by J. A. White
With head held high, Grace made her way through the parted crowd and strode up the ridged tail of the tortoise. Kara froze, uncertain what to do.
Grace knelt before Rygoth.
“Here are your grims,” she said, offering the satchel with two hands. “I have succeeded”—her eyes skewered the twins—“where others have failed. Do you know that these two fools tried to kill Kara in the farmhouse, my queen? They would have ruined your entire plan. Probably would have killed me too.”
“Is this true?” Rygoth asked, glaring at the twins. “You were only supposed to create the appearance of danger in order to put our white-haired witch in the wexari’s favor.”
That’s why Grace warned us at the farmhouse, Kara thought, putting it all together and feeling foolish that she had not seen it from the start. It was all planned from the beginning to make me trust her. Grace is right, though—despite their orders, the twins did not intend to let us survive.
“They’re jealous, my queen,” Grace said, smiling with unabashed pleasure now. “Of me. The seer. Kara. Anyone you see as more important than them. Poor things don’t realize that they’re little more than guard dogs.”
Bristling at Grace’s words, the twins shouted in their strange, sibilant language, completing each other’s sentences as though they were two halves of the same creature.
“Enough,” Rygoth said, raising her hand. “Your transgression will be dealt with later.” She bestowed a smile upon Grace and the girl beamed with pleasure. “You’ve done well,” she said, reaching into the satchel and withdrawing the red chest. She plucked a white hair from Grace’s head, which she transformed into tiny worms that ate through the lid in seconds. “The spine of the Vulkera!” Rygoth exclaimed in triumph, withdrawing a narrow flap of leather embossed with a rose. “The smallest of the grims, but no less essential.”
Grace reached into the satchel and presented a rope-bound bundle.
“And the pages, my queen,” Grace said proudly, with the tone of a student trying to impress a schoolmaster. “From the ruins of Dolrose Castle. I retrieved them personally for you. A great battle that only proves—”
“Yes, yes,” said Rygoth, untying the rope impatiently. “You can impress me with your fascinating tale when—”
Her multifaceted eyes turned as cold as ice.
“What. Is. This?”
Rygoth tossed the pages into the air. They were not blank, as expected, but rather covered with Taff’s earliest sketches of Topper, before he had run out of paper and was forced to use the floors and walls of the farmhouse for his designs. Kara had saved the sketches as a memento, never guessing the use to which she would put them.
Mouth agape, Grace watched the pages fall.
“Kara switched the grims,” she said, with a slight smile of admiration. “I guess she didn’t trust me as much as I thought she did.”
That’s right, Kara thought. The real grim is in Lucas’s satchel.
They had made the switch just before the Swoop ride. Kara had seen it as a failure on her part, wanting to trust Grace but being unable to do so completely. Now she was relieved that she had been so cautious.
“FOOL!” Rygoth screamed. “How could you permit her to trick you like this?”
“I’ll get it back,” Grace said, trying to sound confident. Behind her, the twins snickered, relishing her discomfiture. “This is just a minor setback, my queen. We’re so close! You already have three of the grims.”
“Two,” barked Rygoth. “Your information about Auren was incorrect. There was no grim there.”
Grace swallowed nervously, feeling the heat of Rygoth’s fury. She was on dangerous ground and knew it.
“But Kara said—”
“At one point, yes, the grim was stored there. But it was moved centuries ago and now I don’t know where it is!” With a snarl of rage, Rygoth shoved Grace hard enough to send her flying across the tortoise shell. When the girl looked up, Kara could see the first glint of true terror in her eyes.
Rygoth pulled downward on her gloves, calmer now, her need for violence temporarily sated.
“However, my trip to Auren was not a total waste,” she said, walking toward Grace. “Those aggravating graycloaks were there, searching for the grim as well. I was able to stamp them out once and for all.”
Father, Kara thought, a claw of panic squeezing her chest. If Rygoth caught him again, who knows what she did? Unbidden, a series of gruesome images flashed through her mind. No. He has to be all right. He has to . . .
“And so now that is two times you’ve promised me a grim,” Rygoth said, looking down at Grace, “and two times you’ve failed. I knew I was right about you, broken girl. You’re weak.”
With every word, Grace seemed to shrink like a wilting flower.
“You told me I was special,” she said quietly.
“Special?” Rygoth asked. “Ha! A middling witch, at best. The only thing remotely special about you is that you happened to know the wexari. I had hoped to use that relationship to my benefit, but it looks like you couldn’t even do that right.”
Grace winced at the insults as though they were physical blows. Tears ran down her pale cheeks.
“There is a way you can regain my favor,” Rygoth said. “Think carefully before you answer, for I will only ask this once. Where is Kara Westfall?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said, shaking her head.
“How unfortunate for you.”
“Please, my queen. If you give me a little more time I’m sure I can—”
Grace gasped in surprise.
From her new vantage point half-lying on the surface of the shell, she found herself looking upward at Rygoth. The angle brought her eyes directly in contact with Kara’s.
No, Kara thought, ducking behind the hanging sculpture just before Rygoth turned around to see what had caught Grace’s attention. No, no, no.
