The Fall of the Readers

by Django Wexler

  KATHY DAWSON BOOKS

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  Text copyright © 2017 by Django Wexler

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Alexander Jansson.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780735227385

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblanceto actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Readers Everywhere

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART 1

  CHAPTER ONE: Midnight Snack

  CHAPTER TWO: Evacuation

  CHAPTER THREE: Sunhawk Down

  CHAPTER FOUR: Bait

  CHAPTER FIVE: Ending’s Choice

  CHAPTER SIX: Council of War

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Cyan

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Azure Sea

  CHAPTER NINE: Edge of the Labyrinth

  CHAPTER TEN: Pebbles on the Beach

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: The First Veil

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Cheese Slicer

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A Feast

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Halogelkin

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A Choic

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Center of the Labyrinth

  PART 2

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Void

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Flotsam and Jetsam

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: On the Road Again

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Reunion

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Return to the Infinite Prison

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Velnebs Some With Encounter Odd An

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Domain of Decay

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Hunted

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The World Come Undone

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Mouth of Hades

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: The Boneyard

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Revelation

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Origin

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Return to the Grand Labyrinth

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: One Last Time

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Alice’s Sacrifice

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: What Comes After

  Acknowledgments

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  MIDNIGHT SNACK

  IN THE DARKNESS BEHIND the mirror, something stirred.

  It was an eye, cat-slitted and silver. Though it hung alone in the emptiness, Alice knew it was enormous, as big across as she was tall. It focused on her, the great pupil narrowing, and in its gaze she felt something inscrutable and alien.

  And yet she felt no fear. Instead, staring back into the abyss, she felt . . . warmth. Kindness. Love.

  A voice in her mind, strange and familiar all at once.

  Alice.

  She sat bolt upright in bed, sheets tangled around her feet. Her cheeks were slick with sweat, and her heart pounded.

  She was in the room that her master Geryon had given her when she’d first arrived on his estate, a dingy third-floor bedroom fit for a servant. It felt like home, now, if anywhere did. She knew every crack of the peeling paint, the smell of old wood and freshly laundered sheets, and the endless creaks and groans of the ancient building. Two stuffed rabbits, all that she’d been allowed to carry away from her father’s old house, sat on the windowsill like sentinels.

  She didn’t have to stay in this room if she didn’t want to. Geryon was right where Alice had put him—bound inside The Infinite Prison, lost in an endless sea of mirror images. There was no one to tell Alice where to sleep, where to go, what to do. It should have been freeing, but she felt more hemmed in than ever. Instead of Geryon’s orders restraining her, now an iron cage of responsibility squeezed her ever more tightly.

  There was no chance of getting back to sleep. Alice waited until her heart slowed, then swung out of bed and stretched her aching legs. A surprisingly loud growl from her stomach reminded her that she’d missed dinner, again.

  If I’m going to be awake, I might as well get something to eat. It was still hours before dawn, but in Geryon’s house the kitchen never closed. Alice shuffled into her slippers and opened the door to her room, carefully.

  The house, which had felt empty for so long, now had several dozen inhabitants. The rooms immediately around hers were taken by the other apprentices, the friends who’d thrown in their lot with her after facing the Ouroborean. She passed their doors quietly: Isaac, her oldest friend, who’d once stolen the Dragon’s book for his master. Dex, inveterate optimist, who’d fought beside her in Esau’s fortress. Jen and Michael, younger than Alice, devoted to each other, the former fierce and the latter cautious.

  Down the corridors were others, magical creatures from Geryon’s library who’d begged her for shelter. As the labyrinthine Ending, the library’s guardian, fought back the attacks of the old Readers, the once-peaceful library had become a war zone. Some of the inhabitants had retreated to their books, but many creatures in the library didn’t have that option because their own worlds had become hostile, and had nowhere else to go. These refugees—sprites, the mushroom-people called Enoki, and stranger things—had taken up residence in the empty bedrooms of Geryon’s manor house.

  The kitchen was built on the same massive scale as the rest of the house, with acres of long wooden tables and ovens big enough to roast an ox. It was normally empty, since all the work was done by efficient, invisible servants who moved only when you turned your back. Tonight, though, Alice wasn’t the only nocturnal visitor. Isaac sat at one of the long tables, in front of a jug of milk and a plate piled high with pastries.

  “Knock-knock,” Alice said, coming through the open doorway. Isaac looked up with exactly the guilty expression she’d pictured, which made her grin.

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

  “Who were you expecting?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Isaac sighed. “Half the time I still wake up expecting to find my master—my former master looking down at me.”

