The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 19

  "Let's hope then that your Rha is not short more than two, or maybe I shall consider making him my payment as well." 38596 opened the door of Phuck's cabin, but remained poised in the door frame. "Yes, give the Rha my expectations and let us see if he also agrees that nine is an impossible number for this season."

  "I will deliver your challenge," Phuck said, as required.

  "Of course you will," the Superior told him. "It is your assignment."

  ***

  Diem whistled Forge back once Wind was far out of sight. It worried him that Wind was back on the House grounds, even more that she had located his private grounds, and most that she'd seen Maeve. Wind could report it to Breed House and the men there could insist that the woman was theirs. It could start an enormous battle that Diem really didn't need.

  "Jealous girlfriend?" Maeve asked when he came back inside. She was smirking, as if she had something on him, even though she was still bound to his wall. He went back to putting away the dishes and in the silence, her eyelids finally drooped again.

  He stayed until she was solidly asleep and then slipped out of the shack. His whistle was fast and short, bringing Forge from the cave across the grounds. She soared into the air and landed with the grace of a single snowflake, her head at his feet.

  "No guide rein tonight," he mumbled as he climbed onto the dragon's neck. He wedged his hands down between the plates of her neck, where the guide reins would usually be seated, and snugged his knees into the soft worn spots, where the plating had shifted away after years of flying.

  "Alright, my girl," he murmured to the dragon, "go easy on me. I will need these arms when we are through."

  He gave another whistle and Forge shot into the air, the force of the ascent nearly yanking his shoulders from their sockets. He held tight to the plates, the edges cutting into fingers, and pressed his left knee to her throat, so she flew toward Fly House. Even as painful as the flight was without the aide of a guide rein, Diem would take it all a million times worse. Flying on his dragon's back was still the safest place on Earth or above it, and gliding across the patches of spindlings was just as breathtaking as it had been on his first flight.

  Forge reached the Fly House in minutes. Diem saw the House party in full swing, the party-goers spilled out across the lawn. Gra Breathe was always in charge of the decorating and she did an amazing job. Even from the sky, Diem the glow of the torches lit the food table, the couples mingling at the edges, the dancers and the small band of string-players.

  Diem crested his dragon over the tops of the spindlings. The dark shadow moving over the ground caught the attention of several party goers. They drained off the lawn like gorne warvils caught in a gush of distilled drink; the partiers stumbling and dragging away those who couldn't stumble. When the lawn was clear, Diem pressed his knees to Forge, nudging them downward. The dragon dove in a line-drive toward the ground, pulling up at the last moment to land gracefully on her back feet. Diem whistled and the dragon pricked up her tail, a split second before she relaxed it in the center of the feast table.

  "Always a grand entrance," Eon said from the edge of the clearing. His arm was slung around Karma's shoulders, and even though the sight wasn't pleasing to Diem, he would rather have his best friend there than anyone else. Especially anyone from Breed House.

  The men attending from Breed House blustered and mumbled to one another about the entrance. The younger girls squealed as Diem slid off the dragon and the women, who were interested in presenting themselves, sauntered to stand in the paths they thought Diem might take into the crowd.

  Karma was the only one that dared walk into the clearing, right beneath the dragon's head. She patted Forge's foot and immediately caught sight of her brother's chewed up hands.

  "What happened to you?" she asked, catching his hands in hers.

  "I was missing my guide rein," he said. Most of the females in the crowd sighed at his ruggedness. Karma ducked in close. She knew Diem better than anyone.

  "What's really going on?"

  "I need to talk to Gra. Where is she?"

  "In the House."

  "You keep everyone dancing, alright?"

  "Where?" Karma laughed. "You parked your dragon on the entire party!"

  They both knew it was the only place to land comfortably, but it was still funny. Especially seeing the Breed House men grumbling in the shadows.

  "I'm only going to be here a minute. I've got to take Breathe with me for a bit. Just keep everyone busy, alright? I don't need any wanderers tonight. And ask Eon to put two guide reins on Forge for me."

  "I'll let Eon know," she said and she danced off as Diem shot up the steps of the House. Inside, he called out for his Gra and Breathe came from the back, wiping her hands together.

