Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper

by Jeff Seymour

  Whoever’s in the lead—Tam, I hope, since we didn’t get to talk over the route with Pep—takes us along the avenue for a few blocks. He checks over his shoulder to see we’re both following, then turns left down an alley. We’re losing altitude fast, and this isn’t the route he and I picked out, but I’m not sure we’ve got enough altitude to get all the way to the first thermal we planned on, so hopefully he knows another one and that’s where he’s taking us.

  Sure enough, a block later we coast into a rising wall of hot air. I look down at a big grate in the street with fiery orange light leaking up through it and shudder. I try not to think about how Far Agondy’s perched on top of a giant fire creature unless I have to.

  I hit the thermal last, and by the time I start wheeling upward, Tam and Pep are a hundred feet high already, soaring like the buzzards outside Vash Abandi do on hot days when they’re looking for carcasses. I follow them up and up and up, until the thermal loses its potency as it gets over the rooftops, and then I take off toward the river behind them.

  Far Agondy at night, from the sky, is as pretty as anything in the world. The river glitters like a ribbon of liquid silver in the moonlight, and the skyscrapers look like knife-edge mountain peaks of diamond and gold. It’s a cool night, which helps us with the thermals, and the salty breeze off the ocean feels like a climbing line, connecting me to the Cloud Sea and all those ships out on it, all that water running between the Six Cities and all the way up to the Roof of the World, where my parents lived. I can feel the Panpathia stretching out in front of me, golden and warm—and then cold, directly ahead.

  I shiver, even though we’re rising in a column of warm air off that power plant we planned to hit earlier. The Panpathia’s icy and dead ahead of us, more like a tangled, twisted spiderweb than its usual bird’s nest of spun gold. And Silvermask’s at the heart of that web, waiting while I fly straight to him with Pepper and Tam alongside me.

  The fear-octopus peeks out for the first time in a while and nips my stomach. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. It’s one thing to risk my life. It’s another to risk theirs. But last time I chickened out, it ruined everything. We can do this. Everything will be fine. We just have to be perfect.

  Right as I’m getting my confidence back, we sail past City Hall looming like a silent guardian, over the river, and into Bleak Forest.

  I can feel the change. The air gets drier and colder. The buildings aren’t lit up as much here. Even the streetlamps seem dimmer. What I can see in the light of the moon seems old and dead: dirty stone buildings, stained and peeling facades, broken windows, roofs with gaping holes in them. I realize how desperate people here must be to trust someone like Silvermask, and I swallow. There’s something evil about this, and it’s not the buildings—it’s the unfairness of it all. Just across the river there’s so much extra money that people put marble tiles in offices and have huge windows and light up skyscrapers all night long. Here there’s so much poverty that somebody would risk their life to work for a crook just to put food on their table, or patch their roof to keep the rain out. And the worst of it, the part that really hits me in the gut, is that I don’t think Silvermask caused it. I think the people of Far Agondy just let it happen, and Silvermask only took advantage of the evil that was already here, waiting for a creep like him to come and build a web in it.

  We sail over those cold-bone buildings for a long time. The lights become less and less frequent. The people below us dart fearfully from shadow to shadow or stroll awkwardly like the guys who’ve been chasing me all over the city. My heart pounds, and I’m really, really glad for Rash’s gliders, because I have no idea how we’d ever have gotten in without them. It’s amazing that Tian Li and Sal pulled it off, even during the day.

  Up ahead, a white mansion looms in the darkness. It’s got a front yard bigger than the Orion, walled off by a fence topped with long iron spikes. In the garden in front of the house there’s two huge dead trees, reaching toward the sky like a skeleton’s bony fingers. The house itself looks like that skeleton’s head and shoulders. The central portion of it has a rounded room where I bet they used to welcome visitors, and there’s a grassy, overgrown path leading to it from a gate in the fence. The main building is four stories tall, full of windows, and topped with a pyramid-shaped skylight. The house turns ninety degrees at either end of the skylight and moves toward the front gates of the estate, with more skylights dotting its roof like jagged teeth. There’s probably a hundred rooms in there, easy. My stomach sinks. How in the world are we gonna search something so big?

