The Lighthouse between the Worlds

by Melanie Crowder

  Missing her hadn’t faded as time passed, like everyone had said it would. If anything, here, beneath the trees in the cavern where she must have lain too, her voice seemed stronger, and her words carried even more forcefully. Overnight, clarity had settled in, bringing calm along with it.

  Fi’s bed was empty, the sheet twisted into a ball in the corner. Griffin wiped the sleep from his eyes and stumbled out of the dream cavern, through the darkness of the tunnel, and into the first cavern. He blinked against the light and crossed the busy room to where Liv, Arvid, and Fi were leaning over one of the broad tables.

  “I know the deal Dr. Hibbert made,” he announced. “And I’m here to make one of my own.”

  Fi’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as they all turned to stare at Griffin, the map of the city and the plans they’d been making forgotten.

  “What do you mean you want to make a deal?” Liv asked, her tone hard. “Do you know what we have already risked to help you?”

  “And I’m grateful. But like you said, we can’t rescue my dad without Somnite help, and Arvid is refusing to help us.”

  “Listen—”

  “No. You listen.” Griffin rubbed a hand across his forehead. “My mom used to tell me these stories. I thought they were just this silly, sentimental thing between us, until I came here. But now I get that she was telling me the things I needed to know if I ever ended up here, like this.”

  “Go on,” Liv prodded.

  “She told me about the eight worlds and the magic they held. She told me that Earth’s magic was in its elements. The strength in some of them has faded, but silicon—that one’s still as powerful as it ever was.” Griffin looked from one face to the next, expecting them to react—to say something. “The day I came through the portal, the Keepers were packing up all these canisters of silica.”

  Still nothing.

  “You need silica to make glass. Think about it. Somni doesn’t need to colonize Earth. Not if they get our magic anyway.”

  Fi tore at the edge of a ragged fingernail. “What would the priests want with a bunch of glass?”

  “Well, none of the other worlds have the raw materials needed to make glass,” Arvid said. “The only glass on any world other than Earth is in the tower.”

  Griffin nodded.

  Liv sucked a breath through clenched teeth. “You think they are trying to make another lens? To do what—reopen the way to Stella?”

  Arvid raised his eyes to the ceiling and blew out a slow breath. “Or any world that defeats them.”

  Fi’s eyes grew round. “So even if we win—even if we get back home and beat the soldiers and destroy the lens leading to Vinea—even then, they could just make another one and attack again any time? We’ll never be free of them?”

  Liv drew a hand across her mouth. She nodded soberly. “So that was the deal Dr. Hibbert made. She sends a steady supply of silica through the portal, and in return, the priests leave Earth alone.”

  The cavern fell silent. Motes of dust drifted down from the ceiling, and the amber light settled over grim faces. Griffin sucked in a breath. This was going to be the hard part.

  “We all agree that we have to stop the priests. You keep saying you’re not ready to attack, but it has to be now, before they figure out how to turn raw silica into glass.”

  Arvid lifted a hand to silence him, but Griffin wouldn’t stop. “Do you want to guess why they pulled my dad though the portal? Not Fergus? Not Sykes? Not any of the other Keepers?”

  He glanced between Liv and Arvid, his confidence building. “Because my dad is a glassmaker. He can make those bull’s-eyes, easy. If the priests have enough glass, and the knowledge in my dad’s head and his hands, their portals will never be closed for long. Still feel okay about letting the priests do whatever they want with him?”

  “Griffin,” Arvid scolded. “None of us are okay with any of this. But each of us has to do what’s best for our own world and our own people.”

  “Sure—just like Dr. Hibbert did.” Griffin watched his words find their target and sink their barbs in.

  “Here’s what I’m offering: I’m going to make you six of those pendants. You’re going to pick six of your best fighters to wear them when we go rescue my dad. The lifeblood inside the glass will shield their minds from the priests. It’s what you said you needed—to be able to carry the sjel trees’ protection with you outside of these caverns.”

