While they were distracted, Audrey resumed crawling forward. She tried to block out the meaty thud of fists.
The Device clanked harder. Shook. Pressure building up.
She had to stop it.
Audrey edged forward and caught her reflection in a brass fixture. Except the kneeling figure’s face was subtly different.
Leah yelled in her mind: (protect him! don’t let his mother kill him again!)
Audrey hesitated. It didn’t seem like Piers needed protection; his invisibility allowed him to hold his own against his larger opponent. Shouldn’t her focus be stopping the Device?
Then she saw Bearded Qeturah sneaking around the occupied men.
Audrey threw herself forward. “No!” She tackled a man around the waist but rolled on the floor with a woman. Audrey bruised her elbows but grimly hung on to Qeturah. She saw a jeweled ring bounce across the floor; it had fallen from Qeturah’s finger. The ring must’ve somehow contained the illusion of the bearded man.
Qeturah smashed her palm into Audrey’s forehead and pulled free. Dazed, Audrey blinked away tears just in time to see Qeturah lunge up and shove down a red lever.
The wail of a thousand steam kettles made Audrey look through the porthole. A column of steam jetted out from the Device in the opposite direction of the beam and splattered on the Fleet’s mirrored sails.
“I Call you!” Qeturah yelled, hand outstretched.
And then very strange things began to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Evacuation
Stone World
“We’re not monsters,” Jasper said angrily. “We’ll drive the humans upward, but we won’t kill unless forced to.”
“It will come to force, can’t you see that?” Dorotea asked. “Exile Above means death. The clans will have no choice but to fight.” And Marta and Hilde would be caught in the crossfire.
Jasper shook his head. “Going Above doesn’t mean death.”
“Look, you do what you must. I’m going to find my family.” Dorotea walked away, chin lowered. If anyone tried to stop her, she would fight. She hurried down the first set of stairs. While running across the once flooded passage, she became aware that Jasper was following her and stopped. “You’re coming with me?”
“Yes. I’ll help you save your sister. Even a monster can feel a sense of obligation.”
She flinched. “I didn’t call you a monster! I said that anyone who forced the clans into exile Above was a monster.”
He didn’t look appeased. “So everyone who disagrees with you is a monster, then. You use that term too easily.”
An angry protest rose on her lips, but she didn’t voice it. How could she, when they were standing in the place where he’d almost drowned because of her pigheaded disregard for his safety? “Maybe I do use it too easily,” she said. “And I’m sorry for all the times I called you names, beast or monster. I was wrong. Being a monster has nothing to do with having fangs and claws. Monsters are those who behave in monstrous ways. The Elect were monstrous when they imprisoned your people, and it was wrong of everyone else to go along with it.”
Jasper said nothing, frowning. Dorotea started walking again, up the stairs. At the top, she paused in front of the metal door, still not sure how to open it.
Jasper moved in front of her. “Do you mean it?” he asked. “These don’t bother you anymore?” He lifted his lip to show his fangs and flexed his claws. “You don’t think I’m…ugly?”
“No, I don’t. I never really did, I was just scared.” And even when she feared him, something had drawn her towards him, too.
He moved in front of her, blocking the way. “Prove it.”
Her chin lifted. “How?”
“Kiss me. In this form.”
Her mouth dropped open. He wanted her to kiss him? She thought he hated her!
“Never mind,” he said. “It was a stupid idea.” He twisted the knob and pulled open the door.
She gave up on words. She grabbed his shoulder until he turned toward her. On tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his unyielding stone ones.
He hissed, an alien sound. His large hand covered the back of her skull, holding her in place. Despite that, he kissed her delicately, careful not to cut her with his fangs.
When he set her away, she blushed furiously. “I don’t think you’re ugly. Now do you believe me?”
He ducked his head, then smiled, a curiously sweet expression for someone with fangs. “If I say no, will you kiss me again?”