  "Good to see you made it," she said, but with one glance at his cut hands, her brows hiked. "You didn't get those cuts from dancing, did you?"

  "No. I've found something I need you to see."

  "Alright," Breathe said. There was no hesitation. "Well, let's go then. Lead the way."

  They went down the front steps to Forge. The crowd of guests and House members both streamed out of the way. A woman tried to catch Diem's arm in passing.

  "Where you two going?"

  "I have work to do," Breathe said. She kicked up a heel playfully. "If you want to be Diem's Link, girls, you can't just look pretty. You've got to know how to work hard."

  The woman let her hand drop. Diem led Breathe to the dragon. Already fitted with the guide reins, Diem waited until Breathe was seated to the dragon's neck, before he climbed on behind her.

  "Ready, Gra?" he called.

  "Always," she answered. Diem gave a sharp whistle and Forge shot into the sky.

  ***

  Maeve startled awake as the door of Diem's cabin wafted open. Groggy and unfamiliar with her surroundings, she tried to jump to her feet, but the guide rein shackling her wrist jerked her back onto the bed. Wide-eyed, Maeve stared at Diem as he walked in. His shoulders filled the door frame and brought it all back to her, this ongoing nightmare of this fantasy world.

  He crossed the room as an old woman stepped into the shack behind him. Catching sight of Maeve, the woman froze. Maeve studied the woman in return. She had to be in her early sixties, with a pouf of gray, kinky hair that rimmed her head like a halo, wide blue eyes, and smooth skin that reminded Maeve of a soft, honey-drizzled piece of baklava.

  The old woman's mouth dropped open. Still standing in the place she'd frozen, her voice drifted with disbelief.

  "Maeve? Maeve Aypotu?" the old woman said. "I can't believe it. Is that really you?"

  Diem's gaze snapped to Maeve just as her own jaw dropped. "You know her, Gra?"

  "Yes," the old woman said.

  Tears flooded Maeve's vision for no other reason than someone knew her. In this world, where she didn't seem to have a place, someone knowing her and calling her by name felt like reaching the front door of home.

  Maeve studied the old woman's face anew, but couldn't find a trace of anyone familiar. She looked to Diem, but he was of no help. Maeve's gaze met the old woman's again.

  "Do I know you?" she asked.

  "My name was Olivia," the old woman said. She rushed forward and untied Maeve's wrist, despite Diem's protests.

  "Was?" Maeve said.

  Diem interjected, "Olivia, Gra? And you think you know her? How?"

  "Shush now, Diem," the old woman said. "Olivia was my archaic name, I told you that before. But how in the world are you here, Maeve Aypotu? Is this a dream? Please tell me, how are you here?"

  "The Archive..." Maeve began. Olivia sucked in a quick breath.

  "My aunt worked at the Archive," she whispered. Tears of relief and validation mixed together to clog Maeve's throat, but there was no way in hell she was letting it all out in front of Diem. Not when he'd tied her to his wall like a damn fraud. She rubbed at her wrists as the old woman put her hand on Maeve's leg. "You couldn't have been in the old Archive t
his whole time? They bulldozed the facility decades before the Scorching."

  Maeve stopped rubbing her wrists. "Bulldozed?"

  "Yes, the company went bankrupt. Lost everything. The building went vacant and it was eventually condemned. They ripped it down and bulldozed the lot, but no one ever built on the land again. It sat there forever. There wasn't money for building and the amount of pollution that would've come from a bulldozer was against the law by then..."

  "They left us in the chambers and just covered it up?" Maeve said. Olivia blinked, her eyes wide and remorseful.

  "You were truly down there this whole time? I always assumed the Archive woke their clientele once the business went under."

  "They didn't."

  "Good lord," Olivia said. "How many of you are there? And how did you get up here?"

  Maeve closed her mouth on the answer. Her instincts were to trust this kindly woman, but those kind of instincts had rewired inside her long ago. Now, the thought of trusting someone set off warning bells and raised Maeve's nerves. She'd trusted her parents, her caregivers, even a couple of men once or twice. The result of trusting was always the same and never good.