  Alice’s grin faded. He looked tired and pale, worn out, the same things she saw in her own face when she looked in the mirror. Wearing only a nightshirt and trousers, without his voluminous trench coat, he seemed smaller than usual, more vulnerable. His brown hair was growing out, flopping in unruly curls down the back of his neck.

  “Are you going to eat all of those,” she said, “or can you spare a few?”

  “Please.” He pushed the plate toward her. “I can’t seem to get this place to understand that I just want a snack.”

  Alice sat beside him. Another cup had appeared on the table the moment she looked away, and a fresh jug of ice-cold milk. She poured, and took a pastry. They were flaky and warm, filled with raspberry jam.

  If Geryon had died, all of this—everything that made the house work, the hidden creatures who fixed the food and did the laundry—would have ground to a halt, like a watch with its mainspring removed. She’d seen that in Esau’s fortress, the gradual unraveling
of a Reader’s domain after their power vanished. By trapping her old master alive, she’d kept the house running. She’d also hoped to conceal what had happened from the other old Readers.

  That part, unfortunately, hadn’t worked.

  “You look like you’ve had a long day,” Alice said as Isaac drained his cup and reached for another pastry.

  “You might say that.” Isaac yawned. “Michael and I were working with the swamp sprites on our plan to evacuate the house in an emergency.”

  “It’s not going well?”

  “They don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept of moving in a straight line,” Isaac said. “And they kept turning the ground underneath me to mud, which isn’t as funny the fourth or fifth time.”

  Alice winced. “Sorry.”

  “I thought they were getting it by the end,” Isaac said, staring at the pastry. “But I just . . . I don’t know.”

  “What is it?”

  “Is it really going to make a difference?” He looked pained, as though the words were a betrayal. “It’s all well and good to make plans to keep people safe, but in the end what is it going to actually accomplish? It won’t keep the old Readers from coming to squash us flat. It won’t—” He broke off, shaking his head, and looked up at Alice. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

  Alice’s stomach churned. The problem, of course, was that Isaac was right.

  A month ago, she’d trapped Geryon in The Infinite Prison, hoping the old Readers wouldn’t find out. But they had. Alarmed, they had unleashed the Ouroborean, an ancient weapon, in an attempt to destroy her. With the help of her friends, she’d defeated it, and afterward, she’d told the apprentices and magical creatures that she intended to stand up to the old Readers, to pull down their whole poisonous order once and for all. Only days later, the attacks had begun. The other labyrinthine forced open some portals into the library to bring the creatures of the old Readers through.

  Since then, defending against these attacks had occupied all of Alice’s attention. The refugees from the library had to be protected, and she’d organized them to help as much they were able. Ending did her best, but the other labyrinthine assaulted her constantly, and she had to conserve her strength. The task of hunting down attackers —beast-like monsters, for the most part, driven into a rage by cruel magic—fell to Alice and her friends. She’d worked hard to make sure everyone knew what to do when an assault came, and so far they’d had only a few injuries among the library creatures.

  But it couldn’t last. It’s not like the old Readers are going to run out of monsters. They would keep coming until Ending’s strength failed, and something really nasty managed to get through, or until Alice and her little squad of defenders were worn down and tired out. We’re not going to win.

  She’d hoped . . . I hoped for a lot of things. More time, first and foremost. There has to be a way to take the fight to them, but it’s no good if we can barely protect ourselves.

  Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Isaac put his hand on the table between them, stretching toward her.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’ll be okay. We’re holding our own.”

  Alice put her hand on his, and their fingers interlocked. She made herself smile. “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean to complain,” Isaac said. “It’s—”

  There was a thump from the doorway. They both looked up, and Alice’s mental grasp automatically went to the threads of magic at the back of her mind, which linked her to her bound creatures. The Swarm for toughness, Spike for strength, and—

  “Soranna!” she said, letting the power slip away.

  The girl was leaning heavily on the door frame. When she pushed away from it and took a stumbling step forward, Alice could see she was filthy, her rough clothes caked with dirt and sweat. A bandage was wound around her thigh, and one side of her shirt was brown and crusty with dried blood.

  Alice was vaulting the table before she knew it, sweeping past the stunned Isaac and hurrying to the girl’s side. As Alice took hold of her arm, all the strength seemed to go out of Soranna. Alice half carried her to one of the benches, and Soranna leaned back against the table, eyes closed and breathing hard.

  Soranna was another of the apprentices who’d been with Alice in Esau’s fortress and the fight against his labyrinthine, Torment. Alice hadn’t seen her since—she hadn’t been among the group that had come after Geryon’s imprisonment, and Alice hadn’t figured out how to contact her. Now she was here, and hurt badly.

  “Soranna, what happened?”

  “I’ll get . . . someone,” Isaac said, lurching to his feet.