She smiled back and squeezed his hand. “Yes, but not now. We need to hurry.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
Dorotea concentrated on walking as swiftly as possible down the tunnel. She hesitated at the branch to Stone Heart Cavern. She had to pass through it to get to Artisan Cavern. “It, uh, might be faster if you followed underground.”
His expression cooled. “If I’m unseen, you mean.”
“Yes.” His presence in the cavern would cause a horrible to-do and probably a fight.
Without another word, Jasper sank into the stone floor, leaving behind only the ripple of his passing.
She bit her lip. He’d taken her words as a rejection, but she was just being practical. Changing people’s opinions took time, and they had none. She wiped away tears. Focus.
She entered the cavern. Too late, she wished she’d asked to travel with Jasper. She kept her head bent, hoping not to be recognized and arrested. Her skin prickled under several curious stares, but before she was forced to make a run for it, Jasper swam up through the stone floor in the middle of the cavern. The appearance of a gargoyle’s head and shoulders caused shouting and panic. No one noticed her take the passageway to Artisan. Glancing back, she saw Jasper disappear into the floor, unharmed, but he didn’t rejoin her in the tunnel.
She would not worry about him. Marta needed her more right now.
Her entrance into Artisan Cavern provoked an immediate reaction. People stared. Talked. Pointed. Dorotea ignored them and ran to her family’s quarters.
“What’s she doing here? I thought she was exiled Above,” she heard the neighbor’s boy ask as she slowed, nearing her home. His mother swept him behind her back as if Dorotea were contaminated.
Dorotea pushed the hurt aside along with the bead curtain. Five short steps took her to the room she and Marta shared. Her sister lay on the bed, pale and wan, eyes closed in either sleep or still in a coma, but alive, her chest rising and falling.
Dorotea swayed on her feet, light-headed. Alive. She hadn’t realized how scared she’d been that she would prove too late and find Marta already dead. When Dorotea refocused, she noticed her mother sitting beside Marta, beading.
“Mother?” She spoke softly, not sure what to expect. She was an exile now, a traitor. Would Hilde disown her?
Her mother gasped, then hurtled forward, her arms open wide. Dorotea flung herself into the embrace with equal fervor, near tears.
Her mother stroked her hair. “You’re back! What happened? Where have you been? The Elect made terrible accusations… Oh, darling, I’ve been worried sick.”
Dorotea avoided answering and knelt by Marta. “How is she? Has she woken at all?”
Hilde’s lips compressed. She shook her head.
Dorotea’s stomach fell past her feet into an abyss. She touched Marta’s lank brown hair and noticed how sunken her sister’s eyes looked, how thin and wasted her body.
“There’ve been some encouraging signs, some twitches in her sleep, but she hasn’t woken. I’ve spooned some broth into her, but it’s hard—she keeps choking on it.” Despair laced her mother’s voice.
“I’ve been trying to save her,” Dorotea whispered. “Everything I’ve done—it’s been for her.” It took effort to speak through the stone of grief sitting on her chest. She cupped her sister’s cheek, taking comfort in its warmth.
She refused to cry. There was still hope. If she could just get Marta to the True World…
According to
Qeturah, a Four Worlds mirror like the one in the Mirrorhall was required to reach the True World. They would need mirrors of obsidian, gold, glass, and water or ice—mirrors big enough to push a body through.
The only place that might possibly have those things was Elect Cavern.
She squared her shoulders. “We need to go.”
“What’s going on?” Martin arrived, out of breath, his pudgy face red underneath his sparse beard. “What’s she doing here? What fresh trouble are you bringing on our household, girlie?”
“Martin! We don’t know her side of the story,” her mother said sharply. “Dorotea, please tell us what’s going on.”
“There’s no time.” Words poured out of her in a frantic gush. “We have to leave. We need to rig a harness or a travois to carry Marta.”
Her mother looked blank. “Why?”
As if in answer, a light tremor shook the cavern. Had the Goddess sensed the gargoyles?
Everyone froze, but the tremor passed quickly. Sighs of relief bounced off the cavern walls.
“The Goddess is angry,” Dorotea said, avoiding mention of the gargoyles for now. “The caverns are going to close. We have to go up.”