  Everyone and everything had a price tag, a value. Maeve knew that whether or not someone broke her trust depended less on her sparkling personality and more upon what her worth was to them.

  And right now, Maeve didn't have one cent of worth to Olivia and Diem. She was a novelty at best, a freak accident of survival. There was zero reason for them to help her or anyone else in the Archive. The world was, literally, a different place than the one she'd left and it was operating with an entirely new set of rules. Maeve had no idea what to expect from these humans or this Earth and, for all she knew, they could be friendly cannibals, working to lure her in. They could capture the Archivers and do scientific experiments on them. Who the hell knew what they really wanted?

  Maeve decided to do what she usually did. She corked her instincts and followed what she'd learned about people instead. There was no way she was going to reveal the others in the Archive unless she knew no one would be eaten. She smirked to herself. Casper would be delighted. Coming to the surface might end with her as an experiment after all.

  "The Archive woke everyone else and forgot me," she said. "When I woke up, I was all alone in a room full of empty chambers. I came up in the forest and walked for days and days. Then I found the hollow tree and thought I'd go to sleep there...until his dragon found me."

  "You walked for days and days?" Diem asked with a wince, but the old woman shushed him as they exchanged a look. Maeve had screwed something up. Obvs. Maybe there wasn't days and days of walking from the shack? But how could that be? Had the world been charred into an apple core?

  Instead of answers, Olivia reached into her pocket and pulled out a fragile, yellow piece of paper. The old woman used the tip of her nail to separate the corners. She opened the paper as if it were a lost letter from God.

  "You, Maeve Aypotu," the old woman said thickly, "were my hero. Tattooed and pierced, you were the hellion, the take-no-garbage daughter of one of the richest men in the United States. You were Maeve Aypotu, the girl that did things on her own terms. It was never reported that you went into the Archive. The magazines only said you went missing. You were the great mystery in those years. They even put your story on the Unsolved Mysteries channel. My aunt told me you'd come to the Archive when she gave me this note, but she never said you were there as a client, to be chambered. There were confidentiality agreements she had to sign to work there, though. She might not have even known your real business there; she was just a receptionist, after all. But she knew you were my hero and she got this for me. I've always treasured it. It has been my talisman since the day I received it and it made me feel like I was carrying some of your strength with me when I came up short."

  The woman's old hands quivered a bit as she handed the paper to Maeve. The faded letterhead at the top of the page was familiar. The letterhead was the Archive logo. Maeve took the paper delicately, balancing it on the pads of her fingertips to read. Beneath the Archive's stamp was Maeve's own handwriting, floating in the middle of the page like an old inked ghost:

  Dear Olivia, Stay strong and stay true, stay you whatever you do. Love, Maeve Aypotu.

  "I remember," Maeve whispered. "The receptionist said this was for her niece. A little kid—so I tried to make a rhyme. The woman thought I ripped off Dr. Seuss."

  "I was nine then and my name was Olivia. Now my people know me only as Breathe. We chose new names, names of life, after we survived the Scorching. You can call me Breathe too." Breathe smiled.

  "The Scorching?" Maeve said.

  "The Plutians burnt the Earth...removed our civilization and rebuilt it to suit their dragon trade. We have all been through a great deal, haven't we? Our tenacious race. I am glad you made it and as you can see, your note made quite an impression on me. It's how I made it too."

  "I was 22 years old the day I wrote that," Maeve said numbly. "How old are you now, Breathe?"

  "Eighty-seven," the woman said. Maeve could hardly grasp it. The old woman had to be lying and Maeve decided to call her on it.

  "You're not 87. You look like you're in your sixties, tops."

  "Perfect nutrition does that to a body," the woman said with a smile.

  "She thinks you're lying, Gra," Diem cut in. As much as Maeve didn't appreciate it, she was a little amazed that he could decipher her thoughts so easily.

  "Why does he call you that?" Maeve asked, to displace the insult. Diem groaned.

  "I'm not a death spirit, you know," he said. "You can talk to me. I'm standing right here."

