by A. L. Knorr
“We can’t stay here all night,” I muttered, eyeing his body. He no longer smoked, and was stinking less and less as moments ticked by. The healing process had already begun.
The candle was little more than a wick floating in a puddle of wax goo.
I melted the hafnium chain binding Ryan to the wall, filling the mine with baking heat and making the candle melt faster. I left the cuffs on his wrist, dangling the broken, partially melted chain, not bothering to waste the energy needed to mend it.
Putting my hands under his armpits, I poured fire-power along my whole body to fuel the lift of his dead weight from sitting, to up and over my shoulder where I balanced him like a sack of grain. With an arm wrapped around his waist and my body canted to the side to offset his weight, I began the long trek back to the teahouse. I needed water myself, but I’d have to wait. As a Burned mage, I could go without water for longer than my Unburned fellows, but I didn’t know exactly how long. I didn’t want to find out.
As we turned the corner away from the candle, I freed my left hand to use as a torch. I plodded on, following the rose petals in reverse. Fire-power detonated like stop-motion, down my legs and up my back like pistons firing on a timer. All the while it slow-burned in my right shoulder and arm to keep Ryan’s heavy frame aloft. I felt like a lumbering, mindless machine. All my resources focused on putting one foot after the other and watching for the next petal, until I saw a candle flame up ahead, the candle shorter than when I passed it previously.
Sometime later, I switched Ryan to my other side, bumping his body over my head to catch him and cradle him like a big baby. His head lolled and his limbs flailed about as I lifted him up to balance him on my other side, wincing at the thought of my shoulder jamming into the smoked relics of his organs. But he didn’t deserve a wince. Any extra pain he had because I’d had to carry his bloody useless, selfish self out of this place had been wholly earned.
At times, I had to heave Ryan’s body up and over the edge of a step, climb up after him and drag his body up and onto my shoulder again. I started to wonder if I’d taken a wrong turn, or if maybe I was trapped in a never-ending nightmare.
It felt like I’d been at this forever when I heard the sound of footsteps. It made my heart jump with fear, those vivid visions of horror movie monsters emerging again, until I registered that it had to be help.
I paused in the huge cavern. “Hello?”
“Saxony?” It was Dr. Price. She sounded shocked, aghast, relieved, horrified. All of it.
“Christy?”
“Yes.” Her footfalls sped up and an artificial light rounded the dark bend ahead, casting crazy shadows. She appeared a moment later, lifting a lantern high. The straps of a backpack were visible in front of her shoulders.
As light washed over me and Ryan, the doctor stopped dead in her tracks. She uttered something unladylike then sprinted to us, lantern swinging. Setting it on the ground beside me, the light stabilized.
“Put him down, dear.”
I squatted to let his body down. She caught his head as I lay him back gently on the chalk floor. Shucking the backpack, she unzipped it and pulled out two bottles of water. One she handed to me, the other she opened and held to Ryan’s lips.
I drank the entire bottle greedily and put the empty container back into the pack as I watched Ryan’s throat work at swallowing down his. He had some kind of twilight consciousness, but no muscle control or speech. I remembered the feeling well. Christy handed his empty bottle to me when he was finished.
“Where’s Basil?” I asked, dropping it into the backpack.
“He’ll be here any moment.” She produced an instrument from a chest pocket in her jacket and pried up Ryan’s eyelids to look at his eyes. “He was, ah... sorting Gage out.”
My slouching shoulders snapped back. “Sorting Gage out?”
“It seems that Ryan gave him something to put him to sleep, a deep sleep. Get him out of the way.” She shook her head and spared me a glance. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”
I snorted a humorless laugh and suppressed the urge to kick Ryan’s head where it lay so close to my bare foot.
His pupils were huge, to the point that the iris was a mere thin ring. They couldn’t go any bigger. Dr. Price looked inside his mouth, felt his pulse, examined his burnt fingers. She muttered something unintelligible as she fingered the hafnium cuffs, then leaned back on her haunches. She looked up with an audible sigh. The lantern threw weird shadows on her face, casting a dark slash up her forehead from her nose.
