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Conduit Series: Illustration and an excerpt: The Gage Estate

The Gage Estate. Illustration by Kateryna Vitkovska (@vitkovskaya_art)

Instead of unlatching the gate, I climb it. The fencing is about six feet high on this edge of the property. Grasslands allowed to go wild stretch from here up to the house, which is set back from the bluff. A long, sandy beach stretches out as far as the eye can see — with enhanced or normal sight — from either side of that jagged, rocky outcropping. A low-lying beach punctuated by massive rock formations jutting out of the surf runs to the right. To the far south, near the very edge of the property, dunes begin to rise.

Except ‘property’ really isn’t the right word to encompass the mass of land that the Conduit and the Gage family occupy along the coast of Oregon. It’s a territory, really. Hectares upon hectares of land and beach. Even the foreshore is protected from public access, with both legal and essence-enforced boundaries. There’s a no-fly zone above, and a no-boating zone set between us and international waters. No entry without permission.

I can’t currently see that much of the property, of course. Not even while balanced on top of the gate. I can, however, see the conical roof of the turret tower on the main house, offset to the left on the asymmetrical structure. None of the usually ever-present soft glow emanates from its windows.

– Awry (Conduit 1), Chapter Six, Zaya

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 25, 2024

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Conduit Series: Illustration and an excerpt: Zaya

Zaya Gage. Awry. The Conduit. Illustration by Nicole Deal.

I’m staring. Going from coldly enraged to numb …

Because the gun I expected. It’s a lightweight, untraceable piece I slipped into the room myself ages ago.

But … Zaya Gage — a slightly older version of Zaya, and looking like death warmed over — is sitting on a motel bed in Outcast territory.

Alive.

And glaring fucking daggers at me.

Glaring at me as if she doesn’t know me at all.

As if she’s seriously considering shooting me.

The numbness holding me in place cracks, splintering like a skiff of ice over a dark well of vicious despair.

Her eyes, vibrant and utterly beguiling, are the wrong color.

Bright, soul-fucking-searing violet.

Not the warm, deep purplish-blue I gazed into summer after summer. Not the deadened, darkened purple that stared up into the storm-blackened sky, unseeing. The eyes that still haunt my nightmares, for almost thirteen years now.

My Zaya would be a month away from her thirtieth birthday. This woman, with her slight frame, her dusky pink lips, and her cheekbones and collarbone looking like carved white stone or the age-bleached fucking bones of some prehistoric creature, is too young.

– Awry (conduit 1), Chapter Four, Rath