The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (novels in english .txt) 📗

called out to me, a scream that shook the world around me as I still stared forward. My mother, everything she’d ever fought for, ever fought against. “Lyra, please! Lyra!” Her lungs raw, her breath ragged. My mother gave everything she had and then some, another row of sparks hitting the ceiling, stars cascading uselessly against my skin. And here I was, waiting for death.

It didn’t come.

The beast’s head slammed forward, smashing down to take Leo and I into its jaws, but then, unplannable and inconceivable; everything changed. It crumbled as it came into contact, centuries of wear and tear showing across its cracks, the man with Many Faces turning to dust. Grey, the grey of ashes left after a civilization is burned, hit the air, coating our lungs, Physicality gave way to a cloud, which broke apart and traveled the room, covering everything in a fine layer of salt and ash.

My hand loosened around my wand, the wood clattering against the ground. Just like the man, I crumbled, sinking lifelessly into Leo’s arms. All of my energy left, all my will to fight had fled me, with a final breath, my head rested against the ground as Leo’s voice began to call, first joyous, then frightened. A scattering resounded across the floor as I was gently laid down, hands shaking at my shoulders. Red glasses, wild hair, and pursing lips pressing Leo aside, shaking me hopelessly.

“Lyra! Lyra! Lyra Alix Wynne,” Mothers always call you like you’re in trouble when you’re desperately in danger.

“You have to stop staring sweetie,” I murmured, “and start moving.”

The lights turned out, the end was there.

28

Intoxicated

“Enough drugs in her to kill a horse,” the tiny speaker of a cellular device called, a half broken, breathy iteration of my mother’s voice playing though it.

“Again, I went to college with your daughter and she’ll be fine. Can we focus on the fact that Lyra just killed a demon here--” Yvie, not here, but somewhere else, her voice pouring from the same speaker, arguing again and again. How long had she been talking? More importantly, how long had my mother been talking?

The low hum of a man’s voice responded, far quieter than either of them as he sat far away, attempting to be polite to his sleeping guest. Long pauses in his mumbles indicated waiting for a sound, any sound, to appear from afar. His soft, leather shoes tapped against the wooden floorboards, patiently waiting however long it took. The tapping of his finger against the phone indicated that he’d been talking for far too long, wading his way through the chaos as he lingered in that place.

My eyes blinked blearily, the rising sun blinding me as I found myself turned towards an unfortunately large window. It was familiar, as was the bedding beneath me and the decorative wallpaper surrounding me. On the nightstand beside me, the crumbled paper of a drawing laid, collected by its artist off the ground.

The artist.

I squinted, attempting to make sense of my location first, realizing that I’d rolled onto Leo’s side of the bed nearest the window. The world was a blur at first, my tired eyes not well equipped for the morning sun, yet I quickly pulled myself together. What I wanted to see first was Leo, but life wasn’t that kind.

The face of a bird, completely black, cocking his head to the side, was the first real face that I saw. It took me in, eyes growing wide and mouth agape, but no sound escaping it. As I began to move once more, struggling up into a sitting position with the help of my forearms, it found itself satisfied. Without so much as a peck or a caw, the bird spread its wings, taking off into the newly minted daylight.

I had a feeling that I would not see it again.

But I was awake, I was alive. The memory foam beneath me made no sound as I shifted, regarding the bruises and scratches along my forearms, the lack of a green sweater and the new sensation of a deep, burgundy one against my skin. I sat up straighter, feeling for the source of the pain that boiled at the back of my head, finding the source to be an egg-sized lump that sat beneath a clump of matted hair that would no doubt hurt to brush out later. Amazingly though, the world became crisper, as if reaffirming the fact that I was still there. I held my hands out in front of me, wiggling each finger individually as if it was a litmus test for being alive. I didn’t know what death felt like, and I hoped not to know for quite some time, but it mustn’t have felt like that. I liked to believe that when it came, it would be painless.

The bed creaked as I threw my feet over the side of it and I emitted a low moan that stopped the conversation on the other side of the room divider. With it came a ringing headache, the worst I’d ever felt. I flinched, hands balling up in the edge of the sweater I was wearing, chin tucking down.

A tall, clear glass of water was thrust in my direction, liquid splashing against the sides but not escaping its container as a shaking hand held it out in front of me. I regarded it skeptically, mouth about to open in protest before Leo’s voice reassured me, “just water, nothing else.”

That was enough for me. I took it from him, drinking it in one heavy gulp, as if it could quell the dry burn of sleeping pills that haunted my throat. My eyes watered as I took the final drop, desperate for more. I’d never been so thirsty before in my life. His hand once again took the glass, other arm reaching to brace me before I fell forward, my mind not consciously registering the fact that I was near falling.

I jerked backward, head lulling on my