“He’s going to be okay,”
“I know,” I replied, my tone flat. I almost added unfortunately.
“I want to know everything.” She looked behind her into the gloom. “But let’s get out of here first. This place is a nightmare. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, and all alone.”
I nodded, picked Ryan up again, heaving him over the shoulder I hadn’t used in a while, and began to plod. Christy walked beside me holding the lantern aloft to light our way.
“I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to carry him,” she said, her voice echoing eerily. “Are you exhausted? Silly question. Of course you are.”
“I’m fine. How far to the manhole?” I winced, waiting for her answer. If she said it was another two hours, it would be the emotional equivalent of a kick in the teeth. I felt weary through to my bones in spite of the water. Not because of the physical exertion, I could go on like this for a long time, but I was emotionally drained. I needed to sleep. To think. To process. To rage. To guzzle more water.
“At this pace, maybe an hour,” she replied.
I nodded.
After I gave blunt one-word answers to a couple of her questions, Christy fell silent. She helped me navigate the more difficult parts of the mine by monitoring Ryan’s extremities and holding the lantern high. Occasionally, she’d reach out to still the ends of the damaged chains dangling from his wrist. They clinked softly like the lite version of Jacob Marley’s ghost.
The shadows rocked hypnotically back and forth as the lantern swung. I lost track of time as I turned inward, focusing on the fire and thinking no further than the present step.
When the narrow tube and ladder appeared in the distance, I couldn’t stop a moan of relief.
“Are you alright?” Christy lifted the lantern higher, sounding mildly alarmed.
Nodding, I closed the remaining gap to our exit. After laying Ryan against the wall there, I raked my hair out of my face, wishing desperately for an elastic.
“How shall we—” the doctor began.
“There’s a rope up there.” I cut her off, not unkindly but I was in no mood to stand about and dither. “I’ll lower it. You tie it under his arms. I’ll pull him up.”
“There is another entrance to this mine,” Her voice was meek, like she was afraid of ticking me off. So, maybe she did have some sense of how close to the end of the metaphorical rope I was.
She pointed to the black maw where the mine continued past the manhole. “It’s further inland, but it’s a proper entrance. It used to be a shaft for an elev—”
I shot her a look full of the angst and frustration but didn’t say anything. She was still my superior.
“Right. Go on then,” she said.
Hand over hand, I climbed out, not nearly as freaked about going through the narrow tube as I’d been going in. The bad dream was almost over. Breathing deeply of the fresh night air, dank though it was, I emerged into the basement.
I was amazed to find that the rope coiled in the corner was not covered in dust like everything else down here. When I picked it up there was no dirt-line in the floor, no evidence that it had been sitting in this basement for years like everything else. Either the owner of this teahouse had somehow miraculously purchased new rope and decided to store it down here at an opportune time for Ryan, or Ryan had thoughtfully furnished me with everything I’d need to get him out of here. It made me want to spit.
Lowering the
end of the rope for the doctor, I palmed water from the tap while I waited until she had secured Ryan.
Her voice echoed from the manhole like it was drifting from a tomb. “I’ll climb up ahead of him to make sure he doesn’t get caught on the rungs.”
“Okay,” I replied, my voice hoarse.
Looping the rope around the metal where the staircase was bolted to the floor, I fired up my joints again. Pulling Ryan’s unconscious body up through the hole, I gritted my teeth the whole time. Christy emerged first, bracing her feet on either side of the manhole and managing Ryan’s head and arms as I dragged him the rest of the way out. I pulled him across the floor and we let his body rest by the bottom step.
I sat on the stairs while the doctor leaned against the sink, recovering our breath. Her face was smeared with dirt and her hair was matted to her head with sweat.
At the sound of a vehicle we shared a look.
“If that’s not Basil, we’ll have a hard time explaining this,” I muttered, getting to my feet.
