Outside, he could hear the villagers talking in low voices, growing restless. Even now, were they pouring oil around the foundation of the house?
He closed his eyes. What would his father do in this situation? He visualized the man’s expressionless face, his cool gray stare.
Simon opened his eyes. The fear fell away, replaced by a peculiar, icy stillness. “Tell me, Brock. What’s your full name? You do have a family name, I assume?”
Brock’s fierce expression went blank. “What’s it matter?”
“When I return home empty-handed, the Foundation will demand an explanation. And when I tell them what happened, I’ll have to let them know who the responsible party was.”
His face darkened. “You trying to intimidate me?”
Simon forced himself not to drop his gaze. “I’m just telling you how it is. I admire your courage, actually. Defying the Foundation in order to satisfy your own sense of justice . . . considering they could crush your entire village like a beetle? It’s a bold move. But if you’re willing to take full responsibility, I can at least guarantee that your kinsmen won’t suffer for your actions.”
The corner of Brock’s eye twitched.
“I hope you’re not thinking about threatening me,” Simon said. “Have you forgotten that I was able to take down the monster single-handed?”
“Maybe you got lucky.”
“Don’t be stupid. The reason she didn’t struggle, even when you beat her, is because I’m here. She isn’t the least bit afraid of you. Even now, in her weakened state, she still has the power to kill you. But I made her promise to behave.”
Alice huddled on the floor, motionless, her face hidden by her hood.
Cords of tendon stood out in Brock’s neck. His face had grown shiny and taut; a vein in his temple strained against the skin. It seemed in real danger of bursting. A thin line of sweat snaked down the back of Simon’s neck and under the collar of his robe. Don’t look away.
For a long moment, neither spoke; neither moved. Simon’s knees were quivering like jelly, but he kept his face carefully neutral. “Now,” he said, “kindly take your hand off my shoulder.”
A few seconds passed . . . then Brock pulled his hand back. He shoved his knife back into the hilt. “You little snake. I should have seen through that bumbling coward act of yours. This is all a game to you, isn’t it?” He spat on the floorboards.
Simon said nothing.
“Do whatever you want with the witch,” Brock muttered. “Just get out of our village and never show your face around here again.” He strode out, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Eleven
Simon waited, afraid to move or breathe. Outside, the dull murmur of the villagers’ voices receded and faded into silence.
Alice sat up, cradling her ribs. With her thumb, she wiped a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth. “They’re gone,” she said. “I can’t smell them anymore.”
Simon sagged against the wall, light-headed. “Thank the Spirit,” he murmured.
Alice started to stand and winced, clutching her chest. She crumpled back to the floor.
He dropped to his knees beside her. Gently, he touched her shoulder; she flinched, and he pulled away. “Anything broken?”
“A few bruised ribs.”
“Let me heal them.” He reached out.
She waved him away. “It’s nothing.”
Her nose was bleeding. Her lower lip had split, and there were bruises on one cheek where Brock had shoved her face against the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have done something sooner.”
“No.” She spat blood and wiped her mouth with a sleeve. “I had to let him knock me around. Make him think I was helpless. Lucky he fell for your bluff.” She paused. “It was a bluff, wasn’t it?”
He let out a shaky laugh. “I’m amazed he didn’t see through me.” His smile faded. “For a moment, I thought we were both going to die.”
“You know, you could have just walked away.”
“And let him kill you? No. I couldn’t do that.”
Alice was staring at him, her expression strangely intent. She leaned forward to touch his throat, and he tensed.
“Um . . .”
“You’re bruised, too.” Her fingertips ghosted over his skin, tracing a sore spot. “Did I do this?”
He’d been too preoccupied to notice until now, but his neck did ache where she’d grabbed it earlier. “Well, you’ve got quite a grip.” He smiled.
A shadow of unease lay over her expression. “That man . . . he said I killed someone.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember them storming into the house. It happened so quickly, after that. It’s all a blur.” She looked down at her hands, curling them slowly into fists. “I just know I was angry. And afraid.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were defending yourself.”
She sat curled into a ball, knees drawn to her chest. “Maybe. But I can’t really blame that man for wanting revenge either. I killed someone important to him. If I were him, I would probably feel the same.”
He opened his mouth to say something—what, he wasn’t sure—then closed it again. What was there to say? He couldn’t pretend to understand what she was going through; he had never killed anyone, in self-defense or otherwise. Had never even entertained the thought.
Until today.
Awkwardly, he stood and dusted off his pants. “We should go.”
She hugged her knees. “Where?”
He glanced out the window. Judging by the slant of the light, it was midafternoon. “There’s a train arriving in a few hours. If we hurry, we can make it.”
“Will they even let me on a train?”
“You can hide your tentacles beneath your cloak,” he said. “We need to get away from Splithead Creek. Brock may change his mind.”
She huddled in the shadows, arms folded over her bent knees.
“Alice?”
“Why do you keep trying to help me?” she whispered. “What’s in it for you?”
“I’m an Animist. Animists are supposed to help people.”
She watched him warily, like a wild animal through the brushes. “That’s not a real answer.”
