“I’ll do what I ’ave to,” Celine retorted tartly. “Let’s get goin’.”
She broke away from Emily and got unsteadily to her feet.
For a moment, Emily sat staring up at her friend. Then she wiped the tears from her own face and stood as well.
At their feet, Rascal stared up at his mistress balefully.
“The plants are starting to surround this building too,” Haake called over to them from where he stood looking down into the street below. “If we want out, we better do it now.”
“’Ow is it?” Celine asked Garrett, looking down at his leg, now whole. Blood was smeared across his blue-green scales, but the wounds had gone.
“Fine,” he murmured in wonder. He probed the flesh of his leg in disbelief, then looked back up at Celine somberly. “Thank you.”
Celine smiled wanly and shrugged.
Garrett turned to Emily.
“Could I have my boot back?”
Part Nine: Breakaway
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
—William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
“The wheel is come full circle.”
—William Shakespeare, King Lear
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Emily sat on a rock, her elbows on her knees, staring down the side of the mountain into the dark cityscape of Hellsgate far below. No fires burned in the mills tonight. Only the flickering yellow light of torches broke the darkness, and they were moving slowly but steadily in her direction.
She fingered the hilt of the sword that now hung at her side, contemplating the night. It felt good to be alone, if only for a moment. She didn’t like the sense of responsibility she could feel growing inside her for the others. It was too much, too soon. Part of her wondered why she hadn’t just gone on to Coalhaven. Could the hell she’d endure if she went back really be worse than the walking corpses and other monsters that seemed to lurk around every corner here? It was like the whole world had become one giant, endless House of Horrors. Was this really how she wanted to live the rest of her life? Frightened and constantly on the run?
Her fingers curled around the handle of the sword, and the cool metal felt comforting against her palm.
They’d managed to gather a few supplies as they fled the city. She and Corbbmacc had swords and armor once again, albeit ill-fitting, taken from a stash hidden in an abandoned shop by the Brood. They hadn’t found any food, but most of the others were foraging for that now while she kept watch over the enemy’s advance.
They wouldn’t have time to sleep. Marianne and her men were drawing closer with every minute that slipped away. But how long could they keep running? Would they have the strength to reach the lake before their pursuers caught up with them? Would there be time to do whatever they needed to do there before Marianne and her men simply overran them on its shores?
So many questions, and no way to know the answers to any of them.
Celine came and sat beside her, Rascal once more upon her shoulder. There were dark bruises under her eyes and fresh deep lines at their corners.
“Yeh a’right, Em?” she asked, following Emily’s gaze to the pinpricks of light that bobbed and danced through the city streets below. Soon, they’d be able to hear the shouts of the men as they came.
“I guess,” Emily said, turning to look directly at her friend. “I thought you were going to try to sleep a little? We’ll have to get moving again soon.”
“Can’t sleep,” Celine said. “Listen, Em. I was thinkin’…”
She broke off as Rascal leapt down, planting himself on the ground between them. He sat back on his haunches, surveying the mountainside that fell in a series of steps before them.
“What about?” Emily asked, rubbing her eyes. Christ, she was tired.
“We don’t really know where we’re goin’. And yeh said that crystal yeh’ve got ’elped yeh find yer way out of the mines. Maybe yeh should try and see if yeh can use it to find out where the lake is…more exact like.”
Emily’s hand went to the crystal in her pocket. Her feelings about it were terribly conflicted. It terrified her after all she’d been through down in the mines, but it also was a link to Daniel, who’d risked—maybe lost—his life to help them escape.
She took it out and held it in her cupped palms, letting the moonlight gleam on its one smooth side.
“I don’t know if I can make it happen,” she said. “It’s just sort of…well…happened the other times.”
“I think yeh can,” Celine said. “What yeh’ve got, it’s magic, ain’t it? Same as me. I can make it come when I want now, and I’m startin’ to learn ’ow to control it a bit. I think yeh can too, with whatever it is yeh’ve got.”
“The knowing,” Emily murmured, only that wasn’t quite right anymore, was it? The old name she’d given to what she could do had fit when all it did was help her know what the opposing team was doing on the ice. Now, though, it seemed to have outgrown that simple descriptor. What was it now? Just what the hell was it?
From behind them, she heard the voices of the others as they foraged for whatever was edible in these mountain woods—woods that would turn on them in a moment when Marianne was close enough to bend them to her will.
She looked back down at the approaching mob. They were still inside the city limits; they hadn’t started up the mountain yet. She might not have another—or enough—time to make the attempt.
She thought of all the questions she still had, of which the location of the lake was only one. What would happen when they got there? What were they supposed to do after that? How were they supposed to evade Marianne once they’d done what they’d come to do? Why was all of this her responsibility?
Questions upon questions upon questions…and not a single answer in sight.
“Okay,” she said, more to herself than to Celine. “I’ll try.”
She slid down onto the cold ground and leaned back against the stone, worrying the crystal with her fingers. Beside her, she could feel Rascal’s gaze on her as she turned it over and over in her hands.