“Above?” her mother asked, horrified.
“How do you know the Goddess is angry? You’re not a priestess,” Martin objected.
Dorotea raised her voice so their neighbors on the other side of the cloth-paneled wall would hear, too. “The whole cavern needs to evacuate. Pack all the food you can find.” She shivered, remembering the terrible aridness of Above. “And fill every container with water.”
A second tremor shook the cavern, a little longer this time. A warning.
An argument broke out next door.
“What’s happening?” Hilde asked, even as she efficiently packed several changes of clothes.
“The gargoyles are awake,” Dorotea said starkly, “and the Goddess is angry. The gargoyles told everyone to stop mining gold years ago, but the Elect chose not to listen, and now everyone has to pay the price,” she said bitterly.
Her mother flinched. She had known.
Dorotea felt a keen disappointment, like a knife thrust.
Martin glared at her. “Elect Harmon told us you woke a gargoyle. This wouldn’t be happening if not for you!”
Dorotea resisted the urge to scream at him. “It doesn’t matter who’s at fault. We have to get out of here right now.” She bent over Marta and slid her arm under her little sister’s knees.
Martin shoved her aside. She fell to one knee. “Leave her be! The Goddess but turns over in Her sleep. The tremors will pass.”
“No, they won’t!” And now she’d resorted to screaming at him. She hate-hate-hated Martin. “Mother, please,” she begged, climbing back to her feet.
Instead of answering, her mother put a hand to her throat, her eyes so wide, a rim of white showed all around them. Turning, Dorotea saw Jasper step out of the wall. She felt ridiculously happy to see him.
“I’ll carry your sister,” he volunteered. His face was expressionless.
Martin’s mouth gaped open, then he ran away, a clumsy figure.
Relief made her shaky. “Thank you.” She turned to her mother. “Mother, this is Jasper. Jasper, this is my mother, Hilde.”
Jasper’s face softened, just a little bit. Had he been afraid she’d start treating him badly now that they were among other humans?
Her mother didn’t flee, but her voice emerged as a strangled whisper. “Is—is he your gargoyle? He’s not wearing a collar.”
“No, I’m not.” Jasper stooped and carefully picked up her sister, blankets and all.
Hilde sent Dorotea an agonized glance. “Are you sure—?”
Dorotea rolled her shoulders, both tired and sad. Had she behaved this badly when she first spoke to Jasper? No, she’d been even worse, convinced he was a monster. “I’m sure he won’t hurt her, and I’m sure we have to leave the cavern.”
Another temblor shook the cave. Dust sifted down onto their heads.
“Mother, please,” Dorotea begged.
Her mother gave a short nod. “Grab both buckets. We’ll fill them in the river on the way. I’ll wrap some food.”
Dorotea hurried to comply.
They’d just left the family apartments when Martin returned. Holding a fishing trident.
Sands. Cursing, Dorotea moved between him and Jasper. “Don’t! You’ll hit Marta!”
“Out of the way!” Martin yelled. “I’ll go through you if I have to.”
She believed him. He’d never liked her, and now his glare held raw hatred.
“Martin!” her mother said sharply. “Stop it! He’s helping us.”
Martin stared at her in disbelief. “It’s a gargoyle.”
“Your little fork can’t hurt me,” Jasper grated.
Dorotea closed her eyes. Wrong thing to say. Martin hated being challenged.
Martin bristled. “We’ll see about that!” He jabbed the tines at Jasper’s head.
The earth shook again. Dorotea fell against her mother, and Martin was knocked off his feet. The trident clattered onto the floor between the falling cloth-paneled walls.
Growling, Jasper stomped on the trident and broke it. His golden gaze met Dorotea’s. “We’re out of time.”
Shouts and screams from the far end of the cavern underscored his words. People fled from a line of five gargoyles moving forward in synchronized steps. Behind them came a rippling wall of stone as they reclaimed the cavern for the Goddess. The populated section grew smaller and smaller, step by implacable step.