Kara waited a few seconds and then peeked out again. Grace started to speak, her voice halting and uncertain.
“My queen,” she said. “I know where . . . I know . . .”
She stopped. Considered. Looked down at her hands.
When Grace looked up, once again finding Kara’s eyes, she looked more certain of herself but somewhat bemused, as though she had made a decision that surprised her.
She rose to her feet and spoke, looking Rygoth directly in the eyes.
“Kara conjured some kind of creature that I had never seen before,” Grace said, the lie told in the same sweet voice that she had once used to wrap all the villagers of De’Noran around her pretty little finger. “A bat twice the size of a man. It folded its large leathery wings around Kara and the two boys, and they all vanished. My guess is she’s far, far away from here.” Grace waved dismissively toward the crowd, who were watching the proceedings with horrified fascination. “Not worth your trouble to hurt these sheep anymore, my queen. Might as well forget about them and go.”
Rygoth stared at Grace for a long time, rage rising within her like a gathering storm.
“Forget?” she finally asked, slowly removing the glove of her right hand. “A truly powerful word. I will, as you suggest, forget all about these people and leave them in peace. After all, what use are they to me now? But your failures, ahh, I’m afraid I can’t forget about those. In fact, it’s now your turn to forget something.” She touched Grace’s forehead with a single fingertip and whispered: “How to breathe.”
Grace clawed at her throat, a look of utter bafflement on her face. She did not gasp for air. She had forgotten how. She fell to the ground, her skin turning blue. Her eyes remained fastened on Kara’s the entire time. Without thinking, Kara found herself doing something she had never done before—building a mind-bridge to a human being. With the clarity of desperation, she realized what Grace wanted more than anything else and sacrificed a memory of the De’Noran crowd reveling in the Shadow Festival, the joy of a community. Grace snatched at it eagerly, and they were together.
Kara, Gra
ce thought. What’s happening to me? I can’t . . .
I’m here, Kara said, doing her best to ease Grace’s panic. You’re not alone.
She built a world for Grace from one of her earliest memories. Two small girls—one with black hair, one with white—as they sat in the village square and drew shapes in the earth with their pudgy fingers, giggling and whispering almost-words to each other. In a few moments the white-haired girl’s father would drag her away and punish her for her choice of playmate, but for now there was nothing but the uncomplicated joy of not being alone.
I wish it could stay like this, Grace thought. I wish . . . I wish . . .
The mind-bridge vanished. Grace slipped away into the dark.
BOOK THREE
THE BALANCE
“The greater the spell, the greater the cost.”
—Minoth Dravania
Final Sablethorn Lecture
The passageways beyond the museum started as a close-fitting maze of twists and turns until finally opening up into a tunnel large enough to stand in. Kara saw Lucas’s glorb lantern hovering like a glowfly in the distance.
“Taff!” she called out in a whisper-shout. “Lucas!”
She figured that the boys would simply wait for her until she caught up, but the moment they heard her voice they sprinted back in Kara’s direction. She met them halfway. Lucas spun her in his arms, laughing with relief, and a few moments after that she felt Taff’s comforting weight as he hugged her from behind.
“That was quick,” Lucas said. “What happened?”
They stood in the darkness while she told them about Grace’s final moments. Lucas and Taff listened in stunned silence.
“So she could have told Rygoth where you were and she didn’t?” Lucas asked, baffled. “She lied to save you? Why?”
Kara shrugged, surprised to find that her eyes were damp with tears.
“I’m not sure that even Grace herself would be able to answer that.”
“It’s because she turned good,” Taff said. “I knew it all along.”
Kara wasn’t convinced it was that simple. She thought that Grace’s last act might have had more to do with spiting Rygoth than saving Kara. The Spider Queen had hurt Grace’s feelings badly, and it was in her nature to get even.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong and Taff’s right. Maybe Grace really did change at the end.
Either way, she wasn’t about to diminish the glow on her brother’s face by voicing her doubts.
“She turned good,” Kara told him, sliding her thumb along his cheekbone. “Just like you said. Isn’t that something?”
“We need to go,” Lucas said softly, touching her shoulder.
They ran through the tunnel, the wind snapping their clothes like flags. Kara tried not to think about the Clinging Mist that lay just above them, the rock and dirt that could collapse on her at any moment. She imagined instead the sun’s warmth on her back, the smell of flowers after a spring rainfall. As they pressed onward the wind grew in strength, slamming into them like a hurricane. Kara’s legs were throbbing with exhaustion when they finally came to its source: a massive fan built into the center of the tunnel. It reminded Kara of the Windmill Graveyard near Nye’s Landing, though the blades in that place had been rusty with disuse, while these sliced through the air with deadly efficiency.
Dead end, Kara thought. There’s no way around it. And even if we managed to get past the fan, the wind would suck us back into the blades. Her merciless imagination supplied her with a mental image to accompany that particular scenario, and Kara felt her stomach heave.
She leaped in surprise when Lucas squeezed her arm.
“There!” he screamed, indicating a metal door in the wall of the tunnel.