Bending down, I hoisted Ryan onto my shoulder one last time. “Would you mind grabbing my boots and stuff?”
“Of course.” Christy picked up my things and followed me up the stairs.
As we emerged from the basement, the lights of a vehicle came bobbing past the teahouse. A van skidded to a halt at the edge of the parking lot.
Basil got out of the driver’s side. Gage practically exploded out of the passenger’s side. He ran to me and Ryan, tears streaming down his face. His eyes were puffy and bleary. I didn’t know if it was from whatever Ryan had given him or because he was so upset. Probably both.
“He’s okay,” My heart swelled with affection for Gage at the display of love for his twin, but I also felt like slapping him. The strain of the experience made me want to lay blame, and who else might have done something to stop this fiasco if not Ryan’s own brother? But never had the saying ‘love is blind’ applied more perfectly to anyone I had ever met.
“What about you? Are you okay?” Gage inspected me after confirming his brother had a pulse.
It mustered a nod and a croak. “I’m fine. How are you? Dr. Price says Ryan drugged you?”
Gage nodded his head in the affirmative, then shook it in the negative, then wrinkled his nose and snuffed like a dog, as if to say he didn’t want to talk about it.
“I had to use endowment to wake him,” Basil said as he opened the sliding door of the van. Power firing in every joint to take him the home stretch, I carried Ryan’s dead weight the last several meters to the van. Lowering him onto the floor of the vehicle, I saw the seats had been removed and a blanket laid out.
Basil and Christy exchanged words I didn’t try to listen in on as I stepped over Ryan and got into the back of the van. A few minutes later I heard the sounds of the doors leading to the basement of the teahouse being closed. I sat on the floor of the van with my head in my hands and my eyes closed, listening as Basil and Gage took their seats. Distantly, the door to Christy’s vehicle slammed shut and her engine purred to life.
Not one word was spoken as Basil drove us back to the academy on the dark deserted roads of Kent.
Twenty-Four
Aftermath
Basil, Gage and I hovered at the door of Ryan’s room as Dr. Price made him as comfortable as it was possible to make a mostly unconscious person. Basil had unlocked the damaged cuffs and stuffed them in a pocket. Christy filled an enormous pitcher with water and set it on Ryan’s nightstand after pouring some into the glass beside it.
Gage had carried Ryan through the academy, refusing to let me carry his twin any longer though he was still clearly feeling dopey from whatever Ryan had slipped him, while Christy and I held doors open for him and warned him of obstacles he could hit with Ryan’s head or feet. The building was eerily silent. Aside from Tomio, the headmaster told us that none of the students were aware of what had transpired. He’d sent Tomio to bed with a command to stay quiet, though he’d wanted to stay up and wait for us.
“What should we expect?” Gage asked in a whisper, as the four of us looked down at the newly Burned mage.
Ryan’s face looked so peaceful and sweet when all the tension and expression had been wiped away. The only thing to distinguish the twins now was Ryan’s facial hair. Dark lashes lay against his pale cheek and his lips were soft and relaxed, not tight or snarling, the way they were most of time.
“He’ll be sore tomorrow,” I told Gage. “Like his insides are bruised. But within twenty-four to thirty-six hours, he’ll be back to his old self.”
Basil frowned and a near audible thought passed through the air between us. Would he be his old self? And if yes, for how long?
Gage sat on the bed and took his brother’s hand. The gesture was a blade in my heart. What had Ryan done to deserve such adoration from his twin? Had there been a time when Ryan had doted on Gage as much as Gage doted on him? I wished Ryan had half the consideration for Gage that Gage had for him. If he had, this wouldn’t have happened. It was like Gage had wiped the fact that Ryan had drugged him from his memory altogether.
“Best get some sleep,” Basil said from the foot of Ryan’s bed. In the dim light of the lamp, he looked old, worn out, used up. The headmaster rarely expressed his stress and frustration, but it seemed to me he bore a heavy load these days.