Jasper brushed Martin aside and, still cradling Marta, strode toward the river road, which led up to the next cavern. Dorotea ran to keep up.
Panicked mothers and children dashed around and past them. Women shrilled and men bellowed the names of their kin. A few cooler-headed Artisans rolled up their goods in cumbersome rugs, as if for market.
Since the collapse of the side tunnel to the Vegetable Cavern, Artisan Cavern had only two entrances. One led down to the Cathedral, the other to the river road that led past Elect Cavern and up to the Unskilled Cavern. The river road had been widened for heavier traffic but still only allowed two abreast. A misstep would mean a fall into the cold rushing waters of the underground river.
Bodies crammed the passageway. Already her mother and Martin had become separated from her and Jasper. Dorotea glanced behind, her heart easing when her mother waved from about six people back.
A man jostled Marta as he pushed past. Jasper snarled, and the man backed away with a frightened cry, but others soon filled the space. In the poor lighting, most people didn’t seem to recognize him as a gargoyle until they were very close, and the constant pressure of the crowd behind pushed and shoved them forward, heedless of their fears.
Remembering the harsh heat Above, Dorotea filled her bucket in the river. She was standing precariously close to the riverbank when the lights winked out for a second before coming back on. A child screamed. Startled, Dorotea slipped. Before she fell into the dark water, Jasper’s hand shot out and grabbed the back of her dress. He hauled her back onto the road.
“Thanks,” she gasped.
“Be more careful,” he growled.
After that, she stayed tucked into his shadow while they climbed the steep trail.
The mad rush slowed to a shuffle made dangerous by the pressure of those below. The air became close and thick.
“What is it? What’s the slowdown?” she asked.
Jasper stood taller than her. “The bridge. If you want, I can take you and your sister through the stone.”
Dorotea was tempted but shook her head. “I don’t want to get too far from my mother.” And her mother wouldn’t leave Martin, and Jasper couldn’t take four extra people. Even if they could all fit in the small space, they’d suffocate.
The bridge sat just below the mill, whose huge turbines churned with the power of the twenty-foot waterfall. The damp air smelled of wet stone. Cross
ing the metal bridge took a hellish ten minutes.
Her shoulders unknotted as the crowd thinned on the other side, spreading out into the market area of Elect Cavern. Most people milled around or even sat down as if their ordeal had ended. Only a few kept heading further up.
Jasper studied the idlers with disapproval. “We must keep going.”
Because the gargoyles would come and shut down this cavern, too.
“No.” Anxiety sharpened Dorotea’s voice. “My sister needs to go to the True World to be healed. I need to make a Four Worlds mirror.” She outlined the materials needed. “Will you help me?”
“I know a gargoyle named Obsidian. I may be able to sniff out some obsidian as well as the gold, but not this glass substance.”
A surge of hope gave Dorotea new energy. “If anyone has glass, it’s the Elect.”
Jasper closed his eyes, then pointed to the archway leading to the Elect’s private quarters. “There. I sense gold.” His voice rumbled with anger. “A lot of gold.”
Dorotea had attended market for years but had never gone through the archway. It was…discouraged.
“We must hurry,” Jasper said. “The gold will call to my brethren, too. When they arrive, they will be angry.”
While she was trying to come up with a plan—create a diversion? Pretend Jasper was collared?—he simply strode right through the archway. She hurried to catch up, but the combination of a gargoyle carrying an unconscious girl seemed to both frighten people and keep them from attacking. Green-robed Elect gaped at them or yelled for help, but nobody dared stop them.
Jasper purposefully headed deeper into the cavern. Then it was Dorotea’s turn to gape. She’d expected wasteful luxury: gold trim and gilding, gold statues. Instead, the cavern was three times larger than she’d expected, but as square and flat-walled as the dead city Above and filled with machines. The whole place hummed with electricity.
The nearest machines wove shiny cloth, but there were many more whose purpose she didn’t understand. She gave a glad cry when she spotted a row of glass-lined panels like those at the power station. “Glass!” She pointed.
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