  “You?” Arvid asked, incredulous. “You can make those pendants?”

  Griffin braced his shoulders and faced down Arvid’s scorn. “My dad made me his apprentice. I can’t do everything he can, but I can do this. After we rescue him, together we’ll make you enough pendants for every single Somnite. Even the soldiers, if you want. You’ll be free of the priests forever.”

  Arvid watched Griffin carefully, weighing what he offered against everything the fragile rebellion stood to lose.

  “If my mother were here, she’d be telling you that we all need to work together, right? I have every reason not to trust you, and not to help you. But it’s what she believed in, enough to risk her life to make it come true. So I believe it too. I’m going to help you. And you’re going to help me, too.”

  24

  THE CHAPEL

  Griffin spent the morning huddled over the workbench. He moved between the fire and his tools and back again. He pulled at beads of molten glass like they were tree sap. He checked his work against the instructions in the notebook and started over again. And again.

  Fi watched from a distance. Griffin had changed. Belief had straightened his spine, and confidence had lifted his chin.

  She mulled over an idea of her own. It was risky. It might be all for nothing. But the night before, while she’d lain beneath the dream cloud and breathed the wet air, one thing became perfectly clear.

  If she were cast aside and sent to the raze crews, that wouldn’t change her—Fi would still be Fi. She’d still hate Somni with everything she had. She’d still do anything to free Vinea. So she had to believe that it was the same for the rest of the Vineans on the raze crews, that they were still fighting, even in their chains. They may not have had any way to communicate with the resistance, but they’d be ready and waiting to rise up when the time came.

  She might not be able to do much, but she could let them know that the time had come. She could send them a sign.

  * * *

  When the third horn sounded after lunch, Fi stood in line with all the servants waiting to enter the rectory. She held her breath as she crossed beneath the arch. Sure enough, the soldiers guarding the door had been replaced with Somnite rebels in black stolas. Griffin’s pendants dangled from cords around their necks. Liv walked two steps in front of Fi, and Eb was a little ways back. Beside her, Griffin was strung as tight as a trip wire. He wouldn’t stop fidgeting.

  “Quit it,” she whispered. “Count your steps, like I told you to. Forget everything else.”

  Liv had been clear about the plan. There would be two phases. First, they’d infiltrate the chapel, free Philip, and, in the process, grab any last bits of intelligence they could. Whatever happened, Somni would know their servants had betrayed them. The resistance would never get a chance like this again. Next, while the Vineans stormed the tower and opened the portal to Vinea, Arvid would slip back down to the caverns with Griffin and Philip. While the priests and their soldiers were busy defending themselves against the insurrection on Vinea, the Fenns would construct enough pendants for every Somnite under the priests’ control. Then, and only then, would the Somnite rebellion begin. The priests would have to defend themselves on two flanks. And the outnumbered, outgunned Vineans would stand a fighting chance.

  But there was another part of the plan Fi hadn’t shared with anyone. She dropped her hand to her side and felt for the stiff paper strapped against the long muscles of her thigh. If she’d had a greenwitch’s powers, she could have asked the sjel trees to lend one of their broad leaves. But she didn’t. So she ha
d to be content with sneaking back to the cavern when no one was looking and swiping one of the maps off the table. It would have to do.

  Fi should have been nervous. She’d never disobeyed Liv. Ever. She’d never wanted to, before this. But instead of nerves, she only felt fire beneath her skin. She followed the others through the rectory and to their posts. She grabbed her paddle from the closet and trailed after Liv into the courtyard where the first set of rugs were being strung up. She handed Griffin a bucket and scrub brush for cleaning the bricks and stepped up to the first rug.

  Fi gripped the handle of her iron paddle with both hands and swung with everything she had. The metal struck the heavy weave with a satisfying thwack. She swung and swung until chunks of hair stuck to her sweaty cheeks and her breath hitched in her throat, until Liv laid a hand on her shoulder, calling her back to the hot courtyard as a priest strode by in his flowing red robe that swished like silk across the rough ground. Soldiers marched past—real ones, not rebels in costume. Anger stirred inside her like a swarm of stinging insects.

