don't train them the way you do.”
    She snorted. “You oughta.”
    “Da? Well, I say let kids be kids.” Piotr rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was warm up here, and close. He felt as if he could barely breathe. “As long as they want to be, that is.”
    “Whatever. You staying, too?” Elle glanced up from her task. Her voice was pitched low. “I don't see that excuse you call a bag.”
    “Have you forgiven me?”
    “Never will.” Elle returned to her task, her fingers flying nimbly over the arch of the bow, smoothing and