  Tam angles hard for the closest part of the roof, and I realize we’re so low that landing’s gonna be pretty dicey. I grit my teeth and urge my glider to stay just a little higher, a little higher, but all it does is creak in the wind and sink inch by inch. I’m twenty feet above the lip of the roof. Fifteen. Ten. Tam and Pepper clear it and land, but I’m lower than them and still losing altitude. I’m terrified I’m gonna smack right into the side of the mansion.

  At the last second, I roll onto my back to keep my legs from hitting the wall, and I just barely clear the lip of the rooftop and land hard on my shoulder. The glider scrapes and bumps along beneath me, and I bowl into somebody and knock them over, and then both of us and our gliders crash into a skylight. I hear an awfully ominous snap.

  “Get off,” hisses Pepper. I try to, but it takes a few seconds to untangle our arms and legs and gliders. She tugs one way and I tug another, and there’s another snap before we finally get separated.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, sitting with my legs in front of me, my shoulder scraped and smarting.

  Pep stares back at me, mouth open, squatting with her glider wings above her like some kind of gargoyle. Her eyes are wide as engine dials. “It’s busted,” she whispers.

  She points at my glider, and I look over my shoulder and realize my left wing is totally broken. The crash shredded the fabric on top of the metal, and the two main struts snapped right in half.

  I let out a long, careful breath and start undoing my straps. My crutches, thankfully, survived the crash. “It’s okay,” I say numbly. “We’ll just, ah . . . we’ll just find another way out.” On feet and crutches. Through a neighborhood so scary that even the people who live here don’t want to be out at night.

  Pep looks like she wants to slug me, then sighs. “There weren’t any good thermals for the way back anyway,” she mutters, “so I guess it doesn’t matter much.” She starts looking around for Tam.

  “Wait,” I say, “was that you leading us?”

  Pep tosses her curls and glares at me. “What, you didn’t think I could?”

  My gills burn. I want us to be friends again, but I keep mucking it up. “I just, I mean . . . you hadn’t . . .”

  She rolls her eyes, and she looks like she’s gonna say something else, but Tam trots up behind us and motions for us to crouch down and be quiet. A second later, a flashlight beam sweeps across the rooftop. All three of us shuffle behind a big chimney, where we ditch our gliders in the blackest shadows we can find. Peeking out from behind it, I watch two Shadowmen search the roof.

  “They must’ve heard us,” Tam whispers.

  I nod. Pepper closes her eyes. She’s breathing real hard and fast. I feel bad for bringing her here. I feel bad for bringing both of them here.

  But that won’t get us in, or back out again.

  “Let’s go while they’re distracted,” I say, nodding at the trapdoor they came up through.

  “What if there’s more of them in there?” Pep asks.

  I open my mouth, then close it again. I know Pep wants me to stop disagreeing with her, but I’ve got some pretty strong feelings here. “There might be, but it’s our best shot. Otherwise we have to keep dodging them out here and try to find another way in, and we have no idea where the other doors are, or how they’re locked, or . . . where’s Tam?”

  He’s not at my
shoulder anymore. I slink back around the chimney and realize the Shadowmen have gotten to the part of the roof where we landed, and they’re sweeping the flashlight around more slowly now. One of them picks something up, and in the beam of his friend’s light I recognize it as a shiny piece of my glider.

  Pep looks like I clobbered her from behind with a wrench. “I thought you were watching him!” she whispers. “What if he got caught? What if—”

  A shadow wriggles toward us from the skylight a few feet over, and I just about kick it in the face before I realize it’s Tam, on his belly. “I’m fine,” he whispers when he gets to us. “And I found us another way in. C’mon.”

  CHAPTER 21

  IN WHICH NADYA, TAM, AND PEPPER ARE SEPARATED, AND NADYA DISCOVERS SOMETHING AWFUL.

