Read Online The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) by Saruuh Kelsey - Free Book Online

spinning
around with my heart in my throat. “Oh.” I blink at Honour as he
drops into the seat beside me. His forehead shines with sweat, his
white shirt transparent around the neckline where moisture has
affixed the material to his skin. He’s breathing hard, and my own
breaths quicken in response. Is it a Strain? Or has the vaccine
finally begun to claim his life? No. I shake my head at myself. No,
Timofei said there were no symptoms of that, and sweating, elevated
temperature and—I hazard a guess—sickness are all symptoms Honour
appears to be experiencing.
    I lay the back of my
hand against his forehead without thinking, reverting for a second
into someone who had a twin sister to care for, someone who would
know how to look after a sick friend.
    “Are you alright,
Honour?” His temperature is scorching. I remove my hand. “Do you
have a fever?”
    “Yeah. No.” He drops
his head onto my shoulder. “They won’t leave me alone.”
    “Who
won’t?” Please don’t be delirious,
Honour.
    “Everyone.” He groans,
long and low. It vibrates through my shoulder. “Everyone’s fussing
over me—Tia, Dal, Hele, even Yosiah. I’m sick but I’m coping with
it, you know? I just … I want a minute to myself. Just a minute.”
He yawns, “Your arm’s really cold,” and promptly falls asleep.
    I crane my head to
frown at my friend, not sure if he’s exceptionally ill or just very
tired. Whatever’s wrong with him, he’s fast asleep against me, his
body leant over the gap between my chair and his. It’s a wonder he
doesn’t fall off. I would put my arm around his back to support him
but there’s currently a dead weight drooling on it.
    “Honestly ,” I murmur, shaking my
head.
    Marie leans over the
table towards us, whispering conspiratorially. “Is he, y’know,
completely insane?”
    “M! ”
    I push hair out of
Honour’s eyes, the thick strands dripping sweat. “He’s mostly
tired, I think, and suffering from a nasty bout of
seasickness.”
    “Ugh. Don’t let him
puke on the table.”
    “M. ”
    “What?” She turns
innocent eyes on the brown skinned girl.
    Priya simply swats
Marie’s arm.
    “Must be hard, right?
Starting a revolution.”
    “Yes,” I say to
myself, watching Honour from the corner of my eye. “It must.”
Though the rest of him is unchanged, there’s something about
Honour’s glass-brown eyes. They’re not darker exactly, but they
appear that way. He looks younger with those heavy eyes. Daunted.
Igniting this revolution has not been kind to my friend, though it
has brought us together so I can’t despise it completely. It also
saved a number of Forgotten London lives, which is no small measure
of good, but for the void of darkness it has opened in Honour, I
wish it never happened.
    “When we get to
Bharat,” Marie says, carrying her own conversation. “I’ll start my
own revolution. I’ll call it the Femme Fighters, and no boys will
be allowed. Sorry, Branwell.”
    I don’t glance away
from the point where Honour’s face is squashed against my
shirtsleeves. I say, “I don’t want to be involved in a revolution,
so that’s alright.”
    She snorts. “Too bad,
you’re in one.”
    “Maybe when we get to
Bharat you could leave us,” Priya suggests in her silken murmur.
“Not—not that I want you to. But if you didn’t want to be a part of
our mission to dismantle the Ordering Body, I’m sure our leaders
would let you find a home in Bharat. Maybe you could be an
archivist like us. You did say you like books.”
    I make a noncommittal
sound. The truth is I don’t know what I want to do with my future.
When I was home, things were simple. I would continue to assist my
father with his inventions, and do my own scientific work on the
side. When he died, much later in life, I’d take over the house and
any estates or businesses we might have left. But now? How can I
know what I want to do with my life when I hardly know what my life
is?
    For a time I