She was right. But he wasn’t quite sure how to answer. He looked away, picking at a loose thread of his sleeve. “Most of my life, I’ve felt pretty useless. I mean, I’m just . . . you know. This.” He gestured vaguely toward his own unimpressive form. “I don’t have much talent, as an Animist or anything else. I’m passable at healing, but not good enough to make a career of it. And when it comes to everything else, well . . .” He gave her a strained smile. “Back at the Academy, my nickname was Swoony, because I once fainted during a battle. I would have been killed if my teacher hadn’t been there to rescue me.”
He expected her to laugh, but she didn’t.
“I’ll probably always be a mediocrity, at best,” he said. “But if I can help at least one person, my life won’t have been a total waste.” Out loud, it sounded even more pathetic.
“You killed a shoggoth,” she said. “If you’re really so useless, how did you do that?”
“I don’t know.” He still couldn’t clearly recall what he’d seen after he blacked out. There were only faint flickers, fuzzy images, and none of them made sense; they had the quality of a fever dream. “If you don’t believe me, I don’t blame you, but it’s the truth.”
“Hm.”
“So . . . will you come with me, or . . .”
“Well, I don’t have anywhere else to go, do I?” She massed her tentacles beneath her, pushed herself to her feet in a fluid, serpentine motion, and strode toward the door.
When they stepped outside into the cold mountain air, a light snow was falling like ash. It settled over the trees and into Alice’s dark hair as they walked. Her bruises, he noticed, were already starting to fade.
Her tentacles shifted restlessly under her cloak, the tips peeking
out from under the hem. They were gray, a few shades darker than the rest of her skin, smooth and rubbery looking. As he watched, one of them stretched out, plucked a dead leaf from a bush, and twirled it idly before flicking it into the woods.
“You’re staring again,” she remarked.
“Sorry. I’m trying not to, honest. It’s just—before this, I’ve never known a girl with tentacles.”
“Really? I’m astonished.”
Dead leaves crunched under their feet as they walked. Hers were bare, toenails the same lustrous dark green as her fingernails. If the cold ground bothered her at all, she didn’t show it. “I’ll get on the train with you,” she said, “to get away from here. But I’m not going to Eidendel.”
“I really think the Foundation could help you.”
“I don’t trust the Foundation.”
“Why?”
“They’re tyrants. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“You’ve never dealt with them before,” he pointed out. “Not that you know of, anyway.”
“No. But I know that the Queen controls the whole Continent . . . pretty much the entire civilized world. There are a few island nations in the southern sea too small for her to bother with, but everything else the Foundation has conquered over the past five hundred years.”
“For someone without memories, you know an awful lot.”
“It’s like I told you. I have all these images and facts in my head, but they don’t feel like my memories. They’re more like pictures in a book, if that makes sense.”
“I see.” He frowned. “Well . . . the Queen hasn’t had absolute power for a long time. She’s more like a figurehead. The Primary Council runs things. Its members are voted in by citizens, and the Council members select people to be on the subordinate boards and panels. It’s a republic. More or less.”
“Whatever you want to call it, it still smells like tyranny to me.” A mossy, half-decayed oak lay fallen across their path, mushrooms sprouting from its trunk. She crawled nimbly over, like a spider, her tentacles doing most of the work. It was uncanny. “Rules, rules, and more rules. You’d have to study for decades to learn them all.”
Simon followed, awkwardly hoisting himself up and swinging his leg over the log as if it were a horse. He winced as he slid down the other side. “The rules exist for a reason, though. I mean—for instance, it’s against the law to try to bring someone back from the dead using Animism. Which seems sensible enough. It’s probably not possible, anyway, but imagine if someone did it wrong and created something horrible.”
She grunted, which could have been agreement or disagreement.
“And it’s forbidden to transform a person into something else,” he continued, “or to . . . combine two living entities.”
Alice stopped. “Is that something that . . . Has anyone tried it?”
“A long time ago. During the War of Ashes, Animists created these sort of . . . human-demon hybrids as weapons. They were stronger and faster than humans, and they could stay on Earth indefinitely, but they were . . . unstable.”
They continued on a few paces in silence. It occurred to Simon, of course, what Alice was thinking. She herself had both human and demon traits.
“But the techniques have been lost!” Simon insisted. “Even researching it is strictly forbidden.”
“Are there any of these hybrids left?” she asked.
He shook his head. “The last of the Abominations—that’s what people called them—died off hundreds of years ago. Judging by accounts of the war, those creatures weren’t anything like you, anyway. They couldn’t talk. The process of transformation warps the human mind beyond recognition.”
“So I’m alone,” Alice muttered. “There’s nothing else like me in this world.”
“Not that I know of.”
She lifted a tentacle and gripped it in both hands. “If these—what did you call them?—these Abominations are illegal, does that mean I’m against the law, too?”
“We don’t know that you’re part demon. There’s probably some other explanation. And in any case, the Foundation can’t punish you just for existing. Even if you were transformed through illegal Animism, they’d be more interested in finding the person who did this to you.”
She squinted. “What makes you so sure they wouldn’t just kill me?”
“They aren’t like that. They don’t go around murdering innocent people.”