At last, she held it so that the smooth side where Maddy had cut it from the wall faced her. Moonlight caught in its cloudy depths, and she stared into them, willing the mists to part.
“Show me something,” she whispered, and Celine shifted closer to her.
The seconds ticked by. From somewhere in the woods, a bird’s cry, perhaps a hawk, broke the stillness and echoed down the mountainside.
“Nothing’s happening,” she said at last, letting the crystal fall into her lap.
“That’s ’cause yeh’re not really tryin’’,” Celine said.
“Yes, I am,” Emily protested. “Of course I am.”
“Try again.”
With a sigh, Emily picked the rock back up, and stared once more into its murky center.
“Think,” Celine said. “Think of tryin’ to get out of the mines…and of what Marianne did in the square…and what happened to Michael, and Garrett, and that boy, Daniel, yeh said ’elped yeh…”
“I don’t want to think about those things,” Emily said through clenched teeth. Already, she could feel the pounding in her ears. Those were terrible things. She did not want to remember them. Not now, and not ever.
“Yeh ’ave to. They’ll be yer way in.”
“I don’t want…” Emily began, but it was too late. The images were already piling up inside her mind, along with others, spurred on by Celine’s words. She saw her mother lying dead on the floor; she saw William’s severed head staring up at her in the Stay Inn; she felt the terror as she looked down a mining shaft and watched Corbbmacc grapple with Dalivan; she saw Celine as the wizened old crone of her dream, marching in procession with the faceless chessmen…
And she felt it. Her muscles began to thrum, trembling out of her control. That low hum in her skull built to a deafening whine, and she was falling forward once more into the crystalline depths.
* * *
&
nbsp; She floats, surrounded by an endless sea of dense fog. The cool, damp air caresses her skin, as refreshing as an ocean spray in the summer heat. She takes a deep breath, and the air is clean and sweet. It tastes of freedom and rain; it tastes of nostalgia and love; it tastes of memories…
The mist swirls about her, forming endless shapes and inscrutable patterns that vanish as quickly as they appear. Most leave only vague and fleeting impressions. Some linger, though. She sees the white faces of chessmen—a knight, a bishop, a king…
Where is the lake? she thinks, hoping to direct the vision, but the query changes nothing. The vision has its own path to travel, and she is helpless but to follow in its wake.
Below her, through a break in the mists, she catches a glimpse of an enormous leathery wing, and she senses rather than sees the bulk of some terrible creature as it passes nearby.
A dragon, she thinks, and the thought sends a thrill of both terror and anticipation through her that is queerly disconnected from this moment.
She tumbles from the sky, landing hard on her feet. She staggers and reaches out to steady herself, blinking in the sudden gloom. The mist had seemed bright, full of an internal light of its own. Here, darkness is king.
Her hands reach out and find the unyielding surface of cold stone. A wall? She turns, but she can see little of the moonlit landscape around her. In the distance, there is a gleam that might be water, and beyond that, only a dark mass that could be forest or farmland. There is no way to tell.
Her gaze returns to the wall, and a dim light catches her eye. It flickers from a few yards away, soft and inviting—a beacon, drawing her toward its promise of warmth.
She moves toward it, trailing one hand along the stone wall.
A castle, she thinks, and she knows this is true, though most of the edifice beside her is lost in shadow.
The ground is rough and uneven, but her feet know the way, and she does not stumble in the dark. This is not like knowing. This is remembering. She has walked this path before…but when?
She stops before a barred window cut into the stone wall. It is from here that the light shines, and she squints against it, trying to see within.
Derek is staring back at her, holding a candle in his hand. His chest is bare, and his hair is tousled. He looks distinctly disheveled, and she smiles to see him so.
“I thought I would find you here,” he says, returning her smile easily through the bars.
“Where are we?” she asks. She reaches out and wraps her fingers around the bars, and the metal feels cold against the heat of her skin.
“It doesn’t matter,” Derek says. “You’re here, so I guess that means you chose to go east.”
“Of course I did,” she said, “but you already knew I would.”
Derek bows his head.
“Perhaps,” he says. “but I don’t really know how this works much better than you do. The decisions you make may…change things.” He shakes his head, negating the words almost as soon as they reach his lips. “Will change things. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.”
“What things?”
“Everything.”
She waits, hoping he will say more, but he does not.
“Where is the lake?” she asks at last.
“East,” Derek says.
“I know that. But where exactly? Paige says no one travels east of the mountains. How are we supposed to find it?”
“You’ll find it.”
“I don’t think you understand,” she says, gripping the bars harder in her frustration. Their rough surface bites into her flesh, but the pain is far away—like something happening to someone else. “Marianne is coming. We don’t have time to search for it.”
“You’ll find it,” Derek repeats. “Right now, I have something else to tell you.”
She closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath, trying hard not to let her frustration get the better of her.
When she looks at him again, Derek is smiling at her once more.
