“This is why you shouldn’t have come,” Andromeda said. “And why you should go now.”
“But we just found you,” Honorine protested.
“Yes, how unfortunate,” said a voice booming down from the crumbled remains of the top of the mountain. All heads turned to see the Mapmaker striding over the ruined peak, past the violet light of the gates.
He was furious. Honorine could feel it rolling off him like a mist. Even from a distance, she could see his eyes, no longer blue, but dark, reflecting the light like smoky mirrors, revealing not his mood, but instead just how ancient a creature he truly was.
“Andromeda, my dear, we have a bit of a situation,” he said. “Actually, you have a bit of a situation. Your long-lost love has decided to, once again, interfere in affairs that are none of his concern.”
“So you come here? You threaten me? You ruin the last protection we have against destruction by the Bellua?” she replied, crossing her arms and glaring. She nodded toward Honorine and Francis. “You could have killed them.”
The Mapmaker shrugged. “The boy, maybe.”
“You didn’t need to come here,” Honorine said. “We were getting this all sorted out.”
The Mapmaker’s eyes snapped to her, burning with intense blue-white light.
“Oh, you were?” he asked. “Is that what this is? Because if I remember correctly, we had an arrangement.”
“And we still do,” Honorine replied.
“Oh no, no,” said the Mapmaker. “The only thing you were supposed to do was to remain loyal to me. But you ran away with Nautilus. Again.”
“No, I ran away with Francis again,” Honorine corrected.
“As if that’s any better.”
The ground heaved as if the mountain had taken a tremendous breath. Francis and Honorine hung on to each other to keep from toppling over.
The Mapmaker hardly twitched. “That wasn’t me.”
A horrendous, howling bellow rolled up from deep underground, echoing through the hollow mountain and erupting from the steaming fissures running across the stony ground.
“This is a dangerous game,” Andromeda said. “You’ll risk upsetting the peace.”
“The peace is already gone!” the Mapmaker replied. “I’ve had enough. I’ve waited for centuries to be able to rest. It’s time to settle this. Every one of you had your chance, and the situation has only grown worse with every passing moment. So now we finish this my way.”
“What are you going to do?” Honorine asked.
“Oh, I’ve already done it,” the Mapmaker said. “That’s the beauty of it. Nautilus has been chasing me for years. He’s been capturing the Mordant and holding them on his ship, as if he has any right to do such a thing, claiming he just wants to find this island. And now, would you look at that!”
The Mapmaker clapped his hands as he stared out past Andromeda, Francis, and Honorine, toward the ocean behind them. They turned to see a bright, glimmering light moving swiftly toward them from the eastern horizon.
It was the Gaslight.
“You brought Nautilus here?” Honorine asked.
“Actually, Astraea did,” the Mapmaker said. “At my request. I’m done waiting. I’m done warning. I’m done hiding and running and making bargains. If this is what Nautilus wants, then let him have it. Let him see just what happens when he gets what he thinks he wants.”
“This is all a foolish waste of time,” Andromeda said. “As long as I’m here, the gates remain closed, and the Bellua remain trapped. Nautilus cannot make me leave this island.”
The Mapmaker’s eyes sparkled with wicked glee.
“Oh, but, my dear, I think he can.”
“Then we have to stop him!” Honorine shouted.
“Oh, now we have to stop him?” asked the Mapmaker. “What about when you were on his ship? Did you stop him then, when you had the opportunity? Did you free the imprisoned Mordant? No. When you left his ship, did you come to me? No. You are still trying to protect him from me.”
“I’m trying to protect the both of you!” Honorine said. “I came here to find a way to stop you both from hurting each other or anyone else.”
“How noble,” said the Mapmaker. “But I don’t believe it.” He took a single, lunging step forward, sending a tremor through the ground that knocked Francis to his knees. The Mapmaker reached toward Honorine but was stopped by a blaze of white fire that raced from Andromeda’s hand and rolled across the ground between them.
