Cloudland by Lisa Gorton Page A

watching that dark shape swallow the cloud boy. She couldn’t turn her face or even raise her hand. Something tugged at her wrist. Then the light closed around her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Cave
    White light and a vast silence pressed on Lucy’s eyes. For a long time, she lay still. Her hands felt swollen, full of broken glass.
Are they my hands or not?
She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t move them. Just as she was thinking that, her right hand lifted and pushed the whiteness back. A metre above her, she saw something drab-coloured and solid. She gazed at it a long while.
Cloud
, she thought, and sat up.
    She was in a low room, no bigger than a tent. There was a cloud coat piled on top of her. ‘Where am I?’ she whispered. The light was so dim she couldn’t be certain she was awake.
It might be a dream
, shethought, though when she brushed her hands across the ceiling it felt rough and ice-cold.
    Daniel will know whether I’m dreaming
, she thought, and called out for him. Her skin ached with cold. She looked around the little room. ‘You!’ An arm’s length away, Fracta sat cross-legged with her back against the wall.
    â€˜Where’s Daniel?’ cried Lucy. ‘What are you doing here?’
    â€˜Shadow-mongers got him,’ Fracta answered without blinking. ‘Got them all. They’ll be in Alkazia now.’
    â€˜In
Alkazia
?’ Lucy felt herself shrinking. ‘You saved me? And left them to the shadow-mongers?’
    â€˜You don’t sound all that grateful.’
    Lucy suddenly hated that impassive little face, those pallid eyes. She lunged at Fracta, but she had forgotten the ceiling, low overhead. Striking her forehead, she staggered, floundering in shame and rage.
    â€˜What are you doing here, anyway? We left you in the Citadel.’
    â€˜I know.’ Fracta’s face wrinkled into a smile. ‘You thought you’d escaped. But they are foolish in their pride, those Arcarals. They go in a rush and call themselves the fastest creatures in the sky. On a cloudboard, flying day and night, we Stratus can keep up with them.’ Fracta shrugged. ‘It was the snow geese told me a Megalith saved you from the Varactor in Altovia. Simple to assume the Megalith would guide you through its tunnel to the Mist. Where the two met, I waited for you.’
    Lucy nodded, suddenly so tired her flesh felt grey. ‘I saw you, I think, when we were going down those steps. Then, of course – you had your cloud board to save you when we fell out of the Mist. I saw you that time, too – only I thought you were a bird or something.’
    â€˜Yes. Like your friends, you see the Stratus and yet you do not see us.’ Fracta pronounced
friends
with a long hiss.
    â€˜Why save me, then?’ flared Lucy. ‘I wish you hadn’t!’
    Fracta only looked bored. ‘You are hungry,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel calmer if you eat.’ She held out a piece of Comclo.
    Lucy snatched it from her and started gnawing. ‘You don’t care about the others. You’re like a machine.’
    Fracta shrugged. ‘Affection is a luxury of the leisured classes.’
    â€˜Why save me, then?’ persisted Lucy.
    â€˜Not for
affection
!’ Fracta snorted. ‘You are the Protector, and therefore useful. The sky creatures will follow you.’
    â€˜But I told you – I’m not the Protector.’
    â€˜And I told you, what you are does not matter. If they think of you as their Protector, it will suffice.’
    All at once, Lucy saw her opening. A pulse kicked in her throat. ‘You need me, then!’ Fracta didn’t answer, but Lucy had seen her eyes flicker. She waited.
    â€˜What is it you want?’ said Fracta at last.
    â€˜Help me rescue the others!’
    â€˜No. Our first objective is to defeat the Kazia.’
    Lucy didn’t move. She understood now that, without her, Fracta was