The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(114)

Sera gritted her teeth and pulled herself up. The people in the box were hysterical, one woman shrieking, “Get it away, get it away!”

She shimmied to the wall, her hands sliding over the banister, until she reached the wooden carvings that adorned this part of the theater, making perfect handholds and footholds. She climbed up as easily as if she were back on the temple’s spire, and when she reached the ceiling, she turned and looked back.

The sprites were still swarming about the stage—Gwendivere had fled, James was swatting at them frantically, and the front rows of the audience were beginning to realize something was amiss. She looked up and saw Leo and Agnes’s father in another box across from her and he was gesturing to her, a man in a suit beside him with something long and metal pointed at her. There was a whizzing sound by her ear and a dart with a little feather sticking out of it sank into the wood near her right wrist.

“Now, Errol, now!” she cried. A webbed hand reached over her shoulder and splayed across one pane of glass.

“Forgive me, my friend,” Errol said, and as the lightning flashed over his scales in a brutal surge of energy, Sera felt an agony unlike anything she had ever known, a pulse of unbearable heat shooting through her body, burning in her veins and scalding her heart. She might have screamed, she couldn’t be sure, but the next second every pane of glass had shattered and the entire ceiling exploded in a deafening crash that rained down shards like razors of crystal upon the audience. The confusion turned to shrieks as people began to run toward the exits.

The pain in Sera’s body dulled and she managed to pull herself up onto the roof of the theater, Errol still clinging to her back. She could feel the glass cutting into her skin where it was left jagged and poking out of its iron casing. The roof of the theater was warm on the soles of her feet, and she looked down to see chaos below. Sprites chased theatergoers this way and that, women shrieked and cried, men tried to bat them away in vain, and on the stage, Boris swayed gently. Sera could hear her humming.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and her voice came out like the wind.

The Arboreal turned her three eyes upward. “Go,” she said, and then the hum turned to a whistle, almost like a call. The sprites flocked to her, billowing around her as the whistle grew ever more shrill and urgent, and they began to burst, one by one, like fireworks, and where their sparks settled on the Arboreal, fire flared up.

“Boris!” Sera cried. “No!”

But the tree was already alight, her topmost leaves crowned in flames that quickly snaked down her branches, charring her beautiful silvery bark, turning her blue-green leaves to ash. She made no sound or cry as she burned, but from somewhere in the theater, Sera heard the sound of Xavier McLellan screaming, “Put it out, you goddamn fools!”

“Tree was very brave,” Errol said sadly. “But we must run now, Sera Lighthaven.”

Tears streamed down Sera’s cheeks, but she knew he was right. There was no time to mourn for Boris. They had to get to the ship. She stood and steadied herself, adjusting to his weight now that she was on her feet. Quickly she tied the skirt of her dress up so that it sat around her thighs, leaving her legs free.

“Which way, Errol?”

He sniffed, then pointed. “That way.”

The world was so different up here—peaks and plateaus, shadowy towers and glowing windows. If her life weren’t in danger, Sera would marvel at the strangeness of these human dwellings, each one unique, made of unfamiliar materials.

As it was, she slid down to the lip of the roof, where a wide gutter ran, pelted to the end of the building, and jumped.

Errol’s terrified wail was sucked away by the wind. Sera landed on the opposite roof, which was a bit lower than the theater and mercifully flat. She sent up a prayer of thanks to Mother Sun and kept running. The next roof was shaped like a triangle, with strange flakes of wood decorating its surface. They made for easy hand-and footholds until she jumped to the next roof.

Shiny tile.

Bare concrete.

One even had a golden spire like on the temple.

Sera felt the weight of the theater, of the crate, of all that time locked up melting away. She ripped the crown out of her hair and tossed it aside, reveling in the feel of the wind against her cheeks, humid as the air was. Errol was miserable, judging by his moans, and after one particularly plummeting leap, she heard a retching sound and felt something slimy on her shoulder. But Sera did not mind. She was free. She was out under the sky again. Somehow, impossibly, their plan had worked. She heard wailing sounds in the distance that seemed to be growing closer but paid them no mind.

At some point, a sharp scent hit her nose, and Errol’s limp form went rigid with excitement.

“The sea, the sea!” he cried. “Can you smell it, Sera Lighthaven?”

“Yes,” she gasped. It was salty and tangy and reminded her of the taste of tears. She moved faster now and at last took a great leap onto the roof of a very noisy establishment with lots of music and laughter spilling from its windows. She found herself gazing at a vast expanse of blackness. The smell was stronger here, with a fishy undertone. The roof overlooked a broad thoroughfare, which was mostly empty at the moment. On the opposite side were vessels the likes of which Sera had never dreamed of—hulking monsters with huge pieces of fabric hanging off them, draped in thick ropes, wooden poles as tall as trees.

No sign of Leo or Agnes.