by Jen Guberman
“When,” Zane corrected.
“We don’t even know what city it’s in, Zane. We are going to do the best we can, but I’m just being realistic—”
“Fallmont.”
“What?”
“It’s in Fallmont.”
“How do you know that?”
“I talked to Mr. Montgomery about the Key, and he told me the officials that arrested Galeno were from Fallmont. He said if he had to take a guess, that’s where the Key is now.”
“The Key is in Fallmont? We know where it is? Zane, this is incredible!” I started babbling excitedly. “We actually have a chance at this!”
“Yeah, the only problem is that Fallmont is the biggest of the cities, and the most heavily guarded.”
“Who’s being a pessimist now?” I teased, resting my head on Zane’s chest. His heartbeat was quick, and he felt warm compared to the chill of the fresh air outside.
My attention drifted from the conversation and from Zane to the sky, which was now full of thin but fluffy magenta clouds against a crimson sky.
Zane let out a quiet, puffy sigh as he noticed the sunset as well, beginning to speak softly.
“If freedom means I get to see this every night, I’d be content with having nothing more in life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We left early the next morning and arrived at the forest surrounding Equivox after only about an hour’s drive.
“This is it!” I said, pointing to the thick trees.
“It’s in the woods?” Lamb asked.
“Sorta’. You’ll see—just follow me.”
We left the truck and I led the way, following the creek until I found the wall of trees I had climbed before.
“The only way I know of through these is by climbing over them,” I said, picking a tree. “But be careful because this is how I hurt my wrist.”
“Wait, E, how about we go around them?” Lamb suggested.
“I already checked—I have no idea how far you’d have to walk to just potentially walk around them. From past these trees, I remember it didn’t look like there was any other way. Plus—the papers are right under this tree, on the other side.”
“I guess we better get moving then,” Zane said, squatting and cupping his hands near the ground. “Here, I’ll give you girls a boost.”
I put my foot in Zane’s hands and he eased me up a few extra feet, helping me onto a branch. I moved along the other branches as Lamb joined me in the tree from the first branch, and Zane shortly after her. When I successfully made it to the other side of the tree, I began easing myself down, much more cautiously than my first time. I hugged the trunk of the tree when I neared the bottom. If I’m careful, I can just jump from here—it’s only a few feet to the ground if I hang from this branch. I let go of the trunk, instead putting my arms around the branch below me.
I took a deep breath, lowering my body from the branch while still hanging onto it with my arms looped around. Splinters from the bark pricked my bare hands and wrists. I stared down at the ground, and then released my grip, dropping into the dirt, grass, and leaves below me. I almost landed on my feet this time, but lost my balance as my feet hit the ground, and I stumbled clumsily for a moment before flopping awkwardly into a sitting position. I heard laughter from the tree as Lamb and Zane looked down at me from the tree.
“Let’s see you try!” I taunted, smirking at them as I moved out of the way, brushing myself off.
“Hmph!” Lamb huffed confidently as she mimicked my motions for getting down from the tree.
Flump.
Her landing was almost identical to mine, but she wasn’t even close to landing sturdy on her feet. She fell backwards into the leaves giggling before she joined at my side.
“I’ll show you ladies how it’s done!” Zane said, puffing his chest out as he dropped from the branch.
When he landed, rather than falling backwards like Lamb and I did, he stumbled forwards, looking like a baby bird trying and failing to run and take off in flight as he flapped and tripped over his own feet, catching himself with his arms out in front of him.
“Points for display!” I called jokingly.
Zane grinned at me.
“So, where are the papers?” Lamb asked, having never read them herself.
“Under this tree,” I said, tracing my fingers over a carved letter E in the bark. I dug at the dirt by the roots of the tree, revealing the papers, my money, and my family photo, covered in soil. The corner of my lip twitched upwards in a smile upon seeing the photo, which I quickly pulled from the dirt and wiped clean.
“What’s that?” Lamb asked.
“Just… an old picture. It’s mine and I didn’t want it to get ruined, so I put it here.”
“May I see it?” she asked innocently, holding out a hand.
“I guess,” I said, hesitantly handing it over.
She smiled.
“Who’s this?” She pointed to my dad carrying me.
“That’s my dad. I was pretty little at the time. That’s my grandpa,” I pointed to the man in the photo eating a hamburger.
“This is a really sweet picture, E. Is this one of the five things you brought from home?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled at me again before reaching for the Skeleton Key papers.
“So, these are what were in that wooden box from the dump? The one Luka found?”
“Yup. I took them because I was curious, but long story short, you can see where they took us.”
“Huh,” she said, her eyes eagerly scanning over the words and pictures of the Key. “This is… wow.”
As she looked over the papers, Zane looked over the edge of the cliff, down at Equivox.
“Equivox?” he assumed.
I nodded.
“How do we get down?”
“Jump.”
He pointed to the lake below us, raising his eyebrows at me.
I nodded again.
He ran his fingers through his hair, his cheeks puffing out in an exasperated sigh.