“Okay,” she says. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Be careful,” he says, looking away from her and staring into the flickering candle flame. Shadows dance across his face; the light glints in his green eyes. “You think you understand…”
“Understand what?” she asks, exasperated. “I don’t think I understand anything.”
“Understand about us. Just because I’m here, doesn’t mean your success is assured. Forces have been meddling with what was meant to be, and now there are no guarantees. What I remember…it isn’t what has happened. What I know keeps changing.”
“Forces?”
“Everyone has an agenda, and everyone has to make difficult decisions sometimes.”
“Is that the best you can do? Talk in riddles and fuck with my head?”
“That’s how the magic works,” he says, looking back at her. “I can only tell you what I can.”
“Thanks a lot,” she says bitterly.
Derek only offers her a small, sad smile.
“The worlds were one in the beginning,” he says slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Then they were divided. There was the world of ordinary things, and there was the Haven.”
Emily’s heart misses a beat, and she leans toward him, bitterness forgotten.
“The Haven? What do you mean, ‘worlds’?”
“The creatures of magic were feared by mankind. Each sought to destroy the other, and so the world was divided to protect them both.”
“But I thought this was the future…the future of the world…my world.”
“It is…now. The worlds are one again, in body but not in spirit.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry,” he says abruptly, bowing his head toward her. “Really, I am. You’ll understand. Sooner than you’d like, maybe. Think about it.”
He reaches up and draws a curtain closed between them. Dark stains mar the fabric, nearly black in the moonlight. It is impossible to tell in the dark, and yet she is sure that they would be scarlet in the light of day. She can see them in her mind’s eye—bloody fingerprints on lush, rich cloth. The image fills her with cold dread.
“Don’t leave me!” she shouts at him, her temper flaring. “I need to know! You have to tell me!”
Her voice echoes off the high stone walls and rolls out over the dark countryside. Somewhere, she hears the cry of some wild beast as it falls upon its prey.
…Remember…
“Answer me, damn you!”
…Remember…
She feels the world breaking apart around her, revealing the luminescent white mist within. She clings to the bars, trying to anchor herself here until she can force answers from this vision, but they melt to nothing between her fingers, until all she is clutching is smoke. It tears apart, leaving streamers of white mist that swirl and dance and blow away.
“Answer me!”
She is falling.
“Answer me!”
…Remember…
* * *
Emily opened her eyes to find Corbbmacc and Celine kneeling over her. She must have fallen over. She stared up at the wedge of starry sky she could see between their frightened faces for a long moment, willing her heart to slow. Dull pain thudded in her head with every beat.
Slowly, she sat up, realizing as she did that she was clutching the crystal far too tightly. Her hand throbbed beneath the force of her grip. She looked down as, with an effort, she loosened her fingers. The rock’s sharp edges had bitten into her flesh, and streaks of blood were smeared across its surface. For a moment, she saw the blood-stained curtain again, but then the thought fluttered, as though in a high wind, and was blown away like so much mist.
“Are you okay?” Corbbmacc asked, reaching out and gently laying a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeh scared the devil out of me, Emily,” Celine said.
“You’re the one who told me to try,” Emily croaked. Her throat felt raw and dry. She swallowed and winced
at the sharp pain that lanced through it.
“I didn’t know yeh were gonna scream like a feckin’ banshee, did I?”
Emily felt her cheeks flush. Behind Celine, she could see the others watching her silently. Haake was toying uncomfortably with the hem of his tunic. Mona only looked sad, and Garrett’s expression, as ever, was a mystery. She wished they’d stop looking at her.
“Is there water?” she asked.
“Sure…sure,” Garrett said hastily. He turned and hurried off between the trees, apparently relieved to have something to do.
Emily leaned back against the rock she’d been sitting on earlier, trying hard not to look at any of them. She could feel their gazes on her, though, and it was a strange sensation, as if she’d been caught in some private, shameful act.
“You don’t all need to stare at me,” she snapped irritably. “I’m okay.”
Corbbmacc took his hand from her shoulder, as if her words had burned him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes and resting her head on her knees.
“It’s okay.”
For a long moment, there was only silence. The pain in her temples began to recede a little, and her breathing slowly evened out. She was so very, very tired.
…Remember…
The word drifted through her mind, and she snatched at it, hoping to find some sense in it. She had remembered her friends. She’d kept them front and center through everything she’d done, and where had it gotten her?
In time, she lifted her head, and found that Rascal had come to stand before her, staring up at her with those large silver eyes of his. Emily stared back, wondering what secrets the kitsper knew and could not tell. Everyone seemed to have secrets. Everyone had an agenda…
Garrett returned, carrying a hollowed out gourd of some weird fruit she didn’t recognize. He handed it to her without a word, and she drank the sweet, clear water it contained greedily.
“Did yeh learn anythin’, Em?” Celine asked as the last few drops slid down Emily’s parched throat.
She slowly lowered the makeshift cup from her lips, thinking.
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