The Burning City (Spirit Binders) by Alaya Dawn Johnson Page B

where it had created several new miles of island. She wondered how Essel would rebuild, how it might accommodate itself to this violent, sudden reshaping. Though she could have flown straight past the rebel barrier, she landed in the middle of Sea Street. It was safe enough—no one to see her here but rebel soldiers. One approached her as soon as she touched down, a war adze tucked into a sash. He was young, one side of his face and neck covered in such broad swaths of still-healing burns that she wondered how he’d even survived. Did the rebels have witches who could manipulate geas well enough for healing?
    “What do you want?” the rebel guard asked. His tone was brusque, but not unkind. And honestly, such directness was a relief after her meeting with Kohaku.
    “I’d like to speak with Pano.”
    His hand tightened on the haft of his adze. “What do you know of Pano? What do you want with him, black angel? I won’t have you hurting him.”
    “Stand down, Tope. It’s all right. I asked her to come, and here she is.” Pano climbed the lava slag they were standing upon and touched the boy lightly on the shoulder. Then he gestured to Lana. “Follow me,” and Lana was left to awkwardly balance herself as they climbed across the dried lava flows, deeper into the first district. Rebel territory, Lana thought, but the frisson of danger she expected to feel was undone by the utter normalcy of the scene behind the lines. She saw the same destruction, the same fire and ash, but perhaps slightly less desperation. It appeared the rebels took care of their people at least as well as the Mo’i. And they hadn’t caused the devastation in the first place.
    There were no undamaged buildings within sight of Sea Street, but Pano led her into one that was still mostly standing. It looked like an ancient tree nearby had borne the brunt of the fire, sparing the meeting house. Everyone they passed nodded to Pano, which confirmed her suspicion that he was an important member of the rebel movement, perhaps even its leader. But when they finally entered the main room—roughly patched with scavenged wood and heated by a smoky fire—someone else was seated before a short table piled with papers. She was an older woman with skin so unusually pale it reminded Lana of Ino, the water sprite. Her hair was thick and frizzy, the color of dirty sand, and held back from her face with a blue headband. Her eyes were the oddest shade Lana had ever seen—pink, like a washed-out sunrise. She’d never met anyone with this sort of coloring before, and even the air in the room seemed to heat when the woman leveled that uncanny gaze at her. No question, Lana thought, of who had led here.
    “Eliki,” Pano said lightly, pushing Lana ahead of him. “Look what just flew in.”
    The woman—Eliki—gave her such a thorough look that Lana fidgeted. “Fascinating, as usual, Pano,” she said. Her voice was clear and firm. It carried much the way Pano’s had on the street the other day. She sounded, Lana realized, like one of the elders back on her island. Like Okilani, who perhaps had always known, it occurred to Lana for the first time, about the second jewel Lana had found on the morning of her initiation.
    “You’re very young,” Eliki said, addressing Lana.
    Lana shrugged. Eliki gave the barest of smiles. “And yet I suspect you’ve seen things I can’t even imagine. These are not times when one has the luxury of youth. My daughter was about your age when she died.”
    “What happened to her?” Lana asked, though she wondered if she should have just nodded politely.
    “She drowned. Her ship capsized in a storm. Almost everyone was lost.” Eliki said this so brusquely Lana didn’t dare offer condolences, and Pano forestalled them anyway by offering her a stool.
    “So, I didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer so soon,” Pano said, once they’d all settled. “What brings you here?”
    Eliki raised her pale eyebrows. “He means,