  Five minutes later, I’m dangling from my fingertips over a narrow balcony, trying to avoid falling or cutting my hands on broken glass. Tam found a busted spot in the skylight, and all three of us are sneaking through it.

  Below us, this part of Silvermask’s estate is a big open atrium. There’s nothing but air under the balcony all the way to a greenhouse that takes up the whole bottom floor, where a bunch of sun-in-a-jars hang in air all misty and thick. The ground’s covered in rows of big plants. I wonder for a second if it’s a cloud garden, like the one Rash and Alé built inside Gossner’s workshop.

  Then I cut my finger, and I decide I’ll worry about that later.

  I drop onto the balcony, wincing at the thump and the way my ankle barks from taking all my weight. We’re trying to stay as quiet as possible because we keep seeing people move through the greenhouse. Every once in a while a Shadowman ambles past, or a kid rushes by carrying a tray or a message or something.

  Every time I see those kids, my heart flips. I want to call out to them. I want to jump on the Panpathia and see whether they’re okay. I want to know whether Silvermask is controlling them like he does the Shadowmen, and whether they’ve seen Aaron. But I have to be silent, and I can’t touch the Panpathia or I’ll risk letting Silvermask know exactly where I am.

  I wipe the blood off my finger and discover the cut’s not bad. Tam hands me my crutches and drops down beside me, and Pep thumps after him. We wait a second, peeking over the balcony edge to be sure nobody noticed us, then duck off the balcony into a dark room full of dusty old pool tables and dartboards.

  “Did you see the kids?” Tam asks as we sit down to rest. “Is that good enough? Can you tell the Lord Secretary where we are now?”

  I wish. “No,” I say, remembering our conversation in City Hall. “He wants to see them for himself. We have to be right in front of at least one kid, and preferably a whole bunch. We need to find where Silvermask keeps them.”

  Tam curses and starts to fidget. “Nadya, I dunno if we can do this. This is way harder than I was expecting, and we’re just getting started.” He looks nervously back toward the balcony.

  “We’ve already done the dangerous part though,” I protest. “We’re in. Now we just have to find the kids and get out again. We’re so close!”

  “Remember what happened last time you were ‘so close’?” Pepper asks stonily.

  I rub the Lady. My gills burn. “Yes,” I mutter. “This is different. No improvising. No fancy rescues. Just find the kids, tell the grown-ups, and go. Nobody’s going to get hurt.”

  Tam sighs. “Where do you think they are?”

  “The ground floor,” I say, thinking about those kids running messages. “That’s where we saw them, so that’s where we start. Maybe we can find one of those messengers and ask them a question, or maybe we can follow them back to the others.”

  Pep and Tam are both quiet for a few seconds. I rub my leg, think about how I lost my foot and shin. It’s real easy to get afraid, sitting around like this, waiting for Tam and Pepper to make up their minds. What it’s like for Aaron and the other kids? How long have they been locked up in the darkness with their fears for company?

  Tam takes a deep breath. It seems to steady him, because he gets up again. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We never make it to the kids.

  We sneak all the way down to the ground floor, dodging a pair of Shadowmen with flashlights on the way. The greenhouse turns out not to be a cloud garden after all, which is good because Tam and Pep can breathe the air inside. Listening for footsteps and hoping to find a kid, we creep between the plants, mist in our eyes, dew on our cheeks.

  When we’re so far in I can’t see the walls anymore, I hear someone coming and wave at the others to hide. We sneak behind a big black fern. The footsteps sound small, and they’re moving fast. As they reach us, a kid-shaped blur appears in the mist.

  “Now’s our chance!” Pep whispers. The kid’s moving too fast to catch, but she takes off after him. Tam follows.

  Presumably, they’ve forgotten I can’t run.

  They disappear into the mist, and all I can do is I try to follow them because I’m afraid to risk calling out. Anything loud enough to get their attention might be heard by a Shadowman. My heart pounds. My eyes play tricks on me. Every shadow looks like a person trying to grab me. The old mansion creaks as the wind blows. Footsteps echo everywhere. I have no idea where Pep and Tam are. I have no idea where I am. I’m all alone.