“Alright,” he clapped his hands together. “What about the papers? And how do we get out?”
“I don’t know, and I… don’t know,” I admitted.
“Well, they get their rations somehow,” Zane noted. “And they bring in new exiles somehow. So, there’s got to be another way in and out.”
“I have an idea! We can put the papers back in the truck, and we can camp out near the road—maybe we will see how they bring rations in. We can just take watches, that way one of us is always awake,” Lamb suggested.
“That could work,” I said, looking to Zane for confirmation.
We made our way up a different tree with the papers and worked back toward the truck. When we got in the truck, we pulled it off the road just enough to shelter it in trees. I stood in the road to see if the truck was visible from there, and though it was, it was hard to spot in the thick of the trees, but we were still able to watch the road from it.
“This could take up to a week,” I warned Lamb and Zane.
“We know. Bellicose just got their rations a couple days ago, so either it’ll be very soon, or it’ll be in a little less than a week. Or anytime in-between that. Your guess is as good as mine.”
◆◆◆
It was about two days later, in the dark of the night during Zane’s watch, that the rations finally came.
“Guys,” he called, shaking me awake in the backseat. “Guys! They’re here!”
Lamb looked drowsy as she peeked from the trunk at us.
“What? Where?”
Zane pointed at a set of lights. Sure enough, there was a similar truck to ours, creeping slowly toward the edge of the road. Suddenly, it stopped, and I could see the lights sinking lower into the ground until they disappeared.
“What just happened?” I asked, scurrying into the front seat to get a better look.
“I can’t tell. They were right there! I swear!”
“I know—I saw
it too! But they just disappeared.”
“Um,” Lamb hummed. “I think they went underground.”
“How?” Zane asked.
“Wait,” I said. “She might be right. Think about it! There was a button to activate the bars at Bellicose, maybe there’s some kind of secret door or something we can get to with the truck that will let us in there.”
“That’s a good point,” Zane thought for a moment. “Let’s wait until they leave and we know they are far enough away, then we can go to the edge of the road over there and just start trying buttons.”
Sometime later, the lights of the truck rose out of the ground again. They backed up slowly, turning the vehicle around before driving off along the road again.
“Let’s go,” Lamb said.
“Not yet,” Zane sat still behind the wheel. “We want to give them some time to get far enough away where they won’t see the lights from our truck.”
When he was convinced the officials were far away, he pulled the truck carefully from our hiding place and back onto the road. He slowly brought it to the edge of the road and stopped the truck. He looked over the buttons on a small control panel. He paused for a moment and picked a random blue button, pushing it in and holding it for a split second before releasing it.
Nothing.
“Try the orange one!” Lamb guessed, looking over at the buttons.
Nothing.
“What’s your guess?” Zane asked me lightly.
“Uhh… I guess the yellow one. Not the one on the left—the one on the right.”
Nothing.
“Psshh, I meant the one on the left,” I joked.
He pushed the yellow button on the left, and there was a sudden rumbling from beneath the truck. Our eyes were wide as we watched ourselves sink into the ground slowly. Once below ground level, I could see a spiraling road ahead of us, with both sides lined with glowing white strips of light. The platform beneath us suddenly jolted and stopped. I looked at Zane.
“I guess we just keep moving,” he said, driving onto the lit road slowly.
As he pulled off the platform, there was a grinding sound of machinery as the platform began to rise again. The ceiling was fairly low, and the walls were narrow. We drove along the road, spiraling down deeper into the ground. Just when I was beginning to wonder where the road might lead, we reached the end, revealing the interior of a building. The end of the spiral road led directly into an empty house, pressed against the edge of the cliff. Boxes full of rations sat pushed against a wall, and the rest of the house was barren. Zane eased the truck off of the end of the road and into the wide, open room. He took the keys to the truck as we all stepped out. I began to make my way toward the door when Zane spoke up.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Going to get my bag,” I answered, confused as to why he was even asking.
“Aren’t we going to make some kind of plan first?”
“Yeah—the first step is to get my bag back.”
“But we don’t have a meeting place—what if we get in trouble?”
“Back at the truck.”
“Fine. What if one of us can’t run to the truck and we get caught by someone—what do we do then?”
“Run anyways. Run and hide. If that isn’t an option, fight.”
“We can’t just go fighting people, E. That’s how you wind up back in Bellicose, or worse.”
“What do you propose?”
“I don’t know, but fighting isn’t the answer to that!”
“Well, running and hiding will almost always be options unless you are being held against your will, in which case it is self-defense, if you ask me.”
“Officials won’t see it like that. You were lucky they didn’t recognize you the last time you were here and send you off somewhere worse than Bellicose!”
I shrugged.
“Eos! You can’t be reckless this time! Please just listen to me,” he begged desperately.
“I am listening!” I whined.
“No, you aren’t! You aren’t hearing me. Don’t fight—no matter what! I don’t want them taking you.”
“I won’t fight.”
“Promise me,” he pleaded.
“No.”
“Eos!”
“Fine. I promise not to fight,” I said, defeated.