  The fourth horn sounded. Fi ducked her head, and she counted her breaths. One hundred. Two hundred. She tucked her paddle through the sash at her waist and pulled Griffin with her into the main hallway. Two dozen others broke off toward the east wing to create a diversion. Liv ducked into a supply closet and emerged gripping a crowbar with razor-sharp tips. She led her team straight to the chapel.

  This was it. If Arvid’s team had done their work, the chapel door would open wide for them. But if they’d failed to replace the chapel guards, the resistance would be over before they even got a chance to fight back. Fi rounded the corner into the long corridor and headed for the locked door. She held her breath as she drew even with the soldier standing guard. And then, like she had imagined a thousand times before, the guard stood aside to let the resistance stream through. When the door swung shut behind them, the corridor filled again with servants scraping the grit from between bricks, polishing the statuary, and dusting the seam between ceiling and wall as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Fi’s relief only lasted as long as it took her to glance around the room. They had chapels on Vinea, but they were nothing like this. They were buildings only so much as the shape of the trellised vines arced overhead and a lush carpet of moss padded the ground. There were no walls to trap the song inside and only enough leaves to funnel away the rain; not so many that they would keep out the light. Vinean chapels were holy spaces.

  This place? There was nothing sacred about it.

  It wasn’t even a chapel. It was an interrogation room. Bolted to the center of the floor was a metal chair with straps to hold a person down at the wrists, chest, and ankles. The tile around it was pocked by metal grates covering round holes in the floor. Oubliettes. Cells you could only exit and enter through the ceiling.

  Fi dragged her eyes away from the holes in the floor and dropped to her hands and knees, checking behind and beneath the furniture for hidden compartments. Everyone had a job. Some were lookouts in the interior corridors. Others rifled through the wall of cupboards, searching through the files and records, gathering intelligence. Hers wasn’t a dramatic job, but it was an important one. Whatever happened after this, the element of surprise the resistance had protected for so many years would be gone. They would need all the information and all the secrets they could get their hands on.

  And they had to move quickly. There may have been only one entry from the corridor into the chapel, but three hallways snaked away from the opposite wall. The resistance had taken years compiling a map of the rectory, and those hallways weren’t anywhere on that map. They had no idea where they led, or who might appear out of them at any moment. Fi’s hands trembled as she ran them along seams in the wall and the backs of drawers. Her fingertip snagged on a latch tucked under the base of a chest of drawers just as Griffin cried out behind her.

  “Dad!” He leaned over a grate in the floor, his fingers grasping the metal and pulling with all his strength. Griffin strained, his arms shaking as he tried again to lift the heavy grate.

  Arvid and Eb hurried to his side, and together they lifted the metal away. Arvid grabbed the ladder propped against the wall, lowered it into the hole, and climbed down. Muffled voices sounded below, and then the men slowly climbed out together, Philip leaning on his old friend and struggling to lift himself out of the prison.

  When Philip crawled away from the opening, Griffin dropped to the floor and threw his arms around his dad. He squeezed his eyes shut and held on as tight as he could. The air seemed to spiral around them, motes of dust called up to form a curtain of quiet. They were trembling, both of them, Philip shuddering as sobs racked through him, and Griffin shaking with grateful, incredulous laughter. Or maybe Griffin was crying and his dad was laughing. Maybe both. Maybe everything all at once.

  Fi watched, an ache swelling her throat. The kind of ache you feel when beside your joy for that other person, your own grief rises up to meet it.

  “Griffin?” Philip pulled back, his hands cradling his son’s face. “What are you doing here?” But it wasn’t the kind of question that needs an answer. Griffin gripped his dad even tighter, his face drawn so sharply in relief it looked no different from pain.

  Fi pried her eyes away, turning her attention back to the chest of drawers to give them some privacy. She fiddled with the latch until it clicked, the panel dropped, and a weight fell into her hands. Fi slid the false drawer out and set it onto the floor, slowly so it wouldn’t clunk against the bricks below. The drawer held a ring of keys that jangled and shook as she drew them out.