  “Pep,” I whisper. “Tam!”

  I can’t help it. They must’ve realized they lost me. They must’ve turned around by now to come back and look. Another shadow looms in the mist, and I hop back and raise a crutch up to smack it before I realize it’s just a tree in a pot.

  I take a deep breath. I’m not gonna help anyone by panicking at shadows and trees, or if I get caught whispering Tam’s and Pepper’s names louder and louder. I feel a lump in my pocket and remember Tam’s locator. Carefully, I take it out and press it, but nothing happens. I shake it, then press it again, but there’s still no chirp. Maybe it’s busted after my crash landing.

  Still, I know the direction they went in. I just have to keep moving, footstep by crutchstep, until I catch them or they come back to find me.

  So that’s what I do. Plant my foot, plant my crutches. Pause, listen. Plant my foot, plant my crutches. Pause, listen. I see a light up ahead. As I get closer, the mist thins around a black lantern hanging over a door. I stop there for a second, wondering what I should do. This is probably where Pepper and Tam went. But it might not be. That kid they were following could have swerved, or I could’ve gotten lost in the mist.

  Still, I’m here to explore, and I’ve seen more Shadowmen in this greenhouse than anywhere else in the mansion. Wherever this door leads, it’s gotta be safer than it is in here.

  Carefully, I try the handle. It’s unlocked. I try Tam’s locator one more time just in case, but nothing happens, so I slip through the door and close it gently behind me, and then I try to see where I am.

  The room’s enormous, and it’s got no lights. It was pretty dim in the greenhouse, but the lamp over the door messed up my night vision, and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust. First I make out a little illumination on the floor to my left. I crutch that way and figure out there are huge windows all along the left wall, with big black curtains over them. A little light squeezes underneath those curtains onto a polished wood floor. Maybe I’m in some kind of ballroom. Mrs. T told me once about a ball she went to at the Roof of the World, in a room lit by a hundred sun-in-a-jars. Everybody in the city was entered in a lottery to attend, and she only won once, but she said it was amazing, all bright lights and beautiful dresses and suits and live music and swirling color.

  As my eyes adjust, I see this ballroom more clearly. Lined up along the inner wall across from the windows, there’s bed after bed after bed. And on those beds are shadows, lying perfectly still, that look an awful lot like children.

  My skin crawls. There’s something wrong about those k
ids. There’s forty, fifty beds easy, and most of them look occupied, but I don’t hear a thing. No snoring. Nobody tossing and turning. No whispers or thumps or moans. None of the sounds that kids usually make when they’re sleeping. I can see they’re alive—their chests rise and fall as they breathe—but it’s like they’re in a trance.

  Like they’re Shadowmen.

  As quietly as I can, I crutch over to them. This is what I came here for. I guess I should be contacting Lord Salawag on the Panpathia and hightailing it out.

  But I can’t do that yet. For one thing, I don’t know how to get out from here. For another, I don’t know where Tam and Pep are, and I can’t leave without them.

  And for a third, I really, really don’t want to get on the Panpathia in here. I feel like there’s a spider on the ceiling the size of a bus, just waiting for me to make the wrong move before it pounces. The sensation’s so strong I can barely look up. My heart feels squeezed like a sponge. My veins burn. But all that’s up there is shadows. No spiders, no nothing.

  I stand next to one of the beds, watching the rising and falling chest of a boy about my age with dark skin and black hair. I’m not sure what to do next, so I decide to look for Aaron. Maybe if I can break him free, he’ll know how to help me.

  I work my way down the line of beds, looking at the kids. Every fifth bed or so is empty, but I see a lot of people. There’s little kids, big kids, teenagers who almost look like adults. But I can’t find Aaron. I get all the way to the last bed without seeing him.

  I’m trying to figure out the safest way to go look for Tam and Pepper when I realize there’s more light in the room than I thought. Most of the illumination comes in through the windows, but there’s also some from a big glass tank just beyond the last of the beds, pushed up against the wall. The light in there shimmers and shakes, like the tank has water in it.