“Don’t you dare harm her,” Andromeda said, her figure smoldering brightly.
“Just what do you think I am?” asked the Mapmaker. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m going to show her what she needs to see.”
Honorine’s heart thudded in her chest. Her skin prickled as a cold breeze blew across the mountain. The sound of the Gaslight pulling toward the island grew louder every second. The gates at the top of the mountain rattled.
“What is he doing?” Francis said as he stared out toward the water. Honorine turned to see the Gaslight steaming toward them. Bright light shone through the shattered shell of the greenhouse dome.
Andromeda began to glow as well, first faintly and then with a searing white light that turned her into a silhouette, then simply a great knot of burning heat.
“He’s using the machine!” Francis continued. “On Andromeda!”
“But he can’t!” Honorine said. “It’s not strong enough for this! She’s safe here!”
The Mapmaker shook his head. “What did I tell you about that word, Honorine?” he chided. “Nothing is safe. Not in this world or any other.”
“How can he use that machine here?” Honorine said. “This place is protected!”
“No place is protected anymore,” the Mapmaker said, standing back and throwing his hands out to his sides. “Not this island. Not the archer’s desert stronghold. Not even the Carina. Not since you spent time on his ship.”
A swirling ball of sparks began to orbit around Andromeda. She sent out another flare of white fire, but it was contained within the shell of sparks.
“Oh, one more thing, before you go,” the Mapmaker said, reaching into Honorine’s pocket and drawing out the key in one swift motion, like a heron snapping a fish from a pond. “Your daughter thought it wise to make an ironwood key. And then to bring it back to Possideo.”
Andromeda’s eyes widened, then her mouth, as if she were about to shout something, but she was a moment too late. In a flash, she was gone, imploding into a tail of embers and burning dust.
Out on the water, the glow of the Gaslight’s dome turned from multicolored to bright gold.
“He did it,” Francis said in a quiet, terrified tone. “He caught Andromeda.”
“That’s right, he did,” said the Mapmaker. “With Honorine’s help.”
“But I broke that machine,” Honorine said. “I didn’t help him rebuild it. This has nothing to do with me!”
“It has everything to do with you,” the Mapmaker said. His voice dripped from his lips like poison. “Nautilus and Lord Vidalia combined never came close to building anything like that steamship until after you were born. But then they each held you when you were just a mewling infant, and even that was enough to inspire Nautilus to build his most devious contraption. And look at Francis! He grew up beside you and his genius exceeds that of even Nautilus.”
Honorine stepped in front of Francis.
“He didn’t do anything wrong, either,” she said, staring the Mapmaker in the eye.
“Oh, really?” he replied, leaning forward. “He didn’t spend years on that ship, building that machine, right alongside his mentor? And what happens when Francis is a grown man—which will be in a flash of time—and decides he wants to avenge his father?”
Honorine felt the blood drain from her face.
“What have you done to Lord Vidalia?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” the Mapmaker insisted. “But he’s very elderly now. He’s lost valuable years that he
will never get to spend with his son. What if I let Francis go tonight? In a few years’ time, I’ll have to endure his attacks as well? You don’t understand where this will all lead. You don’t understand what’s to come. Terrible things. Generations of terrible things, and the Mordant have to watch it all. So much more than temples and coliseums and steam engines and gaslight. So much more destruction. Nautilus may be the first, but he won’t be the last. Better to stop it all now.”
The ground began to swell. Honorine took a step back and reached out for Francis’s hand.
“What’s happening?” he asked as cracks began to form and then split, revealing red light and noxious steam from deep underground.
“Well, all that shaking and rumbling has probably woken a few of our old friends down there,” the Mapmaker noted. “They’ll be coming up to check on the situation surprisingly quickly. And thankfully, you brought this.”
He held up the key.
Honorine gulped.
The Mapmaker smiled. “Didn’t I tell you?” he said, shaking his head as he took the last few steps up the mountainside, toward the rattling black gates.