They managed to get through the door and pull it shut. There was no wind here, only a muffled wailing behind the wall. A musty-smelling passageway threaded through the darkness. Water dripped from the ceiling. Kara’s legs grew wet as she splashed through large puddles.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had switched the real grim for a fake one?” Taff asked.
“Grace was always around,” Kara said apologetically. “I never got a chance.”
“Was Rygoth mad?”
“Beyond mad.”
Taff grinned.
“I wish I could have seen it.”
“Don’t worry,” Kara said. “We’re not done making her mad. You’ll get another chance. And we’re going to save Safi. I promise.”
“I know,” Taff said. “We’re the good guys. And the good guys always win.”
Kara smiled encouragingly. She thought that in the darkness it might have even been convincing.
“So Rygoth has the grims from Lux and Kutt,” Lucas said, speaking out loud to get it all straight in his head. “And we have the pages from Dolrose Castle. What about the one from Auren?”
Kara shook her head.
“Turns out it wasn’t even there.”
“But when we went back in time,” Taff said, “we saw Minoth give it to that man from Auren, the one with the visor over his eyes. Maska? Mazden?”
“Mazkus,” said Kara. “The grim started in Auren, but according to Rygoth it was moved at some point.”
Taff nodded, the idea making sense to him.
“That Maka guy didn’t seem to want it very much. If he had a chance to get rid of the thing, I think he would have done it in a heartbeat.”
“All right,” Lucas said. “Where do we look first?”
“Auren,” said Kara.
Lucas and Taff exchanged a confused look.
“But you just said that—”
“Father went to Auren, just like I told him to,” Kara said. “There was a battle between Rygoth and the graycloaks. She won.”
“Oh no,” Lucas said.
“Father?” Taff asked, squeezing the single word through a throat clenched with tears.
“Rygoth didn’t say a single word about him,” Kara said, “and that makes me believe that Father is just fine. She wouldn’t have passed on the chance to brag about killing the great Timoth Clen, especially in front of an audience. But we still need to go to Auren and make sure he’s all right. He might be hurt. He might need our help.”
“Plus,” Taff said, brightening, “we need to get our grim as far away from Rygoth as possible, and since she thinks we’ll be looking for the last section of the Vulkera . . .”
“. . . Auren is the last place she’d expect us to go,” Kara finished.
At the end of the passageway they were deposited back into the main tunnel. The wind had grown weaker; they were past the danger zone of being sucked into the blades. This was only a brief respite, however, the wind growing violent again as they came to a second fan. The children passed through another metal door. This passageway was virtually identical to the first one, including the puddles, and for a few minutes all Taff could talk about was the exciting idea that the fans might be powered by water.
By the fifth fan, however, even Taff had grown quiet.
Though their initial plan had been to sleep only after they had reached the surface, exhaustion caused them to collapse just inside the windless passageway. Kara curled up, not caring about the water dripping on her boots, and fell instantly asleep.
She awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on the metal door.
It started out gently—politely, even—a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of flour, but gradually rose in volume to an insane pounding that shook the hinges of the door.
How could I forget? Kara thought with blinding terror. Querin. He’s come for Taff. The Khr’nouls must have gotten hungry, and he’s here to collect his payment.
She begged herself not to open the door, but her shaking hand was moving of its own accord, turning the knob . . .
There was no one on the other side.
“You don’t really think you can save him, do you?” asked a familiar voice behind her.
She spun around. Rygoth was bent over Taff, a single
finger pressed against his forehead. Taff jerked awake. He gasped for breath, hands clawing the air, eyes wide with fear.
Kara woke up.
A nightmare, she thought, curling next to Taff, who snored peacefully. She brushed back a lock of his hair—Need to cut it—and kissed him on the temple.
I have to protect him. No matter what.
The next day was more of the same, but finally, after three more fans, the children saw light in the distance and ran toward it, forgetting their exhaustion, forgetting their fear, and then leaping with great joy into a newborn morning and the welcoming warmth of the sun.
Rygoth’s witches were waiting for them.
They stood ankle-deep in swamp water and looked very unhappy about it—until they caught sight of Kara. Then the apparent leader, older than the other two witches and with a flat face that looked like the result of some unfortunate ironing accident, cackled with glee.
“Our queen was right, of course,” the witch said, opening her grimoire. “The white-haired traitor was a foul liar who deserved even worse than what she got. You never left Kutt. She knew that there was only one way out, and that if we just guarded this passageway you’d pop your little head out like a filthy rat that needs to be—”
Rattle—who had remained in the area, waiting for Kara’s return—now landed on the head witch and flexed her magnificent wings, sending the other two women airborne.
The rustle-foot rattled with pleasure, a playful look in her eyes.
“You have truly excellent timing,” Kara said, scratching Rattle’s flank, “but I think you’d better get us out of here as quickly as possible.”
Rattle’s landing had not gone unnoticed. Kara could hear shouts in the distance, hooves pounding wetly through the muck. Rattle ran along the tips of her wings until she found a clear spot to take off and then shot into the air. As they left the ground, a group of witches riding creatures resembling gold-plated ostriches burst through the trees.
“You’re too late!” Taff exclaimed, waving both hands with glee. “Bet you wish you could—”
The ostriches leaped into the air.