  Fi rolled them over in her palm, excitement shivering through her. To be hidden like that—they must be important. The raze crews were chained together. Was it possible that she’d found the keys to free them? With trembling fingers, Fi fitted the drawer back into its hiding place and turned to face the room, tucking the keys into her sash. Griffin and his father still hadn’t gotten up off the floor. Philip was weak and filthy. They were never going to get him out unnoticed.

  “We have to go.” Fi edged toward the door. Nobody moved. “Now. Let’s go,” she said again, a little louder this time.

  Philip lifted his head, seeming to see the rest of them for the first time. “Wait. We can’t go yet. Dr. Hibbert’s here.”

  “We know,” Liv said. “We saw her come through the portal. The resistance is scouring the city for her.”

  “No.” Philip cast around the room. “She’s in here. Down in one of those cells. The priests caught her, too.”

  Everyone dropped what they were doing and sank to the floor around the seven remaining oubliettes. Fi glanced at the door. This was taking too long. They were going to get caught. They needed to go. Now.

  “Here!” Eb whispered. They pried the lid open, lowered the ladder, and two men climbed below. When they returned to the surface, Dr. Hibbert crawled out with them. Her braid had come undone, and she squinted against the daylight.

  “Liv, Arvid. You came for me!” But if she thought she might find a sympathetic ear among them, she was wrong. Arvid glared, Philip fumed, and Liv tapped the crowbar against her palm, begging Dr. Hibbert to give her a reason to turn it into a weapon.

  “Can’t you see I’m a prisoner too? I’m not your enemy. I did what I did to keep the priests out of Earth. To save my whole world. You would have done the same. You know it’s true. Arvid? Liv?” Her arms raised in a gesture of surrender. “Philip—I never thought the priests were coming back. I didn’t bother with any of the precautions you suggested because I truly believed there was no further threat from Somni. I swear—”

  “Don’t.” Philip tightened his grip on his son.

  The fifth horn sounded, echoing through the tunnels leading to the chapel.

  “The guard will be changing any second,” Liv said. “We don’t have time for this. Get rid of her—do whatever is needed to keep her quiet. Bash her head in and throw her back down in that hole. I don’t care
. But we need to go. Now.”

  “Arvid,” Dr. Hibbert pleaded. “I never told the priests about your caverns or your rebels. Think. You know I’m telling the truth. They would have buried you if I had.”

  “You’re idiots if you think you can trust a word she says,” Liv hissed. “If you don’t end her, I will.”

  “Wait—no!” Dr. Hibbert begged.

  Liv hefted her crowbar.

  “Katherine’s alive.” Dr. Hibbert’s hands dropped to her sides, and she snarled, like a cornered animal. “Kill me and you’ll never see her again.”

  25

  EMBERS

  Griffin watched his father charge at Dr. Hibbert and the others rush to hold him back. He could hear the shouts, but it was as if everything were happening at a distance, far away from where he stood.

  You don’t go swimming on the Oregon coast, not without a wet suit. It had only taken one time for Griffin to learn that lesson. When his father had pulled him out of the surf, it had seemed like a lifetime before he could stop shivering. The worst part, though? The skin under his fingernails and toenails had been on fire, as if tiny embers had burrowed beneath each one.

  That same feeling of being so cold you’re on fire burned through him now. “Mom?” Griffin whispered. He grimaced through the painful thaw. Griffin stared up into his father’s face, searching for answers.

  “You told me she was dead.” Philip choked on the words, bitter and acrid.

  “We had a funeral,” Griffin protested.

  “All this time—”

  Inch by inch, Dr. Hibbert was gathering her cool demeanor and settling it over herself like a cloak, smoothing her frazzled hair, her stained and rumpled stola.

  “You kept pushing her to go back in—you kept saying we needed more, but you knew they were on to her. You gave her up, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”