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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

Niv laughed. “You think she’s in a hurry to trigger a coup? They’d take her out in a second if they thought she was trying to change the way they do things.”

“I guess,” I said begrudgingly. Cass, the editor in chief at the Clarion, Darkside’s scrappy opposition paper, had said the same thing to me not so long ago. “How’s Ash?”

“She’s . . . the same.”

I winced, remembering Ash staring out the window at the snow, not even seeing it. Playing our favorite songs for her and seeing that she felt nothing. “Can’t the doctors . . .”

“She’s seen dozens of them, and they all say the same thing. The only way to bring her out of this . . . whatever it is . . . is to lift the spell the court sorcerers put on her.”

“Shit,” I said. We both knew her mother would never allow that. The spell kept Ash’s powers in check, buried them deep. Since the age of twelve, Ash had been childlike on the best of days, and semicatatonic on the others.

“She’s fighting it. Wherever she is in there, she’s working hard to break the spell. That’s why they have to keep making it stronger. She’s nobody’s victim.”

“Of course she’s not.”

“Come see her,” Niv said, and named an address in Raptor Heights. A rough-and-tumble working-class neighborhood where lots of othersiders could afford to live, because its bad reputation kept the rents down.

“Should you be telling me that?” I asked. “Isn’t her location supposed to be a huge secret?”

He looked hurt, and I didn’t feel bad about it. Protecting Ash was my primary purpose in life. This pretty boy I’d been crushing on since I was ten didn’t matter, in the grand scheme. “She loves you, Solomon. There’s no secrets from you.”

“But if you’d tell me, who else would you tell?”

Niv frowned, and his face flashed red. “Good to see you, Maraud,” he said, patting her side. She blinked slowly, in happiness. Then he turned and left.

Maraud took two steps to follow him. When I pressed my hand to her neck to stop her, she turned to look at me in confusion.

“Sorry, girl,” I said, climbing on board. “Let’s head for the bridge.”

As we went, she kept trying to turn. Still following Niv’s scent—and Ash’s, on him.

“Ash is going to be okay,” I said, knowing she could hear the lie in my voice. “We’re all going to be okay.”

A ship’s horn sounded in the distance, low and lonesome, arriving from the Spice Islands. We hurried home through streets that stunk of cinnamon.

Three

Ash