“Ironwood keys can open any lock.”
“Don’t!” Honorine shouted as the Mapmaker reached for the black bones. “Why would you do that?”
“Nautilus must let the Mordant go,” he replied as he brushed aside a loose vertebrae, uncovering a stout iron lock on the old bone gates. “And he doesn’t seem to want to. So we’ll just press his hand a bit.”
The ironwood key slipped into the lock.
“He has his beloved back, and his daughter, right here, to complete the family! All Nautilus has to do to save you both is let the Mordant go,” the Mapmaker said as he turned the wooden key in the iron lock. “If that’s really all he wants.”
“Francis, we have to get off this island,” Honorine said as the ground continued to splinter and tremble around them.
“You probably won’t be able to save Francis now,” the Mapmaker said, strolling along a ridge of black stone that continued to rise from the smoldering ground. “Yourself, perhaps. This will be a chance to find out just how mortal you are. But the boy, well, in a few minutes, this entire island will be a cauldron of death from his perspective. Unless Nautilus has a machine that can capture a Bellua.”
“Over here!” Francis said, leading her toward a pile of rubble forming a more manageable slope. “We can climb down here. Maybe.” As he reached a toe out to test the footing, a blast of boiling hot steam erupted from under the rubble, sending a spray of red-hot embers and chunks of razor-sharp stone blasting into the sky.
“Okay, not that way,” Francis said, pulling his singed, damp boot back from the widening crater on the mountainside. Honorine led him back from the edge of the crumbling cliff, closer and closer to the black bone gates.
“Are you just going to leave us here?” Honorine called up, searching for the Mapmaker. All she could see above them was black stone and traces of night sky through a sheet of smoke and steam.
“No, of course not,” called back the voice of the Mapmaker. “I’ll be with you the whole time! We can see just how brilliant your Nautilus Olyphant really is together.”
Honorine growled in frustration. There was no use in being scared, she thought, but she could hardly help it. The mountain was falling apart, the ground was splitting in pieces, and she was trapped. But then, through the smoke and the blurry red light, she saw something move on the pile of black rubble below them. Something large and dark and outlined in piercing green sparks. It was monstrous-looking, but not a Bellua.
It was Scorpio.
It wasn’t just the Mapmaker who had come to the island. The others were probably here, too, and the Carina, somewhere.
Above them, the Mapmaker turned the key in the lock.
The ground trembled.
The smoke billowed.
And the black bone Gates of Hades silently unlocked and started to swing open before shaking apart and falling into a pile of smoldering black dust.
“Francis, I think—” she began to say, but she was interrupted by a vicious growl rolling up behind the bone gates from somewhere not just deep under the mountain—it was a howl from another world.
The volcano was a problem. The Gates of Hades standing open, letting any monster from the underworld escape into the night, was also a problem. The incredibly high and precarious position of what was left of the ledge on the crumbling side of the cliff was a third problem.
But there were also a scorpion and a winged horse still somewhere in the vicinity.
“I’m not one to complain,” said Francis, “but if you have any ideas at all about how to get out of this situation, I am ready to hear them.”
“Let’s just start this way and see how far we get,” Honorine suggested finally, inching her way to the cusp of the ledge. The rock was unstable and the drop quite steep, but there were enough tiny footholds along the broken stone to at least get them lower down on the mountain.
A pair of black wings rushed past, but it was not Pegasus.
“Astraea!” Honorine shouted, waving into the sky with one hand as she clung to the rock with the other.
Astraea circled back, using her wings to hover very near Honorine and Francis.
“We need Pegasus!” Honorine shouted across a swath of searing steam. “He brought us here—he’s still up there somewhere.”
“Hang on,” Astraea said. “I’ll send him to you. Keep climbing down! Don’t stop!”
“No worries there,” Francis said as the mountainside buckled.
They reached a little plateau of broken stone and took just a moment to catch their breath, which was exactly when the pile of sharp gravel under them began to shake and slide down the mountain.