  The old woman smiled conspiratorially at Maeve. "He calls me Gra because I am his grandmother."

  Grandmother. Holy shit. Maeve gave Diem a good long look and looked away. She was attracted to him, but now it was all too bizarre. He was a million years younger than her. He was the grandson of a nine-year-old fan. It was creepy beyond belief, until she looked at Diem again.

  The tabloids would've framed him on their cover twice each month. They would have hidden in his bushes and followed him to the dentist. He had the body—God, did he have it—shoulders wide enough to carry the trunks of Sequoias. He had the face too, one that mixed blockbuster movie star with badass brawler, and he had a calm about him that could probably make the air bow down to his dominance.

  Staring at Diem, Maeve was suddenly cool with being a 104-year-old cougar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hot Season Six

  Diem had no idea what he was going to do, now that Gra Breathe was sitting on his bed beside Maeve and the two of them were chattering like a couple of little girls about what it was like during the archaic times. He went to his shelves, pulling down a container of salve to slap on his wounds.

  The slices on his hands and arms were nothing much and should be healed in a day, but the problems that could occur by Maeve showing up—he wasn't sure that they would be so easy to fix. Sooner or later, someone from his House would find her on the Fly House lot and then what would he do? Use her or report her to the other Houses as a missing woman? He had no idea how to explain her existence.

  He couldn't just walk her into the Fly House. Aside from the mystery surrounding her, there were the Housemen to contend with. The thought of them looking at her made him itch from head to toe. It was the same sort of fury as when he caught men looking at Karma, but with Maeve, there was something more. A twisting in his gut that they might succeed with her, instead of him.

  He scrubbed his arms roughly in the sink. He was a Rha for goodness sake. To feel this way about a woman, to be controlled by jealous thoughts of her, was hazardous and young. He pitched around for something argumentative, something opposite of amorous to think about her, but he came back to the things like the tendrils of her hair. He could probably slip his finger into one of those curls and lift it like a ring around his finger. Or her eyes. The color of them was not the entire beauty�
�it was the way they looked at him, eclipsed him. She was not an easy woman. Knowing that made each look she gave him feel like something he had won. Something he wanted to secret away and protect with his life.

  What a dangerous thing.

  "Even if she did just walk up out of the ground," he said with a sudden spurt of annoyance, "what are we supposed to do with her now?"

  Breathe glanced at her grandson with surprise. Then she turned and gave Maeve a small sigh of apology. "Well, that is a bit of a problem, isn't it? How do we explain you, Maeve?"

  "I'm a distant relative? Visiting from out of town?" Maeve suggested. The wrinkles at the corners of Breathe's eyes bunched up like a surfed rug.

  "That would be lovely, except that there are no distant relatives and no 'out of towns' here. Our worlds are small, encapsulated by five Houses and controlled by the Plutians, Maeve. Pluto. They said it wasn't even a planet back in the day." Breathe smiled as if it were a funny joke. "Humans harvest dragons for Pluto now. Who would've believed it? Who would've believed Plutians would destroy our atmosphere to suit their business?"

  And then, they were off again, discussing everything but how they were going to ever explain Maeve.

  "Did you notice the trees?" Breathe asked. "They're called spindlings. Fireproof, so the dragons can't burn them down—well, except for the leaves. They shrivel like Shrinky Dinks, remember those? But the leaves grow back in just a day or two. None of our old Earthly plants are here anymore."

  "You said there are five Houses?" Maeve asked. Diem tried not to blink, just so he wouldn't miss a movement of her lips as she spoke, but when she turned eyes on him, he busied himself with wrapping the wounds on his hand.

  "Yes. Each handle a different stage of the dragon harvest. The Ice House receives eggs and preserves them until we can incubate them. Hot House does the incubation. Then, most of the opened eggs go to Breed House. They breed the young dragons and start the process again. The promising dragons, the ones that are suitable for training come here, to the Fly House. Diem trains the dragons how to fly with riders on their backs, how to follow direction. He's the best trainer in the universe," Breathe beamed. "Any surpluses from all the Houses goes to Hold House. They hold the dragons until the shipments are due."