“But if they don’t see me as a person—”
“But you clearly are.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “Thanks, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to prove it to you, but I’ve lived under the Foundation’s laws my whole life. I know what they’re like. They have their flaws, I realize. But, I mean . . . they aren’t evil or anything.”
She rolled her eyes. “You should have that as a motto on your crest. ‘The Foundation: We’re Not Evil or Anything.’ It really inspires confidence.”
“I see your point.” Simon wasn’t sure how to feel about this whole conversation. He’d never quite trusted the Foundation either. Yet now, somehow, he felt the urge to defend them. He was an Animist, after all; what business did he have wearing these robes if he didn’t think there was anything good about them? His hand drifted to the silver phoenix clasp near his throat. “I believe in what they stand for. What they’re supposed to stand for.”
“And what is that?”
“Protecting the weak. Upholding justice. Making sure that Animists use their powers for good, and that the ones who hurt others are held accountable. There has to be some kind of organization to prevent evil people from just doing whatever they want . . . doesn’t there? If not the Foundation, then what? Who?”
“I don’t know. But that’s not the point.” Alice strode forward. “I’m not going to ask the Foundation for help. Don’t try to change my mind.”
The snow had turned to a despondent drizzle. Wet gray slush sloshed beneath their feet. The clouds formed an unbroken, oppressive wall overhead.
Simon hurried along behind Alice, puffing for breath. Even walking, she was fast. “Then where will you go?” he asked. “What will you do?”
She shoved a branch aside; when she let go, it sprang back and nearly whipped him in the face. “I’ll find some answers on my own,” she said.
“How? You don’t even know where to start. You’re all alone—”
She stopped, so suddenly that he almost ran into her. Her shoulders were stiff, drawn in under her cloak. “Don’t you think I know that?” Her hands, bunched into fists at her sides, trembled.
“I’m just trying to help,” he said softly.
Still facing away from him, she wiped at her eyes with the heel of one hand, then scowled over her shoulder. “Well, if you’ve got any other ideas, I’m all ears.”
Simon hesitated. He hadn’t wanted to bring this up, but if going to the Foundation wasn’t an option, this was the only thing he could think of. “Have you ever heard of Dr. Aberdeen Finius Hawking?”
Her eyes briefly lost focus, as if she were consulting some mysterious encyclopedia within herself. “He’s a powerful Animist. He published some research on . . . artificial body parts? Mechanical limbs and organs, powered by meta. He used to work for the Foundation, but there was a scandal. He left, or he was expelled, or maybe a little of both. The details are fuzzy. So, what about him?”
“He’s my father.”
She stared. “You’re the son of a famous Animist?”
He tried not to be insulted by the incredulity in her voice. “Yes.”
“You told me your last name is Frost.”
“Frost is my mother’s name. Here, look.” Simon pulled his compass out of his pocket and pried it open. Inside the lid was a hidden compartment, sealed shut with a minor security spell, the sort that would respond only to his touch. He brushed a forefinger against it, and the compartment snapped open, reve
aling a small picture tucked into the compass’s lid—a grainy, sepia-toned family photograph of a six-year-old Simon, his parents, and his twin sister Olivia. His mother smiled, her hand on his shoulder. His father stood stiffly off to the side. It was the last photograph of the entire family together.
Simon handed it to Alice, who examined it closely. Simon squirmed and felt a familiar heat creeping up his neck, into his oversized ears, which had an unfortunate tendency to turn bright, glaring red whenever he was the slightest bit self-conscious. He never showed that photograph to anyone.
Alice clicked the compass shut and tossed it back to him. Fumbling, he caught it. “So, I take it he’s clever, your father.”
“The cleverest person I know.”
“Do you think he could . . . make me normal?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Obviously. Would you want to spend the rest of your life looking like a monster?”
“Well, no. I guess not.” And yet . . .
Alice was strong. That much was obvious. And while her tentacles, purple eyes, and gray skin took some getting used to, they were more fascinating than repellent. The thought of her becoming an ordinary human was oddly disappointing. “I mean . . . maybe he could do something about your condition. I can’t promise. My father is brilliant, but he’s also unpredictable. And ill-tempered. And reclusive. There’s no guarantee that he’ll be willing to help. Really, it’s probably a bad idea . . .”
“Are you going to take me to him or not?”
Simon gulped. He was the one who’d brought this up, he reminded himself. “Yes. I’ll take you.”
Around early evening, they reached the foothills. Splithead Creek lay before them, a smear of brown on the soggy, yellowish-gray plains.
“The railroad is over there, just beyond the houses.” Simon pointed. “If we go around the village, we can avoid notice.”
“Let’s hope,” she muttered.
They crept down the foothills, through the autumn-yellowed fields, to the tracks. There, they waited, shivering at the edge of the village. A few faces peered at them through the windows, but no one came out.
A whistle pierced the silence. Simon looked up. He could see the train in the distance, chugging along the tracks, belching clouds of blue-gray smoke into the air. It pulled up with a screech of brakes. As they boarded, Simon reached automatically for his suitcase and then remembered that he’d left it in Mayor Umburt’s house. Oh well. There was nothing there he really needed.
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