Sitting on a sheet of tumbling stones was already uncomfortable before they sailed through more than one vent of hot steam, which stung just enough to be excruciating without leaving lasting burns on their exposed skin. Honorine tumbled and bounced, gathering bruises and scrapes along the way, trying to keep an eye on Francis, which was nearly impossible in the dark and the fog. Eventually, they sailed into melting, slushy snow, which was a relief—until they realized they were sliding even faster down the increasingly steep side of the mountain, which disappeared only a little way ahead.
Astraea swooped by a moment later.
“There’s a cliff!” she called out. “Very steep! When you go over the edge—”
“What?” Honorine protested.
“We’ll catch you!” Astraea finished.
It sounded impossible, yet as there were no other plans, Honorine simply shouted back, “All right, I suppose!” and braced for the fall.
And fall they did, Honorine right onto the back of Pegasus, and Francis right past him.
“Francis!” Honorine shouted as they plummeted after him.
Between Pegasus’s teeth and Astraea’s lucky grab, they caught him just before he would have crashed onto a slab of black granite. With Francis hanging between them like a bit of damp laundry, the Mordant glided swiftly down to the beach.
Pegasus held him up by the sleeve of his shirt until he regained his footing.
“We need to get back to the Gaslight,” Honorine said. “Nautilus has Andromeda. He’s done something to his machine. He got her, even though she was still on the island.”
Astraea crossed her arms and nodded.
“Then this makes a bit more sense,” she said, tipping her head toward the chaos on top of the mountain.
“And what about that?” Francis asked groggily as he pointed back at the side of the mountain that had once been the Gates of Hades.
A fissure had opened in the side of the mountain, spilling out bright, bloodred light. Slender, many-jointed legs rose from beneath the ground, planting themselves into the mountainside. There were far too many legs for just one beast, yet before they stopped unfolding, they began to lift a writhing body with pincers and wings and glittering eyes on short black
stalks. Honorine had never seen anything more horrible in her life. It looked like some kind of flying scorpion, with legs and wings that were far outsized for its body.
“That would be the Nightmare,” Astraea said.
The newly hatched Nightmare howled, or screeched, or made whatever kind of call a hideous beast from beneath the earth makes. It was somewhere between a tiger’s growl and a banshee’s wail, and it chilled Honorine immediately, as if she had just been dropped into the icy sea.
“There’s still time to stop this, but we mustn’t wait a moment longer,” Astraea said. “Get back to the ship. Find Andromeda. Send the others to help. I’ll do what I can to keep the Nightmare from getting off this island, but I won’t be able to keep it here for long.”
Honorine nodded and twisted her hands tightly into Pegasus’s mane.
“We’ll find her,” Honorine said as Francis climbed onto Pegasus behind her. “I can get her back.”
“I know you can,” Astraea said, and then leaped into the air.
Pegasus took off in the opposite direction. In a single stride, they were aloft, soaring back toward the Gaslight and its cargo of prisoners. And cannons.
“Oh, that could be a problem,” Francis said as they flew low over the black water, toward the giant steamship. Honorine could see men gathering at the railing, aiming cannons at the Nightmare as it began to crawl over the mountainside.
“I don’t think those cannons will help,” Honorine said.
“No, but they’ll definitely knock this horse out of the sky,” Francis replied as a hunk of fiery green rock sailed past his head.
Pegasus raced toward the ship, dodging the whistling cannonballs as he aimed for the main deck, lit by thousands of crystal lamps. A fragment of ammunition caught him in the flank, and his back end briefly sputtered out. Honorine felt herself beginning to fall for a moment before Pegasus regrouped and she felt solid horse under her once more. Francis nearly tumbled into the sea as well, only catching the hem of Honorine’s tunic before he was bounced back aboard by a rough kick from Pegasus’s re-formed legs.
They touched down, leaving long, smoldering gashes across the wooden deck. Honorine hopped down before Pegasus had come to a complete stop.
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