Zane nodded.
“Unless it’s my only choice,” I continued in a hushed voice.
Zane’s eyes turned back to me wildly.
“I won’t!”
“We need a plan. I know we are going to get your bag. We will go together and watch your back. After that?”
“After that, we need to somehow get the key from Renée and Eloise—they’re the ones who stole it from me. I know where they live, so we can just lock pick the door and see if we can find it tonight, before the sun comes up. If not, we go at it again tomorrow, and take the truck back above ground until the next night. Once one of us finds the key, let the other two know, and then we will leave as fast as we can so no one spots us.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“That is what you wanted?” I teased.
Zane smiled as he rolled his eyes.
I led the way from the storage house to the lake, clinging to walls, bushes, anything that could shield us even more from view than the night itself. Once the lake was within sight, I took off sprinting full speed toward the bush I hid my bag in.
It’s still there.
I snatched up my bag, throwing my boots into it and situating the bag over my shoulder. I peeked down into it, rifling through my belongings out of curiosity until I could account for all of them. Nothing was missing.
I led the way toward Renée and Eloise’s house from the lake. Once we reached the door, I described the two to Lamb and Zane, so they would know who to be extra careful of.
“I don’t know if anyone new has moved into Equivox, so I don’t know if it’s still just those two, but even if it is, you have to be careful.”
“You be careful too, E,” Lamb said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “These two know you, and if they see you and word gets out to the officials that you’re running around—everyone in the New Territory will be on watch—there’ll be a pretty bounty out for Eos Dawn. Don’t let them see you.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
As we talked, Zane knelt down at the door, fumbling with the lock until we heard a faint click. He cautiously turned the knob, easing the door open silently. Then, he went in first, looked around briefly, and motioned us in. He closed the door softly behind us. Zane pointed at me, then himself, then the stairs. I nodded in understanding. He pointed next at Lamb and then the kitchen. She saluted with a smile, turning on her heel and making her way to the kitchen to search for the key.
Zane began walking up the stairs, placing his feet lightly on each step. I started to follow him, but he held up a hand behind him to signal for me to stop. Confused, I stopped and waited until he got to the top of the stairs. He looked left and right, and waved me to join him. At the top of the stairs, I saw that both the left and the right door were closed.
“Eloise,” I mouthed to Zane, pointing to the door on the left.
Zane pointed to the door on the right, raising an eyebrow.
“Empty?” I shrugged.
Zane pointed to himself and then to Eloise’s door, then he paired me to the other door.
I nodded subtly.
We both reached for our respective doorknobs at the same time, turning them little by little until we could get the doors open. I gave Zane a final look before peeking my head into the room on the right—the room I had stayed in. It was still vacant. I let out a quiet sigh of relief as I began searching. I peered under the bed, dug through the trunk at the foot of the bed, and even checked under the mattress. The key isn’t in this room, I realized. Why would it be? I guess it didn’t hurt to check.
Before I left the room, I heard a bloodcurdling shriek.
Eloise.
; My body went numb as I cupped my hands over my mouth, panicking. If I go try to help Zane, she’ll see me and that’ll be it. But if I don’t help him, he’ll get taken away instead.
Unable to bear the thought of them locking Zane away who-knows-where, I tiptoed out of the room, poking my head out from behind the door only to see Zane clumsily thundering down the stairs as fast as he could. Eloise stood in her doorway, her eyes wide and afraid, her chest heaving. I pulled my head back into the room rapidly, but not fast enough. I could hear Eloise whimper as she tentatively pushed the door open with a finger. Her eyes met mine and I saw her take a deep breath.
“MOM!” she screeched.
What do I do? I patted my jacket pockets and felt the dagger. I just have to scare her and she will move away from the doorway. We have to make a run for it.
I pulled the dagger out of my jacket, flashing it menacingly at Eloise. Her eyes welled up immediately with tears as she wailed, trailing down the stairs as fast as her legs could move. Keeping the dagger in hand, I rushed downstairs after Eloise to look for Zane. In the kitchen I could see Zane on his knees, his hands empty in the air in surrender. His legs were bound in a thin rope around the ankles to prevent him from running. Across the kitchen was Renée, Eloise cowering behind her, peeking out from behind her mother. Renée had her fingers laced in Lamb’s hair, keeping her head pulled backward against her. In her other hand was a simple kitchen knife, held against Lamb’s throat.
“Please,” Zane begged. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll take her place—just please don’t hurt her.”
“I think you’ve given up every right to ask me for favors after you not only broke into my house, but terrorized my daughter!” Renée fumed.
“I know! I know and I’m sorry! It’s just, you have something of ours, and we just wanted to get it back. That’s it—I promise! We didn’t mean to cause any trouble!” Zane said desperately.
Just then, Renée caught sight of me at the bottom of the stairs.
“I should have known it was you!” she howled at me. “I should slit your friend’s throat just like you killed that official! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t!”
“Because she didn’t do anything to you. If anyone is guilty of anything, it’s me,” I said, fiddling with my dagger.