  “Dex,” Alice said. “No, get Magda the bone witch, if you can find her.”

  “Got it.” Isaac looked relieved to be given a task. Before he could leave, though, Soranna opened her eyes.

  “They’re coming,” she said, her voice a croak. “Have to . . . tell Alice.”

  “I’m here,” Alice said. “Who’s coming?”

  Soranna blinked and turned to look at her, a smile spreading across her face. She coughed, and winced as if in pain.

  “Sunhawks,” she said. “My master . . . sent. Sunhawks.”

  “Ending would have called us if something got into the labyrinth—” Alice began.

  “No!” Soranna grabbed the collar of her shirt. “Not through the labyrinth. They’re coming through the real world. Take you . . . by surprise . . .”

  Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she slumped back. Alice hastily checked her breathing and found it steady.

  “They can’t send monsters through the real world,” Isaac said.

  “Why not?” Alice said, looking down at Soranna.

  “The humans would see them,” Isaac said. “It’s the oldest rule of the Readers, not to draw attention.”

  “I think the Readers have thrown away the rulebook,” Alice said. “Go find Magda, and then sound the alarm. We need to get everyone into the library.”

  “But—”

  Alice looked through the window to the back garden. Above the brooding bulk of the library and the dense mass of trees that surrounded it, the night sky was a field of stars streaked with irregular clouds. But underneath those clouds, moving fast, were two points of bright orange light.

  “Now, Isaac!” Alice shouted, and he ran.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVACUATION

  DEEP IN THE HOUSE, a gong began to sound. It might once have been used to call the residents of the house to dinner. Now it served to raise the alarm, rousing all the creatures who’d taken shelter.

  It was time. The plan was the same one Michael and Isaac had been practicing with the swamp sprites: Get everyone to the library. They’d rehearsed it a couple of times, or tried to. The idea of training was foreign to the sprites and the Enoki, while Lool, the clockwork spider, had insisted on computing the best route instead of actually following the group.

  Alice was miserably aware that even their best performance had taken fifteen or twenty minutes to get everyone out of danger. Given how fast the sunhawks were moving, they might not even have ten. She could hear clattering footsteps and muffled voices upstairs. Soranna still slumped on the bench, unconscious, and Alice wavered, wanting to direct the evacuation but not willing to leave her friend hurt and alone.

  Fortunately, at that moment there was a hollow clatter in the doorway, and Magda the bone witch arrived. She was a large woman, covered head to toe in bones: She wore them around her neck, woven into the elaborate bun of her hair, and threaded onto wires as a long, trailing cloak. They clicked and rattled continuously as she moved. Since Alice had declared war on the old Readers, Magda had been one of her most dedicated supporters, and her impressive presence had done a great deal to keep the other creatures in line.

  More importantly, for the moment, she was close enough to human to know something
about medicine. Alice beckoned her over, and Magda’s breath caught at the sight of Soranna.

  “By Ushbar!” she said. “Isaac said you needed help. She’s had a hard time.”

  “Something’s coming,” Alice said, gesturing to the window. “I need to be out there. Please take her to the library and do what you can for her?”

  Magda nodded and clapped her hands together, like a teacher calling a class to attention. The bones on her cloak shivered, then rose up with a tremendous rattle, long strings of them stretching out like multi-jointed limbs. Hands unfolded at the ends, bony fingers opening to slip under Soranna with surprising gentleness.

  “I’ve got her,” Magda said. “Go! They need your help. Send old man Coryptus to me if you can.”

  Alice nodded and raced from the kitchen. In the main hall, creatures of all kinds were already heading to the back door, where Isaac was waiting to hurry them across the lawn toward the library. Several different varieties of sprites, elfin humanoids with eyes and hair in a rainbow of colors, were pushing and shoving at the base of the stairs, while a clutch of wide-eyed Enoki children were backed up behind them.

  “That’s enough!” Alice shouted, wading into the fray.

  She wrapped herself in Spike’s thread for strength, picking up the sprites and forcing them apart where she had to. Mostly they separated themselves at the sight of her. There was awe in their eyes, and they rushed to obey when she directed them to the exit.

  “Thank you,” said one of the Enoki women. Like all her kind, she looked mostly human, except for the mushrooms that grew up from her hair, back, and shoulders. The fungi came in as many varieties as human hair or skin color, and this one was a pretty red with white spots.

  “I thought they would never move,” the woman went on. “Do you know what’s happening? Is it safe to go outside?”

  Alice sighed inwardly. The mushroom people were friendly, but timid to a fault, refusing to fight or even argue.

  “You’ll be safe once you get to the library,” Alice said. “Hurry!”