“I’ll stay with him for a while,” Gage didn’t look up. “I couldn’t possibly sleep now. I thought I’d lost him.”
Dr. Price put a hand on Gage’s shoulder and then followed Basil and me out of Ryan’s room, closing the door behind her. She whispered goodnight and that we’d talk tomorrow before heading down the corridor toward her suite, a little crookedly as she went.
Basil and I just stood there momentarily in that dark hallway, an air of bewilderment about us. I was tired and I desperately wanted a shower, but I also wanted to talk. I sent him a hopeful expression.
“May I ask you a personal question?”
“You can ask,” he replied, warily.
“Are you okay? You seem anxious. Is there something, aside from what’s happened with Ryan, bothering you?” I was being a little too familiar, I knew, but if there was something I could do to help...
“You’ve noticed, have you?” Basil put his hands behind his back. He jerked his head in the direction of his office and I fell in step beside him, our feet padding silently on the carpet.
“Every Sunday, for years now, I go to visit my father. But since Christmas, he’s not been well. I’ve been torn about where I should be spending my time these days.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as we arrived on the landing by his office. “That makes sense. I hope he gets better soon.”
“Thank you.” He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked his office door.
Once inside, I went to the sofa where I tried not to collapse. I brushed some of the chalk dust from my clothes before I sat down. Basil went to the small table in the corner where he filled two glasses with water, then he joined me, setting the glasses on coasters.
“Your knees are a mess and your pretty dress is ruined,” he gestured, leaning against the sofa.
I looked down. I’d neglected to cauterize the cuts in my knees. Truthfully, I could barely feel them. As for the black satin, the hem was shredded in places and the seam at the drop-waist had popped open. Chalk dust and sea-salt had been ground so deeply into the fabric that it looked like someone had intended for it to have a marble design rather than flat black. The seam at the right underarm was frayed and I could feel more give in the back than it used to have.
“I’ll put it on Ryan’s tab,” I murmured, a poor attempt at a joke. Tucking ragged, salt-crusty curls behind my ears, I caught a whiff of my own scent. Parfum de old-wood-stove. Tucking my arms tight in to my sides, I lay my hands in my lap and looked at the headmaster.
“Tell me everything.” Basil crossed one arm over the other, prepared to listen.
“He had it meticulously planned out.” My voice was h
usky and burnt-out sounding. It always sounded hoarser when I’d been using fire a lot. “He knew how long it was going to take for him to Burn, like, precisely. His alarm went off moments after I gave him water. How could he have known that?” I thought I knew the answer but I wanted the headmaster to reach the same conclusion on his own. I was tired of making accusations, it made me sound so cynical.
“When I asked you to return the Nero Palumbo report—” he began, speaking slowly.
I was relieved he was headed in the right direction. “You’ve been distracted lately, yes, but you hadn’t just misplaced it.”
Basil nodded. “Ryan lifted it from my office. I found it in his room before coming to meet you when I was looking for whatever he’d drugged Gage with. I never kept the report locked up. Never had a reason to.”
“You never thought you had a reason to,” I stressed. “But suspecting that there was a formula was enough for Ryan.”
“The formula was just a ruse,” Basil said, but sounded as though he no longer believed it. “It was a fake, something Nero concocted to trick us.”
“No, Basil.” I said softly, my stomach dipping with pity for him. He looked so pale. “It couldn’t have been a trick. I didn’t think it was when I read the report, and Ryan wouldn’t have thought it was just a trick when he read it, either. But the formula wasn’t complete in your report so how could Ryan have gotten the rest of it?”
Basil looked pained as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “There is a connection Ryan could have exploited, though I don’t know how he was able to wrangle it.” He put his glasses back on. “Chad knew Nero.”
I gaped. “The twins’ dad is friends with Nero?”
Basil cleared his throat. “Not friends, no. I should clarify that Chad knew of Nero. They never met—to my knowledge—but while Chad was here during the first couple of years of the academy’s life, I do recall telling him the story.”